Mastering the Ages

Bene legere saecla vincere - To read well is to master the ages. (Professor Isaac Flagg)

Duped by Deists

The First Amendment laid down religious freedom saying: "Congress shall pass no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Now I suppose that this could be distinguished from secularism by pointing out that it doesn't prohibit congressmen from making religious arguments on the job. It doesn't prohibit religiously informed policy or a transcendent basis for law. In fact, it guarantees the free exercise of religion.

But, I would argue, that the seeds of secularism are here, especially when coupled with the Constitution's prohibition of any religious test for office. The Constitution and the First Amendment made it feasible to be a Unitarian, like many of our founding Deists, or an atheist of the kind that Jefferson liked, and enter the political process. Hooray for freedom! We were so Enlightened!

Christians like John Witherspoon, who trained many of our founders like Madison, were willing to go along with this and be marginalized to the religious marketplace. We had come a long way since Governor Winthrop's Massachusetts Bay Colony, which exiled Roger Williams for his forward thinking on religious liberty, Anne Hutchinson for her heresy, executed pesky Quakers who wouldn't go away as well as a few accused witches.

So with that not so shining "city on a hill" behind us, we thought we didn't need official recognition by the state to influence society. We can can give up our home field advantage and defeat the enemy on his own turf. I contend that we were blinded by the Enlightenment and duped by the Deists. We couldn't see much less argue for what has been called a chastised Constantinianism. It's too bad we didn't have a John Keble to preach us a sermon about "National Apostasy" and too bad that Jonathan Edwards didn't have any successors. Well we did have Patrick Henry arguing for a Christian commonwealth of Virginia but his voice was drowned out by Madison and Jefferson.

I think it's too bad that most Christians didn't argue for a non-coercive Christian state. But maybe that's our job today. Gasp! That sounds like American heresy. Shouldn't we at least point out the failure of secularism? Shouldn't we make a case for a transcendent basis for law from our Christian heritage of special revelation and natural law?

Christopher Dawson said that it's no exaggeration to say that all "civilizations have always been religious." Even our founding Deists tipped their hats to the connection between religion and morality, but they also put a wedge between the two and secularists have been driving it with reckless abandon ever since. Blind Willie Johnson used to sing:

I've got a Bible in my house

I've got a Bible in my house

If I don't read

My soul be lost

Nobody's fault but mine

Nobody's fault but mine

We need to start reading it again don't we?

Proverbs 14:34 Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people.

Deuteronomy 4:8-9, And what other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and

laws as this body of laws I am setting before you today? Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them.

So it seems to me that these are the governmental options:

1. Constantinianism
2. Separation of Church and State
3. Secularism
4. Chastised Constantinianism

Governor Winthrop tried the first with mixed results, some of which were more than a little scary this side of Israel and the New Jerusalem. The second option led us into the third with disastrous results to the state and the church. Has the fourth option ever been tried? Should it?

Brother Hitchens

Great New Cereal!

God's Permissive Will and Divine Necessity

God's will, according to Luther and Calvin, extends beyond salvation to all things, and it imposes necessity on both. When applied to salvation we are talking about predestination, when talking about everything else we are talking about providence.

Augustine says that "the will of God is the necessity of all things" (On Genesis in the Literal Sense 6, 15, 26, PL 34, 350). Calvin quotes this in support of his and Luther's doctrine that everything, even the fall, happens by divine necessity or by divine decree. This means that from God's perspective nothing could be otherwise than it is, though from our perspective most things are contingent or could go in more than one way.

With regard to permissio, or God's permissive will, Augustine wrote, “Nothing, therefore, happens but by the will of the Omnipotent, He either permitting it to be done, or himself doing it” (Enchiridion 95). So there is a difference between God doing something and permitting something to be done, but both are willed by God and thus necessary. Augustine adds: "His permission is not unwilling, but willing" (Enchiridion 100).

For Augustine, God permitted the fall but it was nonetheless his will and thus happened of necessity. This because God didn't add the gift of perseverance to Adam and Eve. When Calvin and Luther speak of the divine "decree" it is simply another way for them to express that all things, even what God permits, happens by divine necessity.

Being downstream from the via moderna, Luther and Calvin use the terminology of "decree" and "ordination," but they gave it the Augustinian sense of necessity. Luther and to some extent Augustine and Calvin, spoke of God's will as preached and hidden. God's hidden will works all in all and thus imposes necessity. His revealed will expressed in the gospel works our salvation.

A Civil Debate

I haven't blogged in a while because I've been marshaling my forces for a Civil War debate that occurred yesterday. I had a ball fighting the intellectual battle, but I'm also licking some wounds inflicted by some good friends: Chris Baker (Southern Sympathizer) & Pete Watson (Southern Gentleman). I was also happy to have Michael Colvard (Northern Sympathizer) on my side. Stay tuned for some videos of the debate. Yours, a Saved Yankee.

Monster

It's too late for this year's Academy Awards, but here's hopin' for next year's best supporting actor. To see the short film click on the title.

The Seeds of Secularism or State Irreligion

According to the First Amendment: "Congress shall pass no law respecting the establishment of religion." In the view of our Founding Fathers, state religion posed a threat to a democratic national government. But that's not all the First Amendment says: "or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." We as citizens can freely choose and exercise our religion, but we as a nation cannot promote a particular religion for all. State promoted religion was banned, if only at the national level (six out of the thirteen states still had a state religion at the time of the founding, and Massachusetts would be officially Congregational until 1833).

Congress did not want to get into the religion business, so they confined it to the private sphere. Our national leaders did not take responsibility for promoting true religion among the citizens. They thought they could run the city of man and leave the city of God to private individuals and churches. In St. Augustine's thinking, the city of man is a distinct sphere from the city of God, but its calling under God is to actively promote the city of God among its people. To the extent that the city of man operates apart from the city of God, it is moving in a secular direction.

It appears that the Founders thought you could keep Christian morals in the public sphere while separating church and state. It now appears, to me at least, that they were wrong. Instead of state promoted religion, we have, in effect, state promoted irreligion.

Perhaps Christians should be glad the founders didn't try to establish a state religion because most of them were Deists. But it turns out that Jefferson thought he was establishing Deism by promoting freedom of religion. He debated whether or not to create a department of religion at the University of Virginia. He finally decided that he would, because he believed that students from all the religious sects would destroy the boundaries between each other and create a non-sectarian religion. He believed that they would all unite over their least common denominator. What was that least common denominator? The death and resurrection of Jesus? No, it was Deism. He said that there was “not a young man now living in the United States who will not die an Unitarian.” Thus the disestablishment of religion would lead the the establishment of Unitarianism among the populace.

He also said: "It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg" ("Notes on Virginia"). As long as religious beliefs don't do physical harm, they are harmless, and we shouldn't care about them. Jefferson skipped the Thanksgiving Day proclamation started by Washington, because he believed that the government shouldn't endorse a religious observance. Unlike Washington, Jefferson did not consider religion one of the "indispensable supports" of "political prosperity," but defended the French atheists Diderot, D'Alembert, D'Holbach, Condorcet. He said that they "are known to have been among the most virtuous of men. Their virtue then must have had some other foundation than the love of God" (The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, VI, 260).

The seeds of secularism are also seen in article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli:

As the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility of Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

This was received by President Washington, unanimously ratified by Congress, and passed into law by President Adams. Thus the seeds of secularism were already growing in the garden of our founding.

Religious Views of Our Founding Fathers

I. George Washington:

A. Farewell Address:

“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 connections 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?”

B. Letter to Brigadier General Thomas Nelson after the Battle of Germantown 1777

“We must endeavor to deserve better of Providence, and, I am persuaded, [that] she will smile on us” (The Writings of George Washington. Ed. John C. Fitzpatrick. 39 vols. Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1931-44. 10:28).

C. August 1787, Letter to Marquis de Lafayette:

“Being no bigot myself …, I am disposed to indulge the professors of Christianity in the church that road to heaven which to them shall seem the most direct, plainest, easiest, and least liable to exception” (Washington 29:259).

D. Nelly Custis (granddaughter), Letter to Jared Sparks:

Washington “must have been a Christian,” but “On communion Sundays, he left the church with me after the blessing, and returned home, and we sent the carriage back for my grandmother” (Jared Sparks, ed. The Writings of George Washington; Being His Correspondence, Addresses, Messages, and Other Papers, Official and Private, Selected and Published from the Original Manuscripts; with a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations. 12 vols. New York: Harper, 1847. 12:406-07)).

E. Episcopal Bishop William White:

“Truth requires me to say, that general Washington never received the communion,” though “Mrs. Washington,” was “an habitual communicant” (Sparks 12:406-07).

F. Dr. Abercrombie's Letter to a friend in 1831:

"With respect to the inquiry you make, I can only state the following facts:—that, as Pastor of the Episcopal Church, observing that, on Sacrament Sundays, General Washington, immediately after the desk and pulpit services, went out with the greater part of the congregation,—always leaving Mrs. Washington with the other communicants,—she invariably being one,—I considered it my duty, in a Sermon on Public Worship, to state the unhappy tendency of example, particularly of those in elevated stations, who uniformly turned their backs upon the celebration of the Lord's Supper. I acknowledge the remark was intended for the President; and as such he received it. A few days after, in conversation with, I believe, a Senator of the United States, he told me he had dined the day before with the President, who, in the course of conversation at the table, said that, on the preceding Sunday, he had received a very just reproof from the pulpit for always leaving the church before the administration of the Sacrament; that he honoured the preacher for his integrity and candour; that he had never sufficiently considered the influence of his example, and that he would not again give cause for the repetition of the reproof; and that, as he had never been a communicant, were he to become one then, it would be imputed to an ostentatious display of religious zeal, arising altogether from his elevated station. Accordingly, he never afterwards came on the morning of Sacrament Sunday.”

G. Dr. Wilson Sermon on the "Religion of the Presidents," Albany 'Daily Advertiser,' 1831:

"When Congress sat in Philadelphia, President Washington attended the Episcopal Church, The rector, Dr. Abercrombie, told me that on the days when the sacrament of the Lord's Supper was to he administered, Washington's custom was to arise just before the ceremony commenced, and walk out of the church. This became a subject of remark in the congregation, as setting a bad example. At length the Doctor undertook to speak of it, with a direct allusion to the President. Washington was heard afterwards to remark that this was the first time a clergyman had thus preached to him, and he should henceforth neither trouble the Doctor or his congregation on such occasions; and ever after that, upon communion days, 'he absented himself altogether from church.'"

H. Mr. Robert Dale Owen Letter November 13, 1831, Published in New York:

I then read to him [Dr. Wilson] from a copy of the 'Daily Advertiser' the paragraph which regards Washington, beginning, 'Washington was a man" etc., and ending 'absented himself altogether from church.' 'I endorse,' said Dr. Wilson with emphasis, 'every word of that. Nay, I do not wish to conceal from you any part of the truth, even what I have not given to the public. Dr . Abercrombie said more than I have repeated. At the close of our conversation on the subject his emphatic expression was -- for I well remember the very words -- "Sir, Washington was a Deist."

II. Ben Franklin:

A. Constitutional Convention (1787):

“How has it happened…that we have…not once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understandings? … The longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see…—that God governs in the affairs of men…. I…beg leave to move that, henceforth, prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that…clergy…be requested to officiate in that service” (Jonathan Elliot, ed. Debates on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution in the Convention Held at Philadelphia in 1787; With a Diary of the Debates of the Congress of the Confederation as Reported by James Madison, A Member and Deputy from Virginia. 5 vols. 5:253-54).

When Franklin’s plea was tabled he wrote on his proposal: “The convention, except three or four persons, thought prayers unnecessary.” (Max Farrand, ed. The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787. 4 vols. New Haven: Yale UP, 1911. 1:452, n. 15).

B. To Ezra Stiles (1790).

Here is my creed. I believe in One God, the Creator of the Universe. That he governs it by his Providence. That he ought to be worshipped. That the most acceptable Service we can render Him is doing good to his other children. That the soul of man is immortal and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental principles of all sound religion (emphasis added).

“As to Jesus of Nazareth I have…doubts as to his divinity; though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and I think it is needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble” (Complete Works 10:194).

C. Autobiography:

George Whitefield “us’d to indeed sometimes pray for my Conversion,” the preacher “never had the satisfaction of believing that his Prayers were heard” (109).

III. John Adams

A. Letter to Thomas Jefferson:

It was “awful blasphemy” to believe that the “great principle which has produced this boundless Universe…came down to this little Ball to be spit-upon by Jews” (The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete

Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams. Lester J. Cappon, ed. 2 vols. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1959. 2:607).

B. Treaty of Tripoli Article 11, signed by President Adams and unanimously approved by Congress:

“As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,—as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen,—and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.”

IV. Thomas Jefferson:

The virgin birth was comparable to “the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter,” (Adams and Jefferson 2:594).

The Trinity was a “deliria of crazy imaginations,” (The Works of Thomas Jefferson. Ed. Paul Leicester Ford. 12 vols. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904-05. 12:242).

There was “not a young man now living in the United States who will not die an Unitarian” (Adams and Jefferson 2:368).

“If the sublime doctrines of philanthropism and deism taught by Jesus of Nazareth in which we all agree, constitute true religion, then, without it, this would be as you say, something not fit to be named, even indeed a Hell” (Julian P. Boyd, ed. The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Princeton, 1950, II, 545-47, cited in Moynahan, The Faith, 592).

V. Patrick Henry and James Madison:

Henry proposed legislation in Virginia “that the Christian Religion shall in all times coming be deemed and held to be the established Religion of this Commonwealth.” James Madison successfully opposed Henry, arguing that any attempt to establish Christianity would overturn Roger William’s tradition of “offering an Asylum to the persecuted and oppressed of every Nation and Religion” (cited in Moynahan, The Faith, 591-92).

The Spirit of a Man

The spirit of a man is the lamp of the Lord,

searching all his innermost parts.

Proverbs 20:27

Today I caught the end of a PBS special called "The Human Spark." Allan Alda and a host of cognitive scientists and researchers tried to put their finger on what makes us distinctly human.

Alda's conclusion is insight and imagination. This was all couched in Darwinistic terms but was nonetheless immensely interesting.

With respect to insight, one scientist commented that we are the only animals who can learn apart from direct experience. "No one ever whipped up a batch of liver ice cream to taste if it was good or chewed on a handful of thumbtacks before they realized that this would be painful." Evidently, distinct parts of the brain think about what other people are thinking about. These same parts are engaged during down time, when we mull over our regrets, cherish certain memories, or prepare for the next time something happens. This is all uniquely human, as is our ability to use language symbols for writing or a few sounds to express the meaning of our insights to others.

To put this theologically, we surpass animals because we have souls created in the image of God. God imagines and creates out of nothing. We imagine and create out the the materials he spoke into existence. We form our words upon the forms he "worded" into existence. Every object is an incarnation of God's creative word. We sub-create with our imagination speaking words onto a page, into a debate, or into our lover's ear. We image God by creating our own images. We create artwork, music, a clean table, tasty food, laughter, tears, and complex technology, like my computer, that harnesses the resources of nature. We are fearfully and wonderfully made.

The Cult of the State

The Age of Enlightenment--considered in purely political terms--was itself merely the transition from one epoch of nationalist warfare, during which states still found it necessary to use religious institutions as instruments of power, to another epoch of still greater nationalist warfare, during which religious rationales had become obsolete, because the state had become its own cult, and power the only morality.

David Bentley Hart, Atheist Delusions, 86-87

The Absurdity of a Secular State

John Keble preached a sermon called "National Apostasy" in 1833. The Legislature of England and Ireland had just removed the religious test for membership so that the members were "not even bound to profess belief in the Atonement." The points of his argument against secularism run as follows:

1. By separating church and state you don't exclude the church from the state, you turn the state into a "mere parliament church." This is because the state has to legislate morality with reference to itself.
2. You cannot consider yourself a Christian nation if the civil realm is separated from the church. So realize what your giving up by embracing secularism.
3. Where does the state get its basis for law if it does not recognize the moral authority of the church?
4. Who are the King and Parliament under if they are not under the church's God?
5. By separating the church from the state, the church and its theology are singled out as posing a danger to the state.
6. Without the church, the state is left to follow a practical atheism. Legislating without reference to God is legislating as if he doesn't exist. So, practically speaking, there is no middle ground between a state religion and an atheistic state.
7. Separating civil life from the church encourages a national apostasy of its citizens from their churches. This turns politics into an idol for the people to place before God.
8. "One of the most alarming omens of an Apostate mind in a nation is the growing indifference ... to other men's religious sentiments." This reminds me of G. K. Chesterton's statement: "There's only one thing more absurd than executing a man for his religious beliefs, and that's saying that his religious beliefs don't matter." Thus the secular state is more absurd than Christendom, when it was at its worst.
9. When the state declares the church out of bounds in Parliament doesn't it make it "impossible for them to be loyal to their Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier?"

To the extent that the state tells us to think in secular vs. sacred categories, aren't they telling Christians to think unChristianly? If so, mustn't we obey God rather than men.

A Canvass for Carnage

The other night I watched the film "Inglorious Basterds." It reminded me of why I normally avoid Quentin Tarantino movies--he glorifies violence. I can hear someone saying that the violence portrayed was for a good cause--the annihilation of Nazis. True, but even in pre-Christian Greek drama all the really graphic stuff happened off stage so that it could be muted by the imagination. It was the Roman gladiatorial games that took things beyond the pale and reveled in graphic violence.

This doesn't mean that there isn't anything to learn from the movie. The characters sacrifice their lives without thinking twice and Brad Pitt's character is cheerfully courageous in the face of danger. But their courage doesn't seem to be grounded in human dignity. The film is not so much about rescuing the dignity of the victims but about revenge on the perpetrators. The Basterds don't even plan to escape from the final destruction they are planning for the Nazis. They are going to touch off Vesuvius and die on its slopes in true Nietzschean fashion. The movie devalues human life by portraying bodies as objects of slaughter. Bodies are Tarantinos canvass for carnage. The film is permeated with the sense that since life is meaningless creative revenge is the only way to die.

This is obviously a far cry from the Christian courage that led Dietrich Bonhoeffer to put his life on the line. If we are created in the image of God we may stand for life and die with dignifying courage. Someone has said that "without mysticism man is a monster." Even the good guys in Tarantino's film are monstrous.

Repenting by Faith

Tonight I lost my temper on the phone with a lady in my doctor's office. They gave my pharmacy an incomplete prescription, and told me I would have to pay another copay to complete the prescription. I told them that they had "screwed up" and needed to "fix it." Things didn't go too well from there, but my son seemed impressed with way I raised my voice and got forceful. He retold the story to my wife with the emphases in all the right places and strode away like a hero.

I had to tell him that I didn't handle the situation properly. I would call back Monday and apologize. I will also respectfully ask them to take responsibility for their mistake, and work it out with our insurance company. He voiced his agreement with my new plan. Today is the fifteenth and Proverbs 15:1 reads: "A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger."

Sin makes you feel rotten, but you can't live by feelings. We must live by faith, even when we don't feel forgiven. Sometimes we are tempted to work up a genuine repentance so we will feel forgiven. This is the antithesis of faith and makes the "feeling of repentance" and idol.

Dawson's Critique

It may, I think, even be argued that Communism in Russia, National Socialism in Germany, and Capitalism and Liberal Democracy in the Western countries are really three forms of the same thing, and that they are all moving by different but parallel paths to the same goal, which is the mechanization of human life and the complete subordination of the individual to the state and to the economic process. Of course I do not mean to say that they are all absolutely equivalent, and that we have no right to prefer one to another. But I do believe that a Christian cannot regard any of them as a final solution to the problem of civilization, or even as a tolerable one. Christianity is bound to protest against any social system which claims the whole of man and sets itself up as the final end of human action, for it asserts that man's essential nature transcends all political and economic forms. Civilization is a road by which man travels, not a house for him to dwell in. His true city is elsewhere.

(Christopher Dawson, Religion and the Modern State, 1938).

Two Pieces of Iron

The differences between a man and a woman are at best so obstinate and exasperating that they practically cannot be got over unless there is an atmosphere of exaggerated tenderness and mutual interest. To put the matter in one metaphor, the sexes are two stubborn pieces of iron; if they are to be welded together, it must be while they are red hot. Every woman has to find out that her husband is a selfish beast, because every man is a selfish beast by the standard of a woman. But let her find out the beast while they are both still in the story of “Beauty and the Beast.” Every man has to find out that his wife is cross—that is to say, sensitive to the point of madness: for every woman is mad by the masculine standard. But let him find out that she is mad while her madness is more worth considering than anyone else’s sanity.

Chesteron, G. K., Brave New Family.

Why Limit History to "What" and "How"?

Historians' Fallacies : Toward a Logic of Historical Thought by David Hackett Fischer

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Great critical thinking when it comes to historiography. The logic chopping is a little pedantic at times but the overall affect is greater clarity on how to reach responsible historical conclusions. I paraphrase Fischer's method in the following way:

The goal of the historian is a self-aware subjectivity

that seeks to see things as they are objectively,

by stating a problem

and seeking empirical solutions

through posing questions

that fit the subject.

His treatment of the fallacies of causation and misleading questions are especially good.

The problem however is that Fischer thinks historians should spend all their time answering "what" and "how" questions and avoid trying to answer "why" questions. Now "why" would he say that? Well he tells us. He says that the "why" questions deal with metaphysical issues that yield no fruitful or definitive results . Even if that is true, and I don't believe it is, the metaphysical questions are still the most interesting to beings who can't be reduced to the physical realm. Let me acknowledge that I do agree that there is a metaphysical fallacy, but it consists of abusing metaphysical questions not excluding them from the outset.

I don't believe that Fishcer's scientific "what-and-how-only-approach" is much better at producing certainty either. For instance, "what" kind of document is the Constitution of the United States and "how" did it come to be? Well, some say that it is primarily influenced by British Capitalism ("the pursuit of happiness"), others that its primarily influenced by French ideas of equality ("all men are created equal") , others that the classical idea of a well informed, upstanding citizenry is the primary influence ("the consent of the governed"), others say Christianity and the Puritan moral vision is still calling the shots ("endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights"). To complicate matters there are those who argue that the Constitution is a betrayal of the Declaration of Independence and others that it is basically faithful to it and still others who believe that it is an almost pure extension of its values.

"How" did it come into its final form is tricky as well, since fifty-five delegates operated behind closed doors and were hopelessly divided between two factions of independently minded men like Madison and Hamilton on one side and Sam Adams and Patrick Henry on the other with guys like Washington caught in the middle. To make this even more confusing, some think that Madison caved to the anti-federalists by drawing up the Bill of Rights and others that he was tossing them some hushpuppies to shut their mouths so that the Constitution would pass.

I also hope that this makes it clear that you may distinguish the "why" from the "what" and "how" and even "who" questions, but you will never separate it from those topics. What God has joined together, let no man, even a respectable historian, put asunder.

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An Overstuffed Straw Man

I recently heard an education expert giving a lecture on Book TV CSPAN2. He was revealing new data that showed that students with good verbal skills didn't test significantly higher than students with poor verbal skills on subjects where both groups were informed. The point was, "See, verbal skills are not equivalent to knowledge. So lets keep focusing on data transfer, technical knowledge and vocational training."

I must admit that I didn't watch the whole persecution, ... I mean presentation, but this straw man is not only bloated but begs numerous questions. For instance, did the study test for communication skills? You may have factual information and intuitive knowledge about a subject, but poor verbal skills trap that knowledge inside the airtight shell of your body.

Now for the corpulent man of straw. When did advocates of liberal arts training ever claim that verbal skills were equivalent to knowledge in all vocational fields? A knowledge of grammar is equivalent to a knowledge of grammar, and logic is equivalent to a knowledge critical thinking, and rhetoric is .... Well, you get the point. But who of our number ever claimed that a liberal arts education is equivalent to knowing how to program a computer?

A New Year's Sermon

Sermon—The Serpent and the Savior

M. Heckel, 1-2-10

I. Intro: We’ve all made New Years resolutions. Mine every year is to lose some weight. One of my students put his on facebook: “Don’t mess up.” I commented “Good luck with that one.” What if our New Year’s resolution was to keep the main things the main things? Then maybe all these other things would take care of themselves. I might be able to deal with stress better, sleep better, and quite overeating. My student might not worry so much about messing up. Well there’s good news this morning. We are going to read about the main thing and that’s the gospel of Jesus Christ our Savior.

II. The Serpent and the Seed of the Woman. Genesis 3:14-16.

A. The serpent tempted Adam and Eve to be as God, and decide good and evil for themselves.

B. First Eve ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but nothing happened. She gave the fruit to Adam who ate, and then they knew they were naked and hid from God when they heard him walking in the garden.

C. When God declares judgment for sin he begins with the serpent:

1. v. 14, The serpent is cursed “above all” animals. It becomes a symbol of the fall, and explains our aversion to it.

2. The serpent is cursed to crawl on its belly, which implies that it is now a legless dragon.

3. v. 15, God will put enmity between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman.

4. One of the ways the world wages war is by trying to convince us that there is no antithesis. It is up to the seed of the woman to maintain the antithesis today and fight the good fight.

5. Right after the fall, God announces that there will be a decisive battle where the seed of the woman will bruise the head of the serpent and the serpent will bruise his heel.

6. Who gets the worst of it? Would you rather have your head bruised or your heel.

7. The head is a symbol of authority. The seed of the women will step on the serpents head and crush his authority but will pay a price. His heel will be bruised.

8. When was this prophecy fulfilled? Before we fast forward let’s take a look at one more aspect of the fall.

9. v. 16, God will multiply the woman’s pain of giving birth to her seed.

III. The Woman and the Dragon. Revelation 12:1-6.

A. vv. 1-2, Here is the woman clothed with the sun, and with the moon under her feet wearing a twelve starred crown for the twelve tribes of Israel.

B. She will fulfill the hopes of God’s people by giving birth but it will come with great pain as God had said. Sin causes pain but God will accomplish our redemption through the pain of the woman.

C. vv. 3-4, But there is an immediate threat to God’s promise. A great red dragon who sweeps a third of the stars out of the sky and is ready to pounce and devour her child.

D. vv. 5-6, She gives birth to a male child who was caught up to the throne of God and the woman flees to the wilderness.

IV. The Dragon and the Christ. Revelation 12:7-10.

A. vv. 7-9, Who is this dragon? It is that “ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world.” It is the serpent in the garden who lost his legs.

B. The enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent actually originated with a war in heaven. The Archangel Michael and his fellows angels do battle with the dragon and his angels and Satan falls from heaven.

C. After his fall the dragon succeeds in bringing about our fall. But he falls from heaven in another way.

D. v. 10, A loud voice in heaven announces that “the salvation and the power and the kingdom of God and the authority of his Christ” has come, and has thrown down the accuser of the brothers.

E. Christ has bruised his heel on the serpent’s head! The authority of Christ has smashed the serpent’s authority.

V. The Dragon and the Christians. Revelation 12:11-17.

A. v. 11, This means we can overcome the dragon. But what does that look like?

B. “They overcame him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives unto death.”

C. After Jesus rose from the dead the Roman soldiers who had been stationed at the tomb told the Jewish leaders that the tomb was empty. So the Jews and Romans spread the story that the disciples stole the body. But the disciples effectively overcame this report by dying for their testimony that he had risen. In all cases but one, the disciples suffered gruesome executions at the hands of Roman rather than deny their experience with the bodily-resurrected savior.

D. Blaise Pascal said, “Believe those witnesses who get their throats cut.”

E. This raises the question for us today. Do we believe that the shed blood of Christ washes away our sin? Do we have a testimony that is more precious to us than life itself? If we do, we can win the dragon fight. If we do not we are still on the side of the dragon. There is no middle ground.

F. This text challenges us to ask ourselves, “Which side of the antithesis am I on?” Are we willing to die for the disciples’ testimony that Jesus rose bodily from the dead?

G. Dealing with doubt: There are many ministers today who do not believe that Jesus rose from the dead in his physical body (Sproul oridination story). The disciples didn’t believe it at first. Thomas said that he would be a skeptic until he put his fingers in Christ’s wounds. The disciples weren’t gullible. They didn’t fully believe Mary Magdalene until they say Jesus for themselves. After that, they couldn’t be stopped. If the tomb hadn’t been empty the authorities could have provided the body and squelched their preaching. So they tried to defeat the disciples through force, but they overcame because “they loved not their lives unto death.”

H. Illustration: I recently taught a history class at MoBap Univ., where we discussed the historical claims of Christianity. I pointed out that Christianity is unique among world religions because it is founded upon a single historical claim—the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. One of my students gave a presentation on historical objectivity and ended by saying that since everyone is affected by their own subjectivity we can’t tell anybody that they’re wrong. When it came to the question and answer time some of the students challenged him by asking whether someone who denies the resurrection is wrong. He assured us that he believed in the resurrection, but he couldn’t tell someone else they were wrong for rejecting it. Then I added that he had the Word of God to stand on. But he said that he didn’t see God write the Bible. Then I pointed out that the apostles of Jesus Christ died so that he could call the Bible the word of God and he didn’t know what to say. They overcame by the word of their testimony.

I. Now that the woman has flown to the wilderness, Satan is making war against the rest of her offspring.

J. Are we ready to begin this New Year with a testimony on our lips, with some fire in our belly, and some fight in our gut?

K. v. 17, What do we fight with? We “keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus.”

VI. Application: Where do we begin? Here’s a good New Years Resolution: I Peter 2:2-3: “Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk , that by it you may grow up to salvation—if indeed you have tasted that they Lord is good.” Have you tasted that the Lord is good? Then let’s wash everything down this year with the milk of the word of God.

VII. Summary: Then we can’t resist the world’s temptation to forget about the fight. We can keep the antithesis between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, we can overcome the world through our testimony of Christ, and we can truly live because we have something for which we are willing to die.

Scandalizing the Scandal

The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind by Mark A. Noll

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Puritans who settled Massachusetts combined heart-felt devotion to Christ with a love of theology. They practiced a vigorous intellectual life centered on the Bible and embraced cutting edge science like inoculation against disease. By the time of the First Great Awakening however, this tradition had degenerated into a formal and lifeless orthodoxy. Noll argues that during the First Great Awakening evangelicals like George Whitfield tried to revive the church with biblical preaching and a theatrical style that appealed to the masses and called for an emotional response.

Whitfield unwittingly contributed to the anti-intellectualism of the time and promoted an anti-institutional Christianity that would abandon the intellectual centers of the culture. This "biblical democratism" meant that the Bible does not belong to me as part of a historical community known as the church, but it belongs to me as an individual. For most evangelicals the Bible became a book dropped from the sky for self-help purposes (97). Jonathan Edwards resisted the anti-intellectual tendencies of experience based revivalism, but evangelicals continued to abandon the life of the mind and have been paying the price in academic credibility ever since.

Noll cites creation science as exhibit A, because it fails to allow the book of nature to help us interpret the book of Scripture. Charles Hodge and B. B. Warfield were better in this regard than evangelicals who seem to think it's a virtue to abandon cutting edge scientific research to unbelievers and fight for a twenty-four hour creation days (which is not even the historical position of church fathers like St. Augustine). The abandonment of the front lines of research is one reason why evangelicals haven't developed any major research universities.

Where evangelicals did try to maintain intellectual credibility, they articulated Christian truth in the secular, rationalistic, and mechanistic language of the Enlightenment. This was a cultural accommodation that tempted the church give up the home field advantage it enjoyed during most of Western civilization. Noll calls Witherspoon, Hodge, and Warfield to account for making revelation dependent on reason for its plausibility.

In concert with the Enlightenment marginalizing Christian faith to the private sphere, Noll points out how dispensationalism, the holiness movement, and Pentecostalism compounded the scandal by putting forth a Christianity that turns the things of earth “strangely dim.” No one polishes the brass on a sinking ship, as they say. Noll reminds us that what is distinctive about American Christianity is not necessarily essential to the gospel. Thus evangelicals need to rediscover history.

Noll also points out that evangelicals have preserved the one thing that can revitalize the Christian mind--the gospel. Thus Noll is still a fan of his own tradition, and he calls evangelicals to scandalize the scandal by reentering the intellectual centers of cultural without compromising the gospel and the authorty of biblical revelation. This means reaffirming that since God is the author of both Scripture and nature the two books interpret each other as we press on. Noll also promotes a Reformation theology that embraces a comprehensive view of the world that affirms the goodness of creation and the need to redeem it with Christian action.

Since Noll published Scandal in 1994, evangelicals have continued to rediscover history and press forward with scientific research in intelligent design and the human genome project ( a la Francis Collins who doesn't seem to be a fan of Intelligent Design, :(). But much of the church growth movement continues to play to our radical individualism with its focus on self-help and personal success. Evangelical Christians still need to be challenged by Noll to scandalize the scandal.

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