We live under such a disgusting government. And even if TSA and FBI are out of our reach, we have to use all the economic power we have to punish every cooperating corporation.
“I’m Hindu.”
“How religious are you? Would you describe yourself as ‘somewhat religious’ or ‘very religious’?”
I was speechless from the idea of being forced to talk about my the extent of religious beliefs to a complete stranger. “Somewhat religious”, I responded.
“How many times a day do you pray?” he asked. This time, my surprise must have registered on my face, because he quickly added, “I’m not trying to offend you; I just don’t know anything about Hinduism. For example, I know that people are fasting for Ramadan right now, but I don’t have any idea what Hindus actually do on a daily basis.”
The only reason I didn’t give Walter Williams fine book five stars, when I reviewed it at Amazon.com, is because it is decades-old now. Why doesn’t Williams get his students to do some up-to-date research and come up with an expanded edition?
But the book is excellent beyond measure–easily (apart from datedness) worth six stars out of five. And because it explains really well why the average person of color came from a poorer family in the eighties, one could even argue that it remains quite contemporary. More importantly, the principles articulated here are quite easily applied to a variety of other situations.
The basic thesis (I’m going by memory here) is that even though “Jim Crow” laws have been removed from the state governments, that the federal, state, and local governments have in fact passed laws and (especially!) regulations that disproportionately hurt blacks and promote their poverty rather than their prosperity. One reviewer has already mentioned the taxicab example. At one time, if one had a car, one could offer one’s services as a taxi cab driver. But now the City government has made it illegal for a person to offer that service. Walter Williams discusses the proffered rationales for this use of state violence (Williams’s tone is not nearly as severe as mine, but what can I say?—All laws are statements threatening people with violence who don’t comply). But these rationales for government intervention are easily shown as bogus. The existing cab drivers are lining their pockets with money from all other potential cab drivers. This is a colorblind system of robbery, but it is not economically blind. It hurts those who have a car and can drive but who don’t have other more lucrative opportunities. Due to past injustices that were not color-blind, this injustice ends up not being color-blind either. Because minorities are disproportionately poor, laws exploiting the poor are laws that especially target certain races.
Basically, the relative poverty of those who are poor today cannot be addressed in the same way as it once was. Various laws have knocked many rungs out of “the ladder of success” that were once in place for the European immigrant waves of yesteryear.
Another example that especially sticks in my memory is Walter Williams’ historical analysis showing that poor black outbid richer whites at the same houses in the cities. The reason for this was that multiple families were willing to subdivide and share dwellings. Williams breaks down how much money a racist landlord would lose if he tried to be racist in his practices by refusing to rent to blacks. But those opportunities were no longer present when African Americans had an incentive to leave the inner city. The suburbs had passed laws denying landowners the freedom to control their property. It became illegal for more than one family to share a house.
Another intervention that cuts off African Americans from economic opportunities are the industry regulations for occupations such as beauty salons. It is horrible that there are discrepancies in the education that minorities receive, but it doesn’t help to arbitrarily demand unnecessary education accomplishments of people who want to offer the service of cutting other people’s hair in exchange for money. Again, this was a case of a law that simply artificially raised beauty salon prices by putting up barriers that kept the disadvantaged out of the market. It effectively added another disadvantage in order to keep them down. Why should (typically) better-educated whites make a living at the expense of blacks? Why should a black be threatened with fines and jail time for cutting a customer’s hair and receiving money in exchange for that service?
Readers will be surprised to discover what South African labor unions resorted to when they were unable to continue using blatantly racist laws to keep blacks from competing with them: minimum wage laws. In a racist culture, if you force everyone to be paid an artificially high level, racist employers can afford to be racist. But if blacks can outbid whites at their labor, a racist employer will soon be driven out of business if he tries to hire according to his preference. Of course, blacks should get paid the same as whites for the same work, and that is what we should all want. But which brings that vision closer to reality, blacks learning job skills and integrating in the work force, or blacks forced into permanent unemployment by laws that basically allow some workers to gain at the expense of other workers? Don’t whites have enough privileges already? The market is a force for integration if politicians will leave it alone.
Besides all this, minimum wage laws, unless they are set too low to matter, would discriminate against minorities regardless of present-day racism. Again, such laws hurt the poor for the sake of the better off. Those whose labor, due to lack of education and training, is not worth the level set by the law, are forced into unemployment. It is illegal to hire them. And because minorities are disproportionately poor, such economic exploitation is also race exploitation.
Reading this book was a life-changing experience in college, one that I tried rather ineffectively to share with my socially conscious peers. I can’t recommend it enough.
I wrote this post before Bradley Manning decided he wanted the name Chelsea. So the subject matter of the post is even more important than I thought when I wrote it yesterday afternoon.<>важна ли реклама для магазина
But I would have liked Mohler to define the music problem more clearly: churches are moving from congregational singing to passive congregational sitting in the face of professional singing. The Reformers did a great deal to promote (virtually re-invent) congregational singing. The debate over exclusive Psalmody only makes sense as a consequence of this strong push earlier in history. Mohler is plainly (and rightly!) concerned with the loss of this Biblical heritage:
In terms of musical style, the more traditional churches feature large choirs—often with orchestras—and may even sing the established hymns of the faith. Choral contributions are often massive in scale and professional in quality. In any event, music fills the space and drives the energy of the worship service. Intense planning, financial investment, and priority of preparation are focused on the musical dimensions of worship. Professional staff and an army of volunteers spend much of the week in rehearsals and practice sessions.
At the same time, I’m not sure Mohler grasps the real problem in all this. It is not just that congregations divide over style, it is that they were never supposed to be relegated to the role of art critics to begin with. They are supposed to all be singing to God. God is the audience; they are the choir.
I also don’t think Mohler is helping himself to portray the Reformer’s work on worship as mainly the recovery of expository Biblical preaching. (He makes some concessive statements about Luther and music that, frankly, we would do well to use as a basis for seminary reform). As I said, they spent time and energy reforming worship by demanding and encouraging congregational singing. Most of them used structured liturgies as well.
This brings me to Mohler’s thesis and his Biblical proof:
Expository preaching is central, irreducible, and nonnegotiable to the Bible’s mission of authentic worship that pleases God. John Stott’s simple declaration states the issue boldly: “Preaching is indispensable to Christianity.” More specifically, preaching is indispensable to Christian worship—and not only indispensable, but central.
The centrality of preaching is the theme of both testaments of Scripture. In Nehemiah 8 we find the people demanding that Ezra the scribe bring the book of the law to the assembly. Ezra and his colleagues stand on a raised platform and read from the book. When he opens the book to read, the assembly rises to its feet in honor of the word of God and respond, “Amen, Amen!”
This is a fascinating argument from a passage about the recovery of the Feast of Booths. The preaching is preparation for a holy feast day:
And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, “This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn or weep.” For all the people wept as they heard the words of the Law. Then he said to them, “Go your way. Eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready, for this day is holy to our Lord. And do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” So the Levites calmed all the people, saying, “Be quiet, for this day is holy; do not be grieved.” And all the people went their way to eat and drink and to send portions and to make great rejoicing, because they had understood the words that were declared to them. (Nehemiah 8:9-12, ESV)
Pretty amazing. The people were rebuked for weeping over their guilt and told to go enjoy food and share it with others. I definitely agree this is an excellent passage to use to reform and correct our worship. But I don’t see anything like what Mohler argues from it. Rather than the exposition of the Word as essence of worship, we see word and sacramental meal go together.
Remember, when Adam and Eve sinned they were banished from God’s special food. Later, however, when God re-built the garden, as it were, as the Tabernacle, eating near God’s sanctuary became possible once again.
Thus, we find directions on tithing:
“You shall tithe all the yield of your seed that comes from the field year by year. And before the Lord your God, in the place that he will choose, to make his name dwell there, you shall eat the tithe of your grain, of your wine, and of your oil, and the firstborn of your herd and flock, that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always. And if the way is too long for you, so that you are not able to carry the tithe, when the Lord your God blesses you, because the place is too far from you, which the Lord your God chooses, to set his name there, then you shall turn it into money and bind up the money in your hand and go to the place that the Lord your God chooses and spend the money for whatever you desire—oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves. And you shall eat there before the Lord your God and rejoice, you and your household. And you shall not neglect the Levite who is within your towns, for he has no portion or inheritance with you. (Deuteronomy 14:22-27, ESV)
Again, read these descriptions of worship and ask yourself how much expository preaching is made the essence of worship:
“You shall count seven weeks. Begin to count the seven weeks from the time the sickle is first put to the standing grain. Then you shall keep the Feast of Weeks to the Lord your God with the tribute of a freewill offering from your hand, which you shall give as the Lord your God blesses you. And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite who is within your towns, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow who are among you, at the place that the Lord your God will choose, to make his name dwell there. You shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt; and you shall be careful to observe these statutes.
“You shall keep the Feast of Booths seven days, when you have gathered in the produce from your threshing floor and your winepress. You shall rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow who are within your towns. For seven days you shall keep the feast to the Lord your God at the place that the Lord will choose, because the Lord your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, so that you will be altogether joyful.
“Three times a year all your males shall appear before the Lord your God at the place that he will choose: at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, at the Feast of Weeks, and at the Feast of Booths. They shall not appear before the Lord empty-handed. Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the Lord your God that he has given you. (Deuteronomy 16:9-17, ESV)
For these and many other reasons, both from the Bible and also from the Reformers, I predict that, until Mohler calls for the re-discovery of the Reformation campaign for weekly communion, so that Biblical sermon and Lord’s Supper are the regular and expected practices at the center of Evangelical worship, people aren’t going to find his Biblical or historical arguments all that compelling.<>разработка и поддержка ов киевстоимость рекламной акции
For many years on this site I’ve critiqued the demagogic tendencies of a number of the ‘leaders’ of the modern skeptical movement (see the bottom of this post for some links). I’ve often faced resistance (and sometimes hostility) from card-carrying skeptics for pointing out the foibles of these so-called champions of science, and the dangers of having such people as figureheads of a movement dedicated to truth and reason – but I had no inkling that in the space of just a few short years the reputations of a number of them would begin coming undone at their own hands.
The first tremors began, perhaps, two years ago with the ‘Elevatorgate’ scandal within skepticism, in which Richard Dawkins outed his ‘drunk uncle’ persona to those within skepticism by entering a controversial argument he didn’t need to engage in, and making comments that were always going to set off a firestorm….
God could conceivably have arranged the world so that human beings were each distributed equally on the earth so that each had just enough resources to meet his or her needs.
That would be an odd sort of world, however, because each area of land would have to be capable of producing the same amount, and each person would have the exact skills to produce from the land what he needed.
No one would ever travel, or invent new technology in such a world, since each would be too busy meeting his own needs and there would be no point in trade.
But the real world God made involves several different features: marriage and children, for instance.
So in the real world a man and woman join into a household and, in the majority of cases, produce some number of children.
So the family has different needs over time.
Furthermore, no one can be entirely certain of what his future needs might be.
And, as children grow up and leave home to, in many cases, start new families, no angel from heaven shows each one his new patch of territory that is promised to meet (and only meet) his needs.
Furthermore, people’s abilities vary, not only by nature and nurture, but also by accident of circumstance. If two twins are neighboring farmers with virtually identical land, one can still fall ill or break his leg and lose most of his productivity for that year.
So not only do people need to produce for indeterminate needs in the future, but they have to produce to help others.
If it is more blessed to give that receive, then it is more blessed to produce than consume. It cannot be otherwise.
If one must strive to help others as best one can, it follows that one must also strive to become a source of help to those in need rather than willfully become needy.
Anyone who neglects the upkeep of his own household, is demanding that less wealth be available to others and to help others who need it.
Though foolishness tends to poverty, one cannot judge the poor to be foolish, or turn one’s prosperity or lack thereof into a verdict on character.
The object of helping those in need, whenever and to what extent possible, is to help them become mature producers.
The one you help is not your slave. ““When you make your neighbor a loan of any sort, you shall not go into his house to collect his pledge. You shall stand outside, and the man to whom you make the loan shall bring the pledge out to you” (Deuteronomy 24:10-11, ESV).
People sometimes act or have acted like children and are, thus, in need of help. But treating them like children can be counter-productive, encouraging the very problem you need to address. Be wise about your attitude and your strategy in helping.
If one should not enslave the poor, or judge them for being poor, neither should one enslave the rich by judging them in how they use their wealth. Let God be our judge in these matters.
When Obamacare really kicks in and the rationing starts, are we supposed to tell people to follow orders and die, or should we look for illegal alternatives, and help create some?<>сео кафе
I was listening to Murray Rothbard on iTunesU discuss Keynes. I was surprised that he said that sometimes Keynes made sense in some of his writings (most definitely not his “General Theory”). He especially remarked that one of Keynes’ early small book on money (I didn’t catch the title) had a profound insight on hyperinflation.
Hyperinflation is how the people prevent the government from stealing their resources.
This makes a lot of sense to me. The government creates fiat currency to get others to give up real assets in exchange for that money. At some point, when the people decide to stop being exploited, the jig is up. The people count the money as worthless and the government is no longer able to get things in exchange for it.
It is a horrible crisis for the society that lacks a currency for awhile, but usually (I think?) the government doesn’t survive the crisis.
So hyperinflation is society’s way of ending the states counterfeiting regime.
Sadly, our government is probably going to succeed in scarfing up societal resources for some time in the future. If we ever have hyperinflation, it will probably not be soon.<>продвижение а в google yandex
One of the weird problems with correcting Arminianism and, to be crude about it, convincing Christians that Calvinism is true, is that they are easily vulnerable to other errors. I can’t prevent all such problems in one post, but I want to try to point the way forward.
For Further Reading
Before I write anything else, let me suggest for those who want a more philosophical/theological argument that they read R. L. Dabney’s “On God’s Indiscriminate Proposals of Mercy,” hosted by Phil Johnson’s website (for which I am grateful). Yes, I know Dabney believed some pretty ugly things on some issues. But when you read him arguing that God loves all mankind, you are getting as far away from those problems as possible. Indeed, you can appreciate the irony as you read.
Fallacy: Future Interprets Present
One major Calvinist fallacy is to decide that God’s present attitude toward everyone is simply equal to what God will do with them at the Final Judgment. If God will condemn them then, he condemns them now If God will welcome them then, he welcomes them now.
But does the Bible teach that God’s relationship and/or attitude toward an unrepentant sinner is the same as after that sinner repents and believes? Yes God intends from eternity to regenerate and pardon that person, and intends to pass over some others. But what is intended, by definition, cannot already be true—or else it would not be intended.
So the Apostle Paul writes:
We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. (Romans 2:2-5, ESV)
So, when someone is presently experiencing blessing even though he is continuing in unbelief and sin, is God:
Increasing his guilt and condemnation at the Last Day when he will be judged for his ongoing sins?
Offering him love and patience to give him the opportunity to repent?
Paul has no problem affirming both together. And, indeed, they are not possible apart from another. On the Last Day, God is not going to say to the reprobate, “I always knew you were bad and would turn out worse, so I’ve always hated you and everything I’ve done for you I’ve done so I could punish you for it.”
That’s not Calvinism; that’s Satanism.
No, God is going to say, “I gave you immense blessing, purchased by nothing less than the blood of my own son, and you spit on my efforts.”
At the heart of passage, God asks an amazing, deeply mysterious question: “What more could I have done to My vineyard, that I have not done in it?” (5:4). In other words, God has done everything on his side, but the vineyard – Israel – still has not borne good fruit. Thus, judgment must fall.
A non-covenantal Calvinist can think of a way to answer God’s question. God asks, “What more could I have done?” And the theologian has an answer: “Well, Lord, you could have exercised irresistible grace — you know, the ‘I’ in the TULIP – and that would have changed things. You have regenerated Israel – performed a secret and sovereign work of grace in their hearts, infallibly producing faith, obedience, and perseverance.”
To be sure, at some level that theological answer is correct. God could have done more. God is sovereign in salvation; his grace can and does operate irresistibly; and God can and does work in people in such a way that they inevitably believe, obey, and endure to the end. God could have prevented Israel’s apostasy; he could have granted them perseverance.
But it is noteworthy that this is not the “logic” of Isaiah 5. Isaiah indicates that God has given grace to the Israelites. Indeed, as the vineyard owner, he’s done everything needed to produce a good crop. The vineyard is well-loved (5:1). It is fruitful, so the soil must be rich in nutrients (5:1). All the rocks and stones have been removed from the soil, so the ground is broken in (5:2). The vine itself was choice; there was nothing wrong with what God planted (5:2). God was so sure of the vine’s eventual fruitfulness that he already put a tower and a winepress right there by the vineyard so the grapes could be pressed out into wine in due season (5:2).
It might help here if we remember that eternal damnation is not only described as God’s wrath, but as God’s jealousy. God’s love is not contrary to eternal punishment, but the Bible indicates that it is a reason for it:
Jealousy is as severe as Sheol; [or Hell]
It’s flashes are flashes of fire,
The very flame of the LORD (Song of Solomon 8.6).
Wrath is fierce and anger is a flood,
But who can stand before jealousy? (Proverbs 27.4)
These aren’t just extraneous passages. The reflect the central warning of the Second Commandment:
You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands [of generations] of those who love me and keep my commandments. (Exodus 20:4-6, ESV).
And it is reiterated by Moses to the next generation of Israelites:
Take care, lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God, which he made with you, and make a carved image, the form of anything that the Lord your God has forbidden you. For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. (Deuteronomy 4:23-24, ESV)
Because jealousy is experience by human beings who cannot make a spouse be faithful, it seems counter-intuitive to ascribe such feelings to God. But we are not in a better position to guess about the psychology of being God; He has to reveal his feelings to us.
We Don’t Know God Better Than What He Tells Us
Perhaps this is a second common Calvinist fallacy, deducing God’s feelings on the basis of what we imagine we would feel if we had omni- properties like God does. God tells us those are illegitimate guesses and that we, in our finititude, are actually more like what He really is, though infinite, than what we would guess about omniscience, omnipotence, and transcendence.
To return to the original fallacy I named, to infer that God’s present attitude toward everyone is simply equal to what God will do with them at the Final Judgment, it actually proves too much. Basically, since Calvinists know that all human beings are sinners, they figure that no one has a right to complain about how God treats them. But the logic of the position is not limited to sinful creatures. It applies to all creation, including unfallen angels and human beings. Are we really going to say that Adam and Eve were not loved by God when they were created? Or that, if they were loved, it was only because God planned to redeem them after they sinned?
A Creation Conversation
Imagine Adam and Eve, before they fell, having a theological conversation:
Eve: Adam, your face….
Adam: Huh? I’m sorry, I wasn’t listening.
Eve: Lost in thought?
Adam: That’s a good metaphor.
Eve: Thank you. I wish I had one to describe your face.
Adam: Can’t you make a comparison?
Eve: Do you remember that pond we found and how still it was until you threw that rock into it?
Adam: Yes. It rippled out.
Eve: Right. At one moment it was still, but then it was disturbed.
Adam: “Disturbed.” That is an excellent word to use. Not only for my face but for my thoughts.
Eve: So what are your thoughts?
Adam: I am thinking of everything we have received from God. Each other. The trees. The animals. Everything.
Eve: But isn’t that wonderful?
Adam: Well, yes, but I’m thinking of it all in the light of the warning about that tree I told you about.
Eve: Well, the terms of that warning aren’t so wonderful, but we have everything else.
Adam: Yes, I know. But the warning presupposes the possibility that we might eat the forbidden fruit.
Eve: True.
Adam: And God, for a certainty, knows whether we will eat it or not.
Eve: OK, I’m with you so far.
Adam: So how can we take all these “good” things at face vaule as signs of God’s love and generosity?
Eve: Adam, I’m not following now.
Adam: Well, if we were to disobey, wouldn’t the seriousness of our offense be all the greater because of how good God has been to us?
Eve: Yes, which is why we should heed the warning.
Adam: Right, but if we do disobey, as God would have to know we are going to do, then all these things will have been given to us as means to make our crime more severe.
Eve: Oh.
Adam: So how can we say these things we’ve been given are signs of God’s love and generosity? It all depends on what he plans to do with them, doesn’t it? He may simply be making sure our crime is more serious than it would be otherwise. Even though I have no intention of disobeying, I can’t say I know the future the way God does.
Eve: Adam, I see your point.
Adam: Do you have any answer?
Eve: Only this: you say you don’t know the future like God does.
Adam: Right.
Eve: Wouldn’t it also be true that you don’t know God’s own mind in the way the He knows it?
Adam: But don’t we know God?
Eve: Absolutely. We know Him truly. But we don’t know everything there is to know about Him.
Adam: All right, but how does this help us?
Eve: Because if God tells us that he gives to us out of love and generosity, I think we should take Him at face value without worrying about what the future holds. Despite knowing and planning the future, God must be capable of also, in some real way, being in the moment here with us, giving us good things out of sheer grace without reference to the future.
Adam: Perhaps it is so.
Eve: I think it must be so. After all, if we were to seize the forbidden fruit, God might use it to some great advantage that he has planned all along. But that would make the trespass no less evil and rebellious. Likewise, this garden, and the Tree of Life, and we ourselves are good gifts no matter what is planned. We can take God at his word without worrying about His ultimate decrees. As His creatures, that is exactly what we are supposed to do.
So even though God has plans, it doesn’t mean that, in the here and now, there is any reason to doubt or explain away passages that declare God’s love for the world or God’s love for creation or God’s love for all people.<>как выложить рекламу в интернете
You an see his reply here. Bird does a much better job than I did picking out the most important mistake. Reading Bird, I think it might be enough to say that Carson sees confusions that make a task difficult as reasons to believe the position is not valid.
Liberals mess up the definitions of many things that Christians hold dear. We can’t drop terms and concepts and imperatives just because liberals pervert them or others are mistaken about them.. So just because someone turns “The Kingdom” into a wrong agenda, doesn’t excuse us from pursuing the right agenda.<>Angry Racerкомплексная реклама в интернет
There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, ‘Mine!’Abraham Kuyper
The only reason I didn’t give Walter Williams fine book five stars, when I reviewed it at Amazon.com, is because it is decades-old now. Why doesn’t Williams get his students to do some up-to-date research and come up with an expanded edition?
I very much appreciated 
God could conceivably have arranged the world so that human beings were each distributed equally on the earth so that each had just enough resources to meet his or her needs.
One of the weird problems with correcting Arminianism and, to be crude about it, convincing Christians that Calvinism is true, is that they are easily vulnerable to other errors. I can’t prevent all such problems in one post, but I want to try to point the way forward.
