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My own personal musings, wonderings, thoughts, and results of personal studies. Also, occasional comments on world events. Counter
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Monday, July 15, 2002
Is Congress bribing voters? Paul Cella makes the case and then has this to say:
Too true, HokiePundit comments on the nature of voting. I would tend to agree on his arguments about voting. However, he launched off of this Dog's Life post which he said he disagrees with "to some extent."
The thing is that the Gregory Hlatky post he references has nothing whatever to do with voting. The sole point there was that Senator Inhofe had said something stupid. (Inhofe is my senator, and I like him, but he's actually pretty good at saying stupid things.) He was specifically referencing a comment by Inhofe that he would not vote to confirm an atheist to the Supreme Court. (Hlatlky was referencing this page. In Inhofe's defense, the question was pretty loaded. Inhofe wasn't the only one to answer this way either, so singling Inhofe out may be a little unfair.)
Hlatkly correctly notes that Article VI of the Constitution prohibits the use of any religious test as a qualification for office. My gut feeling is that the founders had in view formally declared policies, but I don't think its a stretch to say that Senators voting for or against confirmation based on religious beliefs would at the very least violate the spirit of this Article. Now how you'd ever prove this is what happened is beyond me unless at least 50 Senators actually came out and announced, "I voted against this guy because he's an atheist" is another matter.
Now whatever you may think about Hlatkly's position, he didn't even express an opinion about what role religion should have in the decisions of individual voters.
BTW-I thought Hatch handled the question pretty well.
While I don't have any problem with individual voters making choices based on what they know of a candidates religious background, the idea of Senators doing so in confirmation votes is a different matter entirely. For one, as previously noted, doing so is probably unconstitutional.
Secondly, Senators are not charged with choosing who they believe the best person for an office is. Instead, they are charged with offering "Advice and Consent," regarding the person the President has nominated. As far as I can tell the purpose of this provision is to insure that those nominated are actually qualified to do the job and nothing else. For a Senator to refuse to confirm someone solely because they are an atheist is to say that all atheist are inherently unfit to hold public office. Not only is this not true, it is also dangerous.
Which brings me to my third point: In what meaningful way would a Senator refusing to confirm a Supreme Court nominee because he was an atheist differ from those Senators who voted against, or threatened to do so, John Ashcroft because he was an avowed Christian?
On another note, a lot of these answers sound like they grabbed Senators as they were running through the halls. Is that really the best way to get a Senator's opinion? Yes, its likely to be candid. But when it comes to issues like this, I'd prefer their answers to be reasoned rather than candid. The family of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh say that he couldn't possibly have orchestrated the death of Danny Pearl because he pulled a teenager out of the way of a train ten years ago. Basically the argument is that no one who has ever saved a life could possibly take one. Ever. Does this make any sense?
Meanwhile the clearly innocent man threatened death to everyone involved in his conviction.
His own statements make attempts to explain how he could have possible changed from "life-saver to life-taker" unnecessary. Sheikh clearly sees himself as a soldier in a war"
Soldiers in wars break things and kill people. That is what soldiers do. Even soldiers who outside of the context of war would be willing to risk their lives to save a complete stranger. For that matter, lots of soldiers have been known to risk their lives to save strangers while they were breaking things and killing people. It is one of the many paradoxes of war.
Given Sheikh's overt declaration of war, it is not hard to understand how he could kill Danny Pearl: He believed Pearl to be the enemy. It is really that simple. The fact that his side of the war can't tell the difference between combatants and reporters makes them either stupid, morally bankrupt, or crazy. It is not, however, difficult to explain.
Update-Demonstrating one of the many differences between England and America, British Foreign Minister Jack Straw is now pleading for Sheikh's life. Perhaps Uday Hussein knows something we don't know about regime change in Iran. While making statements about the need to prepare the Iraqi people for war with the US, he said this:
We'll pass over the fact that as of late Iraq has been more likely to invade its neighbors then to be invaded by them. At the moment I'm interested in his observation that a US led attack might be launched from Iran. It seems highly unlikely that the current regime would allow their territory to be used by the US for any military campaign. So, is Uday blowing smoke, or does he know something about Iran that we don't know? After writing this post and reading this at the Volokh Conspiracy, I began formulating a question. Can anyone name five things the State Department has gotten right in the last 5 years? Maybe I'm just mad, but I really can't think of anything that State has done right in the last few years that wasn't forced on them from above. Red Letter Edition
What do you value? What things are important to you? Here Jesus tells us that the treasures we accumulate in this life can be dangerous. This is because will love those things and in doing so, we take our focus off God. I have said many times that in the extremely unlilkely event I ever became President (Yes, go ahead and laugh. I said it was extremely unlikely.) that one of my goals would be to accomplish 100% turnover in the State Department. Here's an example of why. Update-There's also this and I certainly shouldn't leave out this. Protests in Palestine
Okay, we have Palestinians protesting because they are unemployed. What caused that unemployment? When Palestinians started blowing up pizza parlors and bat mitzahs, Israel closed the border. Woops. Because the Palestinians have virtually no economy of their own (living in a kleptocracy will do that), they were mostly reliant on travelling into Israel proper to get jobs. With the border closed, the jobs disappeared.
Are the protestors demanding an end to the intifada so Israel will let them back in to get jobs? No. Are they demanding constitutionally guaranteed private property rights so foreign investors would be willing to open up companies there when the intifada is over, thus beginning an economy of their own? No. Are they demanding the rest of the world send them money? Bingo!
The suffering of the Palestinian people is, I'm sure, extreme. However, it is the direct result of Arafat's thuggish ways and the ongoing attempts at genocide against Israel. Until they realize this and change their ways, any amount of aid would be a waste of money.
On another note, have those foaming at the mouth because they can't wait to push the Jews into the sea really thought this out? If they only jobs most Palestinians can get are those they get from Jewish businesses in Israel proper, where will they work if they succeed in killing the Jews and destroying Israel?
Sunday, July 14, 2002
I get the distinct impression that den Beste has trouble suspending disbelief. Made me laugh though. Well, we've got another armed baby photo. Once again we're told it was a joke. A society that thinks this is an appropriate joke has got serious problems that cut very deep. The Nando Times carries a story about abuses in accounting at the Federal government. Now I don't have any doubt that the Government routinely engages in accounting slight of hand. (For instance the "Social Security Trust Fund.") However, this part really chaps me:
Now what upsets me here is that what they describe is not a "restatement of earnings and expenses." First off, governments do not have, as a general rule, earnings and expenses. They have revenue and expenditures. The difference in an "expense" and an "expenditure" isn't enough to bother explaining. However the difference between earnings and revenue is very important. Governments do not generally earn anything at all. Their revenues are from taxes. The government doesn't earn, it takes.
However, that is not what upset me. What really upset me is that in the middle of a story about shoddy accounting, they insert as an example a budget revision. Not only that, but this budget revision is treated as being on par with revised financial statements. This is patently false. Financial statements record what did happen. Budgets predict what should happen. These are related concepts, but they are not the same.
The government's inability to accurately budget is a problem. It is not*, strictly speaking, an accounting problem. Treating it as such is either lazy or irresponsible.
*=For some strange reason, "not" was originally left out of this sentence. Sorry for any confusion. Dave Berry on spam:
I was reading this post at LGF and had a thought: What would people say if some university research project had fired two professors because they were Palestinians? Would the people who are not (rightly) angry at the firing of two Israelis react the same way? Would those who can't understand what the fuss is about now be angry if the tables were turned? I guess one company thinks they see the handwriting on the wall. Congress has been threatening to force companies to treat stock options as an expense. (Current accounting principles allow, but do not require this treatment.) It looks as though Coca-Cola would rather make the change at a time and place of their choosing. They've announced that they will begin expensing stock options in the fourth quarter of this year. You might start seeing more of this. A guy pulls a rifle out of a guitar case as the French President is passing by and fires at least one round. Strangely, the French police don't appear to be at all hesitant to call this an assassination attempt. Maybe (and it hurts to say this) we should ask the French to send some investigators out to LAX and see if they can figure out what happened there. As silly as it sounds, war between Spain and Morocco may really be brewing. (Well, war may be overstating things. From descriptions I've read of both countries navies, they can probably only muster a lackluster battle.) I really don't have a clue what will happen over there, but Spain has already dropped the words "unfriendly act" which in diplo-speak is fighting terminology. Now both sides are turning up the rhetoric. They need to get a grip. It does look like Morocco is trying to seize Spanish property. On the other hand, it is an island that the Spanish didn't appear to care about until Morocco landed twelve soldiers on the island. The following Headline is from a Guardian story and is exactly as it appeared on the website at the time I wrote this. U.s., War Crimes Court Debate Ends Notice anything odd here? Like for instance the "s" in "US" rather than an "S." I only mention it because I have noticed this on several Guardian headlines in the last couple of weeks. I find it odd. Philip Murphy was shocked to discover that the Guardian had chosen his blog, The Invisible Hand, as a blog they like. Not one to waste an opportunity, he explains to (no doubt absolutely stunned) Guardian readers his view on Israel. Then he goes on to describe how he classifies politicians and political movements. It would probably be best described as the Martini Approach. Recommended reading. Musings on the Constitution (And Other Things) Article I, Section 1.
All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.
Article I, Section 6, Clause 1
The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States. They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place
Article II, Section 1, Clause 1 (in part)
The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. Article III, Section 1
The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.
The above statements constitute what we refer to as the Separation of Powers. It is one of the most brilliant concepts embedded in the Constitution. The Founders understand that democracies are predisposed towards excessive behavior. They created multiple bodies of government with completely separate powers so that excesses in one branch could be curbed by another. That separation of powers guarantees us that no one branch of government can never hold absolute power.
Congress can draft legislation, but not enforce it. The executive branch may enforce laws, but cannot make their own. Further, if Congress believes the executive branch is exceeding its authority, it can take steps (such as cutting off funding for enforcement, but note that they are not allowed to cut the President's salary) to put the President in his place. The judicial branch can determine that either branch has exceeded its authority and strike down actions of the other bodies, but can do no more.
Each branch has just enough power to perform the task set before it and to be able to curb excesses by the other branches. But the ability to curb the other branches excesses is negative in nature. That is to say that one branch may act to prevent actions by another branch, but no branch of government may force another branch to do anything. (At least not unless that other branch has previously agreed to such an action. There are some who would disagree one branch can force an action on another even if the other branch has previously agreed.)
The negative nature of these protections assures us that one branch cannot usurp the powers of another branch. Thus the Supreme Court can strike down a statute drafted by Congress and signed by the President. It can even strike down similar laws hundreds of times in succession. But no matter how much the courts may dislike the laws that are being passed, the courts cannot force the Legislative and Administrative branches to pass laws of which it approves.
And this brings me to the point I want to discuss. I was reading part of the recent case, Newdow v. United States Congress in which the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Pledge of Allegiance was unconstitutional. It wasn't till today that I knew that this was the short name of the case. If I'd known, I would have realized something was wrong. You see Newdow named both the President (Clinton at the time) and Congress as defendants in his suit. According to the 9th Circuit:
Newdow was actually asking the Court to force the Legislative and Executive branches to perform certain tasks. The Court (quite rightly) found that the Judiciary has no authority to compel the President to take any action in the administrative duties. The Court further found that it did not have the authority to compel any action by Congress, nor to question the actions of the Congress.
I bring this up because Newdow would have us believe that this was primarily about defending the Constitution:
But if he was really so concerned with the Constitution, why did he so blatantly ask the courts to violate the Separation of Powers doctrine? Somehow, I question his motives.
Saturday, July 13, 2002
Side by side Christian blogging rankings at He Lives. (David, if I understand your system, you just scored a point.) One of the largest egos in history may well have belonged to Hannibal. At the moment I am particularly concerned with events leading up to the first battle between Hannibal's army and that of Rome. The Roman army was commanded by Cornelius Scipio. Titus Livius records this about attitudes prior to the battle:
I found this article via Right Wing News. It is an interesting piece on the effect Christianity is having on South Korean politics. My page appears to be working fine. However, I've just tried several other blogs on blogspot and they are all down. Wonder what's up? Update- They seem to be working now. Guess it was just a momentary glitch. I'm not sure what to make of this. A weblog devoted entirely to tracking abuses by the clergy. The purported purpose of the site is to help young journalists learn how to cover a complicated issue. HokiePundit is surprised to learn that Spain has an aircraft carrier. I've got to admit I was surprised by that as well. On the other hand, after reading the description of the Spanish fleet (carrier included), I'd admit that they outgun Morocco, but I'm not sure they could have even taken this Spanish fleet. The head of German intelligence believes bin Laden is alive. However, he describes him as a "figurehead." He also claims that bin Laden only "blessed" the attacks last September, but was probably not aware of many of the details. Huh?
Interim champion? I admit I haven't watched boxing in a while, but what on earth is an interim champion? I understand interim presidents and interim commissioners. But this doesn't make any sense to me. Well, there's been another attack against westerners in Pakistan. A grenade lobbed at tourists this time. Fortunately, the FBI does not have jurisdiction so there is a chance someone might decide this was an act of terror. The way the media, especially in headlines, treats court decisions is very annoying.
The Boston Globe headline reads"Panel overturns judge's decision on Taliban suspect." This is accurate. The trial judge ruled he had a right to unfettered access to an attorney immediately. The appellant court overturned and remanded. The appeals court ruled that the trial judge had not given proper consideration to the government's finding that he was an illegal combatant. (After reading the appeals court ruling, I wonder if the trial court considered the issue at all.)
In the Miami Herald, the headline reads, "Court: American Taliban suspect can be held without an attorney." This is patently false. The court explicitly refused to rule on this issue directly. The only thing the court did was reverse and remand. When a decision is reversed, this does not mean that the appeals court has necessarily reached a decision on the issue at all. It only means that they believe the trial court was in error. That does not automatically mean that the appeals court has found in favor of an opposing position. This is especially true when an appeals court reverses and remands.
Now, to be fair, you might be able to tell most of this from the Herald's actual article, but the headline is misleading at best.
For more on the ruling, Eugene Volokh published a redacted version of the opinion here. In this case, the trial court said this man had a right to immediate, unfettered access to an attorney. The appeals court reversed and remanded. In doing so the appeals court instructed the trial court to consider facts and arguments that it had not considered before. The court did not actually find that the decision of the trial court was in error. Instead, they found that the method the trial court used to reach the decision was incorrect. There is absolutely nothing in the decision that would preclude the district court judge from reaching the exact same ruling he did before. It just means he that if he does so, he has to do it after following all the instructions of the appellant court. This ruling was about the procedure followed in the lower court, not the substance of the court's decision. Canadian diplomats are really starting to hack me off. Especially UN ambassador Paul Heinbecker. He's upset about the compromise giving US troops immunity from the ICC for one year.
Okay, so let me get this straight. The UN modifying a treaty its not a party to: Bad. A treaty which attempts to enforce its terms over citizens of all nations in the world, whether their county is a party to the treaty or not: Good.
This is stupid. If the Rome statute hadn't been written so broadly as to give the ICC potential jurisdiction over the citizens of non-signatories, this entire circus in the UN could have been avoided completely.
Friend of dictators. Enemy of common sense. Louis Farrakhan continues his tour of countries with iron-fisted rulers. Now he has moved on to Zimbabwe where he endorsed the seizure of farmland from whites.
Stealing people's land is okay because we're stealing it from whites to rectify injustice of the past. Sound familiar? Meanwhile, people are starving to death. Might that have somthing to do with the fact that they took the farmland away fromt the farmers? Well this is encouraging. A new report shows that China has drastically improved its military capicity and is continuing to do so.
Realisitcally, I think the only real reason China has not invaded Taiwan is that they do not have the naval capacity to succeed in an amphibious assault. I have very little doubt that they would invade Taiwan if they had the ability to do so.
What really confuses me is the Russians. They keep selling China hardware. Russia has resources the Chinese would like to have. I fear that one day the Russians will see all that hardware pointed back at them. More on Spain. All in one article. First off, Spain and Morocco are both taking a hard line on possession of a small, uninhabited island. (I think this article goes overboard on this issue. Calling twelve soldiers landing on an uninhabited island an invasion is a little over the top.) It seems incredible that a war might start over something so insignificant, but these things do happen. However, if this story is remotely accurate about the capabilities of the two nations' navies, it wouldn't be much of a battle. Morocco is severely outgunned.
And also on the Spain front, a large number of Parliament members have freaked out of Jack Straw's proposal of joint sovereingty (Joint sovereignty? Has this man read a dictionary?) with Spain over Gibraltar. I had a feeling this wouldn't go over well. And if you weren't scared about the ICC before, I suggest you read den Beste's comments on proposed changes in British criminal law. What a relief. Reuters -| Hizbollah leader says group not linked to Al Qaeda
And I was worried. Well, I certainly feel better now. Yesterday, Steve den Beste wrote a long piece on the difficulties of removing Arafat. He seems to think that Arafat is on his way out, but that it will take considerable time for his people to actually convince him to step down.
He also noted that it was still possible for Arafat to hang on to power. In his view, the most dangerous possibility would be for Colin Powell to wimp out and start talking to him again. Fortunately that does not appear to be a problem. Arafat sent Powell a letter telling him all the changes he was going to make if Powell would just pressure Israel to back off. Powell has said he won't answer the letter and that the US position to wait until the Palestinians choose new leaders is unchanged. (He got one right.) I am totally lost here. Rod Dreher writes this column about "granola conservatives." Basically the premise is that just be because your conservative doesn't mean you have to reject cultural trends primarily accepted by liberals. Personally, I thought this point was self-evident. I've simply never met people who hold the position he's arguing against. I also found it to be redudnant; he just kept making the same point over and over again.
What I really don't understand though is the effect it's having on people. In The Corner (click here and keep going up) they debated this point all day. I realize that the article was published by NRO and so is The Corner, but most NRO articles just rate two or three passing comments or clarifications. Meanwhile Joshua Claybourn acts as if this is one of the most profound things ever written. I just noticed Mark Byron getting in on the act as well, albeit he's not as enthusiastic.
I don't get it. What makes this so profound? I really don't know people who act as if cultural values are politically tied to certain political ideologies. About all I can say is that I have noticed that these things tend to converge in predictable fashions. I've always assumed that these were correlations that had nothing to do causation.
Further, some people are treating it as some sort of declaration of independence for conservatives who like fresh vegetables and clean water. For instance, Claybourn says:
The point is that I don't conform to some cookie-cutter stereotype of a conservative. I can favor smaller government, a stronger military, and be pro-life without it preventing me from hiking in the woods and enjoying nature. I can vote for Bush and eat organic food too. Huh? I really don't understand this. Is there someone telling you that conservatism is antithetical to nature Josh? If so, is it really other conservatives who are doing it?. To me, the fact that some conservatives suddenly feel liberated when told its okay to be conservative and like organic foods is an indication that they've been listening to (and believing) liberal propaganda. Its the liberals, not the conservatives, that say conservatives oppose clean water.
This has turned into a bit of a rant. That's not what I intended, but I really am confused. I don't understand what is so profound about this article. Nor I have I met the conservatives who've been propagating the view Dreher is reacting against. Maybe its just the part of the country I live in, but I don't know people like the ones he's arguing against. It just doesn't seem to be a big deal. Friday, July 12, 2002
This story from Voice of America is a little odd. Spain Sends Gunboats in Island Dispute with Morocco Now normally a story like this would probably pass under my radar screen. This probably would too if it hadn't been for Spain's use of the word's "unfriendly act." The world of diplomacy is a place where understatement rules the day. In diplo-speak, "unfriendly act" is almost the equivalent of "draw." (Japan begin batting around this phrase two months before attacking Pearl Harbor.)
Now I don't know anything about this dispute between Morocco and Spain, but they're using fighting words here. It just seems bizarre to me that to countries would be willing to fight over this insignificant island. I also find it strange that Morocco would be willing to risk it. I mean we are talking an island nation here. Spain would certainly appear to have the upper hand.
I think its pretty clear that this was not intended to be enlightening commentary on the situation. Its really just my reflection on the power of those two little words: Unfriendly Act.
Correction. I don't know why I called Morocco an "island nation." They are small, but definitely continental.
Read this post by Christopher Johnson. Follow the link. Seriously consider doing as he Johnson says. Here is a blog about a guy's ongoing problems with Dell's customer service. I find that curious. I've had several experiences with Dell's support myself and have always been amazed at how absolutely incredible the service was. Red Letter Edition
I find it very interesting that Jesus did not say if you fast He said when you fast. Jesus apparently took it for granted that his followers would fast. He did not, however, lay down any rules about when to fast or why we should fast. He only covered how. Presumably that means that his listeners already had those angles covered.
His actual comments are interesting, and line up with his teachings on doing good and on praying. Don't brag about it. Don't do it for notice. If possible, don't let anyone even know your doing it. The reason is that these are activities designed to improve your relationship with God. If you are doing them for recognition it poisons the higher motive of communing with God.
As I noted above, Jesus obviously expected his followers to fast. However, this is not a subject most Christians talk about much. I suspect its not something we do much of. I know that I rarely fast. I certainly don't do it often enough for it to be considered an essential part of my life. I'm going to try to work on that and I would suggest others do the same.
One of the things I have discovered about fasting is that its best to plan it for a day that you don't plan on engaging in other activites. It should be a day that you give over to God pretty much entirely. Its hard, at least for me, to have a meaningful fast on a day that I'm working. Likewise, a busy day with lots of running around will detract from the purpose.
Fasting is not about taking on some elements of an ascetic life-style for a day (or days). That is to say that the benefit of fasting does not come from denying yourself food. The real benefit comes from devoting that time to God. Consequently, your likely to get the most out of fasting if its done on a day that you have been able to set aside a considerable amount of the day to prayer and to studying scriptures. I've also heard another suggestion that might prove helpful: Everytime you feel hungry, stop and pray.
Also, don't forget to keep Jesus's own advice on how to fast in mind. Lest we forget, the United States isn't the only nation upset about their troops being subjected to proceedings under a treaty they are not a party to. India opposes ICC jurisdiction over its peacekeeping troops as well. However, I don't remember anyone calling them with being isolationists, unilateral, or cowboys. (By the way, the people batting these terms around say them as if they are inherently wrong. There is nothing inherently wrong about being isolationists, unilateralists, and most importantly, cowboys.) I'm beginning to wonder if the InstaPundit got a special price from Sekimori in exchange for plugging them at least 3 times a week. I keep see people complaining about Blogger's archive feature not working correctly. Everytime I see that, I go test some of my archive links. I don't seem to be having any trouble at all. I've been wondering, if someone had absolutely no knowledge of Nazi Germany and was trying to learn about them, but the only thing they had to go by were modern day comparisons to Nazi's, what might they conclude constituted one of the greatest evils of our time. Apparently the Nazis were evil because they:
My admittedly non-scientific and pretty random experiment turned up, as you see, comparisons that range from the basically true, the absurd, to actually pretty funny. I of course found lots of sites accusing Israel of horrible atrocities or of having a Nazi government. Curiously, the atrocity comparisons I found weren't actually comparisons. They would accuse Israel of Nazi-like acts, but didn't mention a specific event. You can't analyze whether an event is Nazi-like unless your actually told what the event is so you can make an independent comparison. If you are wondering what the point of this is, there isn't one. Just something I was curious about. Lectures from the Peanut Gallery France urges swift action on Middle East - The Times of India
Well, if its so important, why don't you do something about it? Why is it always our job to rush in and fix the problem while the EUnuchs sit back and tell us what a bad job we're doing. I say the next time there's a major regional crisis founded in hundreds (if not thousands) of years of hatred that we send the French to fix it while the US State Department lectures them on what a bad job they're doing. Victor Davis Hanson says that the EUrocrats should clean up their own backyard before lecturing the US about the ICC. Kevin Holtsberry has added to his comments on Christianity's universal appeal. I think I understand what he's saying better now.
On this subject, I feel the need to reference CS Lewis. Lewis would laugh when people would try to argue that there was nothing special about Christianity by pointing out that Jesus didn't bring any new moral ideas into the world. That is, people would argue (and still do) that while Christ's teachings on many topics were more refined than those who preceded him, they weren't entirely new.
Lewis's response was that this didn't bother him at all. The reason for that was that morality is not Christian, it is universal. Christ did not come to teach people a new morality, but to redeem them from their failure to live up to the one they already had. As Lewis pointed out, it would have been absurd for Christ to come offering people forgiveness for breaking a law they didn't know existed. Instead, people already know, for the most part, what is right and what is wrong. From culture to culture some moral truths may be temporarily concealed, but in general morality is universal because it is written on our hearts.
Not only do people mostly know what is right, but they also have guilt when they do wrong. They have a sense of sin. Even if they don't call it that, they recognize that they are in the wrong. Because of that sense of sin, the redemptive message does have universal appeal because the need for redemption is universal.
This is also why the more extreme forms of post-modernism are so dangerous. When people are told that there is no such thing as universal truth, the implication is that there is no sin. People who have ben taught that there is no universal reality will fail to properly recognize their "sin sense" and thus not recognize the need for redemption. The most dangerous (or at least one of the most dangerous) lie Satan can tell you is that there is no sin. Headline Comparison Its amazing how the headline can alter how you read a story. Which one of these doesn't belong? Guardian- Arafat Says He Won't Step Aside
Washington Post-Arafat Says He Won't Step Aside
Baltimore Sun-Arafat vows he won't step aside
USATODAY - Arafat noncomittal about candidacy
Not trying to probe anything deep here. Its just interesting. Britain is considering sharing Gibraltar with Spain. I imagine Margaret Thatcher is going nuts over this.
A couple of years ago I heard her speak. That is an experience everyone should have. She was dynamic and interesting. Not too many people can get a standing ovation out of comments on the connection between national currency and national sovereignty.
Anyway, during the question and answer session, one of the questions they gave her was, "Will Great Britain return Gibraltar to Spain?" She took the card it was written on and studied it carefully. Then she repeated the question. The look on her face made gave the impression that this was most idiotic thing she'd ever heard. She looked up from the card and proclaimed, "Certainly not! If you recall, Gibraltar was very important in the last war. Spain was not!"
That's one of the most priceless things I've ever heard. Joshua Claybourn thinks the InstaPundit is losing his powers. (Kryptonite maybe?) I don't know. Joshua notes Glenn's tardiness on the story that girl involved in the Pledge case isn't an atheist. (And Glenn missed the part about her being in legal custody of her mother entirely as far as I can tell.) It is true that the InstaPundit came in late on that one, posting on it only last night. I've also got to admit that when I saw his post, I was surprised by the lateness. However, as Josh notes, Glenn was on vacation at the time and made a point of telling everyone he was going to studiously avoid the media while gone.
The other problem with his theoy is that while Josh says this isn't an isolated incident, he doesn't list other examples and I can't think of any. I think Josh's analysis is premature.
Update-Claybourn has added another example. He notes that this post about claims of a succesful cloning pregnancy seems tardy. And he'd be right, if Glenn hadn't first noted the story in April. Paul Cella comments on my post on God's sovereignty and throws in some Chesterton. (Ha. He called my post eloquent! Got him fooled.) Thursday, July 11, 2002
Red Letter Edition
There are many interesting things about this passage. Unfortunately, the dizziness strikes again and I'm going to have to head for the couch and lay down. You'll just have to work this one out on your own. Congressman Roy Blunt wants to pass legislation which would impose sanctions on Arafat and the PLO tied to Arafat's failure to keep promises. Naturally, the State Department is having a cow. 'No one can bypass the Palestinian people' Yasser Arafat remained defiant Thursday, saying no one can set aside the Palestinian people's choice of him as leader and insisting that U.S. President George Bush never mentioned his name when he called for a change in Palestinian leadership.
Well maybe nobody can bypass them, but someone can try to make sure they never get a chance to change their minds. The Palestinian Authority: One man, one vote, one time. Ted Williams's oldest daughter is asking John Glenn and President Bush to help her fight her brother for her father's body. She claims her father wanted to be cremated, but her half-brother wants to freeze him. (Reportedly so he can be cloned later.) I sympathize with her problem, but I fail to see what business this is of the Federal government. Furthermore, she appeals to Glenn as a friend of her father to help make her father's wishes known. But if she want his help in a private way, why did she ask for it through the media? Kevin Holtsberry postulates that Christianity is the universal religion. That is to say that is the religion that translates best across cultures because it doesn't have specific cultural requirements of its own.
He may be right and he certainly makes some good points. However, this strikes me as an essentially utilitarian argument. I say that because he seems to be arguing that if someone wants a religion and they don't want to give up their own culture, they should choose Christianity. As I say, the argument that Christianity requires less cultural change may be correct, but I'm not sure I understand the point of the argument unless it is to convince people that Christianity is less burdensome than other religions so its the one they ought to pick.
I could never make that argument to anyone. People should choose Christianity because it is true. Nothing else matters. If it is true, they should choose it no matter how burdensome. If it is not true, they should reject it no matter how easy it is because it won't do them any good.
On another note, it could actually be dangerous to emphasize this point. Jesus commanded the apostles not just to convert people, but to teach them to follow his commands. Some cultures embody ideas antithetical to the teachings of Christ. By emphasizing to people in these cultures the universality of Christianity in Kevin's context, we might give these people the idea that they do not need to change these practices. In that circumstance we would have weakened the message of repentance and implicitly endorsed their sin. Glen Reynolds points out that John Weidner is looking for ideas on how bloggers can help the dissidents in Iran. Check out his post. It sounds like a good idea, but so far there's no plan. If somebody thinks of somthing please note that Weidner is requesting suggestions. While your at it, let me hear them too. In his post today, about Religion and Science (which was based on a question I had asked of him), David Heddle talks about possible conflicts between Christianity and science. I want to focus on just one part.
Dr. Heddle and I have batted things back and forth on the issue of God's sovereignty before. I honestly don't see as much of a problem here as he does, although I think I understand where he's coming from. Our different perspectives on this issue probably have a great deal to do with our positions on Calvinistic Pre-destination. He seems to view the sovereignty of God as a more direct concept than I do.
Anyway, his point seems to be that Quantum Mechanics tells us that there is no difference between the particle that decays and the one that doesn't. The only thing separating them is pure chance. If that is true, then how can that be reconciled with the Christian idea that God is in ultimate control of everything?
I've been told that this was Einstein's major objection to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. (Not that Einstein was a Christian, but he did have some very definite ideas about God.) Einstein was quoted as saying, "God doesn't play dice." (To which Heisenberg is reported to have replied, "Prove it Albert. Prove it.")
As I see it, there are actually several possibilities that reconcile apparent chance happenings in the universe.
Philosophically, I don't have a problem with any of these 5 possibilities. Practically, I don't think number 1 works. I made up number 3 on the spot. I find it interesting, but I'm not sure I even understand the implications. I think 5, while possible, gives way too little respect to modern science. 2 and 4 are both plausible to me and I have no way of choosing between the two.
I've been deliberately vague about the science because I am admittedly weak there and only the generalities are important to the arguments anyway. The history is entirely from memory and I could have some of my facts screwed up. In whole, I think these arguments are all reasonable, though not perfect. Anyway, for better or worse, there it is. Thinking Out Loud has ranked the Christian blogoshpere. More specificially, he's had a program search the front pages of every site on Martin Roth's Christian blog list and tally how many links each page on the list has to other pages on the list. Sites were ranked based on how many others linked to that site. Wednesday, July 10, 2002
‘They call me a freak - and it’s all just because I am black’ So opined Michael Jackson. Hey Mikey, if you didn't tell them, they wouldn't know you were black. (Just take a look at the photo for this story.) I also liked this one:
"I know my race. I just look in the mirror. I know I’m black," he said, to a chorus of cheers from his supporters summoned to the meeting via the internet. "We are all brothers and sisters - no matter what colour we are."
Uh, Mikey, if they're all your brothers and sisters, regardless of color, why did you have to start out making sure that they know that you know what color you are.
In an article telling why people ought to watch Donahue, I found this gem.
The unconventional wisdom of Michael Moore. I wonder what Tim Blair would say?
Well, maybe Amnesty International isn't entirely useless.
Imagine that. Intentionally killing civilians is murder. Who'd of thunk it?
Update - Glen Reynolds thinks this is another sign that the suicide bombing campaign has become a failure.
Another update-LGF is on this too. Check out the comments. The peanut gallery isn't impressed. Truth be told, neither am I. The excerpts I've read still paint an awful wide brush that leaves them open to snipe at Israel and even the US in the future. I was just shocked that they knew it was murder, even if the Palestinians did it. Are you scared of terrorist, but aren't sure you know how to spot one? Do you experience momentary bouts of panic when an Egyptian immigrant shoots up an airport? Are you confused about whether former Vice-Presidents of the United States are potential highjackers? Well, never fear, help is here. Click here to learn how to spot a terrorist. Julia Gorin has a priceless article on the event in LA that may or may not have been terror. Just like the documents linking Yassir Arafat to weapons shipments from Iran and payments to martyr families were forgeries--even though all such activities are well justified-so is Hadayet innocent of the charges against him. Not only did he not do it, but he is justified in having done it. Indeed, if anyone this week is justified in having done what he didn't do, it's Hesham Mohamed Hadayet. Well, at least he's got guts. Here's a blurb from Ralph Nader's trip to Cuba.
Yes, ladies and gentleman, in Ralph Nader's world, George Bush and Fidel Castro are equally responsible for the subjugation of the Cuban people. On Tuesday, Mr. Nader told reporters in Havana the United States should lift its trade embargo against Cuba because the people should be free to decide their own future without what he called "outside intervention." I used to know where I stood on the Cuban embargo, but lately I've been wavering. However, the idea that the embargo limits the freedom of the Cuban people is absurd. It is true that the embargo is, in part, an attempt to influence the people of Cuba to make choices we would have them to make. That is called exerting influence. Attempting to influence people to make choices you would have them make in no way limits those people's right to self-determination. Well, it sounded like a good idea. Looked pretty good for a little while. However, after the initial burst of activity, things seemed to have almost ground to a halt at the Theology Department. I wonder if the idea is really just basically unworkable, or does the faculty just have to many irons in the fire? Red Letter Edition
I think its important to note that Jesus said, "this is how you should pray," not, "this is what you should say." That is to say, this prayer was a model of how to pray. Jesus was not presenting a ready made prayer to be used in all occasions.
I'm always amazed at some of the different circumstances I've seen people pray this prayer. Even in very specialized circumstances, people will whip this prayer out. I could be wrong, but it seems to me that this is usually done by people who do not pray often, and therefore don't really know how to pray.
This is not to say that no one should ever pray this exact prayer. I have, in fact, seen people make very good arguments for the usefulness of ready made prayers, especially this one. However, you would be better served by analyzing this prayer, breaking it into its component parts, and learning how to pray for those things in your own words. Imitating the idea will benefit you more, in the long run, then imitating the words. St. Paul decides to tie one on. (Sorry, I couldn't help myself.) Update-Now that I think about it, that joke was even worse than I thought. David Heddle wrote a new applet and tested it on my site. The idea is to see how many sites on Martin Roth's blog list link to a specific site. As it happens, he didn't turn up any links from pages I wasn't already aware of. That's just a coincidence I think. As it happens, every site listed is one I either frequent or which someone has followed the link. The link-followers have all popped up on my site tracker. Anyway, its an interesting idea
On the other hand, I haven't noticed any posts questioning my breeding or intellect. I'm not sure if that's good or bad. Barrabas points out this story. Apparently John McCain will not be running for re-election. The reason may have somthing to do with the reportedly low (less than $5,000) balance of cash in his campaign. Just noticed this long and interesting blog by Mark Butterworth about not being able to get up the energy to blog about anything. Good grief, when he's really engergetic I don't know how he stops from blogging 24/7. Good read. Tuesday, July 09, 2002
Judicial Watch is suing Haliburton and Dick Cheney regarding Haliburton's accounting practices. Some people were convinced that Judicial Watch was just an excuse to attack Clinton, but yes they have been known to go after others. I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, there is no evidence that anything wrong actually happened here. Something could come out, but at this point all I've seen is that Haliburton changed its accounting practices in relation to construction contracts opting for a more aggressive approach. Construction accounting is notoriously complicated and I suspect lots of people would be truly shocked to find out how many estimates (i.e. guesses, both educated and not-so-educated) this type of accounting requires. The point being that whole process can be very imprecise. If estimates turn out to be wrong, it could easily appear, to those who don't understand, that something fishy was going on when in reality someone just guessed wrong. On the other hand, the auditor was (I'm sure your shocked to learn) Andersen. This is a company that is rapidly appearing to be both careless (WorldCom) and corrupt (Enron). We've reached the point, sadly, where everyone whose accounting is remotely difficult to understand and was audited by Andersen becomes suspect. The sad thing is that given the mounting evidence of misconduct on Andersen's part, people are perfectly justified in their suspicions.
On another note, I have no idea if Haliburton did anything improper. I have no idea if Cheney did anything improper. (I doubt it, but have no evidence.) I do know that win, lose, or draw the Democrats will yell and scream about how this proves Bush and Cheney are just a couple of corrupt businessmen, evidence or know. As they always say, when a Republican is in the White House, "The lack of evidence doesn't matter. Its the seriousness of the charge that's important. Kevin Holtsberry has obviously forgotten about Jocelyn Elders. (Janet Reno is an amateur by comparison) Roy Jacobsen wonders what historical documents would run afoul of the 9th Circuit's recent Pledge logic. Here are a few;
Favorite Blog name of the Week: Defenestration Corner. And in case you were wondering: Defenestration: An act of throwing someone or something out of a window (from dictionary.com) When I saw the name I knew I'd seen the word somewhere before, but couldn't place it. When I looked it up, I thought, "Oh yeah! Braveheart!" For those of you that are interested, I'm still having some pretty bad equilibrium problems and the doctors still don't have it figured out. On the bright side, I've felt better the last couple of days. On the not so bright side, I had to back out of teaching a summer school course in taxation. Physically, I just wasn't up to lecturing two hours a day. Anyway, that's what I know. More good news for the accounting profession. I hope the firms really are in the right here, but I'm skeptical. I'm getting pretty hacked off at the large firms lately. There was a time not that long ago when accountants were among the most respected profesionals in the country. Lately the big boys have been screwing up big time and dragging us all through the mud. Its really depressing. If this is what it sounds like, we're talking a serious sickness:
You know it won't take long for people to make political hay out of this. Two for the price of one. They get to rail against corporal punishment and lash out and conservative Christians as extremist. This article seems to be running that angle down pretty hard. We're told that about how corporal punishment is taught as part of this church's doctrine. Look, I don't know of anyone who seriously advocates whipping a kid for an hour as a legitimate form of punishment. That won't keep someone of trying to make Christians look bad though. Once again we're treated to a rousing game of, "No, our leader is not dead. He is alive and robust and planning to kill you all." It may be true, of course. But the longer we go without seeing another Osama's Funniest Home Videos, the more likely it seems that he's dead. It really has been a while since we've seen him. We are talking about an egomaniac. How long can a guy like that go without making a specatle of himself? The answer is not long. So, Where In The Wolrd is Osama bin Laden? Stephen Hayes takes on nuclear waste scare tactics. Interestingly, one Democratic candidate for the Senate here in Oklahoma is running radio ads promising to cancel the Yucca Mountain plan. His ads are scare tactic stuff: More than 250,000 Oklahomans live within 1 mile of the intended transport route he says. Of course he doesn't actually explain why this should bother anyone. He's just betting that the words "nuclear waste" will scare everyone to death. He also doesn't explain how he's going to do anything as it looks like the Senate will vote the issue up or down before the primaries, much less before he'd ever take office. Ranan Lurie thinks the real reason Bush has been holding off on Iraq is that we're going to have to move on from there directly to Iran. He makes a convincing case that this should be so. I'm just no certain that it is so. Red Letter Edition
Here Jesus gives us another example of doing the right thing for the wrong reason. Why are we to pray? Is it so others can see how pious or thoughtful we are? Apparently not. Hence the charges of hypocrisy against to do so. Is Jesus forbidding public prayer? No. Jesus himself prayed publicly. However, the only examples of public prayer by Jesus that I can find are those of thanksgiving and those where he was instructing others on prayer. These types of prayers served the purpose of glorifying the father. When Jesus had need of prayer that involved petition or other types of communication with the Father, he apparently always went off by himself to pray.
I could be wrong here, but it seems to me that the message here is public prayer to glorify the Father is good, otherwise it is dangerous. I don't think we are forbidden to engage in petitionary prayer in public. I do think such prayers often tend towards vanity. I have sat through many public prayers that were at least 10 minutes in length. It is said of espionage that there are old spies, and there are bold spies, but that there are no old, bold spies. When it comes to public prayer that there are good prayers and there are long prayers, but that there are no good, long prayers. I'm not saying it is impossible. I've just never seen it done. Long public prayers, in my experience usually are only actually talking to God for the 1st minute or 2. After that they generally become short (or not so short) sermons to the listener in prayerful language.
Prayers are how we are to communicate with God. In public prayer, the idea is that everyone is participating in a common message being offered up to the Father. This ceases to be the case when the speaker begins to speak to the listeners rather than to God.
Also, long prayers often, but by no means always, begin to take on a sense of smugness on the part of the speaker. This may just be my own cynicism, but the longer someone prays in public, the more I suspect that they are doing so primarily to demonstrate their ability to give a long public prayer.
Practically, long public prayers tend to be of limited usefulness. As I stated above, the idea of a public prayer is that we are all to be sending up the same message to God. For better or worse, we generally have short attention spans. The longer a prayer goes on, the less likely it is that the listeners will actually be able to actively participate in the prayer. They will likely become less active mentally as the prayer progresses until they reach the point that the prayer is simply something that is happening in their vicinity rather than something they are participating in. At this point, even if the speakers's prayer really was the most pious prayer ever spoken, it will have become a useless exercise for everyone but him.
I've spent more time on this than I had planned and went far beyond the text. I should be clear here. I think that the points I made about long public prayers are very valid, but I am under no pretext that this is what Jesus was saying. What he did say is that public prayer engaged in for the wrong reasons is very bad and he strongly implied that it dishonors God. So, when you pray, make sure you avoid these dangers. Britain may be caving on the issue of immunity for US peacekeeping troops and the EUnuchs are going nuts. Note to the Atlanta Journal and Constitution: The correct term is terrorist, not "militant." (Or if you prefer murdering thug, that would be fine too.) Oh look here, a puff piece on Cuban biotech. Why they even thanked the US for accusing them of manufacturing WMDs. How nice could they be? Monday, July 08, 2002
Hey, not even the State Department thought the July 4th party held by Castro was funny. They actually hinted his actions might be hypocritcal. Now if they could just make a similar discovery about someone else. I'm sure this will have no negative impact on one of the mysteries of our time: Germans love David Hasselhoff. (That Google search actually turns up 10 pages.) Well here we have an American who says Osama is his hero. I've never understood people who clearly think America is unspeakably evil, yet continue to live here. They really are free to leave, so why do they stay? WolrldCom blames Andersen for its accounting "irregularities" but admits they never informed Andersen of the accounting practices in question. I'm about to do a little Andersen defense. (I can't believe it.)
Based on WorldCom's admission that the accounting issues were not discussed, it is obvious to me that this case is different than the Enron case. There is strong evidence in that case that there was actual collusion between Andersen and Enron. That is not the case here. Instead, they are charged with failing to detect the clients fraud. But here is the dirty secret: Audits are not designed to detect fraud that is the result of management collusion. In fact, audits are not designed to detect fraud at all. Audits are designed to "to obtain reasonable assurance that the financial statements are free of material misstatement." Toward that end, we have designed procedures to look for large errors. And that is primarily what we are looking for: errors. The primary purpose of an audit is to find large problems with accounting systems and treatments of transactions that are not consistent with Generally Accepted Accounting Practices. If the fraud is large enough, it should be detected, but that is not the purpose of an an audit.
Auditors can detect fraud by individuals because they can examine the internal controls of a company. However no level of internal control can prevent fraud that is the result of management collusion. This is because senior management has the ability to simply override all controls. If this happens, it can be very difficult to find the fraud. Because of this, the only sure fire defense against financial fraud by a corporation is honest management. Accountants can only assert that they did not find material errors. It is management that asserts to the auditor in a representation letter that the statements are actually free of material errors. There really isn't an alternative to this system that I can see. If management is untrustworthy, no amount of auditing will be able to compensate.
Now, that being said, there is really no excuse for Andersen failing to find the kind of money we're talking about. However, their culpability here appears to come from negligence, not collusion. This is a huge difference. More to the point, the accuracy of accounting records is the primary responsibility of management and they affirm that responsibility every year in the representation letter. For WorldCom to have engaged in highly questionable activities, withheld that information from their auditors while asserting that they had given those same auditors full disclosure, and then turn around and claim that the auditors bear primary responsibility for the misstatements is incredibly audacious. In our system of auditing, the accountants can never bear more responsibility for misstatements than management because management is required to claim primary responsibility when they sign the representation letter. Why doesn't the Green Party get representation in Canadian government? Is it because they campaign on stupid and unpopular ideas? No. Its because the Canadian political system unfairly discriminates in favor of people with popular ideas. How stupid of me. Matthew 6:1-4 ISV Here Jesus gives a strong rebuke about doing the right for the wrong reason. Apparently many of the religious leaders in his day literally blew a trumpet in the temple or synagogues to draw attention to the offering they were about to make. Jesus warns that if you are doing good to be noticed, that is all the reward you will receive. If you do good because it is the right thing to do, the Father will take care of you. This must have been hard for people to swallow. (Its still hard to swallow.) The idea that it is not enough to do good things grates against our sensibilities. I've got to disagree with Joshua Claybourn a little. In reference to demands that Clinton be investigated for war crimes in the Balkans, he said:
While this story is a perfect example of why we should stay clear of the ICC, this particular instance would have happened regardless of whether the ICC had come into being or not. This is because the court in question here is not the ICC, but an ad hoc international tribunal. However, there is no reason to believe that the ICC will behave any better.
Update-Claybourn has corrected his post to indicate that it is actually the ICTY that is considering indicting Clinton. He goes on to point out that his logic is still sound because huge chunks of the ICC are based on the ICTY. I'll readily admit this. As I noted before, his premise about this incident being a good warning about the ICC is sound, it was only the specific application that I questioned.
By the way, am I the only one that thinks of frozen yogurt when reading the acronym ICTY. Actually, I might feel better if TCBY were in charge of trying war crimes. This story is kind of weird. I don't know what to make of most of this story, but I did want to mention this:
For the sake of argument, let us assume that Arafat really was properly elected by the Palestinian people and let us pass over the fact that Arafat's term was supposed to expire in 1999. Does the fact that someone was democratically elected by his own people mean that the rest of the world must continue to negotiate with this man indefinitely, no matter what?
For years Yasser Arafat has sponsored terrorism. He has condemned mass murders in English while extolling their virtues in Arabic. He has repeatedly failed to honor commitments. His own supporters frequently argue that he is incapable of stopping the terrorists. There comes a point when sane people must acknowledge that someone is either so corrupt or so incompetent that there is no point in continuing negotiations. When you reach that point, the only sensible thing to do is to inform the people who put him in power that he is impossible to negotiate with. If they insist on keeping him in power, the only logical conclusion is that his people do not want peace.
If we assume that the Palestinian people were to suddenly find themselves in a free an open society tomorrow, they would have every right to vote Arafat back into power. But they would also have to bear the consequences of that act. Consider this:
These points should be fairly obvious, but when Bush or others actually point these things out, people act as if they have somehow committed the worst sin in the world. It's looking more and more like Arafat's days may be numbered. Of course, this could all be wishful thinking. David Heddle has an interesting post on Sola Scriptura. I agreed with pretty much everything he said, but I do have a question. Can Dr. Heddle defend biblically any type of baptism besides that of believers by immersion? I have just reviewed all the scriptures on baptism and I cannot find any support for baptizing non-believers, ie infants. However, I see quite a bit that supports baptizing believers. In regards to immersion, I'm no Greek scholar, but from my studies it seems pretty clear that the word baptizos in the Greek only means immersion. I may post more on this later if I have time. Gary Peterson is looking for a new Bible. While I've certainly had my share to say about study Bibles in the past, its not as though I think they're evil or anything. What is a problem is when people start accepting study notes without examining them, or worse, reading the study notes instead of the scriptures the notes are supposed to comment on.
As far as translations go, the NASB is a good translation, but the language is a bit strange to the modern ear. Personally, I prefer the English Standard Version. I have found it to be the best balance between literal translation and readability. (You can read up on the translation philosophy and check out sample passages here.) There are still a few places where the language sounds out of place, (Unlike the NIV, the ESV does not cut out the word "behold" so much, for instance.) but overall its a fairly easy read and most of the places I've found differences from other translations, the ESV has proved to have the best translation (or approach). Anyway, there's my two cents Gary. Sunday, July 07, 2002
MarcV has some comments on Episcopalians blessing unwed heterosexual couples and homosexual couples in some sort of union. Marc asks some questions about whether this crosses the line of doctrinal differences which can be accepted. This is a "Christian Fellowship" issue. I'd like to add some comments here.
Marc asks,"Should I just bless him and move on, since Episcopalians are supposed to have a "salvation orthodoxy" similar to other mainline denominations?" I would say (in fact I have said) that what is important is whether what a church teaches about "salvation orthodoxy" lines up with the message of salvation taught by the apostles. If every "mainline denomination" in the world was found to be teaching a message of salvation in contradiction to the New Testament, then they would all be wrong and they should say so.
So, is this decision evidence of a move away from Biblical teachings on salvation? I answer in the affirmative. Repentance is a required element of salvation. Repentance as a prerequisite for the forgiveness of sins was taught explicitly by the apostle Peter. (Acts 2:28; Acts 3:19) This Episcopalian bishop may still endorse the doctrine of repentance, but his actions undermine the very point of repentance. In offering a "blessing" on homosexual couples and nonmarried heterosexual couples he is specifically endorsing activities the Bible defines as sinful. You cannot effectively preach repentance from sins and provide specific blessings to certain categories of sin.
If a church has undermined the Biblical doctrine of repentance, they cannot be said to be teaching a "salvation orthodoxy" that lines up with the teachings on salvation of the apostles. So, should we just "bless him and move on?" No. They are wrong and we should say so. We should not do so hatefully. But we must say so.
In answer to Marc's question about how marriage can be a financial hardship I would say this is probably government related. There are certain government scholarships that through quirks in calculations frequently end up paying higher amounts to singles than to married couples. Also, there are some government housing and food programs that seem to give preference to single women. Then there is the dreaded "marriage penalty." This isn't really a penalty of course. The marriage penalty is a quirk in the tax law that ends up causing some married couples who both work and make about the same amount of money to pay a higher income tax than they would if they were single. When you combine all those factors, it is certainly possible that some people would find it financially desirable to refrain from marriage.
However, I'm not aware of any Biblical teaching that says sin is not sin if your desperate. (Someone might try to make that argument out of Matthew Chapter 12, but I think its a non-starter.) In fact, Solomon said that if a man steals because he is hungry, men will understand, but that the thief must still be held responsible. If a couple cannot afford to get married, than they should not get married. They should also refrain from the activities God set up for married couples. Bishop Smalley might as well endorse stealing televisions for people who have a financial hardship. The moral justification is the same.
On a final note, I don't see what the financial hardship argument has to do with the related decision to bless homosexual couples. This article has some interesing points about "regime change" in the Arab world. I don't know that I agree with all of Mr. Ignatius's points, but he's certainly got something here:
This is an excellent point. I saw an article recently with the lead in "Give them Freedom." You cannot give people freedom. It is not possible. They have to want it. Once they want it sufficiently, they will be willing to fight, sacrifice, and maybe die for it. Once they want it that bad, then we can help them fight for it. Until then, it would be a waste of time.
The thing is that our future security is largely dependent on our ability to change these nations into free states. That means we need to be actively trying to encourage the love of freedom in the Arab world. Toward that end, Ignatius's suggestions could be useful.
Yasser Arafat has signed the "Basic Law" which is supposed to act as a constitution. This story indicates that the Basic Law outlines the separation of powers and the defines what rights the people have. I hope this is incorrect because if it is true, the Basic Law is fundamentally flawed if it is supposed to work in a free society. In a free society, the people have all the rights and they define which of those rights they are willing to surrender. It is a fundamental difference in outlook to say that the government has the rights and will define which ones are allowed to the people. Not that it matters. The chances that Yasser will actually follow honor the Basic Law are slim. In the interest of saving the planet, Tim Blari calls on the publishers of the Guardian to put their money where their mouth is and close the newspaper. Saturday, July 06, 2002
William Holzer (Sorry, no permalinks.Bottom post on July 5th) has an interesting point about the LAX shooting: The one thing to keep in mind with the events of yesterday, is that the people who think Bush let the 9--11 attacks happen, so that he could have a war, are completely wrong. If Bush was a warmonger, he'd be all over news calling the shooting "terrorism," but an apparent act of terrorism isn't even being called that by the Bush administration. Orrin Judd asks, "Is there some secret codicil to the Bill of Rights that's accessible only to liberal activists, jurists, and columnists?" Yes, Orrin, there is. Obviously I've never seen it, but from listening to them talk, it aparrently reads something like, "Anything you find frigthening, terrifying, unpleasant, or gives you 'the Creeps' is hereby delared in violation to the Bill of Rights." David Heddle has a clever post on something from nothing. The argument that the net energy of the universe is zero kind of reminds me of Douglas Adams argument that the average population of the universe was zero.(But I'm kinda funny that way.) No. No. No! This is not how you handle disputes with the government. In my more depressing moments I wonder if much of the world will ever be ready for self-rule. Less than two months after new government installed, a vice-president is assasinated. 10 of his guards are now under arrest. You don't say Fox News is reporting: The FBI said Friday that the Egyptian immigrant who fatally shot two people at the Los Angeles airport went there with the intent to kill. Let's see, 2 guns and one knife being carried by an Egyptian who reportedly hated the US and Israel shows up at an El Al (Israeli) ticket booth in LA on the 4th of July. Whatever would give the impression that he planned on killing people? I'm sure glad the FBI is here to tell us these things. I was reading this story about 3 boys drowning. It is a sad story, but the last lines made my blood boil. A woman who answered the phone at the Metelus home tonight declined to comment. I'm particularly sensitive to this sense my sister died. Here we have three dead kids and the parents and the neighbor who found the bodies have to put up with being hounded by the press. I'm always amazed at these peoples' complete lack of sensitivity. When my sister died, one of the worst things about the first few days was having to deal with the reporters who swooped into our little town looking for a story. Reporters drove for hours just to poke their noses into our suffering. (I'm not exaggerating either. There was statewide coverage for at least a day.) The only good part was that we were living in a small close-knit community. In two or three days of poking around I don't think they got a single quote. Businesses told their employees to shut up. People told them to get lost. The police chief refused to file any formal reports (which would have been public record) until the reporters got tired and got home. Otherwise the whole thing could have drawn out much longer. I have no idea whether our experience was typical or not, but trust me, when a family member dies suddenly, the last thing you need is reporters calling you up to ask stupid questions. Friday, July 05, 2002
I'm not a tennis fan, but I had a thought. All these complaints I've seen today that the Williams sisters have a fix in when they face each other in championship matches seems very strange. Its almost as if people are trying to make excuses for the fact that most of the time, either sister can wipe the floor with everybody else. That it is even possible for accusations like this to come up says a great deal about the talent of both sisters. Charles Austin pretty well sums up my thoughts on the recent clamor for multi-nationalism. (EU style.) If you really want a good set of laws and fundamental values to which all nations should adhere, the US will be happy to share ours. Jane Galt asked an interesting question about the UN. The comments section has erupted in a robust discussion of Federalism, Democracy, the ICC and international law.l I wouldn't want to be "pj" though. Red Letter Edition If anyone is still not convinced that Jesus was not teaching his followers to pick fights, then you've got to deal with these verses. Matthew 5:43-48 HCSB "You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I tell you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. For He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward will you have? Don't even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing out of the ordinary? Don't even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Again, I really don't know how good a justification for war can be made from the New Testament, but these verses and the ones immediately preceding them take a lot of twisting to get them to read, "Fight! Fight!"
Over for al Qaeda? Bill Quick thinks that the fact that al Qaeda failed to come up with an impressive display of their power yesterday means that they are efffectively dead in the water. Blogger has been down most of the day. The free version is still down, but they got the pay version (I'm shocked) working first. Anyway, that convinced me to go ahead and buy BloggerPro. The Israelis probably have a safer approach to incidents like the shooting in LA. It is usually the response of our government to downplay the possibility that something was an act of terror. Presumably this is some effort to reduce the fear of the public. On the other hand, the Israelis tend to assume every incident was an act of terror until proven otherwise. This story about the conviction of a former SS officer for war crimes includes a rather strange passage.
The former salesman is no stranger to court cases. He was convicted in absentia by an Italian court in 1999 for killing at least 246 Italian prisoners of war in four separate massacres. Being tried in absentia means (unless someone's been changing the dictionary) that he wasn't present. That means that the existence of the prior trial may not have any bearing at all to Engel's familiarity with court cases. (Sorry, just a case of my instincts howling against poor use of language. That's actually kind of strange. I cringe sometimes when perusing the archives of this site and I wrote that stuff myself.)
Thomas Sowell has some Random Thoughts. This one in particular is worth thinking about. The great curse of the 20th century was the inability of decent people to realize that what was unthinkable to them was both thinkable and doable by others -- like Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot. Are we to wait until Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction and we wake up some morning to find a couple of American cities obliterated? The shooter at LAX was an Egyptian immigrant whose family is said to be visiting Egypt for the summer. About all this story tells us is that he didn't like American flags and apparently came to the airport with gun loaded and plenty of ammunition. Whatever his motivation, he almost certainly was planning on doing some shooting. You don't go into an airport armed like that unless you are intending to use it. Well, I went back and saw that I've had at least 40 posts today. Now you know what a blogger does when he's so sick that he doesn't feel like doing anything but sitting in a recliner with a laptop. I've set around all day hitting reload on news sites just waiting for something to pop up to comment on. Thankfully, the only two incidents in the US of great note involved few casualties and one is almost certainly not an act of terrorism. (The plane crash.) It's starting to look like the incident at LAX may have been an isolated incident as well, although there are still lots of questions about that one. Anyway, I hope everyone had a good Independence Day. I'm going to bed. Thursday, July 04, 2002
Fidel Castro has a strange sense of humor. Cuba held a July 4th celebration in honor of, "[t]he cultural, spiritual and moral legacy of the American people," in Karl Marx Theater. Malaysia has announced its opposition to US peacekeepers being exempt from ICC prosecution. Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar, in his statement, included a remark that we are a signatory to the treaty. No we are not. Under Article II, section 2 of our Constitution, treaties signatures are not valid until ratified by two thirds of our Senate. That has not and will not happen. Further, we have publicly repudiated the treaty. That means we are not signators. Its just common sense logic that states who are not party to a treaty cannot be bound by that treaty.
On a further note, why is it so difficult to understand this. We Americans take the Constitution very seriously. We don't just trash it whenever we feel like it. There are several issues about the ICC that violate our Constitution. That means we won't be doing them. This has nothing to do with conspiracies to undermine international this or mult-national that (not that we much care for internationalism). First and foremost it is about upholding the primary law of our country. Red Letter Edition
There was some talk going on recently about the idea that Jesus was actually teaching active resistance here. The theories espoused really only make sense if you view these verses by themselves. However, these verses do not stand alone. Here is the full context:
As Mark Butterworth pointed out, its hard to square the command not to resist an evil person with the idea that resistance is actually what's being taught.
This brings to mind some points I want to make.
Update-I forgot point 6. Just because some wars may be justified before God, that doesn't mean that all wars are. The trick is figuring out which wars are justified. Martin Roth has some comments on "Christian cookery." (July 5th post.) As it turns out, CS Lewis was a prophet. (Would you believe I actually got a hit from someone searching for "Christian cookery?") The Israeli's still say the shooting was an act of terrorism. I still don't know what to believe here. The plane crash out in California looks to be some sort of freak accident. The plane apparently came down in a resevoir and then skipped into the park where the fatality and injuries occurred. Very strange. I suppose on the bright side there really is no reason to think any terrorism involved here. This report indicates that the FBI is leaning towards the LAX shooting not being a terrorist incident. Strangely, this story treats the stab wounds as a mystery even though a story I linked to earlier seemed to have explained that. CNN reports that the shooter was a 52-year old male. Still no ID on the guy, but that would put him outside the normal range of a terrorist by about 12 years. Also, it was the security guard who was stabbed. Apparently the shooter also had a knife. The British have released another schizophrenic who has already stabbed people. And what are we going to do when he decides the Backstreet Boys and the Spice Girls are out to get him? Oh, maybe that's the plan. Bobby Allision-Gillmore has posted some original poetry. Check out the last stanza. Hey, we can dream can't we? Anita Creamer says we aren't patriotic enough and are too easily fatigued by the burdens of good citizenship. She's got some good points. Now this is odd. One of the victims at LAX has stab wounds and nobody seems to know how he got them. A gunman opened fire at the El Al ticket booth at LAX. American airport and Israeli airline. I wonder what religious persuasion the shooter was. (He's apparently been killed by security.) I could be wrong, but I'd be highly surprised if he's not a Muslim. Yup, the guy who knocked the head off of the statue of Margaret Thatcher was trying to make a political point. I'd try to analyze some of the guys statements, but somethings are just to bizarre to deal with. I will note that some people use these things called "words" to make political points rather than going around bashing valuable art work. Kofi Annan says the United States governments threats to systematically cancel peace keeping operations, "flies in the face of treaty law." No. What flies in the face of treaty law is attempting to assert treaty provisions against countries that are not parties to the treaty. That is exactly what the UN and ICC are trying to do to the US right now. That is why we've pulled out this particular big gun in the negotiation process. Rightly so, I might add.
By the way, I'm not persuaded by his assurance that politically motivated prosecutions are, "highly improbable." The UN has become a tool to bash the US and Israel. (Largely at the expense of the US I might add.) I see no reason to believe the ICC would not do the same. Victor Davis Hanson explains the usefulness of military history. This is a gem.
Someone, somewhere, probably had a heart attack reading this. After reading KJL's advice, I read this article on "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." Its an interesting read and as much about theology as song writing. Update-He misses a point though. Well, not so much missed as failed to extrapolate as much as I would like. The line with "The Hero born of woman" reads, "Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel." This is an explicit reference to the prophecy in Genesis 3:15. However, it also seems to be a reference to Galatians 4:4. (Born of woman is how Paul describes Christ there.) Then of course there is the fact the fact that Christians have traditionally interpreted Genesis 3:15 to mean Christ. All of this makes it unlikely to me that this passage of the song was meant to minimize Christ. The USS Clueless takes a break from commentary today. Instead, we see pictures worth millions of words. The pictures of people falling from the WTC are disturbing. They should be. Periodically we need to seem them to remind ourselves that real people bled and ided that day. This wasn't just a matter of buildings falling down. Innocent people were murdered. The pictures are horrible, but forgetting them would be more so. I don't get it. I keep seeing these stories about how nervous everyone is. I don't understand where the fear comes from. Yes, its possible that another terrorist attack could take place. That doesn't make it a certainty. I don't see any reason to get all worked up.
And while I'm thinking about it, al Qaeda is dangerous, but only in a tactical sense. They are not dangerous to us in a long term strategic sense. The very fact that they have not struck us again in wake of 9/11 proves this. Strategically, to capitalize on the fear they caused, they should have had several fairly large attacks planned to go through in the few weeks right after they'd already hit us once. The fact that this happens indicates that they were either unable to do so or incapable of really understanding what they were doing.
The terrorist are something to be concerned about. They are not something to be feared.
Mathetes on the separation of Christians from the world.
And what is the basis for all this?
This is available for you as well, but the way may not be easy.
Looks like serious air traffic control problems might be to blame for the crash in Germany a few days ago. Now here's a job security plan. If it works, maybe he can write a how-to book on keeping your job, even after being fired. Then again, he learned denial from the master. Thanks to previously mentioned paranoid blogger for link to this quiz.
Which Star-Crossed Marvel Lover Are You? Not exactly sure what this says about me though.
Okay, I'm confused. Apparently I'm making someone paranoid. (Top post on July 3.) What exactly am I doing that's sparking parnoia? Update:The post has been replaced with an apology. It wasn't a complaint, just a question. For those of you that are interested, I went to see a specialist for my balance problems on Tuesday. No diagnosis yet. He just ordered more tests. I still don't know what's wrong and I still feel like I'm about to fall down a good bit of the time. Hopefully we can find out what's wrong soon. Wednesday, July 03, 2002
Saddam Hussein's stepson has been arrested in Miami. Cops are downplaying it, but the story seems a little weird. Red Letter Edition Matthew 5:33-37 ISV "Again, you have heard that it was said to those who lived long ago, 'You must not swear an oath falsely,' but 'You must fulfill your oaths to the Lord.' But I tell you not to swear at all, neither by heaven, because it is God's throne, nor by the earth, because it is his footstool, nor by Jerusalem, because it is the city of the Great King. Nor should you swear by your head, because you cannot make one hair white or black. Instead, let your word be 'Yes' for 'Yes' and 'No' for 'No.' Anything more than that comes from the evil one." This is not a command that can necessarily be carried out overnight. If people are going to be able to take you at your word, you will have to develop a reputation for honesty. As I understand it, phrases like, "I swear it," developed among people who were known to be less than honest. Swearing to tell the truth was developed to give people of bad reputation a chance to be believed. This was under the supposition that if they swore, they could then be believed. For a follower of Christ, this should be totally unnecessary. People who know us should never have reason to doubt our word. Consequently, we should not have reason to swear in order to get people to believe us. If your interested to know what the PA is thinking about mass murders, this report by MEMRi is worth reading. This quote is scary. Martyrdom operations are the most noble, most sublime means of battle, that the Palestinian people have created... Somehow, when I read this, sublime just isn't the word that comes to mind. Apparently people in Cuba have gotten all worked up about a rumor that a massive boatlift was going to take place to rescue them from the "Worker's Paradise." Unfortunately, its not true. The Heritage Foundation has proposed a compromise on the ICC. I think Mark Byron would be satisfied with their proposal. Jeremiah 18:1-10 NAS The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD saying, "Arise and go down to the potter's house, and there I will announce My words to you." Then I went down to the potter's house, and there he was, making something on the wheel. But the vessel that he was making of clay was spoiled in the hand of the potter; so he remade it into another vessel, as it pleased the potter to make. Then the word of the LORD came to me saying, "Can I not, O house of Israel, deal with you as this potter does?" declares the LORD. "Behold, like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel. "At one moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to uproot, to pull down, or to destroy it; if that nation against which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent concerning the calamity I planned to bring on it. "Or at another moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to build up or to plant it; if it does evil in My sight by not obeying My voice, then I will think better of the good with which I had promised to bless it.
Its tempting to use this passage to start talking about free will again, but that's not really what I want to do. Our congregation had sort of a patriotic service tonight, but it wasn't all tote the flag stuff. Our lesson tonight was centered on the passage above. Specifically, we talked about the idea that all nations belong to God, whether they recognize it or not. However, those that recognize the sovereignty and rule of God will be rewarded. Those that reject him will be punished. It is always wise for us, as a nation, to make sure that we are on God's side. As it is written, "Happy is the nation whose God is the LORD; the people whom He hath chosen for His own inheritance."
David Limbaugh also wrote on this subject today. Dinesh D'Souza argues that freedom is a necessary precursor of virtue. Good read. I would only add that Islamic Fundamentalist point to vices in the West and make a big fuss because they don't see the same things in their society. As D'Souza points out, that is because in their society, all the "visible sins", those that are obvious to casual observers, are strictly patrolled against. However, just because the highly visible vices have been contained, doesn't mean that people aren't committing all kinds of sins when they are out of sight. MarcV recommends that you read this NRO column by Eugene Volokh. I concur. It ought to give you a little pause to think about courage. By the way, Marc, I read Volokh quite a bit and a lot of his stuff is this good. Judging only by what I've seen in my friends who got married, and comparing it to Mark Byron's last post on the subject, I'd guess he's got a lot of nervous energy built up. (In my experience, when grooms start counting down by the hour, they're wound pretty tight.) I hope I'm wrong. I hope he's cool and relaxed. Anyway, congratulations to you Mark. Tuesday, July 02, 2002
The US has now cancelled a diplomatic mission to North Korea. Considering they just sank a frigate belonging to an ally and then blamed us for the whole thing, that seems like a logical thing to do. There's been another mass murder in Jerusalem.
However, this story also mentions that Sharon's government has announced a new policy. Every time there is a terrorist attack, the IDF will seize and hold additional Palestinian territory. This may be the only way to make things work. Maybe if the Palestinians actually watch their territory shrink after every attack they will finally get the message.
It might not work, but everything else has been tried. Red Letter Edition
The part about cutting off body parts really throws people for a loop. It is important to remember that Jesus did not say that eyes and hands cause you to sin. Body parts just do what you tell them to do. What he is doing here is presenting an extreme. The point he is making here is that you should be willing to give up anything to make sure you avoid sin, even body parts, if it came to it. And, if you would give up a body part to get into heaven, then there is nothing you should not be willing to give up. The point being that anything else would be less of a sacrifice then body parts. If you would be willing to go that far, why would you not give up the little things which are where the problems usually lie. (I'm not saying that the extremes Jesus mentions are not true, just that His approach was done to make a point more about the little things than the big things. At least, as far as I can tell.) Okay, this article shows promising signs. There is of course the mandatory Israel bashing, but reading an article where a Palestinian uses the words "Palestinian Authority" and "despotic rule" in the same sentence is encouraging.
There are some things in here I don't understand. For instance, he insists that Israel must withdraw to its pre-September 2000 positions. He also says they must ensure free elections in Palestine. I don't understand how they are supposed to both.
He hits this on the head though:
It is absolutely true that democracy without guaranteed rights is worthless. He left out a very important one. Any new Palestinian government must have very strict private property laws. This is true for two reasons. The first is that this is essentially what makes any society free. The right to feel absolutely secure in your own property is essential to liberty. The second reason is more practical. There is no such thing as a Palestinian economy. When the intifada began and Israel locked most Palestinians out of there territory, the Palestinians suddenly had no where to work. This is because there were almost no jobs at all in there own territory. This will not change until the Palestinian government provides an environment conducive to investment. Private property rights are essential to this because only a fool invests someplace if he believes the government will walk by and seize the property as soon as he starts turning a profit.
Despite some flaws in this article, the Palestinians would do far better listening to people like this author rather than the thugs from Fatah and Hamas. Mark Byron, who's still having template problems (unless he's changed his name to Mark ByronMark Byron), responded to my response to his post on Christian dating. Mark thinks the dangers of dating a non-believer outweigh the possibility of converting them. He may be right, but I'm not sure I'm convinced. It probably depends on the strength of the person involved. Although, if you take the better safe than sorry approach, then you'd have to go with Mark. (By the way, I wonder what possessed Mark to run this search in the first place.) Update-Looks like Mark got the template worked out. David Heddle asks about the salvation of Nicodemus. I actually heard a series of lessons taught about different types of "believers" and Nicodemus was one of the examples. Specifically, he was of the type that was willing to go so far, but no farther. You'll notice that Nicodemus spoke up for Jesus, but when challenged he apparently backed down. Now of course, the comments of the other Pharisee were an implicit threat to his life under the circumstances. Still, he drew a line at how far he would go for Jesus. When he helped Joseph bury Jesus, Joseph took the risk of approaching Pilate and Nicodemus went and bought the spices. Helpful, but no risk involved. As to whether Nicodemus ever repented and actually threw himself at the foot of the cross, I doubt it. Mostly because John wrote at such a late date that he would presumably have known Nicodemus's choice by then and would have had an opportunity to vindicate his character. Then again, I could be wrong. Does anybody know why I keep getting hits from people searching for Robert Byrd and atheists? I suppose I could go look myself, but its more fun to speculate on something like this than to actually go look. Monday, July 01, 2002
TalG linked to this report. Apparently Arafat's Fatah has called for attacks on US targets and 70's style tactics. (TalG speculates this means highjacking airlines.)
All in day's work for our "partner in peace." Found this article about the ICC in Guardian. Here are a couple of items worthy of comment.
At any cost? Really. We've already told them what our position is. Guarantee that no member of the US military (or better yet, any US citizen at all) will ever be brought up on charges before this stupid court. They balked and screamed about our "bloodymindedness." So much for, "at any cost."
As far as I can tell, criticism of the our "unilateralism" generally means refusing to go along with Europe's stupid ideas.
"What can be so special about US soldiers and officials that they must be shielded unconditionally from the supposed hazards of trial by an international tribunal?" asked General Sir Hugh Beach, a retired army officer. It is called the Constitution of the United States, Sir Hugh. Maybe you've heard of it. We take it kind of seriously.
Headline:Palestinians protest at Arafat's failure to solve economic woes I don't know guys. Do you think maybe this is the problem? Yup. North Korea sinks a South Korean naval vessel and blames the US.
Does anybody have the slightest clue what that thief-master-club thing is supposed to mean? Another Biblical brain teaser. I was doing some study yesterday and came across something I had never noticed before. 1 Samuel 13:1 - NRS Saul was . . . years old when he began to reign; and he reigned . . . and two years over Israel. The NRS is not the translation I was using at the time. I was reading the English Standard Version, but its not online yet. I chose NRS because they treat it the same as the ESV does. I read this passage and thought, "Ellipses! What are those for?" The NRS has these comments on this passage.
I looked at several translations and most handle it differently. Several translations just filled in the blanks with their best guess. Thankfully most of those translations put their guess in italics to show that the number was not in the original text. Personally, I prefer ellipses.
Red Letter Edition
I don't know if I by the whole thing, but Toongabbie Anglican has some interesting thoughts on the meaning of creation. In the comments section of this rather good post on free will, David Heddle says he's not sure what people mean when they say that God is non-linear. I can only address what I mean when I say it. In doing so you'll get a glimpse of how I come across many of the images I use to illustrate ideas to myself.
In the show, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Captain Sisko interacts with a group of beings known as the "prophets." He has trouble dealing with them, in part because they are non-linear. Time has no meaning for them. We move through time experiencing one moment at time. In contrast, the "prophets" do not. They viewed all at once. This is illustrated in the final episode. The prophets take Captain Sisko away to give him special training that will take considerable time. They allow him to briefly contact his wife. When she asks how long he'll be gone, he says, "Maybe a day. Maybe a year. Maybe yesterday." The "prophets" could teach someone for a long time and return him before he left because time had no meaning for them.
Now God is far more powerful than these fictional "prophets", nevertheless, I find the word picture helpful. God exists outside time because He invented time. God is no more a part of time than Michaelangelo is a part of his paintings. Because God is not limited by time, he is able to see everything as if it were "now." This is probably the best I will ever be able to explain this topic because just thinking about it boggles the mind.
And yes, I get lots of "word pictures" from science fiction. This is largely because sci-fi and fantasy are able to explore incredibly bizarre ideas as if they were really happening as opposed to just saying, "What if?" Framing the questions in the form of concrete questions that must be explored by the characters makes the philosophical questions much easier to understand. (For me at least.) Gary Peterson has some good comments on the Glory of God. I'd like to add this passage:
This must have been a truly terrifying and awesome experience. A good observation by Fred Peatross: There are always more questions than answers when God births a vision in our hearts. There are always obstacles. There's always a lack of resources. What God puts in our hearts always seems to be out of our reach. The reason it appears that way is because God ordained-visions are always too big for us to handle. We shouldn't be surprised...after all, consider the source. Mark Byron says that finding intelligent life on another planet would be "problematic to our theology." Unfortunately he doesn't say why and I fail to see it myself. I've actually given a lot of thought to this and I've never understood why people think finding intelligent life elesewhere would be a problem to Christianity.
While I"m on the subject, C.S. Lewis speculated on the possible things we might find in another intelligent species.
I really think Lewis covered the bases here and I don't see how any of these possibilities would affect Christian Theology dramatically. The real question is whether we'd be ready to share the Gospel with them. (Assuming option 3 is correct.) Eugene Volokh also has some good comments about the death penalty case. This is his conclusion: The opinion goes on from there, unpersuasively trying to obscure the fact that its reasoning is very simple: The judge who wrote it thinks the death penalty is wrong -- and not the text of the Constitution, nor the standards of the American people, nor the Court's precedents (which the judge dismisses in a way that strikes me as wholly inadequate) will stand in the way. Uh, Gary, you might want to read this. (Sorry, I'm just automatically suspicious of "facts" in e-mails. Besides, I was browsing Snopes a few months ago and had already stumbled across this one.) This isn't to say that I disagree about acceptance, understanding, and education. Just as long as people don't expect me to compromise my faith in the name of numbers one and two. Mark Byron has several interesting items I want to mention. On the death penalty. I don't know that I agree with his take on it being better to lock people up for life and do it quickly than to execute them after 15 years. I would say that it is better to execute someone after a speedy but fair appellant process than after a long and stupid one. (Yes, 16 years for someone who confessed and had the bodies in his basement is long and stupid.)
Mark also makes a point we would all do well to remember.
Just because something is wrong doesn’t mean it’s unconstitutional. There are millions of people out there right now who would read that statement, scratch their heads and say, "Huh?" This scares me greatly.
He's got some good comments on the ICC which I have no gripe with.
He's got nice things to say about Congressman Watts. I like JC and think he's been a pretty good congressman. However, I could never support him for VP or President in the primaries. The reason? He can't control his temper.
On Christian dating. Mark might want to revise point number 1. Dating can be a powerful tool to bring people to Christ. My mom did it for my dad. Now she didn't tell him at the time, but she wouldn't have married him if he hadn't converted. Maybe, "Don't pursue a relationship with someone who doesn't share your faith once you reach the point that you know they won't accept it." Or something to that affect.
Point 9 is excellent advice. More so than Mark might imagine. My sister always had this queasy feeling about my cousin's fiancee. Things just didn't seem right to her. However, she didn't want to but in and my cousin never asked. After he married her, she turned out to be a psycho who tried to kill him. (Seriously, she chased him through the house with a butcher knife one day and left huge gouge marks on his chest with her fingernails.) He then found out that she'd spent more than a year in a mental hospital while in high school. She and her mother had mentioned she'd been in the hospital for an extended period of time. They just left out the "mental" part of the story. If he'd asked my sister's advice and followed through on it, maybe things would have worked out differently.
Point 10 is an excellent point but hard to swallow.
Full disclosure-Comments on dating tips from a guy who hasn't had anything resembling a date in 4 years. Take it for what its worth. Meanwhile, in an effort to prove that not all the stupid judges in the US live in California, Judge Jed Rakoff ruled that the Federal death penalty is unconstitutional. I have not read the decision, but I have read a couple of excerpts, like this:
First of all, it is not the death penalty that causes people to be wrongfully convicted. People are also convicted of crimes in cases where the death penalty is not on the line in more cases than I would like. If too many innocent people being convicted made the the death penalty unconstitutional, it would logically follow that the entire Federal judicial system was unconstitutional. The only reason I can see not to reach this conclusion is the bizarrre logic of our judiciary system that often says, "the death penalty is different." But there is no reason to treat the death penalty as different from other punishments. People often say that we should treat the death penalty differenty because if (and I say if because there is still no conclusive evidence this has happened in modern jurisprudence) someone was wrongfully executed, "we can't give them there life back." Well, if someone was wrongfully convicted and served life in prison we couldn't give their life back either.
Also, just because people have been wrongfully convicted of a crime does not mean they were denied due process. Due process is:
Now granted, this is essentially a layman's definition, but it should be good enough for our purposes. Note that due process is our protection against unequal treatment before the law. It is essentially a fancy way of saying "fair play." Wrongful convictions may result if due process is not followed, but the fact that someone was wrongfully convicted does not establish lack of due process. In fact, if you could establish that every convict sitting in every prison in our country was actually innocent, that would not establish due process failures. (It might even be evidence of really good due process as it would be pretty good evidence that everyone was treated equally. Poorly, but equally.) Wrongful convictions are more likely the result of imperfect knowledge than of a lack of due process.
BTW-This reminds me of an episode of Law and Order several years ago. After convicting a couple of attempted murder of their unborn child, Claire tells Jack, "They'll appeal you know." Jack responded, "The jury didn't believe their story. The last time I checked, that wasn't grounds for appeal."
So it is with imperfect knowledge.
Joshua Claybourn has a column up about the International Criminal Court. He asked for my comments on this subject, but I'm not really up to punditry at the moment so this is going to be limited.
He correctly noted that we should not be comforted by Kofi Annan's assurance that the Court will only come into action where the home nation is unable or unwilling to prosecute. I can easily see the Court trying to drag US citizens before the court because the US didn't even recognize the "offense" in question as a crime. Do you have any idea how broad "offenses upon personal dignity" is. That could easily be expanded to a columnist saying something rude about someone. That may sound overly paranoid, but in Europe criminal law is starting to get almost that ridiculous.
Further, Article III of the Constitution confers all judicial power on the Supreme Court and those courts under it. Section 2, Clause 3 of that Article states:
The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury; and such Trial shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State, the Trial shall be at such Place or Places as the Congress may by Law have directed. I'm pretty certain that the ICC will not guarantee trial by jury (to say nothing of 4th and 5th amendment protections), but I'm certain that they have no intent of conducting trials in the state where the crime was committed and they sure aren't going to let Congress decide where to conduct trials. Given that, ratification of this treaty, even if the Senate were so inclined, would be unconstitutional. (While I'm at it, it would be unconstitutional whether the courts said so or not. Something can be unconstitutional before the court rules on it. It can even be unconstitutional if the court rules otherwise because the Supreme Court can be wrong.) Furthermore, the idea that the court would attempt to exert itself over American citizens even though the treaty had not been ratified by the US is deeply troubling. First, if the court will attempt to exert jurisdiction over citizens of the US without US ratification, then in at least in some cases the ICC could be infringing on the sovereign rights of the United States. When one or more states attempts to infringe on the sovereign rights of another, when that other state has not ceded that right by treaty, there is a technical term to define that infringement: act of war. This is probably why the House of Representatives is currently considering authorizing the use of force if a US citizen is ever brought before the court.
Additionally, claims that the court will prevent people like Hitler and Hussein from committing atrocities are down right silly. Hitler was and Hussein is, in fact if not in name, military dictators who harbor no scruples about invading their neighbors anytime they can get away with it. Such men typically don't believe they can be captured. That's because they don't believe their armies will ever be sufficiently routed to allow their capture. (Such men are frequently delusional as well.) Remember that Hitler went from swearing he'd never give up to committing suicide. The difference is almost certainly that until the time he decided to kill himself, he never really believed he was vulnerable personally. For that matter, aggressive wars almost never make sense anyway. Over the last two hundred years the initiator of a war has almost never won. Waging war aggressively is almost always the product of delusional minds. These people's delusions are not going to be overcome by the presence of court sitting in the background. Aggressive national leaders have always known that something horrible awaited them if they were defeated and captured. They've gone ahead because they didn't believe they would be defeated and captured. The court will do nothing to change that.
So, the "international community" wants us to give up our rights in exchange for a court that can't deliver on our promises. If we went for this, there would be a technical term for that too: stupid.
Okay, so that was longer than I thought. Sunday, June 30, 2002
Orrin Judd thinks that the numbers of anti-semites in Europe identified by poll is probably low. He's almost certainly right. One of the problems with polls is that they tend to underestimate the prevalence of highly unpopular opinions. This is often because people want everyone to think they are nice. Consequently, people sometimes don't tell the pollster what they really think because they're afraid the pollster will think their mean, angry, etc. Seems odd when you consider that they'll probably never speak to this person again, but it does seem to happen. So, the North Koreans sink a South Korean patrol boat and then accuse the US of trying to start a war. Cute. Saturday, June 29, 2002
I've gotten a few e-mails from people who said they are praying for my health. Thanks. I thought some of you want to know that today is the best day I've had in a while. I was actually able to stay out of bed all day. Haven't had much trouble with dizziness today and the headaches weren't too bad either. (You can probably tell that by the amount of posting today.) Prayers are still appreciated and hopefully this thing will be licked soon. Perhaps I just have low standards. Joshua Sargent is the most recent Christian blogger (that I know of) to ask some variation of the question, "What are we doing and why are we doing it?" While I share his concern about the content of some blogs billed as Christian as well as the language employed, (thankfully I don't seem to have run into what he has on the language front) I'm not as concerned about whether I'm making a difference.
The reason for that is that I never expected to make a difference. In fact, I never really expected much of anyone would ever see this site. I started this out more as a hobby than anything else. I figured it would give me a reason to write. For me that is vitally important because it is when I write that I really develop my thoughts. The thing is that I have to have a reason to write. I rarely just sit down and start pounding out my ideas on scripture or anything else unless I have a reason. (Unfortunately, when politics is involved, being angry sometimes counts as a reason.) Anyway, basically, I saw this site as something to do in my spare time that would hopefully give me an chance to grow spiritually and intellectually.
It was actually a shock to me the first time some one actually linked back to one of my posts. (I believe that was Mark Byron actually.) At that point I hadn't even bothered to install a site meter because it had never occurred to me that there might be more than 5 or 10 people even reading what I was writing. As it turns out, there are quite a few people who read this site. (Not InstaPundit numbers, but the roughly 40 hits a day is more than I would have ever dreamed.) That's something of a blessing because people who read me often have there own blogs reading their responses to my writing actually gives me a chance to refine my thinking. (The result, as MarkV likes to say, of "iron sharpening iron.) I have found this to be a usefule experience.
I've also gotten e-mail from people telling me that they find my comments useful and uplifting. I never expected to have a chance to "sharpen my iron" or to uplift and encourage others. I find that this blog has already acheived two things (one personal and one less so) which I never expected. I guess my expectations were low, but they've already been far exceeded.
I guess the question now is, now that I know that people are reading this blog, should my own expectations change? At this point, I don't know.
On a related note, this whole introspection on blogging seems to be almost unique to the Christian elements. The only non-Christian blogger who I've read who's spent any serious blogging time asking "Why do I blog," was Seargent Stryker. He eventually chucked the whole thing and shut down his original blog and moved to a new one where he just does whatever he wants and doesn't worry too much about what anybody expects of him. For the most part, other non-Christian bloggers just seem to shut down when they reach that point. In the sites I visit in the Christian corner, this agonizing over why seems to be almost universal. I've even done a bit of it myself. (Some in this post.) I'm sure there's a good explanation for the difference, but I don't know what it is. (On the other hand, my evidence of a difference is entirely anecdotal. Maybe I'm imagining things.) Lately many in my corner of the blogosphere have been tossing around the Old Earth - Young Earth debate. Surprisingly (to me, I don't know about anybody else) I haven't had anything to say on this issue. That's partly because I was feeling really bad while the debate was heaviest. But largely, its because I've decided it just doesn't matter a whole lot. I know what I believe, but its not worth fighting about as far as I can tell.
The normal reason that I know of that people find it really worthwhile to defend a Young Earth position is that this is the point where many who challenge the validity of the scriptures start out with. However, none of those I've seen arguing the Old Earth position have questioned the validity or inspiration of the scriptures. (I could have missed them, but I haven't seen any such references.)
All the Old Earth arguments I've seen accept the scriptures, they just don't see them the way the New Earth people do. As such, I see no reason to participate in the discussion on either side. I can't conclusively prove either position and I see no signs that those on either side are likely to be lost as a result of their position. Consequently, I just can't get worked up for the debate.(Addendum. This was not an attempt to go around saying who's lost and who's saved. It is just an observation that I don't see any evidence that your position on the age of the earth has any direct bearing on your salvation.)
I hope this is a sign of growth. There certainly was a time that I would have charged into this debate with both pistols cocked ready for a down and dirty shoot-out. Now none of this is to say that the debate is, per se, not worth having. Its just not one I can work up any enthusiasm for. Somebody actually came to this site by Googling the phrase, "Robert Byrd Atheists leave the country." Scary thing is that at the moment, I come up 4th in this site. As far as I can tell, you've got to combine 3 or 4 posts to get this combination of words. I was over at the Theology Department and noticed that B. Preston was commenting pre-destination and free-will. He had this to say in relation to prophecy:
But looking further afield, Calvinism helps explain how prophecy works. The standard for evaluating whether or not someone claiming to be a prophet from God is 100% accuracy. A prophet can make 100 prophecies, get the first 99 correct, but if #100 fails then he's a false prophet. Jeremiah 28:9 is one passage to cite as to a prophet's accuracy test. A prophet's source of knowledge is God, and God alone. If things are left to man's ultimate choosing and will, how then can God accurately predict through a prophet events of the future? He can't, because man's exercise of free will can ultimately override God's plan. In that scenario, even a prophet of God could fail, because God's own foreknowledge of events could fail. This view overlooks several important points. One of those is that God's omniscience means that he knows not just what will happen, but what could happen given every possible permutation of events. This is so because God is non-linear. He stands completely outside time. As such, he can influence events to provide the proper stimulus, knowing that given a certain set of circumstances, I will react in a certain way. I am still free to do otherwise, he simply knows that I won't. But more than that, he is capable of doing the same with every person who has/is/will exist. Based on this knowledge, he could easily know what will happen in the future because he engineered the future to fall out as he planned. He is capable of doing all of that based on his knowledge. It seems to me that Preston's view places limits on the knowledge of God. I will grant that this does not prove that this is what God is doing. However, it seems to me that basing an argument for pre-destination on the premise that God doesn't have the capacity to operate in this fashion is both unsound and insulting to God.
Further, just because I say I believe in free will doesn't mean that I believe God never steps in and takes direct control of a situation. It just means that I don't believe this is how God ordinarily operates.
Probably my view of God's influence on this world could best be described as Temporal Engineering. He designed the universe knowing every possible event that could take place and influences man to make the choices that advance his will. Periodically man is simply not capable of getting from where he is to where God wants him to be. At those points, God intervenes directly to insure the result that is his will. This is why I have no problem believing in the absolute sovereignty of God and believing in free will. God's sovereignty is absolute. Man's free will is not. Man has free will only to the extent that it is reconcilable with His plans.
While I'm on this subject, I'll go ahead and comment on David Heddle's post on God's sovereignty. David describes three types of will belonging to God:
I'm not certain of the reason for dividing 2 and 3. It seems that in most instances 2 and 3 will be diametrically opposed. God wishes us to do 2, but He allows free choice in the matter, so we (rather frequently I'm afraid) choose to do 3. The will of God which gave us the freedom to choose 2 (which was his will) also allowed us the opportunity to do 3 (which his will allowed.) These categories are essentially 2 sides of the same coin. C.S. Lewis illustrated this point by describing a mother who informs her children that she will no longer clean there room for them. From now on, they must clean it themselves. That night, she comes in and finds the room a mess. It was her will that they clean the room, but her will allowed them the freedom to not do so. Another illustration would be the classes I teach part time at Oklahoma State. It is my will that everyone pass. For that matter, it is my will that they all get A's. I could guarantee this result with very little effort. I could simply give every one an A. But then the A would mean nothing. Instead, I lay down the conditions required to get an A and they either fulfill them or not. Neither are perfect analogies, but both illustrate how something can be God's will in one way and opposed to his will in another. On the subject of God's sovereign will, it seems to me that everything God wills to happen falls under this category. God has absolute authority. Its just that most of the time, he does not excercise this authority through direct control. He influences us to make the proper choices. However, God has the right and the ability to exert direct control any time he so desires.
Because I hold these views, I'm not sure I see David's classifications of God's will as valid. Largely, I guess, because God's will seems to fluid to me to be able to categorize in any meaningful fashion. This is one of the flaws with systematic theology; The assumption that any system God might happend to follow is one we would be able to discern.
In answer to David's difficulty in understanding my positions on God's sovereignty, I can only offer this: God has absolute authority and absolute ability to assume direct control of anything anytime he wishes combined with the ability to predict and orchestrate the actions of everyone who ever lives. Compared to the sheer power of God listed here, man simply doesn't have the ability to interfere with God's plans, even when God has granted him free will. In fact, the more I think about, the more I think that it is Preston and Heddle's position that actually has a problem with God's sovereignty because they seem to be limiting his power and his knowledge.
This has been long and rambling, but I hope of some value.
BTW - I almost forgot this point. In 1 Peter 5:8 Peter warns us to resist the devil. If our faith is predetermined, what is the point of this charge. If we are of the elect, we will resist him and if we aren't, we won't. There doesn't seem to be anything we can do about, so why bother with this kind of instruction? Well, occassionally even Tom Daschle can get something right. Speaking of the 9th Circuit's ruling on the Pledge: This decision is nuts. I found something disturbing in this story though. The guy who brought this suit in the first place claims he's getting death threats. This is totally unacceptable. A would-be mass murderer has been sentenced to life in prison. The judges rejected the pleas of his lawyer to limit his term to five years. It seems that the judges were a little confused about why a guy willing to blow himself up, now wanted to be able to live out the rest of his life outside prison walls. "This is an absurd situation – that someone who agreed to lose his life is suddenly showing interest in life and excitedly demanding a short jail sentence," the judges wrote. So it is. I remember hearing someone ask an interesting question several months back. I don't remember who it was or where, but the gist of the remark was this: Why is it that the Palestinians are always telling us how eager everyone is to be a martyr, but when the Israeli's actually kill one of these guys they get all outraged? Well of course the answer is that when the IDF kills him before he has a chance to get his mass-murder gear, he dies, but Jewish civilians do not. Kevin Holtsberry has posted some thoughts on the issue of Free Will and God's Sovereignty. (By the time this is over, maybe I'll actually remember how to spell "sovereignty." For some reason, that's a word whose spelling escapes me.) A guy in Britain who ran amok with a Samurai sword in a Catholic church two years ago has been released. Doctors say he's no longer a threat.
Yeah, but will Ms. Wallace be the one in his way if his condition deteriorates and he decides God wants him to kill somebody else next time? There's been a minor naval battle between North and South Korea. Of course both sides claim they were acting in self-defense after the other invaded their waters. I'm naturally suspicious of anything coming out of the Magic Kingdom of North Korea. Even if I wasn't, I'd find the claim that the South, "fired hundreds of bullets and shells," before the North Koreans returned fire to be, well, less than credible. A Palestinian asks this question: The people of Hebron have been under four days of curfew, being humiliated," said Fawzi Owaiwi, 79, who has not left his home, which is in view of the battered Palestinian compound, since Tuesday. "How would Americans feel if they were under this situation? Our people are asking for one thing: their legitimate rights. Americans should be fair. How would I feel? Well, if I was in this situation for the same reason he is (My government was sponsoring terrorist attacks on my neighbors and calling for their total destruction.), I'd probably rise up in revolt against said government and try to install a government that wouldn't do such things. This would eliminate the need for my neighbors to keep invading my town looking for the terrorist. (Hey, he asked.)
Also in this story, I found this gem in reference to the baby bomber picture.
Ghassan Khatib, the Palestinian labor minister, said Friday that the Israeli Army released the picture to "tell the world that the Palestinians are teaching their children how to hate Israel and how to act against Israel and I just want to say that is correct." Well, at least he's honest. And on this subject, one of the excuses being foisted on us about this picture is that it was "just" a joke. Let me just point out that we all know they weren't actually going to send this kid out on a suicide mission. Yet. But as far as I can tell, that's only because a kid this age doesn't have the ability to carry out a succesful attack. However, a society that can even joke about sending toddlers out with explosives strapped to it in an effort to blow people up is seriously diseased.
Update - I almost forgot. Our guy with a "question" also says that all the Palestinians want is their rights. If that's the case, they've got a pretty strange idea of what their rights are. Last time I checked, the PLO charter still called fort the destruction of Israel. So the Palestinian deny that Arafat is suffering a degredation in his mental abilities. I guess that means that when he pulled a gun on his chief of security, he was acting normally. I feel so much better now. Update: Here's some more information on this topic. Here's an interesting column on the Pledge flap. I like the title: In God we trust . . . Calif. judges are another story Hey, can we try this. Apparently the Finance and Foreign ministers of India are about to trade places. Now, for us to do the same would mean Paul O'Neill becoming Secretary of State and Colin "Partner in Peace" Powell would move to Treasury. Somehow I doubt O'Neill would run around all the time insisting that we negotiate with Arafat. On the other hand, if Colin took the same strategy towards taxpayers as he does towards terrorists, the IRS would become a LOT easier to deal with. Friday, June 28, 2002
Thomas Sowell says that the really important thing about the 9th Circuit's ruling on the Pledge of Allegiance is that it illustrates a disturbing trend of judicical usurpation of power. Red Letter Edition Matthew 5:21-23 ISV "You have heard that it was said to those who lived long ago, 'You must not murder,' and 'Whoever murders will be subject to punishment.' But I say to you, anyone who is angry with his brother without a cause will be subject to punishment. And whoever says to his brother 'Raka!' will be subject to the Council. And whoever says 'You fool!' will be subject to hell fire. One of the mistakes people make is in thinking that Jesus presented new laws or a new morality. Under that view, you would look at these statements by Christ and assume that he was just giving us some new rules that were a little more expansive than the old ones. In point of fact, the law and morality had not changed. The law was just the bare minimum of expected behavior. What Jesus was telling his disciples was that God does not ask us for the bare minimum. He wants us to pursue His will. So to the one who says, "I have not slain men," (From Confessions of a Righteous Soul in the Egyptian Book of the Dead) Christ would reply, "But did you hate men?" The point is that we should not look at Christ's teaching as simply raising the bar on the minimum standard of acceptable behavior. Instead, we are to attempt to achieve perfection. Orrin Judd is in rare form today. I'd suggest you at least scan everything he's written today. If you don't have time for that, at least read his idea about school vouchers. You know, in this whole predestination discussion, Robert Bauer may be the wisest of us all. Finally, we can simply put it down to insufficient knowledge at this time, and have faith that all will be revealed eventually. In the absence of a better option, I'm sticking with this one. David Heddle says that he wasn't able to understand my point about science yesterday. That's probably because I misunderstood his position in his original post.
I understood him to be arguing that God "mircomanages" the entire universe. It was probably the line about every atom in the universe that through me off. However, in his post on God's sovereingty today, he wasn't saying that at all. In fact he specifically disclaimed the idea that God goes around manually positioning each angstrom. The confusion was entirely on my part, I'm afraid.
All this talk though, reminded me of one of my great fears. That fear is of allowing philosophy to influence our theology. Ideally, we would all come to the scriptures with a clean slate. No preconceived notions at all. We would then read the scriptures and allow our doctrine to flow from our reading. Then our doctrine would form our theology. Finally, our theology would form our philosophy of the world.
My dialogue with David reminds me that this is very seldom what happens. All to often, the reverse is true. We start out with a philosophy about how the world works. Because of our disparate backgrounds, that philosophy can be truly diverse. Our philosophy influences which theological perspectives we can bring ourselves to accept. In turn, the theology we accept (how we believe God functions) will influence which doctrines we will accept. Then, with our doctrines already in hand, we come to the scriptures. By this point we have almost always guaranteed that we will find what we expected to find.
A very simple fact convinces me that this is just what is happening with David and I here: I read all the scriptures that David laid out to defend his position, and I simply don't see what he sees in those passages. In a couple of instances, I don't have the foggiest idea how he thinks the passage relates to his point.
None of this is meant as a jab against David. I'm not even saying that he is in fact doing what I describe. I'm virtually certain that I am though. Worse, I'm convinced that we all do it at least some of the time.
Early in the Church's history, the great struggle was with gnosticism. The gnostics had some pretty strange beliefs. The real problem wasn't really their beliefs though. The real problem was their approach to Christianity. The gnostics were steeped in Dualism. (As I understand it, it was the gnostics basic philosphy that there was the spiritual, which was all good, and the physical, which was all bad.) They allowed this philosophy to pervade all their thoughts about Christianity. They were engaging in a philosphical approach to theology. That is to say, they were trying to reason there way up to God rather than simply accepting his revelation. Their particular philosophy made it impossible to accept Christ as God and man simultaneously. They were convinced he must be one or the other. They therefore constructed elaborate explanations to explain Christ.
Eventually, the church stopped having problems with the gnostics. The reason was not that they had engaged the gnostics in some sort of theological battle and emerged triumphant. The reason was that the church became gnostic. Not in teaching. As far as I know, the church always condemned the teachings of the gnostics. What I mean is that they adopted the gnostics approach to theology and doctrine. They started with their philosophy and worked up.
I'm convinced that one of the major reasons for schisms among Christians is that we are still doing the same thing. We are allowing our philosophy to dictate our theology, our doctrine, and our reading of the scriptures. Because we start with different philosphies, it is hardly surprising that we view the scriptures differently.
Now, I've defined what I see as the problem. Do I have a solution? I wish. The only thing I know to do is try as hard as possible to make sure I approach the scriptures with as little baggage as possible. Thursday, June 27, 2002
Red Letter Edition Matthew 5:17-20 ISV "Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I didn't come to destroy them, but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not one letter or one stroke of a letter will disappear from the Law until everything has been accomplished. So whoever sets aside one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness greatly exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven!" Warning. Philosophy and Theology ahead. David Heddle has a rather lengthy post on pre-destination. I'm afraid I'm not up to an in depth analysis of David's post, nor am I up to digging through the scriptures copiously to devlop my thoughts on the subject. However, I've got a couple of thoughts to get off my chest.
I had another thought that was percolating, but won't coalesce. I've already spent more time at this than I had planned. Back to bed with me. Wednesday, June 26, 2002
I've noticed some comments about my health so I thought I'd take a few moments to tell people what's going on. For several weeks I've been having episodes where I would get light-headed and have some minor equilibrium problems. Recently these spells have been more frequent and the equilibrium problems have worsened. So far, the doctors have not been able to determine what is wrong, although it appears to be some sort of problem with my left ear. Last Thursday, I was at work and started getting very dizzy. As I was walking down the hall, I blacked out and fell. Since that time I've been having headaches and dizziness almost constantly. All of this also makes it hard for me to hold a train of thought for very long, which is why I haven't been posting very much. I have an appointment next week with a specialist, so hopefully we can find and clear up these problems soon. In the meantime, I'll be posting whenever I can think straight for extended periods of time. Any prayer would be appreciated. Red Letter Edition Matthew 5:13-16 ISV "You are the salt of the world. But if the salt should lose its taste, how can it be made salty again? It's good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled on by people. You are the light of the world. A city located on a hill can't be hidden. People don't light a lamp and put it under a basket but on a lampstand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before people in such a way that they will see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.". Marc over at Spudlets has a good point in response to my parenthetical question in this post. So if the truth is not being taught, why remain? You can't be an effective agent of change outside of the organization. Everyone, though, has their breaking point, and eventually needs to be fed, rather than dishing out all of the time. David Heddle had some comments on Christian Fellowship. I think you can stop trembling David, we seem to be pretty much on the same page on this one. Tuesday, June 25, 2002
Thanks for the kind comments from Josh Claybourn. I'm still not feeling very well, but I've had a thought about bouncing around in my head for a while. My head's pretty foggy, but hopefully this will make sense.
David Heddle was talking about faith and belief. His comments reminded me that in a post several weeks ago, Mark Byron commented that it is easier for Protestants to leave their church than for Catholics. He may be correct, but I hope his reasoning is not. Mark indicated that Protestant churches are "interchangeable." Is this really true? To an extent, it may be, but logically, they cannot be completely interchangeable. There are reasons why there are different "denominations." One of the primary differences is that they teach different things. I would hope that the reason people are at a church is because they have compared the teachings of that church to scripture and found those teachings to be true. (If the truth is not being taught, why would you remain?)
Now the fact of the matter is that it is absolutely possible for people of good faith to examine the scriptures and come to different conclusions about a great many things. There will be differences of opinion. To the extent that churches teach different things, they have a difference of opinion about what the facts are. Paul chastised the Corinthian church for its divisions, but did sanction one type of division: Divisions that serve to separate the genuine from the false. This certainly seems to leave open the possibility that there will be those who call themselves Christians, but will be rejected. It certainly shows that we are to stand up for the truth.
However, are we required to separate ourselves from everyone who doesn't see exactly eye to eye on every passage? Dr. Heddle certainly doesn't think so. In fact he lists a number of things that he doesn't find to be vital to Christianity. I certainly sympathize with his belief that in heaven he will find out he was mistaken about a great many things. I believe I will do the same. Also, I can find nothing that indicates that a flawless theology is necesssary for salvation. But how are we to determine which things are absolutely vital?
I read a fascinating scholarly paper a few months ago. (The link is here but wasn't working at the time of this post.) The article was about who it is acceptable to have fellowship with. I will have to summarize since I can't access the article at the moment, but the premise was structured around this passage.
John 17:20-23 ISV "I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their message, that they may all be one. Just as you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be one in us, so that the world may believe that you sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, so that they may be one, just as we are one. I am in them, and you are in me. May they be completely one, so that the world may know that you sent me and that you have loved them as you loved me. The author's premise was based on the fact that Jesus prayed that those who believed through the message taught by the apostles would be united. From that he launches into a discusion that concludes with the idea that we should have fellowship with all those who teach what the apostles taught about salvation, irregardless of how far off base we think they are on other doctrinal issues. He did not say we shouldn't endeavor to teach them better on those issues, only that those issues are not vital. They are the things that won't make any difference if we get to heaven and find out we were wrong. (Essentially the artilce divided doctrine up between saving orthodoxy, the actual message of salvation on which there can be no compromise, and sustaining orthodoxy on which there can be differences of opinion.)
I found the article to be an immense comfort because it helped me to channel my energies into the most effective areas. It also convinced me that some battles simply aren't worth fighting. At the same time, I look around and I see that many churches teach things about salvation which I cannot reconcile with the message of the apostles, no matter how much room for interpretation I try to allow for. Based on what I have seen some churches teach, they simply do not seem to be teaching people the same message of salvation that the apostles taught. I must conclude, with sadness, that no matter what they believe about themselves, they are not part of the body.
Now when I find people like that, what should I do? Well, when Priscilla and Aquilla hear Apollos teaching an incomplete message, "they took him home and explained God's way to him more accurately." I think that's good advice for me as well.
So, to the question, "Are Protestant churches interchangeable?" I would have to answer, "Only to the extent that they teach the same message of salvation taught by the apostles."
I hope this post makes a modicum of sense as I've been writing it in something of a daze. I also hope it was helpful to someone. Monday, June 24, 2002
I'm still not feeling very well at all. Posting is going to be rare to nonexistent until my health improves. I apologize to my regular readers and I'll try to get back on track as soon as possible. Friday, June 21, 2002
Sorry about the lack of posting, but I'm not feeling at all well today. I'll try to get back in the groove tomorrow. Thomas Sowell has some interesting things to say about the Supreme Court: The pretense that these judicial self-indulgences are based on the Constitution has been dressed up in words about protecting the "values" of the Constitution -- as distinguished from following its plain words and the meanings that those words had when they were written. Since the whole point of a constitution is to restrain what all branches of government -- including courts -- can do, escaping from its plain words in the name of "a living constitution" turns it into a dying constitution that means whatever judges happen to like. Thursday, June 20, 2002
Read this story. Then write the President at president@whitehouse.gov and tell him what you think about rewarding the people who did this of with their very own country. (Link via Little Green Footballs.) Christopher Johnson isn't at all impressed with the administration's reaction to the latest round of murders in Israel. Neither am I. Note to search engine users. People keep coming to this page via search engines looking for the words to Toby Keith's "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue." I don't have them. Well, this isn't encouraging news. The F-16s dispatched to intercept a plane in White House airspace arrived four minutes too late. This raises the question of why we don't actually have planes flying Combat Air Patrol while the President is in the White House.
And on that subject, the same Secret Service who had the President flitting all over the country on September 11th didn't even bother to tell him about this potential threat, even though they were evacuating reporters and staff. Ari Fleischer says the President has complete confidence in the Secret Service. I do not. (BTW - I'm not questioning the Service's treatment of the President on Sept. 11th. I think they acted properly then. That is what makes this story so inexplicable.) Red Letter Edition
Jesus makes it very plain that following him will not be easy. You will be persecuted. As David Heddle noted, you will be called names. We should have no illusions that in this life, following Christ will make our lives free and easy. But, we have a promised of better things to come. Orrin Judd has quite a bit to say about the Supreme Court's death penalty decision today. This paragraph nicely isolates the poor logic of the Court; There's a flip side to all this too. The mainstreaming of the retarded into society has gone way too far if we're allowing people who we can not hold morally accountable for their actions to roam the streets. For a society to function it is necessary for each citizen to accept responsibility for himself and his actions. If you can't do so, it seems fair to say that you can't be a full citizen with full civil rights. In order to protect such people and ourselves from the dire consequences that may flow from their uninformed actions--for instance, the defendant in this case, Daryl Renard Atkins, had "20 previous felonies on his record" when he committed the murder for which he was sentenced to death--it may well be necessary to incarcerate them in some way, shape, or form--most likely in state-run medical facilities--not as punishment but as a way of supervising them. Just think of the noise the ACLU would make if we actually did this though. GedankenPundit compares the administration's Israel policy to day trading.
As depressing as this comparison is, I'm afraid he's got a point. Best of the Web has some observations about civil liberties and the current war.
Indeed. In Bangledesh, the President was asked (and agreed) by his party to resign because they felt he didn't show proper respect to a predecessor. In the US Bill Clinton's party defended him to the end, even after he desecrated his office. I'm confused. Executing the marginally retarded. Eugene Volokh posted links to this article on the Supreme Court's decision as well as Justice Scalia's dissent. (Yes, he posted the opinion too, but I didn't find it compelling enought to get past the first few lines.) Here's one of Scalia's observations: Once the Court admits (as it does) that mental retardation does not render the offender morally blameless . . . there is no basis for saying that the death penalty is never appropriate retribution, no matter how heinous the crime. As long as a mentally retarded offender knows “the difference between right and wrong,” . . . only the sentencer can assess whether his etardation reduces his culpability enough to exempt him from the death penalty for the particular murder in question. (Emphasis in original. Ellipses represent omitted citations.) Pakistan is holding seven men in connection with the bombing of the US consulate. All seven belong to Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a Sunni Muslim group that spends most of its time attacking other Muslims. I was having trouble formulating my thoughts on the new McCain-Feingold Bill. John Hawkins doesn't appear to have that problem. Fred Barnes on The Palestinian State: The State Department recently persuaded him that Palestinian conduct would improve and terrorism would cease if only Palestinians had real hope of statehood. And Bush agreed to give a speech supporting a provisional Palestinian state, one without final borders or other details worked out with Israel, but a state nonetheless. The one condition: Palestinians must first clean up their act a bit, reforming Yasser Arafat's administration and cracking down on terrorists. So what happened when news of this upcoming speech spread? More Palestinian terrorism. That just about sums up the whole messy situation, doesn't it? Gary Peterson has some thoughts about study Bibles. Like Gary, I have used the Life Application Bible, and like Gary, I have found places where the study aids were misleading or just plain wrong. This is, of course, something that cannot be avoided in any study Bible or commentary. When humanity attempts to interpret the Word of God, we will inevitably make mistakes. This is part of the reason I have a problem with the increasing prevelance of study Bibles. People seem to be putting too much emphasis on flawed human writings. Now I certainly believe that the mass murders going on in Israel deserve more attention than they sometimes get. However, I don't understand why the latest attack would have hurt the stock market. Wishful thinking aside, the attack didn't change the political climate anywhere by ane appreciable standard. The chances of peace aren't any less because of the bombing. Why would this spark a big sell-off? Well, another mass murderer struck in Israel. Seven people were killed yesterday and the Guardian managed to publish an entire story about the murder without ever actually mentioning the victims. We know how many people died. That's it. We don't have a single name. We don't know how old they were from this story. I couldn't even tell you the of women to men. I'm afraid we've become desensitized to the whole thing. If I were the publisher of a newspaper, I'd require every story about a bombing in Israel to have one paragraph on each victim before discussion of the policy implications would be allowed.
It looks like Israel may have struck on a good idea. They are apparently goint to seize land from the PA every time there is an attack. I think its a good idea. Suicide attacks keep happening because the Palestinians are convinced that they are weakening Israeli resolve. Some of them might think twice if they knew that one of the results of the attack would be an immediate seizure of land by the IDF.
Of course there is one tactic that would almost completely end these attacks. Israel will never use it though. They won't use it because they are civilized. Once a bombing happens, they usually know who did it. They know who the faimily is. Shoot, sometimes the family gives an interview praising their brave son. How long would the bombings last if it was known that if you blow yourself up in a pizza parlor the IDF will locate every member of your family and execute them? I suspect things would begin to change dramatically. As I said, Israel will never do it.
The point is not that I think they should. They manifestly should not. The point is that it is a tactic that would probably work, but has not been pursued. The thing to remember here is that lots of people genuinely believe that Israel's treatment of the Palestinians is somewhere between that of Hitler and Satan. They are portrayed as murdering, fascist, nazi, racist blowhards with no respect for human rights. Yet they don't take this action that would work. They don't do so because the stories about the IDF from the PA are just that, stories. If Israel was the kind of place Arafat describes, they would kill the families of terrorist. They'd do much worse and be more arbitrary. The very fact that Arafat is still around to call the Israelis a bunch of Nazis is prima facia evidence that he's all wet. If his statements were true, he'd be dead. Wednesday, June 19, 2002
It's a good thing this didn't happen before the collapse of the Soviet Union. Every time the Soviet people said they wanted democracy, the government could just point out the "purple M&M fiasco" and everyone would have just said, "Oh, good point. Hadn't thought of that. Sorry to bothe you." Of course they would then go back to standing in line for bread for 3 hours. Red Letter Edition
This part where Christ promises all these wonderful blessings is a great comfort. Of course, we usually don't like the next few verses so much. I'll try to hit the tribulations of faith tomorrow. I linked to this story by David Heddle this morning, but reading it made me think of something from my own history. First though, I want to say that David's story about his son ought to make all of us think long and hard about making sure our projects are oriented on God's goals not ours. His story particularly struck me because he talked about the members of his congregation wanting to have a school with a "classical education." Over the last couple of years I've become more enamored with that idea. This is largely because I've started reading lots of old books. In doing so, I've found quite a bit of evidence of the degredation in education over the last 100-150 years. I bring this up because if I'd been in David's congregation, I could have easily become enamored with the idea of a classical education. I could have fallen in love with the idea so much that I fell right into the trap that so many in his congregation apparently did. I would have been doing something that I thought was for God, but was really for me.
And that's what I really want to talk about. David mentioned something about finances in his post.
If what you intend to do is really for God’s glory, then you should trust Him to provide the resources. This is an example of a sound principle that gets people in lots of trouble. The problem of course is determining if what you are doing is really from God. I also have a Christian school story. I attended a Christian school from the 6th grade on through high school. Not long after I started school there, the board of the school found a building that had been taken back by a bank and was being offered at a deep discount so the bank could get it off their books. It seemed like such a good deal. Everyone was just sure that this building must have been a gift from God. A deal was struck quickly and a remodel of the building began.
For about a year and a half things seemed to be going fine, but there was trouble on the horizon. You see, the cost of the new building was far and away above the rent expense in the old building. The school did not have the money to keep up the loan payments on the new building and no plans to get it. (The fact that they had substantial loans on the building should have been a warning sign right there, but this isn't really a church finances story.)
In retrospect, everyone had been sure the building was a God given plan and that he would provide the resources. That is not the problem. The problem is that very little was done to actually try to verify that this was the will of God. While I was too young to really understand at the time, I have talked to my parents and others who had seen some of this going on. From the information I have gathered, it seems very likely that everyone prettty much made up their minds that they wanted to do it and then convinced themselves it was God's plan.
I can certainly understand that. There have been times in my life where I thought I knew what God wanted, but my plan crashed and burned. When looking back, I see that I was not so much asking God to tell me what he wanted as informing him of what I'd already decided and offering him a veto. Then I didn't pay much attention for a while just in case he did want to veto my action. Usually when I fall into this trap, things go horribly wrong. There have been a couple of times that I've acted in this manner and then felt God holding me back. I assume these were instances where what I wanted to do would have been to big a disaster for me to be able to recover.
I said all of this just to offer a warning which I will now try to sum up.
1. It is true that if what you are planning to do is from God, you should go ahead and move forward with faith that God will provide. Mark Byron launches into yet another trip into joytron land. Speciically he's looking at government programs that may slow down the economy, but provide a boost to overall well-being. In his discussion of the FDIC he lays out a fairly good argument in support of deposit insurance as a good idea. What he totally failed to address is why the government should be mandating such a program. Just because something is a good idea, it does not necessarily follow that the government ought to do it.
I am generally suspicious in nature, mostly because I know that humanity is a fallen race. I see great danger in allowing government to amass more power than it actually needs because I believe that concentrated power almost always leads to increased corruption. I see no reason why deposit insurance couldn't be optional. Some banks would have it and some would not. Those people who believed deposit insurance was important would use banks that had it. Those that didn't would not.
Byron also talks about agricultural price supports. Despite spending much of my life in rural areas, I must plead rational ignorance on this subject. About all I have to add is that I have a general aversion to price controls of any kind and I can't say that I was convinced to think any differently. As I say though, my actual knowledge in this area is to limited to provide any useful analysis. Well, I finally got the Nigerian e-mail scam letter. The one which claims to be from an attorney who has a client who desperatetely needs your help to get the illegal funds out of the country. Can anyone explain to me why you would seek a "reliable and trustworthy partner" with random e-mails? If anybody reads this page, but doesn't read David Heddle, I hope they will at least read this post. The issues he raises ought to have us all asking questions about whether the things we're doing are really for God. If we're going to discuss economics (in any sense) I offer for consideration today's column by Walter Williams. It is, of course, much more pessimistic than most of our conversations to date. It is probably also more realistic. GedankenPundit has some more good reasons to doubt peace is possible between Israel and the Palestinians. Oh and while I'm at it, there's the PLO charter: Article 15: The liberation of Palestine, from an Arab viewpoint, is a national (qawmi) duty and it attempts to repel the Zionist and imperialist aggression against the Arab homeland, and aims at the elimination of Zionism in Palestine. Absolute responsibility for this falls upon the Arab nation - peoples and governments - with the Arab people of Palestine in the vanguard. Accordingly, the Arab nation must mobilize all its military, human, moral, and spiritual capabilities to participate actively with the Palestinian people in the liberation of Palestine. It must, particularly in the phase of the armed Palestinian revolution, offer and furnish the Palestinian people with all possible help, and material and human support, and make available to them the means and opportunities that will enable them to continue to carry out their leading role in the armed revolution, until they liberate their homeland. No one has ever revoked this charter. How are you supposed to live in peace with people who believe: 1) your existence as a nation is a fiction, 2) your state is illegal, and 3) that it is their God-given obligation to fix 1 and 2 by force? Even if you believe the PLO charter is 100% right, you have to admit that it is incompatible with the notion of a Palestinian state and a Jewish state living side by side in peace.
In point of fact, that is exactly what a large number of Palestinians do believe and there actions prove it.(See the interview a few posts down.)
Tuesday, June 18, 2002
For more on why I doubt a peaceful resolution is possible with the Palestinians, watch this. Then look at this. (As an addendum read this.) An excerpt from a interview with the mother of a mass murder.* (Translated by Memri.)
Here we have a guy who refers to his gun as his bride. His mother says he loved his gun. Why doesn't Rosie O'Donnel give the NRA a break and start trashing these guys?
My sister died four and a half years ago. My mother still hasn't recovered. After seeing that, the idea of a mother actually wanting to revel in her son's death is more than a little frightening. In fact, it totally freaks me out.
"He set out to carry out the operation, and when he got to the area he spent the night with his friends there. I was in contact with him and I asked him about his morale. He told me he was very happy. Indeed, I saw his face happier than I had ever seen it." Just think about what kind of sicko operations this implies. In a normal military operation, mothers worry that their children will die in combat. Here we have a woman who is afraid her son won't die on his mission.
I prayed for him when he left the house and asked Allah to make his operation a success and give him martyrdom. When he entered the settlement, his brothers in the military wing [of Hamas] informed me that he had managed to infiltrate it. Then I began to pray to Allah for him." "No really, it's just fine for my son to die. As long as he takes a bunch of Jews with him when he goes, that is."
"When the operation was over, the media broadcast the news. Then Muhammad's brother came to me and informed me of his martyrdom. I began to cry, 'Allah is the greatest,' and prayed and thanked Allah for the success of the operation. I began to utter cries of joy and we declared that we were happy. The young people began to fire into the air out of joy over the success of the operation, as this is what we had hoped for him." Does anybody have figures on how many Arabs have been killed when some idiot fired his machine gun in the air to celebrate something? As much as it seems to happen, I would expect the numbers to be pretty high.
"After the martyrdom [operation], my heart was peaceful about Muhammad. I encouraged all my sons to die a martyr's death, and I wish this even for myself. After all this, I prepared myself to receive the body of my son, the pure shahid, in order to look upon him one last time and accept the well-wishers who [came] to us in large numbers and participated in our joy over Muhammad's martyrdom..." The thing that's scary is that as far as I can tell, this woman is a perfectly normal Palestinian. That's why I'm pretty sure that Israel can never be at peace with a proposed Palestinian state. You'll still have all these people running around who had mothers that taught them that the most important thing in life is killing Jews.
*=Editorial choice. No more anguishing over what to call these people. A mass murderer is someone who kills several people, usually at one time. From now on, I'm calling a spade a spade.(And a mass murder a mass murder.) Okay, if you want to take a trip into a dream world, read this article. I especially liked this: The violence "is setting back chances for peace," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Tuesday. You think? You know one of the things that really bugs me about this? We pay for the State Department to come up with idiotic drivel like this.
If I was elected President, I would have two goals. One of them would be 100% turnover at State in less than one year. My other goal? Thanks, but considering my job as a CPA, I think I'll just have to keep the specifics under wraps. (But it involves a certain agency.) Red Letter Edition Matthew 4:18-22 NAS Now as Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee, He saw two brothers, Simon who was called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. And He said to them, "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men." Immediately they left their nets and followed Him. Going on from there He saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets; and He called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed Him. Even today, Jesus still calls people to follow Him. This is sometimes a life altering experience. (It was for these men.) It often requires sacrifices. (They left their jobs and families behind.) There is often great risk. (Most people in this day and age earned enough in a day to be able to eat that day and no more. These disciples were risking their ability to eat.) When Jesus calls to you, "Follow me," what will you be willing to leave behind? John Hawkins asks: How many Israeli school children and women waiting for buses have to die before we get serious about this? 100, 200, 500, 1000, 10,000? Would that be enough or would we still be calling for "restraint" even then? It is a good question. I wish I knew the answer. On the subject of Christian economics, in the real world sense, I've got a thought here. I'm going to start out with a quote from CS Lewis called, "Christianity and Literature." And if we enlarge the idea of Christian Literature to include not only literature on sacred themes but all that is written by Christians for Christians to read, then, I think, Christian Literature can exist only in the same sense in which Christian cookery might exist. It would be possible, and it might be edifying, to write a Christian cookery book. Such a book would exclude dishes whose preparation involves unnecessary human labour or animal suffering, and dishes excessively luxurious. That is to say, its choice of dishes would be Christian. Buth there could be nothing specifically Christian about the actual cooking of the dishes included. Boiling an egg is the same process whether you are a Christian or a Pagan. In the same way, literature written by Christians for Christians would have to avoid mendacity, cruelty, blasphemy, pornography, and the like, and it would aim at edification in so far as edification was proper in the kind of work in hand. But whatever it chose to do would have to be done by the means common to all literature; it could succeed or fail only by the same excellences and the same faults as all literature; and its literary success or failure would never be the same thing as its obedience or disobedience to Christian principles. I think that what Lewis was trying to get across was that anytime you take an ordinary field of study and amend it with the word Christian, you don't automatically get a new field of study. In the field of Christian economics I believe this applies as well. It seems to me that "Christian economics" is actually two separate fields of study that have converged. Economics is a social science that serves to tell us what methods will be more or less successful in accomplishing certain objectives. Christianity is a theological, moral, and ethical system (plus a whole lot more, but those are the things important in this essay) that tell us both the goals we should be chasing and the methods that are permissible.
In essence, we would first look to scripture to find out what goals a Christian should want an economic policy to accomplish. We would then study economics to discover which methods could accomplish those goals. Then, we would return to Christian principles and determine if any of the options offered by economics are forbidden by Christian principles. If we find some policy offered by economics is in conflict with Christianity, no amount of utilitarian arguments should convince us to accept it. The ends almost never justify the means.
This applies in other area as well. Lots of people try to convince Christians who oppose therapeutic cloning that they should support it because it has the potential to save so many lives. They fail to understand that most of us don't oppose these procedures because we believe they will be ineffective. Christian principles tell me that killing one arbitrary person in order to save the life of another (or even thousands) is wrong because that life was not mine to give. We call it murder. To me, it is evident that human life begins at conception. When I combine those two thoughts, I have no choice but to call therapeutic cloning murder. I therefore oppose it as an unacceptable method of medical science. Whether it will actually work or not is completely beside the point. An observation (and request) on Christian economics. My understanding when Mark Byron first started this line of discussion was that he was trying to develop a theory of economics based on Christian principles. This would be very real world look at things. However, I've noticed that this is actually developing into two separate conversations. One on how to apply Christian principles in the world we actually live in. The other seems to be an ivory tower, what would and economic system look like if it were truly Christian type of thing. Both are interesting concepts, but there not actually the same thing. (Ideally though, we could use the "truly Christian" model we develop and compare it with what we've actually got to find deficiencies. That's pretty much what Orrin Judd did in his last post.)
Switching back and forth can be confusing, so I suggest that at some point during posts on these subjects, we try to specify which of these two concepts we're actually addressing. If anyone ever publishes a book about great moments in Christian blogging, I nominate this post by Orrin Judd. I won't reproduce the whole thing here, but some was just to good not to be repeated.
Sounds like Hell to me. This morning David Heddle was talking about lying. He offers this analogy:
David's analogy may well be correct. It certainly seems compelling. Let me expand on it a little. It is true that some killings are justified and therefore not murder. However, whether justified or not, all killings are undesirable and to be avoided if possible. Likewise, while it may be true that some untruths are justified and therefore not sinful, they are still distasteful. Given that, even justified untruths should be avoided if possible.
There is another issue as well. David points out in an update that Oliver Tseng also discussed this issue. (His post is incredibly comprehensive and must have taken forever to compile.) After examining practically every example of deceipt in scriptures, Tseng says this:
My conclusion would be that lying is acceptable based on the intentions of the heart. Since we do not even know our own heart, only God knows our heart, it is ultimately only God who can judge. The Holy Spirit will convict if our intentions are/were wrong. The part about only God knowing our heart and therefore only he be able to determine if our motives are pure struck me. It is certainly true. It also seems to me that studying this subject in intense detail could easily descend into "loophole hunting." That is, trying to find a time that it is acceptable to do that which we ordinarily know we should not do. If we reach that point we have certainly lost sight of the spirit of God's commands. (A huge part of the Sermon on the Mount was dedicated to denouncing that type of thinking.) Consequently, this is an area we should approach with care.)
I also note that Tseng found 3 examples of deceipt being approved by God.
Based on those examples, I would say that the only time lying can be acceptable is when it is done to protect others. (Specifically their lives.) Even then, this could get extremely dicey. I'm not sure I've cast much light on the subject. I guess where I'm at is that it may be possible for some untruths to not be sinful but that those times are few and far between. Best to steer clear entirely.
This brings me to my basic theory on all things ethical.
There is, of course, a corollary to these rules:Rules 1-4 are easier said than done.
On another note, Tseng raises the possibility that light timers when away from home and make-up constitute deception. I'd never considered this. It sent my head spinning and I still don't know what to think about those. If you want to understand a little more what it is like to deal with terrorism as a way of life, read TalG today. This sentence stopped me cold: Your sense of outrage is restored when the bombing is in your neighborhood. Yes, these attacks have been going on so long that he finds it difficult to work up a sense of outrage. This economics thing is spiraling out of control. There are several posts I want to address, but the rest will have to wait. For now, let me just say that while I agree with a lot of what Josh Claybourn wrote today, he is incorrect about one thing. The Old Testament actually has quite a bit to say about interest. For instance, there is this passage:
Deuteronomy 23:19-20 NAS "You shall not charge interest to your countrymen: interest on money, food, or anything that may be loaned at interest. "You may charge interest to a foreigner, but to your countrymen you shall not charge interest, so that the LORD your God may bless you in all that you undertake in the land which you are about to enter to possess." Now this passage may well explain why Jews in Florence could get rich on interest and honor the Torah's injunctions on interest. They were lending to Gentiles, not to Jews. (This is supposition. My history of medeival Florence is practically nonexistent.)
There are several other passages about interest, but I don't think I'm up to an economics discussion at the moment.
David Heddle is talking about lying today. When he started talking about Rahab, I thought he might go into more detail about why Rahab's "untruth" was not a sin. Still, I found this thought interesting:
Rahab's untruth is to lying as killing is to murder. We know that justified taking of a life (killing) is not the same as murder. In the same way, a justified untruth is not the same as a self-serving lie. David also added to his thoughts on perseverance of the saints. I keep thinking I'm going to have time to sit down and really work through my own thoughts on this subject, but it hasn't happened yet.
Monday, June 17, 2002
In an article not designed to win friends, espeically among liberals, Mark Levin argues that Nixon was not our worst President. Instead, he proposes FDR. Read the column. Its worth a look. Maybe I should have said posting will be "sporadic" instead of "limited." But, how will you tell the difference. Proverbs 3:5-6 WEB Trust in Yahweh with all your heart,
And don't lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge him,
And he will direct your paths. A new search engine claims to have a larger data base than Google. That may be, but do you want to guess where I found this story? After an internet cafe in China burned down killing 24 people officials in many of China's largest cities started shutting down the cafes. Many people are speculating that Chinese officials are just using the fire as an excuse to claimp down on internet freedom.
For some reason I'm cynical about China. Controlling information is key to the communist government staying in control there. The internet is threatening that control. If we found out that the government started the fire to manufacture an excuse to clamp down on internet cafes, that wouldn't surprise me. While checking out my referrer logs, I found a link from GedankenPundit. I've been poking around his site for a little while. Its a good read. I want to clarify me earlier post (scroll down) about Israel's defensive fence. I seriously doubt that it will be effective in curbing terrorism. I hope it does, but I doubt it. But calling the fence "fascist" or comparing it to apartheid is just stupid. Red Letter Edition
When I read this passage, I am reminded of some things. The first is that scripture can easily be perverted by Satan. He's real good at it. He knows the scriptures very well. However, Christ shows us that the scriptures, used correctly can help defend us from temptation.
This site pops up first on Google for "devil knicknames." I'm pretty sure the person who came here with that search left empty-handed. Those words were used in entirely different posts. Oh, you've got to love Yasser: Yasser Arafat blasted U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice on Monday for comments condemning his Palestinian Authority, saying she has no right to dictate to Palestinians how their future state should look. He's constantly demanding that we tell the Israelis what to do, but he sure gets in a snit when we tell him what to do. Yasser, boy, I got a tip for you. The only chance you have of getting a state at all lies in our ability to influence Israel. If a state is what you really want, you better listen up.
Of course, a state is not what he wants. At least not until he's destroyed Israel (hey even Yasser can dream), at which point our ability to influence Israel wouldn't matter.
And on the subject of the security fence:
"This is a fascist, apartheid measure being done, and we do not accept it,'' Arafat said of the fence. "We will continue rejecting it by all means.'' Wow! The Israelis are practicing fascism and apartheid at the same time. They must be really bad.
Fascism is defined as "A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism."
Israel is a free market democracy. If there censoring the opposition it isn't working very well (see yasser's comments above and constant press releases from Hamas). Israel responds to attacks by retaliating against military targets. There may be some belligerent nationalism and racism in Israel, but I haven't seen much sign of it and its sure not government policy.
The PA has no economy. Their "President's" term ended in 1999, but he's still in office. He now talks about holding elections "later." You don't hear much Palestinian dissent so either everyone agrees with Yasser or he's censoring the daylights out of his critics. (The criticism you do hear is that he's to soft. If I were Yasser, I'd want that out because it makes him look "moderate.") Palestinians have this habit of blowing up pizza parlors. The policy of the PLO is "from the river to the sea" which sounds like belligerent nationalism to me. Arabs keep referring to Jews as pigs and monkeys and I understand that Mein Kempf is a big seller over there right now.
This is by no means a perfect take down, but I think the point is made and I'm running out of time here. The apartheid comment will have to wait.
Josh Claybourn has some good thoughts about Lileks, dogs, CS Lewis, the moral law, and how that all ties into God. Sunday, June 16, 2002
Jason Steffens has some good remarks about the "Mohammed was demon possessed" brouhaha;
Indeed it is. Gary Petersen over at Country Keepers pointed out this list of Christian resources at Heal Your Church Website. Hamas released a video showing a mother sending her son off to fight the IDF. This story makes sound like a genuine Kodak moment. Well, at least this suicidal maniac was actually going out to fight real soldiers. Mark Byron had this to say about a possible plan to oust Saddam Hussein.
I don't want Bush to blow the momentum and good foreign-policy management by going with a half-baked plan to get rid of Saddam. I smell Bay of Pigs II. Signs of a good, well-thought-out plan would relieve those fears. However, I don't want so big of a leak that it will telegraph what they are about to do. They'll need to leak enough to say "we've got the tool to do the job right, we've stuck a fork in and it's done-the plan's fully baked" yet not have too much detail. I've got to disagree with Dr. Byron on this one. Assuming that they actually have a good plan, I'd much rather there be no leaks at all. It seems much safer to me if the Iraqi's go right on believing we don't have the faintest idea what we're doing right up to the point our soldier arrive on Saddam's doorstep and drag him out of his palace.
Now its true that if there are no links, we won't have as much reason to be confident ahead of time. But that's where faith comes in.
Now if they really don't have a good plan and do it anyway, that's another matter. Its also one I believe is better dealt with only if the problem materializes.
One truly beneficial thing Andersen has done of the years has been its Tax Challenge. This is a competition where universities send their top accounting students in the area of taxation to competitions to test knowledge and skill. Its been a good program. If Andersen folds, I would hope that one of the other big firms would pick this program up. It would be a shame for students to lose this forum. Andersen has agreed to stop auditing public firms by August 31 unless the firms conviction is overturned. Analysis of Anderson's future? One word:toast. On April 29th, Martin Roth sent an e-mail to Glen Reynolds. That e-mail was to point Glen to an article he'd written about the growing number of Christian Blogs. Reynold's subsequently posted a link to Martin's article.
At that point, my blogging life took a major shift. I'd only been doing this for a couple of weeks when Martin posted that article. At that point it was pretty much hit or miss to find other Christians who were blogging. I'd seen Martin's site a few times and had stumbled across a couple of others, but for the most part, I was just sitting in my own little corner doing my own thing. After writing that article, Martin began collecting links to Christian blogs. That list is up to about 180 at last count.
For me, at least, the list changed how I thought about blogging. Prior to that, I was just writing about this and that and trying to throw a Christian perspective on things as well as doing some devotionals. Now I suddenly knew where to find other Christians doing similar things. I was able to comment on their thoughts and see them comment on mine. This interchange with other Christian bloggers has made the whole experience much more beneficial to me and has also stimulated my thinking in ways that I can't find much anywhere else.
Also, as I read Martin's own blogging and articles I am impressed by his ability to focus my mind on those things that are of true importance. In particular, he has taught me to take a greater interest in Christians who are being persecuted and in the missionaries trying to teach in very harsh environments.
For giving the Christian blogosphere a place to converge and for causing me to think on the really important things, I want to tell Martin thank you, and keep up the good work. The first story in this post at "How Appealing" highlights a judges sense of humor, and his grammar. Red Letter Edition Matthew 3:13-17 ISV Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. But John tried to stop him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and are you coming to me?" But Jesus answered him, "Let it be this way for now, for this is the proper way for us to fulfill all righteousness." Then John let him. When Jesus had been baptized, he immediately came up out of the water. Suddenly the heavens opened up for him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him. I'd never realized before that these are the first words of Jesus in the Bible (as the books are ordered, not chronologically). I find somethng very important things about Jesus here. One thing to keep in mind was that John taught baptism for the forgiveness of sins. This explains John's shock at Jesus coming to him for baptism. The One without sin came to one with sin to be baptized.
I have very little understanding of how baptism relates to forgiveness of sins, but I've seen enough scriptures to know there is a relation. I understand even less why God's plan called for Jesus to be baptized. This teaches me a couple of things. One is that there are parts of God's plan that I will never understand. The other is that Jesus submitted to God's plan.
If Jesus, who had no need of baptism, was willing to do it because God asked for it, shouldn't I likewise be willing to submit to the will of the Father, even when at times it makes no rational sense to me? And if Jesus's submission to the Father pleased the Father, isn't it reasonable to assume that my submission will please him as well? Our sermon today was about knowing the Father. It was pointed out that it is possible to get so caught up in apologetics, theology, and yes, even the Biblical epistles, that you forget who Jesus is. This is dangerous because it is only through Jesus that we can know the Father. In that light, I'm going to start a regular feature on this blog which I will call Red Letter Edition. The purpose of this feature will be to walk through the gospels looking at what Jesus said. I will add any comments that seem appropriate at the time, but I will be posting a few verses everyday. Home Depot is refusing to sell anything to the Federal government. The company isn't saying why, but a notice is being sent to all corporate customers that Home Depot will refuse any transaction that might cause the company to be subject to certain laws or executive orders regarding discrimination and affirmative action. On first glance that might sound as if excessive government regulation had caused the Feds to lose a supplier. The strange thing is that all the cited provision are more than 25 years old. Did the Home Depot legal department get behind on their reading and just find out about these provisions? In my bit about Anderson yesterday, I missed this a point that Forbes mentions. Whether Anderson's right to practice public accounting in individual states is removed or not, barring an SEC waiver, the conviction will prevent them from audting publicy traded companies. That is a huge part of their business.
By the way, the article makes it sound as if CPA's are quaking in their boots over Anderson and Enron. I know lots of seriously pissed acountants, but not many who've expressed the kind of nervousness Forbes describes.
Construction has begun in Alaska on a missle defense system. Interestingly, construction was protested by a group called No Nukes North. This is strange because I'm pretty sure that's the goal of a missle defense system. Apparentyl some members of al Qaeda view bin Laden as a prophet. Considering what he's prophesying, it should be increasingly clear that we have no choice but to continue fighting. The bomb at our consulate in Pakistan may not have been from a suicide bomber after all. Investigators are looking into the possibility that the bomb was hidden in a driver's education car and triggered remotely as the car passed the consulate. This kind of thing is why President Bush calls our enemies evil. Hopefully, even the French will figure this out eventually. Mark Byron had more on Christian economics yesterday. Joshua Claybourn, after pointing out that its easy to be critical and Bryon is doing the hard work, threw in his comments. This part was interesting;
I want to point out that I think Claybourn is getting ahead of Mark. In the post in question, Mark just raised the question of why we engage in these social programs. He hasn't really gotten around to answering it yet. That said, I think Josh has a point about the ignorance of politicians and, perhaps more to the point, the voters. Let me extend this a bit. I think the real problem is willful ignorance. What I see are lots of people who would rather believe that these things work than to examine the issue.
To some extent, willful ignorance is the result of the fact that humans are not rational beings. We are able to engage in Reason and Logic, but our emotions run wild. As a result, people are often more concerned with what makes them feel good. If a program doesn't work, that's a side issue. The important thing is that we meant well. That way of thinking is a big part of the reason we have to deal so much with The Law of Unintended Consequences.
To put it another way, "People are a problem." (Shameless Douglas Adams quote.) So, how does a Christian go about trying to deal with these problems. I'm still coping with that, but I know that my gut instinct to yell in their face and call them idiots is neither Christ-like nor effective.
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