“There is a darkness upon us that is flooded with light.”

That is a line from a song by the Avett Brothers, one of my favorite bands at the current time. For them it has meaning for their careers, but for me it captures a contemporary reality about the raging storm across the earth in regards to the advancement of the homosexual movement. As the Avett brothers used it, it had to do with the loss of their control of their music, with others telling them “in the fine print” what is right and what is wrong. They see it as obvious [“flooded with light”], but that it was “darkness” that had the dangerous potential for having a negative effect on their career as a band.

The metaphor of darkness flooded with light is particularly apt to describe the mind-boggling blindness of society today regarding homosexual behavior. From the beginning of mankind, homosexual behavior has been universally condemned as immoral, vile, and unnatural behavior to be proscribed, if not punished – though in most cultures it was indeed punishable by criminal law. Indeed, in the United States, nearly every state had criminal statutes prohibiting homosexual behaviors, and even the uber-liberal APA had categorized the behavior as abnormal and as a form of personality disorder, changing it only as late as 1973. Given this nigh unto universal condemnation, how is it that in a few short years homosexuality has become not only not criminal and perverse, but wholly acceptable by what the polls call a majority of American people?

The newness of this development is breathtaking, really. From the hinterlands of perversion to social approval and acceptability, homosexuality is now chic not only among the ultra liberals but also among even formerly conservative people, under the guise that in a “free” society, no one should be hindered from “loving” whomever they wish. I have put quotation marks around these two words, for those two words are at the very heart of the argument for the promotion and encouragement of homosexual behaviors of all sorts, including the allowance of homosexual marriage! And this is where the quote with which I opened this essay comes in.

“A darkness is on us...”

Homosexuality has not changed. It has remained constant as a minority perversion throughout human history. That history comes into stark light in the ancient Jewish scriptures of the Old Testament, particularly the account of the judgment of God on the plain cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, names which have for hundreds of generations been synonymous with homosexual perversion, particularly sodomy. God claims to have judged Sodom and Gomorrah for their sexual perversion and homosexuality, and the New Testament references that judgment at least twice, with one such citation from the lips of Jesus Christ himself. Not only does the New Testament continue to use Sodom and Gomorrah as examples of God’s judgment for their vile sinfulness, but the New Testament gives yet more particularity to the perversions of those cities, and explains why such a judgment was wrought. There is no scriptural text more explicit than Romans chapter one and First Corinthians chapter six in describing particularly polluting sins of sexual perversions, including explicitly homosexual behaviors by both male and females.

Homosexuality particularly a “spiritual darkness” of the corrupt mind

There is nothing “normal” about homosexual behavior. The normally functioning mind of sane persons is immediately repulsed by the notion of such behaviors. Even those who practice such things hide it with extraordinary efforts to conceal their behaviors, for I am fully persuaded that they themselves recognize – though they suppress such recognition – that their own behavior is perverse and abnormal. Only recently have homosexuals dared to boast and flaunt their sexual perversion in plain sight. In other words, the perversion of homosexual behavior is self-evident, obvious, needing no explanation. It is an unnatural perversion and any sane and thinking person knows that full well. It is, in a word, darkness. Here the Bible captures it exactly:

“For since the creation of the world His [God’s, that is] invisible attributes are CLEARLY SEEN, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead [divine nature, deity], so that they are without excuse, because, although THEY KNEW GOD, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but BECAME FUTILE IN THEIR THOUGHTS, AND THEIR FOOLISH HEARTS WERE DARKENED. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man – and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.”

“THEREFORE, God gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves…FOR THIS REASON, God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged THE NATURAL USE for what is AGAINST NATURE. Likewise also the men [lit., males] LEAVING THE NATURAL USE OF THE WOMAN, burned in their lust for one another, males with males committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.”

“And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a DEBASED MIND, to do those things which are not fitting,”

Futile in their thoughts. Their foolish hearts were darkened. Debased mind. All these phrases indicate what I mean by “darkness” that has come upon society in our day. And this darkness is “flooded with light,” in that it is clear and obvious that such behaviors are vile and immoral perversions of nature. No one has to teach anyone that homosexual behaviors are abnormal; we all know it full well, even the homosexuals who practice such perversions. So to what do we owe this madness that has broken out across the earth in such a short period of time? What has caused this darkness across the earth?

Back in a while with some of my own reflections on this phenomenon.

 

An Update 

I am currently retired from active ministry, as of a couple months ago. Actually, I announced my intent to retire from active ministry in January of 2012, but I have remained in place as pastor until we could search and locate a suitable replacement as pastor. The Lord has given us at least two men who are suitable for the task, and therefore I am taking my leave, following the dictates of my poor old body and mind.

Our church sold our church house, as the membership could no longer support a pastor and the church house together. The church now meets in a public library in Zeeland, MI, and continues steadfast in the faith. We hope by late 2013 to have a pastor in place full time so that the church can begin a program of growth and development.

I and my wife have sold our home in Holland, MI, and intend to relocate to Central Illinois, where most of our family resides. We have missed them in the 13 years we have ministered in Holland, and now that we have retired we hope to once again enjoy the company of our relations more closely. We especially want to be a part of the growing lives of our three grandsons, all who reside in Central Illinois. We love them a bunch and hope that in these our last days we get to be involved with them as much as they will allow. 

As it is sometimes said, ministers never really retire, actually. And I am sure that I will have some involvement with ministry wherever and as long as my Lord gives me breath. But I fully intend to make it less intense than in the past, with a bit more rest for my weary body and mind. I admittedly have lost some of my abilities, but with whatever I have remaining, I dedicate it to the Lord Jesus Christ for the remainder of my days here. Perhaps I can now spend more time devoted to a written work that I have envisioned which I have tentatively entitled "Peripatetic Questioning Evangelism," an attempt to explore and advise those who hold to Calvinistic doctrine as to how to approach personal evangelism in our modern day, fulfilling the admonitions of the Apostle Paul to Timothy to "not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, in humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will." 

I and my wife are eternally grateful to our Lord Jesus Christ for His mercy towards us. We look forward to His grace and mercy yet in the future.

Back once again

I de-activated my Facebook account and intend rather to post my thoughts and essays here on my blog, though I have been inactive for a number of years. Facebook is a social media kind of thingy, which I find less than useful, really.

First, let me remind any reader than might happen along that when I use the word Christian, I am using it in a narrow sense, and NOT in the colloquial sense that it is used in popular culture today. For me a biblical Christian is one who has been re-born spiritually and is living a transformed life. A biblical Christian is a regenerate person, one born from above by the Spirit of God, and not one who merely attends Christian services or claims the name Christian based on any association with a church or sect or religion that calls itself Christian but does not reflect the changed life of the regenerate person. This is such a vital distinction, for it is chic today to identify as Christian but no so chic as to live a changed life in accordance with the Scriptures. For me the two go hand in hand: the regenerate person is changed dramatically from a life of sin and degradation to a life of obedience to Christ and righteousness [as defined by Holy Scripture].

For instance, the Catholic Church self identifies as Christian, but is Christian in the most superficial way, that of adopting a convenient name and admitting somewhere in their doctrine that they believe something about a man named Jesus Christ. But for me to be a Catholic is NOT Christian at all, as they do no believe in the doctrine of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit unto salvation by faith alone.

Nor is the average mega-church member a Christian in my view, as they have reduced the term Christian to its lowest denomination. Most, if not all of them, are what orthodox theologians call "decisionists." In their way of thinking, to be "born again" is a mere act of the will to "receive Christ in my heart," a formula that is absent in Scripture but widespread in modern culture and modern church society. I am not talking about these at all, for the mere decisionist is headed to eternal damnation as sure as Satan. Let them all take warning: "So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy," and "who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, or of the will of man, but of God."

So, then, in summary, so that all will know when I use the term "Christian," I am meaning something far greater than what is called "Christian" in modern times. I am talking about a person who has been regenerated, born from above, born of the Spirit of God, one who has passed from death unto life, one who has gone from darkness to light, from death to life -- all by the monergistic work of the Spirit of Jehovah God, father of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who sends the Spirit into the world to draw His own unto Jesus Christ, for "no one can come to me [Jesus speaking] unless the Father who sent me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day."

Should we argue and debate our faith?

Here is another long citation from Bernard Ramm on the benefit and purpose of Christian evidences and apologetics.

“At this point the purposes of Christian evidences for the Christian should be made evident:

• The Christian is established in his faith not only experientially, but intellectually and factually. He sees the Christian religion not only as that which gives him a blessed experience of salvation and assurance within his heart, but also as s system universal and factual in its scope. He sees it in its cosmic, historic and factual breadth. His personal experience is thus related to a universal and valid system of religion. The snipings of psychologists at his religious conversion are emptied of much of their pertinence, for although his religious convictions commenced with his conversion, they now no longer rest solely on such a narrow base, but are part of a comprehensive world view.

• Further, the Christian well versed in Christian evidences understands the nature of many of the attacks on the Christian faith, and knows their invalidity. His knowledge of textual criticism enables him to silence the argument that the text of the Bible has been appreciably tampered with during the course of its transmission; his knowledge of literary criticism enables him to defend the trustworthiness of his documents; his knowledge of all the other items in the arsenal of Christian evidences is a powerful weapon for not only the silencing of attacks on the faith, but the positive evangelistic presentation of the Gospel of Christ.

• Apologetic and Christian evidences are not the gospel, but if a person has a prejudice against the gospel it is the function of apologetics and evidences to remove that prejudice. The value of apologetics and evidences for evangelistic purposes (public, personal conversation, literature) is too frequently underrated usually on the grounds that people are won by preaching of the Word alone.

Two observations are pertinent to this assertion:

1. First, no well-grounded apologist will state that the philosophic demonstration of Christianity saves a man, but it is, to the contrary, quite evident that no man will give the necessary credence to the Word if he has certain notions and biased opinions about the facts and nature of the Christian religion. Apologetics and Christian evidences cut down these objections to enable the gospel once again to directly confront the consciousness of a person. Spurgeon’s oft-quoted remark that the Bible is a lion that defends itself is very pious of sound, but very fallacious of fact. The huge slashes of radical criticism into the Christian church reveal the Bible is defenseless unless defended by its believers. Is every cavil, every slander, every false accusation, every gross misrepresentation to go unnoticed, unanswered, unchallenged? Can the stabs at the vitals of theology be answered by quoting a verse or two of Scripture? We think not. Christian evidences and Christian apologetics are indispensible to the health, welfare and progress of the gospel.

2. Second, the opponents of Christianity figure that it is worthwhile to argue their case. It is the basic theory of all propaganda that successful efforts are possible by argumentation, specious or genuine. Lunn correctly observes that ‘Nobody is ever converted by argument’ is a formula as popular with Christians as it is unknown among politicians and political canvassers…Human opinion is not always formed from argumentation, but a good measure of it is, and therefore Christian evidences is the Christian arsenal of data and facts for any Christian who wishes to defend and debate his faith.”

                                                                           Bernard Ramm, “Protestant Christian Evidences,” pp 14-16 

Science against Christianity? Let's look again...

Here is a long quote from Bernard Ramm that pinpoints a huge flaw in the naturalistic universe of natural science, at least that natural science that purposely cuts itself loose from theism.

“The scientist opposes the supernatural on two counts:

A. He opposes the supernatural on the basis that the supernatural is contradictory to natural law.

B.  On the grounds that miracles do not fit into the universe the scientist works in.

A.  However, the concept of natural law is not as simple as appears on the surface. Although the scientist may handle the law as a simple axiomatic notion, it does not admit of such simplicity upon analysis. The first premise of every natural law is the principle of the uniformity of nature. If the uniformity of nature is not predicated the law is meaningless, 1.e., it becomes provincially true of one experiment or a cluster of experiments at one point in time in one section of space. It is the principle of the uniformity of nature that universalizes laws so that what is discovered at one place and time may be predicated of many spaces and times.”

      “Not only is natural law dependent on the principles of uniformity, but all predication is dependent on it. There is no demonstrable method of proving that the future shall be like the past. I can only be assumed in terms of the principle of uniformity.”

      “It is recognized that the principle of the uniformity of nature is a dictum that comes from the medieval period. It was a theological tenet which stated that in that God was an orderly Person the universe must reflect His orderliness. The original source of the principle is to be found in the theistic undergirding of Nature. Now by the strange concourse of events the uniformity of nature is used to controvert theism! In the theistic system the principle of the uniformity of nature finds its rational justification and its metaphysical undergirding in the character of Almighty God.”

      “Further, although the Christian may locate the source of the principle in his theistic metaphysics, the scientist has no method of proving the principle. There is no single experiment that proves it, for it the first principle of all experimentation. To extend the principle from one experiment to all is to use the principle to prove itself. There are two ways out. The scientist may give the principle full metaphysical status as a pervasive feature of reality, but in so doing he as become a metaphysician. Or, he may with the positivists state that the principle is one of the assumed principles of scientific investigation which one takes as true but does not bother to prove. In this case, the question is begged or dodged. Another variety of the positivistic position is to assume the truthfulness of the principle on pragmatic grounds. But if grounded pragmatically, it cannot then be used viciously to exclude the miracle in Biblical history. Pragmatic verification leaves it possible that other situations may occur in which the principle does not hold.”

     " Finally, the Christian theist insists that the uniformity of nature is not the point of argument at all. For the daily routine of life, for he regular procedures of science, and for the practical needs of the commercial world, the principle of uniformity holds true. As will be noted in the discussion of miracles, the Christian insists on a regular order in nature for he very detection of the ‘irregular.’ That is to say, the Christian theist is not arguing for a chaotic or a spontaneous or a haphazard universe when he argues for the supernatural. At this point he only insists that science does not mercilessly and blindly extend the uniformity of all of human history without full appreciation of the nature of scientific knowledge itself, and the worthy contentions of Biblical theism.”

      "The Christian attitude toward the principle of the uniformity is this: For the general routine of life and existence the principle is granted its validity. Its ultimate grounding is in the consistency of God’s nature. But the principle is not to be used to mercilessly rule out all conceivable supernatural events if for other sound and rational arguments such events can be shown to fit into the entire system of the universe.”

      Amen, brother Ramm.

      “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of Go, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.”  2 Corinthians 10: 4-5

In his book “But I say unto you…,” John Reisinger frames the issues of the believer’s relationship to the law of Moses by a series of pointed questions which he poses in the first chapter. For the sake of our future discussion, I will list a summary – but only a summary – of those questions here.

“How are we to understand Christ’s teaching on the sermon on the mount? Is Christ contrasting His teachings with the law of Moses, or is He only contradicting the Pharisee’s interpretation of Mosaic law?”

“Is Christ really setting up a ‘new system’ of controlling personal behavior?”

“Is the entire thrust of the sermon on the mount merely Christ giving us the true and spiritual meaning of what Moses really meant, or is Christ also contrasting His teaching and authority with the laws and authority of Moses?”

Relentlessly drilling down to the crux of the matter, Reisinger asks:

“Is Christ [in the sermon on the mount: my note] establishing a totally new kingdom based on grace and giving a new and higher canon of moral conduct, or is both the foundation and canon of moral conduct of Christ’s kingdom the same as that of theocratic Israel?”

Drilling down even more tightly, Reisinger asks:

“Is Christ saying exactly the same thing that Paul said in Romans 6:14, “You are not under law but under grace?”

Leaving no stone unturned, Reisinger asks two more probing questions:

“Is there really no contrast at all in the sermon on the mount between law and grace?

“Are both Israel and the church under different administrations of the same covenant and therefore the same moral canon of conduct, or did Christ establish a new covenant that demands much higher and more spiritual conduct from His people?”

It is almost axiomatic that how one answers these questions will depend on the particular theological system and biblical hermeneutic the interpreter has adopted. Yet at this point in the discussion, we are not accusing anyone of anything, but rather trying to explain how new covenant theology has arrived at its understanding of the teaching of the sermon on the mount. For instance, traditional classical [Scofieldian] dispensationalism concludes that the sermon on the mount is not for the believer today at all, but is the rule of life for some future kingdom to be established at the appearing of Christ.

New covenant theology, to the contrary, believes that the sermon on the mount is a vital and integral part of the Christians rule of life NOW, TODAY.

Secondly, new covenant theology does NOT teach that Jesus in the sermon on the mount is contradicting Moses in any way that shows Moses to be wrong. NCT as much as any system of interpretation believes in the unity of Scripture and thus does not teach that one part of the Scriptures contradicts another. Often, covenant theology has been ruthless in their accusations against NCT along this very line, despite the denial and counter arguments made by proponents of NCT. I might properly call for a more civil discourse on this issue which refuses to demonize anyone that might differ with us.

Though Jesus does not contradict Moses as wrong in any way, Jesus DOES promulgate new and higher standards of moral conduct than Moses ever did, or for that matter, could ever give under a covenant of laws. But from this no one can charge or imply that NCT throws Moses under the bus, as the saying goes.

Yet it DOES mean that Christ is literally a new and superior lawgiver than Moses because He administers a “new and better covenant based on better promises,” (Hebrews 8:6). It surely DOES mean that a covenant of grace can – and does – make higher demands than any external law did or ever could!

Why can we claim this as true? Why can a covenant of grace appeal to higher motives and demands of believers today? We have arrived at the crux of the matter and an issue that I have come to believe that classical CT gets wrong, or at least minimizes: the ministry of the Holy Spirit of God under the new covenant of grace. Under the new covenant of grace the believer is enabled to do what the law could never do; by the Holy Spirit the new covenant believer is empowered to fulfill the new and higher demands.

A third distinction that NCT makes about the contrast between the sermon on the mount and the Mosaic code is that under a legal system, we cannot regulate and punish the thoughts and intents of the heart. A system based solely on external laws cannot, indeed, is unable to legislate, regulate and punish the thoughts and intents of the heart.

But God by the Holy Spirit under the new covenant can.

Under grace and the new covenant, the Holy Spirit is the personal guide [pedagogue] of every believer. The Holy Spirit can deal with the thoughts and intents of the heart in a way that the magistrates could not under the old covenant Mosaic law.

We can make some preliminary conclusions, then, as to what new covenant theology does in fact teach. We conclude that in the sermon on the mount Christ is saying much more than “This is what Moses actually meant.” He is saying that He is giving His disciples new laws that make moral and spiritual demands that are based on grace instead of old covenant external laws.

Thus we avoid either of the two extremes that lead to serious error. First, we protect the unity of the Scripture by showing that Christ is not blatantly contradicting Moses as if Moses had been wrong. Yet on the other hand, we will not limit the authority of Christ by making Him a “rubber stamp” of Moses. We will allow Christ to be the new lawgiver, “that prophet” prophesied to come, who can and does give new and higher truth than Moses did or even could give.

A bit later in his book, Reisinger uses the phrase that I chose as a title to my series of sermons and lesson on the sermon on the mount: “Moses is finished.”

We do not mean this in any derogatory sense, but only to say that Moses has been replaced by “that prophet” (Deut. 18:15; John 1:21; Acts 3:26) who would supersede Moses as the new and final lawgiver. This new lawgiver has established a new covenant, a new and better covenant with new and higher laws. He is NOT just a new administrator of the old covenant.

“And it came to pass when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine; for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes.”  (Matt. 7: 28,29)

The problem with logic: a critique of covenant theology

Over on FaceBook we were discussing a session which I recently taught which I entitled "The problem with logic: a critique of covenant theology." In that session, I challenged covenant theology in its use of theological constructs taken from logical inference and not explicitly from the Biblical text. My views have been largely influenced by the works of John Reisinger and Fred Zaspel. I consider Fred a friend, and John, too, but I have not had the same amount of personal contact with John that I have had with Fred. I consider both men as excellent examples of devoted Christian men and theologians. It was during a month or two of debating with John over on the Sound of Grace discussion forum that I first was persuaded to rethink my covenant theology, a system of Biblical interpretation that I had held for many years. Though I was not fully persuaded of new covenant theology at that point in time, after I left those discussions, I began to rethink the things I had come to believe.

Among the things that I had great difficulty in defending about covenant theology when debating with John was the issue of the covenant of works. In fact, John argued that the entire covenant theology framework was built upon the [sandy?] foundation of the covenant of works, despite the fact that such a covenant is not mentioned in the very text from which it is argued by covenant theology, namely the first three chapters of Genesis. Indeed, John argued that I was creating the existence of that covenant by what the covenant theologians call “good and necessary consequences,” that is, logical inferences from the Scriptures rather than the Biblical texts. Later, I would fully agree with him on that point.

Since that time, I have come to recognize that covenant theology in fact bases much more [infant baptism, their doctrine of “church,” Sabbath, eldership, etc] of their system of theology on just such inferences, which are often not at all evident from the Biblical text. It is that which stimulated the title I used, “The problem with logic.”

Mind you, as I said, I am not dissing logic; indeed, I insist on proper logic as a foundational concept of Christianity. But logic is NOT Scripture, nor should we elevate logical consequences and inferences to the same authority as the Biblical text. Human handling of logic even in the best minds is uneven, even seriously flawed due to the fallen nature of man. Even the regenerate person is not rendered infallible in terms of logic and reason; we still tend to “grope along the wall” at times, and as a result we ought to be modest in our claims of understanding even logic. We especially need to caution ourselves to not allow us to elevate logical inferences which appear to be “good and necessary” to the same authority as the Biblical text. Here is the very crux of the “problem” with the logic of which I speak. Often, logical inferences are neither good nor necessary, especially when there are explicit Biblical texts that differ with or outright refute such inferences.

It is this discussion that I want to take up here on the blog. It will afford me to write some of the things that I have been unable – or perhaps unwilling –

to write up to this point. I am not sure why, but I have been reluctant to set forth my thoughts under the notion that all that I could say had already been said by men much better than myself. That still remains true. But those other writers do not always have the attention of those folks in my own network of contacts, and it is often unlikely that everyone that I speak to are going to read the many books I have read on the issues. So, perhaps there is a reason why it might be useful to set forth some of the issues here. It will afford a healthy and vigorous debate and an opportunity for some of us to hone our understanding of the issues.

With that said, I will begin to set forth some of my thoughts in the near future. I pray that God will grant us the needed patience and ability to describe the issues fairly and as comprehensively as possible. I look forward to the opportunity to express some things I have been holding in for a long time now. I do not change easily. Indeed, my transport from classic covenant theology over to new covenant theology has taken almost 15 years. Even now I have some questions about NCT [new covenant theology]. But at this point I can say that I am about a 95 percenter, as I like to call it. I have pretty much made the transition from CT to NCT by now and as a result I have more confidence in what I preach and teach.

Just a few notes before I go. During our conversations, I will purposely NOT capitalize the words Covenant Theology and New Covenant Theology. I have chided my covenant theology friends about their propensity to capitalize words which they give particular meaning. For instance, the word “law” is almost invariably rendered “Law” by covenant theologians. Knowing that they think that the ten commandments [which they also always capitalize] is the ultimate and unchangeable moral law of God, that capitalization has a peculiar effect of making the term mean a priori what CT wants it to mean rather than what the meaning of the word might be in the context of the Biblical text.

You will notice a slight inconsistency because I capitalize CT and NCT, the shorthand way of referring to the two primary systems of biblical interpretation in which I am interested here. I hope you will indulge me with that small inconsistency, though in the end I think it is actually grammatically correct to capitalize an abbreviation such as CT and NCT.

With that settled for the most part, let us begin.

No comment needed

Here is one of those news items that make you cringe. It is a report of an instant poll taken after the president's State of the Union message last evening [1-27-10]

"According to an instant poll conducted by the University of Minnesota's Opinion Research Institute, 90 percent of Republicans who did not see the President's speech strongly disagreed with it."

"Additionally, 95 percent of Republicans polled agreed with the statement, "If I had seen the President's speech, I'll bet I would have hated it even more."

Davis Logsdon, who supervised the poll, said there were certain difficulties in polling Republican voters: "Many of them would not let us finish asking the question before answering 'No.'"

Truly, no comment is needed.

And now for somthing completely different...

I gave Facebook a try, but it was a disaster program that I could never master. I have a long web address, and I had to enter it like fifty or sixty times a day to access even my own site! It was also a quirky, buggy program that did strange things. So, I deactivated that mess, which leaves me only my blog as a site where I can perhaps contribute. It has been a long time since I got serious about my blog; indeed, I had forgotten my login information, but BlogSpot was quick to resolve that in a way totally different from Facebook.

Now that I have left FaceBook, maybe now I can spend a bit more time here to discuss things that I want to discuss - like things theological and Biblical. But I don't want to make my blog only a religious site, but I want to include materials and content on politics and social issues of our day.

So, I am glad to be back, and will begin in earnest soon to contribute content here.

Greetings to all my friends.

De Javu all over again

Wow, looking at the date that I last posted, it is almost exactly a year ago! I just reread my posting then, and, my, it is so relevant today – and so accurately true to the developments over the last year! I intend to spend a bit more time over here writing both on things political and things having to do with Christianity.

First, though, I want to muse a bit about some memories over the last several years. I recall Yuri Volkov and me meeting most Thursdays in downtown Holland during the summer and fall when we weren’t fishing. We talked theology and we talked politics. My recollection is that we both spoke of things that have since become reality in our country.

The first thing was the war in Iraq. It was clear to us both that the Bush administration wanted to go to war with Iraq because of sour memories from Bush 1’s perceived “failure” in the first Iraq war. We also were completely clear that there was no connection with Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. In fact, they were competitors, if not enemies, but it was a stretch too far to make a case for the connection to justify war. Even two persons in Holland, MI, were fully aware that such was not true at all. And we were perplexed that Bush did not pay any attention to Al Queda and Osama bin Laden. In addition to that, there were UN expert inspectors in Iraq telling us that they did not have weapons of mass destruction. We all know where that went, right?

Then Yuri reminded me that the way to assess these kinds of situations was to follow the money, or figure out who it was that would profit from such a foolish intervention. It did not take us long to figure that out! We were fully aware that Cheney had never left Halliburton really, but had continued to take retirement and other investment benefits [and luxurious ones at that! I remember one article that claimed that Cheney was making something like $58,000 an hour while working in the Bush administration]. We knew also that there were Bush administration designs for the oil in Iraq, though right-wingers would howl if you were even to suggest that the war was over oil – it was, actually, but it did not turn out the way that Bush and Cheney, the oilmen, wanted.

We also noted the economic indicators over the last 5 years were ominous and seemed to portend something bad coming over the time horizon. Wow, were we prophetic on that point! I think it was I that came up with a slogan to suggest how the government ought to handle the oil crisis: Just Say No!

Sure, I know that that slogan was Mrs. Bush’s slogan for anti-drug programs, but I adapted it to read Just Say N.O., meaning “nationalize oil.” In retrospect, I wonder if we had nationalized oil production and refining and gotten some control over that “shock doctrine” debacle, would we have had the deep depression that we face in 2009 now? One wonders.

But my “Just Say N.O.” was a bit misdirected, it seems. I should have known that banking drives the oil business, too. So my lack of economic expertise showed up, much to my chagrin. But I was not far off.

Enough for my re-baptism into the blogosphere. I will return soon with some more rumination about current event and religious disorder in our nation in a bit.

ttyl

Under the radar

Today the New York Times mentioned in an article that Chelsea Clinton was now fully involved in her mothers campaign. Whereas she had previously been a mere stage prop, holding the coat of a supporter on one occasion, now she was in Hawaii touting details of her mother’s economic policies.

What whisked by, though, under the radar, was the offhand comment that Chelsea was an “associate” of Avenue Capital, a huge unregulated hedge fund controlled by Marc Lasey, a long-time Clinton friend and donor. I guess Chelsea has taken a few personal days off, or some earned vacation to assist her mother in the campaign. [I would personally be very interested in what Chelsea Clinton actually does in her position of “associate” with that hedge fund.]

Why does any of this make any difference? Well, let me tell you. Senator Clinton has posed as a “change agent” in the primary season of the race. Some of the change the nation is looking for is a change in the corporate control and seemingly unfettered power of corporations to avoid any regulation by the federal government. These massive hedge funds are prototype examples of the worst abuse of unregulated corporations and multi-trillion dollar funds, and apparently Hillary is fully supportive of such arrangements, as long as they have her name on them! But all this is what the Republican administrations have created for their own advantage. Am I to believe that Hillary is simply a Republican in Democratic garb?

I think so.

Sure, she and Bill came from Arkansas, but once they moved to Washington, they became East Coast elites, as much as the Kennedy family, the Kerry Family, etc, etc. She boasts of 30 years of experience in Washington, but what is really the outcome of that 30 years of experience? Personal wealth and walking with the well-heeled elites. This is not what America needs.

The Huffington Post did a story not long ago that revealed the true metamorphosis of the Clintons, from chicken-pluckers in Arkansas, to international magnates. The article details the Clinton relationship with Yucaipa Global Holding, a company that belongs to Ron Burkle, the billionaire investor. What was funny was the way in which the press was impressed and surprised when Hillary loaned her campaign $5 million, giving the impression that they were on the ropes of funding source. Pure nonsense. If she had pleased, some of her investors would have ponied up hundreds of millions of dollars! She is no less wealthy than Mitt Romney, and if the truth were known, is probably much, much richer than Romney.

A New York Times article detailed Bill Clinton’s connection with an attempt to corner the uranium market in a shady deal involving Canadian mining financier Frank Giustra. Guistra flew into Kazakhstan, accompanied by who – you guessed it; Bill Clinton, former president. The two proceeded to meet with the despotic president of Kazakhstan, [who, by the way, has been criticized by none other than Hillary Clinton, Bill’s wife and candidate for president of the United States!], supposedly on a philanthropic tour. But within two days, Mr. Guistra’s company signed agreements giving it the right to buy into three uranium projects controlled by Kazakhstan’s state-owned uranium agency, Kazatomprom. Now, that seems to be real philanthropy in action, does it not?

Long story short, the Clintons are so connected with the abusive business practices around the world that it is impossible that she could represent any kind of “change” in that status quo.

I am sure that these revelations were inadvertent, and that the Clinton’s have already chastised someone for revealing them, but they are likely to be only the tip of the iceberg, with a huge hidden lode of intrigue involving the Clintons. It does not bode well for Hillary Clinton’s campaign to be so hypocritical as to talk about change and anti-corporate control of the economy when her husband [and thus she herself] is up to his proverbial neck in the very things that need to be reformed!

In recent news, we now see that in her desperate last throws she is willing to sacrifice the long-term welfare of the entire Democratic party for her own personal grandiose goals. She will unleash all the learning from the many years that she has learned how to win from the likes of Karl Rove and others who will do anything short of murder (?) to win for their own aggrandizement and financial gain.

I post this to try to demonstrate to the Hillary defenders that not all of us are Hillary-haters, as they maintain, criticizing personal stuff like the way she dresses, the way she looks. I just despise her dishonesty, two-faced deception, hypocrisy, and her false outrage when someone speaks of “pimping out” her daughter, which is, in modern parlance, exactly what she is doing. Perhaps it is Hillary’s own attitude toward the Democratic voters that comes the closest to being pimping out. Enough already.

A huge disconnect

A couple of weeks ago [February 1, 2008, to be exact], it was announced that the U.S. economy lost 17,000 jobs, a serious downturn for the first time in many months. Articles that appeared in many newspapers and online news sites repeated this story ad nauseum.

What was probably overlooked was that on that self-same day, the NY Stock Market exploded upwards, with a nearly 100 points gain for the day on the news of record profits by Exxon Corporation. Indeed, this news about Exxon was so important that the Evening News of NBC had an item on the program in which Jim Cramer from the Financial News Network appeared with Brian Williams to comment on that report. Long story short, when Williams asked why regular people should not be outraged at such profits when high prices for gasoline were wrecking havoc on the budgets of families, truck companies, airlines, etc, Cramer basically said that since the poor oil companies had been through rough times before, it was okay that they were finally getting some good news and good profits, and that he did not hold it against them.

Some capitalist thinking, eh?

Indeed, it is mind-blowing stuff, really. But it points out a phenomenon that I think we as citizens need to be aware. There is a huge disconnect [thus my title] between the stock markets and real people in our country. When the news is almost universal that the U.S. economy is tanking in a serious way, slipping into full recession, the astute observer must surely note that the stock market and Financial Channel pundits are glowing, and corporations are posting major gains and profits.

I have for a long time held the view that the stock market corporations, huge retirement funds and other huge investor class funds flourish on human misery. This is, in my view, so profoundly true that the average citizen can correctly conclude that when the stock market is flourishing, the average citizen is hurting and experiencing economic misery. In other words, reality in capitalist America is that when the stock market is up, average people’s lives are necessarily down, as the markets flourish on human misery. Misery of citizens is the fuel of the stock markets, and the markets are directly but inversely related to the people of the nation. That is to say that the stock market is related to our lives in a completely topsy-turvy way that when the stock market is up, we are suffering, and when the markets are down, the consumer gains and profits.

I don’t know how long it takes to make people see this, as it has been true for all of my own life [I am 65]. I suspect that it will be true forever, really, and that human misery has always been the fuel of American corporatist capitalism. For instance, during the Reagan years, my own recollection is that it was one of the most difficult eras that I can remember for our family and the average family in our country. It was in fact a time of huge transfer of public wealth [tax money, if you will] to private pockets that then had been in the world to that time. For some of us, Reagan was the worst president in our nation’s history, yet the conservatives taut him as nearly the Second Coming of Christ! In fact, the Constitution suffered some of its worst assaults during the Reagan disaster years, serving as a mere prelude to the all-out warfare against the poor of the two Bush administrations [don’t tell me you don’t remember the Savings and Loan debacle! http://la.indymedia.org/news/2004/01/99614.php ]. Reagan’s budgets and the deficit were the largest in the history of the nation, and Conservatism took on a new image as the party that reduces taxes and yet at the same time spends, spends, spends our nation into oblivion. In fact, this political tactic of the neo-Conservatives had a name; it is called “starve the beast.” http://www.wordspy.com/words/starvethebeast.asp It is still the unspoken tactic of the Republican party, and especially of the Bush administration and will likely be the policy of any Republican that takes office in 2009.

The Savings and Load government bail-out and rescue package made the Bush family mega-rich, and elevated the Bechtel Group and other multi-national corporations to the level of world powers, most all of which was due to Reagan’s all-out assault on regulatory agencies and a massive killing field against labor in the United States [don’t tell me you have forgotten Reagan’s breaking of the Air Traffic Controllers union by government fiat!] Later mine disasters would reveal that the Reagan-Bush assaults on regulation and control of dangerous corporations extend much further than the Air Traffic Controllers union.

There is something rotten about America’s version of capitalism. Whatever the American system is, it is NOT free market capitalism: it is a highly regulated system designed to severely regulate and control any input except for capital. Translated, this means that money controls the nation. When Jim Cramer comes on the TV and sheds crocodile tears for the poor corporations, we are in a world of hurt. Those same corporations are the ones that have moved trillions of dollars [that’s right, Martha: trillions] to off-shore shelters so that they do not have to pay taxes in our country. In another era, we would have held such organizations to be traitorous and summarily prosecuted for treason – and likely executed! But today, they are held out as heroes!

It was amusing – while at the same time frightening – to hear one of the presidential candidates talk about his tax plan [the so-called “fair” tax, which is not fair at all] as a plan that would bring back into our economy the $12 trillion [that’s right, Martha; $12 trillion] that had been squirreled away in off-shore tax shelters by mega-rich funds, individual, corporations, etc, so as to avoid paying taxes in our country, because, if you listen to them, the tax rate for corporations is way too high in the U.S., and those corporations are only doing the responsible thing. Duh.

The truth is that American corporations pay far less taxes than just about any nation’s corporations. The American corporate tax rate is 35%, but there is not a single corporation [at least intelligent ones] that pays that rate. Indeed, the richest corporations pay sometimes the lowest tax rates, as Warren Buffet has said, so that an absurdity arises. Warren Buffet commented that he made $46 million in a year [an off year for him, as I recall] but paid a lower rate of taxes than did his secretary in his office! http://sunspot.mercedsunstar.com/?q=node/3883

Here is a link for the reader to follow that will give the true percentages of taxes on top earning corporations in America, http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/corptax.html, Microsoft being one of the most profitable and most recognizable, a company that anyone who uses a computer can relate to: it makes hugely inferior products. It is the “China” of software products, funneling huge rivers of inferior products into a controlled and managed market designed especially for Microsoft and other mega-monopolies [What? Don’t tell me you forgot about laws against monopolies!]. The reader will immediately note from the website that for the year 1999-2000, Microsoft paid an effective tax rate of 1.8% [yes, Martha, that is right] on profits of nearly $22 billion! The reader can browse the other companies for some even more astounding facts. All of that information is put into proper relief by comparing with the average American family’s rate of around 17%. Plainly put, Microsoft Corporation paid 1.8%, you paid 17%. And Bush [and now McCain and every other Republican candidate] wants to cut corporate taxes again!

Given all this, would it not be at least logical, if not kind hearted, to wish for a stock market crash? I think so. When the stock markets are up, you are down, average citizen. Read it and weep.

A Budget Surplus? Whaaaa?

How about a non-religious item?

We are in the middle of a primary election season in our country, and stuff is flying around like a wind storm. Some of those things relate to our state, Michigan. And some of that stuff is very smelly stuff indeed.

One such odorous claim is that Michigan is, according to one national GOP candidate, a "one-state recession." Mind you, we have our problems, what with unemployment being above 7 percent and prospects for new jobs being dismal [ask anyone who has been trying to find work here]. But there are also some very positive things going on here, too, such as state-level leadership in Lansing.

Lest the readers and hearers of these presidential candidates be fooled that Michigan is about to go under, let them read the recent article in the Michigan Daily, entitled "State has surprise $350 million surplus." I wonder how many other states can make this claim. And that comes on the heels of a dismal fiscal state of affairs here in Michigan where previous administrations [read "Engler" here] had incurred a $1.7 billion [That’s BILLIONS, friends] deficit.

Governor Grandholm has successfully grappled with the serious fiscal problems of this state in an exemplary manner, in my view. Yes, it has taken some courage and has required some very difficult decisions, but she has demonstrated the courage and fortitude to take on the special interests that had benefited from the profligate largess of the previous administration. The amazing thing is written in the article:

"The surplus is for the 2006-07 fiscal year, a period in which a deficit of more than $1 billion was filled by delaying payments to state universities and community colleges, dipping into funds set aside for job training and substance abuse treatment and selling off the state’s future tobacco settlement. Taxes were not raised to deal with the shortfall."

What? A Democrat, fixing the budget by fiscal prudence? Shades of Bill Clinton!

Indeed.

The article goes on:

"The surplus is not part of this year’s budget agreement, under which taxes were raised by $1.3 billion and spending was cut or restricted by more than $400 million to help wipe out a $1.75 billion state budget deficit and place the state on a sounder financial footing."

Indeed!

I admit that there are remaining serious economic issues in our state. But fiscal irresponsibility and profligate spending of the past administrations are not now among those problems. Yes, we need to begin the really hard work of developing jobs and restructuring the bases for the new Michigan economy, but we can be thankful that we have the sound fiscal policies of the Grandholm administration to lean upon to leverage our efforts to restore our state to its former economic condition and productivity.

What I fear most is that, God forbid, De Vos might become governor one day, and like his close friend George Bush, be inclined to wipe out any surplus by a gigantic giveaway to his corporate friends. The people of Michigan must resolve to prevent this almost certain eventuality if De Vos is ever elected as governor.

And, by the way, giving more money to Detroit auto makers is NOT the answer! What they need to do is to give us a quality car and we will buy them out of trouble. So far, it hasn’t happened.

Of carts and horses

Okay, it has been a while since I have posted to my blog. In fact, it has been so long that I have forgotten exactly how to do it! But I will muddle through somehow, with a little help from my friends.

What I want to talk about is the current political race. I am not so interested in candidates, but rather in the role of religion/Christianity in the race. There is a way in which I could care less about the candidates and the political process altogether. But when some candidates start using their religion and particularly Christianity as a marketing ploy and campaign tactic, I get not a little incensed. It would appear that religion and/or Christianity is little more than fodder for the cannons of political warfare, to be used here and there for effect, but which will actually go up in smoke when its nefarious job is over.

Such a cynical use and abuse of religion and/or Christianity [the two are NOT the same] is repulsive and in fact brings reproach on genuine Christian faith. Two political endorsements that illustrate this cynicism caught my eye, as the political races relate to religion. First, a dyed-in-the-wool religious fundamentalist [in the bad sense] reactionary institution, Bob Jones University, has endorsed Romney. [Surely the reader must know by now that Christians can only be Republican, right? :)] This endorsement is nothing less than stunning. That a so-called conservative premillenial, dispensational institution which believes in the Antichrist would turn and actually endorse the spirit of antichrist is mind-boggling. But that is exactly what has happened with that endorsement. Mormons do not believe that Jesus Christ is the savior of the world in the way that evangelical Christians do! Huckabee [I do not support him, if you want to know] was right on target when he asked, “Don’t they teach that Jesus and Satan are brothers?”

It was actually kind of humorous to me, frankly. Either Huckabee knew full well what he was saying or he was the worst studied pastor in the world. His question is nothing less than true. That is one of the lesser errors of Mormonism, however, though a very serious one indeed. Mormonism is polytheistic and denies the Trinitarian nature of God. Such a doctrine puts them completely outside the stream of Christianity and makes them a non-Christian sect, if not a cult [though many consider Mormonism just that, and Mormonism appears on many listings of cults on the Internet]. But even that would be just fine for a candidate, for I do not believe there should be any religious litmus test for running for the office of president; it is and ought to be open for Mormons. Let the Christians defeat them at the polls, not by smearing them with religious rhetoric and the politics of personal destruction that seems to have become part and parcel of the right wing Christian political movement. But for a so-called conservative evangelical protestant institution to endorse a polytheistic and heretical religionist is simply mind-boggling. In so doing, Bob Jones University repudiates just about every Christian tenet which they claim to believe.

The second endorsement that boggles the mind is that of Pat Robertson endorsing Rudy Guliani. That fits, eh? An evangelical Christian endorsing the non-evangelical, non-practicing, womanizing, adulterous Catholic with mob connections and business interests with the enemies of the United States! What it does, really, is call into question the integrity of Robertson and all the things he has preached and raved about for decades now. All those years of so-called preaching were thrown aside for the expediency of a political endorsement, which obviously was a play for some renewed political power that Robertson had lost over the years. – and that by being a complete nutty character! That being said, I suppose I should really not register such surprise, eh?

Also, a concern that I have is the way in which the misrepresentation of genuine Christianity by the right wing so-called evangelical Christians has given opportunity of every atheist and unbeliever to rail against the bitterness and hatred expressed by the “Christian” right. Daily I read about 15 newspapers and constantly read the letters and articles written by atheists [the New York Times, in my opinion, could be termed the Atheistic paper of America on the basis of the dominance of the atheists on its opinion pages]. The atheistic venom is constant and, sadly, often far more accurate about the counterfeit “Christianity” of the Christian right political movement than we like to admit. It is difficult for me to understand why anyone would believe, for instance that the pop psychologist James Dobson is a genuine Christian, for his views are so liberal [yes, you heard me right. He is conservative on social issues but liberal in reference to theology and religion] that there is little reason to believe that he is a regenerate believer. The same can be said of Tony Perkins, the leader of some kind of political lobby for evangelicals. These doctrinaire and bigoted partisan Republicans are driven by power needs, not by the Word of God. Anyone who claims to have been regenerated by God ought to repudiate these sleazy characters and return to the Word of God for their guidance. These are partisan political operatives, not ministers of the Gospel or likely not even Christians at all. Let’s face it: the homosexual Haggart was and is not a regenerate Christian; Jimmy Bakker was and is not a regenerate Christian; Benny Hinn is no regenerate Christian. Who believes that Charles Colson is a regenerate believer? These are all men who relish and do obeisance on the altar of power. Of all the fakers, perhaps because of his position, George Bush is the most recognizable likely unregenerate pseudo-Christian, a victim of Pentecostal decisional regeneration, as are most of the others [except the out and out pagans, who could care less about God except that god and religion make for a powerful marketing tool].

I have purposely been using the word “regenerate” to designate a true Christian convert. I have done so because the phrase “born again,” though certainly Biblical language, has been so misunderstood and tainted by the evangelical community that it no longer has its Biblical meaning. To them, being “born again” is an act of their own wills, a decision they have taken to “receive Christ into their hearts.” But true new birth is not an act of man’s will, a fact that is made crystal clear by the Word of God:

“So then it is not of him who wills or of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.” Romans 9:16.

“…who were born [those who believe, that is], not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”

“But God, …even when we were dead in trespasses and sins, has quickened us together with Christ (by grace you are saved).”

What I am suggesting may seem revolutionary to some, but is absolutely elementary and rudimentary to Biblical Christianity. I am suggesting that the very notion of the new birth as understood in evangelical America is so far gone from the Biblical teaching that one can almost – almost – judge that anyone who claims to have been born again has misunderstood what it means to be “born of God” to the extent that they are not likely genuine believers who have been regenerated or born of God in the sense of Titus 3: 4-5:

“But when the kindness of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness that we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Christ our Savior, that having been justified by His grace, we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”

Most all of those representing themselves as evangelical Christians are in fact those who are putting their trust in their decision to receive Christ for their salvation instead of having been saved by the “washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit.” They clearly have gotten the cart before the horse, and are sadly mistaken. Therefore, when they mix perverted politics with their unbelief, we get a poisonous mixture of perverted politics and perverted religion. That is the condition of the religious right in America. They in fact trust themselves [their own free will, to be more exact] for their salvation, and not the Lord Jesus Christ. In their jaundiced view of salvation, God just did what He owed them for being willing to accept Him. This is nothing less than salvation by works, which any self-respecting evangelical would reject out of hand if they knew at all what they were talking about. But most don’t.

Modern evangelicalism is a big mess. The 20th century was a dismal time for American Christianity. C.H. Spurgeon warned in the latter part of the 19th century of a coming “downgrade” in religion. We in the 20th century have witnessed the progress and ultimate end of that downgrade; the beggaring of religion. What passes for evangelicalism today is a sad shell of pretension, I dare say. Genuine faith can be found today, but one must, as the saying goes, sort through a lot of garbage to find it.

But sorting through the garbage is very difficult itself, since there is a profound ignorance of spiritual things in today’s world. If I talk of spiritual things, the natural minded fellow thinks I am talking about voodoo or something. To the modern carnal mind, for instance, something like the virgin birth seems a fairy tale. The reason is that they know nothing about our sin nature and depravity and the need for a spotless, sinless sacrifice to satisfy God’s justice and to make atonement for sin. If they had any notion of that, the virgin birth would not only become meaningful, but absolutely essential, for anyone born as the seed of Adam is unqualified to be Savior or the Lamb of God. When seen in true light, the story is not a fairy tale, but the actual account of man’s fall and need of a Savior, God’s justice and righteousness, reconciliation, and God’s gracious provision of a Savior for all whom by faith believe the Gospel. What to the carnal mind is silly nonsense is to the enlightened believer the very essence of love, faith and eternal life.

Why should we be surprised at this? The Bible tells us very clearly that this will be the very response we will get from an unregenerate mind. Here is what the Bible says of the carnal [meaning natural, unregenerate, un-renewed, un-quickened] mind as it considers the facts of Gospel of Christ:

“But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”

There it is in stark relief; the natural mind, unregenerated by the Spirit of Christ, thinks the things of God and of Christ and of the Bible are “foolishness.” Further, the same text asserts that the natural, unregenerate mind “cannot” know spiritual things, for such spiritual things are “spiritually discerned.” Put in plain language, many of the people claiming to be Christians are in fact in the condition of a carnal mind and simply cannot discern spiritual truth. Think though they might, study though they might, there is no way under the sun that they can arrive at a spiritual thought because such things are spiritually discerned, ergo, one must first be made spiritual before one can discern spiritual things. Jesus said it in another way: “Except a man be born again, he cannot see [or enter into] the kingdom of God.”

What Jesus was NOT talking about was a decision of the human will to “receive Jesus into your heart.” What He was telling Nicodemus was that it is God Himself who determines who will receive the regenerating work of the Spirit [the new birth]. The Apostle Paul put it this way:

“For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him who calls, it was said to her, ‘The older shall serve the younger.’ As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau I have hated.”

Jesus was even blunter with his words:

“Do no murmur among yourselves. No man can come to me except the Father who sent me draw him; and I will raise him up at the last day.”

The great majority of all people today claiming to know Christ as Savior have it entirely backwards, it seems. They have the cart before the horse. They are putting their will and their acts of obedience before God’s acts of saving, thus in essence saving themselves, with God being just the compliant gift giver of salvation to those who are wise enough and good enough to seek him. The bottom line is, if this be true, that they themselves have saved themselves by an act of their will to receive Christ. In fact, theologians have coined a name for this error; decisional regeneration. It is they who give God permission to save them, for as one free will preacher I heard said, “God can’t save you without your permission. God would never force you to be saved against your will.”

Well, there is a way in which that is true and a way in which it is totally false. If by that one mean that it is human will that finally determines who is saved, then it is totally false. If you mean by that that God changes the will of man in such a saving way that the man wants and desires Jesus Christ, then that is very true. Man is never saved against his will; God just makes him willing. Again, the bottom line is that it is God who saves; it is God who enables man to repent and believe, and not man himself. Indeed, the very faith through which man appropriates salvation is by grace, a gift from God.

There is a sobering truth, though, that every person who believes that he is saved or a believer because he or she “accepted Christ” ought to realize. It is a Scriptural truth that blows the top off the claims of many Christians. “There is none that understands, there is none that seeks after God.” Yet the very essence of many people’s claim to be Christian is that they were seeking God! That ought to give all those who confess to be Christians pause, and cause them to reconsider their true spiritual state, and to “make sure your election and calling.”

In summary, I really don’t care about the political races in themselves. But I do care how our precious Christian faith is distorted and abused and made to serve as marketing material for the sake of political campaigns. It is high time to put these folks to the true test of the Word of God. Let’s start asking the hard questions.

Coming later: Can there be true morality outside the Christian faith like some secularists and atheists say?

I'm baaaaaack! -Redux

Wow, what a journey it has been! It is with gratefulness that I return here to post again. This has been one difficult year for me, suffering another heart attack and spending more time than I like in the hospital, medical facilities, rehab programs, and the like.

But God has been merciful to this sinner, and so I return rejoicing at His great grace to me. I have decided to take up posting to my own blog here and to our church website at www.spurgeonheritage.org. I had thought that I might go back to the Theology List and contribute, but for the time being I will rest content to do some stuff here on the blog.

For my friends I will review a little of what has been happening in my life. This is not one of those annual letters that people send out at the Christmas season, but just a bit of summary of why I have been somewhat absent from the world for a time.

Wintertime is very difficult for me, with my heart condition and all. So each winter we face the winter weather with some fear and trepidation, recognizing that over the last several years I have experienced strokes and heart attacks during the months of December, January and February.
In the fall of 2006, my health was already falling off and I was struggling to keep up with my duties and responsibilities. I was limited in what I could do physically and chose to concentrate on ministry and preaching, leaving all my writing and other activities [like bowling, golfing, fishing, etc] to be resumed later, if God willed.

My doctor decided to send me back to cardiac rehab, even though I had “graduated” earlier. So I began working to restore some health to my heart. It was during this time [March-April, 2007] that I was having much physical distress and heart pains. My doctor was doing what he thought was right for me, and ordered a sleep lab, after which I was diagnosed with severe sleep apnea. We had problems getting the report from the sleep lab and thus could not get the C-PAP apparatus as soon as would have been desirable.

In fact, before we could get it, I took a trip down to Illinois to visit my grandsons, and to spend a few days with them. On the very day we set out to go, I had an appointment with my cardiologist. As I was sitting on the examination table, I reported to the nurse that I was having chest and back pains and was fearful that I was having a heart attack right there in his office. She quickly went out and reported to the doctor, but he came back in and made light of my concerns. So I left and went to Illinois. I fought serious pains the entire time while there and was unable to sleep but for short stretches of time, measured in minutes rather than hours. And I kept feeling worse and worse as the time went on.

We returned to Holland on Saturday and we had our regular services on Sunday. I could hardly stand and was enduring almost constant pain. On Monday morning, 9:30, I was scheduled to work out at cardiac rehab there at the hospital. When I arrived, I was in serious pain and was quite irritable. The head nurse there [Cheryl is her name, and she is an angel to me] knew intuitively that I was not my usual jovial, joking, smart-alec self, so she would not allow me to exercise and took me down to the ER. There I was diagnosed as having suffered a heart attack some hours before. I personally suspect it was back in the cardiologist’s office, actually.

Well, I seemed to recover some, but this one left me far weaker than what I had experienced in the past. The doctor told me that one of my bypasses had blocked off, causing the attack. He indicated that there did not seem to be anything that he could do, and that there were “no targets for revascularization.” In simple terms, he was saying that it was impossible to do any more bypasses. His advice and medical plan for me was that I should complete an advance directive of DNR [that’s Do Not Resuscitate, if you are unfamiliar with the nomenclature]. Nice medical plan, eh?  In plain language, he was saying that if the guy has another heart attack, let the old boy die!

Mind you, I am not at all afraid of dying. Indeed, as the Apostle Paul put it, “to die is gain.” But I was not at all convinced that I should give up the ghost that easily or without at least a second opinion. So I sought a second opinion from Prairie Cardiovascular Center in Springfield, IL, who had done my original bypass surgery. They were confident that the DNR “plan” of action [or inaction, more accurately] was unwarranted and that they felt there were other interventions that were not so dire. Long story short, I underwent two procedures to unblock some old arteries, but both procedures were unsuccessful. The cardiologist at Prairie was quite disappointed in himself and seemed far more discouraged than I. But he still felt that there was hope and that there were other interventions that might be warranted. With that thought, I returned home to Holland, MI.

Since that time, I have once again graduated from Phase 2 cardiac rehab. But as the summer wore on and winter time approached, I became again concerned that things were not going well. This time, I self-referred myself to cardiac rehab, phase three, and am still busy at that. There has been some good progress, and I am feeling fairly well at this time, though I am certainly not back to “normal.” I am back to bowling and fishing, but other than those activities I am pretty limited.

So, here I am, back again, hoping that I can recover and still contribute something to this life. So far I have not had to curtail much of my ministry, and have only missed a few Wednesday evening sessions and not a single Sunday service, no matter how serious my problems have been. For this I am very thankful to God for His mercy to me.

As if this were not enough, my dear wife Bev underwent hip replacement after several years of debilitating pain and discomfort in that hip. She is home recovering quickly and we are hopeful that both of us will resume something akin to normal life soon.

I wish to thank those of you who prayed for us during our travail. We would covet your continued prayers, actually. We have many, many friends across the nation and even around the world, and we are thankful for their shared fellowship in Jesus Christ. Their love and prayers have made our tribulation more tolerable and even joyful.

It is good to be back. Drop us a line if you can and visit our church website, which I am about to update soon.

Free Will

Lately the topic of freedom of will has arisen among the saints here at Spurgeon Heritage Church. In my own mind, that is a good thing, for it requires all of us to once again go to the only place that speaks authoritatively about human free will: the Bible, the very Word of God.

Our church holds to the doctrine of the total depravity of man, sometimes also called the total inability of the will of man to choose the spiritual good necessary for salvation. For this series of articles, we will use the more traditional term after first defining what we mean by it when we are discussing the noetic effects of sin.

Before I launch into this discussion, I would like to comment personally on why I do so. First, I am a bit reluctant as a writer in theological areas, as my view is that just about all that can or need be said about such topics has already been said, and that by authors who are far more capable than I. I could do but only a few minutes of surfing on the Internet and come up with links to a huge list of articles and authors who have written on the topic of free will, and all of them are likely far more capable than I of explaining and examining this topic. So then, what is my justification for writing this here on my blog?

Well, you be the judge as to whether I am justified or not, but my own thinking is that the only reason for doing so is to customize it to the people for whose benefit I attempt to write. It is the people that are in my life for whom I write. I know them personally and I know their general ability to deal with such topics. Some are quick to understand; others need a more generous learning curve. I hope I am able to take the wisdom of other’s scholarship and translate the information into language and examples that our own people can understand and accept as valid. The only thing that I do claim as anything unique to me is the use of the argument regarding mankind’s “want to.” Some years ago I began discussing the issue of total depravity by reference to the fact that our “want to” is broken [in our natural state, though restored by regeneration]. For example, I might say that we are free to choose what we “want to,” but that the options from which we make our choices can only be of a certain sort because our “want to” is broken. Our “want to” is that constitutional part of man that is precedent to our volitions and presents options to the will. This “want to” part of man’s constitutional makeup is corrupted by sin from the effects of the fall of man through the sin of Adam. I will discuss this further in the series in more detail, but this suffices for a general example of my own kind of language employed in a discussion of this subject.

The meaning of terms

As in any discussion, we must first define our terms if we are to make any headway in our understanding of a subject. This is crucial not only on this subject, but just about anything that we discuss or debate. Sadly, the notion of free will is so variously understood that it cannot be assumed for even a moment that two people mean the same by the phrase. In other words, one person’s free will is to another person total anarchy, a completely psychotic state. I believe, for instance, that one form of radical free will that is promulgated today is nothing short of an illogical contradiction which reaches the level of insanity, that is, if anyone really believed that view of free will, they would be what we commonly define as insane. Surely I must explain that seemingly crazy view of free will, and I intend to do so. But for now it suffices to demonstrate that one man’s definition of free will is another man’s definition of insanity. How can those two person’s talk to each other about free will if such is the state of affairs? Not very intelligently, I would say, unless we come to some mutual understanding of what each of us means. So it becomes absolutely necessary to define our terms if we are to progress in our understanding.

Hermeneutics

Our church, probably a little differently from many others, studies the major points of conservative Biblical hermeneutics, that is, the scholarly study of how to interpret the Bible. Here again it is necessary to have some framework for proceeding, lest each person appeal to his own authority for his principles of Biblical interpretation. Diligent students of the Word here at Spurgeon Heritage Church keep in their Bible a bookmark with the title “The Principles of Biblical Interpretation.” On that bookmark are printed 11 principles of Biblical interpretation that we feel are critical to “rightly dividing the Word of truth.” I list them all here for the reader’s consideration, but intend only to highlight a few that I think most important to understanding the subject of our discussion, free will.

The priority of the original languages
The accommodation of revelation
Progressive revelation
Historical propriety
The principle of ignorance [which we frequently employ!]
Differentiating interpretation from application
The checking principle
The principle of induction
Preference for the clearest interpretation
The principle of the unity of Scriptures
The Analogy of faith

These principles are not original, but adapted from a wonderful little volume that I bought long ago in seminary back in 1968. The title of the volume is “Protestant Biblical Interpretation” by Bernard Ramm [W.A. Wilde Company, 1956]. I recommend that if you can find and obtain this fine little book, do so without hesitation.

The principle that I have discovered over the years that are central to an proper understanding of free will are three in number, though by extension nearly all are involved. But let’s define these three principles so that all understand what we are saying as we begin our discussion of free will.

The principle of induction

We here at Spurgeon Heritage Church are Bible-believing Baptists. That means that we believe the Bible is the very Word of God and is infallible, inerrant and the sole authority for our faith and practice. Our faith is one founded upon the Rock of God’s divine revelation and we will not accept any other authority, especially man’s autonomous reason, as being a basis for our beliefs. If we are going to believe anything about free will, we believe we must resort to the Bible for our understanding of it.

But many people “resort” to the Bible for their beliefs, and at times it would seem that the Bible has no specific meaning on what it speaks to, which makes it but a tool to support any view whatsoever. Every single whacko claims the Bible as their authority, including such notable “biblicists” as David Koresh of the Branch Davidians and Jim Jones of the now infamous Jonestown mass suicide. Both of these cultists claimed the Bible as their authority. Sadly, a mere cursory knowledge of Biblical hermeneutics would have allowed the people who were duped to know and recognize that those men were among the most perverse interpreters of Scripture that have come along since Satan himself, who mangled the Biblical text in the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness [Luke 4]. Another such modern perverse interpreter of Scripture that comes to mind is Bill Gothard, whose myriad of followers have frighteningly similar traits as those of the two cultists mentioned above. Gothard interprets the Bible in much the same was as those cultists did. They all then sanitize their perverse interpretations by calling themselves “biblicists,” which would be laughable if it were not so transparently pathetic.

In all three of these examples of faulty Biblical interpretation, one central principle of interpretation that was [and is, in the case of Gothard] constantly violated with impunity is the principle of induction. The principle of induction, plainly stated, is that our interpretation of Scripture must discover the meaning of a passage, not attribute one to it. [ibid, Ramm, pg. 119] Nearly all heretics and cultists in history have been guilty of taking their already-owned predilections, prejudices and presuppositions and imposing them on the Biblical text [eisegesis] instead of bringing meaning out of the Biblical text [exegesis].

The analogy of faith

The second hermeneutical principle most commonly violated in the discussion of free will is the principle of the analogy of faith. This principle can best be defined as that principle that says that “scripture is interpreted by scripture,” or “scripture is its own interpreter.” This was the principle that was central to Martin Luther in the Protestant Reformation, in that the Catholic Church had assumed all authority to interpret the Bible and only she [the Catholic Church] had the authority to make the obscure scripture clear. The Reformers countered this unholy usurpation of authority by insisting that guidance for understanding obscure scriptures must come from other scriptures where the doctrine was discussed with more clarity. We take this same position in this series of studies on this doctrine, the doctrine of free will.

The unity of scripture

The third most commonly abused, neglected and violated principle of biblical hermeneutics is that principle called the unity of scripture. This principle is closely related to the analogy of scripture principle, but somewhat different. This principle maintains that the meaning of scripture is one of unity, and that when more than one meaning is imposed on Scripture, chaos ensues and the meaning of Scripture is obscured. This principle provides some restraint from the uninhibited resort to improper spiritualizing, allegorizing and the excessive use of typology in the interpretation of the Biblical text. This problem has been going on in the faith from the very first centuries of God’s revelation. I would be remiss if I did not explain something here, though. While adhering to this principle, I do not deny that there is figurative language in the Bible. Nor am I decrying typology as a valid way of understanding the Bible. And I do not deny that there may be multiple fulfillments in predictive prophesy. Indeed, these are things I employ myself in my understanding and teaching of the Holy Scriptures. But the point is that I believe there is a firm connection between type and anti-type, between prediction and fulfillment, so that the fulfillments are extensions and expansions of the original text and not some new and novel meanings. Fanciful typology such as taking the mere color of Rahab’s scarlet cord as a type of redemption is a violation of this principle. All those who know me personally know my own view of Arthur Pink’s writings on the Pentateuch. I believe that Pink was all too often guilty of unbridled typology which sometimes clearly violated this principle of Biblical interpretation. It seems to me that Pink saw a too-convenient and too-clear connection between type and anti-type so that, for instance, almost any reference to wood for him created a clear and unequivocal connection with the crucifixion. He would have been well advised to employ a little more control on his imagination, in my view. That is why some of his writings have found an obscure and lower place in my library. The principle of the unity of scripture helps us regulate this excessive typology.

Employing the principle of the unity of Scripture, I maintain that the Scripture does not in one place teach free will and another place determinism. If there are seeming differences, we are obligated to seek to harmonize those texts by resort to the skills of Biblical hermeneutics within a framework of sound interpretive principles.

My definition of free will

Finally, I finish this introductory post with my own definition of free will, and at the same time set forth the framework for my own view so that those who might desire to take up the cudgel with me on this matter can begin their research and preparation for their counteroffensive. Here again, I offer no new ground, but that which has been hammered out over the centuries by minds much superior to mine. I thus resort to a document that is well known among those of us who identify ourselves as Calvinistic Baptists, sovereign grace Baptists, particular Baptists and Reformed Baptists. That document is the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689. The 1689, as many of us call it, has a definition that is identical to the Westminster Confession of faith of the Presbyterians. Why they are the same is a matter of discussion for another time, but I believe that the definition is a very good one and provides the clarity that is needed to launch this discussion. Though we Calvinistic Baptists are often accused of denying free will, the 1689 Confession has a chapter, Chapter 9, entitled “Of Free Will.” Here are the five paragraphs of that chapter:

God has endued the will of man with that natural liberty and power of acting upon choice, that it is neither forced nor by any necessity of nature determined to do good or evil.

Man, in his state of innocence, had freedom and power to will and to do that which was good and well pleasing to God, but yet was unstable, so that he might fall from it.

Man, by his fall into a state of sin, has wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation; so as a natural man, being altogether averse from that good, and dead in sin, is not able by his own strength to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto.

When God converts a sinner and translates him into the state of grace, He frees him from his natural bondage under sin and by his grace alone enables him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually good, yet so as that by reason of his remaining corruptions, he does not perfectly, nor only will that which is good, but does also will that which is evil.

This will of man is made perfectly and immutably free to good alone in the state of glory only.

That should do it for the first installment. The next step will be to define free will as generally understood in our culture today and especially as it is understood and defined by our theological opponents, most notably our Arminian and Semi-Pelagian friends. That step will be a little more difficult, as there is no monolithic understanding among the various proponents of that view. If I have, then, any credentials, they would be, one, that I myself was an avid Arminian free-willer, having been indoctrinated into that view by my first church experience in a fundamentalist Baptist church, complete with Arminian soteriology and Dispensational eschatology. The second would be that I have studied this issue and engaged in this debate now for more than 40 years and modestly consider myself as at least somewhat scholarly in preparation for this discussion.

Next: Free will in our modern Christian community