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This ‘n That 6/3/16

Posted in This 'n That, tagged , , , , , , , , on June 3, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Harambe

Harambe the gorilla with the four year old boy who fell into the gorilla exhibit at the Cincinnati Zoo, 5/28/16. 

Stories of interest for scripturalists can pop up anywhere. They can be on the other side of the world, or right in our backyard. And it just so happens that this week there were two noteworthy items right here in river city. Let’s kick off this week’s This ‘n That with…

 

The Shot Heard ‘Round the World

Unless you spent this whole last week in a cave or out protesting Donald Trump, you’ve probably heard a little bit about the shooting of Harambe the gorilla at the Cincinnati Zoo.

Just to recap, last Saturday a four year old boy climbed into the Zoo’s gorilla exhibit, fell ten feet into a moat, and quickly found himself a person of interest to Harambe, the Zoo’s 450 pound, alpha-male lowland gorilla.

While the boy’s mother frantically watched, the animal grabbed the boy and dragged him about. When things appeared to become life-threatening, the Zoo have the go-ahead for a sharpshooter to put an end to the standoff.

The episode ended with a dead gorilla and a living boy.

Only it really didn’t end there.

As news spread, it didn’t take long for the animal rights crowd to start up with an irrational two minutes hate directed at the Zoo and the mother of the boy. Check these sample tweets from the compassionate man-haters on Twitter,

It didn’t take me long to find these, so doubtless there’s plenty more nonsense out there. And from these comments it is abundantly clear that not a few members of my own species lack the discernment to understand the vast difference in value between a brute beast and a person made in the image of God.

The Scriptures tell us that God made man a little lower than the angels and set him over the works of his hands. It was God himself who gave man dominion over the earth.

We could wish that things had turned out better for the gorilla. But when it comes to the life of a person or the life of an animal, it’s the animal that goes every time.

The Bible tells us that no man yet ever hated his own flesh. With that in mind, I can’t help but wonder how the social media shriekers would react if it were their lives that were on the line and not that of another. Not that I can prove it, but I rather suspect they’d be singing a different tune.

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This ‘n That: 5/12/2016

Posted in This 'n That, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 12, 2016| 2 Comments »

Crooked Hillary

Hillary Clinton

Eventful times these are. So much so that there’s far more to write about than I could ever hope to adequately address. But hey, there’s no harm in trying. So, let’s get started…

 

Crooked Hillary

I hardly know where to begin when it comes to Mrs. Clinton. She’s an obvious felon. And the best any normal person with her legal baggage could hope for would be a not-too-harsh plea bargain. But when it comes to the preternaturally impervious Hillary Clinton, well, that’s a different story.

One of the most offensive aspects of contemporary American society is the two-tiered justice system. Ordinary Americans can have their lives ruined by a single drug-related felony, while the masters of the universe – or perhaps in Hillary’s case I should say mistress of the universe – can commit all manner of crimes and be rewarded with the highest office in the land.

And almost as if she were going out of the way to rub people’s noses in it, we get a report this past week that four years worth of emails between Hillary and her chief of IT Bryan Pagliano have turned up…..drum roll please…missing! Oh, what a shock!

If you haven’t followed the Clinton email scandal closely, Bryan Pagliano, Clinton’s chief of IT while she was Secretary of State, was the guy who set up the unsecured server on which Hillary stored highly sensitive State Department emails, an act that she undoubtedly knew was illegal. And emails aside, just the act of setting up the server was a felony. As former CIA Officer Scott Uehlinger put it, “The fact that she set up a private server, in and of itself, means she is guilty of a felony right there.”

Nixon only had an 18 minute gap, and that was enough to bring him down. Hillary? She’s got a four year gap. But hardly anyone in the mainstream press cares. As Investors Business Daily reported, “This kind of behavior would normally light a fire under law enforcement – and the press – since these things usually smack of a cover-up. But the mainstream press is asleep at the switch…” Former Department of Justice official Dan Metcalfe commented, “The whole thing stinks to high heavens.”

It’s a good thing that I’m not one of those tinfoil hat wearing wackadoos. Because if I were, I might just begin to think that the Deep State was behind the push for our first woman president…and now that I mention it…

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Bernie and Bergoglio, Part 2

Posted in Politics, Roman Catholicism, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on April 16, 2016| 4 Comments »

Bernie Sanders_2.png

Bernie Sanders

Last week we reported that democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders was off to see the wizard. And sure enough, he got his audience. According to this report from the Daily Beast, Sanders, in Rome for a conference celebrating Centesimus Annus – Centesimus Annus, a papal encyclical by John Paul II, is a semi-Marxist celebration of an earlier papal encyclical by the 19th century socialist pope Leo XIII; pope Leo’s encyclical, titled Rerum Novarum, is a strident, socialist attack on constitutional capitalism, the economic and political system of the Bible – received his hoped for meeting with the pope during the senator’s stay in the Vatican.

 

The article quotes the pope as saying, “This morning as I was leaving [Rome], Senator Sanders was there. He knew I was coming out at that time, and he had the kindness to greet me. When I came down, he introduced himself, I greeted him with a handshake, and nothing more. It’s common courtesy, this is called common courtesy.”

The pope is further added, “If someone thinks that greeting someone is getting involved in politics, I recommend that they find a psychiatrist.”

In that case, I’d better schedule some couch time next week, because by all means I believe that the pope’s decision to meet with Sanders was political.

I’m not sure what is more offensive about this meeting. The fact that the pope is clearly attempting to influence the American presidential election, or the fact that he’s lying about it. The Roman Catholic Church-State is perhaps the most political organization on earth. And this pope may well be the most openly political man to hold the office in some time. For Francis I to dissimulate about his political meddling is insulting, but not unexpected coming from a Jesuit.

Of course, Sanders is not the only current presidential candidate to cozy up to the current occupant of the seat of Antichrist. Shortly before the pope’s visit to the US in September 2015, Hillary Clinton had this to say about Francis I,

I am not a Catholic, but I am a great admirer of the pope. I think that what he’s trying to do is take this venerable institution, the Roman Catholic Church, and really, once again, place it on a firm foundation of scriptures of Christ’s words.”

A few weeks later, still in September 2015, she penned an article for the National Catholic Reporter, in which she opined,

His Holiness Pope Francis calls Earth “our common home.” “Our common home requires our striving for the common good,” Social Service Sr. Simone Campbell, one of the Nuns on the Bus, wrote earlier this year.

In one short paragraph, Clinton used the blasphemous title favored by the popes, His Holiness, flacked for the socialist environmentalist movement, and for good measure threw in one of Rome’s favorite, antichristian economic buzz words, “the common good.” Quite an achievement that, and in a mere thirty-five words to boot.

At the same time Hillary went pandering in the National Catholic Reporter, Ted Cruz decided he wanted a piece of the papal action as well. In an article appearing in the Federalist, Cruz gushed about Pope Francis, writing,

Pope Francis has spoken to the world, proclaiming the inherent truth and goodness of life, marriage, and religious liberty. I am grateful for his leadership on these central issues. In an era when many global leaders are descending to relativism, his courageous defense of the dignity of the human person, the beauty in the sacrament of marriage[as a Baptist, Cruz is well aware that Evangelicals do not consider marriage a sacrament; here, he adopts the language of Rome, apparently to score political points with Romanists; it is this sort of subtle pandering that casts Cruz as a political opportunist rather than a man of principle], and the duty to speak for those who are persecuted is a light to the world of the scriptural truths that are ever-present in our lives.

So, Ted Cruz believes that the Man of Sin can too speak the truths of Scripture. Given the abject failure of the Protestant pulpit to warn people about the true nature of the papacy and the Roman Catholic Church-State, we now are treated to the spectacle of a an Evangelical Senator from Texas falling all over himself to praise Antichrist. A strange sight indeed.

The only candidate who thus far has not kissed the Bishop of Rome’s ring is Donald Trump, who called the pope “disgraceful” for questioning his Christian faith. From what this writer has been able to observe, Donald Trump is no Christian. But when it comes to assessing the pope, I’d say he’s right on target.


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Book Review: The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve

Posted in Book Review, Economics, tagged , , , on February 28, 2016| 6 Comments »

Creature from JekyllThe Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve, 5th Edition by G. Edward Griffin (Westlake Village, California, 608 pages, 2010), $19.44.

“The most boring question in the world,” announced the accounting professor to my B-School class, “is whether the government should have bailed out the financial system in 2008.” In his eyes, the answer was an obvious yes. End of story. But that struck me as a rather odd stance. For the question, to bailout, or not to bailout? seemed to me to be among the most fascinating topics imaginable in the field of finance and accounting. And in truth, any answer one could give would have to go well beyond finance and accounting, touching upon the basic philosophical disciplines of politics, ethics, and ultimately epistemology. Further, any answer given would go a long way to telling you something about the man himself. So no, it was not a boring question at all. That is, unless you’re interest is in perpetuating the status quo, in which case you would prefer that it not be asked at all.

I have elected to introduce my review of G. Edward Griffin’s The Creature from Jekyll Island [hereafter, the Creature] by way of this personal account, because it illustrates perfectly the sort of close-minded contempt that emanates from the financial mainstream toward anyone who dares question its reigning orthodoxies. Examples of these nostrums are: Central bank issued fiat currency is good, but the gold standard is a barbarous relic, the money supply cannot be left to the free market, it must be a function of a government appointed central bank; banks are not like other businesses, they must be chartered, regulated, and, if needed, bailed out by the government using taxpayer funds. None of these orthodoxies is true, for none can be supported from Scripture. Yet they are accepted by politicians, academics and ordinary folks alike almost without question.

G. Edward Griffin, on the other hand, is a man who does question these orthodoxies, concluding at the very beginning of his book that the Federal Reserve must be abolished. He provides seven reasons for this, namely:

  • It is incapable of accomplishing its stated objectives.
  • It is a cartel operating against the public interest.
  • It is the supreme instrument of usury.
  • It generates our most unfair tax.
  • It encourages war.
  • It destabilizes the economy.
  • It is an instrument of totalitarianism.

The remainder of the book is used to flesh out why these things are so. In Griffin’s words, the book is a who-dunit, which, in the words of USA Daily, “documents an organized and successful attempt to seize control over the U.S. monetary system by powerful American and European families.”

Eccles Building

The Eccles Building, the Washington D.C. headquarters of the Federal Reserve.

 

At this point one may by asking himself, why is it that Christians should care about the obscure workings of the Federal Reserve System [hereafter, the Fed]? Why not just leave banking to the bankers and get on with more important matters? After all, talking about money doesn’t seem very spiritual. And doesn’t the Bible say that money is the root of all evil? Wouldn’t it be best simply to leave the whole matter alone and focus on the Great Commission instead?

Taking these objections in reverse order, let us consider what Christ commanded in the Great Commission. What did Jesus say to his followers? Go into all the world and teach the five fundamentals? No. Christ called his disciples to go into all the nations and to teach, “them to observe all things that I have commanded you.” The Great Commission includes all of Christ’s teachings. And since there is no field of endeavor not covered by Christ’s teachings,, all statements of all men in all areas of study, including banking, finance, and accounting, must be brought back to Scripture and judged by it. Therefore banking is a proper field of Christian study.

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Antichrist on the Border, Part 2

Posted in Economics, Immigration, Politics, Roman Catholicism, tagged , , , on February 21, 2016| Leave a Comment »

 

Pope Francis_Juarez

Pope Francis speaks at the Bachilleres College in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico on February 17, 2016. Background image is Our Lady of Guadalupe.  Gabriel Bouys, AFP

 

 

“The Romanists have very cleverly built three wall around themselves,” observed Martin Luther in his treatise To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation. “Hitherto,” he continues, “they have protected themselves by these walls in such a way that no one has been able to reform them. As a result, the whole of Christendom has fallen abominably.

In the first place, when pressed by the temporal powers they have made decrees and declared that the temporal power had no jurisdiction over them, but that on the contrary, the spiritual power is above the temporal. In the second place, when the attempt is made to reprove them with the Scriptures, they raise the objection that only the pope may interpret the Scriptures. In the third place, if threatened with a council, their story is that no one may summon a council but the pope.”

In this way they have cunningly stolen our three rods from us, that they may go unpunished. They have ensconced themselves within the safe stronghold of these three walls so that they can practice all the knavery and wickedness which we see today.” Thus Luther.

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Green Statists on the March

Posted in Economics, Politics, tagged , , , on February 4, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Obama

“Obama to propose $10-per-barrell fee on oil,” blared the CNBC headline. Surprise, surprise. Obama wants a new tax. The Obama administration claims the funds generated by this proposed energy tax will be used to fund clean transportation research, high-speed railways, autonomous cars and other such like. (Sigh)… Can Obama just leave office already? The economy is teetering on the brink of a recession, and possibly something much worse, and all the president can think to do is gin up more government spending. I guess Nixon was right, we really are all Keynesians now.

It’s fascinating how statists such as Obama try to portray themselves as of the people, by the people, and for the people, but in reality they are anything but. In truth, he is more like of the statists, by the statists and for the statists. There is nothing that he does that is not all about growing government. And that’s what gives the lie to this and to his other proposals. But government is the problem, not the solution. Growing the state does not make us better off. It’s a drain on our wealth. More power in Washington means less freedom for Americans. And yet, almost like a cuckoo clock, out pops Obama to to announce yet another government spending initiative.

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The Year in Review, 2015

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on January 3, 2016| 5 Comments »

2015 year in reviewAnother year of blogging has come and gone. And since New Year’s Day represents a convenient opportunity to reflect on the year past as well as look forward to the one ahead, it seemed good to me to summarize 2015’s postings as well as consider where this blog may be headed in 2016.

But before I get to that, thanks are in order. In the first place, I would like to thank the Lord my God. I have written Lux Lucet since 2009, but it has only been since November 2014 that I committed to a regular weekly writing schedule. Writing takes work. And in truth, I wasn’t sure that I would be able to maintain the frequency and quality of writing that I had in mind. But God has been gracious. He has provided me an abundance of interesting and relevant topics to discuss, the necessary time to research and write, and the stamina to make it happen. If there be anything about this blog at all praiseworthy, truly I must say with the reformers, Soli Deo Gloria.

Second, I would like to that the late Dr. John W. Robbins of the Trinity Foundation. It was eight years ago this month that John proposed to me a writing project that would eventually turn into a book titled Imagining A Vain Thing: The Decline and Fall of Knox Seminary. Up until that time, the biggest writing projects I had undertaken were high school and college term papers. But thanks to John’s help as well as the help of current Trinity Foundation president Tom Juodaitis, I was able to see the project through to its completion. This blog is an outgrowth of my experience working with John. You might even say it’s an extended thank you to him, the man whose work has done so much to inspire me.

Third, I would be remiss if I did not extend a sincere thank you to my readers for their support. Were you to ask me why I blog, habitual joker that I am, I’d probably tell you I’m in it for the money. It has always been my prayer that this blog would be used by God to edify his church. But the nature of blogging is such that it can be quite lonely. You sit at your computer and write and publish, but the question remains, What good is any of this doing? In light of that, it is tremendously encouraging to see that my posts are read. Please know that your clicks, comments and likes are greatly appreciated.

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Antichrist on the Border

Posted in Economics, Immigration, Politics, Roman Catholicism, Uncategorized, tagged , , , on December 20, 2015| 2 Comments »

 

Pope Francis_Unholy MixNot content with parading around the nation’s capital, New York City and Philadelphia, Pope Francis I, the current occupant of the office of Antichrist, has big plans for the U.S. Mexican border. According to a recent report,

The Vatican has announced the program for Pope Francis’ upcoming visit to Mexico, which will include a visit to the U.S.-Mexican border with the celebration of a “cross-border” Mass.

The focus of the pope’s border visit, which is to take place during his February 12-17 tour of Mexico, will be to press for immigration reform, which is code for flooding the U.S. with taxpayer subsidized third-world Roman Catholics. According to a statement by El Paso Bishop Mark J. Seitz,

During Mass, Pope Francis will undoubtedly call attention to many realities that are lived on both sides of our U.S.-Mexico border, particularly the plight of so many migrants and refugees fleeing violence and poverty in their home countries, in search of better lives for themselves and their children.

As the Breitbart article notes, the pope’s visit will take place, “just as voters are heading to the polls in both Iowa and New Hampshire, where immigration policy is a major issue.” The timing of the papal visit almost certainly is no coincidence. Rome has long sought to turn the U.S. into a majority Roman Catholic country. To date, its efforts have failed, as the Roman Catholic population of America is about 65 million in a nation of over 300 million. But with a virtually bottomless supply of potential immigrants from Latin America at its disposal, the Church hopes to finally realize its goal of a majority Roman Catholic America. What are American Evangelicals to make of this latest push by Antichrist?

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The More Things Change…

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on November 4, 2015| Leave a Comment »

The Saintly Junipero Serra.

The Saintly Junipero Serra.

Back in the day, 1517 to be exact, it was Johannes Tetzel’s selling of indulgences – a sort of early release from purgatory bought with a price – that prompted Martin Luther to write and his famous 95 Theses and post them on the Wittenberg door.

And what do you know. 498 years later the folks at the Vatican are still up to their old tricks. When pope Francis was in the US in September, one of the key events of his visit was the canonization of a Junipero Serra. Serra, a Franciscan monk who founded several missions in California, was elevated to sainthood by the Francis, marking the first time a canonization ceremony was held in the United States.

The canonization was controversial with some, as Serra’s missions had a reputation for brutality. According to one report, “Indians brought into the missions were not allowed to leave, and if they tried they were shackled and severely beaten…When the Native Americans rebelled, which they did on at least two occasions, their rebellions were put down in brutal fashion. When Native American women were caught trying to abort babies conceived though rape, the mission fathers had them beaten for days one end, clamped them in irons, had their heads shaved and forced them to stand at the church altar every Sunday carrying a painted wooden child in their arms” (Andrew Gumbel, “Junipero Serra’s brutal story in spotlight as pope prepares for canonisation“). Beatings, imprisonment, ritual humiliation. Such a lovely place.  In truth, it sounds a lot more like the Hotel California than anything resembling an actual Christian mission.

At any rate, this raises the question of just how the Church selects whom to canonize. According to a new book by Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi, money helps. As the AP reports, “In his book “Merchants in the Temple,” obtained Tuesday by the Associated Press two days ahead of publication, Nuzzi estimates the average price tag for a beatification cause at around 500,000 euros ($550,000) – and some have gone as high as 750,000 euros ($822,000). Causes of saintly candidates who don’t inspire rich donors can languish.”

Amazing.  The more things change with the Roman Catholic Church-State, they more they stay the same.  Of course, Rome even boasts about this. Semper eadem, always the same, is their motto.  Which does kind of make you wonder, just who was it that greased the skids for Serra?

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Reformation Day Musings 2015

Posted in Theology, tagged , , , on November 2, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Luther's 95 Theses.

Luther’s 95 Theses.

“How arrogant,” I said to myself the first time I heard the Calvinist doctrine of election, “I’m glad I’m not one of those people.” Looking back many years, it strikes me as funny to think about my reaction the first time I heard about the sovereignty of God. I didn’t like it. No, not one bit. Those Calvinists. They were insufferably conceited. How could anyone be so audacious as to claim he was chosen by God? What I didn’t see at the time was the plank in my own eye, the pride of believing I had the good sense to believe in Jesus Christ all on my own steam. I was a Christian, or so I thought, because I chose of my own freewill to receive Christ into my heart. I chose God, he didn’t choose me.

Fast forward about twenty years and by God’s grace, and much to my surprise, I found myself becoming one of “those people,” a Christian who understood and agreed with the Biblical doctrines of election and reprobation. I came to love the Reformation, its people, its history, and eagerly took to reading all I could about it.

With that in mind, here are a few of my thoughts on Reformation Day and why I love it.

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