Category: Book Recommendations

Required Course in Seminary Education — Justification

Reformed Weltanschauung; The Biblical Doctrine Of Justification

The purpose of this course is to teach the student the Reformed doctrine of Justification by Faith Alone. In the course of the study the student will be able to distinguish the difference between the Roman Catholic analytic view of Justification and the Reformed view of Justification. The student will also be able to identify how all non Reformed Protestant versions of Justification either partake of Roman Catholic understandings of Justification or, failing that, become littered with contradictions reflecting the confusion that arises when one tries to combine Roman Catholic understandings with Reformed understandings. The student will be able to explain why Luther said that Justification was the “Article by which the Church stands or falls.”

This course will not negate the necessity for the larger category of Systematic Theology. Such a course will be developed later.

Main Text: The Doctrine of Justification by James Buchanan

Required Reading:

1.) Faith Alone: The Evangelical Doctrine of Justification by R. C. Sproul
2.) The Doctrine of Justification by Faith by John Owen
3.) Justification by Francis Turretin
4.) Justification by Faith Alone Jonathan Edwards
5.) Not What My Hands Have Done Paperback by Horatius Bonar / Charles Hodge
6.) By Faith Alone: Answering the Challenges to the Doctrine of Justification by Gary L. W. Johnson
7.) The Work of the Holy Spirit (Chapter 6) — Abraham Kuyper
8.)A Reformation Debate Paperback by John Calvin, Jacopo Sadoleto

Video

1.) What Still Divides Us? A Protestant & Roman Catholic Debate: Are the Scriptures Sufficient? Are We Justified By Faith Alone? (Video Series) — Appropriate sections pursuant to Justification

Online

1.) http://carm.org/council-trent-canons-justification

Assignments

1.) Read the main Text book and write chapter summaries.

2.) Read book # 1 — This is a intro / primer book on the subject. Write a 5 page paper on the essence of Justification by faith alone.

3.) Read the canons of the Council of Trent on Justification, book #8 and view the video debate. Write a 5 page paper on the essence of Justification according to Roman Catholic thinking. Write a 8-10 page paper on where Roman Catholicism and Reformed theology part ways.

4.) Read books 2-5. Write a 10 page paper comparing and contrasting the views of Bonar, Hodge, Owen, and Turretin. Concentrate especially on any areas you might find where you notice that they disagree.

5.) Read Kuyper on Eternal Justification. Write a 5 page paper giving your thoughts on Kuyper’s view on Eternal Justification

6.) Read book #6. After reading the book tool around on the internet and see if you can locate any Federal Visionists who toy with the doctrine of Justification by Faith alone. Locate their confusion.

7.) Interact 1 hour weekly with the Instructor regarding points of interest in the book that you are currently reading.

8.) Be prepared for pop quizzes or short essay requirements.

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Were I to recommend books for the High Schooler from this list I would recommend the Sproul book followed by the Bonar / Hodge book as well as the video debate.

Brief review of reading while away from home

Productive 3 days at the lake

Finished …. Igor Shafarevich’s, “Socialist Phenomenon”
Finished …. Anthony Sutton’s, “Skull and Bones”
Almost finished … R. J. Rushdoony’s, “Chariot’s of Prophetic Fire”

Made good progress in David Hall’s “The Genevan Reformation & the American Founding

RJR’s book is great as a kind of devotional for the lives of Elijah and Elisha. RJR gives insights consistent with what you find elsewhere in RJR — to wit — the warnings against Statist control, the development of the antithesis in the life of Israel, Observations about the dangers of syncretism and what it means to be a “Throne man.” Very good

Shafarevich’s book is a must read if you want to understand what we are living through. Shafarevich connects the dots between atheism as a belief system and socialism as the incarnation of atheism into a social order. Shafarevich lays bare the irrationality of socialism and in a treatise that is worth the price of the book he spends time exposing how socialism is popular among those who think only as animals (intuitively) as opposed who think like humans (using reason). A fantastic book and if one were to combine this read with Dr. Fred Schwarz’s “You Can Trust the Communists to be Communists,” and Toledano’s “Cry Havoc,” and Von Mises “Socialism,” and Hayek’s “On the Road to Serfdom,” one would have a pretty good working foundation on the worldview that is our greatest enemy in our time.

Anthony Sutton’s book made me realize again how deep the worm hole goes. Much of what we get from the thin crust media is 100% spin. The next level isn’t much better with what we get from the court historian publishing houses. Sutton documents the role of the Skull and Bones order in US and world History. Sutton re-emphasizes that most of the conflict that we see in our times is purposely created as part of the dialectic between a manufactured left vs. right that has as its goal the result of a New World Order. Read in conjunction with other Sutton books, Carol Quigley’s “Tragedy and Hope,” and books like “None Dare Call It Conspiracy,” “The Zionist Factor,” “Behind Communism,” and “Secret Societies and Subversive Movements,” one begins to realize that the need for heaven sent Reformation is far greater than any of us could possibly be aware of. Good book.

Hall’s book is the antidote for the disease that Sutton names. Hall gives us how Liberty minded Calvinism is and he traces the impact of Calvin’s thinking on the creation of the West and especially the founding of America. Quoting numerous sources Hall probes how and why genuine Calvinism has always revolted against those who revolt against the Lord Christ as King. This book explodes the myth that R2K thinking is Calvinistic in the least. I still have 75% of this book to read but if the last 75% is as good as the first 25% … Katy bar the door. Hall has done us a real service with this work.

For Your Reading Pleasure

I.) Library

A.) Tuininga, VanDrunen & Hart are analyzed by Littlejohn, Wedgeworth & Escalante

Tuininga’s Kingdoms and the Reformed Tradition

John Calvin and the Two Kingdoms- Part 1

John Calvin and the Two Kingdoms, Part 2

I am not in complete agreement with these chaps but this is some fine historical theology work. In point of fact, this looks to be particularly devastating to the Cartwrightian R2K cause. Now the only question is, will it gain traction in all the hub bub.

B.) Valuable top down look at the inroads made by Liberalism (before it was known as Cultural Marxism) by Joseph Sobran

http://www.wildwestcycle.com/f_pensees.htm

C.) Fourth Generation Warfare by William Lind

http://antiwar.com/lind/?articleid=1702

Having some knowledge of this is important because this is the warfare we are currently seeing.

D.) Chesterton & Distributism

http://distributistreview.com/mag/2011/08/g-k-chestertons-distributism/

II.) Audio

Podcast no. 6 Jonathan Bowden’s “Western Civilization Bites Back”

Reading Is Fundamental — 14 February 2012

I’ve been learning some great truth lately. Here is just some of it I would highly recommend.

I.) Library

http://confiterijournal.blogspot.com/2012/01/first-principles.html

Click to access TheFounders.pdf

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/church-339789-one-catholic.html

http://www.berith.org/essays/cal/cal02.html

http://cambriawillnotyield.blogspot.com/2012/02/against-regicide-peace-with-liberals.html

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/290842/libertine-police-state-george-weigel

http://www.reformed.org/ethics/index.html?mainframe=/ethics/Jordan_judicial_laws_Moses.html

http://ricochet.com/main-feed/American-Catholicism-s-Pact-With-the-Devil

http://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson/europe-in-the-rearview-mirror/

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204136404577211280758375336.html

http://www.amren.com/ar/2001/07/

http://www.waylanderskeep.com/2011/07/the-new-faith-by-joseph-pomeroy-widney/

II.) Audio

III.) Video — YouTube

Century Of The Self

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyPzGUsYyKM

If you want an aide in explaining the 20th century and how we have arrived at where we are today I would highly recommend the above link. It is my conviction that this or something like this should be ingested by every pastor in America worth their salt.

It is a four hour video that deals with how psychoanalysis has created and controlled consumerism by its manipulation of the sovereign self. It also delves in how pychobabble has become hegemonic in business and politics. The psychological has become hegemonic in business because the Corporate realm used the “insights” of pyscho-analysis to sell product and to manipulate the market. The psychological has become hegemonic in Politics because the same insights that were gleaned by Corporate America were used by the Political parties and consultants to create and manage coalitions and constituencies.

The reason that having a grip on this kind of material is so important is because the hegemony of the pagan psychological is not restricted to the business and political realm but now rules over education, family and church realms. As one views the video one begins to realize how much of the technique used by Corporate America to push product has been brought into the Church to sell Jesus. From focus groups (church small groups) to  the art of giving people what they want to the importation of the psychological into the Pastor’s ability to counsel, the Church has become a mirror of the satisfaction of the self.

The  documentary chronicles shifts in how the self  has been handled over the decades since the 1920’s but in each case the self is seen as being autonomous. At different periods the self has been seen as irrational and governed by primal desires,  to being basically good and so in need of being released, to being destructive and so in necessity of elites providing control. At no time however, in the last almost century, has there been any consideration of the self in relation to the God of the Bible. The self is autonomous and so needs to be either controlled by elites through mass consumption and political managing, or set free in a Dionysian frenzy to be channeled by clever marketing.

One comes away from the documentary firmly believing that it really is the case that the pagan is socially engineered. Apart from the God of the Bible and His Christ one easily become the “New Soviet Man,” or the “New Man” of whatever regime is in control. If there is no objective standard by which one can find a means by which the self can find identity then the self can only remain a subjective self always measuring itself against the larger cultural framework that is set up as a subjective (and so unreal) objective standard.

In the video you discover some important names that you’ve probably never heard of before. From Edward Bernays to Anna Freud to William Reich to Herbert Marcuse to many others one begins to discover some of the unseen hands behind the century of the self and the social engineering that has transpired.

The documentary underscores something else that I’ve been saying for several years now. The documentary makes the epistemologically self conscious realize that the way that much of the Church and its pastorate operates in the West today is  counter-productive to Biblical Christianity. The Church and its pastorate has largely made peace with the socially engineered paganism that is now characteristic of Western Christianity. That this is so is seen in the reality that the goal of the Church today is to help people adjust to this false reality that is called the “century of the self.” Pastors have redefined Christianity against this backdrop and use what they now call Christianity as a lever to have people conform and so get on in this alien world and life view. The Church and the Pastorate that is being the Church should instead be telling people that there is a problem if they are comfortable in the false paradigm that has been created and is known as the “century of the self.”

Pastors and Churches that go with the socially engineered self of the times will have the opportunity to advance far in this world, if that is their vision. Pastors and Churches who see through the shell game and lift their voices to announce the Emperor’s nakedness will likely struggle.

Choose ye this day whom you will serve.