I Love Dispensationalists…

…just so you’ll know, I don’t have it out for dispensationalists.  Some of them are among the men and women I respect the most of all people I know on earth.

People like John MacArthur cause me to glow with pride when I see him on national television upholding the truth of the Bible and telling millions of viewers that Jesus Christ is the only way to God.  And the contribution of one of his associates – Phil Johnson – to the propagation of truth is inestimable.

Another that comes to mind is Charles Stanley, whom God has used to bring untold thousands into the faith of Christ.  I could name so many more.

I spent over twenty years as a member, teacher, preacher, deacon, and pastor of Independent Fundamental Baptist churches.  Though I have moved on to a different identity (Independent Reformed), I still hold great respect for some of those fundamental men that stood, and continue to stand, boldly against the allurements of this evil world.  All of them were dispensational – and some of them were true, great, men of God.

But I believe they are very, very wrong in their dispensational theology.  I know it hurts my dispensational friends to read this.  They may consider me to be a traitor, a liberal, an “allegorist” – but none of this is true, and I only wish they might see these things clearly.

And though I love them, I don’t know if I could work together with them in a ministry or church.  Not because of feelings – no, not that at all, for my feelings tell me to put it aside - but because of the complete contradiction that the dispensational system brings against the covenant system.  Not only that, but once someone comes to understand the role of the Church in God’s plan, you simply cannot bear the thought of the Church being made a sort of afterthought necessitated by the refusal of God’s “real” people (the biological descendants of Abraham) to accept their Messiah.

The Bible is so filled with the certainty that Christ and His Church is the fulfillment of all things promised to Israel, I don’t know how it can be missed, even though I have to admit that I read the Bible for years and missed it the whole time.

The funny thing is, when I first became convinced of the truths of the theological system commonly called “Calvinism”, I knew I had entered a completely different way of seeing and understanding the scriptures.  But even then, I never imagined that I would ever be any thing but a dispensationalists – a Calvinist, yes, but a Dispensational Calvinist, much in the line of John MacArthur. 

Only by way of a sort of academic pursuit did I come to press myself to make an attempt at understanding Covenant Theology.  Hear a little, there a little, and the whole idea began to take root.  And over a long period of time, and with much less hoopla, my change from dispensationalism to covenantalism followed the pattern of my change from Arminianism to Calvinism.  By and by, and alas, I was convinced, and am this day more convinced than ever, of the overwhelming biblical evidence and truth of that way of understanding the scripture that is called “Covenant Theology”.

To my dispensational friends I say as Paul said, “Am I become your enemy because I tell you the truth?”*

 

*Gal 4:16

Thesis on Covenant Theology by Dr. R. Scott Clark

Another cut-and-paste-post but a good one for folks with a real interest in covenant theology.  It’s a long read (for a blog, that is), but well worth the time.  It is easy to read, being in “bullet format” (some military jargon for you).

Disclaimer:  Dr. Clark apparently promotes ”two kingdom” theology late in the thesis – something with which I’m not familiar enough to endorse.  Otherwise, I’m pretty much in agreement.

From:  http://www.wscal.edu/clark/covtheses.php  (I discovered the link on www.monergism.com)

 

THESES ON COVENANT THEOLOGY

1. Prolegomena

1. Covenant theology structures all of Biblical revelation.
2. The form of the covenants revealed in Scripture was borrowed from and is accommodated to the ancient near eastern world and must be understood in that context.
3. Covenant is the most coherent explanation for Biblical revelation and the nature and authority of the canon.

2. Historical/Theological

1. Covenant theology did not arise de novo in the 16^th or 17^th centuries but virtually all the elements which made up Reformed covenant theology existed inchoately in earlier epochs.
2. Reformed orthodoxy turned to covenant theology to give redemptive historical expression to their exegetical (biblical) and dogmatic theology.
3.  As understood and practiced by Reformed orthodoxy, there was no meaningful distinction between covenant and federal theology.
4. Orthodox Lutheranism appears to have rejected Reformed covenant theology because they saw in it a confusion of Law and Gospel.
5. Reformed theology turned to covenant theology however, not to revise or reject Luther’s breakthrough, but in order to preserve the Protestant soteriology and relate coherently justification to sanctification.
6. Classical Reformed theology taught three covenants: the covenant of redemption (pactum salutis), the covenant of works (foedus operum) and the covenant of grace (foedus gratiae).

3. Biblical/Exegetical

1. The God of the Bible relates to his creatures covenantally from eternity (pactum salutis), in creation (covenant of works), in providence (covenant of preservation) and in redemption (covenant of grace).
2. Hosea 6:7 (“like Adam”) confirms the consciousness of the Biblical authors of a prelapsarian covenant of works.
3. The Apostle Paul presupposes the existence of a prelapsarian covenant of works in passages such as Romans 2:13 and 4:4).
4. The excommunication from the Tree of Life (Genesis 3:22-24) confirms the probationary nature of the covenant of works.
5. There were multiple signs and seals of the covenant of works including the creational Sabbath, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life.
6. The first Gospel promise in Genesis 3:15 announces the covenant of grace, i.e. redemption of the elect by the Mediator.
7. The covenant of grace is the progressive historical account of the administration of the Gospel in the history of redemption.
8. The first Noahic covenant (Genesis 6:17-19) was particular and an administration of the covenant of grace.
9. The second Noahic covenant (Genesis 9:8-17) was a universal non-soteric covenant promising the restraint of judgment until the last day.
10. The Abrahamic covenant is a renewal of the postlapsarian covenant/promise made to Adam (Genesis 3:15; 17).
11. In the history of redemption, the covenant of grace was renewed in Abraham such that he is the father of all who believe (Romans 4:11; John 8:56).
12. The Abrahamic covenant is logically as well as historically prior to the Mosaic.
13. The Mosaic covenant was not renewed under Christ, but the Abrahamic covenant was.
14. The land promise made to Abraham (Genesis 15:18; Exodus 6:4; Judges 2:1) was typical of the coming blessings of the New Covenant (Genesis 2:4; Galatians 3:14; Hebrews 8 ) and the final state (Hebrews 11:10).
15. All those justified under Moses were justified by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone.
16. With regard to the land promise, the Mosaic covenant was, mutandis, for pedagogical reasons (Galatians 3:23-4:7), a republication of the Adamic covenant of works.
17. With regard to justification and salvation, the Mosaic covenant was an administration of the covenant of grace.
18. The Israelites were given the land and kept it by grace (2 Kings 13:23) but were expelled for failure to keep a temporary, typical, pedagogical, covenant of works (Genesis 12:7; Exodus 6:4; Deuteronomy 29:19-29; 2 Kings 17:6-7; Ezekiel 17).
19. The covenant of grace, initiated in history after the fall, was in its antepenultimate state under Adam, Noah, and Abraham, its penultimate state under the New Covenant administration and shall reach its ultimate (eschatological) state in the consummation.
20. The term “Old Covenant” as used in Scripture refers to the Mosaic epoch not every epoch before the incarnation nor to all of the Hebrew and Aramaic Scriptures indiscriminately.
21. The New Covenant is new relative to Moses, not Abraham.
22. The Old Covenant was temporary and typical of the New Covenant.
23. In redemptive historical terms, the Old (Mosaic) Covenant was weighted toward the ministry of the Law (“the letter”) whereas the New Covenant is weighted toward the ministry of the Holy Spirit (2 Corinthians 3).
24. The New Covenant is the fulfillment of the promise made to Adam (Genesis 3:15) and the (Abrahamic) covenant of grace.
25. The New Covenant is the reality typified by the pre-incarnational types and shadows (2 Corinthians 1:20; John 6:32; Hebrews 7-9).
26. Law (covenant of works) and gospel (covenant of grace) may be distinguished historically and hermeneutically (i.e., the relations .
27. The hermeneutical distinction between law (covenant of works) and gospel (covenant of grace) is the distinction between our personal and perpetual obligation to keep the law perfectly for justification and the announcement that Christ has kept the law perfectly for us.
28. The historical distinction between law and gospel may be reckoned as the distinction between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace.
29. The historical distinction between law and gospel may also be reckoned as the distinction between Moses and Christ.
30. When the law/gospel distinction is reckoned as that between Moses and Christ, there may be said to be gospel in the law and law in the gospel. This way of speaking, however, may not be used properly when considering the law/gospel distinction hermeneutically.

4. Systematic/Dogmatic

1. Covenant theology is so of the essence of Reformed theology that to revise its covenant theology is to revise the substance of Reformed theology.
2. The covenantal arrangement of the history of redemption and the covenantal progressive revelation of Scripture is not a mere convention, but rather a reflection of the intra-Trinitarian relations.
3. All the covenants revealed in Scripture contain both promised blessing and threatened jeopardy.

5. The Covenant of Redemption (pactum salutis; consilium pacis)

1. The pre-temporal covenant of redemption (pactum salutis) stands behind the covenant of works and covenant of grace and orders the history of redemption.
2. In the history of redemption, the pactum salutis means works for the Son and grace for us.
3. The pactum salutis is biblically grounded in Psalm 110, John 5:30; 6:38-40; 17; Gal 3:20 among other places.
4. Christ fulfilled the legal obligations of the pactum salutis in his active and passive obedience as the representative of the elect.
5. The allegation that the pactum salutis tends to tritheism seems to ignore the distinction between the economic and ontological Trinity.
6. The work of the Holy Spirit has not always been discussed under the pactum salutis only because it focuses on the accomplishment of redemption rather than the application of redemption.
7. Since the Spirit certainly consented to apply Christ’s work to the elect (John 15:26), there is no reason why the Holy Spirit’s work cannot be integrated into the pactum salutis.

6. The Covenant of Works (foedus operum)

1. The pre-lapsarian covenant may be called a covenant of works in respect to its terms, a covenant of life in respect to its goals and a covenant of nature in respect to its setting. All three names describe the same covenant.
2. In Reformed theology, the covenant of works is identical to the Law which says: Do this and live.
3. Jesus Christ fulfilled the covenant works in his active and passive obedience to God’s law on behalf of his people.
4. The covenant of works was abrogated as a way to eternal life by the fall.
5. Post-lapsum the terms of the covenant of works continue to obligate all rational creatures and must be perfectly fulfilled personally or vicariously.
6. Anyone who denies the prelapsarian covenant of works jeopardizes the Biblical and Protestant doctrine of justification by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

7. The Covenant of Grace (foedus gratiae)

1. When we speak in covenantal terms we should always specify to which covenant we refer.
2. The pactum salutis is distinct from and the basis of the covenant of grace.
3. It is a grievous theological error to confuse the covenant of works with the covenant of grace.
4. The term covenant of grace can be used broadly and narrowly. When used broadly, it refers to everyone who is baptized into the Christ confessing covenant community. When used narrowly, it refers to those who have received the double benefit of Christ: justification and sanctification.
5. Used in the broader sense, the covenant of grace is not synonymous with election so that all the elect are in the covenant of grace, but not all in the covenant of grace are elect.
6. Used in the narrow sense, the covenant of grace refers only to the elect.
7. There is a just and necessary distinction to be made between those who are in the covenant broadly (externally) and those who are in the covenant both broadly and narrowly (internally).
8. The internal/external distinction is a corollary of the distinction between the church considered visibly and invisibly.
9. Denial of the “internal/external” distinction leads necessarily to confusing election and the decree or to positing two types of election, decretal and “covenantal” (i.e., a temporary, historical, conditional election) as is evident in the so-called “Federal Vision” theology.
10. The Gospel is not a promise of election but of a gracious and sovereign salvation from sin which salvation is received through faith alone.
11. There are two chief benefits of the covenant of grace: justification and sanctification of which justification has logical priority.
12. The sole ground of justification is the fulfillment of the condition of the covenant of works by Christ in his active and passive obedience.
13. The sole object of justifying faith is Christ the Surety of the covenant of redemption for us, and the fulfillment of the covenant of works for us, and the Mediator of the covenant of grace to us.
14. The sole instrument of justification and condition of the covenant of grace is a receptive, resting, extra-spective, faith which trusts in Christ’s keeping of the covenant of works.
15. Only believers receive the chief benefits of the covenant.
16. In Reformed theology the covenant of grace is a Gospel covenant having precisely the same terms and conditions as the Gospel.
17. Justifying faith may be said to be the only proper condition or instrument of the covenant of grace.
18. The covenant of grace was inaugurated post-lapsum and is to be distinguished sharply from the covenant of works.
19. The covenant of grace is monopleural in origin and dipleural in administration, i.e. the Gospel offer is unconditional in origin but the reception of its benefits is conditioned upon justifying faith which is itself only God’s free gift to the elect.
20. Monocovenantalism or refusal to distinguish between the covenants of works and grace implies a confusion of Law and Gospel.
21. The slogan “in by grace, stay in by works,” sometimes associated with the so-called “New Perspective on Paul,” is nothing less than the Galatian heresy condemned by the Apostle Paul.
22. Faith receives the benefits of the covenant of grace because of God’s grace and the virtue of its object (Christ) not because of its qualities, virtues, or sanctity.
23. It is unnecessary to juxtapose the legal and relational aspects of covenant theology. In all three covenants, personal relations are premised upon just legal relations.
24. Sanctity is the second benefit of the covenant of grace and flows from justification.
25. Sanctity is as gracious as justification.
26. Sanctity is logically and morally necessary as evidence of regeneration, faith and justification.
27. Considered relative to sanctification (in distinction from justification) faith can be said to be active and is begun and sustained by grace but involves human cooperation with sanctifying grace.
28. Sanctity is no instrument or ground of justification.
29. Sanctity flows out of proper use of the divinely ordained covenant signs and seals.
30. The third use of the moral law is norm of covenant life.
31. Denial of the third use of the Law (tertius usus legis) leads to antinomianism.
32. The third use of the law, like the first use, also drives us to Christ.

8. Ecclesiastical

1. The church is both the universal and local Christ confessing covenant community.
2. God has ordained three special offices in the Christ confessing covenant community: minister, elder and deacon.
3. Christians are obligated to join themselves to a true Christ confessing covenant community.
4. The marks of a true, Christ confessing, covenant community are the pure preaching of the Gospel (the covenant of grace), the pure administration of the covenant signs and seals (sacraments) and the administration of discipline.
5. A genuinely Christian life cannot ordinarily be be lived outside a true Christ confessing covenant community.
6. Members of the Christ confessing covenant community who have received the sign and seal of the covenant are morally obligated to live in fidelity to that community and to make regular and consistent use of the means of grace (Word and sacrament).
7. Attendance to the means of grace may be said to be stipulations or moral obligations or even second order conditions of the covenant of grace so long as they are distinguished from the proper condition or instrument of the covenant of grace.
8. The Word of the covenant is in two parts: Law and Gospel.
9. The proclamation of the Gospel is the divinely ordained means by which the Holy Spirit works faith in the hearts of members of the covenant of grace.
10. There are two signs and seals (sacraments) of the covenant of grace, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
11. The sacraments signify and seal the identity with and union of the believer with the death and burial of Christ.
12. As signs and seals of the covenant of grace, they are Gospel not Law.
13. The sacraments are signs to all and seals to the elect.
14. The covenant signs and seals are a blessing to the elect but come also with jeopardy to the reprobate.
15. Because of the visible/invisible distinction (internal/external) it is possible to participate in the covenant signs and seals to one’s harm (1 Corinthians 10; Hebrews 6; 10).
16. The covenant signs and seals are means of grace for all believers whereby their faith is genuinely strengthened and their sanctification advanced.
17. Because they deny the internal/external distinction, advocates of “covenant objectivity” teach a view of the sacraments which is virtually indistinguishable from the Roman ex opere operato view.
18. In distinction from the Lord’s Supper, Baptism is the sign and seal of initiation into the covenant of grace.
19. In the history of redemption, baptism succeeded circumcision as the sign and seal of initiation.
20. All baptized persons can be said to be in the covenant of grace in the broad sense. Not everyone who is baptized receives the substance or benefits of the covenant of grace.
21. Baptism does not itself regenerate or necessarily unite the baptized to Christ.
22. Scripture requires the baptism of adult converts who have not been previously baptized.
23. Scripture teaches the baptism of covenant children.
24. We do not baptize covenant children on the presumption of their regeneration, but on basis of the divine command and promises attached to baptism.
25. Every objection made against covenant (infant) baptism which can be made against covenant (infant) circumcision as practiced under Abraham the father of New Covenant believers is for that reason invalid.
26. Just as the old sign and seal of covenant initiation (circumcision) could only be observed once so the new sign and seal of covenant initiation (baptism) can only be observed once.
27. In distinction from Baptism, the Supper is the sign and seal of covenant renewal.
28. As a sign of covenant renewal the Supper is not appropriate for those who cannot understand the nature of Christ’s presence or the blessing and jeopardy which attach to the Supper.
29. The Lord’s Supper is the fulfillment of all the typical Israelite feasts.
30. Just as believers fed on the Passover lamb, as the true Lamb of God, Christ is really and truly present in the Supper.
31. In the Supper, believers feed on Christ’s true body and blood by faith, through the operation of the Holy Spirit.
32. Because the old covenant community feasted every time they assembled and because the Supper is Christ’s ordained sign and seal of covenant renewal it ought to be observed every time the new covenant community assembles.

9. Polemics

1. Like Dispensationalism, “New Covenant” theology (NCT) is not sufficiently Trinitarian in its hermeneutic.
2. NCT ignores the unity of the covenant of grace.
3. It is unclear how NCT does not tend toward a radical discontinuity between Moses and Christ.
4. NCT does not account for the distinction between Moses and Abraham.
5. NCT tends toward antinomianism.
6. Dispensationalism
7. Of the three stages in the history of Dispensationalism (classic, modified, progressive), the first two are inimical to covenant theology.
8. Classic and modified Dispensationalism tend to a radical (Marcionite) disjunction between Moses and Christ.
9. Like Theonomy, Dispensationalism wrongly makes the Mosaic covenant the goal rather than a temporary, typical arrangement.
10. By positing two peoples, Dispensationalism resurrects the dividing wall which Christ abolished in his flesh.
11. Because the civil and ceremonial laws were specifically and intentionally tied to the Old (Mosaic) covenant, they were fulfilled in the Kingly and Priestly work of Christ and are therefore no longer binding on the Christian.
12. The Mosaic civil law, because it was specifically and intentionally tied to the temporary and typical Old (Mosaic) covenant, it was never intended to serve as norm for any other state than Mosaic-Davidic theocracy.
13. Any attempt to re-impose the Mosaic civil laws or their penalties fails to understand the typological, temporary, national character of the Old (Mosaic) covenant.
14. The moral law, to the degree it expresses the substance of God’s moral will and is not tied to the ceremonies of the Old covenant continues to bind all human beings.
15. In the New Covenant, only the second table of the Law can be said to bind the state.
16. There are two kingdoms: that of the right hand and that of the left.
17. Both kingdoms are under the authority of Christ, but are administered in diverse ways.
18. In each kingdom, Christians live under Christ’s lordship according to the nature of that kingdom.
19. The kingdom of the Right hand describes the ministry of Word and sacrament.
20. The kingdom of the left hand describes the exercise of power in the ecclesiastical and civil realms.
21. Because of the distinction between the two kingdoms and because the Decalogue is substantially identical with natural law, Christians should advocate laws and policies in the civil realm on the basis of the universal, natural knowledge of the second table of the law.

Israel and the Church – Succinctly Said

Israel is the Church of the Old Testament, and the Church is Israel of the New Testament.  (author unkown)

Why Can’t Dispensationalists Agree on the New Covenant?

A large group of dispensationalists gathered together recently in an effort to pound out a definition of the biblical words “new covenant.”   More information about that meeting can be found here:

http://www.baptistbulletin.org/?p=5104

Why is so hard for dispensationalists to define these words that have been in the Bible for two thousand years?

One reason for this difficulty is that they can see the implications of a proper understanding of the new covenant.  Many dispensationalists, if not most,  place the New Covenant:  1)  In the future; and 2) for Jews only.

Now, understanding the New Covenant is not that difficult.  The plain fact is that the new covenant is the forgiveness of sins through the blood of Christ for all of God’s people, both Jew and Gentile, and the calling of those diverse nations into one body through faith in Jesus.  Even the most casual reading of the Pauline epistles and the book of Hebrews will reveal this.  It seems highly perplexing to me that the dispensationalists like to champion the cause of “plain interpretation” of biblical passages, yet they can’t seem to apply it to passages that are the most plain and easy to understand.

The problem is, this simple definition of the New Covenant crashes many of dispensationalism’s theories.   You see, the dispensationalist MUST find a way to re-divide the Jews from the Gentiles after the “Church Age”.  The dispensationalist MUST find a way that God will some day in the future save people by human DNA instead of by grace.

It is a sad commentary indeed when one attendant pastor admits his ignorance of this crucial New Testament doctrine:

“In two weeks I need to stand before my congregation and lead a communion service,” Workman said. “I need to be able to explain what Christ meant when he said, ‘This is the new covenant in My blood.’” 

Very sad.  O!  If my brethren were to just open to Augustine, or Calvin, or Henry, or the Westminster Divines, or Gill, or the 1689 Baptists – they could save themselves so much time and so many headaches. 

Here is Gill’s comments on Hebrews 8, provided for my dispensational friends:

God promises a “new covenant”; so called, not because newly made; for with respect to its original constitution, it was made from eternity; Christ the Mediator of it, and with whom it was made, was set up from everlasting; and promises and blessings of grace were put into his hands before the world began: nor is it newly revealed, for it was made known to Adam, and in some measure to all the Old Testament saints, though it is more clearly revealed than it was; but it is so called in distinction from the former administration of it, which is waxen old, and vanished away; and with respect to the order of succession, it taking place upon the former being removed; and on account of the time of its more clear revelation and establishment being in the last days; and because of its mode of administration, which is different from the former, in a new way, and by the use of new ordinances; and because it is always new, its vigour and efficacy are perpetual; it will never be antiquated, or give place to another; and it provides for, and promises new things, a new heart, a new spirit, &c. to which may be added, that it is a famous, excellent covenant, there is none like it; just as an excellent song is called a new song. The persons with whom this covenant is promised to be made, are the houses of Israel and Judah; which being literally taken, had its fulfilment in the first times of the Gospel, through the ministry of John the Baptist, Christ, and his apostles, by whom this covenant was made known to God’s elect among the twelve tribes; but being mystically understood, includes both Jews and Gentiles, the whole Israel of God; Israel not after the flesh, but after the Spirit; such as were Jews inwardly; God’s elect of every nation: the word suntelesw, rendered, “I will make”, signifies, I will consummate, or finish, or end, or fulfil it; which shows the perfection of this covenant, and the imperfection of the former; and that what was typified in the first is fulfilled in this; and that it is now established and ratified by Christ; and is so finished, as to the manifestation and administration of it, that there will be no alteration made in it, nor any addition to it: the time of doing all this is called “the days to come”; the last days, the days of the Messiah, which were future in Jeremiah’s time: and a “behold” is prefixed to the whole, as a note of attention, this being an affair of great moment and importance; and as a note of demonstration, or as pointing to something that was desired and expected; and as a note of admiration, it containing things wonderful and marvellous.

So simple.  So plain.  So true.

By the way, please forgive if I seem to be taunting  dispensationalists a little.  No disrespect intended.

 

Douglas Wilson on Popular Culture

Disclaimer:  I don’t follow Federal Vision theology. 

However, Douglas Wilson, who does, is a brilliant communicator of truth nevertheless. 

The following articles is a peak into this great mind speaking on a rather tired yet ever-important subject.

The article is copied from the blog “Blog and Mablog”, found at:  http://www.dougwils.com/index.asp?Action=Anchor&CategoryID=1&BlogID=6807.

 

 

Unleashing Your Inner Fundamentalist

Topic: Sex and Culture

Suppose that John R. Rice, during his Sword of the Lord days, accidentally took a couple hits of acid, and prophesied wildly about what would happen down the road if women quit wearing their hair in a bun, and started wearing slacks like crazy. Suppose he got really out there, and promised us all that the day would soon come when men would be marrying men, and women women. He said that people would begin paying surgeons to cut perfectly good organs off so they could justify wearing a dress, and that Secular Man, in solemn assembly, would pronounce the results to be a surgically-altered good. And the evening and the morning were the weird day.

Suppose he had done that. The results have refuted his predictions exactly . . . how? If we added up all the dire predictions that the fundamentalists have made down through the years, what about them didn’t happen? Fundamentalists are the cassandras of American cultural life. Back when everything seemed so stable in its Eisenhowerishness, the fundamentalist would say that everything was soon to be headed for hell in a handbasket. Ho, ho, ho was the cogent reply. Now here we are bouncing along in the handbasket, with some of the more gifted of our number getting grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities to puke over the side of the handbasket as we bounce along. “This small performance is one I like to call ‘Seasickness Against the Absolute.’ Thank you, thank you!” And a fundamentalist in the corner says, “You know, I don’t see how you can call that art.” Everybody, all together now, ho, ho, ho!Fast forward to our day. When people object to tattoos, or jewels stuck in odd places, and someone objects to the objection by saying that back in the day they used to object to slacks for women, what about this makes it seem like a strong argument? Now before anyone rushes to the keyboard in order to type I can’t believe . . ., let me say that I do believe the fundamentalist argument is simplistic and inadequate. But compared to the arguments for getting the tats and other badges of the moment, the fundamentalists come off looking like Derrida on one of his subtler days.

A fundamentalist woman in a sun bonnet and a gingham dress, who gets a wicker basket to go pick blueberries, so she can bake her man a pie, with a golden crust, the kind he likes, may be a little bit hokey for your tastes, and certainly for mine. But at least she is trying to achieve an effect that the Bible says women should strive for — she wants to be modest and discrete. She is not trying to achieve an effect that the Bible never urges women to strive for, as in “edgy.” Or “provocative, but not too skanky for an evangelical.” She may be playing the instrument badly, but at least she is playing the right one. Suppose the Bible tells women to play the piano. This does not make every woman an accomplished pianist, but I do have respect for every woman who practices the piano, blunders and all. But the women who show up with a leaky concertina they got at Goodwill are trying to do something else. In other words, let us make a distinction between doing the right thing badly, and doing the wrong thing well. And, as Herodotus might say, so much for the fundamentalists.

Let’s talk for a moment about establishment worldliness, as distinct from organic food, tattooed, burlap shopping bag, NPR-listening worldliness. There is country club worldliness, and there is earth muffin worldliness. When I tag tats and odd jewelry as worldliness, as I have most certainly done, the response is often that women who have their nails done by Pierre at the salon for six hundred dollars a minute can be worldly too. There is a two-fold response to this. The first is sure, worldliness is quite possible there, and at this ostentatious level, inevitable. But what is that to you? You follow Christ. The fact that she shouldn’t be at the salon doesn’t mean that you get to go to the tattoo parlor. And secondly, this kind of monied worldliness is the result of a real failure in the right area, as opposed to success in the wrong one. Bear with me for a minute.

The Bible calls upon women to be sober (Tit. 2:4) and discrete (Tit. 2:5). They are to live in a way that provides no occasion for others to speak reproachfully (1 Tim. 5:14). Their demeanor should be characterized by shamefacedness (1 Tim. 2:9) and sobriety (1 Tim. 2:9). It is important to note that the word translated shamefacedness is aidous, which does not denote an Islamic browbeaten demeanor. That said, neither does it constitute an invitation to go ahead and buy a halter top that is two sizes too small. The word is not that elastic, unlike the halter top. In this same verse, the ESV says that women should wear respectable apparel. The word is one of those judgment-call words.

Who makes the judgments? The Bible says that older women should teach younger women how to achieve that effect, an effect we can sum up with the word respectable. Strikingly, it does not call upon the younger women to push the envelope until the older women finally say something critical about it. Again, the older women are to help the younger women try to achieve a modest respectability. The younger women are not called upon to demand the older women prove that something or other is not positively disreputable. According to the Bible, respectability is the goal. This means that the wife of the country club president is being worldly as she tries too hard to be respectable, with results that are too flashy. And she shouldn’t do that — she is playing the piano poorly. But a woman who is schlepping around the supermarket in sweat pants is playing the concertina, and it doesn’t matter if she is playing poorly or well.

Clothing and jewelry are all forms of communication. They are a form of language. Some elements of communication and language are universal — such as laughter or weeping. Other forms are culturally determined, such as a phonetic collection of sounds that mean an obscenity in one language and doorknob in another. When someone inveighs against tattoos, as I am more than willing to do, the resultant dispute often gets dragged into a debate over whether there is a deep structure to this, like laughter (as I believe), or not. But this usually happens with the objectors bringing an assumption that if it is not a universal sort of thing, then it is entirely arbitrary, and nobody can say anything about it. But the fact that English obscenities are not obscenities in every language does not grant one the right to stand on the street corner, yelling them at the passing motorists.

There is a deep, human way of showing respect, and there are particular linguistic ways of doing so. The Bible requires us to use both and to honor both. And the Bible says that younger women should learn about respectability from older women, and not the other way around. Any system of propriety-definition that has to say that the younger women know more about it than do the older women has scratched at the starting line. Whether we are talking about creational language or cultural language, showing honor and respect are the fixed goals. We shouldn’t be distracted by the creational/cultural debate such that we allow in a different goal entirely just so long as “it is not a sin in every culture.” A Christian woman may not adorn herself in a way that is flippant, lazy, disrespectful, or irreverent. And if she has an honest question about something that seems on the line, she should ask her grandmother, not her fourteen-year-old cousin.

Now I am prepared to argue that bodily mutilation and tatting is a necessary manifestation of cultural unbelief (Lev. 19:27-28; 1 Kings 18:28; Gal. 5:12). Idols always bring the knives with them. God created man in His image, like a priceless Durer woodcut, and so the devil brings the marker pens to doodle with. But suppose for a moment that this is all wrong, and that hypothetically and postmillennially there could be a culture someday in which tatting up your thirteen year virgin with dragon pictures was a practice that God the Father thought was swell, and about time the Holy Spirit added, encouragingly. It still remains true that in our culture, in English, nothing says trailer trash like a halter top and a tat. And when you get a nose stud, you are a lot closer to Brittany and Paris Hilton than you were before, and farther away from all the fifty-year-old church ladies. Which, come to think of it, may have been the whole point.

Posted by Douglas Wilson - 8/5/2009 5:51:27 PM

From Eric Rauch at American Vision: The Power and Authority of Words

This article is a companion to the previous post.  As I state in the previous post, Joel McDurmon and Eric Rauch really hit the proverbial nail on the head in these two articles.  Can be found at:

http://www.americanvision.org/article/the-power-and-authority-of-words/

I urge my readers to think about the meaning of language, speech,and words; their power and authority.  Think about the words we say each day, for which we are held accountable to God – even the “idle” ones.  And think about the words that God says, how that none are “idle”, and all are significant.

The Power and Authority of Words

by Eric Rauch

In the New Testament, the Greek word for “authority” is sometimes translated as “power.” Even though there is a separate Greek word for power, the concepts of power and authority are so intimately connected in the Western mind, that modern translators often view them as synonyms. But translations aside, there is a biblical distinction that should be made between authority and power.

We discussed previously the relationship between author and authority, where an author has “authority” because he is the originator, the creator. Authority, in the biblical sense, is usually referring to the legitimacy of the individual or individuals. For example, when Jesus finished his Sermon on the Mount, Matthew records that “the crowds were amazed at His teaching; for He was teaching them as one having authority, and not as their scribes” (Matthew 7:28-29). In other words, the crowds recognized something different in the words of Jesus that was lacking in the words of their own teachers. The scribes had the “power” of the Scriptures, but lacked the ability—the legitimacy—to speak them with any authority. When Jesus, the author and finisher of faith (Hebrews 12:2) spoke however, he spoke with authority because he was the author; he had legitimate claim to the power AND authority of the Scriptures.

You’ve heard it said that “knowledge is power.” And while this is true, we must not forget that knowledge exists only in words. In reality, words are the real power of the created world. Meaning is infused into words by an authority. French artist Marcel Duchamp despised language because he understood that it pointed to a transcendent Message-sender. Duchamp set out to create his own language, free of any meaning and authority. When he realized that by creating his own language, Duchamp had merely replaced God with himself, he destroyed his work. Language—any language—is authoritarian by its very nature. The creator of the language must give meaning to his “words” in order to communicate. Without meaning, communicating is impossible. Duchamp learned the lesson of the Tower of Babel too late. Words have power because they come from an authority.

This is why one of the first actions of any regime seeking to subvert the current authority will always involve language. Redefining words, creating new ones, controlling the media, and restricting access to alternate viewpoints must take place before any coup can be successful. In “The Principles of Newspeak,” an appendix to George Orwell’s dystopian novel, 1984, we are told:

Newspeak was the official language of Oceania and had been devised to meet the ideological needs of Ingsoc, or English Socialism…The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of IngSoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought—that is, a thought diverging from the principles of IngSoc—should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words. Its vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and often very subtle expression  to every meaning that a Party member could properly wish to express, while excluding all other meaning and also the possibility of arriving at them by indirect methods. This was done partly by the invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating undesirable words and stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings, and so far as possible of all secondary meaning whatever. [1]

Orwell understood the power of words. Control the language; control the people. Notice that Orwell understood that even Newspeak was limited in that it was only effective “at least so far as thought is dependent on words.” Even though this is theoretically true, how many of us actually think in anything other than words. We primarily think and reason conceptually, not pictorially.

Words are important to God as well. He gave us his word—the Bible—and he gave the Word—Jesus Christ. He made words the focus of two of his ten commandments: the third and the ninth. In the third commandment, we are told to not take his name in vain, referring primarily to vows and oaths. In the ninth, we are told to not bear false witness against our neighbor, a reference to being truthful and providing trustworthy testimony. God expects his people to be truthful, to be without reproach in what we say and do. This idea is repeated over and over throughout the entire Bible and when we get to the New Testament we find an interesting application of this concept.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus makes an observation regarding the third commandment. In Matthew 5:33-37, Jesus says: “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform your oaths to the Lord.’ But I say to you, do not swear at all: neither by heaven, for it is God’s throne; nor by the earth, for it is His footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Nor shall you swear by your head, because you cannot make one hair white or black. But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.” Paul and James both repeat similar admonitions in their letters (2 Corinthians 1:17-20; James 5:12). Commentaries on these passages refer to the historical tradition of the first century Jews to make any and all sorts of vows and oaths against sacred objects, in order to give their promises validity (i.e. authority). Stated another way, they had gotten to the point where their words were no longer trustworthy; their words no longer carried any power because their authority of being truthful people—ones that obeyed God’s third and ninth commandments—had been corrupted. There is no honor among thieves or liars…

Endnote
[1]  George Orwell, 1984 (New York: Signet Classics, 1983 [1949]), 246

 
Article posted June 4, 2009

From Joel McDurmon at American Vision: Blashphemy and Freedom

The following article is copied directly from the American Vision website at http://www.americanvision.org/article/blasphemy-and-freedom/

I’m assuming that I am not violating any copyright laws or Internet eticate by copying the post as I am doing here, but if so, somebody let me know and I will delete it.

I urge my readers to read this article and think about what it is saying.

Although I don’t consider myself a “dominionist”, nor do I hold any particular affection for theonomy, I do listen to the Gary Demar Show and visit the American Vision web site almost daily.  Whether I agree with them or not, I appreciate the usually well-researched and thought-out opinions they articulate.  

This article and the one I will be post afterwards shows us the eternal, transcendent significance of words, something I tried to express way back in one of my first posts on this blog in attempting to exegete the word “logos” in John 1:1 (and clumsily trying to work in some Clarkian scripturalism with it).

Joel —not me— but McDurmon, gets it right here, as does Erick in the post to follow.

Blasphemy and Freedom

by Joel McDurmon

Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain (Ex. 20:4-6).

You’ve probably heard the question, “What’s in a name?” Remember that it comes from that famous dialogue between Romeo and Juliet? The maiden from the window above says,

O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?

Deny thy father and refuse thy name;

Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,

And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.

…which was her surname. Romeo mumbles to himself, listens on; Juliet continues:

‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy;

Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.

What’s a Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,

Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part

Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!

What’s in a name? that which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet;

So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,

Retain that dear perfection which he owes

Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,

And for that name which is no part of thee

Take all myself.[1]

In Juliet’s view, names are, or should be, so meaningless that they can simply be switched whenever convenient. The problem is, society just doesn’t work that way. In fact, her own woe, you may recall, derived from the fact that her and her lover came from feuding families, and those families having detested each other for generations, could not even stand the nameof the other for all that it entailed. She argues that the substance of the thing, or of the person, and not the label, should determine why we value them. But when long use establishes a certain character with a certain appellative, then to overturn that relationship will cause a great social shift. Sometimes, perhaps, that shift needs to take place, other times it necessarily should not. And nowhere is that relationship between character and name more important that at the very foundation of society—religion.

The concept of “God’s name” so closely pertains to His Being and Nature that any affront to any of God’s attributes is subsumed under the very mention of His name. Calvin writes of the Third Commandment, “It is silly and childish to restrict this to the name Jehovah, as if God’s majesty were confined to letters or syllables.… God’s name is profaned whenever any detraction is made from His supreme wisdom, infinite power, justice, clemency, and rectitude.”[2] The reference to God’s name invokes all that God is and stands for.

We have similar references in the New Testament: of Jesus Paul says, there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved (Acts 4:12). God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow (Phil. 2:9-10).

So the idea of the majesty of God as represented by God’s name confronts mankind at every turn of life. And so, the commandment against taking God’s name “in vain” fairly warns us against all forms of action, or neglect, concerning the very nature of the God we serve. It means that the Biblical doctrine of God (Who is He?, What is His nature?, What has He done in history?) must inform every act and every decision we make. If the foundations of society rest upon anything less than that God, when we act in the name of God Almighty (for example, the presidential oath including “So help me God”), we have violated the Third Commandment. Conversely, when society begins to denigrate, curse, or swear at the name or mention of God, then we have an even worse situation in which society has attacked God Himself, and has sought to replace Him with something else as the foundation.

Consider for a moment the language of the Commandment. What does it mean to “take” in this passage? We can understand the word in the sense of “carry” or “bear.” Think in this sense of the priests bearing the Ark of the Covenant, or of the Israelites pitching their tents beneath respective standards which bore their identities as children of YHWH. Think of the label “Christian,” first given in Antioch (Acts 11:26), and which we bear today. How do we “carry” that label? How do we present that label to the world, and what justice do we do it? Do we bear it in any degree of vanity or emptiness? Implicit in this Third Commandment is a condemnation of hypocrisy—of wearing a label we don’t measure up to in substance. And in not measuring up, we prove ourselves hypocrites, and we dishonor, we can even say blaspheme, the name of the God whose name we bear.

We have such a low view of taking the Lord’s name in vain today. This results from the overall decline of the religion and the influence of the church in society. Today the idea of cursing seems to have much less to do with God’s name than with more mundane forms of vulgarity. This always happens when religion wanes in society. The Oxford scholar Christopher Hill, a renowned expert on the Puritan era, notes the phenomenon long after the end of that age of piety. Speaking of the power of swearing and oaths he writes, 

They survive in industrialized and protestant countries, but as shadows of their former selves, and often the users are unaware of the original significance of swear-words which they employ every day. Blasphemy is no longer a fine art. The live swear-words in such societies are those which offend against something which has much more social reality than God—respectability. Sex and the lavatory have replaced deity, saints and devil as the source of live expletives to-day, because their use breaks a taboo that is still worth breaking.[3]

This has always been my experience. I personally don’t remember a time when cursing didn’t refer to bodily acts, and I was always taught, of course, that these certain words are the curse words, these words are “bad” words and you don’t say them. And while all of that may be true, there was always this great disconnect between the idea of taking God’s name in vain, and what I understood as cursing. That list of bad words, of course, included instances in which the word “God” or the name “Jesus Christ” served as expletives—as we hear all over the radio and TV today—but this only caused me greater confusion. Were theseinstances the actual sin of taking God’s name in vain? If so, why were the other words bad? Later in life when I actually thought about these questions, and grew a little more biblically literate, I decided that the distinction didn’t matter, because St. Paul went well beyond merely the Lord’s name and said, “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying” (Eph. 4:9). “No corrupt communication,” pretty much covers it all. But this was a sort of happy state of ignorance for me, since I still really didn’t understand what it meant not to take the Lord’s name in vain.

So what was this “original significance” that Hill mentions above? He gives us a hint of it with an introductory quotation from that same chapter. The following appears in an anonymous tract written in 1614:

The safety of the King himself,… every man’s estate in particular, and the state of the realm in general, doth depend upon the truth and sincerity of men’s oaths.… The law and civil policy of England, being chiefly founded upon religion and the fear of God, doth use the religious ceremony of an oath, not only in legal proceedings but in other transactions and affairs of most importance in the commonwealth; esteeming oaths as not only the best touchstone of trust in matters of controversy, but as the safest knot of civil society, and the firmest band to tie all men to the performance of their several duties.[4]

Proper, honest, godly oath-taking, forms the mortar of healthy society. At the bottom of all, is the foundation of allegiance to God; and the commandment does not forbid swearing period, but swearing in vain. Bearing God’s name in truth—not in vain, but in truth—is the bedrock of religion and therefore of social health. In fact, the very word “religion” means “to bind” in the sense of binding allegiance. Such language fills the Bible: the whole concept of being God’s servant relates to this idea. Paul was a servant of Jesus Christ (Rom 1:1). I hear St. Patrick singing his hymn, “I bind unto my self today, the strong name of the Trinity.” With it all I hear a Scripture passage that Christians hardly ever quote: Thou shalt fear the LORD thy God, and serve him, and shalt swear by his name(Deut. 6:13)!

How often do we as believers exhort each other actually to swear? Swearing, we’ve been taught, is a “no-no” across the board. And yet God commanded the Israelites to do so—to swear by His name. The point is that at the bottom of every way of life, of every religion and every society, stands an ultimate oath. You have to serve somebody. Somebody is your god and you have sworn allegiance to him (or her) already whether you know it or not. You cannot escape worship, authority, or oaths. If you zip-your-lips, and lock the door and swallow the key, and refuse to take any oath whatsoever, you just took one. The question is not “oath or no oath.” The question is Whose name did you take it under? Here we must follow the example of God Himself, “For when God made the promise to Abraham, since he could swear by no one greater, He swore by himself” (Heb. 6:13). No wonder He commands us to swear by that name, too.

Not to swear allegiance to God, is to profane His name, and put yours in place of it. The misuse or abuse of God’s name is an initiatory act of rebellion. In society, it represents revolt and revolution. “All swearing is religious, and false swearing represents a subversive drive in society.”[5]This fact manifested recently in a debate between atheists and Christians at Cape Town University on the subject of blasphemy. The atheist professor who agreed to debate backed out two hours before the event started, leaving Peter Hammond of Frontline Ministries alone to lecture from a Christian viewpoint and then field questions. One atheist young lady expressed the myopia of humanistic reasoning in trying to denigrate religion while exalting man: “To call me stupid would be hate speech and be illegal; however, to call Jesus stupid is not illegal and is a religious issue not a legal one.” Another added that hate speech “should of course be illegal,” yet Blasphemy given free reign “because unlike hate speech against homosexuals, no one is going to get hurt.”[6] The first argument, of course, begs the question, assuming up front what it intends to conclude: that religious issues don’t count as legal issues, therefore blasphemy is not “hate speech.” Christians, rather, should argue that blasphemy is the most fundamental and most serious and subversive form of hate speech, and should carry requisite legal sanctions. The second argument simply ignores the facts, that 

every year over 200,000 Christians are murdered worldwide for their Faith. Over 400 million Christians in 64 countries live under governments which do not allow religious freedom. Every year government sponsored hate speech in these countries leads to mob violence against Christians, the burning of churches, often with the congregation inside it, the beheading of Christians, even of young teenage girls, the stoning to death of Christians, crucifixions, mutilations, enslavements, etc.[7]

Logical and factual blunders aside, both arguments display the implicit attack on religious faith that humanism entails. When man sets a higher legal standard for speech against man than he does for speech against God, He explicitly rejects God as King and sets himself in the place of God. Legalized blasphemy represents treason to God and country. George Washington, spying the revolution of atheists, radicals, and deists in France, devoted a portion of his “farewell address” to warn our nation of the consequences of such blasphemy. In this passage—often quoted merely for its positive reference to religion—notice the emphasis on reputation (name), and oath:

Of all the dispositions and habits, which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connexions with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. It is substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government. Who, that is a sincere friend to it, can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric?[8]

Atheists and humanists begin with man and wish to derive “hate speech” from that standard. This devolves into a state where individuals, culture, law, and art can curse and mock all religion, virtue, sexuality, and all transcendent standards, and seek legal protection for such acts. Thus, homosexuality for example, which incarnates a gross perversion of the sex act—indeed the ultimate mockery of it—seeks legal protection from even criticism. To even decry homosexuality as a perversion is to practice “hate speech” in such a worldview, and in some so-called liberal democracies that boast of so-called “free speech,” a preacher who even reads the Bible’s condemnation of homosexual perversion publicly can find himself in jail. Mankind cannot escape “blasphemy” laws: the question is of who determines whatconstitutes blasphemy. Meanwhile, to highlight a degenerate society’s social hypocrisy, the standard interpersonal curses themselves pertain to sexuality: listen to any rap radio station and you will drown in a deluge of racial slurs interspersed with epithets of maternal incest, while any given foul-mouth on the street finds his readiest curse in willing a forcible sex act upon his annoyer: “f— you.” Humanism wishes legally to protect its perversions while in practice admitting them to be perverse, employing them as curses.

When society displays such characteristics, it reveals the depth of its rebellion against the Creator. The proper way to protect name, reputation, and human rights in general, is not to profane God and exalt man, but just the opposite. Unless men first revere God and honor an ultimate allegiance to the divine origin of mankind, and protect these beliefs by legal consequence, they shall denigrate everything glorious that man can be, and then protect their perversions and obscenity by recourse to legal force.

And so, as with many others of the Ten Commandments, the Third presents us with something that sounds elementary and almost trivial on the surface, but in reality reaches to the most profound depths of human experience. Based on something that we take for granted every day—a name—God shakes us to the very core of our identity. “What’s in a name?” If you’re talking about God, the answer is “everything.”

Endnotes
1 Shakespeare, “Romeo and Juliet,” II.ii.33–49.
2Quoted in R. J. Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law, 116.
3 Christopher Hill, Society and Puritanism in Pre-Revolutionary England(New York: Schocken Books, 1967 1964]) 419.
4 Hill, 382.
5R. J. Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Religion, 110.
6 Reported by Peter Hammond, “Blasphemy Debate at University,” rontline Fellowship News, 2009 Ed. 2, 7.
7 Peter Hammond, “Blasphemy Debate at University,” Frontline Fellowship News, 7.
8Partially quoted in R. J. Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Religion, 112.

 
Article posted June 5, 2009

Politics and Basketball – More Similar Than You May Think

——-Political Commentary——- 

I took my position under the basket – an unusual position for me, being a small guard.  But my opponent, whom I was defending against, felt he could do more good near the basket than far away.  As the shooter prepared to launch a long shot, I felt myself instinctively pushing against the chest of my foe with my back.  As the ball approached ever closer to the rim, the intensity of the mutual shoving increased exponentially, until finally, as the ball hit the rim, my opponent and I exploded into a shoving, clawing, jumping, fierce and bloody battle.  For what?  For the REBOUND!  O!  How we both desire to get that rebound!

 But let me ask – just what does this scenario indicate?  It indicates an obvious fact: the fact that the reason I was fighting for a rebound is because I DID NOT HAVE THE BALL, else, rebounding would not have been an interesting activity.

And so it is in politics.  The team without the ball is always looking for a block, a steal, a rebound.

Recently, a statue of President Ronald Reagan was unveiled in the rotunda of the United States Capitol building.  This is an honor he richly deserves, seeing that he is perhaps the most historically significant and inspiring US President of the twentieth century.  One might argue that that title belongs to Franklin D. Roosevelt, but Roosevelt worked in an atmosphere of cooperation and support while Reagan worked in an atmosphere of vehement opposition from the mainstream media, Hollywood, and the collectivist one-world.  One must admit this regardless of party or political persuasion.

While Reagan stood in the bitter cold of Reykjavík, awaiting the arrival of the leader of the communist world to negotiate an end to the earth-threatening Cold War, rebounders hoped for his failure.  Later, with victory in hand and standing before the infamous Berlin Wall, with all the boldness of a lion in righteousness, and in direct defiance of frightened advisors, he openly demanded, “Mr. Gorbachev, TARE DOWN THIS WALL!”  Can anyone forget the effect of that speech:  The moistened eyes, the tightened throat, the chill bumps as we realized that we were witnessing greatness at its greatest and the overwhelming pressure that it brought forth on the Russian president, who ultimately acquiesced?  And yet for all that, rebounders were hoping for his failure.

And I believe I can say the same about our most previous president’s tenure.  As George W. Bush bravely faced a lying, sneaking, cold-hearted murderous enemy, his political opponents shamelessly hoped for his failure.  And these rebounders, void of any concern for our people, and apparently motivated only by their own ambitions to power, rather than lending an ethos of optimism to the cause, spewed venomous criticisms on the effort, hoping above all for the failure of the man they seem to hate with an unsurpassed irrationality.

And just what was it about George W. Bush that brings out the tantrumous worst in his haters?  Isn’t it just his cowboy-like mannerisms and lack of a smooth tongue that bothers them?  Not policy (it was relatively liberal), not lack of irenic spirit (he readily compromised with his opponents and even wined, dined, and hosted his bitterest foes in the White House), not even the war (both liberals and conservatives had been beating the drums for war in Iraq unceasingly since the end of the first Gulf War*).  No, I don’t believe it was any of his policies that were the real cause for the foaming loathing of the man.  Really, wasn’t it just his lack of polish that was the source of irritation for liberals, democrats, “moderate” conservatives, and such?

Are we so shallow?  Are we so vain?  That we would destroy our own President because he lacks the suave and debonair of a Frenchman, or the stiff-lipped stoicism of a Brit?  I fear this is so.

President Bush literally stood in the ashes of the buildings and bodies of the World Trade Center and promised to visit the perpetrators of the greatest evil of the twenty-first century with a wrath worthy of their deeds.  And yet for all that and more, a short five years later, the man could not even endorse a candidate for president, being so hated by the people he game himself over to protect.

He shot and missed in Iraq, and the rebounders took possession of the ball.  He shot and missed on some other issues, but politically speaking, Iraq was the big one.  The bad economy sealed his doom, but in reality he had little to do with the economy.  He simply was following the boom-bust Keynesian model like all other presidents since the early twentieth century, and was both blessed and damned by it like most of those presidents.  But no doubt, his handling of Iraq was “a shot and a miss”. 

In basketball, rebounders EARN their rebounds.  But in politics, they simply stand around criticizing and criticizing, slinging mud, slinging mud, until the opponent slips up and the mud begins to stick.

And why do we reward the rebounders?  Political rebounders do nothing to deserve our support, yet we reward them with great acclaim and access to important offices and such.  They promise us the world, and we elect them in hopes that they will deliver on their promises.

But time and time again we are disappointed.  Once in office, they don’t deliver on their campaign promises, nor CAN they deliver on them.  In fact, their policies are often strangely similar to their predecessors.  And so it is today.  Barack Obama is no different than any promise-making candidate before him.  His policy on Iraq and foreign policy in general was to be radically different that Bush’s, but the only difference has been in rhetoric.  But, alas, it seems that to shallow Americans, smooth-talking and false praise for avowed enemies IS policy. 

The reality is that Obama faces the same difficulties that Bush faced.  North Korea continues to build their nuclear powers.  Shallow Americans thought they would stop doing that if we just got a president that would talk nice to them instead of warning and threatening them like Bush did.  But what is the reality?  North Korea has nuclear weapons, they are continuing unabated in perfecting their delivery systems, and they fully intend to use them to intimidate the world into giving them the goods, services, and wealth that their communistic economy cannot provide itself.  And worst of all, they may even actually use them some day.

And how about Iran?  Have they decided to stop their march to nuclear capabilities?  Have they suddenly decided not to destroy Israel as soon as possible now that the President of the United States “talks nice”?  (By the way, George Bush effusively praised Islam as “a religion of peace”)

Yet it seems that the world of politics is the world of the rebounders.  And so the tide ebbs back and forth.  Republicans win, and then the Democrats win, Republican, Democrat, so on.  The phenomenon reminds me of the preacher’s observation in Ecclesiastes:

“The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.  (Ecclesiastes 1:9)

And so is the nature of basketball and politics.  Back and forth.  Shoot, miss, rebound, shoot, score.  And who wins?  Usually, whoever has the ball last.

And in politics, like in basketball, the crowds become irrational.  Hysteria sets in, and in the primal urge to win, we turn our opponents into demons that deserve our unchecked hatred. 

Just look at basketball fights, how violent they can be.  And political fights too.

Wounding opponents is typical of politics, but the demonization of George W. Bush got way out of control. 

I think some apologies are in order.  Don’t you?

I’ll get back to you – soon!

To my readers:  Studying Koine Greek is taking all of my spare time lately, but I’ll get back to posting some articles and quips as soon as I can. 

In the mean time, I’m asking my Christian friends to pray for me and the ministry as we need to make some critical decisions soon.  We are progressing ever more closer to reformed theology in our thinking and we are weighing the arguments of the Westminster Confession in certain areas of doctrine in which I must have some measure of conviction before we can go forward in the ministry. 

Thanks.

Understanding Covenant Theology #5

Since I’m having a tough time getting back to this to wrap up this series on Covenant Theology, I thought I should at least provide my readers with a link to some good materials on the subject.

Nathan Pitchford has written an excellent little book called “What the Bible Says About The People of God”, which is essentially a work that accomplishes exactly what I am attempting to do with this series on Covenant Theology.  It outlines the basic tenets of Covenant Theology using simple statements that are easy to understand, and then follows these statements with copious Bible verses showing how these tenets are arrived at.

Follow this link to Monergism Books and when you get there look for the “Online PDF version” link just under the advertisement for Nathan’s book.  

This little book is an excelent resource and I am thankful that Nathan and Monergism Books have made it available at no cost online.  But not only do I recommend purchasing the book, I recommend taking advantage of the bulk purchase offer and get some to give to your friends.

Here is the link:

http://www.monergismbooks.com/What-the-Bible-Says-about-THE-PEOPLE-OF-GOD-p-17332.html