Monthly Archives: August 2009

Evangelical anti-statism… or is it pro-statism?

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Evangelicals, if they are anywhere on the sliding scale of “the religious right,” believe in free market economics and that the government should provide for the national defense.  In some circles, part of the free market public policy is justified on the basis that the Bible never authorizes the state to take money from some people and give it to others because the ones from whom the state takes are better off than those to whom the state gives.

I actually subscribe to a similar argument, though I now think you need to add some steps to it, and perhaps make some other changes.

Still, it has got to look jolting to anyone who is Biblically literate to encounter this ideological sub-culture for the first time.

When you consider how much space in the Bible is devoted to condemning state welfare programs compared to how much is devoted to condemning military spending, the “religious right” becomes even more of a mystery. When you consider how much space in the Bible is spent forbidding the government to engage in military build-ups or foreign entanglements (that is the point of horses and wives), the political slogans of the “religious right” look positively perverse.  How can we oppose “welfare” programs (in quotes because I don’t think they result in real welfare) and be so exuberant about huge amounts of (totally unaccountable) military spending?

As I was thinking about these things, I heard Gary DeMar’s substitute on the American Vision podcast read from First Samuel:

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Was a Christian Missionary supposed to tell Icelanders to repent and start a state?

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Some time back in Norway’s history, a man of some rank named Harald asked a woman to marry him.  She said no.  Harald swore he would not wash his hair again until he had become king of all Norway.  And he succeeded, which is why he became known as King Harald Fairhair.

As you might imagine, this elevation required some demotions, and not all of the demoted got killed.  A group of people did not want to have to serve a king, no matter what his hair was like.  They moved to Iceland.

Medieval Iceland, both as a pagan society and then as a Christian one, functioned for a few centuries as a society without a state.  There were no state offices, or office-holders, or taxes, or legislation.  There was only a yearly meeting where any outstanding cases could be heard and verdicts given by people who were respected in the society as judges.  It was a completely private-law system.

No my question is, does what Paul says in Romans 13 mean that Christian missionaries should havd commanded these Icelandic “anarchists” to form a state.  What about ancient Ireland?  Or Israel in the time of the judges?

Oh, and how has Iceland prospered under its present democratic State government?

Frum Dead Right about the Need for GOP to embrace “big government” to survive

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Thinking about David Frum’s plea for the Republican Party to embrace “Big Government Conservatism” can be understood from this angle. The more a government is limited the less it can do to bribe the powerful. If follows that, the more a candidate for office truly represents a limitation of state growth (let alone an actual reduction in the scope of state activity), the less he has to offer the gatekeepers who can put him into office.

Of course, the usual illustration for this, is payments to the poor. This is a prevalent model (a model of what to oppose) in conservative Christian circles. Supposedly, now that the government gives money to the poor, the poor have an incentive to vote for those candidates that will promise them more “free” (free to them) money and other benefits at the expense of other people in society. So in theory this is always the problem with democracies and welfare transfer payments.

But I don’t find this a convincing analysis.

It is true that the poor can and do vote, and it is true that they are taught to think that voting in this way is in their own best interests. But this fact is miniscule compared to other factors in play. The main factor that is relevant here is that the poor, almost by definition, never have much power in society. The only exceptions might be found in cases of extreme rioting (though I’d look for leadership and manipulation from outside that economic class even in those cases). The poor are cannon fodder—whether literally or figuratively. Always.

It is never the poor who drive campaigns for more alleged educational benefits. It is the teachers, their union, and their allies in government who are nearer to their own social class. It is not the poor who really drive welfare benefits, but the many better off who get jobs serving their needs, distributing funds, and getting paid for doing so.

The issue isn’t simply who votes for what. That is a factor but not usually a significant one. What matters is the powerful groups who use the poor for leverage. While the fact that the poor can be used that way does say something good about society, the fact remains that the poor are not the ones in control with their votes.

What you need to win elections are the resouces required to 1) win a popularity contest and 2) find creative ways to get people to show up at the polls. This requires money and labor. So the questions then becomes academic: Can a political party that expects people to only donate their money and labor/time expect to beat a political party that expects people to exchange their money and labor/time for real goods in exchange?

The answer is obvious, and it is equally obvious that Frum is just trying to give the GOP a fighting chance. If they don’t embrace more interventions and more taxation—with the favors and handouts made possible by those taxes—the Republican party has no chance. The ones who offer real goods and services will get the money and thus in most cases win elections.

Of course, for myself, I would rather be part of a losing political party that wanted to do what is in the national interest, rather than being a corrupt parasite selling the nation out to the rich and powerful. But I’m just funny that way.

This would also explain, by the way, how Frum gets funding despite being really unpopular with republicans. A “new majority” of funding, if you will.

Kings and Queens used to be parents writ large

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Listening to Hans-Hoppes talk about how kings and queens were above the law and thus considered a violation of equality before the law.

But if you read the Pentateuch, much of that possibility is made less obvious–though not entirely eliminated. For example, cursing a ruler and cursing one’s own parents had the same penalty. Everyone was a king or queen in his own family.

Of course, kings were known for conscripting labor, which the populace found wrong, as Rehoboam discovered. And David was never brought to a court of law for adultery and murder. So I’m not saying that the problem is eliminated in the Biblical kingdom. I’m just pointing out that there is more of an analogy in many cases between the rights ascribed to a king and the rights ascribed to anyone else.

Are We Losing Sola Scriptura?

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My point is not to defend Murray’s thesis (though I do affirm it), but to draw attention to the manner in which Professor Clark criticizes it. He does mention several Scriptures, with whose interpretation of Murray’s he disagrees, but this is not the main point of his criticism, and he spends little time on the Bible. Rather, Professor Clark complains that “Mr Murray’s argument was taken entirely [emphasis in original] from Scripture.” Clark finds this “biblicism” untenable for a Reformed theologian.

Read the whole sad thing here: Are We Losing Sola Scriptura?.

James says that only obedient faith justifies and the Westminster Divines agree with him

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One of the main problems here is that all too often “living” has been equated with “obedient.” Those who disagree with me will undoubtedly point to James again and say “well, living is equated with obedient there.” No one is saying that we are justified (even in a Pauline sense!) by a dead faith. But the living aspect of faith with regard to justification is not obedience but the fact that it truly grasps hold of Christ. The living aspect of faith with regard to sanctification is that it will really result in good works. The second aspect of the aliveness of faith is the necessary result of the first aspect of the aliveness of faith. They are inseparable, yet distinct. The first aspect of the aliveness of faith is the sole province of the realm of justification. The second aspect is solely within sanctification. These things must be kept distinct, or all sorts of problems will result.

via Genesis 15:6 in Paul and James « Green Baggins.

I think the Westminster Confession of Faith is correct about faith and justification in James 2 and that Pastor Lane Keister is wrong.

Faith, thus receiving and resting on Christ and his righteousness, is the alone instrument of justification: yet is it not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces, and is no dead faith, but worketh by love. (Chapter

By this faith, a Christian believeth to be true whatsoever is revealed in the Word, for the authority of God himself speaking therein; and acteth differently upon that which each particular passage thereof containeth; yielding obedience to the commands, trembling at the threatenings, and embracing the promises of God for this life, and that which is to come. But the principal acts of saving faith are accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life, by virtue of the covenant of grace.

If Lane were simply pointing out that one can make a distinction between trusting Christ for sanctification and trusting him for justification, I’d readily grant the point.  But he seems to be saying that the faith that justifies is not obedient, but rather leads to obedience.

(Why should one even make such a strange distinction?  Why does it matter?  It matters because certain leaders in the Reformed ghetto, motivated by jealousy, are trying to find ways to marginalize other teachers.  They resent young seminary students reading and respecting people who are not them and have decided to invent definitions of orthodoxy that are not only unorthodox, but make no sense at all.  Lane, is trying to submit to these definitions and it has led him into a mistake.)

True faith is not dead faith.  It is a faith that obeys.  Since faith is <i>commanded</i> how could it be otherwise?  If one is commanded to believe, then believing cannot be temporally or even logically prior to all obedience.  Faith is obedience to the First Commandment from the heart.

Notice that even using these novel distinctions to purportedly defend Justification only by faith from error involves ignoring a much more clear and usable distinction given to us in the Westminster Confession:

Those whom God effectually calleth, he also freely justifieth: not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous; not for anything wrought in them, or done by them, but for Christ’s sake alone; nor by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience to them, as their righteousness; but by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ unto them, they receiving and resting on him and his righteousness, by faith; which faith they have not of themselves, it is the gift of God.

Now, on one level, this is problematic because the Confession takes the breath-taking move of discounting the form of words that Paul uses in Romans 4.  I can’t defend that.  But I can defend the intention which was simply to deny that faith merits or causes us to be righteous before God.  We are “in Christ,” an external person and therefore an external righteousness, not “in faith.”

I think what the Confession says about the necessity of repentance can help us here.

Although repentance be not to be rested in, as any satisfaction for sin, or any cause of the pardon thereof, which is the act of God’s free grace in Christ; yet it is of such necessity to all sinners, that none may expect pardon without it.

The same is true of faith.  Faith is not to be rested in as any satisfaction for sin, or any cause of the pardon thereof.  Rather, by faith we are united to Christ and thus possess his righteousness.

The Amazing Spiritual and Converting Power of the WCF!

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Thinking some more about this quasi-roman-catholic theology, it occurs to me what a rank unbeliever I must seem to be to those blinded by it.

I mean, hereI am, in utterly misplaced faith, following that sixteenth-century unbeliever John Calvin (the embarrasing drunken great-uncle, if you will), thinking that the Bible is the lens by which we view all things, whether human persons, human societies, nature, nuclear weapons, health insurance plans, literary works, games, whatever.  I think of the Bible as the document that is used by the Holy Spirit to break down barriers, to shatter idols, to divide the depths of the human heart and bring conviction and repentance–to rip off false perspectives and ideologies and presuppositions that blind people, and allow them to see the truth and discern all things rightly.

Of course, this is usually done through human speakers who know the Bible, but it still comes down to the Bible.  And furthermore, the process of recovering the truth in all areas of life comes from continually learning the Bible and conforming one’s mind to its patterns.

But no, that is just idolatry.  The Holy Spirit uses the Westminster documents for those purposes–at least when it comes to Scripture.  You can’t even understand the Bible rightly unless you use the Westminster Confession and Catechisms in order to interpret it.

It is there objectively, of course.  But it is just a dead letter.  It can only be mishandled and misused until God raised up a pack of warring Englishman with Scot handlers (using their military aid as pressure) to drop into the world for the first time the one true necessary interpretation of all of Scripture that was the missing tool to actually allow sinful men to read Holy Writ aright.

It is now the job of all true believers to tell Christians everywhere to repent of their autonomous, idolatrous attempts to read the Bible, and go to the Westminster documents, where the Holy Spirit will correct their misconceptions, with the “Standard’s” self-interpreting truth–qualities God’s Word has never possessed.

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers, before the mid 1600s, in vague signs and hints of the truth.  But now but in these last post-Reformation days he has spoken to us by his Westminster Confession and Catechisms, which he appointed the heir of all things, through which also he created the world.  The Westminster Standards are the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and they upholds the universe by the word of their power.

Or is Scripture the lens by which we interpret the Westminster Standards?  Should this be a difficult question?

Another manufactured accusation against Palin bites the dust

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A judge ruled Wednesday that the Alaska governor’s office can use private e-mail accounts to conduct state business, as former Gov. Sarah Palin sometimes did.

Superior Court Judge Jack W. Smith said in his ruling that there is no provision in Alaska state law that prohibits the use of private e-mail accounts when conducting state business.

via The Associated Press: Judge rules in Palin e-mail case.