I quoted this entry because the bare economics sounded plausible. But Paul Duggan sent me this link and now I’m highly doubtful. In any case, I’m more interested in a discussion of economic systems than alleged conspiracies.
Here are some notes I jotted down. I was thinking about filling in some gaps I perceive.
If you can call the good you get a blessing–
Give thanks for it as being heaven-sent
But never let the bad your mind start messing
Or make you doubt that all things are well-meantIf you can stand before all with your head up
But bow whenever under a command
And never need with upraised fist to get up
And need no proof to prove that you’re a man
Just some rough ideas. I have others. What gaps do you see?
http://markhorne.com/ now leads to this blog.
Katherine’s mother, Margarita DeLeon, who was contacted by school officials shortly after the incident, said that her daughter didn’t like being hit but that she quickly forgot about it. “We didn’t pay attention to it, because we know it’s just children playing around,” she said. “He didn’t mean anything by it. I’m upset with the school.” [source]
Whenever anyone says or hears that one “receives justification by faith,” the expression ought to immediately call for further explanation or else a question about how that makes any sense.
Because forensic verdicts are not simply received by faith. It is nonsense unless it is a shorthand for a more basic reality.
Think about it. We say that in justification God passes sentence on a sinner vindicating him as righteous–imputing the righteousness of Christ to him. It is a forensic, declaratory act. So how is faith ever necessary to receive a forensic verdict?
When God condemns the ungodly, does that forensic declaration only obtain to those who receive it by faith? Of course not. If you are summoned to appear before a judge, and he declares you guilty or not-guilty, your status does not depend on whether or not you believe the judge. The sentence is an objective reality. You don’t receive it by faith alone or with anything else. It simply makes no sense to even talk that way.
The Gospel tells us that objectively, in history, God has justified Jesus, overturning his condemnation by exalting him through resurrection. The reason that justifying verdict is received by faith is because it applies ultimately to Jesus, but not to him for himself. It applies to all who belong to him. We receive justification by faith because by faith we receive Jesus. While belief doesn’t matter to judicial verdicts, it is the ultimate issue when it comes to relationships. If we trust God as he offers himself in Jesus, no matter how much we have disobeyed and apart from any such consideration, we share in everything Jesus has. The condemnation we deserve is then already dealt with in the cross of Christ. The vindication we need is share with us in Christ’s resurrection.
But what bothers me is that the grammatical and logical need for this explanation seems so largely unfelt among Evangelicals, as far as I can tell. It is as if “righteousness received by faith” is some sort of mantra that no one bothers to actually think about. How else can I understand people resting in that sort of slogan as if it were self-explanatory? I realize that not everyone is called to be a theologian. But at the same time, if Christians are equipped only to pronounce a series of syllables that have no relationship to how words are actually used in the wider culture, then they are pretty much doomed to become increasingly insular and ineffective in outreach.
And the problem gets much more acute if that same group is told how precious the unintelligible slogan is, and how much the refusal of the world to accept this shibboleth test is a mark of their own depravity. We actually encourage pride in nonsense.
We receive the justifying verdict by faith because that is how we come to belong to Jesus, on whom the verdict was bestowed. The story of the justification of Jesus is essential to making any sense of justification by faith. An we should actually want it to make sense.
For further reading: Justification by union with Christ
Here.
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I just saw awesome quotation about magic, money, and hallucinations that is inspiring this really brief post.
So I thought I would share this lovely book cover put out by a private yet public yet private national yet private institution, the Federal Reserve of NY, NY.
Once Upon a Dime if considered objectively, should compare favorably to any creationist book from the perspective of Christopher Hitchens or Sam Harris. (That’s not my perspective–I’m just pointing out I’m waiting for Letter to a Scamming Kleptocracy to hit the NYTimes bestseller list any day now). If we applied the rigorous history and scientific standards displayed in this work, it is about like a comic book teaching children that bleeding is good medicine or that bugs come into existence spontaneously in bags of rotting potatoes.
In the book, a particular need arises and in the middle of trying to meet the need through complicated barter negotiations, the natives realize that they need money.
So they invent it.
They find something worthless that is just lying around, put an official stamp on it, and all agree to treat it as money. How are prices set, we are never told. The authors actually show that, in the barter system, the trades are ad hoc decisions based on needs at they arise. there is no hint of standard trade values between goods. So prices fluctuate–that much is realistic.
So why would anyone accept these “dimes”? Or, if they did, how would they set prices? There is no way.
I bring this up because, even though today is tax day, the most important tax is going on every day. Over and over again new money is pumped into the economy devaluing the money already in circulation. Take this rather uncontroversial observation:
Recession is upon us, economists seem to agree, and now we need only discuss how to get out of it. One popular solution is to cut interest rates and print money. That has worked in the past for most of the U.S., but it did not work for Rust Belt states and cities such as Michigan, Cleveland, and Buffalo. The Rust Belt was unattractive to new business investment due to its high labor costs, high taxes (many of which were necessary to pay for commitments made decades earlier, either bonds or pensions for public employee unions), and inner-city crime (Detroit). Companies did invest the newly printed money, but they invested it in other regions of the U.S.
OK. What does that tell us? That not only did the people of Michigan, Cleveland, and Buffalo have to put up with a slumped economy, they also had to experience the government gradually robbing them of the value of their money so that people could get rich elsewhere.
Through the Fed, every day is tax day, from the poor to the rich, from the workers to the investors. From those going down to those on their way up.
Charis is singing to her brothers’ matchbox cars a medley of stuff about learning shapes and colors, loving one another being very important, and other stuff, with the la la las of the “Deck the Halls” carol adapted for filler.
And I turn to Jennifer and say wistfully, “It won’t be too long before she’ll stop doing that.”
Pause.
Then: “At least I hope not.”
Is the PG-13 movie “The Core” OK for children?
Go here.