Oliver Twist’s Worst Nightmare

Posted on May 20, 2013 by johntertullian

Budgets and Beggars

In New Zealand, national budgets in the parliamentary Westminster tradition are presented annually to the parliament and the people. We feel compelled to make this rather basic point because many of the US readers may be confused, since in the United States the Federal Government can stagger on for decades it would seem without a budget stipulating spending and revenue.

Budget times in New Zealand have historically been occasionally dramatic. When the government ran the economy more tightly than an Eastern European sphincter most folk in the country furtively huddled around the radio on Budget night waiting to see if some dramatic announcement would be forthcoming. Sometimes instantly, whilst we were all supposed to be sleeping, the currency would be devalued twenty percent by legislative fiat. Or petrol tax went up forty percent. Fortunes were made or lost overnight.

Thankfully Eastern European economics and tyranny were tossed out (at least for a time) early in the nineteen eighties, when the IMF was on the verge of declaring New Zealand bankrupt.
(There are a few political parties determined to return to a command and control economy, such as the Greens and the Mana Party. For the moment, most New Zealanders regard them as being on the lunatic fringe–thankfully.) But we digress. We are much more sane now. New Zealand has a free floating currency, an independent Reserve Bank, and a much more transparent mode of government. Take the budget, for example. It is now a big yawn–deliberately so. Recent administrations make a point of drip feeding all the juicy bits weeks before to the media and public so that there will be few, if any, surprises. All in all, this is a much much better system than we once laboured under.

But one thing never changes. All the special interest groups approach national budgets with a deep commitment to MMFM, which is a Maori acronym, but down the pub loosely translates to “More Money For Me”. We have always found this an unseemly sight: hundreds of special interest groups holding begging bowls out to the gummint, pleading for more of other peoples’ money. Always. We have never, ever seen a special interest group be allocated taxpayers’ money in a budget, only to refuse it on the grounds that it was too much, or it was way beyond what they actually require, or they are incompetent to administer such a vast sum. No matter how much money is beneficently bestowed, it is never enough. The best you can hear is, “It’s a start. But much, much more is needed.”

We find this entire spectacle unseemly, but it is an inevitable consequence of the welfare state. This is not to say, incidentally, that the causes advances by such groups are not worthy, nor that they are addressing real social needs. It is to say that there is something indictable about a society and system that has such interests beg from the government, which in turn extracts cash compulsorily from citizens to meet the demand. The ethic of thankfulness and gratitude has disappeared like the moa.

The New Zealand Government and Its Prime Minister

When the state becomes beneficent, private (non-government) charity begins to die on the vine. The state becomes so bloated, it resembles Jabba the Hutt. The sub-text is that the gummint begins to intrude itself into so many social and community affairs that we inexorably inch back towards an Eastern European dystopia. Another sub-text is that communities come to believe themselves both dependant and helpless. Another sub-text is the fertile stimulation of envy and grievance.

Public media usually present “winners and loser” lists after the presentation of a national budget. The Civilian presented his own list of beneficiaries. Sometimes real life eerily resembles the parody.

Politics

What’s in the Budget?

16/05/2013 at 4:36 pm

The Civilian takes a look at what you’ll find in this year’s Budget.

$1.7 billion to buy back Mighty River Power after Minister for State Owned Enterprises, Tony Ryall began missing it.

$1 billion to build roads that go around Hamilton instead of through it.

$200 million for construction of single unaffordable house.

$125,000 to (Attorney General) Christopher Finlayson’s ongoing investigation into who framed Roger Rabbit.

$64 for Treasurer Bill English to get his printer fixed.

$540 million for Tauranga rebuild.

$57 to buy all MPs name tags so that everyone will know who they are.

$65,000 to bolster the Government’s strategic reserve of anti-Australian jokes.

$800 million to Gore, just to see what happens.

$6 million for an awareness and policing campaign to ensure mixtures only have proper lollies, and not the ones nobody likes, such as black jellybeans and those chalky things.

$2 million to buy copies of 2013 Budget for impoverished families.

$5 million to explore what more the Government could be doing with jigsaw puzzles.

$240,000 to see if we can get Sam Neill in some more Hollywood movies.

$20,000 to figure out why a McDonald’s deluxe cheeseburger costs less than a regular one.

$236,000 for more cows in schools.

$250 million to make the transformers in the national grid look more like the ones in the movie Transformers.

$900 million to rename the country “A Yellow Submarine” for one day so that we can all sing “We all live in a yellow submarine.”

$3 billion to get rid of rivers, so they stop flooding and getting all polluted.

The Original Biblical Text

Posted on May 18, 2013 by johntertullian

Of Tape Measures and Biblical Originals

A helpful piece from Justin Taylor:

The Original Text of the Bible

Even Though We Lack the Original Manuscripts

Justin Taylor 1:45 pm CT

Michael Kruger has a helpful post at TGC this morning making a helpful distinction about the reliability of the original text of Scripture:

But the original text is not a physical object. The autographs contain the original text, but the original text can exist without them. A text can be preserved in other ways. One such way is that the original text can be preserved in a multiplicity of manuscripts. In other words, even though a single surviving manuscript might not contain (all of) the original text, the original text could be accessible to us across a wide range of manuscripts.

Preserving the original text across multiple manuscripts, however, could only happen if there were enough of these manuscripts to give us assurance that the original text was preserved (somewhere) in them. Providentially, when it comes to the quantity of manuscripts, the New Testament is in a class all its own. Although the exact count is always changing, currently we possess more than 5,500 manuscripts of the New Testament in Greek alone. No other document of antiquity even comes close. [my emphasis]

You can read the whole thing here. On this latter point, Dan Wallace once explained to me that:

The average classical author’s literary remains number no more than twenty copies. We have more than 1,000 times the manuscript data for the NT than we do for the average Greco-Roman author. Not only this, but the extant manuscripts of the average classical author are no earlier than 500 years after the time he wrote. For the NT, we are waiting mere decades for surviving copies. The very best classical author in terms of extant copies is Homer: manuscripts of Homer number less than 2,400, compared to the NT manuscripts that are approximately ten times that amount.

Here’s a chart adapted from something Dr. Wallace compiled:

Histories	Years	Date of Oldest Manuscripts	Number of Surviving Manuscripts
Livy	59 B.C.-A.D. 17	4^th century A.D. (300s)	27
Tacitus	A.D. 56-120	9^th century A.D. (800s)	3
Suetonius	A.D. 69-140	9^th century A.D. (800s)	200+
Thucydides	460-400 B.C.	1^st century A.D.	20
Herodotus	484-425 B.C.	1^st century A.D.	75
New Testament	c. 5 B.C.-A.D. 90	c. 100-150	c. 5,700 (counting only Greek manuscripts) (+ more than 10,000 in Latin, + more than a million quotations from the church fathers, etc.

R. Laird Harris once offered an illustration to show that “the doctrine of verbal inspiration is worthwhile even though the originals have perished”:

Suppose we wish to measure the length of a certain pencil. With a tape measure we measure it at 6 ½ inches. A more carefully made office ruler indicates 6 9/16 inches. Checking it with an engineer’s scale, we find it to be slightly more than 6.58 inches. Careful measurement with a steel scale under laboratory conditions reveals it to be 6.577 inches. Not satisfied, we send the pencil to Washington, where master gauges indicate a length of 6.5774 inches. The master gauges themselves are checked against the standard United States yard marked on a platinum bar preserved in Washington.
Now, suppose that we should read in the newspapers that a clever criminal had run off with the platinum bar and melted it down for the precious metal. As a matter of fact, this once happened to Britain’s standard yard! What difference would this make to us? Very little. None of us has ever seen the platinum bar. Many of us perhaps never realized it existed. Yet we blithely use tape measures, rulers, scales, and similar measuring devices. These approximate measures derive their value from their being dependent on more accurate gauges. But even the approximate has tremendous value—if it has had a true standard behind it. (R. Laird Harris, Inspiration and Canonicity of the Bible, rev. ed. [Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1969], pp. 88-89)

For more reflections on this, See Greg Bahnsen’s fine essay on “The Inerrancy of the Autographa.”

Calvin’s Daily Devotional

Posted on May 18, 2013 by johntertullian

Daily Devotional

May 18

Thine Is My Heart: Devotional Readings from the Writings of John Calvin

by John Calvin (compiled by John H. Kromminga)
Republished from the OPC Website

Bible Text:
In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, —Ephesians 1:13

Devotional:
Paul asserts that the Ephesians were “sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise.” This shows that there is an eternal teacher, by whose agency the promise of our salvation, which otherwise would only strike the air, penetrates into our minds. Similar also is his remark, that the Thessalonians were “chosen by God through sanctification of the Spirit, and belief of truth.” By this connection he briefly suggests that faith itself proceeds only from the Spirit.

John expresses this in plainer terms: “We know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us.” Again, “Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.” Therefore Christ promised to send to his disciples “the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive,” that they might be capable of attaining heavenly wisdom.
He ascribes to him the peculiar office of suggesting to their minds all the oral instructions which he had given them. For in vain would the light present itself to the blind, unless the Spirit of understanding would open their mental eyes; so that he may be justly called the key with which the treasures of the kingdom are unlocked to us; and his illumination constitutes our mental eyes to behold them.

It is therefore that Paul so highly commends the ministry of the Spirit; because the instructions of preachers would produce no benefit, did not Christ himself, the internal teacher, by his Spirit, draw to him those who were given him by the Father. Therefore, as we have stated, that complete salvation is found in the person of Christ, so, to make us partakers of it, he “baptizes us with the Holy Spirit and with fire,” enlightening us unto the faith of his Gospel, regenerating us so that we become new creatures, and purging us from profane impurities, consecrates us as holy temples to God. —Institutes, III, i, iv

John Calvin was the premier theologian of the Reformation, but also a pious and godly Christian pastor who endeavored throughout his life to point men and women to Christ. We are grateful to Reformation Heritage Books for permission to use John Calvin’s Thine Is My Heart as our daily devotional for 2013 on the OPC Web site. You can currently obtain a printed copy of that book from Reformation Heritage Books.

You Shall Not Pass!

Posted on May 18, 2013 by johntertullian

We Will Never Surrender

We have posted recently on “slippery slope” arguments (here, and here). One of the points made by Jonah Goldberg about slippery slope arguments is that they discount the human factor, where people rise up to say “enough” and the slippery slope becomes less slippery.

Here is an example of what he means. The slippery slope in this case is abortion and its increasing availability by chemical means. Take the pill, kill your baby. In a terrible case in the United States a “boyfriend” tricked his pregnant “girlfriend” into taking an abortifacient drug, causing the death of the infant. The slippery slope argument would reasonably predict that as a result of such drugs an inevitable situation is arising where abortion will be as widespread and common as drinking a glass of water.

Turtle Bay covers the case:

Unwanted Abortion: Man Slips Misoprostol to Woman with Wanted Child

Posted on | May 16, 2013 by Wendy Wright |

A woman is suing her boyfriend for tricking her into taking misoprostol to kill her unborn baby. Here is the lawsuit filed in Florida.

Remee Jo Lee was thrilled to be pregnant. Her boyfriend Andrew Welden took Remee Jo to his father, a doctor, to confirm the pregnancy. Andrew then claimed she had a bacterial infection and gave her a bottle of pills labeled Amoxicillin, an anti-biotic. Andrew had filled the bottle with misoprostol pills. The drug can treat miscarriage, induce labor, or cause an abortion.

Remee Jo took one pill. She became seriously ill and went to the hospital. Doctors determined she has suffered a miscarriage caused by misoprostol. Andrew admitted to her – and to law enforcement – that the pills were misoprostol.

She is suing for $15,000. Misoprostol is a favorite of international abortion advocates. Several groups are working to make misoprostol easy to obtain – by anyone. The World Health Organizations added misoprostol to its “essential medicines” list after being lobbied by abortion groups.

Pro-life advocates warn that easy access to misoprostol will result in women with wanted pregnancy being forcibly aborted.

Where is the one crying “enough”? Are people rising up? Yes, but not solely in response to this case in isolation. The first thing is observe is that the amoral Welden has been arrested and is facing justice. This, from the Tampa Tribune:

Now Welden, 28, is facing the possibility of life behind bars without parole, charged with murder under a rarely used federal statute known as the “Protection of Unborn Children Act.” He also is charged with tampering with a prescription “under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference” to the risk of death or injury.

The “Protection of the Unborn Children Act” was already on the statute books. Of course in the lunatic asylum that purports to be the highest stages of human enlightenment, this statute sits alongside the “woman’s right” to choose whether to kill her unborn child or not. Nevertheless the statute is there, albeit rarely used.

The prosecutor appears righteously riled up:

“In my years as a prosecutor, this case is one of the most shocking and premeditated cases I’ve seen,” Assistant U.S. Attorney W. Stephen Muldrow told U.S. Magistrate Anthony Porcelli during a hearing Wednesday. . . . “Quite frankly, your honor, this case shocks the conscience,” Muldrow told Porcelli. “This was a senseless crime. He had no reason to kill the baby – his baby. She had a name for the baby… This case is solid. The crime is heinous.”

Were the accused to be sentenced to life without parole we are pretty confident that would go a long way toward making the slippery slope far less slippery. All it takes is people consistently and persistently standing up and saying, “Enough”.

We belong to the Lord. We must never, ever surrender.

Douglas Wilson’s Letter From America

Posted on May 17, 2013 by johntertullian

Principles of War in Culture War

Culture and Politics – Politics
Written by Douglas Wilson
Tuesday, 14 May 2013

Principles that govern every form of conflict are constant in all possible scenarioes. The need for mobility, surprise, etc. will never fade away. But weapons and tactics are not constant — rocks, bows, guns, triremes, torpedoes, etc. vary from era to era, and war to war. Electronic countermeasures played no role whatever in the battle of Lepanto.

Those who are merely competent in the use of a particular weapon are followers. They may be very competent indeed, but that is not the issue. They are also essential to success of any campaign, but if they are promoted to the level where principled strategic thinking is necessary, they will also be essential to the failure of that campaign.

Those who comprehend the principles involved are effective leaders. I would go so far as to say that this is one of the fundamental characteristics of effective leadership.
Who is competent to see the dividing line between leaders and would-be leaders? Both kinds of people think they are leaders, but only one truly knows.

In an egalitarian culture, however, true leadership is despised and precedence is given to technicians, bureaucrats, and various kinds of intellectual ground pounders. This means things can get fearfully skewed — we have generals who do not see the principles involved, and sergeants who do. The distinction between principles and “methods” is an objective one. However, to the one who is not gifted to see, the whole thing will appear to be a Zen exercise.

When the distinctions are observed, the result is military “wisdom.” But principles do not fight by themselves. Principles are always incarnate in a particular method. There is therefore always something there to distract and confuse somebody who isn’t thinking.

Here is a brief list of the principles of war. They were developed on the field of battle, but they apply to any situation where conflict or competition is occurring. Reformers are concerned to win what have come to be called the “culture wars,” and unless we recover an understanding of these principles, and learn to apply them to the conflicts we are in, then such a win is impossible.

I will briefly list the principles, and then give some commentary on each one, looking to show how they apply to the cultural struggle we are in.
1. Objective
2. Offensive
3. Concentration
4. Mobility
5. Security
6. Surprise
7. Cooperation
8. Communication
9. Economy of Force
10. Pursuit

The first principle answers the question — what are we trying to achieve? Now of course, there are objectives and subordinate objectives. For many Reformed types, the phrase “do all to the glory of God” has assumed mantra-like status. After all, does not the Shorter Catechism tell us what the chief end of man is? Yes, it does, and it does so correctly. That is the ultimate objective, and it should be there.

But it is not enough to acknowledge this in a perfunctory way that affirms the ultimate objective while failing to work toward that ultimate objective by means of intelligently ascertained subordinate objectives.
The subordinate objectives should better be identified as nested within a hierarchy of ascending objectives. Now every principle must be clothed in a particular method. In the same way, the objective cannot be pursued simply by acknowledging the rightness of the objective. The objective must be pursued by particular actions, which must be layered within an ascending hierarchy of objectives.

Thus, whenever something is done, the objective should relate to the ultimate reason it was done, while the thing accomplished (with which we are all pleased) could not justify itself as an ultimate objective. The clothing of the action does not reveal the objective. One man may be an activist and another a car mechanic, and share the same objective. Or two men may both be activists and not share the same objective. These distinctions cannot be maintained apart from a biblical worldview, and that worldview absolutely requires that the glory of God be the final telos of all actions, whether the actions were performed by God or man.

Takeaway point: The objective needs to be clear, and rightly nested within other, larger objectives. When the bugle blows indistinctly, no one gets ready for battle.

The second principle of war is that of offensive. These principles of war are principles of effective fighting, showing us how to engage in conflict. They are not the same as moral principles. They tell you how to fight effectively; they do not tell you whether you should be fighting. The Germans invaded Belgium, and that was taking the offensive, but that did not make it good. If your cause is good, it is also good to be observing these principles. If not, then not.

Remember the classic Reformed stance on civil resistance, which certainly limits how this principle may be employed. Evil authorities are first to have the word preached to them, and every lawful means of appeal and resistance should be applied. Secondly, it is permissible to flee persecution, what Calvin once called getting the heck out of Dodge. And third, it is permissible to take up arms against a tyrant defensively. This last shows a principled neglect of this principle of war. This is what David did when Saul fell into his hands in the cave. He failed to take the offensive, and because of it God blessed him. In failing to take one kind of offensive, he took the offensive on another level entirely.

However, if ethical considerations do not prevent one from taking the offensive, all thought and energy should be employed either in taking the offensive, or planning on how to move from defense to offense. Survival is not the goal, stalemate is not the goal, absence of collision is not the goal. Except for baseball, which is an odd one, you can’t score points unless you have the ball.

Considered generally, is the Church today in an offensive or defensive stance? Leave aside the compromised sectors of the church are, which are actively doing damage in what they do. Just think of the uncompromised sections of the Church — even there our stance is most emphatically defensive. We think we have won, for example, if we successfully prevent them from establishing homosexual marriage in our state. But that, while good, is not victory at all. You haven’t won the war simply because your city makes it another day without collapsing because of the siege.

Takeaway point: We should look for a way to stop responding to initiatives of the adversary, and start behaving in such a way that they have to figure out how to respond to us.

The third principle is concentration. Of course, concentration may be employed on the tactical level, but let us consider concentration on the strategic level, and not on the tactical level. Paul concentrated on the key city of Ephesus for several years in his teaching in the hall of Tyrannus, and all of Asia heard the word of the Lord. The Reformer John Calvin concentrated his efforts in the (relatively) unimportant city of Geneva, and the fact that the city was “taken” permitted hosts of refugees from other places to concentrate there, and from there to influence the continent of Europe. Preachers, books, general mayhem and trouble were all exported.

But there are two ways to concentrate. One is seen in Wheaton and Colorado Springs. This is where Christian organizations and outfits act like birds of feather. It is essentially (of course with some exceptions) a ghetto mentality. This is where you go when you want to be able to meet lots of evangelicals. But these cities are not a hissing and a byword in the unbelieving nation around, which they would be if they were practicing the other kind of concentration.

Whenever believers successfully gather, we want to take special care that we do not lapse into a ghetto mentality. The point is to make the concentration here as potent as it was in Ephesus or Geneva. And that means exporting the antithesis.

Takeaway point: Concentration is not to be pursued for the sake of a respite; it is a concentration of force, applied in ways the adversary wants you to stop. So don’t stop.

The fourth principle of war is mobility. Our tendency is to look at a principle like mobility, and immediately translate. But with this principle, a confusion between principle and method is likely to happen. For example, in the war of worldviews, in the clash of ideas, someone is likely to immediately think of the Internet as an example of mobility. And it can be. But it can also be a device which displays one’s stodginess to the whole world at the speed of light. Mobility, as far as we are concerned, is a state of mind.

Of course, in a physical war mobility has a strong physical component. Either your enemy got there first or you did. Either he was able to strike first, or you were able to. But even here, the ability to move is the result of a certain frame of mind. This frame of mind was evident in the time of preparation, and it is evident at the moment of decision.

Mobility is not demonstrated by itself. A man may be highly energetic, and have a lot of stamina, but use it all by running around in tight little circles. This principle is employed in concert with others. A panicked army in a rout is mobile. A mad dash assaulting the wrong part of the line may be mobile. Mobility is exercised when the right amount of force gets to the right place quickly. A bullet fired in the wrong direction goes just as fast.
I have said that mobility is a state of mind. Let me define this via negativa. Mobility is restricted by:

Laziness: a lazy man is full of excuses, so he is likely to point to factors outside himself which may fall in some of these other categories. But nothing will be accomplished in any realm unless we learn to work like Protestants used to.

Cowardice: fear of what might happen at the end of the march often leads some folks to delay or cancel the march. Like the lieutenent in Ambrose Bierce’s small story, we are concerned that any further display of valor on the part of our troops might bring us into contact with the enemy.

Uncertainty: a man might be fully willing to do the right thing if only he had epistemic certainty concerning what it was. But he cannot have this. We have to walk by faith.

Confusion: a man may have great confidence, but mobilize all his resources to do the wrong thing at the wrong place. Or the right thing at the wrong place. Or the wrong thing at the right place.

Complacency: a man might not do something because he believes that it is not necessary to do.
Takeaway point: Mobility remembers that an army is supposed to fight, and it is supposed to fight as quickly as effectively possible.

Then we come to security. Security cannot be a stand alone principle. Guarding oneself against the possibility of defeat is important, but prudent security is not the same thing as “risk-free” warfare. A war in which there is no possibility of things going wrong is not really a war.

We are to live up to what we have already attained, and we are not to let it go. But, to mix the metaphor, this is not to be a talent buried in the ground. This secured ground is to be used as the basis for our attack on the enemy. Thus, security must always be married to “offensive,” and be thought of as a means to that end.

We are to comport ourselves in such as way that the enemy is either unaware that we are doing anything, or is unaware of what we are doing. Security can be good because we are (still) marshaling our forces, and the enemy does not know there is an enemy in the field. Or, security can be good because we are not chatterboxes. If a pastor is invited into an unbelieving forum should he (as a general rule) want to go? Sure. But if he goes, he should talk like a football coach in a pregame interview. He should say things like “we want to concentrate on moving the ball.” He should give absolutely nothing away that he does not want the enemy to know and act upon.

Takeaway point: Keep your game plan to yourself, but not in a furtive, guilty way. An intelligent adversary should know that there are things you are up to that he knows nothing about.

The sixth principle is surprise. There are many ways to surprise an enemy, but in our current culture wars, I would urge us to strive to surprise the adversary in the following ways:

1. Treating their Revolution as the Establishment;
2. Cultivating a sunny Calvinism;
3. Nurturing all their virtues;
4. Stealing all their thunder;
5. And assuming the stance of an optimistic outsider.

They should constantly be having to put out yet another fire that you started in some unexpected place. And each time should make them think, “what next?,” before they guess wrong.

Takeaway point: Effective surprise is frequently the result of an effective use of some of the other principles combined (e.g. security and mobility). You should want to make all their surprises unpleasant.

The seventh principle is cooperation. This is a principle that receives a different emphasis here than in the book Principles of War. In that book, the emphasis (quite good) was on what might be called evangelical ecumenicism. As with so many other situations, our behavior is directed by what kind of analogies we use.

For example, in that book, it is obvious that competition between the Army and Navy is unspeakable folly in the face of a common foe. But suppose it is not a matter of two branches of the armed forces, but one of an army and a separated band of mutineers? Now what should we do? Or suppose that a supported regiment is commanded by a blockhead? Should a wise general depend on him or try to work around him?

Many theological/doctrinal issues work into this. Should we cooperate with evangelical Arminians? Should we cooperate with strict regulativists? Should we cooperate with charismatics? The answer to the question should be settled by whether or not Christ is cooperating with them. Always remember the crucial distinction between fellowship and leadership. We may cooperate with someone in worship, for example, without having to maintain that he is the next John Knox.

Takeaway point: Strategic differences are not moral differences, but they are still important to the issue of leadership and cooperation. You can believe that someone ought not be a general without breaking fellowship with him, or making it personal.

The next principle is communication. When the principle of communication is being considered it is very important for us to remember the headship of Jesus Christ over His body, the Church. The right hand does not communicate with the left hand, but rather with the head. When this happens, the right and left hand cooperate. When it does not, the body functions (to that extent) in a spastic fashion.

God speaks to us in Scripture. We must have a high view of the authority of the Word, and we must have a hermeneutic that does justice to this view. With regard to the former, the classical Protestant view of sola Scriptura is that the Bible is the only infallible and ultimate rule for faith and practice. With regard to the latter, we must eschew all forms of modernity (arrogant epistemology) and postmodernity (arrogant skepticism).
We communicate with God in:

1. Corporate worship: Public worship is far more important that private or family worship. The latter are crucial, but one of the main blessings of them are found in the impact they have on public worship.
2. Private prayer: We are also instructed to pray without ceasing, be devoted to prayer, etc.
3. Communication horizontally: When close communication with God is occurring, it is safe to maintain close ties with like-minded believers elsewhere.

Takeaway point: Security and communication must be balanced. Communication must be restricted enough that the adversary has no access to it, and open enough that everyone who needs to know does know.

Then we come to economy of force. Armies fight and mobs fight. But a mob has no notion of precision. Mobs try to kill an ant with a baseball bat.

The key here is that we must be motivated by obedience, not by personal vendettas or malice. Someone who hates may fight enthusiastically, but necessarily without wisdom. We do not strike because it is “fun” or simply because it would make the adversary mad.

In our culture wars, the unbelieving world is enormous. We must not assume we must attack all along the front with everything we have. This would neglect concentration, as well as deplete our resources, violating economy of force. In other words, pick your battles carefully and then use the force it takes at that point of battle. The point is not to fight, the point is to fight and win that particular field. What will it take to do that?
In addition, fighting everywhere, all the time, is likely to distort God’s redemptive intention for the world. As we look at the unbelieving world, we should see it as that which the war is over, and not simply who we are fighting with. This is a war of libertation. We are fighting with slave-masters over their slaves.

Takeaway point: Economy of force means that we steer away from a “shock and awe” approach. The point is to be effective, and not to show off. The American military is not the first massively strong military to think that such strength can be substituted for principled thinking.

And last, pursuit. Christians are peace-loving people, and this sometimes gets them into trouble. Too often we drag a problem out, and make the whole thing last ten times longer than it has to be. But when the principle of pursuit is employed, it is clear that victory is the objective.

As Agag thought: “Surely the time of bitterness is past.” But it wasn’t. We are not to fight to the point of predominance, we are to fight to the point of complete victory.

Pursuit is the principle neglected by the currently strong. Many wars have been prolonged because the victorious army did not press its advantage in the immediate aftermath of a critical battle.

Takeaway point: The complete victory is not as close as it appears.

Calvin’s Daily Devotional

Posted on May 17, 2013 by johntertullian

Daily Devotional

May 17

Thine Is My Heart: Devotional Readings from the Writings of John Calvin

by John Calvin (compiled by John H. Kromminga)
Republished from the OPC Website

Bible Text:
A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master: if then I be a father, where is mine honour? and if I be a master, where is my fear? saith the Lord of hosts unto you, 0 priests, that despise my name. And ye say, Wherein have we despised thy name? —Malachi I:6

Devotional:
It was God’s complaint that he was deprived of his own right and in a double sense, for the Jews did not reverence him as their Father, nor fear him as their Lord. He might indeed have called himself Lord and Father by the right of creation; but he preferred to appeal to their adoption; for it was a remarkable favor when the Lord chose some out of all the human race; and we cannot say that the cause of this was to be found in men. Whom then he designs to choose, he binds to himself by a holier bond. But if they disappoint him, their falseness is wholly inexcusable.

This doctrine is not less useful to us at this day than it was to the Jews; for though the adoption is not exactly the same, as it then belonged to one seed and to one family, yet we are not superior to others through our own worthiness, but because God has gratuitously chosen us as a people to himself. Since this has been the case, we are his; for he has redeemed us by the blood of his own Son, and by rendering us partakers, by the gospel, of a favor so ineffably great, he has made us his sons and his servants.

Except then we love and reverence him as our Father, and except we fear him as our Lord, there is found in us at this day an ingratitude no less base than in that ancient people. —Commentaries

Confronting Islam . . . . or Not, Part II

Posted on May 17, 2013 by johntertullian

Playing Pop Music to Break Down the Walls

In Part I of “Confronting Islam . . . . or Not” we had recourse to a series of essays [Fighting the Ideological War: Winning Strategies From Communism to Islamism, edited by Katharine Cornell Gorka and Patrick Sookhdeo (McLean, Va: The Westminster Institute/Isaac Publishing, 2012.)] The point was made that the Cold War struggle against the Soviet Union gained traction when Western leaders began to “tell the truth” about communist dictatorships. Prior to that time the received wisdom was that it was dangerous to tell the truth because it risked provoking the Soviet Union into belligerent reactions.

The general theme of the essays in the above collection is that one must fight and win the ideological war. It is equally, if not more important, than winning the military or intelligence or economic conflicts. Yet it is the war front which the US in particular and the West in general are remarkably unwilling to acknowledge. Today the West has retreated to a quietism and pacificism when it comes to Islam worse than its early conduct of the Cold War.

The lengths to which the US government has gone to cover over the influence of Islamic doctrine, beliefs, traditions and practices upon Islamic terrorism is literally incredible.
When Major Hasan shot down and murdered work colleagues at Fort Hood whilst shouting Allahu akbar (“Allah is great”) the authorities throughout the US government moved swiftly to remove any reference to Islam from its propaganda narrative. It referred instead to a “work based incident” or a “man caused disaster”. Why? Well, one does not want to offend Islamic nations or individual believers. We read that the FBI and other policing authorities have removed all reference to Islamic terrorism from their training and operations manuals. Speak no evil, hear no evil.

This is far, far worse than the quietism of the Cold War period. What has been done with respect to Islamic terrorism in the past ten years would be tantamount to excising the word “communism” from the lexicon of the US government during the Cold War. The United States refuses to call a spade a spade. It refuses to tell the truth. It spins.

As is always the case, such follies convince no-one. They certainly do not convince the public. All that they produce is a disrespect and distrust of the authorities and politicians. They are seen to be dissemblers and liars. They certainly do not convince Islamic states who see confirmation of their belief that the West is spineless, exhausted and blinded by its relentless immoralities. They confirm that the West is unable to resist. Paradoxically such lies by Western authorities embolden Islamic states to support terrorism: it is working. They believe in the ideological war. The West ignores it, thinking that ideological confrontation is a denial of Western “values” which preach toleration of all views and ideas.

In one sense the West is fighting its own ideological war. It is like the boxer who enters a ring with no opponent and dances furiously, unleashing massive air-punches. His opponent is imaginary. The West thinks its ideological opponent is anyone who does not believe in tolerance and the open acceptance of all ideas. In the West, for example, homosexuality=marriage=holiness=truth=all round good guys. Or, abortion=freedom=human rights=women’s rights=all round good gals. Evil is when the aforementioned equations are challenged or denied. Evil is when intolerance stalks the room.

The overwhelming majority of the rest of the humans on the planet are too smart to get sucked into that sort of idiocy. Consequently, Islamic nations and Islamic people in general think the West is a paper tiger. They will not begin to respect the West or believe in its integrity until it is bold enough to call Islam out for its immorality and intrinsic evils. And the West is incapable of doing that until it calls out its own immoralities and intrinsic evils.

Thus it is highly unlikely the West will ever be able to fight the ideological war against Islam. President Obama has been the worst–but it is unlikely that any US president in this generation would be any different. Obama came into office as an ideological president. He entered the ring and began boxing furiously against imaginary opponents. He spoke a good deal about justice, but for Obama and the US in general justice has come to mean tolerance for everyone else.

In his inaugural address, President Obama said that “our security emanates from the justice of our cause.” However, security can emanate from the justness of a cause only if others share the same conception of justice. That, after all, is the substance of what wars of ideas are all about. How, then, is President Obama conveying that sense of justice, particularly to the Muslim world?

Obama’s initial Muslim outreach effort came in his June, 2009 speech in Cairo. It followed and should be contrasted to a speech he gave in Accra, Ghana immediately prior to it. In Accra, the president spoke some hard truths about what is required for sustainable democratic governance and how African countries had failed in the past. He did not flinch in his denunciation of African strongmen or widespread corruption. These hard truths were absent from his Cairo speech. On other words, he spoke powerfully to the poor (Ghana) and meekly to the powerful (Egypt), or truth to the poor and fantasy to the powerful. The differences were pronounced. Why?

The only rhetorical strategy that can make any sense of the Cairo speech is: instead of confronting the unreality of the world in which most Arabs live (which would have generated resentment), Obama decided to embrace it, enter into it, and then try to change it from without by changing the meaning of some words. [Robert R. Reilly, "Public Diplomacy in an Age of Global Terrorism: Lessons from the Past," Fighting the Ideological War: Winning Strategies From Communism to Islamism, edited by Katharine Cornell Gorka and Patrick Sookhdeo (McLean, Va: The Westminster Institute/Isaac Publishing, 2012.), p.155.]

What Reilly means by “changing the meaning of words” is that Obama deliberately chose then, and since, to ignore the injustices and intrinsic iniquities that come directly out of Islamic doctrines. Attacking African strongmen and corruption is one thing. But Obama apparently thinks that by not speaking of Islamic evils they will simply cease to exist. He (and the West) can conjure them away.

However, despite the absurdities of some of the remarks, obviously delivered in obsequiesence (sic) to the Arab world, the president did try to express and advance the principles of equality and democracy within the Muslim world. The problem is that such attempts are bound to fail when they do not address the principal obstacles to their acceptance. In fact, none of these obstacles was mentioned except in the most general way, and never as being in any way Islamic. It is, after all, “the dignity of all human beings,” which Obama vigorously espouses that is at question in Islam according to its own revelation and legal doctrines, which are inimical to the proposition that all people are created equal. Why not simply say this?

Perhaps President Obama did not say this because he thinks that not saying it makes it no longer so. Rather than conforming his words to reality, he tends to think that reality will conform itself to his words. (Reilly op cit., p. 156.)

Devastating blows landed upon imaginary opponents by a furiously febrile air boxer. If nothing else, this makes the West a laughing stock in the Islamic world who know the truth! Obama and the US are derided because they have come to think that their rhetoric makes truth: theirs is the Creator Word that brings the world into a new reality.

This mistaken mission of giving Arabs a new vision of themselves from within their own delusional world was reflected in Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s extraordinary remark about President Assad that what “we have tried to do with him is to give him an alternative vision of himself.” Apparently he has not embraced his doppelganger and is perfectly content with his old self, which he maintains in power at the cost of hundreds of Syrian lives. (Ibid. p.157).

How could such inanities proceed from an American administration? They proceed because the West has an inane ideology, which it tries to impose upon the world by rhetorical conjuring tricks. But it is a mythical, make-believe ideology which is believed only in the West. The rest of the world knows better.

One of the explanations for this ineptitude lies in the prevailing secularism of the West. Because it tells itself that religion is bunk, the West struggles to understand nations and peoples who think very differently about their faith and the truths they believe are ultimate. In the West, there are no ultimate truths–apart from tolerance of all truths, which makes all truths merely relative.

Reilly concludes with the following questions:

How do you fashion a public diplomacy strategy based upon the belief that the United States does not represent any permanent truths? As was mentioned earlier regarding the Cold War, a form of absolutism fighting a form of relativism always has the upper hand. Who wants to die to prove that nothing is absolutely true? How exactly is one supposed to promote this idea? By playing pop music, and hoping that the walls come tumbling down? (Ibid., p. 161.)

How, indeed.

Douglas Wilson’s Letter From America

Posted on May 16, 2013 by johntertullian

When He Walks Contrary to Us

Sex and Culture
Written by Douglas Wilson
Saturday, 11 May 2013 11:51

Schizophrenia is no less schizophrenia if one of the voices happens to be talking sense. Hard schizophrenia is no less difficult if murderous insanity is linked up tight with weird, pathetic, and arbitrary scruples. In fact, if such an arbitary pattern is applied long enough, one may detect a method in the madness.

I am talking about our erratic public policy when it comes to protecting human life. Gosnell is a disgrace because he killed babies in this spot instead of the officially-approved that spot. As one observer noted, he is apparently being charged with murder because he enjoyed himself and because his place was dirty. If he had only kept his slaughter hygienic and had been snipping spinal columns for the sake of the Constitution, instead of doing it for his own jollies, and had done his work before that magic and metaphysical week after which responsible medical professionals cease dismembering their clients’ babies, he could have served as a witness for his own prosecution.

In the meantime, the kidnapper of three women in Cleveland is facing murder charges for brutally causing a miscarriage, and for doing so without a medical degree.
Ah, someone will reply, that was because what he was doing was violent and coercive — the mother of the child had been kidnapped, raped, and was subjected to this treatment against her will. Right . . . as though the unborn child ever volunteers for an abortion? It was unacceptable coercion because he was forcing two people to submit to his twisted desires instead of limiting himself to just one person?

His brutality is to be sharply distinguished from our constitutional and noble practice of applying the same kind of lethal coercion to the kind of people who never have any hope of escaping next door. Our constitutional and hygienic methods insist that we limit ourselves to those who cannot speak, who cannot get away, and who have no advocate. Actually, we delude ourselves in thinking they have no Advocate. They do, and He will speak to us about them soon enough, when He walks contrary to us in His fury (Lev. 26:28).

This erratic behavior on the part of our civil magistrate — filing murder charges for doing here what was just fine over there — is not simply insanity. When the law makes no sense, and is capriciously applied in a lottery-like fashion, the underlying logic of the whole system is totalitarian. The government becomes completely identified with the law, and the people learn to live with it the way a battered woman learns to live with an abusive boyfriend. Somedays he is in a good mood, and you think you can get by.

After a while, the Stockholm syndrome develops. We have good reason to believe that the American people have a bad case of it. After all, we have been locked up in this awful house in Cleveland since 1913.

Calvin’s Daily Devotional

Posted on May 16, 2013 by johntertullian

Daily Devotional

May 16

Thine Is My Heart: Devotional Readings from the Writings of John Calvin

by John Calvin (compiled by John H. Kromminga)
Reproduced from the OPC Website

Bible Text:
Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, 0 Lord, and teachest him out of thy law; —Psalm 94:12

Devotional:
You know, Madame, how we should turn to our profit both the chastisements we receive from the hand of our merciful Father and the succor which he sends in time of need.

It is certain that all diseases ought not only to humble us in setting before our eyes our frailty, but also cause us to look into ourselves, that having recognized our own poverty we may place all our trust in his mercy. They should, moreover, serve us for medicine to purge us from worldly affections, and retrench what is superfluous in us, and since they are to us the messengers of death, we ought to learn to have one foot raised to take our departure when it shall please God.

Nevertheless, he lets us taste of his bounty as often as he delivers us from them, just as it has been a most salutary thing for you, Madame, to have known the danger in which you were and from which he has delivered you. It remains for you to conclude with Saint Paul that when we have been delivered from many deaths by his hand, he will also withdraw us from them in time to come.
And thus take courage, so much the more to give yourself up to his service, as you do well to consider that it is to that end he has reserved you. —Letter to Madame De Coligny

Confronting Islam, or Not . . . Part I

Posted on May 16, 2013 by johntertullian

The Evil Empire

We have recently been reading a series of essays, entitled Fighting the Ideological War. The overarching focus is upon the West’s need to fight Islam ideologically. Several of the essays argue that the West has failed miserably to this point, firstly to see Islam as an ideology, and, secondly, to combat it at the ideological level. One essay draws parallels with the Cold War. It reads like a comic opera. [John H. Moore, "Ideology and Central Planning: Lessons from the Cold War", Fighting the Ideological War: Winning Strategies From Communism to Islamism, edited by Katharine Cornell Gorka and Patrick Sookhdeo (McLean, Va: The Westminster Institute/Isaac Publishing, 2012.]

Moore points out that in the 1950′s and 1960′s the overwhelming consensus amongst credentialed academics was that the Soviet Union had a superior economic model and philosophy to the West. Socialism was succeeding in making the Soviet Union economically wealthy, whilst the West was being overtaken in almost every sphere. The Soviets were inevitably going to dominate the world. The Commentariat believed that this would be the outcome because socialism was an inherently better system than capitalism. In other words, as the Cold War progressed the establishment in the US, both in and out of government, in the media, and in academia had already capitulated.

It all turned out to be untrue.
But the debate over Soviet ideology did not really emerge until the seventies. Eventually the US and the West began to combat the Soviet Union not just militarily, but ideologically. The core proposition was that free markets, private property, economic and political freedom actually produce better outcomes for mankind over the longer term than centralised, authoritarian/totalitarian central planning. Slowly and eventually the Commentariat in the US actually came to believe it.

The Soviets, for their part, always believed the conflict was fundamentally ideological. The fact that the West failed to confront them at that level was taken as a sign of weakness, internal doubt, confusion, and cowardice. It confirmed to Soviets their belief in the inevitable progress of history towards a Marxist Leninist world.

Western silence and self-censorship, of course, were seen by the peoples of the Soviet empire as a sign of weakness in the face of Soviet power. If the American President was too frightened to tell the full truth about Soviet human rights violations at home and Soviet aggression, espionage and subversion abroad, if he was too “prudent” in his management of East-West relations that he could not counter the lies of Soviet disinformation and propaganda with plain truth, then how could the peoples of the Soviet empire even contemplate telling the truth, even about the smallest things? (John Lenczowski, “Political-Ideological Warfare in Integrated Strategy, and its Basis in an Assessment of Soviet Reality”, Gorka, op cit., p. 104f.)

Two individuals, more than any others, took the lead in calling out the Soviet Union morally and ideologically. These two were President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II. These two, each in the sphere of their own responsibilities and offices determined that they would call out totalitarian oppression for what it was: an embodiment of evil.

Reagan was the first political leader to use the moral vocabulary of “evil” to describe the Soviet empire in the recent era. The reaction was hysterical. How reckless could Reagan be? Yet the President calmly responded that he wanted them, the Soviets, to know that he knew. This acknowledgement inspired great hope behind the Iron Curtain. The, finally, the Soviets used the term about themselves. Once the proper vocabulary was employed, it was over. Semantic unanimity brought the end not in the much-feared bang, but in a whimper. Truth turned out to be the most effective weapon in the Cold War. Truth set free the imprisoned peoples of the evil empire. (Ibid., p. 153.)

This may seem fanciful to many in the West, now morally jaded and radically post-modern. Talking in categories that invoke truth, evil, righteousness, and lies belongs to a faded, failed epistemology. Nobody talks like that any more. To talk in those categories and in a moral conceptual frame invites self-criticism, self-examination before rules, standards, and ethics that lie outside of oneself and to which one is held accountable. It is to identify oneself to one degree or another as sinful. Magically, when that happens evil attenuates.

Whilst Reagan’s rhetoric created conniptions amongst the effete elites, it rang true within the Soviet Union. They knew the truth. They knew they had been telling themselves a lie for seventy years. They despised the West because the West could not see it, let alone declare it. John Lenczowski describes the day when this first dawned upon him.

I vividly remember the day in 1990 when I read a statement in the Soviet Press by Alexander Yakovlev, the Politburo chief of Soviet ideology, that he had come to understand that Leninism was based upon class struggle and hatred, and that this was “evil”. The chief of Soviet ideology had used the exact same words to describe the Soviet system as had President Ronald Reagan. Excitedly, I faxed his remark around Washington. Yakovlev’s words meant the end of the Cold War and the Soviet empire. The actual deeds of its dissolution soon came in their wake. Words and the restoration of their relationship to reality were critical to the Communist collapse. This was no small thing since, for many in the West, words had lost their meaning. (Ibid., p. 151f. Emphasis, ours.)

In Part II, we will fast forward to the present day, to evaluate the West’s ideological response, or the lack thereof, to Islam. It is every bit as bad as the thirty years of failure to respond properly to the Soviet Union: that is, ethically, morally, ideologically, and religiously. Actually, it is worse because the rebellion against, and retreat from, the historic Christian faith has become a full scale rout. If the West struggled to find an ideological framework out of which to confront the evil of totalitarian communism then, it operates in an ideological vacuum of even more pronounced relativism now.

UN as Prostitute

Posted on May 15, 2013 by johntertullian

Nordics Launder LGBT Advocacy through UN Human Rights Office

Posted on | May 9, 2013 by Wendy Wright
Turtle Bay

The UN human rights office is desperate for funding. Navi Pillay, the head of the office, is in New York this week to report on her agency’s work to UN diplomats. Overwhelming her presentation is an unabashed plea for money. The Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights has more work assigned to it from the Human Rights Council than it can afford.

Which made me wonder: Why then is the UN Human Rights Office expending so much money and effort on promoting sexual orientation and gender identity, something that isn’t a recognized human right?

At a meeting today, I asked Navi Pillay where the funding comes for its work on sexual orientation and gender identity. She said some countries have also asked about that. It comes from Nordic countries.
About one-third of the Human Rights Office’s overall expenditures is paid from its regular budget, she explained, while two-thirds comes from extra-budgetary sources.

Nordic countries – especially Norway – are unabashedly aggressive in pushing abortion. Now they are outsourcing – or laundering – their promotion of homosexuality through a UN agency.

This, of course, lowers the credibility of the High Commissioner on Human Rights. At the least, when it comes to sexual orientation, its work will be viewed merely as a hired gun.

All countries work through transnational institutions like the UN to pressure other countries. But this wholesale laundering is intended to hide the fingerprints of those pulling the strings. Taking advantage of the UN agency on human rights to give a veneer of legitimacy to a favored issue is a ploy that will discredit the field of human rights.

Calvin’s Daily Devotional

Posted on May 15, 2013 by johntertullian

Daily Devotional

May 15

Thine Is My Heart: Devotional Readings from the Writings of John Calvin

by John Calvin (compiled by John H. Kromminga)
Republished from the OPC Website

Bible Text:
Took branches of palm trees, and went forth to meet him, and cried, Hosanna: Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord. —John 12:13

Devotional:
We ought to derive from this a profitable admonition; for if we are members of the Church, the Lord calls upon us to cherish the same desire which he wished believers to cherish under the Law; that is, that we should wish with our whole heart that the kingdom of Christ should flourish and prosper; and not only so, but that we should demonstrate this by our prayers.

In order to give us greater courage in prayer, we ought to observe that he prescribes to us these words. Woe then to our slothfulness, if we extinguish by our coldness or quench by indifference that ardor which God excites. Yet let us know that the prayers which we offer by the direction and authority of God will not be in vain. Provided that we be not indolent or grow weary in praying, he will be a faithful guardian of his kingdom, to defend it by his invincible power and protection.

True, indeed, though we remain drowsy and inactive, the majesty of his kingdom will be firm and sure; but when—as is frequently the case—it is less prosperous than it ought to be at the present day, fearfully scattered and wasted, this unquestionably arises through our fault. And when but a small restoration, or almost none, is to be seen, or when at least it advances slowly, let us ascribe it to our indifference. We daily ask from God that his kingdom may come, but scarcely one man in a hundred earnestly desires it. Justly, therefore, we are deprived of the blessing of God, which we are weary of asking. —Commentaries

Calvin’s Daily Devotional

Posted on May 15, 2013 by johntertullian

Daily Devotional

May 15

Thine Is My Heart: Devotional Readings from the Writings of John Calvin

by John Calvin (compiled by John H. Kromminga)
Reproduced from the OPC Website

Bible Text:
Hear this, all ye people; give ear, all ye inhabitants of the world: —Psalm 49:1

Devotional:
As God’s providence of the world is not presently apparent, we must exercise patience, and rise superior to the suggestions of carnal sense in anticipation of the favorable issue. That it is our duty to maintain a resolute struggle with our afflictions, however severe these may be, and that it were foolish to place happiness in the enjoyment of such fleeting possessions as the riches, honors, or pleasures of this world, may be precepts which even the heathen philosophers have enforced, but they have uniformly failed in setting before us the true source of consolation.
However admirably they discourse of a happy life, they confine themselves entirely to commendations upon virtue, and do not bring prominently forward to our view that God, who governs the world, and to whom alone we can repair with confidence in the most desperate circumstances. But slender comfort can be derived upon this subject from the teaching of philosophy.

If, therefore, the Holy Ghost in this psalm introduces to our notice truths which are sufficiently familiar to experience, it is that he may raise our minds from them to the higher truth of the Divine government of the world, assuring us of the fact that God sits supreme even when the wicked are triumphing most in their success, or when the righteous are trampled under the foot of disgrace, and that a day is coming when he will dash the cup of pleasure out of the hands of his enemies, and rejoice the hearts of his friends, by delivering them out of their severest distresses.

This is the only consideration which can impart solid comfort under our afflictions. Formidable and terrible in themselves, they would overwhelm our souls, did not the Lord lift upon us the light of his countenance. Were we not assured that he watches over our safety, we could find no remedy from our evils, and no quarter to which we might resort under them. —Commentaries

Of Camels and Frogs

Posted on May 15, 2013 by johntertullian

No Lost Causes

Slippery slope arguments are used in reckless abandon by both left and right. Apparently, the term “slippery slope” was coined by someone in the early nineteenth century. As some wit observed, talking about “slippery slopes” was dangerous. Once someone talks about a slippery slope, soon others will, and before you know it we’all be on slippery slopes. [Jonah Goldberg, The Tyranny of Cliches: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas (New York: Sentinel/Penguin, 2012), p.115.]

Goldberg goes on to warn us of the very real dangers of slippery slopes by reminding us of how many figures of speech in our language are applied to this particular grave danger, such as: the camel got its nose under the tent; the ship sailed; “the horse got out of the barn, and drove the wedge that toppled the first domino, which opened the floodgates, and now all we have left is boiled frog.” Heh.

One problem with such arguments is that the similes leave out one small matter: human beings are not camels, ships, horses, or thin-edged wedges.
Actually, thankfully human beings tend to be rather ornery creatures. Regardless of precedents, push folk far enough and you risk a strong reaction. Human beings are rather too complex for simple cause/effect equations.

If government funds Catholic schools, then opponents of funding of religious schools will say it’s a slippery slope, and we’ll have to fund all religious schools, including jihardist madrasas and Satanic academies. But that’s not true. Rather, if we give money to Catholic schools then some people will say we have to give money to jihadists and Satanists, because fairness and consistency requires that we do so. These people will fall into four general groups: jihadists, Satanists, lawyers and idiots. And it is the duty of all good men to marshal the energy and will tell jihadists, Satanists, lawyers and idiots: “No.” (Ibid, p. 119.)

Goldberg argues that in democracies, elections can be powerful circuit breakers. When enough people get fed up with government intrusions and tyrannies, they vote the malefactors out. We have seen an example in recent New Zealand history. Consistent with the adage that opposition parties do not win elections, rather governments lose them, the former odious Clark administration lost because in the end more and more people got irritated with a government hectoring them about how long they should shower, what kinds of shower heads would be permitted, and mandating that only certain kinds of light bulbs would be sold–all in the name of fighting global warming.

All of which leads to an adage Christians should consider: holy living requires that there are times we must be curmudgeonly and ornery. There is a time to say, “No!” We must never forget that the slippery slope metaphor (along with all its kin) is just that, a metaphor. It is not a deterministic prophecy. We are called to be both salt and light. Salt, as has been frequently noted, is a preservative. It helps prevent decay.

Some closing thoughts on the matter from two sages–firstly, Edmund Burke:

When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle. (Goldberg, op cit., p. 121)

Secondly, T. S. Eliot:

If we take the widest and wisest view of a Cause, there is no such thing as a Lost Cause, because there is no such thing as a Gained Cause. We fight for lost causes because we know that our defeat and dismay may be the preface to our successors’ victory, though that victory will be temporary; we fight rather to keep something alive in the expectation it will triumph. (T. S. Eliot, “Francis Herbert Bradley,” [1927], cited by Goldberg, p. 114.)

For a Christian, there can never be such a thing as a “lost cause”–at least not in any final sense. The Lord Jesus Christ, the King of all kings has no lost causes.

Letter From America (About Allegations Now Proven True)

Posted on May 14, 2013 by johntertullian

Seeing No Evil

It was Daniel Webster who declared, the power to tax is the power to destroy. Instinctively we know this to be an axiomatic adage. Taxation is the compulsory expropriation of income and property of citizens by government. Not all taxation is immoral or bad. Government is a God-ordained institution, serving a vital, albeit particular purpose. That purpose can only continue if government is funded. Expropriation of private property to fund legitimate government activity is lawful, holy, just, and good.

But implicit in the power to tax is the power to destroy citizens. In particular, governments can declare fiscal war upon those citizens, or races, or groups, or classes it dislikes–not for the purposes of revenue, but for the purposes of destruction and control. The road to tyranny is readily paved by targeted taxation–and the road is short.

It now appears that the Obama administration has embarked down that road. Some would call it traditional Chicago politics applied at the Federal Government level. The Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) has admitted targeting Obama’s political opponents during the last election in an attempt to suppress their opposition to the President and his administration.
For months now, conservative groups have been complaining about IRS targeting them, threatening, intimidating, and using standover tactics in an attempt to destroy Obama’s political opponents. Now it has been confirmed that this was indeed the case.

Here is The Blaze‘s Glenn Beck on the illegality and the corruption and the exercise of destructive tyrannical power in the United States:

‘Submit!’: Beck’s Passionate Break Down of the IRS ‘Inquisition’ of Conservative Groups — and What’s Coming Next in the Case

May. 13, 2013 1:33pm Erica Ritz

Glenn Beck opened his radio program Monday morning bristling with indignation over the IRS’ admission that it targeted conservative groups around the 2012 election. “We have to talk about the IRS inquisition, and I think that’s exactly what it is, and I think that’s what it needs to be called from here on out,” Beck began. “What was the inquisition? ‘Submit! Submit! Answer these questions and submit!’”

Beck continued, saying the federal government has employed intimidation methods for years against private groups and the press alike. “…At the same time that they were denying that were leading an attack on me when I was over at Fox [News]…there were five, five boycotts orchestrated by this White House to discredit, smear, and force advertisers off the air. It had nothing to do with what I said; it had everything to do with fear and intimidation because I stood against the White House,” Beck said. “And at the same time they were denying that, and saying it was a conspiracy that they were targeting the 9/12 Project, anything with ‘patriot’ in the name, anything with ‘Tea Party’ in the name.”

Beck then unveiled some of the new information surrounding the scandal: “They were also targeting anyone who taught the Constitution and — I love this one — anybody who said ['America can be a better place.'] That’s incredible…”

Beck proceeded with a chilling reminder: “So you know, America, if you don’t pay attention to what they did with the IRS and Benghazi, next year your healthcare goes to the IRS. Next year, this administration’s universal health care employs the IRS, so now you have to turn over all your medical records to the IRS. If you don’t think they won’t use that to sort people and to intimidate — and to take away your guns, quite honestly — why? …What have they done that has proven them trustworthy? And I don’t say this just about the President of the United States, but about the Republicans as well.”

“They also targeted Jewish groups,” Beck said, explaining exactly why “inquisition” is a fitting description for the IRS’ actions.

Later in the program, Beck spoke with Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel at the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), whose organization has represented 27 Tea Party groups from 18 states in the issue.

Some of the groups have simply thrown up their hands and said it’s not worth it, having spent years battling the IRS, Sekulow said. For others, the ACLJ has hit back and pointed out all the reasons the IRS is not entitled to the wildly personal information it was improperly demanding.

“I used to work for that office, Chief Counsel of the IRS, [and] the tax exempt group is specially trained, these are not low-level bureaucrats,” Sekulow said, warning against adopting the narrative that the IRS has put out. Putting the issue in context, he added: “This is worse [than under President Nixon] because this isn’t only tax information and selective prosecution, this is going after the people who supported these organizations by going after their donor lists. It’s more than Nixon did by a long stretch.”

Sekulow said they are drafting complaints against the federal government and the agents involved “right now, today.”

But two things need to happen immediately, he said. Pending groups that have been battling the IRS at their own expense need to get recognition, and those responsible to be held accountable. “Congress needs to have extensive hearings, and we’re looking right now at federal court action against the individuals involved in this,” he said. “I think heads are going to roll..but the question is what the White House knew and when they knew it…”

The Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration is expected to release the results of a nearly yearlong investigation sometime in the coming week, a draft of which obtained by the Associated Press indicates that a number of senior IRS officials knew about the “targeting” as early as 2011.

ABC News, meanwhile, has obtained documents indicating the IRS began targeting conservative groups as far back as 2010, “and that senior IRS officials in Washington have known about it for almost two years.” During a Monday morning press conference, President Obama said he learned about the issue when the public did several days ago, adding that he will not “tolerate” such corruption.

No wonder folk believe Obama is channelling President Nixon. “I know nothing about those Watergate break-ins, I tell you. Those involved should be convicted and punished, but it all happened without my knowledge.” Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Calvin’s Daily Devotional

Posted on May 14, 2013 by johntertullian

Daily Devotional

May 14

Thine Is My Heart: Devotional Readings from the Writings of John Calvin

by John Calvin (compiled by John H. Kromminga)
Republished from the OPC Website

Bible Text:
The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool. —Psalm 110:1

Devotional:
So, in another place, when, speaking in the name of God, he says, “Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool,” he apprises us that though numerous and powerful enemies conspire to assault the Church, yet they are not strong enough to prevail against that immutable decree of God, by which he has constituted his Son an eternal King. Whence it follows that it is impossible for the devil, with all the assistance of the world, ever to destroy the Church, which is founded on the eternal throne of Christ.

Now with respect to its particular use to each individual, this same eternity ought to encourage our hope of a blessed immortality; for we see that whatever is terrestrial and worldly is temporary and perishable.

Therefore, to raise our hope towards heaven, Christ declares that his “kingdom is not of this world.” In a word, whenever we hear that the kingdom of Christ is spiritual, excited by this declaration, we ought to penetrate to the hope of a better life, and as we are now protected by the power of Christ, let us expect the full benefit of his grace in the world to come. —Institutes, II, xv, iii

Kinsey’s Dark Secret

Posted on May 14, 2013 by johntertullian

A Man For Our Times

The following paragraph introduces Wikipedia’s article on Alfred Kinsey:

Alfred Charles Kinsey (June 23, 1894 – August 25, 1956) was an American biologist, professor of entomology and zoology, and sexologist who in 1947 founded the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University, now known as the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction. He is best known for writing “Sexual Behavior in the Human Male” (1948) and “Sexual Behavior in the Human Female” (1953), also known as the Kinsey Reports, as well as the Kinsey scale. Kinsey’s research on human sexuality, foundational to the field of sexology, provoked controversy in the 1940s and 1950s. His work has profoundly influenced social and cultural values in the United States, as well as internationally.

So far, so good. Kinsey has been lionised, celebrated and glorified. But it appears he was an acutely depraved man.

His goal was “to create his own sexual utopia,” says biographer James Jones, and Kinsey built up a select circle of friends and colleagues who committed themselves to his philosophy of total sexual freedom. Since the results were often captured on film, we know that Kinsey and his wife both had sexual relations with a host of male and female staff members and other people. Kinsey was also a masochist, sometimes engaging in bizarre and painful practices.

But Kinsey had an even darker secret. In Kinsey, Sex, and Fraud, researcher Judith Reisman argued convincingly that Kinsey’s research on child sexual responses could have been obtained only if he or his colleagues were actually engaged in the sexual molestation of children. How else could “actual observations” be made of sexual responses in children age (sic) two month to fifteen years old? And this is the man whose ideas have been so influential in shaping American sex education. [Charles Colson and Nancy Pearcey, How Now Shall We Live? (Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1999), p. 242f.]

Kinsey was a libertine, who told us what we all wanted to hear. And the next generation, profoundly influenced by Kinsey, has become like the idols it has worshipped. It has always been the way.

Letter From the UK (About Education)

Posted on May 13, 2013 by johntertullian

Plain Speaking

Education Secretary, Michael Gove has been trying to shake up the education system in the UK. Naturally there has been plenty of pushback. However, we cannot help but applaud his no-nonsense confrontation with the “experts” over infantile approaches now being recommended for the teaching of history. It is salutary that the one ultimately responsible for education in the UK is not afraid to denounce the emperor as having no clothes. This from The Telegraph:

Michael Gove: pupils taught about Hitler using Mr Men characters

Secondary school pupils are being encouraged to learn about Nazi Germany using Mr Men characters as part of “infantilised” history lessons in schools, Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, has warned.

By Graeme Paton, Education Editor

2:12PM BST 09 May 2013

Proper history teaching is being “crushed” by a rise in the number of education resources that attempt to dumb down the subject using figures from popular culture, Mr Gove said. In a speech, he also told how lesson plans for primary school pupils had been produced encouraging the study of the Middle Ages through Disney films such as Robin Hood. The drive to make history more accessible was part of a “culture of low aspirations” that held children back across the curriculum, Mr Gove said.

He claimed the shift had also spread to English literature where the vast majority of pupils shun books written prior to the 20th century as part of GCSEs and often focus on texts fit for primary-age pupils such as Lord of the Flies, he said. The comments – in a speech to an education conference staged by fee-paying Brighton College – come amid major criticism over a Coalition shake-up of the National Curriculum.

Teaching unions and education professors have led the attack on the reforms, which set out the key knowledge that pupils should master at each age, saying it will reduce lessons to little more than a “pub quiz”.
But addressing independent school leaders, Mr Gove hit back at a “culture of excuses and low aspirations which some in the education establishment still defend”.

He told how the Historical Association – a group of academics and teachers – had distributed lesson plans to primary schools suggesting pupils “learn about the early Middle Ages by studying the depiction of King John as a cowardly lion in Disney’s Robin Hood”. “If that proves too taxing then they are asked to organise a fashion parade or make plasticine models,” he said. “Alternatively, students can help create ‘an interactive Powerpoint based on well known animated aquatic characters: for example, Nemo.”

Mr Gove also quoted some resources from the Active History website – written by a history teacher based at an international school in France – which are focused on pupils taking the IGCSE, the alternative version of conventional GCSEs. He said it would “bad enough if this approach were restricted to primary schools, but even at GCSE level this infantilisation continues”.

One set of history teaching resources for secondary pupils suggests “spending classroom time depicting the rise of Hitler as a Mr Men story”, said Mr Gove. It apparently asks pupils to “brainstorm the key people involved” such as Hitler, Hindenburg, Goering, Van der Lubbe and Rohm, adding: “Bring up a picture of the Mr Men characters on the board. Discuss which characters are the best match.” It is not known how many schools in this country use the resources.

Mr Gove said: “I am familiar with the superb historical account Richard J Evans gives of the rise, rule and ruin of the Third Reich and I cannot believe he could possibly be happy with reducing the history of Germany’s darkest years to a falling out between Mr Tickle and Mr Topsy-Turvy.”

In further comments, Mr Gove criticised how “relatively low expectations have been set in our existing national examinations”, including English literature. Almost 280,000 students taking a GCSE through Britain’s biggest exam board studied just one novel, he said, with the vast majority reading Of Mice and Men.

He said the “overwhelming” number of remaining pupils studied other 20th century texts such as Lord of the Flies, which is “considered appropriate for primary children in the best schools”. Mr Gove quoted figures showing how less than one per cent studied a book written prior to 1900 – mainly Pride and Prejudice, Far From The Madding Crowd and Wuthering Heights.

The situation was “even worse” in drama, Mr Gove said, with the majority of students choosing An Inspector Calls, Pygmalion and Hobson’s Choice, which were all written in the 20th century. The comments follow the publication of a letter in the Telegraph and the Independent from 100 academics who criticised the new National Curriculum – due to be introduced from 2014 – for pushing pupils “too far, too soon”.

“The assumption lying behind the letter was that the level of aspiration embodied in the current curriculum, its associated teaching methods and our national examinations was already high enough,” Mr Gove said. “I have a different starting premise from those 100 academics who are so heavily invested in the regime of low expectations and narrow horizons which they have created.

“I believe we need to ask more – much more – of our education system.”

Calvin’s Daily Devotional

Posted on May 13, 2013 by johntertullian

Daily Devotional

May 13

Thine Is My Heart: Devotional Readings from the Writings of John Calvin

by John Calvin (compiled by John H. Kromminga)
Reproduced from the OPC Website

Bible Text:
Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. —Zechariah 4:6

Devotional:
When we now see things in a despairing condition, let this vision come to our minds—that God is sufficiently able by his own power to help us, when there is no aid from any other; for his Spirit will be to us for lamps, for pourers, and for olive trees, so that experience will at length show that we have been preserved in a wonderful manner by his hand alone.

Thus we remember that all our confidence ought to be placed on the favor of God alone; for were it to depend on human aids, there would be nothing certain or sure.
For God, as I have said, withdraws from us whatever may add courage according to the judgment of the flesh, in order that he may invite or rather draw us to himself.

Whenever, then, earthly aids fail us, let us learn to recline on God alone, for it is not by a host or by might that God raises up his Church, and preserves it in its proper state; but this he does by his Spirit, that is, by his own intrinsic and wonderful power, which he does not blend with human aids; and his object is to draw us away from the world and to hold us wholly dependent on himself. —Commentaries

Man As Animal

Posted on May 13, 2013 by johntertullian

Unleashing Sin

One of the abiding lusts of Western pride is the lure of a perfect society brought into being through human ingenuity, planning, and enlightened application. No matter what problem we face, throw enough resources at it, study it to death, put a management plan in place, and hey presto, the problem will be solved.

Such approaches may work well when we are dealing with problems arising out of the non-human natural order. They fail miserably when we are dealing with human beings. Why? Precisely because man is not a cipher. He is not the impersonal product of impersonal natural forces. He is altogether more wonderful and complex: he is a moral agent made in the image of God. When sin entered the human race through Adam and spread to all mankind “descending from him by ordinary generation” the wondrous complexity and moral agency of mankind became perverted. The sophisticated complexity of humanity became a spectacular resource for cunning, duplicity, and evil.

But modern man has “advanced” to the point where he sees himself as a sophisticated animal, nothing more.
You can train mice to do certain things. Similarly human beings can be conditioned to do whatever can be imagined. If man is malfunctioning and if there are problems in society, all we need is the right plan, the application of marshalled resources, and all will be well.

Economics has been called the “dismal science”. For good reason. Modern econometrics offered the prospect of unending growth and prosperity through, firstly developing a sufficiently complex model of how the modern economy works, then having applied sufficient computing and civil powers, governments could control the economic machine through adjusting inputs, prices, outputs, wages, capital availability, labour hours, and the money supply. If we could do that well enough (that is, if the model were both accurate and comprehensive) we could have an economy which would grow at 3.256 percent real GDP endlessly. No more crashes. No more “Great Recessions”. No more systemic unemployment. No more plutocrats. Just a well run, smooth machine-like progress to perpetual wealth and prosperity.

Go figure! Well, the econometric modellers did. They failed dismally. Why? For many reasons, but chief amongst them was this: human beings were not ciphers, and economics is always about human beings and their actions, goals, choices, preferences, fears and lusts. Moreover, value is a subjective concept. For one person, value lies in owning nothing. For another, value is to own the whole world. As soon as an econometric policy or lever were put in place, human beings (the market) cleverly adjusted to make the lever ineffectual and inoperative.

Take for example monetary policy where a central bank (or government) manipulates the money supply, using short term interest rates. Econometric research established that this would work. Put up the price of short term money (the interest rate) and economic activity would slow. It worked for a short time, until clever, resourceful human beings worked out that they too could use the same analytical tools and anticipate what the monetary authorities would do. In gaming this system they could make money. And they did. As a consequence, the manipulation of the short term money supply by central banks became more and more ineffectual.

So powerful is this phenomenon of human anticipation and adjustment it coined an economic “law”: Goodharts’s law–which reads,

“As soon as the government attempts to regulate any particular set of financial assets, these become unreliable as indicators of economic trends.” This is because investors try to anticipate what the effect of the regulation will be, and invest so as to benefit from it.

The assumption that human beings are not moral beings but mere ciphers to be manipulated and controlled has worked through almost all societies in the West. Take, for example, the issue of crime.

Already at the turn of the century, Clarence Darrow, the lawyer who achieved notoriety defending Darwinism in the Scopes trial, was portraying criminals as helpless victims of their circumstances. In 1902, in a widely published speech to the prisoners in Chicago’s Cook County Jail, he declared that “there is no such thing as a crime as the word is generally understood. . . . I do not believe that people are in jail because they deserve to be. They are in jail simply because they cannot avoid it on account of circumstances which are entirely beyond their control and for which they are in no way responsible.” [Chuck Colson and Nancy Pearcey, How Now Shall We Live (Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, 1999), p. 181.]

The implication is that if “society” were to change the circumstances of such people, crime would disappear. A further implication is that no-one is responsible for any actions whatsoever. We are creatures of instinct and conditioning. We are animals and animals only. If we do evil it is the fault of “society”–that is, of the powers that created bad conditioning in the first place.

These false beliefs are now so disseminated through Western culture that they crop up everywhere and govern almost all social policies. Take the punishment of crime, for example. The man-is-a-cipher philosophy applies here as well. Harsher and longer punishments will condition the prisoner not to do such things again. Punishment is nothing more than a calculation of incentives. There is little consideration given to the prisoner as a moral being, responsible for every action, thought, word and deed performed, firstly to the Living God, and then to his fellow man.

Man is a glorious being–capable of highly moral actions, and of desperately wicked depravities. Modern society ignores the possibility and reality of depravity. Instead, modern society conducts a never-ending symphony of exoneration. It’s always someone else’s fault.

Preposterous examples are legion. Like the woman who entered a hot-dog-eating contest in a Houston nightclub. In her rush to outdo the other contestants, she ate too quickly and began to choke. Did the woman shrug off the mishap as a natural consequence of her own zany behaviour? No, she decided she was a victim. She sued the nightclub that sponsored the contest, arguing that the business was to blame because “they shouldn’t have contests like that.” (Ibid., p. 182).

When we deny sin as a society, when we officially regard human beings as ciphers or nothing more than animals, then we foolishly concede that all we need is more planning, more controls, more government and social programmes to resolve all human problems. But by so doing we do not remove sin and evil, we actually unleash its destructive power on the community.

Politics

What’s in the Budget?

Even Though We Lack the Original Manuscripts

Daily Devotional

May 18

Thine Is My Heart: Devotional Readings from the Writings of John Calvin

Unwanted Abortion: Man Slips Misoprostol to Woman with Wanted Child

Daily Devotional

May 17

Thine Is My Heart: Devotional Readings from the Writings of John Calvin

Daily Devotional

May 16

Thine Is My Heart: Devotional Readings from the Writings of John Calvin

Nordics Launder LGBT Advocacy through UN Human Rights Office

Daily Devotional

May 15

Thine Is My Heart: Devotional Readings from the Writings of John Calvin

Daily Devotional

May 15

Thine Is My Heart: Devotional Readings from the Writings of John Calvin

‘Submit!’: Beck’s Passionate Break Down of the IRS ‘Inquisition’ of Conservative Groups — and What’s Coming Next in the Case

Daily Devotional

May 14

Thine Is My Heart: Devotional Readings from the Writings of John Calvin

Michael Gove: pupils taught about Hitler using Mr Men characters

Secondary school pupils are being encouraged to learn about Nazi Germany using Mr Men characters as part of “infantilised” history lessons in schools, Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, has warned.

Daily Devotional

May 13

Thine Is My Heart: Devotional Readings from the Writings of John Calvin

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