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Archive for the ‘Theology’ Category

Just Choose From What Works

Posted in Economics, Politics, Scripturalism, tagged on March 30, 2016| 2 Comments »

Obama_Young Leaders .jpg

President Barak Obama addresses the Young Leaders of the Americas Town Hall in Buenos Aires, Argentina, March 23, 2016.   

“So often in the past,” said president Barak Obama to a group of Argentinian youth, “there has been a division between left and right, between capitalists and communists or socialists, and especially in the Americas, that’s been a big debate.” The president continued, “Those are interesting intellectual arguments, but I think for your generation, you should be practical and just choose from what works. You don’t have to worry about whether it really fits into socialist theory or capitalist theory. You should just decide what works.”

 

Obama’s remarks have drawn a good deal of fire from conservatives, and rightly so. To downplay the division between communism and capitalism betrays a profound ignorance of economics and of history. Capitalism, the economic system of the Bible with its emphasis on private property, has lifted millions out of poverty and produced relatively free and just societies in the nations where it has been practiced; communism, the collectivist economic system of Karl Marx that places ownership of the means production with the state, has produced untold suffering and death for millions.

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Book Review: The Atonement

Posted in Book Review, Scripturalism, Theology, tagged , on March 27, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Atonement_ClarkThe Atonement by Gordon H. Clark (Jefferson, MD: The Trinity Foundation, 1987, 163 pages), $8.95.

Chapters Include: Introduction on Method; The Doctrine in its Simplicity; The Covenant of Redemption; The Covenant of Grace; The Incarnation; The Virgin Birth; The Human Nature of Christ; The Purpose of the Incarnation; Active Obedience; The Covenant of Works; The Vicarious Sacrifice; Expiation; Propitiation; Satisfaction; Federal Headship; Absolute Necessity; Traducianism; The Sovereignty of God; The Extent of the Atonement.

A few years back, American Express ran a television advertisement that featured the story of a man who visited Norway thinking he was going to see the land of his ancestors only to find upon arrival that he actually was of Swedish descent. Or perhaps it was the other way around. At any rate, he wasn’t who he thought he was.

I had a similar experience when I first began to study theology. As I worked through a book on systematic theology with a very generous and learned reformed Baptist pastor, I found, much to my surprise, I was an Arminian. This was particularly shocking to me, as I had never so much as heard the word before, let alone realized I was one. In truth, my experience wasn’t so unusual. Such is the dominance of Arminian theology in American Evangelical churches that Arminians generally are unaware of their Arminianism. It’s taken for granted that Christ died for all men, and little or no serious thought is given to an alternative. When the doctrines of grace, what we would call Calvinism, are discussed, many folks raised in the broad evangelical church are shocked and offended that someone actually could believe that God does not love all men, that some are in fact reprobate and fitted for destruction, and that this is the historic teaching of the Reformation.

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Curse God and Die

Posted in Theology, tagged on March 20, 2016| 6 Comments »

job_curse God

Curse God and die.

Things had hit an absolute low point for Job. He had lost his oxen and his donkeys and his sheep. Most of his servants were dead, killed by the edge of the sword. His sons and daughters had perished amidst the merriment of a banquet. To top it all off, Job himself had come down with painful boils which covered him from head to toe.

 

And with all this, what advice did Job get from the person closest to him, his wife? “Curse God and die,” she told him. The words shock us. They seem so out of place in the home of a believer. Scripture doesn’t tell us much about Job’s wife, but certainly she knew of her husband’s faith. And it seems not unreasonable to suppose that she herself shared that faith. But her words of advice to Job at his very lowest point were not, “let us go before the Lord and seek his council and his mercy.” Her reaction was not even one of silent empathy, as was that of Job’s friends when they first came to see him. No. What she did on that occasion was proffer some of the worst advice imaginable, “curse God and die.”

It’s easy from the comfort of my home and sipping a cup of coffee that I would never say such a thing. I could sit here and boast all day about what an unshakable tower of faith I would be were I faced with a similar situation. But if I were to speak in this way, I would very much be guilty of the sin of bearing false witness. Or to put it a little less gently, I’d be lying to you.

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The Fed, Fiat Currency and Feckless Keynesian Economics

Posted in Economics, Scripturalism, tagged , , , on January 17, 2016| 4 Comments »

Obama_2016 SOTU

President Barak Obama delivers his State of the Union address to Congress, January 12, 2016.

“Anyone claiming that America’s economy is in decline is peddling fiction,” or at least that’s what President Obama would have Americans believe based on his remarks in his State of the Union address last week. Yes, according to the president, everything is awesome. And anyone who thinks otherwise is simply, to quote a Vice President from a few decades back, a nattering nabob of negativism.

 

But is everything as rosy as Obama would have us believe? The following points would suggest otherwise:

  • The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) just experienced the worst opening week in its history. During the first two weeks of trading in 2016, the market has declined by 4%.
  • The Labor Force Participation Rate – this the total number of people who are either employed or actively looking for work divided by the total working age population – is at lows not seen in nearly 40 years, going back to a time when women were just entering the workforce in large numbers.
  • The Baltic Dry Index – a shipping and trade index measuring the changes in the cost to transport raw materials by – is at record low levels and continuing to sink rapidly. These low and rapidly declining readings – the index has dropped 19% just since the first of the year – indicate a sharp drop in international shipping, implying a significant drop in international trade and a global economic slow-down. According to this article, the index has hit new record lows for the past nine days straight.
  • According to FactCheck.org, the number of Food Stamp recipients grew by 45% for the period from 1/9/2009 – 1/9/2015.
  • Breitbart reports that, “American’s middle class has shrunk by almost 20% since the 1970s and is now a minority of the population in the United States.”
  • In connection with a shrinking middle class, income distribution has become significantly skewed toward the top of society. This video give a good breakdown of just how unequal incomes have become in the US. Among its findings: 40% of the wealth of the country is held by 1% of the population, those in the top 1% own 50% of value of the stock and bonds markets. Taken together with a shrinking middle class, it appears that the US is coming to resemble more a feudal society than the healthy middle class nation most of us grew up in.
  • US federal government debt has exploded in recent years. When Obama entered office in January 2009, the debt stood at a frightening $10.6 trillion. According to estimates by the Congressional Budget Office, the debt was $18.1 trillion in January 2015 and is projected to grow to $19.1 trillion a year from now when Obama leaves office. To put it another way, it took the US 236 years to amass $10.6 trillion of debt, but by the time he leaves office next year, Obama will have presided over a near doubling of this amount. According to Boston University economist Laurence Kotlikoff, “Our country is broke. It’s not broke in 75 years of 50 years or 25 years or 10 years. It’s broke today.”

Considering only the bullet points above, it would appear that precarious is about the kindest word one could use to describe the economic condition of the US. To say we’re headed off an economic cliff likely would be closer to the mark.

So how did we get here? How did a nation founded by the Puritans and committed to the principles of civil and economic liberty end up a bloated, socialist over extended empire suffocating under the largest debt edifice in the history of mankind? Although a full answer to that question is beyond the scope of a single blog post, the short answer is that the American people have, to borrow what Isaiah said about the people of Judah, turned away backwards from God and from his law. We have rejected the truth and embraced the lie, and now the chickens are coming how to roost.

In this post, I would like to look specifically at three economic lies that are held by nearly all academic economists, politicians and their enablers in the media: central banking, fiat currency and Keynesian economics. Any one of these by itself is dangerous to the health of a nation. Taken together, they are a sort of perfect storm, guaranteed to bring economic destruction to any nation whose leaders embrace them.

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Book Review: God and Evil: The Problem Solved

Posted in Book Review, Scripturalism, Theology, tagged , , on January 10, 2016| 5 Comments »

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God and Evil: The Problem Solved by Gordon H. Clark (Unicoi, Tennessee: The Trinity Foundation, 91 pages, 2004) $5.00.

Responding to president Bush’s proposal to allow public schools to teach intelligent design along with Darwinism, veteran political commentator Daniel Schorr remarked, “[Bush] might well have reflected that, if this [Hurricane Katrina] was the result of intelligent design, then the designer has something to answer for.” From a Christian perspective, this comment is a bit off the mark. For Christians do no not, or at least ought not, argue for intelligent design. Creationism – the doctrine that God created all things of nothing, by the Word or his power, in the space of six literal days, and all very good – is the proper Biblical stance. Nevertheless, Schorr’s statement certainly does apply to creationism. In fact, Schorr’s argument is really more of a problem of the creationist than it is for the proponent of intelligent design.

Writing in his 2006 book Letter to a Christian Nation, atheist evangelist Sam Harris was even more pointed in his criticism of Christians than was Schorr.

Examples of God’s failure to protect humanity are everywhere to be seen. The city of New Orleans, for instance, was recently destroyed by a hurricane. More than a thousand people dies; tens of thousands lost all their earthly possessions; and nearly a million were displaced. It is safe to say that almost every person living in New Orleans at the moment Hurricane Katrina struck shared your belief in an omnipotent, omniscient, and compassionate God. But what was God doing while Katrina laid waste to their city? Surely He heard the prayers of those elderly men and women who fled the rising waters for the safety of their attics, only to be slowly drowned there. These were people of faith. These were good men and women who had prayed throughout their lives. Do you have the courage to admit the obvious? These poor people died talking to an imaginary friend (52).

From the start, Christians have found themselves confronted with arguments similar to those above and have handled them with various degrees of success. Far too often they have come off as the proverbial fellow who made the mistake of brining a knife to a gun fight. They are unprepared and overmatched. In the opinion of this reviewer, a Christian who and understands and believes Clark’s argument in God and Evil: The Problem Solved (hereafter God and Evil)
will find himself in the happier position of the man who brought a gun to a knife fight. The opposition won’t have a chance.

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What Sweeter Music

Posted in Theology, tagged on December 25, 2015| Leave a Comment »

 

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Robert Herrick, English poet and cleric, 1591-1674.

 

A Christmas Carol

by Robert Herrick

 

What sweeter music can we bring

Than a carol for to sing

The birth of this our Heavenly King?

Awake the voice! awake the string!

Heart, ear, and eye, and everything

Awake! the while the active finger

Runs division with the singer.

 

Dark and dull night fly hence away!

And give the honour to this day

Than sees December turn’d to May.

 

If we may ask the reason, say

The why and wherefore all things here

Seem like the spring-time of the year.

 

Why does the chilling winter’s morn

Smile like a field beset with corn?

Or smell like to a mead new shorn,

Thus on a sudden?

 

Come and see

The cause why things thus fragrant be:

‘Tis He is born, whose quickening birth

Gives life and lustre, public mirth,

To heaven and the under-earth.

 

We see Him come, and know Him ours,

Who with his sunshine and his showers

Turns all the patient ground to flowers.

 

The darling of the world is come,

And fit it is we find a room

To welcome Him.

 

The nobler part

Of all the house here is the heart,

 

Which we will give Him; and bequeath

This holly and this ivy wreath

To do Him honour, who’s our King

And Lord of all this revelling.

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300

Posted in Theology, tagged , , on December 13, 2015| 2 Comments »

Thermopylae inscription

Memorial at Thermopylae bearing Simonides famous epitaph: Tell them in Lacedaimon, passer-by / That here, obedient to their word, we lie.   

 

“Come and take them,” retorted king Leonidas to the Persian envoy who had asked him to surrender his arms. Brave words those. Especially in light of the overwhelming odds facing the Spartans. The Persians had an army numbering in the hundreds of thousands. One ancient source puts it at over two million. In any event, the Persian forces vastly outnumbered the small Greek army of about 7,000 men. After two days of heroic fighting, Leonidas and the 300 other Spartan soldiers who were with him were surrounded and killed by the Persians.

 

Those familiar with ancient history immediately will recognize this as a reference to the Battle of Thermopylae, fought in 480 B.C. The Spartans’ stand against the Persians was the stuff of legend, even in ancient times. Simonides, a Greek poet from about the same time, composed a famous epitaph for the slain that reads,

Tell them in Lacedaimon [Sparta], passer-by,

That here, obedient to their word, we lie.

Today, these words are inscribed on a memorial plaque at the site of the battle. In more recent times, interest in the Battle of Thermopylae has been inspired by a graphic novel titled 300 and a movie by the same name.

From the account of their actions at Battle of Thermopylae, it is clear that the Spartans were a remarkable people. What can we say about them? First, they were great warriors. It was often commented that Sparta, unlike most other ancient cities, lacked defensive walls. Spartan lawgiver Lycurgus reportedly explained this by saying, “A city is well-fortified which has a wall of men instead of brick.”

Second, they had a strong sense of honor. Not all the Greek forces at Thermopylae fought to the death. Some surrendered. Others retreated. But Leonidas and his men went down fighting. In ancient warfare, it was considered shameful for a man to drop his weapons and flee. Such was the Spartan love of honor that Plutarch, an ancient Greek writer, quoted Spartan mothers as telling their sons as they went off to battle, “Come back with your shield, or on it.”

Third, they lost. Doubtless they were very brave. And doubtless they were heroic. But in the end, they were all dead. The Greeks went on the win the war, perhaps in part due to the efforts of the Spartans at Thermopylae. But it was the Persians who held the field at the end of the day.

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Book Review: The Incarnation

Posted in Book Review, Scripturalism, Theology, tagged , on December 6, 2015| 3 Comments »

 

The Incarnation by Gordon H. Clark (Jefferson, Maryland: The Trinity Foundation, 91 pages, 1988), $8.95.

For several reasons, The Incarnation
is a noteworthy book. First, it is Gordon Clark’s final publication, written at the very end of his life and published posthumously. Second, it is a masterpiece of logical reasoning and clear writing. As if to prove correct the psalmist’s comment about the righteous, that they “still shall bear fruit in old age,” Clark’s thinking is just as acute in this book as at any time in his long and distinguished career. Third, it is brief. At 91 pages, it makes for a short it can be read in a single sitting. and yet for all its brevity, it is also quite profound. Fourth, it is perhaps Clark’s most controversial writing, in which he weighs the Creed of Chalcedon in the balance and finds it, if not entirely wanting, certainly in dire need of renovation.

IncarnationAlthough Gordon Clark (1902-1985) died before completing The Incarnation, he left it in a state such that, practically speaking, it was a complete work at the time of his decease. As John Robbins commented in the book’s Foreward,

At the time he [Clark] was stricken mortally ill in February 1985, he was writing the present volume, which he titled Concerning the Incarnation. He did not quite finish the book, intending to add a few more paragraphs summarizing his hundred pages of analysis and argumentation, so he asked this writer to complete it for him…I have added only two paragraphs to his words (ix).

The additional summary paragraphs written by Robbins fall at the very end of the book and are clearly marked.

As for the book’s analysis and argumentation, it is first rate start to finish. Clark brings a logician’s eye to the Creed of Chalcedon and finds much that is lacking. This likely comes as a surprise to many readers. For since its formulation in A.D. 451, Chalcedon has been held up as the final word on the incarnation. But Clark makes a compelling case that the Creed, although helpful in some places, also is beset with serious shortcomings, chief among them being the lack of clear definitions for its principle terms.

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Book Review – God’s Hammer: The Bible and its Critics

Posted in Book Review, Philosophy, Scripturalism, Theology, tagged , on November 16, 2015| Leave a Comment »

God's HammerGod’s Hammer: The Bible and its Critics by Gordon H. Clark (Unicoi, Tennessee: The Trinity Foundation, 304 pages, 4th Ed., 2011), $5.18.  Also available in E-Book format.

Chapters include: How May I Know the Bible is Inspired?; The Bible as Truth; Verbal Inspiration: Yesterday and Today; The Evangelical Theological Society Tomorrow; Special Divine Revelation as Rational; Revealed Religion; Holy Scripture; The Concept of Biblical Authority; Hamilton’s Theory of Language and Inspiration; What is Truth?; The Reformed Faith and the Westminster Confession.

According to the back cover of the fourth edition, “God’s Hammer is a collection of essays on the inspiration, authority, and infallibility of the Bible by one of the greatest defenders of the Christian faith in modern times.” These words, in the opinion of this reviewer, are an accurate summary of the book.

The title God’s Hammer comes from Jeremiah 23:29, “Is not My word like a fire?” says the LORD, “and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?,” Here, Jeremiah contrasts the lying words of the false prophets of Judah with those of the Lord delivered through his true prophets. And what was true for the words spoken by God through Jeremiah are true for those set forth in the rest of Scripture

It may come as a surprise to some, the doctrine of Scripture is the most important of all Christian

doctrines. For the 66 books of the Bible are the very word of God and the only means by which man can come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Apart from God’s gracious written revelation, we would have no knowledge of creation, the fall, or the atonement. We could never deduce the Trinity or man’s ultimate destination in heaven or hell from our own experiences or by using logic alone.

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Isolationist: The Neo-Conservatives’ Favorite Swear Word

Posted in Politics, Scripturalism, tagged on November 13, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Republican Sen. Marco Rubio at the Republican debate, November 10, 2015.

Republican Sen. Marco Rubio at the Republican debate, November 10, 2015.

There is no bigger swear word in the neo-conservative vocabulary than “isolationist,” and Marco Rubio showed his true neo-con colors by employing it against Rand Paul during Tuesday’s Republican presidential debate. Said Rubio of Paul, “I know that Rand is a committed isolationist; I’m not.” When a neo-conservative uses the “I” word, his intention is not to have a discussion, but to smear his opponent’s foreign policy views as beyond acceptable and shut down the debate.

In truth, the term “isolationist” is simply a caricature of the historic foreign policy of the United States: non-interventionism. As proof, consider the following statements on foreign policy from the founding fathers;

  • “Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none” (Thomas Jefferson).
  • “The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial relations to have with them as little political connection as possible” (George Washington)
  • “Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her [America’s] heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own” (John Quincy Adams).

To put it another way, the foreign policy of the United States originally was based on Christ’s Golden Rule, “Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 7:12). From the response Ron Paul received in South Carolina four years ago, apparently Jesus would not be welcomed in today’s Republican party.

But a neo-conservative of Rubio’s ilk isn’t happy unless the US is bombing, strafing or droning some hapless third world country, all the while uttering self-congratulatory platitudes about the world’s need for a strong America. But neo-conservative boilerplate aside, is it too much to ask Rubio and other militarists to provide even one coherent reason why, after 14 years, US forces are still in Afghanistan? Can he give us even a single coherent purpose behind America’s current attempt to overthrow the government of Syria? Why is it he wants to increase Pentagon funding at a time when US defense outlays are greater than those of the next ten biggest military spenders combined?

The United States is going bankrupt, in part due to the out of out of control militarism espoused by neo-conservatives such as Senator Rubio. He would do well to stop with the name calling and consider what the Bible, the only source of knowledge about foreign policy, has to say on the subject.


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