Iron Ink

“Let it suffice to have shown that Calvinism protests against State-omnipotence; against the horrible conception that no rights exist above and beyond existing laws; and against the pride of absolutism, which recognizes no constitutional rights, except as the result of princely favor…

Calvinism is to be praised for having built a dam across this absolutistic stream, not by appealing to popular force, not to the hallucination of human greatness, but by deducing those rights and liberties of social life from the same source from which the high authority of the government flows – even the absolute sovereignty of God….

A people therefore which abandons to State Supremacy the rights of the family, or a University which abandons to it the rights of science, is just as guilty before God as a nation which lays its hands upon the rights of the magistrates. And thus the struggle for liberty is not only declared permissable, but is made a duty for each individual in his own sphere. And this not as was done in the French Revolution, by setting God aside and by placing man on the throne of God’s Omnipotence; but on the contrary, by causing all men, the magistrates included, to bow in deepest humility before the majesty of God almighty.

Abraham Kuyper
Lectures On Calvinism – pg. 98

Let King George III testify as to this character of Calvinists, or come with me as some half crazed Presbyterian minister provides pages from his church’s hymnbooks in order to provide wadding for colonial muskets as he cries out to the colonial sharpshooters taking aim at British Redcoats, “pour Watts into em boys, pour Watts into em.”

Allow King Charles I give witness to the nature of Calvinists. He will tell you of Psalm singing Calvinist round heads and a Puritan chap named Cromwell who objected to his tyrannical manner.

Smell the smoke in the Charleston Harbor that supports this observation and hear in the Rebel Yell the defiance of Calvinists against Republican usurpers. Listen to Benjamin Morgan Palmer preach secession and read R. L. Dabney justify it both citing the oppression that came from the pursuit of State omnipotence as casus belli.

Gather with the convening Covenanter’s secret outdoor worship services to hear this idea spoken. Investigate the whole idea of the solemn league and covenant to see this Calvinistic trait.

Search out the reason for the Boers taking exception to English pushiness and you will find this Calvinism at its base.

Join the Dutchmen in their resistance to Spain’s Papal design and you will discover that their backs were ramrod straight because they were nurtured on this kind of Calvinism.

Oh that God would raise up another generation of Calvinists.

“The term ‘irresistible grace’ is not really of Reformed origin but was used by Jesuits and Remonstrants to characterize the doctrine of the efficacy of grace as it was advocated by Augustine and those who believed as he did. The Reformed in fact had some objections to the term because it was absolutely not their intent to deny that grace is often and indeed always resisted by the unregenerate person and therefore could be resisted. They therefore preferred to speak of the efficacy or or the insuperability of grace, or interpreted the term ‘irresistible’ in the sense that grace is ultimately irresistible. The point of disagreement, accordingly, was not whether humans continually resisted and could resist God’s grace, but whether they could ultimately – at the specific moment in which God wanted to regenerate them and work with his efficacious grace in their heart – still reject that grace. The answer to this question, is as clearly evident from the five article of the Remonstrants, is most intimately tied in with the doctrine of the corruption of the human nature; with election (based or not based on foreseen faith); the universality and particularity of Christ’s atonement; the identification of, or the distinction between, the sufficient (external) call and the efficacious (internal) call; and the correctness of the distinction between the will of God’s good pleasure and the revealed will in the divine being.”

Dr. Herman Bavinck
Dogmatic Theology Vol IV. pg. 82

Thus Ussher distinguishes

“two distinct powers established by God in these lands, one of which is of the keys committed to the church, the other of the sword entrusted to the civil magistrate; the former ordained to operate about the internal man, having an immediate relation to the remission and retention of sins; the latter ordained to operate about the external man, affording protection to the obedient, and inflicting external punishments upon the rebellious”

A Speech Delivered in the Castle-Chamber at Dublin the xxii of November, Anno 1622, pp.304

Although in this way we make the prince and priest guardians of both tables, and although the matter about which they exercise their office can be the same, still the form and mode of governing in it is distinct in every way. One extends itself only to the external man, the other to the internal; one binds or looses the soul; the other attends to the body and things pertaining to it; one has a special regard to the judgment of the future world, the other refers to the present retention or privation of some of the conveniences of this life.

ibid., p. 6

James Ussher - Archbishop of Armagh (1580-1655) in a speech published with a controversial work against the Jesuit, Hybernus, defends the oath of fidelity which declared the king to be the sole supreme governor in the kingdom.

Both citations as found in Francis Turretin’s Institutes of Elenctic Theology, Vol. III, p. 322-323

Films dealing with the Iraq war, to date, haven’t fared well in US theaters. “The Valley of Elah” is another Hollywood offering that was not particularly successful at the box office. Neo-conservative movie reviewers have suggested the reason for dismal showings for these anti-war films is because America supports the war, which is not a wonder given the Washington’s effectiveness of controlling the information that comes out of Iraq.

The theme of the film is the impact of war on young American soldiers. It pursues this by examining how War hardens the moral and psychological sensitivities of men, changing them from the average kid next door to killing machines whose consciences have been irrevocably seared. However, the film, through the main character, examines the effect of the military on older men who spent a career in the military. What the lead character (played by Tommy Lee Jones) reveals to us about a career spent in the military is that it creates a personality which, while being no-nonsense in its approach to life and relationships, also has lost the ability to express any of the tender emotions.

A sub-theme in the film comes from David’s battle with Goliath. In a scene where the main character tells a bedtime story to the lead investigators son, we learn that courage is made only where seeming hopelessness exists. We must learn to stare down the monsters and fight despite the odds.

As the movie pursues the solution of a murder what unfolds simultaneously, via a videotape from Iraq, illicitly secured, is how the rules of war in Iraq have twisted the soldiers characterized in the film. We learn of how war rules prohibiting slowing down or stopping by drivers of military vehicles in Iraq leads to the grizzly death of a Iraqi child who wandered in front of a military vehicle. We also learn of torture of Iraqi wounded soldiers as well as drug problems in the military.

Now, it is no doubt true that every soldier in the US military in Iraq cannot not be characterized by this kind of description. But its also true that war can mess with some young minds. This twistedness is examined not only by what goes on in Iraq, but also in the murder and in some of the circumstances surrounding the murder. All “The Valley Of Elah” is asking us to consider is the damage that war does to some of those who are assigned the task of implementing US policy. All of this forces us to keep these inevitable consequences of war in mind when our “leaders” ask us to send our sons and daughters to pursue their financial advantage.

The movie ends with a conversion in the lead character. Earlier in the film you get the sense that the lead character is a gung ho patriotic American. This is brought before us by how the film focuses on the main character’s punctiliousness about the way the American flag is flown. At the end of the film, the mistake in flag etiquette that was corrected by the main character earlier in the film is now purposefully duplicated at the end of the film by the main character. He realizes how much distress America is in.

One can only hope that young people seeing this film would pause and think twice before volunteering to serve as American mercenaries for the interests of big business and the industrial-military complex. War remains a racket and this film shows us it is a racket that prospers at the price of America’s youth, innocence and mental health.

On the downside the movie has a feminist thrust as the lead investigator of the murder mystery is a strong feminist type who knows how to mix it up with the guys. Also, there is topless bar scene that will cross the film off of many viewer’s lists.

Politics is as much about expectations and perception as it is about reality. This has been seen recently in the whole hub bub about John McCain possibly picking a pro-choice Democrat or Republican Vice presidential running mate.

John McCain is not, nor has ever been so politically stupid as to do such a suicidal thing, but he is as clever as a fox. Even with no intent to choose a Vice presidential pro-choice candidate McCain scores big in the expectations and perception categories.

First, by floating the trial balloon that he might choose a pro-choice democrat as his VP he creates a scenario where the firestorm of negative reaction by the brainless Republican “conservative” base gives them the sense of having political muscle when McCain pulls back from the edge of that kind of choice. Hence, McCain, by threatening to violate his already alienated base ends up giving them the perception that John McCain will listen to them.

Second, by leaking that he might choose a pro-choice Democrat, McCain insures that a only marginally conservative Vice Presidential nominee looks good in comparison to the VP nominee that was McCain was contemplating. By floating the pro-abortion possibility McCain wins the perception game.

Third, McCain gains with the Independents he is courting by suggesting to the Independents and pro-death Republicans that he is broad enough to actually consider somebody that they would be appealing to them. Even if McCain doesn’t choose a pro-choice candidate now he has delivered the message that he is broad enough to unite the party.

Fourth, by floating this balloon a this time it serves as a good balancing act with the conservative performance that he knew he was going to put on at CEO and CFR’s Rick Warren’s Community Center. McCain was going conservative with Warren but that is balanced by talking about choosing a pro-death candidate.

Personally, I wish McCain would choose a pro-choice candidate for that would forever expose him to be as liberal has he always has been. Maybe if he chose a Lieberman or Ridge type VP the brain dead “conservative” base might actually begin to get it.