Old Hop

There is Conservatism, and then there is Conservatism

2012-02-15T10:11:00.000-05:00

As the United States sinks further and further into totalitarianism, its salvation will require men and women with the kind of commitment and courage that Pastor Bonhoeffer displayed. We can only hope and pray that the nation still includes at least a few people who would rather follow God than Caesar.
- Robert Higgs, economist and economic historian with the Independent Institute

Note to Republican voters: the “few” does not include Rick Santorum.

I was wrong about Rick. I thought for sure he would fade after the Iowa caucuses, that the GOP machinery would get behind Mitt Romney and send another Dole-like sacrifice to the Democratic incumbent. I underestimated the extent to which my fellow countrymen would rally to the war-mongering, big government “conservative” from the Keystone State.

But then, most self-identified “conservative” Americans aren’t conservative at all. Neither they nor their new champion meet the criteria laid down by the late Russell Kirk. The great irony is that if he were alive today Kirk, who once labeled libertarians “chirping sectaries,” would find Ron Paul to be the man who best fits the bill.

The fact is, Ron Paul is not nearly as “libertarian” as the media and the public perceive him to be. He is libertarian only in a relative sense; libertarian, because the GOP, suffering from the historical blindness personified by Rick Santorum (for whom world history began in 1979), is sliding toward neo-fascism.

In a tradition that runs from Burke to Kirk, Paul is simply trying to conserve the liberties of the American founding – liberties the colonists thought they had secured from King James, later abrogated by parliaments and monarchs trying to finance one of the world’s first global empires. Who knew that America would try to replace Great Britain? Well, the Antifederalists and Old Republicans did. And Ron Paul fits neatly into their tradition. Kirk, the hagiographer of Edmund Burke and his Virginian acolyte John Randolph of Roanoke, would not help but recognize in Paul what one observant writer called the “leader of the new Tertium Quids.”

The definition of conservatism seems to be lost on Americans. It has been reduced to opposing abortion and homosexual marriage (which faithful churches and civil society have been more successful at confronting), and the utterly schizophrenic notion that “limited government” and Cold War-style containment of the Muslim world (and every other “rogue state” as identified by the powers that be) somehow go hand in hand. The candidates who appeal to these trigger points get enthusiastic applause from an eagerly compliant South and other red states. Even when the 30,000 spy drones start buzzing overhead, Hannity and Levin will help the public grasp the absolute national security necessity of it (assuming their guy places the drones in orbit).

If I may, an analogy from the English Reformation. Compared to the Church of Rome, men like John Jewel, Thomas Cranmer, Hugh Latimer and Richard Hooker seemed like theological liberals. But they saw themselves as consummate conservatives, reaching back to recover and preserve the truths held by the primitive church. Hooker’s opposition to the radical Disciplinarians had several motives, but among them was his prescient understanding that Puritanism would fragment into factional strife. But to the radicals Hooker seemed like a sell-out, a Romanist in disguise.

In similar fashion, Ron Paul seems too “radical” for the GOP mainstream. But among the myriad factions of anarchism (anarcho-capitalism, anarcho-syndicalism, agorism, the Alliance of the Libertarian Left, et. al.) Paul is looked on with suspicion as another closet “statist.” What Paul really stands for is the Old Republic, which began to fade after McCullough v. Maryland (1819).

A Republic which stands in a fog of history too distant, too miasmal for today’s Republican voter.

The Fourth Turning? Why Bill Bonner is Right and Gary North is (Probably) Wrong

2012-02-13T09:24:00.001-05:00

In a February 12 column at The Daily Reckoning, Bill Bonner wrote:

The zombies now are getting more money than wage earners. And millions of those wage earners are zombies themselves, on the government payroll…or the payroll of some industry — health, education, military — that depends on federal spending.

That leaves honest working people in a minority. And everybody gets a vote.

How do you think the zombies will vote? To cut back on spending on education? On healthcare? On foreign wars or new weapons? On welfare? On food stamps? On unemployment comp?

No, dear reader, there are some ailments that can’t be cured…and some problems democracy cannot solve.

As Frédéric Bastiat noted many moons ago in The Law, an inherent problem with democracy is the tendency of majorities to vote away property and rights to themselves. As he tersely put it,

The State is the great fiction through which everyone endeavours to live at the expense of everyone else.

This basic insight was revisited with a vengeance in Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s Democracy – The God that Failed (2001).

For Gary North, the Austrian thinker and Bible scholar with an optimistic view (though pessimistic in the short run), the Millenial Generation will lead the way toward voting an end to Baby Boomer entitlements and preemptive foreign wars. But here’s a wrinkle: thanks to declining birth rates among the productive classes of American society (as well as abortion), the Millenials just don’t have the numbers – let alone that but a fraction of them are interested in a laissez-faire economic process.

For North’s expectation to prevail, more than disgruntled young service workers must become disillusioned with the present system.

I think Bonner is right. The late Medieval to late 18th century experiment in classical liberalism and freed market process ran its course. The social tendency throughout history has been toward political centralization and market control. The democratic sort, in its sundry shapes, continues to prove especially despotic.

Supper, or Sacrifice?

2012-02-10T07:36:00.000-05:00

From the pen of Charles Pettit McIlvaine, Episcopal Bishop of Ohio, 1846:

None can deny that our Lord instituted and administered the Eucharist at a common household table. And when he says “the hand of him that betrayeth me is with me on the table,” we necessarily contemplate the Saviour and the twelve as engaged in an act of family, spiritual communion simply; analogous to that of a household around the family table. Nothing can more perfectly exclude the idea of sacrifice, priest, and altar. It was the communion of the Passover. The Supper of our Lord took the place of the Jewish paschal feast. The latter was a feast after, and upon, a sacrifice which had been previously offered at the great altar of burnt-offerings at the temple. The work of the Jewish priest was finished when the paschal lamb had been sacrificed. Other altar a Jew could not have, than that of the temple, around which the blood of that lamb was sprinkled. Other sacrifice there remained none in connection with that feast, when once that lamb had been slain. But there did remain the feast of communion upon that lamb, thus offered, once for all the house of Israel. The lambs were many; the sacrifice, the feast, the type, was one. It was the communion of the whole household of the chosen people. They met in families, as we meet for our communion in congregations. They met, not at the altar, where the sacrifice was offered, but at the table of the family fellowship; as we meet not at the cross, where Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us, but at a table expressive of the family fellowship of all believers in the reconciliation effected by the blood of Jesus. They met without a Priest; all that pertained to the office of Priest having been finished at the Temple. We meet at the Lord’s Supper without any mere human Priest: [Of course I mean Priest in the sense of a Sacrifice.] for all that pertaineth to the office of a Priest, in our reconciliation to God, was finished when Christ offered up himself, “once for all,” on the altar of the cross; or else is being perfected in his present, ever living, intercession, within the vail, before the mercy-seat in heaven. The Jews met at the table of the household to feed upon what had elsewhere been offered on an altar as a propitiatory sacrifice to God. Christians meet to feed, by faith with thanksgiving, spiritually, upon a propitiatory sacrifice, long since offered, even the flesh and blood of Jesus, by which we draw nigh to God. The Jewish Passover was of two parts--“the sacrifice of the Lord’s Passover, and the Feast of the Lord’s Passover;” the propitiatory offering at the temple, and the eucharistic supper on that offering, in the family dwelling. It was as much commanded that the feast should be in the house, and not at the temple, as that the sacrifice should be at the temple, and not in any private house. Our Passover is of like two parts, the sacrifice and the feast; the offering of the Lamb of God, and the eucharistic supper of the whole household of faith, partaken in spirit, by faith, in that Lamb. In the beginning of the dispensation of the gospel, the sacrifice of our Passover was slain, once for all. Jesus was priest and victim. The whole period, since then, and to the end of the world, is the Feast of the Lord’s Passover, during which each believer, every day, is living by faith, in the secret of his own heart, upon the sacrifice of Christ, as all his life and hope and the whole Christian household of faith are, at stated periods, assembling together to express and declare, in the sacrament of the breaking of bread, their common dependence on, and their common thankfulness for, that one perfect and sufficient oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world. As the Jews were not allowed to unite the offering and the eating, the priestly sacrifice and the Eucharistic feast, but were commanded to separate them in point of place and time; so we cannot, by any possibility, unite them, under the Gospel. The sacrifice for us was offered eighteen hundred years ago, “once for all.” It cannot be repeated. The feast alone remains--a feast commemorative of a sacrifice, but not a sacrifice of commemoration, except as the offering of prayer and thanksgiving is figuratively a sacrifice and each communicant is in that sense a Priest.

+McIlvaine served for a time as chaplain at West Point, where he led a revival of evangelical faith among cadets. His pupils included Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis.

Gandalf, Ron Paul, and the Fourth (Beast?) Turning

2012-02-09T12:09:00.000-05:00

I have been a Ron Paul supporter since early 2007 while generally subscribing to the Austrian school of economics. I also have a keen interest in the history of the American empire and biblical eschatology. That’s why an article like this one by Donald W. Miller strikes my fancy. Using The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy by William Strauss and Neil Howe as a frame of reference, Miller argues that Ron Paul is the Elder Prophet to the Millenial (Y) Generation of young, soon-to-be heroes:

[Strauss and Howe] note that a “Young Hero and Elder Prophet” pairing occurs repeatedly in history, myth, and art, as with Joshua and Moses in the Old Testament, the Gray Champion in Colonial America, King Arthur and Merlin in Celtic myth, Tolkien’s Frodo and Gandalf, and Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars...

After the housing boom peaked in 2006 and foreclosures began to mount, the so-named “Millennial Crisis” began in February, 2007 when the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac) announced that it would no longer buy subprime mortgages or mortgage-related securities (collateralized debt obligations). The Y Generation facing this crisis today bears some likeness to the GI Generation, born at the beginning of the last century (1901-1924), who became young adults during the last big crisis in U.S. history, the Great Depression and World War II. Strauss and Howe see the GI and Y generations as both manifesting a "Hero" archetype – can-do heroes and competent pragmatic managers who possess confidence and optimism.

Strauss and Howe wrote in 1997,

“The risk of catastrophe will be very high. The nation could erupt into insurrection or civil violence, crack up geographically, or succumb to authoritarian rule. Thus might the next Fourth Turning end in apocalypse – or glory. The nation could be ruined, its democracy destroyed, and millions of people scattered or killed. Or America could enter a new golden age, triumphantly applying shared values to improve the human condition. The rhythms of history do not reveal the outcome of the coming Crisis [the one we are experiencing now]; all they suggest is the timing and dimension.”

If postmillennialists like Austrian economic historian Gary North and our friend Joel Martin at A Living Text are right, America could possibly be on the cusp of a new, decentralized epoch.

Judging from voting trends and candidates whose ideas (entitlements, preemptive wars) resonate with the majority, my money is on expanded authoritarianism and apocalypse.

Then Shiloh comes.

After all, we have before us the fate of the most expansive economic and military empire in the history of the world. An empire the sage Antifederalists and Old Republicans never wanted.

Regardless, have fun with Miller’s article.

A Living Faith

2012-02-06T11:05:00.000-05:00

This past Friday, February 3, would have marked my Granny’s 92nd birthday. She was the grand-daughter of Bill Birchfield, the Confederate deserter. She was raised on the north side of the Little Tennessee River in Swain County, NC, in an area now within the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The communities along Hazel Creek were bought out and sent packing by the TVA in the mid ‘40s for the construction of Fontana Dam and reservoir. Where Granny grew up is now beyond the infamous “Road to Nowhere.”

Granny’s dad, C.C. Birchfield, was a farmer on Hazel Creek before the inundation and later in McDowell County (where Granny would meet and marry my Papaw). As my uncle likes to tell it, C.C. “never had a public job in his life,” meaning that he lived entirely off his own land and labor and was never employed by another. For people such as this, biblical stories take on a more immediate relevance. Old Testament characters such as Abraham, Jacob and Moses were agrarians with whom Granny and her kin could readily relate. They were not distant; to the rural Southern Appalachian mind they might have been only a few generations removed. There was an imminent sense of tangible reality to the Bible stories.

Granny never spoke of a “personal relationship” with Jesus in the postmodern evangelical sense. But she talked directly with Him every day, often crawling under her kitchen table (the specific reason for which I never quite understood) and pouring out her soul to Him. She could speak to Him as plainly as anyone else in the room. When not addressing Him she busied herself with caring for grand young’uns, sharing vegetables from her prodigious garden with down-and-out neighbors, and visiting with the shut in. One summer my brother and I stood with her at that kitchen table and rolled gospel tracts in cellophane, to be strategically placed on drug store counters and in public restrooms. One could say that Granny had fellowship with the Father and the Son because she was ever about God’s business.

The Christian faith wasn’t her resource or wellspring; it was her life. Even as I write this it shames me to realize the extent to which I tend to veer off the simple path she followed through laughter and tears. But when I think of her I have in my mind probably the most authentic Christian that I have ever personally known.

I don’t know what Granny, a lifelong independent Baptist, would make of my embrace of the “fer’en” Anglican tradition. I would like to think that from her position now she would very much understand and appreciate what we’re doing, and why. But one thing she instilled in me was a fundamentalism – not simply of scriptural authority – but of God’s ever present nearness and the implications that go with it. I think we had (perhaps still) a “fundamentalist” strain within the Anglican tradition. I think of Dean Alford, Bishop Ryle, Dr. Griffith Thomas, the Church Society in England; perhaps our brethren in East Africa and elsewhere who have nowhere else to go but to the Lord under tables and rocks and in the bush and caves.

I believe that in the age to come - a day for which Granny always longed - all of these will recognize in each other a like precious faith. They are parts of the great tradition. We could stand to follow their example more closely.

Plainly Stated

2012-02-03T09:12:00.000-05:00

‎I do not know when Christ will come again. I would think it most presumptuous if I said that I did. I am no prophet, though I love the subject of prophecy. I dislike all fixing of dates, and naming of years, and I believe it has done great harm. I only assert positively, that Christ will come again one day to set up His kingdom on earth...

~ Bishop J.C. Ryle

The Mystery (2): How the Christians Lived

2012-01-26T07:09:00.000-05:00

5:1 For Christians are not distinguished from the rest of mankind either in locality or in speech or in customs.

5:2 For they dwell not somewhere in cities of their own, neither do they use some different language, nor practice an extraordinary kind of life.

5:3 Nor again do they possess any invention discovered by any intelligence or study of ingenious men, nor are they masters of any human dogma as some are.

5:4 But while they dwell in cities of Greeks and barbarians as the lot of each is cast, and follow the native customs in dress and food and the other arrangements of life, yet the constitution of their own citizenship, which they set forth, is marvelous, and confessedly contradicts expectation.

5:5 They dwell in their own countries, but only as sojourners; they bear their share in all things as citizens, and they endure all hardships as strangers. Every foreign country is a fatherland to them, and every fatherland is foreign.

5:6 They marry like all other men and they beget children; but they do not cast away their offspring.

5:7 They have their meals in common, but not their wives.

5:8 They find themselves in the flesh, and yet they live not after the flesh.

5:9 Their existence is on earth, but their citizenship is in heaven.

5:10 They obey the established laws, and they surpass the laws in their own lives.

5:11 They love all men, and they are persecuted by all.

5:12 They are ignored, and yet they are condemned. They are put to death, and yet they are endued with life.

5:13 They are in beggary, and yet they make many rich. They are in want of all things, and yet they abound in all things.

5:14 They are dishonoured, and yet they are glorified in their dishonour. They are evil spoken of, and yet they are vindicated.

5:15 They are reviled, and they bless; they are insulted, and they respect.

5:16 Doing good they are punished as evil-doers; being punished they rejoice, as if they were thereby quickened by life.

5:17 War is waged against them as aliens by the Jews, and persecution is carried on against them by the Greeks, and yet those that hate them cannot tell the reason of their hostility.

The Letter of Mathetes to Diognetus (2nd century)

The Mystery: The “D” Word (part 3)

2012-01-25T10:16:00.000-05:00

Now whilethe Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, saying, “Whatdo you think about the Christ? Whoseson is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.” He said to them, “How is it then that David, inthe Spirit, calls him Lord, saying, “‘TheLord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet”’? (Matthew22:41-44)

Atpresent, we do not yet seeeverything in subjection to him. (Hebrews 2:8)

I,John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurancethat are in Jesus… (Revelation 1:9)

Today, according to the lectionary, commemorates the conversion of St. Paul. And it was Paul who was committed with the mystery that he declared to theGentiles: “That theGentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers of His promisein Christ through the gospel…”

That the Gentileswould be blessed of God in an age to come was not a mystery in the OldTestament. Paul, who had seen the Light onthe Damascus road, saw himself as a fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy of a “lightto the Gentiles.”

“I stand here testifying both to small and great, saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would come to pass: that the Christ must suffer and that, by being the first to rise from the dead, he would proclaim light both to our people and to the Gentiles” (Acts 26:22-23)

The mystery hidden from ages past, kept from the Gentiles, was that through the gospel they would be joined together with the believing Jewish remnant in onebody, the Body of Christ. Those who hadbeen strangers to the commonwealth and covenants of Israel were now broughtnear in Christ. They are now coheirs of His kingdom. Let us briefly retrace the progression:

God made apromise regarding the “seed of the woman” to Adam.

Godpreserved a remnant of the human race through Noah.

God promisedto bless the nations through Abraham.

God establishedDavid’s house and throne forever.

Through theprophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel, God promised to make a new covenant with Israeland Judah.

Christ, therisen Davidic king, is mediator of that new covenant.

In Christ,Gentile believers have been brought in, beforethe establishment of a visible, earthly kingdom, to an equal standing with thebelieving Jewish remnant. That is themystery.

There areother marvelous truths that Paul develops in his epistles. The Church is the Body of Christ, who fillsall in all, and of which He is the Head. It is the Bride of Christ – or will be presented to Him as such in theeschaton. It is the temple of the HolySpirit. It is the house of God. It will be saved from the wrath to come. Its citizenship is in heaven, where its lifeis hidden in God, from whence it awaits its Savior. When He returns the adopted sons of God (includingthe daughters) will be revealed to the world.

Will be revealed. For now, the kingdom of God is a mystery. At present the kingdom is a field containing a hidden treasure. It is a fieldof wheat and tares growing together, the latter to be bundled up and throwninto the fire. It is a net of good and bad fish drawn uptogether, with the bad ones to be tossed aside. It is a dinner party thrown by a nobleman whose servants have gone out inthe streets and grabbed anybody and everybody to come in – though some do nothave the appropriate attire and will get thrown out. The wheat, the good fish, and the buried treasure all represent the true heirs of the kingdom.

But fornow, as the mysterious writer to the Hebrews noted, we do not see everythingsubjected to the King. I used to quip that if the kingdom has already come it is certainly a sorryone. But that was based on faulty notionthat the kingdom of God had been postponed until the Second Coming. I had embraced the traditionaldispensational idea that the present age, between the first and second comings,is a “parenthesis” or “intercalation,” a time during which God has suspended Hisdealings with Israel while calling out a “Gentile bride”for His Son.

That ideais only partially correct. The presentage is not a parenthesis but the next stage in the expansion of God’skingdom. While Christ will have a bride,it is not exclusively Gentile. There isonly one olive tree in view in Paul’s analogy in Romans 11. Yet, the Church is a distinct people of God. The “wild branches” were grafted in, not asan extension of Israel of old (or as a replacement of Israel) but infulfillment of the promises to the patriarchs. The new covenant is the springboard for the progression of the kingdombeyond Israel to form a new people who willinherit the kingdom.

In the presentage the King rules in a mysterious manner. Whereas Israel under the Mosaic economy was openly and outwardly blessedfor obedience to the law, the heirs of kingdom today suffer, often wrongly andfor no apparent reason. As the KingHimself was rejected and cast out by the religious leaders of Israel, so the heirsof the kingdom are being rejected by this present world.

DuringJesus’ earthly ministry to Israel the kingdom of God in its power was presentin His person. Now, the kingdom of God inits grace and peace is experienced in the Church. The Church – the eschatological people ofChrist – is the vanguard of the eschatological kingdom in the present darkworld. Note that the Church is not thekingdom (a sphere of rule that for now includes tares and bad fish) but is the representativereality of it. The Church is wherepeople taste the power and presence of God. It is a testimony to Christ, to His kingdom, and against the powers ofthis world. It is that nation Jesus foretold that would bring forth the fruits of the kingdom.

As theworld grows darker, the kingdom miraculously and mysteriously expands. We can look around the Western world and observesteady moral decline. The apogee ofChristendom in the West crested many centuries ago. Here, “evil men and seducers wax worse.” On the other hand, the gospel is spreadinglike wildfire in the global South – which brings us to one of Craig Blaising’s most salient points: that the Church is,among other things, a multiculturalsociety. As the gospel reaches into different areas andcultures the expression of the one true faith varies. Unity does not mean uniformity. It should not be surprising to find MessianicJewish congregations in our own backyard; nor should it surprise us that the children of the powerful East Africanrevival worship the Lord in a style and manner quite foreign to us in theWest. To say that theirs or ours is the “better”way is to err.

It is not necessary thatTraditions and Ceremonies be in all places one, or utterly like; for at alltimes they have been divers, and may be changed according to the diversity ofcountries, times, and men's manners, so that nothing be ordained against God'sWord. (Article XXXIV)

Whatis utterly alike in all places where the gospel has prevailed is the persistence of biblical truth, such as is upheld in East Africa and other places. God’s Word does not return to Him void. Christ, the exalted son of David in heaven and apriest forever after the order of Melchizedek, is the mediator of betterpromises.

Oursis to remain faithful in the tribulation and kingdom and endurance that are inJesus. That the Church has done so downthese two millennia is a great part of the mystery. In the age to come the power and majestyof the Lord in His saints and the greatness of His kingdom will be further revealed.

Christ the Inaugurated King: The “D” Word (part 2)

2012-01-23T10:49:00.000-05:00

One area in which traditional dispensationalism has provenextremely helpful is in the discussion of theodicy. Norman Geisler in particular has doneespecially insightful work in showing how the different stewardships Godcommits to mankind result in a vindication of the necessity of Hisjustice. This is instructive to humanity,who throughout the endless ages to come will never have cause to wonder whetherGod was right in judging sin.

In traditional dispensational theology, the motif of stewardship/failure/judgment/redemption represented the cardinal purpose of the dispensations. Progressive dispensationalism builds beyondthis, seeing the development and expansion of the kingdom of God in a fallen world as theoverarching theme of Scripture. WhenAdam was placed in the garden he was charged with having dominion as God’s viceroy in the created world. Adam’s failure produced the proto-evangel ofGenesis 3:15. After man revealed hislost condition over the post-Adamic generations God saved Noah out of the floodand put the power of the sword in his hand to bring justice and order back intothe world (Genesis 9:5-6). With the call of Abraham, God’s regal purposesbegin to take more shape. ThroughAbraham God would bless all the nations of the earth. A particular line through Isaac and Jacobwould be separated, however, for a special purpose. With the Mosaic economy, the children ofIsrael (Jacob) were separated from the other nations of the world as atheocracy, a testimony to the presence and power of the one true God,YHWH. Whereas God’s promises to Adam,Moses and Abraham had been what Craig Blaising would call grant promises (i.e. unconditional), the manifestation of God’skingdom in the Israelite theocracy demanded strict punishment for sin and the threatof forfeited blessings for disobedience.

The Israelite nation rejected God’s theocraticrule by clamoring for a king. WhatIsrael might have intended for their satisfaction God turned into a greatergood. He rejected Saul (a prototype ofbad government, among other things) and chose for himself David, a man after his own heart. Another grant promise appears in the Davidiccovenant (2 Samuel 7). It is themessianic nature of this covenant that Blaising seizes upon in developing progressivedispensationalism. The Davidic king nowbecomes the mediator of blessings toIsrael. As the king goes, so goes thenation. If he walks in God’s statutesthe nation is blessed. So it was whenboth David and Solomon adhered to God’s commandments. At its height the splendor of Solomon’s reigntook the breath away from the Queen of Sheba. But where Solomon failed (chiefly in taking pagan wives and concubines)the seeds were sown for the nation’s demise.

The Davidic covenant is an everlasting covenant thatultimately prevails; but it is conditional in regard to the conduct of David’soffspring. The wickedness of thesubsequent kings of Israel and Judah was such that God removed His presence (shekinah) from Jerusalem and handed overearthly authority to the Gentiles, beginning with Babylon.

Later we find the Jews, back in Palestine, under Romanoccupation when Jesus comes into their midst. The kingdom of God, which had passed into the hands of the Gentiles duringthe judgment and exile of Judah, is now athand in the person of Jesus. LikeJohn the Baptist (the forerunner, “Elijah”), Jesus calls the lost sheep of thehouse of Israel to repentance. Heperforms miracles that clearly testify to the presence and power of the kingdomof God. His preaching is like no otherthat came before. But the “blind guides” (the leaders of thepeople) lead a rejection of His teaching and His person. In His final week, at the Temple, Jesus warnsthem,

“Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and givento a people producing its fruits… ” (Matt. 21:43)[i]

So history, as onesage put it, does indeed rhyme. As the shekinah was taken from Jerusalem before,so Jesus will leave the nation desolate.

But before Hisatoning death as substitute for sin on the cross, Jesus gathers His own andinstitutes the Lord’s Supper, which includes “the cup, the new covenant in my blood.” Thereis no reason to doubt that this new covenant is the same prophesied by Jeremiahand Ezekial. After the resurrectionJesus breathes the Holy Spirit on His disciples. After 40 days of appearances and counsels, thedisciples ask, “Lord, will you at thistime restore the kingdomto Israel?” (Act 1:6). Intriguingly, Jesus does not dismiss theirquestion as erroneous, but states simply that the times and the season havebeen fixed by the Father’s authority.

Ten days afterthe ascension the glorified Lord Jesus Christ pours out the Holy Spirit on Hisdisciples in a dramatic way, from the right hand of the majesty on high. For Blaising, this underscores that Christ asthe resurrected Davidic king has mediatedthe blessings of the new covenant to “another nation,” i.e. the Church that, inits embryonic state, consisted of a tiny remnant of Jews. Traditional dispensationalists reject theidea that Christ has now assumed the Davidic throne, since He now sits with HisFather in heaven and not on an earthly throne in Jerusalem – something they seeas awaiting fulfillment in the millennial reign. But Blaising demonstrates that the royal enthronementPsalms foreshadowed the union of God the King of the universe with the king ofIsrael. In the person of Jesus theMessiah, the “king of the Jews,” that union is complete. ForBlaising it is crucial that Paul bookends his magnum opus, the letter to theRomans, with these words:

“the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was descended from David according tothe flesh…” (Rom.1:2-3)

And,

“in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy.As it is written… “The root of Jesse will come, even he who arises to rule theGentiles; in him will theGentiles hope”(Rom. 15:9, 12)

“Behold, one greater than Solomon is here.”

For progressivedispensationalists, the “mystery that was kept secret for long ages” (Rom.16:25) was not that the Gentiles would be brought into special favor with God,but rather the timing, form and scope the blessing would take (more on this to come). In the book Progressive Dispensationalism, Blaising in one place suggests thatthe current age or dispensation could be called “the dispensation of the mystery of the kingdom,” referring tothe kingdom parables in Matthew 13. Accordingto those parables, the scope of the kingdom has expanded beyond Israel to thewhole world. At the end of this age, theSon of Man will come to gather out the wicked for destruction and bring thesons of the kingdom to their inheritance.

The death,burial, resurrection, ascension and glorification of the Davidic king has inaugurated the blessings of the newcovenant and given birth to the Church. Borrowingfrom George E. Ladd, progressive dispensationalists would say that the presentdispensation is the “already/not yet” of the eschatological kingdom. But what exactly does this mean with regardIsrael and the Church? Is the Churchsimply an extension of the faithful of Israel? Does the nation of Israel as a political entity have no future?

[i]Ironically, this passage was in this morning’s gospel reading for January 23, in the 1662 lectionary.

The “D” Word (part 1)

2012-01-21T16:13:00.001-05:00

Sometimein 1998 I said to myself, “When Christ does notreturn around the turn of the century, we’ll see dispensationalism andpremillenialism wane.”

Ithink I was correct. Many of my friendsin Baptist and other evangelical circles have quietly moved in a generally“Reformed” direction. Prominent teachersand preachers identifying as “Reformed” are in ascendance. Premillenialism, where it is still held, ismoving from the dispensational to the covenantal variety. In many parts the premillenial view is beingsurrendered. Interest in the “rapture”(1 Thesslanonians 4:17) has been boxed up and tossed in many a believer’s attic.

That’swhy I find articles such as this (http://www.theamericanconservative.com/blog/2012/01/20/evangelicals-ron-paul-and-war/) so perversely fascinating. Do most American evangelicals really desire to see the U.S. andIsrael provoke a conflagration that hastens Armageddon? Judging from conversations I have with other evangelicals it seems to me that most of them, far from having apocalyptic expectations, aregiven to a worldview that sees the federal government’s first duty as enforcing“family values,” and its second as destroying the radical Islamic threat. The Duggars, for example, have beencompassing the country promoting the presidential candidacy of Rick Santorum, aCatholic who makes no bones about legislating morality and bombingIranians.

More disturbing than the doomsday pining of the John Hagee’sand Pat Robertson’s of pop Christendom is the sense of nationalistic duty and devotion amongevangelicals, as confronted in this piece (http://www.credenda.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=453:sacrificial-politics&catid=101:reviews&Itemid=122) recently shared on Joel Martin’s blog. There is a genuine conflation of Americanchurch and state going on that has unnerved me for some time. I see it as a terribly ominousdevelopment. Afghans and Iraqis, it seems, don’tdeserve the gospel. “Kill them all,”said an acquaintance who is a deacon at a local Baptist church. “All of them combined are notworth my daughter’s life.”

So much for 2 Timothy 1:7.

But nothing could have been further from the convictions of the“classical” dispensationalists, John Nelson Darby[i]and C.I. Scofield. Darby had experiencedwith much disgust the corruption of the etablished church in Ireland, whileScofield, a veteran of the defeated Confederate Army, lost all hope in humaninstitutions. The old dispensationalistshad no political program whatsoever. They were quietists and pietists par excellence. Their relatively peaceful, ascetic theology was built on apost-Englightenment dualism that saw a clear distinction in God’s programbetween heavenly and earthly spheres. The 69^th week of Daniel’s prophecy had ended with therejection, death, burial and resurrection of the Messiah. Having received Christ on high to sit at theFather’s right hand, God had suspended the “prophetic clock,” and theseventieth and final week would not commence until He had called to Himself aheavenly bride – the Church – a mystery hidden from past ages. The Church constitutes God's “heavenly” people and Israel, with whom He would resume his dealings and bring to national repentance during the “finalweek” (the Great Tribulation), His “earthly” people. Then comes the millenium, with Christ and the glorifiedChurch reigning above the earth while the resurrected David and renewed Israelreign below.

The second generation of dispensationalists found flaws inthis scheme. From Scripture it seemedclear enough the Church would have an earthly role in the age to come. This was confirmed by the Apostolic Fathers,who pointed to an earthly millenial reign with Christ for all the elect. The problem for these “revised”dispensationalists (e.g. Lewis Sperry Chafer, John Walvoord, Charles Ryrie, J.Dwight Pentecost) was the new covenant. If there was to remain a sharp distinction between the Church and Israel(not in terms of salvation, since Christ’s death provides this for all, but inidentity and function), how does one get around the new covenant? Darby said the church has no relation to it,that it is strictly for the houses of Israel and Judah for a future day, andthat New Testament references to it are analogical. Scofield said the Church enjoys the“spiritual” blessings of the new covenant (forgiveness of sins, the Spirit),while these as well as “physical” blessings will be given to redeemed and restoredIsrael in the future.

The revisers realized that an intersection of Israel andthe Church within the new covenant could undermine the sine qua non of traditional dispensational interpretation. Chafer and(initially) Ryrie tried to defend the notion of two new covenants, one forIsrael and the other for the Church, a position that proved simply untenable. Others (including Ryrie) wisely gave up thisdistinction, but labored to maintain the strict distinction between the twopeoples.

By the late 1980’s a new form of dispensationalism wasactively engaged with Reformed, covenant theology. It is a small group, led from the beginning by Craig Blaising, DarrellBock, and Robert Saucy. Blaising coined the term “progressive dispensationalism” – progressivenot in a liberal, political sense, but as denoting the progressive natureof God’s salvific plan. As it turns out,Anglican theologian W.H. Griffith Thomas beat Blaising to the punch about a century earlier. According to John D. Hannah,

Inorganizing and interpreting the Scriptures, Thomas adopted a dispensationalframework that included three dispensations of the Divine revelation to man,involving a progressive economy of grace.

LikeDarrell Bock, Thomas was a dispensationalist with a small “d.” The system proved an extremely helpful way to interpretScripture and understand the course of biblical history; but not a dogma worth emphasizing to the point of breaking fellowship with other believers.

[i]Dispensational interpretations of Scripture long pre-date Darby, beginning withSt. Irenaeus (c. 175). Others include St.Augustine, Grotius, Cocceius, Witsius, Poiret, Isaac Watts, Fletcher, and Fairbanksbefore the 19^th century. WhatDarby introduced was an ecclesiology that sharply delineated the New Testamentchurch from Israel.

Hasta la Vista, AMiA

2012-01-20T12:31:00.000-05:00

As reported by George Conger of Anglican Ink, the withdrawal of Anglican Mission in the Americas (AMiA) from the Province of Rwanda and from the Anglican Communion altogether is essentially complete.

Our little mission church will not follow the AMiA out. We are in the process of forming an executive council to weigh our options. According to the Sacred Assembly held in Raleigh, NC this week (consisting primarily of churches and clergy from the Apostles Mission Network and other like-minded attendees), three alternatives exist:

1) stay put in the Province of Rwanda
2) join the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA)
3) seek dual affiliation with ACNA and Rwanda

It will be interesting to see what course different congregations prefer. I have no ill feelings whatsoever toward our brethren in AMiA. However, I have had misgivings about the nature and direction of the Mission for some time. While parting is painful (and this will separate us from some friends) I am ready to move on.

The Second Washington Statement on AMiA

2012-01-14T19:36:00.000-05:00

In 2007, under the direction of [former Archbishop] Kolini, Kevin Donlon revised the canons for the Province of the Church of Rwanda. These revised canons were rushed through an approval process in the Rwandan House of Bishops in early 2008 without careful study. Many changes were made by Donlon, including adopting Roman Catholic sacramental theology (thus deviating from the 39 Articles of Religion) and giving [Chuck] Murphy almost unlimited power in AMiA as Primatial Vicar. These changes, made without any prior input from clergy and the parishes, have been a major source of contention in AMiA ever since.
Last month, [current Archbishop] Rwaje stated that he and the Rwandan House of Bishops would welcome any efforts to revise the Rwandan canons in accordance with the Articles of Religion. Several other Rwandan bishops have also affirmed this commitment.

Read it all here.

Darrell Bock on Tradition

2012-01-13T07:47:00.000-05:00

Another aspect of how we approach the [Bible] is the way tradition – or often better, our sub-tradition – functions for ourunderstanding. Interpretation is neverreally an individual affair, since we all are called to function in the contextof community. Each of us enterscommunity by joining different bodies, which themselves are affiliated withdistinct theological traditions. Suchtraditions frame how we ask questions of a text. Tradition in this sense is valuable, becauseit helps provide perspective and a grid for understanding. Serving as a guide, and often reflecting thecollective judgment of many believers over time or within a locale, a traditiongives identity and can provide an additional basis for unity. Tradition can also operate as a potentialcheck against individual idiosyncrasies in interpretation, but it should not bean all-ruling tyrant.

There is a limit to the value and authority oftradition. A tradition is not to beequated with the authority of Scripture. It is not canon. This means thatit too should be subject to Scripture. Someaspects of tradition are really matters of corporate preference, rather thansomething required by the Bible. Andbeing comfortable in our community often includes matters of personalpreference and taste.

…Tradition, though it impacts us significantly, should onlybe authoritative (versus merely preferred) when it reflects Scripture.

Darrell L. Bock, “Interpreting the Bible – How We Read Texts”(1993)

Richard Hooker on Justification

2012-01-04T08:45:00.000-05:00

"Doubtless," saith the Apostle, "I have counted all things but loss, and I do judge them to be dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God through faith."[Phil 3:8f] Whether they [the Church of Rome] speak of the first or second justification, they make the essence of it a divine quality inherent, they make it righteousness which is in us. If it be in us, then it is ours, as our souls are ours, though we have them from God and can hold them no longer than pleaseth him; for if he withdraw the breath of our nostrils we fall to dust; but the righteousness wherein we must be found, if we will be justified, is not our own: therefore we cannot be justified by any inherent quality. Christ hath merited righteousness for as many as are found in him. In him God findeth us, if we be faithful, for by faith we are incorporated into him.

Then, although in ourselves we be altogether sinful and unrighteous, yet even the man who in himself is impious, full of iniquity, full of sin, him being found in Christ through faith, and having his sin in hatred through repentance, him God beholdeth with a gracious eye, putteth away his sin by not imputing it, taketh quite away the punishment due thereunto, by pardoning it, and accepteth him in Jesus Christ as perfectly righteous, as if he had fulfilled all that is commanded him in the law: shall I say more perfectly righteous than if himself had fulfilled the whole law? I must take heed what I say; but the Apostle saith, "God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."[2 Cor 5:21] Such we are in the sight of God the Father as is the very Son of God himself. Let it be counted folly, or phrensy, or fury, or whatsoever. It is our wisdom and our comfort; we care for no knowledge in the world but this: that man hath sinned and God hath suffered; that God hath made himself the sin of men, and that men are made the righteousness of God.

A Few Thoughts on Iowa

2012-01-04T07:15:00.001-05:00

The results from the 2012 Iowa Caucuses were unsurprisingbut still disappointing. In my view RonPaul had to win in order to establish himself as a viable alternativecandidate. The high-profile caucusformat was his best chance. Having comeup short it is highly unlikely he will win any state primaries. I predict Santorum will fade, and Romney willbe the eventual GOP nominee. That will pittwo status quo candidates in a clash of establishment titans in November. Ron Paul’s supporters will not get behindRomney and there will be no cross-over “Blue Republican” support. President Obama will be re-elected.

One interesting footnote to the Iowa race: the “evangelical”vote was split fairly evenly between Romney, Santorum, and Paul. This debunks an annoying notion among hardcorelibertarians that “evangelicals” are consistently against Paul and for biggovernment candidates. A lot of themare, but the younger ones like Paul. They know they will foot the bill for the welfare/warfare state, and have a genuine problem with bombing people into embracing Western secular democracy.

Nothing will change in the foreseeable future; there will beno voluntary return by the electorate to the country’s original principles,what Richard Hooker called “authority derived at the first…consent.” We can only sit back and watch the unstoppablelaws of economics gradually work themselves out against the hubris of “yes we can!”

The Mysterious “theophorus” on the Rwandan Church Canons

2012-01-02T17:49:00.000-05:00

Can’t say how I know, but I can assure you the Rwandan bishops are intent on revising the canons asap. The Province of Rwanda is an evangelical church with it’s roots in the CMS and the East African Revival. Roman doctrine and language is foreign to their DNA... many of the AM leaders/bishops were not happy with these canons. These present canons are the creation of Murphy/Donlan for their agenda of papal authority on Murphy’s side and Byzantine Catholic sentiments on Donlan’s side. Neither the AM bishops or the Rwandan bishops were happy with these when they got a good chance to look at them. Both of the AM council of bishops and the Rwandan house of bishops were hustled into signing these canons without time to fully consider them. Considering the immediate pressing issues of structure and relationship it may take a while, but these canons will be revised. (emphasis added)

From a comment thread at StandFirm.

Richard Hooker’s More Excellent Way (Updated)

2011-12-31T13:04:00.000-05:00

Change is not reform.

- John Randolph of Roanoke (1829)

Among the Christmas gifts I was blessed to receive from my wifewas a copy of Alexander Rosenthal’s Crown Under Law: Richard Hooker, JohnLocke, and the Ascent of Modern Constitutionalism. Rosenthal holds that Hooker is a “bridge”figure, bringing forward medieval ideas on law and government which Locke wouldlater adapt to a changing political situation (as a result of his own evolvingunderstanding) in post-Restoration England. I have not yet reached theappendices of the book, but Rosenthal aims to demonstrate how Leo Strauss, afounding father of American neo-conservatism, misinterpreted Locke as a “radicalmodern” thinker. I may return to thatsubject in a later post if the implications prove worthy of furtherdiscussion. Heaven knows I dreadneo-conservatism.

But regarding Hooker, Rosenthal shows that he was no “modern.” Indeed, he was thoroughly conservative, butwith an important twist that would influence Locke’s conversion to a restrainedclassical liberalism and advocacy for limited,constitutional government. But Rosenthalbegins with Hooker’s theology. For me,there is nothing better than a work that deals in the two subjects – religion andpolitics – that ought not be brought up in social settings.

Rosenthal errs, in my view, by upholding against thescholarship Torrance Kirby (as well as Nigel Atkinson) the notion that theElizabethan Settlement forged a “via media” between Roman Catholicism andProtestantism, and thus brought a new thing called “Anglicanism” onto theecclesiastical landscape. To thecontrary, I agree with Kirby and Atkinson: via media is a fiction, and “Anglican”is simply a word that identifies churches throughout the world that havedoctrinal and liturgical roots in the Church of England. When Hooker wrote his magnum opus Lawes ofEcclesiastical Politie he was certainly defending the Elizabethen Settlement. But what he defended was the reformed EnglishChurch from the harassment of radical Reformers who challenged not only thechurch’s structure and liturgy, but the civil government of England as well. More on this to follow.

That Hooker was thoroughly reformed in his theology should bemanifestly clear from his Learned Discourse on Justification. During his studies at Oxford, Hooker’s principaltutor was John Rainolds, a scholar of Calvinist credentials. But the library at Corpus Christi Collegealso contained an expansive collection of Scholastic writings. From these Hooker came to understandnatural law and the role of human will in salvation and reason. Hooker’s own views on soteriology and humanfreedom were closer to those of Luis de Molina and the Salamancan school than to JohnCalvin. But Hooker upheld the classicalreformed formula of sola gratia, sola fide, solus Christus. And this was the position of the EnglishChurch of the settlement that Hooker defended.

Regarding law, Hooker’s system follows the descending orderof:

1 1. Divine law (Scripture)

2 2. Natural law (reason)

3 3. Positive law (tradition)

As Kirby and Atkinson both affirm, Hooker did not construct a “three-legged stool” with reason and tradition on the same plane as divinerevelation. Man is indeed fallen and can come to theknowledge of things pertaining to salvation only through the illumination of God’s grace. But, with Aquinas and against thehardcore Calvinists, Hooker held that man’s reason is not so impaired by thefall that he cannot arrive at a measure of truth through the discovery ofnatural law. The radical Reformersrejected natural law and tradition in exclusive deference to Scripturaldata. This was a key distinction between Hooker and the radicals who woulddo away with any rite or ceremony, ecclesiastical as well as civil, thathad no express warrant from Scripture.

A decisive factor involved what Hooker and others withinthe Church called “things indifferent.” Scripture is not a rule book on everydimension of life. The New Testamentgives only the vaguest “instruction” on how a church is set up. Churches – and civil polities – evolve alonglines of location, experience, and custom. To the extent that none of those elements undermine the truth of thegospel there is latitude for development.

This idea was repugnant to the radical Reformers. As Rosenthal notes, they wished to set up atheocracy in England. Hooker foresaw how this would lead to strife and was proven right a generationlater by Cromwell’s War. Instead, heargued in favor of traditional church episcopacy and (reformed) liturgy, and the “mixed monarchy”of the realm – things passed down from generations by centuries of collective experience andwisdom.

To quote again John Randolph, an American statesman of a similar temperament, “I have a respect for all that is antique (with a few importantexceptions).” For Hooker, those “importantexceptions” had been dealt with – i.e., reformed – within the church. He found nothing in English ecclesiastical and civil polity that warranted radical change.

It is not surprising then that the “judicious Hooker” wasthe darling of high church Royalists and Tories that came after him. But on the Anglo-Catholic wing ofthe church: the “middle way” was a fancy of the Oxford Movement inthe 19^th century. Its influence is felt in the 1928 PrayerBook. But it is interesting to note thatthe 1662 Prayer Book, compiled shortly after the Restoration of the monarchy, hasa decidedly “reformed” tone. ThePuritans might have lost the war, but they did have a necessary influence inshaping the church’s theology and liturgy.

But now we come to the twist: Hooker was also a major sourceof inspiration to English Whigs. In theLawes they found Hooker arguing against a patriarchal, divine right notionof monarchy. Rather, Hooker upheld regency,that is, monarchy under law and by consent of the ruled. It is noteworthy thatHooker believed a wicked bishop could be deposed (but, as Rosenthal observes,he offered no prescription in the case of a tyrannical king).

In Rosenthal’s most fascinating section he details howHooker derived from Aquinas the idea of a natural state of community. Men are not born under authority to other men(apart from parents). But men quicklylearn the necessity of social cooperation (a line of thought deliciously closeto causal-realist economic theory), and because of sinful impulses suchcooperation needs guidance. For Hooker,government is an artifice of man’s reason, not a natural condition or instinct. Given time, men discover the best means ofgovernment (trial and error may include overthrowing bad ones, though Hookerdoes not go that far). But here is therub: Hooker finds sovereignty passing from God to the community (avoiding thatominously amorphous appellation “the people”). The community, through thediscovery of natural law, enacts positive laws fitting its circumstances, andthen delegates its authority to one or a few for its guidance andprotection. To cite one example from “primitive”culture, this is precisely how ancient Cherokee polity arose. Kings rule by consent. The crown is under law. Its rule is bounded by the laws and customs ofthe community.

The lawful power of making laws to command whole political societies of men belongeth so properly unto the same entire societies, that For any Prince or potentate of whatsoever kind to exercise the same of himself, and not either by express commission of God, or else by authority derived at the first from their consent upon those persons they impose laws, it is no better than tyranny.

Rosenthal traces John Locke’s conversion from defacto Royalist to Whig through the study of Hooker’s Lawes. There is no question that Locke had a major influence on American thought as the colonials sought to protect their ancient English rights from an increasingly despotic empire. Constitutionally limited government is latentin Hooker’s understanding of the laws of nature and polity. For Hooker, the “mixed monarchy” of theEnglish realm (before the empire), in which the regent was accountable to the lords and commons,was an ingenious arrangement forged over time. To overthrow it for a theocracy that excluded natural law and custom wasto rip apart the fabric of society and the church.

Anglican Mission ad infinitum

2011-12-27T22:33:00.000-05:00

AMiA would functionally become the “Anglican Mission to the World” all reporting back to Chuck Murphy, and with a strange brew of women’s ordination, emergent church theology, and doctrines totally rejected by the Anglican reformers but resurrected by Canon Kevin Donlon.

Joel Martin is working on a fascinating reconstruction of recent events here, here, and, here.

Christ Jesus Came into the World to Save Sinners

2011-12-24T08:59:00.000-05:00

I hope everyone has a blessed Christmas. Let all that uneasy family dysfunction roll from coast to coast. Christ ever lives to make intercession for us.

A few changes here at Old Hop as we roll, Lord willing, into a new year: I have added a couple of new blogs to The Places I Go: Joel Martin's A Living Text (Anglican) and Michael Vlach's Theological Studies (evangelical premillenial). Joel and I are on different ends of the eschatological spectrum, but I respect his smart writing and deep sense of Anglican history. Vlach is a Facebook friend and a scholar in the dispensational tradition.

I have ditched my link to Lew Rockwell.com. I still look at LRC every day, but no longer feel the need to link to it here. Some of the articles there have become increasingly paranoid and scare-mongering. Besides, Joseph Stromberg (my favorite historian) stopped writing for that site many moons ago. You can check out his always insightful articles at The Freeman under my list of links.

As my heavy workload subsides I look forward to reading more of W.H. Griffith Thomas and posting excerpts from his thoughts at Pectus Theologum Facit, which has lain dormant for nearly a year.

And finally, those of you familiar with my blogging know of my deep attachment to Sam Quinn and the everybodyfields. It looks like the band is slowly getting back together, playing more than a few reunion shows in East Tennessee and elsewhere around the southeast. As a Christmas gift, here is a a link to a free download of a new Christmas recording by Sam (with Josh Oliver and Tom Pryor of the everybodyfields), a cover of The Band's "It Must Be Christmas."

Indeed, it must be, for Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.

Merry Christmas.

Gird Up Your Loins, Ron Paul

2011-12-23T09:38:00.000-05:00

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

~ Mohandas Ghandi

Ron Paul says the president he most admires is Stephen Grover Cleveland. Well, it is high time for Paul to start acting like Cleveland, who calmly and directly answered allegations of an out-of-wedlock affair in his early life that his detractors hoped would keep him from being elected president.

Paul has been famously ignored by the media, scoffed at by his own party, and is now being attacked for questionable material published in old newsletters bearing his name. He claims he did not write the objectionable material. I tend to believe him. His political philosophy is too grounded in individual rights and classical liberalism for me to believe that he is a racist, nativist, etc. But he did allow certain baser elements of reactionary politics within his otherwise very broad coalition to sound off unedited in the past.

Cleveland was forthright in owning responsibility for his earlier moral failings. He was elected twice to the presidency, and is generally remembered as a pillar of honesty and integrity -- on top of being one of the most constitutionally faithful executives this country has had. When CNN badgered Ron Paul this week about racist material in his old newsletters, he ripped off his microphone and walked out of the interview. That was rather un-Cleveland-like.

For the cause of the Old Republic and the finer principles of the Founding, we need Ron Paul to do better, and rise to the occasion.

Happy St. Thomas Day

2011-12-21T13:54:00.000-05:00

Check out Nail Holes by Black Eyed Sceva (1995).

From memory:

If there's poetryin God's mysteryit's in the way He reveals Himself to me
So you will believe when you see?I say you won't see till you believe.Thomas said "until I see in His hands the print of the nails..."Thomas said "until I stick my fingers in the print of the nailsI won't believe"
Thomas saw the nail holes...

After the song fades out there is about two minutes before a hidden track appears, something about Simon of Cyrene, with some killer slide guitar. Way Before the Flood was a critically-acclaimed if not commercially successful album.

Ron Paul and the Rise of the New Tertium Quids

2011-12-20T14:24:00.000-05:00

Old Hop vindicated!

My hunch that Ron Paul bears resemblance to the old republicans (e.g. John Randolph of Roanoke and John Taylor of Caroline) has been affirmed by Jarrett Stepman at Human Events:

Ron Paul and the Rise of the New Tertium Quids - HUMAN EVENTS

It’s an Advent Life

2011-12-15T10:18:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine who is a convert to Eastern Orthodoxy recently told me that we spend most of our lives sorting out the faith we learn as children. We lived many places in my youth as my dad moved around from one radio station to another, but the most memorable place for me was Canton, NC. That smoky paper mill town nestled at the foot of the Balsam range was where I spent my pre-school and kindergarten days. Dad worked downtown at WPTL (no connection to Jim Bakker); everything in the studio – the control board, the acoustic tile, the water fountains, even the linoleum – reeked of cigarette smoke. There was nowhere in Canton to escape the smell of smoke.

But we lived south of town, toward the towering mountains, in a rural subdivision called the Plott Farm, adjacent to an ancient Cherokee Indian mound excavated by UNC Chapel Hill students in their cut-offs and sandals in the summer. We went to church and I attended vacation Bible school at Bethel Baptist. I remember getting pinched by my mother for wiggling in the pew and the preacher being loud and alarming in his delivery. That unnerved me. I was already shaken by the shrill whines of the regularly scheduled Emergency Broadcast tests and the noonday siren at the VFD. So church, or at least that church, wasn’t my thing. I got a different take on religion when watching Davey & Goliath. They were Lutherans (well, as Lutheran as a dog can be); unlike the austere white blankness of Bethel Baptist, D & G’s church had warm stained glass windows and a cathedral ceiling that stretched into infinity. I knew of such real-life churches in nearby Asheville, and my gaze was always arrested by them. Davey’s pastor wore a black jacket and shirt with a white clerical collar and spoke in reassuring tones. His dad was firm but gentle.

My dad had an old Bible that had to be 10 inches thick. I couldn’t read much of it, but loved to thumb through the pictures of baroque oil paintings of biblical scenes. Jonah being spewed ashore was especially fantastic. But my favorite was of the serene 12 year old Jesus blowing the minds of the scribes in the Temple by Heinrich Hofmann. Another striking image was Diego Velazquez’ The Crucifixion, with Christ suspended in blackness as dark as the set of the Charlie Rose Show. And then there was Jean Cousin’s spectacular depiction of the Last Judgment, with a distant but powerfully triumphant Christ coming in divine radiance, with contorted multitudes strewn about the oily dark ground below.

From that time on I never doubted that Jesus is real, the true Son of God, and that He would come again and I would see Him – although, it would be a few more years before I fully understood the meaning of the cross, and that He had dealt with my sins.

Color and vividness were shaping my understanding of the faith. Words could do it as well, as long as the words weren’t shouted at my hypersensitive ears. Among my fondest memories was an evening at our home on the Plott Farm, sitting on the bare living room floor while my dad and some friends from the radio station discussed Bible prophecy. A smaller Bible was open on his lap. It did my heart good to hear dad take the lead in such a discourse. There was a lot going on in the late 1960’s – not the least of which was the capture of Jerusalem by Israeli paratroopers led by Moshe Dayan with his black eye patch. Was the barren fig tree beginning to put forth its leaves? Vietnam was going badly (though no one would admit it) and the radical student protests had all the ordinary folk on edge (our neighbors across the road had a hippie granddaughter living with them who had nude pictures up in her bedroom). Perhaps the end of the age was really upon us.

Of course, similar things have been going on since the days of Noah. I’ve been teaching my younger chaps that we live in a post-1971 inflationary economy that is unraveling. And a post-911 world in which our government is shredding the Bill of Rights in the name of national security.

“Will Jesus come soon?”

“His coming is always imminent, and it’s our hope. In the meantime He wants us to stay busy, telling the good news of repentance and salvation in His name and doing the right thing in every situation.”

We know not the day or the hour. But we are to keep our lamps trimmed and burning (and nobody does a better version of that song than Luther Dickinson).

Davey & Goliath didn’t seem to worry with biblical prophecy. Eschatology is not a fixation of Lutheran theology. As with Anglicanism, it is mostly amillenial (or “panmillenial,” which is shorthand for “whatever happens will happen; it’ll all pan out in the end”). Amillenialism does not read too much into what is going on in this world. The end will happen when it happens, then the redeemed will go to heaven – whatever that looks like. I never embraced amillenialism. It seemed fairly clear to me that Christ was coming back here to start something new. Neither did I embrace postmillennialism, for which Christ’s return could yet be thousands of years away.

My belief about the end of this age was summed up quaintly by none other than Hugh Latimer, Bishop of Worcester, reformer, burned at the stake with Nicholas Ridley under Queen Mary in 1555:

“It may come in my days, old as I am, or in my children’s days, the saints shall be taken up to meet Christ in the air, and so shall come down with him again.”

In that one sentence Latimer affirms a very plain reading of 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17 and, by inference, Revelation 20:1-4.

That’s right, folks: an Anglican premillenialist. Latimer, it turns out, wasn’t the only one. Henry Alford (1810-1871), Dean of Canterbury and renowned Greek New Testament scholar, wrote concerning Revelation 20,

“…I cannot consent to distort words from their plain sense and chronological place in the prophecy, on account of any considerations of difficulty, or any risk of abuses which the doctrine of the millennium may bring with it. Those who lived next to the Apostles, and the whole Church for 300 years, understood them in the plain literal sense: and it is a strange sight in these days to see expositors who are among the first in reverence of antiquity, complacently casting aside the most cogent instance of consensus which primitive antiquity presents.
“As regards the text itself, no legitimate treatment of it will extort what is known as the spiritual interpretation now in fashion. If, in a passage where two resurrections are mentioned, where certain "souls lived" at the first, and the rest of the "dead lived" only at the end of a specified period after that first,--if in such a passage the first resurrection may be understood to mean spiritual rising with Christ, while the second means literal rising from the grave; --then there is an end of all significance in language, and Scripture is wiped out as a definite testimony to any thing. If the first resurrection is spiritual, then so is the second, which I suppose none will be hardly enough to maintain: but if the second is literal, then so is the first, which in common with the whole primitive Church and many of the best modern expositors, I do maintain, and receive as an article of faith and hope.”

Bishop J.C. Ryle (1816-1900) wrote,

“The plain truth of Scripture I believe to be as follows: Christ will come again to this world with power and great glory. He will raise His saints, and gather them to Himself. He will punish with fearful judgments all who are found His enemies, and reward with glorious rewards all His believing people. He will take to Himself His great power, and reign, and establish a universal kingdom. He will gather the scattered tribes of Israel, and place them once more in their own land. As He came the first time in person, so He will come the second time in person. As He went away from earth visibly, so He will return visibly. As He literally rode upon an ass--was literally sold for thirty pieces of silver--had His hands and feet literally pierced--was numbered literally with the transgressors--and had lots literally cast upon His raiment--and all, that Scripture might be fulfilled--so also He will literally come, literally set up a kingdom, and literally reign over the earth, because the very same Scripture has said that it shall be so.”

And of course William Henry Griffith Thomas, principal at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford before coming to America, who died just before being made the first professor of theology at the new Dallas Theological Seminary, held similar premillenarian views.

We are a rare species, we Anglican premils. I know of only six on the earth at the moment – my family and our pastor. But the fact that this interpretation of biblical prophecy has hung on, however tenuously, since the time of the English Reformation (if not before), is icing on my cake. I didn’t get the stained glass and the towering cathedral ceilings that cheered my young heart. A pastor with the black shirt and collar will have to do. But the sorting out of the faith imparted to me as a youth keeps coming together. And this season in the church year, because it has as its focus the coming again of our Lord and Savior, has grown to be a favorite of mine.

Happy Advent.

Support the Troops

2011-12-14T11:42:00.000-05:00

The last segment of this video is rather manipulative. But the education on U.S. foreign policy provided by Chalmers Johnson is indispensable.

At Every Turn, Unilateralism Being Challenged

2011-12-12T13:13:00.000-05:00

"In such matters of the internal governance of this Diocese, out of the great depths of our love and concern for our people, we will continue to assert the autonomy that is historically and constitutionally ours and we will do so consistent with our belief that God alone dictates our future."

South Carolina Standing Committee Responds to Letter of Province IV Bishops | Anglican Ink

From Apostles Mission Network

2011-12-12T05:56:00.000-05:00

AS Haley: A Welcome Call for an Advent Respite | Anglican Ink

Call Me Papaw

2011-12-09T07:42:00.001-05:00

On a much happier note: my daughter Sarah gave birth to her first child, a son, Lane Tucker Dulin, this past Wednesday, December 7 (easy date to remember). Lane weighed in at 8 pounds, 10 ounces, and was 21 inches long. He was delivered by Caesarean section after about 12 hours of labor. Mom and baby are fine.

This is my first grandchild. In keeping with the ancient and honorable tradition of the Hicks family, I will be known to this young man as Papaw.

I turned 50 in October. My own papaw, Rev. Kenneth Hicks, died just shy of his 50th birthday (I was not quite 7 when he passed). I thank the Lord that He allowed me to see this day.

On a Much Higher Note...

2011-12-06T09:16:00.000-05:00

‎"What happens when God grows up in the neighborhood? Or presents himself on the road, as he did with his dejected disciples? This God didn't wait for us to discover him; he spoke and acted first. As a result, the gospel creates not speculative pundits, spiritual gurus, or moralists, but witnesses.

‎"Modern culture approves the universal element in religion (namely, the search for transcendent meaning and moral improvement). It also leases space to faith, as long as it stays "indoors." The important thing in religion is the moral law within, not external creeds or rituals. But for Christians, it is exactly the reverse. The gospel preached and administered in baptism and Communion does not make a point about something else; it is the point. It comes from God, not from us, and it sweeps us, heart and all, into the new creation. Whatever intuitions and spiritual principles we drag up from the basements of our hearts, however practical, will lead only to ruin, and we will alternate between despair and self-righteousness.

"The gospel is wildly improbable—except that it happened. The gospel is not the conclusion of a logical syllogism or an intuition of our universal moral experience. It's not a timeless truth. Rather, it is the announcement that "when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons" (Gal. 4:4-5).

Why We Need Jesus | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction

Prophecy Fulfilling

2011-12-01T11:41:00.001-05:00

Our old friend Joseph Stromberg has a new article at The Freeman, this time exploding some the myths surrounding the Progressive Era. Of interest is a few sentences toward the end of the piece, citing the “Jeffersonian Progressive” John T. Flynn, who was no fan of American imperialism:

Flynn’s checklist for realized fascism was as follows: perpetual public debt, autarchy, socialization of investment, bureaucratic supervision of society, public-works militarism, overseas empire, executive dictatorship, and the institutional changes to make them all work together. Seventy-some years later, we are well along.

Flynn was wrong of course about autarchy in the short run. He did not anticipate that one imperial State could become strong enough to force its economic rules on most of the world, while preaching about “free trade.”

Flynn was right, however, about what would hold American fascism together: executive power effectively above the law.

Given the bald disregard for habeas corpus exposed in this week’s Senate proceedings over the National Defense Authorization Act (S. 1867), we find that we are moving even further along.

Richard Hooker Would Be Proud

2011-11-27T13:04:00.000-05:00

Two years ago Jeffrey Herbener wrote a review of Shawn Ritenour's book Foundations of Economics: A Christian View, now available online. Herbener begins by saying,

When God spoke the world into existence, He made a created order. He does not maintain order by continuous contact with creation for God is transcendent, apart from and above creation. Instead, He decreed order into the nature of created things. Order is maintained by the natural working of the things He has made. The order of the cosmos, for example, occurs because God has built gravitational attraction into objects with mass. Likewise, social order arises naturally from human action because of certain features God has built into human nature. By endowing man with reason, God made him capable of discovering the natural laws by which creation is ordered. And for His glory and man’s benefit, He commands him to live in obedience to His decrees.

The review is linked to Dr. Ritenour's blog post:

Foundations of Economics: Magnanimous Review of Foundations of Economics.

Not by Might...

2011-11-14T16:54:00.000-05:00

Another argument against using the state to affect social outcomes.

A book that I am eager to look at is Crown Under Law: Richard Hooker, John Locke, and the Ascent of Modern Constitutionalism. Yes, our old friend Hooker, whom I believe is the fountainhead of a stream that runs through Burke and the old republicans right up to our present voice for constitutional constraint, Ron Paul.

What is classical liberalism?

2011-11-11T09:39:00.000-05:00

Many evangelical brethren would bristle at point #8 on toleration. But if we can grasp that a government large in scope has the power to enact positive law for the benefit of objectionable lifestyles and behaviors (as well as reduce our own liberties), we would be more inclined to desire limits on its power, which would afford the church and civil society greater influence in shaping social values and conduct.

The Featherblog: On the Clerisy and Occupy Wall Street

2011-11-01T11:35:00.000-04:00

This piece was written by a friend who is a Lutheran seminarian. It is a cogent analysis of the Occupy Wall Street phenomenon and the rise of unemployable elites...

The Featherblog: On the Clerisy and Occupy Wall Street:

Christianity and Economic Law

2011-11-01T09:11:00.000-04:00

This is a rough draft of a short paper I'm working on:

“Progressives may rail against economic theory, and given their influence in many areas of American life, they may even be able to use their powers to marginalize people in academic and public life who understand how economic theory both explains and limits our choices (Ron Paul is an excellent example). They cannot, however, undo the laws of economics any more than they can undo the law of gravity. But that does not keep them from trying, nor does it keep them from blaming others who actually understand economic law when progressive efforts to do things outside of theory inevitably fail.”

~ William L. Anderson, Ph. D. (emphasis mine)

One of the great insights of the 20th century Baptist theologian George Eldon Ladd was that the present age, between the first and second advents of Christ, is the “already/not yet” in terms of the kingdom of God. In other words, certain aspects of Christ’s kingdom have come into effect during the present day, while other aspects await a future consummation. The genius of Ladd’s scheme was that it corrected the extremes of classical dispensationalism (the kingdom has been postponed) and maximalism, as reflected in different schools that the church will be the instrument of transforming the world politically, economically and socially. Without developing this distinction further I will argue that part of the “not yet” of the kingdom is economic law. William Anderson summarizes some of the main features of economic law as “law of scarcity…law of opportunity cost, and marginal utility.” These laws are clearly observable in our present day – two thousand years after the first advent of Christ. Moreover, there is no more progress toward eradicating these realities than on the day of Christ’s ascension.

When Jesus Christ was on the earth He proclaimed that the kingdom of heaven was at hand. He performed miracles that suspended the normal laws of nature, for example, feeding a hungry multitude with a mere five loaves of bread and two fish. On occasion he healed the sick and raised the dead. He also cautioned His disciples not to worry; that as their heavenly Father provided for the birds of the air and flowers of the field, so He would provide for all their needs. But clearly, Christ did not permanently or conditionally suspend the law of scarcity. When the satiated multitude sought to make Him a king, He fled. He warned His disciples not to miss the spiritual import of the miracle – that He is the bread of life, the new manna, come down from heaven. As such He himself, as the embodiment of God’s kingdom, is the source of new life, forgiveness, wisdom, sanctification and other blessings for those who believe in Him.

But believers still face want, sickness and death. Certain aspects of the kingdom of God await a future day when Christ returns in glory. In the meantime, conditions of the curse upon creation remain. The Old Testament clearly grasps economic law, protecting property rights (Exodus 20:15, 17), and demanding fairness in trade while proscribing fraud (e.g. Proverbs 11:1, 20:10). Unfortunately, some Christians believe that the coming of Christ has fundamentally changed the world, and that it is part of the church’s mission to promote the collectivization of goods and resources, as allegedly found in Acts 4:34-37. This is a kind of inadvertent dispensationalism; or an unintentional mirror of Gnosticism, which found the God of the Old Testament incompatible with the God of the New. But a key feature of the passage in Acts 4 is the voluntary nature of the believers’ actions. There was no compulsion or coercion. By contrast, many Christians, like political progressives, enthusiastically support the state’s expropriation of the property and income of its citizens in order to obtain the “greater good” – while economists demonstrate that such measures destroy productivity and job creation while increasing the number of state-dependent clients.

Moreover, we may ask whether the events recorded in Acts 4 were normative for the New Testament. Pressing on to the Pauline epistles, we find an apostle who worked in his own trade (cf. Acts 18:3) so as not to be a financial burden to his fledgling church plants (e.g. 2 Thessalonians 3:8). Paul was clear in his instruction that a believer unwilling to work should not eat (v. 9) and that each should labor to provide for his own sustenance (v. 12). This exchange of labor for goods (direct exchange, or barter) or for money (indirect exchange) was not in any sense decried by the apostle of Christ. Indeed, he had set the example himself. Paul availed himself to the agoras, the marketplaces, to sell his wares in support of his own ministry and, more importantly, to have opportunities to share the gospel with the variety of people with whom he came in contact. We find here that economic exchange is not an end unto itself, but rather a means to uphold first principles. If the marketplace were inherently evil, or a passing relic of more barbaric times, the apostle failed to censure it.

It behooves us, then, who live in the “already” of forgiveness, righteousness, wisdom, peace and “not yet” of scarcity, opportunity costs and marginal utility to use our God-granted wisdom to understand how to make proper use of the time and resources available to us. To criticize economic law and seek to transcend it is to attempt, as Eric Voegelin put it, to “immanentize the eschaton,” which Nazism and communism both tried and failed. Short of Christ’s return God has set limits on humanity, perhaps no better expressed than by the great Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek:

“The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.”

Ron Paul's Practical Solution

2011-09-14T10:34:00.000-04:00

Legalize Currency Competition by Ron Paul

Ron Paul's Silver Moment

2011-09-10T10:40:00.000-04:00

In Wednesday's night GOP debate Ron Paul responded to Michele Bachmann's campaign promise to get gasoline prices back down to $2.00/gallon. Dr. Paul said we could have gas for a mere dime per gallon. He was referring to a silver dime -- those struck by the Treasury before 1965 which contain 90% silver.

If you check the web site http://www.coinflation.com/silver_coin_values.html you'll see what Ron Paul had in mind. The silver content in a pre-1965 dime is worth about $3.00. It was in 1965 that President Lyndon Johnson signed the Coinage Act that put an end to the striking of silver coins by the U.S. government. Never mind the fact that the Constitution requires that coins be made from gold or silver. Beginning with Johnson and concluding with his successor Richard Nixon, the federal government removed the currency from any metallic standards.

Incidentally, the word "dollar" comes from the old Czech word Joachimthaler ("thaler"), the family name of silversmiths who struck the finest one ounce silver coins in the Europe. From the beginning of this nation one U.S. dollar was composed of one ounce fine silver. One dollar silver certificates were issued by the treasury -- "dollar bills" -- that could be redeemed for a silver dollar coin. That is how our monetary system used to work.

But gold and silver exist in finite quantities. In theory, the government could issue only enough bills to correspond to the actual amounts of gold and silver held in the treasury. In reality, with the Cold War, the space program, the Vietnam War, the "Great Society," Medicare and so on, the federal government was issuing more dollar notes than could be redeemed in precious metal coins. Hence, Johnson's and Nixon's actions to remove the gold and silver backing of our currency -- in contradiction to the Constitution. The result of these acts was pure fiat currency (that is, currency by decree) which was more easily subject to monetary inflation -- that is, increasing the quantity of money in order to finance government programs.

The outcome is rather shocking; since 1971 the U.S. paper dollar has lost 82% of its purchasing power. It now takes more than one income to maintain most American households. Most of those households are servicing debt (mortgages, credit cards, etc.) because prices of housing and other goods and services are simply too high to be paid up front. College debt has strapped young adults, many of whom are returning home to live with their parents. With interest held to near zero percent by the Federal Reserve, millions of Americans have invested retirement savings in 401(k) accounts, most of which are held in mutual funds. But adjusted for inflation, stock market investments have actually lost value since 2000. With the dollar no longer tied to gold or silver, the government has "printed" up trillions in an (unsuccessful) effort to rescue the collapsing real estate market and finance bailouts, entitlements, and the "War on Terror."

All of these are results of a basic economic law -- the more money chasing a limited number of goods, the higher the price.

The Washington Post chided Ron Paul's reference to the silver dime as some archaic notion from the 18th century. But scoffers should look closely at what Paul is saying. A silver dime can easily be exchanged for three paper dollars. Here in the southern Piedmont of North Carolina the price per gallon of gasoline measured in terms of silver is only about 12 cents.

In 1964 gasoline ran about 27 cents per gallon. Silver has actually increased in value since that time while the purchasing power of the paper dollar has plummeted like a falling satellite. This is what monetary inflation does to an economy.

But Ron Paul is a "kook." We have grown too accustomed to an inflationary world. We expect the sun, moon and stars from our government. We especially dislike someone who tells us there are limits, that we simply can't do everything we put our minds to.

We prefer a "strong leader" to a sage.

So did the Germans in 1932.

Dave Ramsey Revisited

2011-09-06T05:20:00.000-04:00

And it's not a friendly visit...

How Dave Ramsey Made $55 Million by Being Good on Personal Debt, Naive on Business Debt, Lousy on Investing, and a Loudmouth Bully.by Gary North

Dave Ramsey, Paper Bug

2011-08-23T10:08:00.014-04:00

Dave Ramsey does the world an invaluable service with his advice on how to reduce personal debt. As Austrian economist Robert P. Murphy noted in a recent article, deleveraging is generally good for an economy in recession.

But Ramsey is spectacularly wrong when it comes to investment advice. In an October 2009 article on his web site, Ramsey was cited for his stern opposition to owning gold. The price of gold that day stood at $1,068. Not quite two years later, gold is hovering near $1,900 an ounce – a 70% increase in price.

In 2007, Ramsey was among those assuring the public that real estate values were generally stable, that problems would be confined to the sub-prime mortgage market. Since that time property values across the nation have generally fallen to 2003 price levels, according to the Case-Schiller index.

How could a guy so right about the need to reduce personal debt turn out to be so wrong about investments? I think it is simply because Ramsey is not a student of monetary economics. Despite his penchant for quoting long-range historical trends (“From 1833 to 2001, the compound annual growth rate of gold was only 1.54%”), he seems unaware of how drastically the monetary landscape changed after August 15, 1971. Yes, it has taken about 40 years, but the decoupling of the dollar from gold is finally coming home to roost.

In short, Dave Ramsey trusts Uncle Sam. He is a paper bug.

Not that I’m a gold bug. If I could afford it I would follow the conventional wisdom of having at least 10% of my assets in gold and silver. As it is I’m fortunate to own a few junk silver coins. After the market crash of 2008 (which Ramsey didn’t see coming, and which took the industrial white metal down with it), I went to a local coin shop seeking to add to the small collection of silver coins my grandfather had given me. At the time I began purchasing these coins the market price of silver was around $9.50 per troy ounce. As of this writing silver is around $43 per ounce – a staggering 450% increase. Silver has to some extent decoupled from the stock market. Its exchange value as money exceeds its industrial value in use.

I agree with investment guru Jim Rogers: buy precious metals when they dip and never sell them. Why? Because metals aren’t “investments.” They’re insurance – havens to preserve savings in the face of fiat money devaluation.

Since 1971, and since the crash of 2008 in particular, the success of Ramsey’s urging to hold mutual funds has ridden the thermals of monetary inflation, or “quantitative easing,” by the central bank. Ramsey’s investment recommendations thrive to the extent that the government is able to “paper over” its fiscal obligations. Now, as investors become more frightened of the sovereign debt crises, stocks are moving wildly in response to every shred of news good or bad, while metals and other commodities are generally trending upward. As for real estate, it is in a protracted downward correction, unwinding years of bogus, unsustainable appreciation since 1997.

Get out of debt? Sure thing – my family and I have our sights set on that objective. But when it comes understanding what has served for thousands of years as real money versus government fiat, I will go with the boy from Alabama over the boy from Tennessee. In an emergency we’ll have in our bug-out bag something that folks will readily trade for gas and food. The greenbacks we can use for kindling.

I Heart Ron Paul

2011-08-17T09:59:00.022-04:00

Old Hop has never quite been the blog that I wanted it to be. It began at the end of 2008 as a replacement for my old blog, Rublev’s Dog (a play on Pavlov’s dog with a religious twist) that had taken some tangents of its own. At the height of my blogging frenzy (which has died down in recent months due to demands at work) Rublev’s Dog became a platform for sharing my support for presidential candidate Ron Paul in 2007. It was Paul’s candidacy and his eerie prescience about the real estate meltdown (real property being my field of work) that led me to more deeply investigate the Austrian school of economics and its theory of the business-credit cycle.

Paul’s candidacy excited me like none other in my lifetime. As a teenager I was a sworn “Reagan Republican,” but only because the Gipper had been my dad’s candidate. I realized into his presidency that, while we all felt substantially better about being Americans than we had throughout the scandal-ridden and stagflated ‘70s, the fact remained that Reagan did not deliver on his promise of a smaller government. In fact it grew exponentially under his watch. By the time Bush I and Clinton came on the scene I was deep into theological reflection and had become a political non-participant. The roaring ‘90s passed me by. I was oblivious to the seeds of economic destruction that had been sown by Reagan’s choice for Federal Reserve chairman, Alan Greenspan.

To understand that a bit better, we have to go back to the event, 40 years ago this week, that tilled the economic soil for Greenspan’s pernicious monetary seeds. It was Richard Nixon’s autocratic decision on August 15, 1971 to untie the U.S. dollar to gold, closing of the convertibility of dollars to gold, which gave the green flag to our central bank to print up money. And it was Nixon’s coup that provoked Ron Paul, a Duke-educated obstetrician and spare-time student of Austrian economics, to launch his own political career.

Congressman Paul predicted as early as 2001, in the wake of Greenspan’s money-pumping, that an unsustainable housing bubble would ensue with disastrous consequences. I did not hear the Texas congressman’s speech until years later; but I sat at my desk between 2002 and 2006 watching sale prices for homes soar to dizzying heights.

The bubble burst in 2007. Countrywide Mortgage, a subsidiary of our local giant Bank of America, went belly-up. The good doctor from Lake Jackson, Texas had been right all along. I was spellbound. Suddenly, everything Ron Paul had been preaching about, from monetary policy to the unconstitutional, unwinnable and unsustainable wars in the Middle East, began to make perfect sense. As I stated above, he became the most exciting presidential candidate of my lifetime.

When he was ignored by the media and laughed off the stage other mainstream Republican candidates, I became embittered again with the political process. My rantings on Rublev’s Dog gave way to this blog, where I intended to write at leisure on whatever struck my fancy. But the political and economic consciousness remained – informed by writers and thinkers from history who had inspired Ron Paul or laid some of the intellectual groundwork for his political career. In congress, Paul had been a reincarnation of John Randolph of Roanoke, voting against every bill and proposal not substantiated by an originalist reading of the Constitution. As a presidential candidate he was as committed to sound money and non-intervention as Stephen Grover Cleveland, the last true libertarian in the Oval Office.

To understand why Ron Paul’s chances of being elected president are 1 divided by infinity, we must look in Hans Hoppe’s book, Democracy: The God that Failed. Democratic government is a system of legal plunder, pitting interests that can out-clamor others for favors from the political class in exchange for votes. Democracy, it turns out, is the people’s way of trying to overcome the first law of economics – that you cannot have something for nothing. But everyone believes, with an almost religious fervor, that “their” government can provide jobs, welfare, education, healthcare, social security, ad infinitum by the magic of fiat. It seldom occurs to the common folk that resources are eventually starved, capital is destroyed, and the economic pie shrinks (Greece is an excellent example of the failure of social welfare democracy). What the government cannot raise in taxes it borrows. The central bank finances the sovereign debt and in so doing lowers the rate of interest – the ratio of money borrowed to money saved – to a sub-market figure. This in turn causes the misallocation of resources, leading to a temporary boom (or “bubble”).

America has had a phony, debt-driven economy since at least the mid 1960’s. Johnson’s Vietnam War and the “war on poverty” led to hefty money-printing by the Fed, which led Nixon to unhinge the dollar from gold. Within a year (1972) the U.S. began down a decade-long road of price inflation and job loss. Paul Volcker, appointed Fed chairman near the end of Jimmy Carter’s presidency, took the bold and necessary step of allowing interest rates to rise toward the market rate – a rare instance of the central bank doing the right thing. While the correction was painful it was momentary, and by the middle of his first term Reagan was reaping the undeserved benefits of Volcker’s austerity (it is questionable whether “supply-side” economics had as much to do with the recovery, though it did encourage the business sector for a time). Whatever good Reagan might have done was undone by his build-up of the U.S. military to the role of globo-cop and the appointment of Greenspan, who would preside over a steady increase in money printing and dollar devaluation. Since 1971, the dollar has lost 82% of its purchasing power. Real wages have netted a zero percent increase since that time, and the new norm includes two- or more income households with substantial personal debt.

So, is America now ready to listen to Ron Paul? To a point, maybe; but it is certainly not willing to let go of [unaffordable and unfunded] social welfare entitlements.

The Economist did a poll of Americans in late 2010 in which respondents were asked which in a list of spending categories they would cut. The only one that a majority of Americans would cut was foreign aid, which amounts to a fraction of one percent of the federal budget. In no other area did even 30 percent of Americans say they wanted cuts. That means default. What else could it mean?

The politicians are not defying public opinion. They are reflecting it. With the unfunded liabilities of Social Security and Medicare in excess of twice the GDP of the entire world, this has to end badly. (Thomas Woods, in an interview with the Harvard Political Review)

His anti-war, anti-military-industrial complex stance doesn’t play well to that part of the populace whose favorite slogan is “support the troops!” Moreover, unlike the great orator Randolph, Paul is a rambling public speaker. While the texts of his congressional speeches are quite good, his debate appearances display an off-the-cuff, ill-preparedness and frustrating tendency to wade into arcane details that get lost on prospective voters. His ardent acolytes understand where he is coming from; but the chair-squirming head-scratchers of the “sound bite” generation quickly lose attentiveness.

So, no; Paul probably doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance. Once the GOP establishment successfully shoves him aside yet again, and that other Texan Rick Perry emerges as the darling of the flag-waving, God-and-country-country-and-God evangelical right, I will retreat once more into democracy-hating cynicism.

In national politics, in America, rarely do the best and most honest(with their philosophy and integrity) reach the top. By the time all the political favors are paid off and their positions compromised, once a politician gets into power, he or she is nothing but a puppet of the powers behind the throne that helped to get that person into office. Ron Paul is different. So different, that his policies would be the only thing that could save America from going over the cliff. At this time, early on, Ron Paul is either being ignored or left out on the margins. (a reader comment at The American Conservative)

Regardless, in the meantime I say, Ron Paul for President.

From Deep to Deep

2011-08-05T10:59:00.003-04:00

Found on the Internet this week: two snippets that pretty much encapsulate my waking thoughts. First, the bad news, from Eric Fry at The Daily Reckoning:

Democracies vote themselves perks and entitlements they cannot afford…until they go bankrupt. Empires, likewise, gorge themselves until their economies become starved for self-sustaining productivity.

So what hope is there for a democratic empire like America?

The Fates will not be denied. America will grow fat and happy until she cannot lift herself out of her La-Z-Boy to punch a time clock. She will vote herself perks she cannot afford until the day her creditors say, “Enough!” Her fate is certain; the day is unknowable.

And then, the good news, from the Facebook page for St. Michael's Church in Charleston, SC:

If you’ve been around Christianity for any length of time, you know that we are saved by our faith, our trust, in Jesus and his finished work on the Cross. But this good news often raises this question, “How much faith is enough faith to save me?” Stated differently, “How much faith does God require before I’m saved?”

Many of us are worried that our faith is too little or weak to save us. We have doubts about the truth of Christianity and its claims. While we know Jesus promises that our sins are completely and eternally forgiven, we still fear that there might be some wrath left over for us. These doubts and fears cause us to wonder if we really, truly trust him for salvation.

If this describes you, know that I have good news for you. The answer is that we are not saved by the strength of our faith, but the object of our faith.

A Fresh Perspective

2011-07-26T08:07:00.013-04:00

I can safely say that Stephen Westerholm’s Perspectives Old and New on Paul: The “Lutheran” Paul and His Critics (2004) is easily one of the most important studies I’ve had the opportunity to read. Westerholm is professor of biblical studies at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. I first became familiar with his work through his paper, “Justification by Faith is the Answer: What is the Question?” He writes as an academic, not as a seminarian. He grants, for example, that the epistle to the Ephesians and the pastoral letters might not have been written by the person we know as Paul – but readily owns that, regardless, their content is thoroughly Pauline in nature. This should not put evangelical readers ill at ease. Westerholm has emerged as one of the champions in the defense of the classical evangelical understanding of the gospel – that believers are justified by faith, apart from works, and saved from the wrath of God to come.

What is the Question?

The “new perspective” on Paul (NPP) has challenged the traditional evangelical understanding of justification. Westerholm’s shorter paper was directed at Krister Stendahl, an early exponent of the NPP who saw Martin Luther as a tormented Augustinian monk in search of deliverance from the plight of his conscience. Luther found the Roman church to be a system of legalistic requirements analogous to first century Judaism – at least, this at least is how the NPP understands Luther. It accuses him of making a caricature of first century Judaism in arriving at the conclusion that sinners can only be right with God through faith in His Son. NPP asserts that Judaism was not a legalistic religion; that it was based on God’s gracious election, and did not hold that justification/salvation was earned by human merit. Rather, the external rites of the Law served as “boundary markers” to distinguish God’s elect from others. The problem with Judaism, from the new perspective, is simply that it fails to see that God has opened up His household to those on the outside through Christ. Judaism is guilty of “ethnocentrism.”

Justification from the NPP involves how people get included as the people of God. The Jews who believe in Jesus are “in,” so to speak. Gentiles don’t have to become Jews to get in. And the corporate aspect of “getting in” seems to receive emphasis at the expense of personal conversion. As Simon Gathercole has pointed out the NPP leads to a de-emphasis on conversionism. Justification isn’t so much about how a ruined sinner is made right with God as how diverse peoples are included as the people of God. Personal repentance and faith give way to “participation,” the new buzzword in contemporary “missional” circles.

One of the NPP’s leading lights is N.T. Wright, popular within both northern hemispheric Anglicanism and wider (Western) evangelical circles. Wright’s focus in particular shifts toward “putting the world to rights” (one of his favorite slogans), ecological concerns, and some most ill-informed economic notions (in his reckoning, poor nations are poor because they owe developed Western nations money). In Wright’s narrative theological scheme, the whole world has the potential, through Christ, to become “Israel” -- sans the boundary markers.

Who caricatures Whom?

Reading Westerholm, one realizes that it is the NPP that caricatures Luther. His understanding of Paul’s doctrine of justification by faith is alleged to flow from a tortured conscience, and that Luther was answering questions Paul didn’t raise. Westerholm proves that Luther was absolutely on track in grasping the essence of justification. Conceding that the matter as concerning the Gentiles came to a crisis in the Galatian controversy, Westerholm skillfully demonstrates how Paul addressed the universal need for deliverance from the wrath to come in 1 Thessalonians and 1 Corinthians, without any reference to circumcision or other Jewish “boundary markers.” The letter to the Galatians then tackles the question from the perspective of what circumcision and other external “works of the law” actually signify – obedience to the Law, by which, Paul reminds us, “no flesh will be justified in God’s sight.” In Romans 2 Paul shows us that the Jews who boast in the Law by no means keep it. Nor do the Gentiles who, though without the written Law, show the awareness of it in their consciences. The Jewish situation is not a question of “legalism” but of misplaced confidence that the Law represents God’s unqualified guarantee that the nation is on the right footing (even if some fail), and that keeping it will provide for Israel’s future vindication. Paul, on the other hand, shows that all are under sin, whether with the Law or without it. In that framework the apostle begins his classic explanation of how God can remain just and justify (not the masses but) the “one” who believes – apart from the Law (Rom. 3:21-30).

The Law’s Purpose

Luther held the view – held by many today – that the Law served to bring the sinner to a conscious awareness of how far he falls short of God’s moral standard, and thus drives him to look to Christ for salvation. Westerholm refines this, noting that sin was sin long before the Law was given – though the knowledge of it became clearer through the written Law. Rather, the Law served as a pedagogue, a “schoolmaster,” to keep the Jews in restraint until the Messiah came. The Law has been fulfilled by Christ and is fulfilled in those who believe in Him. The Law was never intended to be a way toward justification, though life was promised to those who kept it and judgment promised to those who violated it. The Law anticipated failure, evidenced by the Levitical sacrifices. Jesus Christ embodied all that the Law demanded and provided for (as antitype) by way of sacrifice. To put oneself under the Law now, as the Galatians were deceived into doing, is to “fall from grace,” to make Christ’s saving work of no effect, and to go back into bondage.

The justified Christian lives not by the letter of the Law but by the Spirit, by faith. With Christ he has died to the Law and to sin (which the Law animates in the flesh). This is the classic evangelical gospel, which Westerholm has reasserted for a new generation.

The Law, then, was not a source of legalism (according to the NPP’s caricature of Luther). The Jews sincerely believed that justification was obtained through it; Christ crucified was their stumbling block. It was then up to Paul, a Pharisee among Pharisees, to declare that he desired to “be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith” (Philippians 3:9).

Stone by Stone

The implication of this fresh reiteration of justification by faith is the absolute necessity of individuals repenting and believing the gospel. There is no other way to be justified, no other way to be saved. While the Body of Christ, the habitation of the Spirit, and the house of God are the ends, the justification of erstwhile ruined sinners is the means. The apostle Peter tells us that coming to Christ as “living stones” we are built up into a spiritual house. The house is not made of uniform, featureless bricks. It is composed of unique stones, each having its own shape and characteristics. Together these form the dwelling place of God.

My participation in the household of faith is essential (Hebrews 10:23-25). My participation, however, hinges on whether I have been justified, by which I have boldness to enter.

The Quiet Man

2011-06-24T07:47:00.003-04:00

The first time we laid eyes on Josh Oliver was New Year’s Eve, 2006. The Everybodyfields were about to open for the Avett Brother’s at the Neighborhood Theater in Charlotte. We saw him standing beside the band’s van behind the venue and mistook him for one of the Avetts. He was traveling with the ‘fields. The next time we saw him was at a ‘fields gig at the Map Room in West Ashley, Charleston, SC in February of ’07. We realized then that he was a roadie, sound guy and merch man for the band. We didn’t realize that he was also a musician, quietly working his way into the group.

By the time the Everybodyfields released their acclaimed CD Nothing is Okay Oliver was a full-fledged side man, playing keyboards and electric guitar, and offering occasional background vocals. When the band stopped by our house that summer for lunch we got to know him as the “quiet man,” unassuming, but warm. He demonstrated some licks on the piano to our oldest son.

Not long thereafter the ‘fields disintegrated, the lead songwriting duo of Sam Quinn and Jill Andrews going their separate ways. Josh hung around, playing with both artists in their respective solo acts. We saw him again at the Grey Eagle in Asheville, playing and singing scintillating harmonies in support of Sam’s new album, The Fake that Sunk a Thousand Ships. He took that same lonesome voice, raised at the foot of Chilhowee Mountain in Maryville, TN, and complimented Jill Andrews in her slick new band.

What we didn’t know was that Josh was quietly working on an album of his own. But here it is, entitled Troubles, released on the first day of summer, 2011. The set consists mainly of Oliver, his guitar and occasional piano, with some intermittent help from Brandon Story (upright bass), Megan Gregory (fiddle, bgv’s) and Sam Quinn (bgv’s).

Troubles is a collection of covers old and recent as well as a few originals. The vocal arrangements on “I Will Never Marry” are breath-taking and heartrending, while the cavernous guitar and organ effects on the original “Lonesome Heartbroken Blues” are chilling. We can summarize Oliver’s accomplishment by focusing on two tracks, “Red Rocking Chair” and “Pass Me Not.”

The former – alternately titled “Sugar Babe” (or “Sugar Baby”) – was originally a banjo “rounder” common to the upper South. The first known recording of it was made by Virginia banjoist Dock Boggs in 1926. Two versions of the song appear on the Hammons family recording from the ‘70s. Given that the Hammons’s played mostly 19th century tunes, it is likely that “Sugar Baby/Red Rocking Chair” dates from that time (later versions were made by Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, and Jeff Tweedy of Wilco). Oliver’s rendering shares little in common with the others apart from the lyrics. Here, the guitar alternates between sparseness in the verses and restive, jazz-like inflection in the gaps; and Oliver’s tortured, reverberated vocals ring over what feels like an abandoned hollow. Unlike Boggs’ biting work-out, this one is a regret-laden dirge.

Similarly, Oliver takes the familiar hymn “Pass Me Not” and, with the assistance of Sam Quinn on harmonies, turns it into as sorrowful a number as Hank Williams could have mustered. It’s high and lonesome and southern Appalachian, to be sure; but one can almost picture a blind Bartimaeus crying out to the passing Savior, as well.

These tracks show us that Josh Oliver is both a conservator and faithful interpreter of tradition. He is mining the rich seams of American folk and spiritual music, making the nuggets his own and informing his originals. It’s the emergent signature style and the discovery of one’s voice, based on deep reflection and experience, which makes this a satisfying debut to own.

The Fed Says Let the Bad Times Keep Rollin'

2011-06-23T06:30:00.004-04:00

Bottom line on the economy: we need higher interest rates, more savings, and lower prices. As one who commutes nearly 60 miles round trip per day, a gas price approaching $4.00/gallon had me sweating bullets. The price is now falling as QE2 falters. Thanks be to God. But we need incentives to save, not more stimulus.

A more thorough explanation from Christian economist Shawn Ritenour is here:

Foundations of Economics: The Fed Says Let the Bad Times Keep Rollin': "The Federal Open Market Committee announced yesterday that they will keep up record monetary stimulus after QE2 finishes. They correctly see..."

Arthur

2011-06-09T07:57:00.018-04:00

Arthur Alligood is an Americana artist who lives in White House, TN, about 30 miles north of Music City. He is married and has three daughters. Originally from Athens, GA, Alligood (pronounced alley-good) has a passion for literature, including Georgia’s own Flannery O’Connor. Like one of O’Connor’s peacocks, Arthur’s music slowly turns and reveals its brilliant golds and greens in its own time. His new album, I Have Not Seen the Wind, is as spacious and intimate as a shady mountain overlook; honest and humble without a trace of existential excess. It has its heartaches, adorned by a whining steel guitar. To quote one of its best songs, it’s a place “where the storm meets the sun.” Arthur has been there, and you’ll find yourself nodding in agreement, wanting to share it with friends near and far.

But don’t take my word for it. Christianity Today thinks this record merits attention.

Listen to the whole thing here.

Arthur just completed a two-week mini-tour, playing every night but one, from Indiana to Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, the Carolinas and back to Tennessee. One of his stops was our church, St. Jude’s Mission. I put out a call to the church and to friends on Facebook; we only managed to muster 20 for the show last Saturday evening. But Arthur was unruffled. He would rather play for five people who listen closely – as he did the first night of the tour at a house show – than to a large hall where many aren’t paying attention.

The twenty in attendance were unanimously moved by his songs. He sold several CD’s. He came home with us and played Wii with our 12 year-old son, who decided quickly that Arthur is his favorite among artists that have stayed with us. The next morning we went back to church and our pastor invited him to play a piece for the offertory (“The Master’s Side”). It was deeply moving. Those who hadn’t been there the night before were sorry to have missed it.

Our oldest son had to work Saturday night, so after Sunday lunch Arthur favored him with a mini-session from our big comfy couch.

The impressive thing about Arthur is his integrated life in God. Whether it’s being sad about setbacks and losses, or howling at jokes, or having fun with the chaps around my wife’s taco buffet, all is in God’s hands, in His time. Arthur is nearly two decades my junior, but I have a lot to learn from him. Mainly I need to learn, as apparently he has, to wait for God who, like the peacock, will spread His glory before us in His good time.

Rapture Ridicule

2011-05-20T10:26:00.002-04:00

Since "no man knows the day or the hour" (Matthew 24:36), it is highly improbable that the rapture will occur this Saturday, May 21.

Granted, the religious group that has made such a forecast has set itself up for ridicule. But I refuse to join the snickering because I suspect that underneath is a dismissal of the idea of the Lord's return in particular, if not the Christian faith altogether. But the rapture is an event described by the apostle Paul in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17. And there is nothing in the text that suggests a metaphor. In verse 17 he says the redeemed will be "caught up together" (along with resurrected saints) to meet the Lord in the air. The Greek word for "caught up" is harpazo, which means to "snatch up" in the manner of a bird of prey (raptor).

I've read objections stating that the word "rapture" does not appear in scripture. But the word is simply a latinization of harpazo. The word "trinity" likewise appears nowhere in scripture; yet the vast majority of Christians believe in the Trinity as expressed in the historic creeds because its existence can be deduced from scripture.

The rapture is an event that Paul describes in conjunction with the Second Coming of Christ -- a prophetic expectation affirmed universally by the Church. I won't go into the various eschatological theories on the sequence of prophetic events as held by learned and reputable scholars. That isn't the point. Whether the rapture is foretold at all is not debatable (regardless of how one feels about John Hagee's politics). It is plainly prophesied by the apostle.

Therefore, while I feel embarassment for those who try to predict the timing of the unpredictable, I will not scoff at the Church's blessed hope.

Looking Forward

2011-04-20T08:50:00.015-04:00

Gary North is an Austrian postmillennialist. I’m an Austrian premillenialist. That’s where our similarities end. Gary North has written over 50 books, is a sought-after conference speaker, and has made a nice sum of money over his life. I’m nothing but a lowly blogger, real estate appraiser and part-time cupbearer and reader at church.

As fellow Austrians, we agree that the current course of the U.S. economy is unsustainable. The phony, credit-driven, inflationary economy that hit high gear in the late 1960’s is winding down. There was a period of illusory prosperity during the ‘90s, but the wheels came off in 2007 with the collapse of the real estate bubble. QE2 has managed only to inflate the prices of gas, food, clothing, gold and silver (have you paid attention to my silver ticker in the lower right-hand column?). House prices are down and out. Case Schiller predicts another 20% drop-off before real estate hits bottom. The national debt has reached staggering proportions, with the central bank so despised by John Randolph, John Taylor and their tertium quid cohorts playing a leading role. Gradual default on entitlements and/or higher inflation is very likely.

Gary North is a consummate optimist. As a postmillennialist he expects an eventual collapse of the federal leviathan, brought on by the inalterable laws of economics which will set off a chain reaction of similar sovereign crises across the globe. The modern nation-state model will be discarded as freedom-hungry people look for alternatives that support civil society. The Church will emerge from obscurity and usher in another Golden Age, better than Byzantium. It will last for a thousand years, and then Christ will return.

I, too, am a consummate optimist. As a premillenialist I expect the eventual collapse of the federal leviathan, brought on by the inalterable laws of economics. In its place (or, perhaps evolving out of it) I expect a new order to emerge that is completely inimical to anything remotely related to Christ and His kingdom. It will deal with the debt and monetary crises by instituting an entirely new economy with an accounting system not based on any known, historic currency. You can peek at it between Revelation chapters 13 and 19. I am not a preterist. Christ will come again, bring down this approaching godless system, and establish His personal reign on the earth for a thousand years.

My opinion on this subject isn’t popular with probably 95% of my Anglican contemporaries; but some of the old-timers including Greek textual scholar Dean Henry Alford and Bishop J.C. Ryle agreed with the premillenial view. That “His Kingdom will have no end” isn’t at issue. That it involves a literal millennial stage before attaining its final state we can debate.

The premillennial view is helpful in allowing us to properly understand God’s purpose for creation (Romans 8:18-22). As part of the recent W.H. Griffith Thomas (who was Anglican, by the way) lecture series at Dallas Theological Seminary, Craig Blaising talked about the coming transformation of the earth in the eschaton. Of particular interest are his remarks on 2 Peter 3:10 and 12. Working from the best Greek manuscripts, he points out that the earth will not be destroyed but rather radically purged and refined by the approaching glory of Christ. “You will be either ruined by [the glory],” he said, “or received by it.”

Michael Vlach is tackling the issue by looking at the history of Christian thought on the eschaton. His latest blog post concerns the intrusion of Platonist philosophy on the church and its role in diminishing the original millennial expectation held by early fathers such as Justin Martyr and Ireneaus.

We have infinite glory to look forward to. In my view the current distresses afflicting the greatest economic and military empire in history are merely setting the stage.

The Other J.R.R.

2011-04-10T14:50:00.012-04:00

It turns out that John Taylor of Caroline doesn't hold a candle to John Randolph of Roanoke. I recently finished Russell Kirk's biography of the latter and he has become the new embodiment of every political virtue I admire.

Randolph was afflicted with some malady that left him in a perpetual state of physical adolescence. His tall, stork-like frame and high, squeaky voice would have left him a joke and the subject of coarse jesting apart from the sheer power of his oration (Kirk's book includes full texts of several of Randolph's mesmerizing speeches). From the time he entered the U.S. Congress in 1803 (temporarily booted out when he vociferously opposed the ill-conceived War of 1812; when Virginia's economy was ruined by that conflict we has swept back into office) till the end of his career as the American envoy to Russia, Randolph was the undisputed champion of strictly-limited federal government and leader of the "old republican" faction that split from Jefferson after the Yazoo scandal.

His girlish voice and slight frame notwithstanding, Randolph was fearless and once fought a duel with Kentucky politician Henry Clay, the arch-proponent of Alexander Hamilton's "American system" of corporate welfare and central banking -- the very things Randolph most despised. Randolph's thin profile saved his life as Clay's first shot narrowly missed, leaving a bullet hole in Randolph's coat. Randolph graciously fired his shot into the air, then coolly approached Clay and said, "Sir, you owe me a coat."

He once declared that it would be a good omen if the Congress met and adjourned without passing once piece of legislation. He drew a sharp distinction between change and reform, willing to entertain the latter where crisis demanded it, but absolutely opposed to the former as useless tinkering that would invariably lead to worse conditions. We know how to start governments, he lamented; but he defied anyone to know how to control them once they got started. Randolph appealed to God's ways, which in holy writ and throughout history seemed to move at a glacial pace, slowly but permanently altering courses, in contrast to the work of the Devil, always restless and hurried. Randolph dreaded westward expansion, for he foresaw that with it would come federal expansion. "No government, extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific, can be fit to govern me or the people I represent." He grew to despise the French and their radical democratic revolution, and loved English institutions (he enthusiastically identified himself as a member of the Church of England). "I am an aristocrat; I love liberty and hate equality." Randolph's conservative Christian realism stood in contrast to Jefferson's liberal Deist optimism.

The aristocratic, non-egalitarian Randolph also hated the institution of chattel slavery. It was no small irony that he, as the scion of the wealthy Virginia family, inherited a large number of slaves and farmland on the banks of the Roanoke River in Charlotte County in Virginia's southern Piedmont. Randolph was as practical as he was conservative; knowing that it was against state law (at the time) to manumit his slaves, he opted to keep them and care for them in ways that surpassed all the apostle Paul could have hoped for from Christian masters. Randolph bowed to them, gave them the best of what he could provide, refused to separate family members, and only threatened to sell an unruly hand as a means to correcting insubordinate behavior (it appears he never sold any of them). Once asked who the greatest orator was in America, Randolph confounded an inquirer by asserting that it was a slave woman he had heard as a boy pleading from the auction block. Her eloquence, he declared, was unsurpassed.

At the end of his days Randolph made provision for the freedom of his slaves and bought land for them in Ohio. Ever distrustful of the West, he was buried facing in that direction so that he "could keep an eye on [Henry] Clay and the west." He must have grieved to see his former servants mistreated and forced off their land by the neighboring whites.

Life According to Ek

2011-03-28T13:48:00.004-04:00

The New Testament word translated "church" in our English Bibles is ekklesia, from whence we get the term "ecclesiastical." The word literally means "called out assembly." The prefix of the word is the little two letter Greek preposition, ek, which means out of, from, by, away from. The church is a called out assembly. Its people are called by God's Spirit to come apart from where they were and what they were and gather to Christ, to His word, His sacraments, His fellowship. The church is, among other things, an embassy for God's kingdom, and a foretaste of what life in the age to come will be. As such it is certainly cordial and welcoming. But as it is "called out" it is also non-conforming to the broader culture around it.

I see just the opposite happening in many places. Falling over themselves to be welcoming, affirming, relevant, accessible, seeker-friendly and all the rest, many churches are becoming less and less God's ekklesia, on a track toward becoming something He didn't call into being. I'm not thinking here of style but of substance.

From the apostle Paul:

For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.

Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple. (1 Cor. 3:11-17)

Bi-polar Jefferson

2011-03-05T18:05:00.013-05:00

There were two Thomas Jeffersons. One wrote the Declaration of Independence, penned the Kentucky Resolution for interposition of states against the federal government, was cordial with the Indians, believed America should consist of numerous local (and minimal) ward-republics, and generally opposed the centralizing tendencies of the Federalist Party. The other Jefferson was a radical democrat who wanted public schooling for backcountry children, made the Louisiana Purchase, endorsed the Lewis & Clark expedition, and was favorable toward manifest destiny and westward expansion. The latter Jefferson influenced James Madison, who launched the War of 1812 -- which nearly drove New England to secede from the young union.

I've been quietly entertaining the notion of moving to the aptly named Jefferson County, TN (where my mother resides), in what Indian fighter John Sevier called "lesser Franklin." Franklin was a short-lived political unit that seceded from North Carolina after the Revolution, a grouping of counties across the Blue Ridge inhabited by the "overmountain men" that had defeated Patrick Ferguson and the Loyalists at Kings Mountain. Some of my ancestors -- Cables and Birchfields on the my dad's side -- were among those overmountain people that wanted a new political identity.

Franklin wanted to be separate from North Carolina for legitimate reasons. The terrain and culture were quite different from that down east, and representation of interests for mountaineers was poor. But there was more to Franklin than simply starting another small country. It wanted to become the 14th state.

I have been re-reading Kevin Gutzman's book Virginia's American Revolution. One of its important themes is the difference between the eastern Virginia establishment -- the decentralized, laissez faire, property rights, aristocratic part of the state -- and western Virginia, which like the ill-fated Franklin consisted primarily of backwoodsmen who crossed the Alleghenies to challenge the Indians for elbow room. These latter folk were radical democrats; and they wanted federal protection from the Natives and state-funded internal improvements (roads, canals) as they pushed westward. The two Virginia's depicted the two sides of Jefferson's character: the eastern representing the man's ideas before he became president, the western being more his commander-in-chief psyche.

East Virginian political thought was exemplified by John Randolph of Roanoke, an eccentric whose biography (by Russell Kirk) I will soon delve into. Randolph was the subject of a recent lecture I viewed on C-SPAN by Brad Birzer, history professor at Hillsdale College. Birzer outlined several major points held by the Randolphian "old republicans" or "Quids" (including John Taylor of Caroline), a group of Jeffersonians who broke from Jefferson when the more imperial side of his nature emerged during his presidency (remember what Lord Acton said about power). The Quids had no use for internal improvements or standing armies -- goodies that private property and wealth are expropriated to fund. Their attitude toward the western settlers was, "We wish you well. Go settle the land; make friends with the Indians, buy their property if they will sell it to you. But do not expect the militia or, worse, federal troops to come to your rescue if you get into trouble." The Quids were concerned not only for the welfare of the settlers and the Natives, but the extension to which "American" territory over the Appalachians would invite an expansion and strengthening of federal power.

From a Quid perspective it would have been fine for Franklin to become its own little republic, or principality under Sevier, or whatever (Franklin came and went before the Quids arose in the early 19th century). But Franklin, like western Virginia, wanted more than a little autonomy and a good luck wish. It wanted federal support. And none came -- those were the more lax days of the old Articles of Confederation. In a little more than four years the breakaway state was absorbed back into North Carolina, unable to protect itself from the Cherokees. The farther "lesser Franklin" pushed into Cherokee territory, the worse affairs went for the settlers.

I'm a descendant of both the overmountain men and the Cherokees. All things considered, however, I think the Quids had the better political argument. Today, it is not the wild west we're worried about, but the push to subsume the oil-rich portions of the globe under pax Americana. The earlier side of Jefferson still has something to say.

UPDATE:

A note from Kevin Gutzman:

Another way to put it is that people in western Virginia wanted eastern Virginians' money, and if they couldn't get that, they wanted the federal government to give them other states' money -- just as Leigh says in the last chapter of my book.

An American Lawn

2011-02-25T13:22:00.005-05:00

My two youngest chaps have gotten the giggles over our neighbor’s front yard. We lean on the couch by our big front picture window and study the sight diagonally across the street. A tall flagpole with a small golden cross atop it supports an American flag, and beneath that a yellow Gadsden (“Don’t Tread on Me”) banner. To the right is a statue of an American soldier, at night doused in floodlights.

The chaps find this display simply gaudy. I see it as an example of some very well-intentioned ideas wrapped in unintentional cognitive dissonance.

The cross, Old Glory and the Gadsden flag could not be more dissonant. The first represents a kingdom not of this world; the second, an empire beyond even Alexander Hamilton’s wildest dreams; and the latter the kind of spirit that would no longer countenance the second. The cross aside, the Star-spangled banner/Gadsden combination is as humorous to me as the American/Confederate battle flag pairings frequently seen in this part of the country. But I understand the intent. Southerners are proud of their regional identity, but equally proud to be American. Likewise, I give my neighbor the benefit of the doubt; he intends to show that “America” and the U.S. federal government are not one in the same, and the Gadsden flag is there to remind Uncle Sam that there are limits, natural and/or constitutional, to his power (especially, he might add, if the occupier of the Oval Office is a Dimmycrat).

But then there is this matter of the soldier statue. Has it not occurred to my neighbor that the soldier it represents is a government employee, one that could conceivably be used against his own people? As George Mason wrote in the Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776), a standing army is a threat to liberty. But I understand where he’s coming from. As the father and grandfather of two women in the armed forces, both stationed in Afghanistan, he supports the troops. He also wants them brought home, which is why he supported Ron Paul’s bid to become the Republican presidential nominee in 2008. Apparently a majority of soldiers were on Paul’s bandwagon as well.

But his tone has changed some in the three years since. He has become more pragmatic. It’s more about getting Obama out of the Oval Office than Ron Paul in. “He ain’t purty enough,” he says of Paul, “and he ain’t a good enough public speaker to get nominated.” I understand those sentiments. “I don’t know,” he continues, “maybe that Romney can do somethin’.”

And that is beyond the limit of my understanding.

"Fair" For Some

2011-02-19T15:13:00.009-05:00

Just before Christmas St. Jude's Mission, along with other Anglican Mission churches, was asked to contribute to a "miracle" that would save a "fair trade" coffee operation in a certain East African country. I think the total amount this enterprise was seeking to raise was around $100,000. Apparently, if the business didn't raise this money it was going to default on a loan for a wash facility. So I asked myself, what kind of operation has to beg churches for a hundred grand in order to remain viable?

"Fair trade" coffee is an emotional subject because the people that support it do so passionately. And I am quite fine with that -- as long as it is clearly understood that "fair trade" amounts to a subsidy of a business based on supra-market prices. Furthermore, fair trade patrons ought to acknowledge the unintended consequences that attend this cause.

The term "fair trade" insinuates that there exists "unfair trade," i.e. free-market failure. Actually, we must understand that free markets are really few and far between. Yard sales (without a permit), flea markets and the like qualify as truly free markets. Coffee, like real estate and most other products, involves a regulated market. And no doubt certain Third World producers are jilted thanks to government regulation, corruption and patronage at some level.

But a price floor of $1.26/lb as stipulated under the provisions of fair trade licensure is its own kind of market distortion. A price floor, like a minimum wage or an agricultural subsidy, creates excess supply of the good in question. And excess supply means that marginal producers, e.g. some Third World farmers, are excluded from the coffee market. Therefore, this "good cause" is actually unfair to those farmers not a party to contracts held by the plantations. Just as a minimum wage creates the unintended consequence of higher unemployment among youth and lower-skilled workers, so the fair trade price floor results in the unemployment of some Third World farmers.

To point this out to some fair trade coffee drinkers is akin to insulting their mothers or questioning their religious convictions. So it goes on most economic questions. That people voluntarily choose to pay a higher price in support of their favorite Third World coffee plantation is perfectly their prerogative.

But it rubs me wrong when a church -- especially one as small and vulnerable as SJM -- is asked to shell out a goodly sum to bail out an enterprise that obviously isn't holding its own. There is nothing particularly "fair" or just about that in my reckoning.

A Fond Reflection

2011-01-02T13:18:00.003-05:00

Frankly, 2010 was not a good year for me. At work I watched the appraisers under my charge struggle to heed my caution that the real estate market was going to continue its downward trend, and that the tax credits provided by the Federal government would succeed in only moving future purchases into the present. Sure enough, in the last two quarters of the year prices have fallen dramatically. Now they are scrambling to adjust their value opinions. Call me Cassandra.

2010 was a costly year. A kitchen renovation for our home went over budget. Our air conditioning compressor died twice during record-setting triple digit heat this summer. In June I received word that I was going to lose the use of a fleet vehicle for work. At the time we were a one-car household.

The thing I will remember most about 2010 was laying my uncle Wallace Layman to rest at the end of the long, hot summer. Wallace is my mother's sister's husband, and the grandfather of Ben Howard of Standing Small, the indie Christian band whose record I mentioned in an earlier post.

For Wallace it was sufficient that Jesus is the Son of God and Savior of the world. He was not given to doctrinal debate. He was a remarkably quiet and gentle man, the scion of a family of German settlers who migrated down the Great Valley into East Tennessee in the late 18th century. They were farmers who cultivated a large tract of acreage north of Sevierville in the little community of Harrisburg Mill. Their property occupied a hill that overlooked Murphy's Chapel, a white frame Methodist church nestled against the Little Pigeon River. Wallace quietly attended that church during his youth and again in the later years of his life. He said little but was faithful to give a word of encouragement to his pastor, recounting something meaningful that he had gotten from the Sunday sermon.

Wallace retired after a long career at Alcoa Corp. in nearby Maryville. But his heart was connected to the land and to the memories of his farmhand boyhood. In his garage were kept relics of his agrarian past, including a harness and the first saddle he ever rode upon.

The last living heir of his family, he inherited the land which had gone out of production, and began selling off parcels for an upscale subdivision development. It was aptly named "Windswept," with a view of Murphy's Chapel and the hazy, purple Smoky Mountains off to the south and English Mountain to the east. Wallace and my aunt kept a parcel with a large but plain ranch house at the crest of the development.

His Christianity wasn't one of words but of deeds. He was probably the most generous person I have personally known. Like Elvis Presley, Wallace had a penchant for gifting people with automobiles. Unlike the King of Rock n' Roll, Wallace was careful to give them to people in need, and to do it discreetly.

Hence, we were floored when, in June of this year, he phoned to say that he wanted to give our 16 year-old, who had been saving up, his first set of wheels. Then, when he understood my plight at work, he decided to give me a commuter car as well. When we went to pick up the vehicles over the sweltering July 4 holiday, he seemed to be aware that his days were numbered. He was possessed of a great sense of urgency in taking car of our transportation needs, saying, "I won't be around to help these other young'uns, so take care of these and pass 'em on."

A few weeks later he suffered a massive heartattack. I got to see him in the hospital. Then he passed on.

I was glad to be one of his pallbearers as he was laid to rest at Murphy's Chapel, within view of his peaceful home.

This past weekend, during the New Year celebration, my younger son reflected on how totally cool it was that Wallace had lived a long life and then was buried in front of his church, so close to his own land.

Yes, he mused, that was a perfect way to close this leg of the journey.

A Thousand Years

2010-12-20T06:15:00.002-05:00

Each morning I begin my day with the lectionary readings and devotional commentary from Rev. Mike Michie, rector of St. Andrew Episcopal Church in McKinney, Texas. Mike is a biblically orthodox minister of the Word. Here are his thoughts from one of the morning readings for December 20, 2010:

I'm going to be brave and attempt to help you with our reading from Revelation today! We'll be reading all week about the hope of the Second Coming of Christ. Just as we prepare for His coming at Christmas, so should we prepare for His coming again. The message of Revelation, however you interpret it, is that Jesus is coming again to make things right. Heaven and earth will be redeemed, and sin and Satan will be judged. I think the best way to interpret Revelation is just to simply understand what it says, not to try and manipulate the text to make ourselves more comfortable. With that, let's take a look!

A lot happens in our reading today. Satan is bound, the first-risen saints reign with Christ for 1000 years, Satan is loosed and gathers the nations around his cause, and he is finally thrown into the lake of fire for eternity. Satan is first placed in a bottomless pit... Now, he gets a 1,000 year taste of his own medicine (v. 1). It is interesting to trace the activity of Satan through Scripture. From the beginning, he's been a deceiver. No doubt, he had thought he'd won the day several times! At the fall and at the crucifixion, things looked a little bleak. In Revelation, we see his final efforts sunk into the Antichrist figure and this great final battle. And just like before, it doesn't work. This 1,000 period is a time where Christ will reign with a group of resurrected saints who have been martyred. It also is a preview of Satan's final judgment in the lake of fire (v. 3).

The first resurrection (v. 4) is for those believers who were martyred and had persevered during the period of the Antichrist. It is quite a picture that verse 5 paints for us: Christ and His saints ruling the earth in an unprecedented time of peace! These resurrected saints will be much like Jesus, now that He has risen again (v. 5). They have risen never to die again!

After Satan is let out, he goes out all over the earth in one last ditch effort to fight against God (v. 6-7). (For more on Gog and Magog, see Ezekiel 38-39.) The end comes abruptly. The "beloved city" is, of course, Jerusalem (v. 9). God separates, once and for all, evil from righteousness. Satan's punishment is severe and eternal (v. 10).

Besides Daniel

2010-12-17T11:59:00.003-05:00

Happy accident. Or divine providence. I stumbled upon the band Besides Daniel while looking at a review of Standing Small’s Asleep At the Oars… on the Blue Indian web site. In a corner of the page was a video of Danny Brewer and Molly Parden performing at a small club in their native Georgia. Intrigued, I looked them up on Youtube and discovered a knockout cover of Big Star’s ”Watch the Sunrise.”

Then I found Besides Daniel (Brewer’s band) and its video for ”The Field.” It rolls through my mind every time I visit the graveyard above my mom’s house in East Tennessee. It convinced me that Brewer is what my wife calls an “old soul.” The ancients know his type.

I’ve listened to every Besides Daniel song my computer can snag from cyberspace. This music moves in every direction while remaining nominally “folk” (and dodging that dull appellation, “Americana”). Every syllable Brewer sings, every note played is worth listening to. Standing Small’s Ryan Fletcher put it best: “From the first couple of notes and the first line of lyrics, Danny draws you in.” I’ll confine my thoughts to just three of Beside Daniel’s lesser known songs – three that are radically diverse in style from one another – to infer just some of the breadth of their work.

“Ignatius” is named for the bishop of Antioch who was carried to Rome in a cage and fed to the lions around 108 A.D. This taut, up-tempo piece combines driving layers of acoustic guitar and dense harmonies in a style that glances early ‘70s British prog. Lyrically, it juxtaposes incisive images from the mundane with the thoughts of the determined martyr: a homeless person looking to sell cigarette butts to a convenience store, a varmint ravaging a garbage can, and a man who has grown too large for his clothes. These elements are swept along by the ardor of Ignatius’ desire to be “ground by the teeth of beasts / made into flour or more / baked into bread for my Love to eat.” The song suggests that the sheer enormity of Christ’s death and resurrection – which the martyr longs to share – infuse meaning into the seemingly random events of everyday life. Among Brewer’s gifts is the ability to report what he sees with clarity, but free of premature judgment. A rare quality, indeed.

“car, duck, train, bird” is a devastating, funereal dirge. The one repeated phrase in the cut-and-paste soundscape is simply:

What were we thinking (of), me and you?
I thought better of love than this

The words merely frame the drama within the sounds: a glib female voice repeating “car, duck, train bird,” a descending, reverberating piano line, distorted accordion, and an overdriven electric guitar. Ringing over the first half of the piece is a Glockenspiel. Halfway through the track the tension reaches its apogee: the female voice and Glockenspiel give way to an electronic bleep. Brewer’s voice becomes manipulated and distorted. It’s an experience akin to not being able to take your eyes off a terrible accident: the spellbinding soundtrack of a relationship destroyed – or of Adam and Eve driven from the Garden.

And finally, “Lake Michigan.” Here, Brewer’s voice and guitar could easily be mistaken for a young David Gilmour, especially when he strkes G major in the refrain. Here, a week before Christmas, a young man is on the run (though not very far) from an abusive guardian, on a drinking and driving binge in an “old orange car….as big as a satellite.”

You wouldn't know it now
If you did, you would blow it down
Yeah, your anger, it would shake the ground
As it is you don't make a sound

Circumstances, including the weather, seem to conspire against him, until finally,

It happened so quickly
You lost control of your car
You lay looking up at the stars
Wondering how far they are
You closed your eyes
You took your last breath...

But this is never quite the end. In Brewer’s reckoning there is a providential love deeper than Lake Michigan:

And now here you are
Here on my front step
Son, welcome home

Grace. No matter where it roams, Besides Daniel’s music is surrounded by a grace that draws you in. So I keep listening...

Promise and Power

2010-11-29T11:24:00.006-05:00

For the first Sunday of Advent our pastor Clay Thompson launched into a study of the Lord Jesus’ human genealogy as recorded in Matthew chapter 1. “The son of David, the son of Abraham.” This amounted to one of the best sermons Clay has delivered. His theme was, “the coming of Christ frees us from the fear of what we are in the flesh.” There is nothing quite like the holiday season to remind us of the sin and dysfunction that exists in our families. Tackling this subject headlong, Clay pointed out - beginning with Abraham and the story of Ishmael’s conception - that the genealogy of the Lord is strewn with human frailty and sin.

That line of frailty did not thwart the Redeemer. In His coming Christ redeems all that came before Him; for us He redeems all that comes after. There is no situation, no predisposition, nothing inbred that is too hard for Him. As Clay pointed out, the apostle Paul came to this conclusion at the end of Romans 7, an experience that brought him to the end of himself, his religion, his ancestry. The redemption of the body to come in Christ releases him from the fear of his own body of death.

C.E.B. Cranfield would add that Romans 7 is the experience of the believer this side of the redemption of the body. The more mature the believer, the more he feels the anguish of “what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do” (NKJV). There is now no deliverance from the present condition. There is, however, the joy of knowing that Christ will deliver us from this body of death (7:24-25). “The joy of the LORD is your strength.” Moreover, there is power from on high. As Cranfield puts it, the believer is given power to “rebel” against the flesh. This we do, day in and day out, as the Holy Spirit animates us to study the Scriptures, to pray, to share the Gospel, and to do the good works the Father has placed before us.

Clay made the point that Abraham’s faith was entirely in response to God’s promise and power. “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted unto him for righteousness.” There was no merit in Abraham’s faith per se; rather, it laid hold of God’s specific promise. In the weakness of his own wisdom he acquiesced to Sarai’s suggestion to conceive through Hagar. But Abraham’s confidence, his faith, was strengthened by God’s demonstration of power at various critical junctures in his life, particularly through the miraculous birth of Isaac: “[not considering] his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah’s womb” (Rom. 4:19). By the time he came to the foot of Mt. Moriah, Abraham’s faith had come to maturity by God’s exercises.

It is confidence in the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things which did not formerly exist that sustains and empowers the believer through this life. The coming of Christ frees us from the fear of what we are, left to ourselves.

Advent

2010-11-28T15:18:00.003-05:00

This table was made in Jackson, Tennessee over a hundred years ago. It was used for many decades in a church in Sledge, Mississippi. It found a new home at St. Jude's Mission, Huntersville, NC, on the first Sunday of Advent, 2010.

Confirmation Day

2010-11-19T13:44:00.006-05:00

To quote a favorite song from a favorite band, “this is my confirmation day.” Actually, it’s confirmation day for my entire family. This evening we will gather with other confirmands from our regional AMiA network and be formally received by Bishop Terrell Glenn with the laying on of hands.

This is a pretty dramatic step for a family whose Christian background has been outside the historic, creedal Church. But weary of a postmodern culture that no longer tangibly marks and celebrates anything, we felt this was the logical culmination of nearly five years of patient exploration of the Anglican tradition.

We just completed 12 weeks of study as confirmands at our little mission in Huntersville. Our pastor brought the study and examination to a climax this past Wednesday evening when he asked each of us to recount our experience of personal faith in the faith once delivered to the saints. There were no rehearsals. I was as eager to hear what my children had to say as he was. They were beautifully awkward and perfectly sincere. I pray they stay on the path.

What will be exceptionally precious this evening is that the former Episcopal minister who baptized our two youngest will also be there with confirmands from his fledgling mission in nearby Kannapolis. It will be good to see him again and talk about our journeys.

Happy as this time will be, it’s a stretch to say all is well within our network. Rumor has that three of the missions may soon be shutting down. The AMiA takes a Wild West approach to missions, each minister/evangelist sent into the by-ways as a lone prospector with a little grant money and not much else. Liturgical worship and hierarchical structure are hard sells in a culture hip to minimalism – and some of the AMiA missions have conformed to the culture. And frankly, this will be the first time we have laid eyes on Bishop Glenn, who is stretched thin.

But we’ve struck a nice balance at St. Jude’s. We have a pastor who wears the collar and a down vest when the heat isn’t working. It remains a place where old guys in neckties and young hipsters in jeans mingle seamlessly. And we’re glad to finally make a public, commemorative stand with our brethren.

Taking His Name in Vain

2010-11-18T10:33:00.004-05:00

It is habitual in my workplace to hear the name of “Jesus” shouted in anger. Two hands aren’t sufficient to count the number of times this occurs on a daily basis. I can assure you that those who say it aren’t calling for his help. It has become standard of postmodern, post-Christian vernacular.

The great irony here is that I work in an environment that is extremely politically correct, culture-sensitive, and “diverse” (whatever that means). I’m fairly certain that if I went about yelling “&%@#! Muhammed” or “&^*#@! Buddha” or “&$#@%! atheists!” I would be canned – or carted off for psychological evaluation before being canned.

Let me insert that I would never want the government to outlaw the public screaming of Jesus’ name in anger. The Lord does not need the state to protect Him or His followers. Over the centuries His followers have been corrupted by state power and privilege. However, I do believe in common decency and decorum; so I find the naked hypocrisy of my office, as in other public places in America, pitifully embarrassing.

That said, I think I better understand the “filling up of sufferings” that Paul wrote about. To this day, Jesus continues to “turn the other cheek” to those that mock him and take his name in vain. His followers have to bear along with this.

Paul also said that at the name of Jesus, “every knee shall bow…and every tongue confess that [He] is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

That day hasn’t yet come. When it does, it will be to the “shock and awe” of every human being, each of whom will give account for every idle word.

“Lost in the fog of war-related thought is the concrete, unique, individual person.” – Robert Higgs

2010-11-11T09:55:00.000-05:00

From Old Hop to Hans Hoppe and Back Again

2010-10-25T12:31:00.019-04:00

If John Taylor of Caroline had had his way America would have been busted up into hundreds if not thousands of little autonomous communities that traded freely and shared militia for the common defense, but would have remained otherwise self-governed. This vision approaches Hans-Herman Hoppe’s ideal of “natural orders,” i.e., privately-run communities with their own rules.

In his book Democracy – The God that Failed Hoppe argues for natural orders, but along the way makes a compelling case that monarchy is a lesser evil than democracy. Using the principle of time preference, he reasons that a king – as the absolute “owner” of a country – has a lower time preference than democratically-elected officials, who amount to temporary caretakers. The king has a greater incentive to preserve the capital well-being of his country since it passes to his heirs. Democratic rulers have an incentive to expropriate as much wealth from their country as possible since they pass it to no one. Equally perverse, democracy devolves into mob rule when officials pander to constituents aspiring to benefit from the state’s redistributive powers. These clients are typically located at opposite ends of the spectrum – the weakest and the wealthiest. The productive classes are crushed until the state collapses upon itself – an end that has befallen many democratic societies in history (including socialist states), giving empirical warrant to Hoppe’s theory. To his credit, Taylor of Caroline foresaw this parasitic fate awaiting the United States over a hundred and fifty years before Hoppe wrote.

Perhaps the best empirical example of Hoppe’s monarchy-superior-to-democracy argument is the case of Liechtenstein. Granted, the little principality has all of 35,000 inhabitants; but if nothing else it demonstrates some of the political virtue of the old, free city-state concept that flourished in the early Renaissance period. Prince Hans-Adam II demanded, on threat of resigning his rule, that each district within the principality be granted the right to secede. In turn, his subjects voted to give him sweeping monarchical powers. The “overseers” caught in the middle of this symbiotic relationship are the 25 members of the Liechtenstein parliament. To wit, those that would ordinarily have expropriative power have been largely defanged by the prince and his subjects.

In a similar way, Old Hop of Chota “ruled” over the mid-18th century Cherokees. Politically, Cherokee society was as “bottom up” as they come. No individual could be coerced into doing anything against his will. Each town council consisted of everyone who cared to participate (“direct democracy”); decisions could not be reached without complete consensus (no simple majorities). Town elders – literally the old guys, along with a prominent older woman – represented the town at larger tribal councils. But the uku (“fire-keeper”) was there to personify tradition and give advice. People bowed to his recommendations out of respect for his age, wisdom, and tribal tradition; but ultimately any individual or town could choose to go against his counsel – as was disastrously the case when Great Tellico ignored Old Hop and launched an ill-fated attack on the British.

Economics and diplomacy aside, the Cherokee example is proto-typical of Taylor’s insight and Hoppe’s analysis. In the end I suppose my political philosophy has settled upon “anarcho-monarchism” – not in the silly sense of Salvador Dali, but in accord with the measured sensibilities of J.R.R. Tolkien. Ultimately, we are under One King (Philippians 2:9-11), and that ought to give faithful people pause from giving unqualified allegiance to the modern (mob rule) messianic state.

Broken Wheel

2010-10-11T08:41:00.005-04:00

Back in August I took my 10 year old daughter with me to the pharmacy. While she “shopped” I went to the blood pressure machine to check my reading. It registered 150 over 100. Deadly. Heart disease runs in my family, but now I feared an imminent stroke. I made some immediate dietary changes and began a more aggressive exercise regimen. I started running again, going out at 5:00 each morning to run a mile then walk briskly for two. I carried this on for two weeks – the exertion coupled with eating right dropped my blood pressure dramatically and also some pounds, and mentally I was feeling great. And I was preparing to increase my running distance.

Then, on the morning of October 1st I moved to the left hand side of the road to avoid on on-coming car. The outside of my left foot caught the dip between the asphalt and concrete. A few more strides later the tendon attached to the base of the fifth metatarsal ripped the bone away. I’m now in the dreaded “boot” for three to seven weeks. Exercise has been reduced to slowly climbing stairs at work and doing lots of push up’s and sit up’s. I don’t have access to an elliptical machine. Meanwhile, I melancholically watch as my left calf slowly atrophies. It will be much longer than seven weeks before I walk briskly again, let alone run. I need PT or patience.

But I continue to watch markets and read history. Not reading too much theology right now apart from Griffith Thomas’ devotional work. More thoughts from Cranfield’s commentary will come later, though I’ve seen the peril of lifting quotes without capturing their complete context.

Anyone who has followed my blogs for any length has noticed my peculiar affinity for the work of Joseph Stromberg, an independent historian living in north Georgia. He recently completed a long-awaited magnum opus on the thought of another of my fixations, John Taylor of Caroline, to me the most brilliant political thinker in American history: a jeremiad prophet with a keen insight into the system of patronage and privilege latent within the Constitution. His stress on radical decentralization and local autonomy makes him a forerunner of Hans-Hermann Hoppe, author of Democracy: The God that Failed. Stromberg detects in Taylor a foreshadowing of Public Choice theory and proto-Austrian economic understanding.

Speaking of Austrians, our old friend Gary North of the inflationist camp has come up with a startling piece on Ben Bernanke’s recent speech to the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council. In a dramatic turn, North finds in Bernanke’s talk a prophecy that the Fed will not pursue hyperinflation. Interest rates must rise, which, if allowed to follow course, will mean the ultimate default of the U.S. government – unless (ominously) the Fed is taken over by Congress. We’ll see. There are not a few of us who agree with the late Murray Rothbard that the best course would be for the Federal government to default on its debt and sell off its assets.

Short of that end (or perhaps toward it), Ron Paul has an optimistic view that the irreversible laws of economics will eventually bring an end to the “empire as a way of life” that Taylor of Caroline tirelessly preached against.

The Anatomy of Inflation

2010-09-28T08:01:00.003-04:00

From LewRockwell.com:

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, who backed Bernanke shamelessly, is now ashamed. It’s time to end the Fed, he says — if there’s any time left.

Excerpts:

“I apologise to readers around the world for having defended the emergency stimulus policies of the US Federal Reserve, and for arguing like an imbecile naif that the Fed would not succumb to drug addiction, political abuse, and mad intoxicated debauchery, once it began taking its first shots of quantitative easing.

“Ben Bernanke has not only refused to abandon his idee fixe of an “inflation target”, a key cause of the global central banking catastrophe of the last twenty years (because it can and did allow asset booms to run amok, and let credit levels reach dangerous extremes).

“Worse still, he seems determined to print trillions of emergency stimulus without commensurate emergency justification to test his Princeton theories, which by the way are as old as the hills. Keynes ridiculed the “tyranny of the general price level” in the early 1930s, and quite rightly so. Bernanke is reviving a doctrine that was already shown to be bunk eighty years ago.

“So all those hillsmen in Idaho, with their Colt 45s and boxes of Krugerrands, who sent furious emails to the Telegraph accusing me of defending a hyperinflating establishment cabal, were right all along. The Fed is indeed out of control.”

...and from Steve Saville:

An article entitled "How Hyperinflation Will Happen" has garnered a lot of attention. According to this article:

"...hyperinflation is not an extension or amplification of inflation. Inflation and hyperinflation are two very distinct animals. They look the same -- because in both cases, the currency loses its purchasing power -- but they are not the same.

Inflation is when the economy overheats: It's when an economy's consumables (labor and commodities) are so in-demand because of economic growth, coupled with an expansionist credit environment, that the consumables rise in price. This forces all goods and services to rise in price as well, so that producers can keep up with costs. It is essentially a demand-driven phenomena.

Hyperinflation is the loss of faith in the currency. Prices rise in a hyperinflationary environment just like in an inflationary environment, but they rise not because people want more money for their labor or for commodities, but because people are trying to get out of the currency. It's not that they want more money -- they want less of the currency: So they will pay anything for a good which is not the currency."

Except for the part about hyperinflation encompassing a loss of faith in the currency, the above is almost completely wrong. In particular, economies don't "overheat", economic growth causes prices to fall rather than rise, and hyperinflation is very much an extension of inflation. The author of the article doesn't even mention money-supply growth. Trying to explain inflation or hyperinflation without reference to growth in the money supply is like trying to explain why the moon orbits the Earth without reference to gravity.

All historical episodes of hyperinflation that we know of -- and we know of many -- have been step-by-step processes set in motion by, and sustained by, increases in the supply of money. After the supply of money grows at a rapid rate for a period of at least a few years, some people conclude that the inflation will be endless. These people act today in anticipation of tomorrow's money-supply-induced price rises. As time goes by, more and more people come to the realisation that the inflation will most likely be endless and begin to act (meaning: buy stuff immediately) in anticipation of future price rises, which eventually leads to the situation where prices are rising much faster than the supply of money.

At this point it would still be possible for the central bank to clamp down on the inflationary trend by stopping, or even just slowing, the expansion of the money supply, because rapidly rising prices throughout the economy would result in a money shortage unless the supply of money were given a substantial boost. At the same time, however, the central bank could be under considerable political pressure to accelerate the monetary expansion given that doing otherwise would lead to extreme short-term economic pain. This, in effect, is what happened in Germany during the early-1920s: at every step along the multi-year path from inflation to hyperinflation to the complete collapse of the currency it was deemed by the central bank to be less economically damaging to maintain or accelerate the inflation than to suddenly bring it to an end.

The point we are trying to make is that hyperinflation doesn't just happen 'out of the blue' one day when nobody expects it. Instead, it requires persistently high money-supply growth and evolves over many years due to a gradual increase in the awareness of the population. It is part of a PROCESS and definitely is an extension of inflation, but most episodes of inflation don't lead to hyperinflation because the authorities stop the monetary expansion before it's too late.

Lastly, it should be noted that while most episodes of inflation don't extend to the point where the economy experiences hyperinflation, all paper currencies eventually get inflated to oblivion. The reason is that circumstances finally arise whereby the most politically expedient move is to risk hyperinflation by continuing the monetary inflation way beyond 'normal' limits. In this regard, today's paper currencies won't be exceptions.

Steve Saville

http://www.speculative-investor.com/

Cranfield on Romans 1:17

2010-09-14T08:17:00.001-04:00

…to take ‘God’s righteousness’ as referring to the righteous status given by God agrees better with the structure of the argument of the epistle, in which 1.18-4.25 expounds the words ‘he who is righteous by faith’ and 5.1-8.39 the promise that the man who is righteous by faith ‘shall live’. If 2.13; 3.20;, 28; 4.2, 13; 5.1, 9, 19, are examined carefully, it will be seen that it is on the status resulting from God’s action and on the men on whom the status is conferred rather than on the actual actions of God that attention is focused.

The sense of the whole sentence, as we understand it, may be set out as follows: For in it (that is, in the gospel as it is being preached) a righteous status before God which is God’s gift is being revealed (and so offered to men), a righteous status which is altogether by faith. …by revealing and making available precisely this gift of a status of righteousness before Himself God is indeed acting mightily to save.

As used by [Paul], ‘faith’ has the same sense as it has in the earlier part of v. 17 and ‘shall live’ refers, not to political survival, but to the life of God, which alone is true life, the life which the believer begins to enjoy here and now, and will enjoy in its fullness hereafter.

Why Do They Hate Us?

2010-09-11T16:03:00.004-04:00

Jim Cox on the high costs of ignoring advice from George Washington’s farewell address.

President Obama in warning against the Florida pastor’s plan to burn the Koran stated,

"This is a recruitment bonanza for al Qaeda. You could have serious violence in places like Pakistan or Afghanistan. This could increase the recruitment of individuals who would be willing to blow themselves up in American cities or European cities."

It’s funny how Obama (or his predecessor) never cited past American government policies as being a recruitment bonanza for al Qaeda. Only a handful of misguided activists at the Florida church using their own property and their privately acquired copies of the Koran have such an effect in the President’s view.

Here is a partial list of the past as well as some on-going American foreign policy interventions that – by official standards – have had no influence in empowering al Qaeda:

1. The combined British/American overthrow of the democratically elected head of state in Iran in 1953, replacing him with the hated Shah and his secret police who the U.S. trained to murder thousands of Iranians.

2. In 1987 the U.S. militarily supported Saddam Hussein in the Iraqi war with Iran.

3. In 1988 the U.S. ship Vincennes, stationed in the Persian Gulf, shot down a commercial jetliner, killing 290 Iranian civilians.

4. After the Gulf War, the U.S. led an embargo against Iraq, allowing no humanitarian or medical aid. The results, according to UN estimates: 10,000 Iraqi deaths per month with the toll including more than 300,000 children. Then Secretary of State Madeleine Albright when asked said it was "worth it." Albright never retracted her statement nor was it ever repudiated by an American president.

5. In 1998 President Clinton bombed an aspirin factory in Sudan. A number of totally innocent civilians were killed.

6. European armies, rather than native peoples, drew many of the borders in North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and southwest Asia.

7. The Saudi government, the Kuwaiti government, and the Afghani government are actively supported with foreign aid by the U.S. despite the fact that they routinely oppress their people.

8. The war in Iraq since 2003 that has resulted in a minimum of 97,000 civilian deaths as well as the displacement of more than a million civilians.

9. The war in Afghanistan since 2001 that has resulted in a minimum of 6,000 civilian deaths.

10. Predator strikes in Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan.

But, again according to the official bi-partisan view, none of these actions have caused blowback against Americans or Europeans.

Finally, we know what the CIA meant when it coined the term "blowback" – hostility over Koran burning. Also, we now know what Noam Chomsky, 9-11; Rick Maybury, The Thousand Year War; Robin Wright, Sacred Rage; and Chalmers Johnson, Blowback must have had in mind when the penned their works.

It’s refreshing to know that Koran burning is the provocation that incites the Islamic world and is the only thing we have to end to protect Americans from more terrorism – our imperialistic foreign policy, now under Barack Obama, can continue without any consequence whatsoever.

Jim Cox is a professor of economics and is the author of The Concise Guide to Economics and Minimum Wage, Maximum Damage.

Copyright © 2010 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.

The Babel Syndrome

2010-09-08T09:43:00.005-04:00

The judgment at the tower of Babel did not snuff out mankind’s instinct to embark on similar kinds of venture. Daniel saw four beasts rising out of the sea, each representing a major empire: Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome. In Revelation 13 an apocalyptic beast rises out of the sea. Many commentators have agreed that “the sea” represents the masses of humanity. We might say that these beasts arise by the consent (or desire) of the masses. Israel tossed aside God’s direct, personal rule in order to have a king like the nations around it. The people democratically clamored for a monarch, and they got Saul for their just deserts.

It seems that fallen man has a proclivity toward a certain kind of idolatry that objectifies his thirst for control. Insidiously it comes under the guise of social cooperation. “Together we can achieve great things.” Invariably one man or a small cadre rises to the top; but these epitomize the desires of the masses. Man lives vicariously through power-brokers. So it is here in these United States. The two major political parties have their visions of order and collective welfare. The one of the Left is overtly socialistic and redistributive. It thrives by drawing innumerable clients from among the masses into its franchise. The one on the Right is more subtle: it appeals to the notion of individual rights, but rides populist sentiment to strengthen control over a corporate state bent on global domination. The Tea Partiers are increasingly falling for the latter form, hook, line and sinker. The lure of “national greatness” is irresistible. Upholding a common language, glorying in military prowess, waving the flag, etc. are powerful galvanizers.

Societal greatness, however, is comprised of the day-to-day small things. Being faithful to one’s church, doing the right thing when no one is looking, helping one’s neighbor, and fostering a productive environment all make for quality living. These things happen all the time, but they don’t seem to be enough. Paul’s words are lost on society at large: “…I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.”

And so we fall, again and again, into the Babel syndrome. Hans-Hermann Hoppe is quite right: democracy is the god that failed. It has failed, is failing, and will fail.

Glenn Beck Nation

2010-08-31T09:02:00.000-04:00

Russell Moore on demagoguery writ large...

God, the Gospel, and Glenn Beck

Cranfield on Romans 1:16

2010-08-30T08:36:00.001-04:00

It is impossible for me to write a competent summary of Charles Cranfield’s thoughts on Paul’s letter to the Romans for a couple of reasons. First, Cranfield is such a reputable scholar of New Testament Greek (now retired from the University of Durham, England) that I should simply quote him. Second, I am too busy at work to formulate my own thoughts; and even if I had the time I would do him no justice. I discovered Cranfield while listening to an interview with Simon Gathercole and Peter J. Williams – both scholars at Cambridge – on Paul and other biblical issues. Gathercole cited Cranfield’s Shorter Commentary on Romans as essential reading for undergrads lacking knowledge of the original language. So, I read it. And beginning here I will share selected excerpts from this acclaimed work:

On Romans 1:16

In Paul’s letters ‘save’ and ‘salvation’ refer primarily to God’s future, to what begins with Christ’s coming in glory, His Second Coming, as it is often called… What may be called the negative content of salvation is indicated in 5.9: it is salvation from the final manifestation of the wrath of God… But there is also a positive content. It is the restoration of the glory which sinful men lack (compare 3.23).

What Paul is saying here, then, is that the gospel is God’s effective power active in the world of men to bring about deliverance from His wrath in the final judgment and reinstatement of that glory of God which has been lost through sin – that is a future salvation which reflects its splendour back into the present of those who are to share in it. The gospel, the message of good news, is this by virtue of its content, its subject, namely Jesus Christ. It is He Himself who is its effectiveness.

For all who respond with faith the gospel is effective to salvation. It is important here to note that the faith which is spoken of is not something existing independently of the gospel. It is not a qualification which some men already possess in themselves before the gospel meets them. It only comes into being as response to the gospel… And it is not – as man’s response to the gospel – a contribution from his side which, by fulfilling a condition laid down by God, enables the gospel to be saving. In that case, faith would be, in the last resort, a meritorious work; but it is of the very essence of faith, as Paul understands it, that it is opposed to all human deserving, all human establishing of claims on God. Faith is the openness to the gospel which God Himself creates. He not only directs the message to the hearer, but also Himself lays open the hearer’s heart to the message.

Downhill

2010-08-19T11:27:00.015-04:00

Yesterday was a feast day on the Episcopal church calendar to the memory of William Porcher DuBose (1836-1918), “a serious candidate for the title of ‘greatest theologian that the Episcopal Church in the USA has produced.’” That isn’t saying much. Anglican Christianity is short on notable, solidly orthodox theologians. The best ones I’m aware of are low-church evangelicals: W.H. Griffith Thomas, John R.W. Stott, and J.I. Packer – all of them British. N.T. Wright is a formidable biblical scholar, but a suspect theologian (and bad commentator on economic issues) in my opinion.

As for William Porcher (por SHAY) DuBose, I was hoping this Citadel cadet, Confederate army chaplain, and Sewanee teacher would turn out to be a pillar of orthodox faith. I spent some time looking over his autobiographical Turning Points in My Life for clues on his doctrine, and came upon this:

God's ways are riot easy, He did not spare His own Son, and He does not spare any that are His sons; but some of us live long enough to know that His ways are better than our ways, and that He never fails to help those whom He brings up in His steadfast fear and love. I cannot see where God ever promises to change natural things or natural sequences for us. I do see where He promises that in them all and through them all we shall be more than conquerors. To St. Paul's prayer to take away, the answer was, My grace shall be sufficient for you. Our Lord did not wait for that answer: He preferred for Himself God's will and way as eternally and essentially best. “Not as I will, but as Thou wilt.” I may not see how God in a uniform course of nature can provide what is best for each soul in each case any more than I can understand that I myself am free in such a sequence of nature. But what actually is, is – whether it be possible or no. There are more things than we think that we accept simply upon that ground.

I like that expression, “riot easy.” The statement is quite sagacious so far as it goes. DuBose knew something of what he was writing, having passed through the War of 1861-65, Reconstruction, and the loss of all personal fortune. When he was out-voted for the bishopric of South Carolina he saw it as a divinely-appointed “escape.” He was more suited to the classroom, and was thereafter on the mountain at Sewanee, TN.

DuBose’s theology hinges on subjective practicality. A faith that does not transform the believer is no faith at all. Experiential faith is lived out within the community of the Church. DuBose adhered to Luther’s notion that all of life is an out-working of what is depicted in baptism. What God objectively offers the believer in baptism is to be put into practical effect over the course of life. DuBose did not believe it possible for an individual to embrace every jot and tittle of the historic creeds at one moment. A person might recite the creeds within the Church community, but would need to grow in the experience of spiritual reality over the span of his life in order to grasp the deeper realities latent within them. And what if the person never embraces these statements? DuBose doesn’t say. What he does reveal, however, is that his own conversion experience had little if anything to do with repentance or awareness of God’s wrath. Such awareness, he believed, comes later, when one realizes that one’s best life is not being lived. In other words, sin is a failure to live a good life. So much for DuBose’s soteriology.

The crux of any theological scheme is its Christology, and the more DuBose rambled on the even less impressed I was with his system. He was proto-typical of that annoying knack among modern Episcopalian clergy for speaking unclearly about who Christ is and what exactly He accomplished. He insinuates that Jesus was a good but imperfect man who grew in grace and power through dependence on God, overcoming imperfection, depicting what God is like and setting a right example for us all (N.T. Wright himself has hinted towards what smells of a semi-Ebionite view of Jesus). Nowhere is DuBose specific about the tangible resurrection of the Lord. The risen Christ is “experienced” within the faith community – true, but is this the result of the Spirit sent from the glorified Man on high, or merely a happy reflection on a life well spent?

In the end, DuBose’s subjectivity is so mystical and immanent that there is no place (or need) for mention of God’s wrath, the literal bodily resurrection, or life in the age to come. I recall how one Brethren writer used to insist, “A moral stream cannot rise above its source.” If DuBose is the “greatest theologian the Episcopal Church…has produced,” it’s not surprising that his church has wandered on a mostly downward path since the Gilded Age.

Eyes of the Beholder, Ears of the Listener

2010-08-17T13:33:00.010-04:00

Well, my intention has been to discuss C.E.B. Cranfield’s Romans: A Shorter Commentary, a book that has given me a fresh and, dare I say, “revolutionary” perspective on Paul’s epistle. Maybe one day I’ll get around to it. But if too much time elapses between hectic writing projects at work I might have to re-read the thing before I can get my thoughts back together.

Meanwhile, on the heels of my last post about the two Knoxville bands – we finally went to see Standing Small in Greenville, SC on August 8th. The four-hour round trip was well worth it, not only on account of the band but because we discovered Greenville to have one of the most charming center city sections we’ve ever explored. The Falls Park on Reedy River, situated right in the middle of downtown, is an oasis of waterfalls, grassy knolls, gardens, footpaths and a pedestrian suspension bridge.

As for Standing Small, the early Sunday evening gig was the last of a three-day stand that began with a CD release party in Knoxville. The band opened for another indie Christian group, This is Luke, in the gymnasium of St. Matthew Methodist Church. As gyms go the acoustics were unsurprisingly lousy. Corey Goins’ cymbals ricocheted off the concrete block walls. Nevertheless, Standing Small’s set was tight and studio-perfect, including six songs from the new album. To my delight they performed “Covered,” an intricate, four and half minute universe of a song.

We discovered that the band has no permanent bassist. Cousin Ben overcomes that challenge by having the bass tracks pre-recorded and loaded onto his Mac laptop, which sits astride his keyboard. He dials up the right accompaniment which is heard by the rest of the band through earbuds. Lead singer Ryan Fletcher experienced a technical glitch during one of the numbers when his wiring came loose. He managed to sing the entire song without missing a beat while reaching behind his back to re-route the wire.

This past week I noticed on the IndieVision web site (distributor of the free album download) that a couple of listeners found fault with the vocals. They aren’t flawless; but then, neither are Jim James’ or Wayne Coyne’s or Jeff Tweedy’s. If any of these fellows went on American Idol incognito they would be booed off. Mass media seems to have attenuated how acceptable vocals ought to sound for the general public. Fortunately, there remains a non-general public that listens for something else, including a capacious musical experience. With these new compositions and arrangements Standing Small stretches the limits of their abilities. At worse there might be a few beautiful shortfalls along the way. I’ll take that over playing it safe.

From Knoxville With Love

2010-07-29T13:37:00.024-04:00

Over the past week I’ve been listening to two new albums from bands located in Knoxville, TN. My family’s life is intertwined with both; and were it not for that fact it would have been easy (I’m sorry to admit) for me to overlook both. As it turns out, both records have been a delight, albeit in rather different ways.

Ben Howard is my first cousin once removed, son of the woman who was the nearest thing to a sister when I was growing up. He plays keyboards and handles website duties for the Christian indie band, Standing Small. Ben has been associated with the group for years, but not originally as a performing musician. He started as a roadie and soundman and merch guy, and eventually worked his way into the fold – becoming the right hand collaborator of Ryan Fletcher, the group’s guitarist and lead vocalist. These guys have day jobs. That hasn’t prevented them from playing the upper South and Midwest church and Christian festival circuit. Strangely, the farthest east they seem to come is Greenville, SC, and for some odd reason I have never been in Knoxville visiting family when the band was onstage.

Standing Small: Ryan Fletcher, Corey Goins, and Ben Howard

In fact, I hardly ever see Ben himself. We maintain contact via Facebook. He sneaked me an advance copy of the band’s new album, Asleep at the Oars, Dreaming of Freedom, (available for free download for a limited time) via zip file. I unzipped and loaded it into my iTunes, and have played the record incessantly while working at my desk. This is in every sense a “concept album.” A recurrent, rise-and-fall piano theme is reworked through the breadth of the recording. The music hinges itself to dramatic changes in modulation and tempo. At times the drums are bombastic. There are no ostentatious guitar leads; yet, Fletcher’s acoustic rig peaks through the swirling wind and clouds of percussion and keys like the mast of a tall ship. His voice rings out like the beam of a lighthouse (like Coldplay’s Chris Martin, Fletcher frequently employs the falsetto). In keeping with the general theme of the album – a frail band of unsalty believers huddled on a vessel blown across the treacherous Tiberian Sea of life – the lyrics are understandably introspective, confessional (“Call in The Troops”), nearly desperate. On “Oh Brother” the vocals are downright plaintive. Halfway through the record it’s not at all obvious that the crew will reach its destination. And the analogy of Jonah (“Man Overboard”) makes clear that our valuables – including our own self-preservation – have to go in order to lighten the load and retain seaworthiness. But in the end it is a sovereign Hand that calms the waves and awakens the crew from their doldrums.

Alseep at the Oars is poignant, but not overbearing. It’s a perfect record for a long drive, or a time of reflection staring out a window. Or at a computer screen…

Our unlikely association with the Dirty Guv’nahs began at a baby shower. Our friend Jill Andrews invited us to her special day, and among the first guests to walk in was a strapping young man wearing a New Zealand All Blacks warm-up and sporting dark glasses and a ‘fro a la Hyde from That Seventies Show. He reached out his hand and drawled, “I’m Cozmo.”

It turned out that guitarist Cozmo Holloway was transitioning from his old band, a funk group called Dishwater Blonde, to the Dirty Guv’nahs, a household name in Knoxville. For three years running “the Guvs” have been voted K-town’s best band. Their Southern rock rumblings were felt all the way up in Woodstock, NY, where the legendary Levon Helm (of The Band fame) invited the Guvs to come record their new album, Youth is in Our Blood, just before Christmas of 2009.

At the baby shower my wife and I told Cozmo that if his band needed a place to stay when visiting Charlotte to give us a call. To my initial chagrin that call came back in the winter. I had misgivings about keeping a half-dozen 20-something year old rockers in our home, given that their show would end past midnight and they wouldn’t return to the house until the wee hours of the morning (what would our elderly neighbors think?). The band arrived on a Friday afternoon before I got in from work. I saw the “Blue Bullet,” a Ford van older than any of the band members, with its trailer parked in my spot in front of the house. When I walked through the door it was as if I had never met a stranger. The Guvs were all perfect gentlemen. They ate supper with us, helped clear and wash dishes, played Wii with our kids and a game of “Family” with us, and thanked us profusely for the hospitality. That night I never heard the band come in. They tip-toed into the house at 3:00 am and went to the upstairs guest rooms. The next day they arose for a late brunch and bassist Justin Hoskins told us the bizarre story of how they acquired their name (too long to go into here). They gave us t-shirts and bumper stickers.

They came back for another stay at our home in the late spring, christening our house their “B & B” in North Carolina. Both times their shows were too late in the evening for our family to attend. At the conclusion of their second visit they gave us a pre-release copy of their new album.

At first glance the Guvs seem to wear all-too-obvious influences on their rolled up sleeves: the Black Crowes, John Mellencamp, perhaps a dash of Hootie & the Blowfish; but I’m not sure any of those artists really inspire their sound. On closer listening they are reaching for something higher. With Holloway and Michael Jenkins’ twin guitar attack on songs like “Wide Awake” and “New Salvation,” there are shades of Dickie and Duane (or, if that seems a bit lofty, perhaps Jim James and Carl Broemel of My Morning Jacket); certainly, Chris Doody’s simmering organ summons memories of Idlewild South.

Ultimately, what made the album stick for me was our belated opportunity to see the band perform live at the recent Bele Chere festival in Asheville, NC. I was completely unprepared for the explosiveness and unabated energy the Guvs bring to the stage – especially in Jenkins’ and frontman James Trimble’s relentless histrionics. It was hard to believe these were same gentle souls who rate among the best house guests we’ve ever hosted.

Bele Chere, Asheville (July 25, 2010). My family is on the front row to the far left (our daughter's red hair and younger son's orange shirt are clearly visible)

But I knew, the first time I saw Cozmo at that baby shower, that something was definitely cooking.

Fried Baloney Sandwich

2010-07-21T11:18:00.007-04:00

American Hypocrites
The only thing Americans hate more than big government is the absence of government protection.
By Anne Applebaum
I've now listened to Sarah Palin's "Mama Grizzlies" video. I've watched the Tea Party evolve from a joke into a political force. I've read up on the primary candidates who want to take back government, take down government, burn down Washington.

I've seen it all, heard it all, and I don't believe any of it. A rose is a rose is a rose—and hypocrisy is hypocrisy, whether it takes the form of champagne socialism or mama grizzlies who would go on the rampage if, God forbid, their mortgage tax relief were ever taken away.
If you don't live here all the time, and I don't, here is what you notice when you come home: Americans—with their lawsuit culture, their safety obsession, and above all their addiction to government spending programs—demand more from their government than just about anybody else in the world. They don't just want the government to keep the peace and create a level playing field. They want the government to ensure that every accident and every piece of bad luck is either prevented or fully compensated. And if the price of their house drops, they will hold the government responsible for that, too.

When, through a series of flukes, a crazy person smuggled explosives onto a plane at Christmas, the public bayed for blood and held the White House responsible. When, thanks to bad luck and planning mistakes, an oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, the public bayed for blood and held the White House responsible again.
In fact, the crazy person was stopped by an alert passenger, not the federal government, and if the oil rig is ever fixed, it will be through the efforts of a private company. Nevertheless, each one of these kinds of events sets off a chain reaction: A new government program is created, experts are hired, new machines are ordered for the airports, and new monitors are sent beneath the ocean. This is how we got the Kafkaesque security network that an extraordinary Washington Post investigation this week calls, quite conservatively, "A hidden world, growing beyond control."
For this hidden world, with its 1,271 different government security and intelligence organizations and its 854,000 people with top-secret security clearance, is not the creation of a secretive totalitarian cabal; it has been set up in response to public demand. It's true that the French want to retire early and that the British think health care should be free, but when things go wrong, Americans also write to their representatives in Congress and their commander in chief demanding action. And precisely because this is a democracy, Congress and the president respond, pass a law, put up a building.
The mechanism works the same way even when there isn't an emergency. To put it bluntly, middle-class Americans of the right, left, and center have now come to expect a level of personal financial security that—despite the stereotypes—most people would never demand from their governments. In a review he wrote earlier this month, Brink Lindsey, the vice president of the libertarian Cato Institute—a man who knows what he is up against—pulled up some extraordinary statistics. Most Americans, it turns out, are suspicious of the free market. And most American also approve of high government spending. The majority of Americans are wary of global trade, don't trust free markets, and also think "the benefits from ... Social Security or Medicare are worth the costs of those programs." And when the sample is restricted to people who support the Tea Party movement? The number is still 62 percent.
Yet it is Social Security, Medicare, and the ever-expanding list of earmarks—federal grants—that are going to sink the U.S. budget in the next few decades, not President Obama's health care reform (though that won't help). Yet in Washington, these expenditures are known as "third rails": If you touch them, you're dead. President George W. Bush talked a little bit about making individuals more responsible for their retirement, and then he gave up. The "privatization" of Social Security, as it was sneeringly described, was just too unpopular, particularly among his own supporters.
Look around the world and we don't seem as exceptional as we think. Chileans are willing to save for their own retirement. Most Europeans are reconciled to the idea that not everybody, at any age and in any condition, is entitled to the most expensive medical technology. A secretary of state or defense traveling with dozens of cars and armed security men would seem absurd in many countries, as would the notion that the government gives you a tax break if you buy a house, or that schools should close if there is ice on the roads. Yet we not only demand ludicrous levels of personal and political safety, we reserve the right to rant and rave against the vast bureaucracies we have created—democratically, constitutionally, openly—to deliver it.

Tom Woods on Nullification in These United States

2010-07-16T10:56:00.000-04:00

Lewis vs. Wallis

2010-07-14T13:47:00.006-04:00

“Is there a widening rift between politically conservative and politically liberal evangelicals? What are the basic causes of tensions between evangelicals Left and right, and what can we do to address those causes?”

David J. Theroux is Founder and President of the Independent Institute and the C.S. Lewis Society of California. He responds:

The unfortunate support for years by some Christians of what is commonly called “Progressivism” reflects the modernist folly since the nineteenth century of deferring intellectual and moral authority to the utilitarianism and moral relativism of the secular world (“the end justifies the means”). It comports neither with the teachings of Jesus nor with the Christian tradition of natural law, either in moral ethics or economics. During George W. Bush’s presidency, for example, many “Conservatives” embraced the “Progressive” myth and sought on utilitarian grounds to justify invasive wars and occupations, the USA PATRIOT Act, torture and renditioning, and massive expansions of federal power, foreign and domestic.

With Barack Obama as president, such “Liberal” (i.e., “Progressive”) evangelicals as Jim Wallis, Tony Campolo, and Ronald Sider, who may have been critical of Bush’s abuses of power, now support authoritarianism by claiming that individuals choosing peaceful means that do not break the Ten Commandments’ and Jesus’ prohibitions against invasive force (i.e., murder, rape, theft, and fraud) are still “unjust” and require the intervention of government power to coerce innocent people to obey the “Progressive” vision of “social justice.” As a result, Wallis believes that government officials themselves should, as Bush similarly claimed, not just be immune from the Judeo-Christian standards for the rule of law but that their legal, institutionalized breaking of the Decalogue is somehow a higher “Christian” calling.

Comparing the views of Wallis to those of C.S. Lewis is instructive, since Lewis understood, unlike collectivists such as Wallis, that moral relativism is incoherent and unacceptable because the end never justifies the means (see, e.g., Lewis’ The Abolition of Man. Especially timely and insightful is Lewis’s essay on the dangers, dehumanization, and immorality of welfare statism and therapeutic statism, “Is Progress Possible? Willing Slaves of the Welfare State,” from his book, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics.

Wallis’s recent attacks on those who are challenging the Obama administration’s drive for gigantic government on every front is consistent with his confused support for authoritarianism as the vehicle for Christian love. In his enthusiasm for political power, Wallis has become an embarrassing apologist for the moral relativism of welfare statism, socialism, and corporatism, worshipping Obama and government power in a political idolatry. Can anyone imagine Jesus advising and defending the policies of the Caesar and the Roman Empire?

The Christian principles of other-directedness and support for civil society in no way equate with statism of any sort. Indeed, they are polar opposites. There are innumerable Christian writers throughout history who have made this point in championing individual liberty, personal responsibility, civic virtue and the rule of law, including Thomas Aquinas, John Locke, James Madison, Alexis de Tocqueville, Frederic Bastiat, etc. However, Wallis insists that we should put this all aside as “anti-Christian” because his “Progressive” state knows best and must not be impeded to utilize the very means Jesus taught against. Wallis’s reasons for doing so stem from his misguided belief in the junk-Marxist historical and economic myths that free individual choices and actions that create free market capitalism are inherently evil and unable to overcome poverty, racism, etc. As a result, Wallis believes that coercive means must take precedence over the voluntarism and Golden Rule mandated by Christian teachings. But these myths have been refuted repeatedly (see for example here, here, here and here) because the non-invasive processes of free markets and private, community-based welfare and charity are both the morally and most efficient means to serve and uplift others simply because they are consistent with Christian Natural Law.

Moreover, Wallis’s concept of “social justice” itself is meaningless and dangerous. Either individuals are “sacred objects” created by God with free will and individually subject to God’s judgment and worthy of mercy or they are material objects subject to the collectivist dictates of mortal and flawed men and women. As Rodney Stark (see for example his book, The Victory of Reason) and others have shown, it was the unique insights from Christian teachings that each and every individual has rights under God that made the progress possible in abolishing slavery, emancipating women, and creating free and prosperous societies in which abject poverty was replaced with abundance. Lewis was fond of quoting Lord Acton’s dictum that power corrupts, and here is a quote from the end of The Abolition of Man, which “Progressives” like Wallis could learn from:

“It is in Man’s power to treat himself as a mere ‘natural object’ and his judgments of value as raw material for scientific manipulation to alter at will. . . . The real objection is that if man chooses to treat himself as raw material, raw material he will be: not raw material to be manipulated, as he fondly imagined, by himself, but by mere appetite, that is, mere Nature, in the person of his de-humanized Conditioners. . . . Either we are rational spirit obliged for ever to obey the absolute values of the Tao [natural law], or else we are mere nature to be kneaded and cut into new shapes for the pleasures of masters who must, by hypothesis, have no motive but their own ‘natural’ impulses. Only the Tao provides a common human law of action which can over-arch rulers and ruled alike. A dogmatic belief in objective value is necessary to the very idea of a rule which is not tyranny or an obedience which is not slavery. . . . The process which, if not checked, will abolish Man goes on apace among Communists and Democrats no less than among Fascists. The methods may (at first) differ in brutality. But many a mild-eyed scientist in pince-nez, many a popular dramatist, many an amateur philosopher in our midst, means in the long run just the same as the Nazi rulers of Germany.”

As a result, Lewis was a devastating critic of the welfare state, nanny state, and the entire “Progressive” vision of the interventionist state. Sadly, Wallis champions all such measures and misleads some Christians into supporting the evils of moral relativism and legalized plunder on a vast scale.

Nullifying Non Sequiturs

2010-07-06T12:11:00.008-04:00

Nullification Should Be Taken Seriously, Not Caricatured
July 6, 2010

Art Carden teaches economics at Rhodes College and is an occasional contributor to Forbes.com and other publications.

The weeks surrounding Independence Day are always a good time to assess the American experiment in liberty. For all of our successes, there remains a lot of discontent across the political spectrum. The federal government is fighting the states over the issue of medical marijuana, for example, and we're also preparing to add to the Supreme Court a justice who apparently thinks that "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech" with respect to speech means that "Congress shall weigh the costs and benefits of making a law" before passing a law "abridging the freedom of speech." What option do the people and the states have if they disagree and wish to hold fast to the "Congress shall make no law" principle? Or what if they think the Federal government is overstepping its constitutional bounds?

Enter prize-winning historian and bestselling author Thomas E. Woods. I've had the pleasure of working with Professor Woods at the Mises Institute's "Mises University" summer program and trading notes about some of his projects, so I was looking forward to his new book. In Nullification: How to Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century, Professor Woods offers a thorough-but-compact discussion of the doctrine of nullification. As he writes, "nullification begins with the axiomatic point that a federal law that violates the Constitution is no law at all" (p. 3). It is, according to the framework established by the Founders, an essential part of the system of checks and balances that defined the federal union. Even though they established federal-level checks and balances, the founders were troubled by the notion that the Federal government should be its own judge.

Nullification was formalized in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, and it essentially says that the states are not bound to enforce federal laws that step outside the bounds of the central government's Constitutional authority. That raises two obvious questions. First, what are "the bounds of the central government's Constitutional authority"? Second, what is the Constitutional relationship between the states and the central government? Woods discusses the three provisions that have been used to justify expansion of federal power--the "general welfare" clause, the commerce clause, and the "necessary and proper" clause--and argues convincingly that these were largely clauses of convenience that empowered the government to do the things necessary to fulfill their constitutional mandate. In Woods's interpretation, this meant that the government had the constitutional authority to do mundane tasks in pursuit of their constitutional goals. They could buy lumber to build "needful buildings" and paper on which to print government documents without explicit permission, for example (p. 29). As Woods interprets it, the interstate commerce clause establishes the United States as a free trade zone. It does not give the government carte blanche to do as it pleases as long as it can cook up an "interstate commerce" rationale. Citing James Madison, Woods asks an important question: if the general welfare clause is sufficient to justify pretty much anything the Federal government wants to do, why bother with enumerated powers? Indeed, why even bother with a constitution?

Unfortunately, sympathy for nullification and states' rights has been smeared by the association of these ideas with slavery. This is most unfortunate because it conflates a question of unambiguous moral evil (slavery) with a legitimate and difficult constitutional question. Those skeptical of nullification might cite the defense of the doctrine by John C. Calhoun, who was also an outspoken defender of slavery. The rhetorical road leads to slavery when it doesn't lead to Hitler (and Woods invokes Hitler's opposition to states' rights on pp. 120-121). Nullification is to be opposed because some of its defenders were also slave owners and slavery apologists. Producing this non sequitur requires a tortured and invalid line of reasoning:

Tom Woods defends nullification. John C. Calhoun defended nullification. John C. Calhoun defended slavery. Therefore, Tom Woods is defending slavery.

Consider the following:
American presidents defend the idea of a strong military. Hitler defended the idea of a strong military. Hitler was a genocidal maniac. Therefore, American presidents defend genocide.

I'm also reminded of something a friend wrote on his whiteboard in college:
God is love. Love is blind. Ray Charles is blind. Therefore, Ray Charles is God.

All three are silly. For an entertaining treatment, see how Woods addresses some of the “slavery and racism” objections in his "Interview With a Zombie" spoof.

In chapters 3 and 4, Woods explores how Northern states invoked the principles of nullification in response to perceived usurpations by the central government and defends the compact theory of the union, which holds that the United States are--not is--a collection of free, independent, and sovereign territories rather than subordinates of the federal government. As one example, Woods offers New England's reaction to the 1807 prohibition on American ships participating in international trade. Massachusetts legislators argued that it was "not legally binding on the citizens of this state" and Connecticut governor Jonathan Trumbull argued that state legislatures had the "right" and the "duty, to interpose their protecting shield between the right and liberty of the people, and the assumed power of the General Government" (pp. 62, 63, 67). Elsewhere, Woods discusses the concept of jury nullification, which holds that in any trial the jury is not merely deciding whether the law has been breached, but whether the law itself is permissible (p. 129). If, in the words of Theophilus Parsons, "(a)n Act of usurpation is not obligatory--it is not law" (quoted on p. 129), this suggests a more animating contest of liberty, and graver duties of citizenship, than the notion that citizenship is equivalent to obedience.

It's clear from the book jacket, the back-cover blurbs, and the style that Nullification is a polemic rather than a scholarly treatise, its eighteen pages of endnotes notwithstanding. The last chapter, "Nullification Today," is looser, more conversational, and more strategic. Nonetheless, it offers resources that scholars and pundits will find useful. The second half of the book consists of documents related to the nullification doctrine, including the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions and the March 19, 1859 Joint Resolution of the Legislature of Wisconsin by which Wisconsin nullified parts of the Fugitive Slave Law. According to James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and others, the states were one line of defense between the citizens and the people; indeed, Jefferson referred to the State authorities as the "colleagues" of the Federal authorities (p. 4). The compact, conversational style make it a good book for anyone to have on the nightstand. The references to the founders and the documents in the second half of the book make it a useful book to have on the shelf.

No doubt scholars who disagree with Woods will have important and substantive criticisms. Nullification is at the forefront of debates about the relationship between the states and the federal government with respect to immigration and medical marijuana, among other issues. It is an idea that deserves to be taken seriously rather than caricatured. Nullification is a step in that direction.

Visitation

2010-06-09T14:26:00.008-04:00

This past Sunday at St. Jude’s Mission we were treated to a quasi-pastoral visit from the AMiA’s regional network leader, Alan Hawkins. Alan is the pastor of the Church of the Redeemer in Greensboro, NC. Boasting over 90 regular members, Redeemer is a veritable “mega-church” for AMiA circles.

Alan preached on Ephesians 1:9-10 and 2:11-22 (St. Jude’s is in the midst of an intensive study of this epistle on Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings). The uniting of “all things in Him, in heaven and on earth” was presented in a way that differed somewhat from the old dualism I was taught years ago. Hawkins’ exposition of the passages was in line with more recent scholarship: that God is uniting in Christ Jew and Gentile, law-keeper and law-breaker, and – eventually – heaven and earth (Douglas Moo, who sees in Rom. 11:23-27 a large-scale conversion of Jews to Christ at the end of this age, has done some exciting biblical study on the physical renovation of the earth to take place in the ages to come).

That is not to say that Alan’s sermon was deeply theological. His focus was on what kind of local church our fledgling mission would want to be. “Do you want to be a ‘New Testament’ church?” he asked. “Do you really want to be a New Testament church? Which one? Corinth, with its incest, pride, and divisions?”

His point was not lost on his hearers. Heresy and trouble began in the churches long before the apostles left the scene. The point is not to look back exclusively to the churches of antiquity for a pattern, but to look squarely at God’s revelation of His purpose in the Church for the ages. The propitiatory, expiatory and efficacious death and resurrection of Christ not only answered how sinners can be made right with a holy God, but paved the way for the new community that God has created for His habitation. Among other things, the Church is the vanguard of the union of all things in Christ, the risen and ascended victor. The local church must aim at upholding that purpose and displaying, even now in abject weakness (1 Cor. 1:26-31), the wisdom of God. It should continue to do so until God’s salvation is finally revealed at the end (1 Peter 1:4-7; Col. 3:3-4; Rom. 8:18-23).

Afterwards during lunch Alan reminded us that the profile for the typical Christian in the world today is “a 26 year-old black African female.” The white man’s Christianity of Britain and America is a drop in the bucket. That’s a sobering perspective.

Faithful Presence Demonstrated

2010-06-03T13:01:00.005-04:00

What professing Christian could be opposed to a “healed creation” and “holy community”? What’s not to like about “loving God and neighbor”? This is nothing more than re-packaged and warmed-over Social Gospel liberalism of the sort advocated by Walter Rauschenbusch in the late 1800s. In this view, Jesus is not so much a divine savior as a powerful exemplar, one whose holy life of love and concern for the poor and sick and outcast inspires his followers to work for justice and peace until, gradually, the Kingdom of God is ushered in and all people dwell in freedom and love. It was predicated on the notion of constant incremental improvement in human social behavior. The cataclysm of World War I, of course, pretty much destroyed this thesis, and World War II drove the point home.

What’s missing from the Social Gospel is a connection to the Paschal Mystery, and the practices (including the Eucharist) that flow from it, rooted in the incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, and the sending of the Holy Spirit as the Church is constituted, all seen as God’s definitive saving and redeeming intervention in the human predicament. It is God who brings about his own Kingdom, in his way and in his time. The Church’s vocation is to announce that Kingdom and model it, but not to take responsibility for making it happen. Yes, God has a “mission” of reconciliation, and, yes, the Church’s mission is congruent with God’s own mission. But the Church’s mission has a finer point on it. We take our place within the missio dei not by reforming society…but by being an alternative society, a sign that says to the world, “Things can and will be different.” We live out that semiotic vocation in a number of ways, all of which, by the way, spring from and lead back to the Eucharist. (emphases added)

Dan Martins, St. Anne’s Episcopal Church, Warsaw, IN

Faithful Presence

2010-06-01T12:32:00.000-04:00

The challenge of practicing a faithful presence in the world...and the power-grabbing shortcuts taken by many movements within American Christendom.

Faithful Presence | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction

Reunion

2010-05-26T21:39:00.003-04:00

There's Emerson, Lake & Palmer.

And then there's Sam & Jill:

May 2010 from Jill Andrews on Vimeo.

The Broken Oil Rig Fallacy

2010-05-26T12:06:00.011-04:00

I saw this posted today by a friend:

During first 36 days of Katrina, Bush made 7 visits to Gulf Coast...
So far on Day 36 of BP oil leak, Obama has made 1 visit to disaster area...

There are days – with increasing frequency – that I want to slam my head into a wall. If I had a dollar for every time I saw these factoids from my Republican friends I could take us all to the most expensive restaurant in Charlotte. So Bush went to the Gulf seven times. So what? Only the most reclusive non-observer in the world could have missed the fact that the Federal government’s handling of the Katrina crisis was an unmitigated disaster of galactic proportion. Billions of taxpayer dollars thrown away on food, trailers, and sundry accoutrements that never made it to the Gulf or were never utilized in any meaningful way. Thank God that Obama has had little involvement with the BP oil spill; otherwise it would turn into a global catastrophe.

Broken window fallacy, indeed!

My friend’s comment belies the underlying and persistent belief that afflicts many Americans: the notion that the government should do something. Compound this with loyalties to whichever jersey the president happens to be wearing. Can anyone seriously defend the administration of George W. Bush?

Shortly after Obama’s election another life-long Republican friend, quick to establish his PC cred, opined that, “he shows he is serious about providing this nation with leadership.”

Families, armies, businesses and ball teams have leaders. In the Bible there are but two great leaders: Moses and Christ. David was not so much a leader as a shepherd – first for his father’s flocks, then for God’s people. “Leadership” is not the main objective of human government. At best its primary responsibilities are the protection of life and property from sundry interlopers, and the arbitration of disputes.

Political “leadership” leads nations into debt and/or war – regardless of which jersey is worn.

Unrighteous Indignation

2010-05-25T07:19:00.001-04:00

Apart from the tiny fraction of the US population that understands economics, everyone was content while the private-sector credit bubble was inflating. The Fed chairman was hailed as a "maestro" for keeping interest rates at artificially low levels and thus ensuring that the prices of most investments -- especially high-risk investments -- remained on upward paths, while politicians of all stripes were happy that the market for home mortgages was the greatest 'beneficiary' of the Fed-sponsored inflation of money and credit. Actually, politicians didn't leave much to chance, in that regulations were passed to encourage the provision of mortgage-related credit to anyone with a pulse and government-sponsored enterprises (Fannie Mae, etc.) worked tenaciously to increase both the supply of and the demand for mortgages. The banking industry played its part to the hilt by inventing new ways to expand credit (think: Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities and Collateralised Debt Obligations), but it is important to understand that the banks would not have had an incentive to create these new credit-related products unless there existed huge demand for such products. The demand came from large investors -- hedge, bond and pension funds, for example -- that were desperately searching for yield in a world where yields had been kept artificially low by various central bank and government manipulations.

The main problem with credit bubbles is that they result in a massive transfer of resources to activities that would not be economically viable in the absence of the artificially low interest rates and the monetary inflation. Consequently, although they temporarily create the feeling of prosperity, they deplete real savings and lessen the economy's long-term growth potential. The recession or depression that inevitably follows the bursting of a credit bubble is caused by the ill-conceived investments made during the bubble rather than by the bursting of the bubble itself. Think of it this way: once the bubble bursts and the supply of new credit is curtailed, a light is suddenly shone upon the terrible mistakes that were made during the bubble.

During the giant credit bubble that ended in 2007, the banking industry made more than its fair share of investing errors and was thus eventually left with enormous holes in its collective balance sheet. Some of the largest US banks should have gone under, which would have resulted in the holders of bank equity losing all of their money and the holders of bank bonds losing most of their money. It would NOT, however, have resulted in bank depositors losing any of their money or in the cessation of the traditional banking businesses (the taking of deposits and the making of loans). Unfortunately, the government deemed that the banks were "too big to fail", and arranged for hundreds of billions of dollars to be siphoned from the rest of the economy to prevent the large banks from collapsing. Note that the banks were not actually "too big to fail". They should have failed, and the US economy would be in far better shape today if they had.

Further to the above, the banks certainly played a role in creating the current mess, but it was a supporting role. The lead roles were played by the government and the Fed. However, now we have the ridiculous situation of US policy-makers passing legislation that grants themselves greater power and crimps the activities of the banks, with the stated aims of mitigating the risk of another financial crisis and preventing banks from becoming "too big to fail". If they are serious about mitigating the risk of another financial crisis then they should pass legislation that abolishes the Fed and severely crimps the activities of the government.

The attacks on the banks are nothing if not predictable. Throughout history the ends of giant credit bubbles have invariably been followed by periods of recrimination, when politicians looked around for someone other than themselves to blame. In the current case the banking industry is the most logical target because it is blatantly obvious that the large banks have profited handsomely at the expense of taxpayers over the past 18 months. But isn't it bizarre that the finger of blame is being self-righteously pointed at the banks by the very same people who arranged or approved the gargantuan wealth transfer from taxpayers to banks?

Steve Saville
www.speculative-investor.com

Out of Africa

2010-05-24T12:30:00.004-04:00

The mission to which we belong identifies itself as “an evangelical church in the Anglican tradition,” affiliated with the Anglican Mission in the Americas (AMiA). Recently, the AMiA opted to revert to “Mission Partner” status with the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA). That means the AMiA will work at some distance from the ACNA of which it was an original constituent.

In a comment thread at StandFirm I found this note that offers some context:

…the history of the Church has always been one of both charism and order.

In the Anglican case, we must remember that AMiA quite intentionally seeks, in its ties to Rwanda, to partake of the blessings of the longest revival in modern church history (the ongoing East-African Revival). AMiA is passionate about planting churches, making disciples, and fanning the flames of the Revival in North America.

ACNA, on the other hand, appreciates all of that very deeply, but is quite keen to faithfully receive and pass on the enduring ethos of an ecclesiology that comprehends the orthodox streams of evangelical, catholic, and charismatic Anglicanism. In its North American context, it knows that prayer-book faith and sacramental practice, not to mention the visible ecclesial life of the Anglican tradition, are significant draws in a religious (esp. evangelical) landscape deprived of the roots and richness afforded by the Great Tradition.

So, AMiA will continue to tilt toward ‘charism’ and ACNA toward ‘order.’ It will be up to the bishops of both movements to recognize their need for each other in years ahead. Some minds are inclined toward disjunction… others toward conjunction. For the time being, it may be just as well that both mindsets have some opportunity to bear their distinctive fruits. No doubt, some fig-tree testing lay ahead as well. Fortunately, Jesus Christ is Lord* of the Church—a Church that has, historically, accounted for both charism and order.

*More precisely, Christ is Head of the Church.

Brain Salad Dressing: or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love ELP

2010-05-21T19:21:00.013-04:00

I’ve had the good fortune to make acquaintances with a few of my favorite musicians. They’re easily knowable; none of those I count as personal friends have “hit it big,” at least not yet. Sam Quinn (formerly of the everybodyfields and now fronting a new band called Japan Ten), spent this past winter down the road from our home. He came over several times to help us repaint a couple of rooms of our house in exchange for home-cooked meals (he has since gone back to South Knoxville, TN). His former everybodyfields partner, Jill Andrews, has dropped by several times while gigging in the area. Another Knoxville band we met through Jill, the Dirty Guv’nahs, call our home their local “bed & breakfast.”

These artists share distinctly Southern, roots-based musical styles. For one that grew up around bluegrass, Southern gospel (my dad’s family was a singing quartet), Southern rock, hony-tonk music and Hee Haw (my first superstars were Buck Owens and Grandpa Jones), it was logical for me to get into these younger neo-traditionalists.

But my tastes include a completely different side. In the early ‘70s I discovered progressive rock. It was the perfect music for a geek (or nerd) such as I was – too serious and too complex for my more popular friends.

Fast forward to the very recent past. We have three children at home, the oldest of whom just turned 16. Digging through my old vinyl collection, they have been spinning progressive wax on a beat-up turntable they found at a downtown thrift store for ten bucks: ELO, Kansas, Yes, Genesis. Our son is quite proficient on both guitar and piano. The night of his prom he stood in his bedroom, fully attired in his tux, playing intense lead licks to Kansas’ “Icarus, Borne on Wings of Steel” on his homemade Strat copy. He told me that Kansas is the best band he has heard, that nobody today is doing anything of that caliber.

Unfortunately I didn’t keep all my old albums. Among the missing are selections from Rush, the Moody Blues, and Emerson, Lake & Palmer. I wasn’t sure how our son would react to the latter, since their music was driven by keyboard instead of guitar. But we began looking at YouTube videos; to my surprise, he was transfixed by the classical and jazz elements in ELP. And I remembered what I liked about a band that I was done with long ago.

Pompous? Yes. Pretentious? Indeed. But undeniably creative. And a reminder, too, that rock music has always had an element of over-the-top. Perhaps the truly compulsive ones are obsessed with maintaining purity for the masses.

By the way, we have no Pete Seeger records in our collection. But we do have The Byrds…

Everything in Obadiah

2010-05-21T12:14:00.003-04:00

Pride as the worst of sins in government, business, the Church, relationships... and the final issue of Esau and Jacob as Jesus was brought before Herod. Listen to Dr. J. Vernon McGee squeeze everything from four verses in the littlest book of prophecy -- what he calls the atom bomb of the Old Testament.

Casus Belli?

2010-05-18T15:57:00.006-04:00

Book Review: Tariffs, Blockades, and Inflation: The Economics of the Civil War
By John Majewski • March 2006
Posted March 18, 2006 (The Freeman)

In concise and clear prose Professors Mark Thornton and Robert Ekelund use basic economics to explain the causes, outcome, and consequences of the Civil War. Employing Public Choice theory — a subdiscipline of economics that focuses on how public officials and government bureaucracies make decisions — Thornton and Ekelund attempt to revise many standard accounts of the war. Although their economic analysis sometimes comes across as simplistic, they nevertheless add an important and overlooked perspective on the causes and consequences of the bloodiest war in U.S. history.

Perhaps the most controversial claim in Tariffs, Blockades, and Inflation is that the tariff (as opposed to slavery itself) may have been far more important in causing the Civil War than many historians assume. The protective tariff hurt the long-run economic performance of the nation as a whole, and it was undoubtedly a major regional divide between North and South. Northern manufacturers benefited most from a protective tariff, while Southern planters and farmers, who paid higher prices for the manufactured goods they purchased from either Britain or the North, suffered most. Given that Lincoln wanted to raise tariffs, Thornton and Ekelund argue, his election signaled the possibility of a protectionist regime that might have reduced the value of Southern plantations and slaves by some $700 million. Southerners could probably have blocked Lincoln’s attempt to raise tariffs if they had stayed in the Union, but Thornton and Ekelund argue that “tariff uncertainty” made secession an appealing option. Rather than risk higher tariffs, why not simply leave the Union?

Thornton and Ekelund also highlight the impact of the Union blockade, which ironically led Southern blockade runners to import highly valued luxury items rather than wartime necessities. Thornton and Ekelund argue that the blockade changed relative prices within the Confederacy so that it became more profitable to import easily transportable luxuries (such as silk textiles) and less profitable to import bulky necessities (such as iron and machinery). Profit-oriented blockade runners thus focused on luxuries even as Confederate civilians and soldiers suffered grievous shortages of basic necessities. The “Rhett Butler” effect, as Thornton and Ekelund call it, had a host of unintended consequences. It lowered Confederate morale and led to widespread condemnation of “unpatriotic” blockade runners and speculators. Such public sentiment, in turn, led to counterproductive government policies (such as price controls) that made shortages even worse.

The final chapters show the consequences of government intervention in both the North and the South. Thornton and Ekelund, for example, analyze inflation as a form of taxation. By raising money from the printing press, the North and South alike created a ruinous inflation that misallocated resources and severely damaged morale. The inflation problem was especially severe in the South, which could not impose direct taxes or borrow money to the same extent as the North. The focus on inflation ties in nicely with the argument that the Civil War hindered rather than helped economic growth. This point is especially persuasive and important, if only because some historians still believe that war is essentially good for a capitalist economy.

In many respects Tariffs, Blockades, and Inflation is an appealing book. The explanations of economic theory are clear and helpful, and the book is generally evenhanded in its willingness to blame both Northerners and Southerners for enacting bad economic policy. Yet the book is somewhat uneven. Its brief and readable format — and its tendency to summarize secondary works rather than delve into nineteenth-century sources — sometimes oversimplifies complicated political debates. The book’s brevity also means that some arguments are not fully fleshed out. To cite one example, Thornton and Ekelund claim that a less inflationary policy in the South would have forced policymakers “to rely on more decentralized and defensive military strategy.” This is a big point that cries out for further evidence and elaboration.

So, too, does their idea that “tariff uncertainty” was an important motivation for Southern secession. Tariff uncertainty had always existed in the antebellum decades. Why, then, did Southerners leave the Union in 1861 and not in 1842, when the Whigs passed a protectionist tariff? Or why did most Southerners reject secession when South Carolina attempted to nullify the tariff in the early 1830s? How rational is it to fight a war, which would leave 620,000 men dead, over tariffs that might or might not be enacted?

If Tariffs, Blockades, and Inflation may leave readers wanting more, it nevertheless is a clear application of market-based economics to the Civil War issues. Readers will find it a helpful introduction to the literature that Thornton and Ekelund cite in their useful bibliographic essay.

Waiting, Worry & Witness

2010-05-18T09:00:00.002-04:00

An exceptional sermon for the “in between” times, by David Turner, given at All Souls Langham Place (London) this past Sunday.

Revisionist to the Core

2010-05-17T06:51:00.001-04:00

The ever controversial (and Northern-born) Tom DiLorenzo talks to The Daily Bell about The Birth of an Empire:

Thomas James DiLorenzo on Abraham Lincoln, U.S. Authoritarianism and Manipulated History

Economics in 17 Minutes from Hans-Hermann Hoppe & Jörg Guido Hülsmann

2010-05-14T11:30:00.001-04:00

The Parable of the Prodigal and the Pig

2010-05-12T08:15:00.003-04:00

Back to eternally serious business, a classic and timely teaching from Dr. J. Vernon McGee on 2 Peter ii. 21, 22 here.

Coming to a Rented Theater Near You

2010-05-11T16:04:00.000-04:00

"Sunday's Coming" Movie Trailer from North Point Media on Vimeo.

Economics in One Lesson

2010-05-10T12:41:00.001-04:00

Cassandra

2010-05-07T06:35:00.000-04:00

God Bless George and Margaret

2010-05-06T08:17:00.006-04:00

George and Margaret have been married for 60 years. George was born and raised in Beaufort, SC, and bears the thick-as-molasses, unmistakable drawl associated with the South’s earliest Cavalier settlers. Margaret grew up in West Virginia. They were both raised Episcopalians.

After last night’s Bible study from Ephesians 1:15-23, George and I were talking, heart to heart. I was filled with sadness, for in a couple of weeks this silver-headed couple will withdraw to Blowing Rock in the North Carolina high country to spend the summer. I had shared something in the study I learned from a sermon by Rico Tice, a pastor at All Souls Langham Place, London: that when Paul sent Timothy to Thessalonica to check on the spiritual condition of the fledgling church in the face of fierce persecution, Paul figuratively held his breath (1 Thess. 3:5) until he knew how the Thessalonians were getting along. I told George that we would all be holding our collective breath until he and Margaret returned in the Fall.

They have endured much. Week to week they put up with a ragamuffin bunch of Gen-Xer’s at our tiny church. Worst of all, in these golden years of their lives they have dealt with the loss of the church they once knew. “The Episcopal church left us, brother,” said George, referring to the denomination at large. “They twisted the Bible all around till it means something different from what it says.”

“Not all of them,” I answered. “I have an old picture of St. Michael’s in Charleston that was taken at the end of the War. Some of the buildings around it are burned out, but it’s still standing. Fire and war and earthquake; its congregation seems not to have swerved to the left or the right.”

George grinned and his eyes glistened. “My home church down in Beaufort is the same way. It’s been around since 1712; they don’t know the Bible other than what it’s always been.”

Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honor the face of the old man, and fear thy God: I am the LORD. (Leviticus 19:32)

The Southern Avenger Breaks Down Conservatism

2010-05-06T06:37:00.002-04:00

There are conservatives, and then there are conservatives. Jack Hunter and Scott Horton delineate the difference:

Jack Hunter « Antiwar Radio with Scott Horton and Charles Goyette

Scale vs. Scope

2010-04-29T06:40:00.005-04:00

Immigration, the Tea Parties, and Big Government
Tread on me only when it comes to immigration?

Posted April 29, 2010, by Steven Horwitz (The Freeman)

The Arizona law enabling police to ask for immigration papers or proof of citizenship of anyone they suspect of being in the country illegally has fanned the flames of an already hot debate over immigration. How these issues play out in the Tea Party movement will be interesting. Polling data indicate that Tea Partiers have a significant anti-immigration element to them. So, will people who claim to dislike big government be consistent and oppose this new law?

That opponents of big government would support immigration control is surprising on its face. Enforcing such laws requires governments, federal or state, to exercise powers that small-government advocates should reject. It’s not that immigration law requires enormous expenditures, or that it dramatically increases the size of government. But it does increase the scope of government power.

This distinction between scale and scope is made by Robert Higgs in his masterful Crisis and Leviathan. The real damage to freedom comes not necessarily from government growing bigger but rather from Big Government. The former is about scale, the latter about scope. So much of the Tea Party talk seems to be about scale: how much government spends, taxes, and borrows. Little of it has been about scope: the powers that government has to interfere with the rights of individuals.

The Arizona law will cost little and will not necessarily require more police, but it gives a great deal more power to the existing government. The same is true of building border fences or stricter labor regulations. Their direct expenses are not that large (compared to bailouts and stimuli anyway!), and they often get passed on to firms and consumers. But they expand State power in way that should concern those who oppose big government.

Anti-immigration laws restrict the freedom of at least two groups. One is American employers who want to hire immigrant workers. Laws that restrict immigration to officially approved people or that punish firms for hiring those who aren’t approved limit the economic freedom of employers. (By doing so, they also limit cost-cutting competition by firms, which lowers prices for American consumers.) Tea Partiers who wave Gadsen flags might consider the ways in which immigration law treads on the freedom of their friends and neighbors who are employers. If one really supports free enterprise, one should support the right of voluntary contract among any and all consenting adults, regardless of which side of an arbitrary political border they were born or live.

Immigrants’ Rights

Too often forgotten in these debates are the rights of immigrants. Libertarians believe in human rights, not just citizens’ rights or Americans’ rights. People everywhere have, or should have, the right to travel where they wish and to contract for work with whomever they wish. On what grounds do those who profess a belief in freedom prohibit them from doing so? (To anticipate a possible objection: Illegal immigrants are not more likely to commit crimes, and the U.S. crime rate has fallen since the 1987 amnesty program.) People who break the law to look for work in America are mostly trying to make a better life for themselves and their families. Why risk life and limb to come here to go on welfare when they can do the same thing at home without risk? And by what right do we prevent them from trying to make better lives for themselves, just as we would wish for American citizens? The reverence with which supposed opponents of big government treat the artificial lines governments draw is yet another puzzle.

Enforcing immigration laws, including the new Arizona law, often requires encroaching on constitutional rights. Tea Partiers claim devotion to the Constitution, but those who support the Arizona law apparently missed the Fourth Amendment’s protection of privacy. Again, asking people for proof of citizenship is not going to add anything noticeable to the Arizona state budget, or the federal deficit if done on a national scale, but it does expand the scope of government power in a way that turns it from just being “big” to being “Big.”

Tea Partiers need to decide just what they are worried about. Is their opposition to big government coming from a principled objection to the larger scope of government power at all levels to interfere with the freedoms of all people (that is, Big Government), or are they just upset about the growth in federal giveaways that don’t benefit them?

Myth-Busting the Boston Tea Party (and Its Flunkies)

2010-04-28T13:31:00.004-04:00

To the Tea Party: War and Liberty Aren’t Fellow Travelers

by Ivan Eland, April 28, 2010 (Antiwar.com)

In an astute op-ed piece in the Christian Science Monitor, James Bovard points out that the love of liberty by the Tea Party crowd usually takes a backseat to a hatred of President Obama and the Left. After attending a tax day Tea Party event in Rockville, Md., a suburb of the nation’s capital, Bovard reported that the Tea Partiers oppose big government from the Left but not from the Right. Big government from the Right usually involves warfare and its accompanying enhanced police powers at home, which usually severely erode the liberty Tea Partiers claim to stand for. For example, the tea sippers extended their pinkies in a salute to torture, harsh policies toward Iran, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. They didn’t seem to mind the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretapping and vacuuming up of ordinary Americans’ phone calls either, according to Bovard.

Yet of all the causes of big government in human history, warfare is the most important. The nation-state originally came into being because wars had become too expensive for mere kingdoms to handle.

And then the welfare state followed the warfare state. In fact, a militaristic conservative, Otto von Bismarck, created the first modern welfare state in Germany in the latter part of the 19th century.

In American history too, welfare has followed warfare. The roots of the Social Security system were planted with pensions for Civil War veterans. The progressive movement – with its counterproductive regulations on business that hurt the consumers it was trying to help – followed the Spanish-American colonial war.

But World War I was what allowed big government a vast and permanent foothold in American society. War had become so expensive and large scale that the U.S. government took over the entire economy to fight it – historically, the first time that had happened. Equally important, the government crushed dissent with the worst violations of civil liberties in American history. The war’s only rivals in stifling free political discourse were the Alien and Sedition Acts passed in the late 1700s – ostensibly needed by the government to fight off the French in the Quasi War but really aimed at political opponents. After World War I, resulting anti-foreign sentiments led to a red scare and the Palmer raids by law enforcement on innocent people.

During the Great Depression, Herbert Hoover and Franklin Delano Roosevelt brought back many of the World War I wartime agencies designed to "manage" the economy and simply renamed them. The war had set the bad precedent that no sector of the American economy was immune from government meddling.

World War II, the most horrific war in world history, also gave us the most government. During the war, government again took over regulation of the economy and even accounted for more than 40 percent of the American economy’s output, an all-time high. Although for the general population, civil liberties erosion was not as great as during World War I, that was little comfort to Japanese-Americans, who had not a single instance of disloyalty but were thrown into unconstitutional internment camps anyway.

The Cold War, although spawning only periodic hot wars, corroded civil liberties because it lasted so long. The McCarthyite witch hunts for communists in the 1950s and presidential wiretapping during the Vietnam War era that led to Watergate both began over fears of compromising information to unfriendly ears during those periods.

And of course, we have George W. Bush, a big-government conservative, who curiously wins, as Bovard notes, a 57 percent approval rating from the "small government" Tea Partiers. Yet in parallel with his war on terror, domestic spending increased more than any president since Lyndon Johnson, and he dramatically increased executive power to near tyrannical proportions by illegally using torture, wiretapping, and indefinite detentions without trial.

As Bovard notes, Tea Partiers are right-wing Obama-haters rather than liberty-lovers. And like their icon Sarah Palin, they seem proudly ignorant of history. Even the Boston Tea Party, from which the supposedly anti-tax Tea Party movement gets its name, hardly promoted liberty. The original Tea Party was caused by the British reducing taxes, not increasing them. The British had reduced the tariff on tea, thereby ruining the smuggling business in which many of the Bostonian vandals were engaged. After the violent and unnecessary destruction of private property by a mob – which other American cities had avoided and no true proponent of liberty should celebrate – the British cracked down on Boston. This crackdown thus eventually triggered the American Revolution, which likely decreased liberty in America. Wars almost always do.

Reading the Tea Leaves

2010-04-24T08:40:00.003-04:00

The following was submited by "Jack" to a comment thread at Mises.org.

A Big Problem With Tea Partiers:
Neoconservatism

This seems to stem from
a lack of knowledge, and stances based upon misinformation, disinformation and bias built upon
a poor philosophical foundation.

Philosophy matters and is important. Ayn Rand was correct about that particular issue. (and many others)

They all need to examine the philosophies that their positions grow out of:
The branch of neoconservatism leads back to a tree of ultranationalism and Trotskyite socialism.
The Tree is deeply rooted in Authoritarian and Totalitarian Philosophy.
At its core its Caesarism (worship of an all powerful leader)
That is why for years the neocons constantly pushed for an all powerful executive branch.
It also explains their fetish for Lincoln.
Many Tea Partiers sadly glom onto neocon talking heads and blindly take their words as gospel truth.
Many Tea Partiers profess to be Christians but support issues and ideas contrary to Christian Teachings:

Lets Compare Christian Philosophy with Neoconservative Philosophy:
Christian: ‘Let us do good so that good may result’
Neocon: ‘let us do evil so that good may result’

Christian: ‘Doing good makes right’
Neocon: ‘Might makes Right’

Christian: ‘Doing evil is unjust’
Neocon: ‘The ends justify the means’

Christian ‘Overcome evil with good’ (Bible)
Neocon: You must become the Devil to Defeat the Devil’

Christian: ‘God comes first’ (Bible)
Neocon: ‘Nation comes first’

Christian: ‘war as a very last resort…if ever’ (Just War Theory + Pacifism)
Neocon: ‘never met a war I didnt love’ (pro war pro ‘preemptive strike philosophy of Bush et al.)

Christian: ‘Promote peace’ ‘Jesus is the Prince of Peace’, ‘Blessed are the Peacemakers…’ (Bible)
Neocon: ‘peace is for wimps, sissies, and the naive’

Christian: ‘We should be concerned about the Rights of others’
Neocon: ‘The Constitution is an outdated document, people who fuss about losing Constitutional Rights are crazy’ (Often said when their great leader is running the show)

Notice a difference here?
These are just a FEW examples. Everyone should think of more examples and ask themselves:
‘Do I believe any of that neocon garbage?’
ALL Tea Partiers should switch off FOX News on their TV and go read a good Book.
Such as reading a Book by Ron Paul
A Christian who displays Christian philosophy.
Rather than blindly buy into the pablum that the neocons are peddling as so many do.

Neocons worship war and they conflate and confuse true strength with being a reckless belligerent d-bag. Also Unlike our Founders, they want an Empire not a Republic.
They swoon for the might of Ancient Rome. (The same one that crucified all those Christians)

If Tea Partiers rejected all aspects of neoconservatism...they would be far better off for it.

Read more: The Mixed-Up Culture of the Tea Party — Mises Economics Blog here.

How We Rate the Church

2010-04-18T18:09:00.005-04:00

(1) We must not overrate the position and importance of the Church. It is only too possible to do this. But it will mean spiritual loss and disaster. If we exalt the Church we are likely to forget Christ. High views of the Church often mean low views of Christ. If we emphasize the Church as the depository of grace we tend to neglect Christ as the Source of grace. If we place the Church between the sinner and the Saviour we may easily shut Christ out of the sinner's view. But if we exalt Christ the Church finds her proper place. If we honour Christ we shall value the Church aright.

(2) We must not underrate the position and importance of the Church. It is only too easy to do this. But this too will mean spiritual loss. The individual Christian needs the Church for fellowship, growth, love, and progress. The world needs the Church for witness and blessing. We must therefore honour the Church, value her life, further her progress, and enable her to realize God's purpose. We must foster Church life, Church unity, Church fellowship in every possible way. We must pray for the Church, that she may realize her high calling and glorify God in the world. Thus shall we be Churchpeople in the truest sense, members of the family of God, branches of the Vine, members of the Body, and stones in the Living Temple.

W.H. Griffith Thomas, The Catholic Faith* (1920), p. 194.

*This was the author's evangelical treatise on the Anglican catechism and Prayer Book.

A Tale of Two Niceas

2010-04-13T12:17:00.014-04:00

Here is an excellent lecture presented by Craig Blaising (one of my favorite theologians) to a chapel program at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, on Reformation Day, October 29, 2009. The message consists of a powerful call to the authority of the God-breathed Scriptures, a stark comparison of the two Councils of Nicea (325 vs. 787), and, by implication, a rejection of the authoritative claims of Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy.

Blaising, a member of the North American Patristics Society who engages Roman Catholics and Orthodox in dialogue, is at the end of the day an eloquent and firmly-rooted defender of evangelical faith and sola scriptura.

Update: Thanks to Andrew Preslar for providing the video link above.

My Favorite Anglican: William Henry Griffith Thomas (1861 - 1924)

2010-04-09T10:28:00.010-04:00

Though W.H. Griffith Thomas emerged as a British scholar with a sterling education and prestigious positions in the church and academia and Lewis Sperry Chafer was a “self-made” student of the Scriptures, the two shared much in common that bound them together. The commonalities were theological and ministerial. Both men were a blend of theological traditions. They were certainly not Arminian, nor were they comfortable with traditional five-point Calvinism; both were conservatives, but they were not fundamentalists.

Five theological points may be noted about their views. First, both men embraced the Reformation concept of sola Scriptura. Unlike his principal mentors, James Orr (professor of apologetics and theology in the United Free Church College of Glasglow, Scotland) and P. T. Forsyth, Thomas believed the Bible was the inerrant Word of God, a conviction on his part that was foundational. His philosophical approach to the Scriptures was not rooted in Baconian empiricism reinforced by Common Sense Realism. He affirmed that Christ is the central, all-consuming point of the Bible and life, and the Bible is the means of cognitively experiencing Him. Knowledge is limited; it can make something seem real, but it requires the witness of the Spirit of God to know that it is true. Thus Thomas did not possess confidence in the role of apologetics that was embraced at Princeton Seminary. As a teacher of apologetics, a position denied him in Canada, he said its role was not to construct the edifice of faith. Why? Because it is not a source of revelation equal to “the revelation of God.” Instead the function of an apologist is to demolish his opponent’s arguments and to demonstrate the reasonableness of faith. Supernatural truth is not beyond the grasp of knowing, but it is beyond the grasp of a whole-hearted affectional embrace. To Thomas and Chafer the Holy Spirit is the only Teacher of religious knowledge because well-crafted arguments can never produce certainty. A correct philosophy of ministry must be erected on a correct epistemology. Consequently the focus of ministry in Thomas’s view, and here Chafer would agree, must be on proclamation, not clever arguments or transient contemporary issues.

Second, while Thomas adhered to the Calvinism enshrined in the Anglican Prayer Book and the Thirty-Nine Articles, which he defined and explained meticulously in The Catholic Faith and The Principles of Theology, his Calvinism was at odds with the Reformed Faith. (Like Chafer, he might be described as a “reluctant Calvinist” and a “marginal Fundamentalist.”) Though Thomas knew and embraced predestination as “a Fundamental principle of Protestantism” and his adherence to the Princetonian, he did not extend the logic of his theology to double predestinarianism or limited atonement. In explaining the doctrine of irresistible grace Thomas was willing to live with such ambiguity that Benjamin B. Warfield furiously condemned him. Yet Thomas was a Calvinist, and Princeton theologians were forced grudgingly to recognize it. Sharing Thomas’s Calvinism, Chafer too felt the probing of Warfield’s surgical pen. Neither Thomas nor Chafer was Arminian. They shared a modification of Reformed dogma with which they were comfortable. Chafer may have been a little misleading when he wrote in a publicity statement that the curriculum of the new (Dallas) seminary was “in full agreement with the Reformed Faith and its theology is strictly Calvinistic.”

Third, while Thomas did not embrace the intricate distinctives frequently made by advocates of classic dispensationalism, he was aware of the stream of dispensational thought that ran from John Darby via James Brookes and C. I. Scofield to Chafer. In organizing and interpreting the Scriptures Thomas adopted a dispensational framework that included “three dispensations of the Divine revelation to man, involving a progressive economy of grace.” (emphasis added)

There were a few differences between Thomas and Chafer. For example, though a premillennialist, Thomas did not see the millennium as a dispensation (he did not embrace the details of the dispensational system advanced by Scofield and Chafer). By the standards of classic dispensationalism today Thomas might be perceived as suspect, but he was a committed proponent of the system as a whole. When Chafer sent a copy of the proposed doctrinal statement of the new seminary to Thomas for review, Thomas had only two suggestions for revision, neither of which pertained to dispensationalism.

Thomas was an heir of the premillennial tradition within English evangelicalism, though he spoke on eschatological themes with restraint. As he moved outside English evangelicalism, and more so when he moved from Canada to the United States, he increasingly spoke on these themes. Thomas wrote an article in The Fundamentals on this theme and contributed articles to the Sunday School Times (one of which he coauthored with Scofield), Our Hope, Christian Workers Magazine, and others. When he chaired the resolutions committee of the World Christian Fundamental Association, he affirmed premillennialism in its creed. Again he was not as detailed in his delineation of premillennialism as Scofield and Chafer, but he was firmly in that camp. “In his dispensationalism, as in his theology in general, Thomas demonstrated his preference for a few major articles and avoided a rigid and comprehensive system.”

Fourth, Thomas emphasized the spiritual life, accepting, like Chafer, a form of Keswick theology that rejected perfectionism and taught a progressive, counteractive view of sanctification...
As Thomas explained, there are three views on the believer’s relationship to indwelling sin. One view is eradicationism, the notion that sin can be entirely done away with. This is biblically unjustifiable and contrary to human experience. Another view is suppressionism, the idea that the believer must war against the remnants of sin without any hope of succeeding in this life. But this too is not the teaching of Scripture. Suppressionism, as Thomas called Warfield’s view, has the advantage of being more realistic than eradicationism, but it fails because it is too pessimistic. A third view is counteraction, the belief that believers have responsibilities and that spiritual progress and victories are more than an ideal. Though it is frequently asserted that the Keswick motto is “Let Go and Let God,” neither Thomas nor Chafer were passivists; they were, however, triumphalists and this brought on them the wrath of Warfield for their supposedly being too naive. Thomas and Chafer’s view is better captured in the words “Let us go on.”

Fifth, in Thomas’s dispensational approach to Scripture, he believed that the present era is “the age of the Holy Spirit.” He stressed that the work of the Holy Spirit is integral to the Christian faith. The Holy Spirit inspired the Scriptures, the Spirit alone regenerates, the Spirit is the key to the spiritual life, and the Spirit alone is the believers’ Teacher. Thomas believed, as Chafer often repeated, “at Dallas Seminary we have but one Teacher.” What they meant by this is that the Christian faith is beyond the grasp of the merely rational; being supernatural, it requires a believing, regenerate, affectional heart change. The Christian faith is not merely a careful collection of maxims; it is beyond a teacher’s ability to explain it fully or a preacher’s talents to describe it adequately. To become a Christian, to embrace Christian truth, to have the hope of heaven is to have an assurance of knowledge that is described in the Bible but that goes beyond it to the living Christ described in it. For both men apologetics has a narrowly defined function that was at the foundation of their common educational philosophy.

“The ‘Thomas’ in the W.H. Griffith Thomas Memorial Lectureship,” by John D. Hannah, Bibliotheca Sacra, no. 163 (January-March, 2006).

Christian Austrians

2010-04-07T12:34:00.010-04:00

It took me close to eleven months to muddle through Murray Rothbard’s Man, Economy, and State. In March, I received an alert from the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, AL that its spring catalog contained a misprint: the scholar’s edition of Mises’ Human Action was listed for only $20 (it was supposed to list for $40). I couldn’t resist. My copy arrived three weeks ago and I’m already two-thirds of the way through it. It is proving to be much more a page-turner.

Another book I’m eager to get a hold of is Foundations of Economics: A Christian View, by Shawn Ritenour, a professor of economics at Grove City College in Pennsylvania (my Plymouth Brethren friends will recognize GCC as the location of one of their annual Bible conferences). Ritenour is both a biblically conservative Christian and an Austrian school economist. In an earlier post I erroneously insinuated that Austrian economics and Christianity are strange bedfellows; actually, that is not the case. A number of prominent Austrians are believers: Robert Murphy, William Anderson, Art Carden, historian Thomas E. Woods, and Jeffrey Tucker, to name a few. Dr. Ritenour recently gave an interview to Julie Roys of Moody (Bible Institute) Radio about his new book, which can be heard here.