Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne, Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.
Can Obama-care and the other grave social ills of this country be turned around?
Miesha
Dear Miesha,
I’d love to say “yes” all this can be turned around. But I honestly don’t believe that it will be in our lifetimes BECAUSE the problem isn’t socialized medicine or other social ills. Those are only symptoms of a far greater problem. The problem is that man and women have turned away from Christ and are raising their middle finger to the God over all.
You see, men and women who will not own their sin and turn to the Lord Christ, and so submit to Biblical thinking are men and women who will create new gods in order to replace the God of the bible and His Christ. Historically speaking, the new god ends up being the State. Men begin to think that “in the State, we live, and move, and have our being,” and so contrive womb to the tomb Marxist States. In doing so they believe that they can lock the God of the Bible out of His creation. However, paraphrasing Kipling here, when men seek to lock God out, “the God of the copybook Headings with Terror and Slaughter returns,” or as the Bible puts it, God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man sows that shall he also reap.”
No Christian looks to the State as God and further, Christians, find such Statist thinking to be blasphemous.
So … Obama-care and other social ills are horrid beyond naming but the removal of our social ills, at this point, will only happen as the men of the West quit with their Treason against the God of the Bible and His Lord Christ.
And as burdened as I am about it, I don’t see Reformation and Revival anytime in the near future in the West, though I remain imbued with great hope that all of this is serving the one day arrival of Reformation somewhere in the World.
And so we must live with Obama-care and the other current social ills as God’s just judgment against our sin against Him.
And yet as Christians we can never bow to the State gods of this age. To do so would be a violation of the #1 commandment.
If men will not bow to Christ and repent of their sins then men will build Marxist God States whereby the State becomes God. The cure for socialized Obama-care and all other social ills is ultimately only found in people looking for the forgiveness of their sin of attempted Deicide that can only come from Christ and then having been regenerated submit to the Lordship of Jesus Christ over every area of life.
The Cross would solve it all Miesha. Without the Cross nothing is solved.
There is a State
It is alive
In it we live
And we survive
The fiat State
Determines Man
It is our God
The great I AM
(The great I AM)
The New Version of the Old Hymn
Our God, He Is Alive
All insurance is a claim of ownership. People who own goods insure those owned goods to protect their investment.
For example, minimum car coverage is required to insure OTHERS against your negligence. But minimum insurance does not require you to cover the cost of fixing your own car in case of an accident. As the owner you can determine that yourself. This requirement of minimum car coverage is within the Constitutional bounds of government since it requires us to protect others from our own dangerous (read driving) actions. In the same way a person is responsible for visitors hurt on their property by negligence to safety. (Research Biblical law of building a parapet on your roof).
If you buy a car on a loan and so have to make payments, the true owner (the company you make payments to) requires you to have full coverage because they own the car, not you. They have a right to insure their investment and so in owning the car they have the right to force you to pay for Insurance. Their requiring you to have insurance is a proclamation that they own the vehicle.
Home owners insurance protects a persons investment in their home, property or personal belongings. Insurance on the home is a claim of ownership on the home by you as the individual who owns the home.
Similarly, Life insurance protects a person (specifically their posterity) from the loss of life. So when I have life insurance it is to protect my family or my business or my children’s future, etc.. Taking out a life insurance policy on myself reflects that I own my life.
Similarly, Mortgage insurance protects the mortgage company’s investment in case of your failure to pay a mortgage. The Mortgage company owns the house and their requirement that the loan-ee purchase mortgage insurance is a claim of ownership by the Mortgage company.
Health insurance protects you, your future health, and your future earnings potential. If you owned your own health you could determine yourself whether or not to purchase health insurance and the unforced private purchasing of health insurance would indicate that you do own yourself.
All these insurances protect the owner of the investment. The owner decides whether or not to have insurance. The cost of insurance is paid by the owner. And the owner is the one guaranteed payment in case of loss.
When anyone demands for us, upon pain of penalty, to have health insurance they are claiming a right of ownership over us and over our income. I am not opting to pay insurance – I am being forced to purchase insurance by the entity (The FEDS) who considers itself my owner or I pay a penalty. If I buy a vehicle with a loan and don’t purchase full coverage auto insurance I will be penalized by the owner of the vehicle by the vehicle being reclaimed. If I buy a house with a loan and don’t purchase mortgage insurance I will be penalized by the owner of the house, by the house being foreclosed on. And now, if I don’t purchase health insurance I am, in the same way, being penalized by having to pay a tax for not purchasing health insurance, by the entity who insists it is my owner, and this demand is being made by the entity (the State) who has made a claim to owning my health (and by extension myself) by demanding that I have health insurance to begin with.
Now this claim of ownership by the State over the citizenry, via the requirement of health insurance, is made doubly clear when we realize the State will be the one who determines who will and will not be allowed to have certain medical procedures. This is especially so when we consider the death panels that are written into the Obama-care legislation. The State, being the owner of the citizenry, will determine who live and who dies by means of determine who receives certain medical care and who does not.
The government is essentially playing the mobster enforcer who makes us pay to guarantee our safety. The State, by requiring health insurance, is communicating that they are the ones who own us.
In all this the State is claiming to be that entity in which we live, and move and have our being. In all this the State is taking up the prerogative of God and claiming to be God walking on the Earth. In all this we are being required to find our identity in the State.
1.) ‘Why would you have a seminary teach macroeconomics?
2.) What makes Sowell’s theory reflective of a “Reformed Worldview” when he’s not even Reformed, as far as we know?
3.) Why do we even have to frame macroeconomics in those types of terms?
4.) What makes something reflective of a reformed worldview and who gets to decide that?’
Thanks,
Jillian
Dear Jillian,
Thank you for writing. Before turning to your questions, which we will take one at a time, let us consider some macro aspects to this.
First we need to understand that Economics is theology dependent. The ancients had a saying, that yet remains true, that “Theology is the Queen of the Sciences.” This truism teaches us that all other disciplines are derivative of some prior understanding of Theology. What that means is that Economics, History, Sociology, Psychology, Mathematics, Philosophy, Arts, Politics, Law etc. are all dependent on some Theology, and are what they are as they are informed by some theology. Theology is an inescapable category from which all the humanities are derivative. Because this is true Economics, like all those other disciplines listed, are but the incarnation and manifestation of some Theology into the various theories that comprise the discipline. Because this is true, it is never a case of whether or not we will have an Economics that is driven by theology, but it is only a question of which theology will drive our Economics. Since this is so, Christian have to think about what the implications of our Christian Theology have for Economics because if we don’t think in those terms what will happen is some pagan theology, representative of some false god or god concept, will be what drives our Economics. As such if we will not have Economics as derivative of explicitly Christian theology, we will have Economics as derivative of Humanist, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, etc. Theology. Theologically speaking, there is no Economics from nowhere. Theologically speaking there is no Economics wherein Economics is not serving as a handmaiden for some God or god concept.
Having opened with that we turn to your questions.
1.) Seminaries might teach a macro Economics course because,
a.) Our abstract Theology also needs to be concrete. There is a necessity to reveal to seminarian students that as all Theology is totalistic in its claims, Christian theology needs to challenge the paradigms of false theologies as they incarnate and manifest themselves in the Public Square via Economic modalities and paradigms.
b.) The Scripture gives us themes for a Christian Economics. For example, Scripture forbids theft, therefore, a Christian Macro-Economics would require us to hold that the holding of property by individuals is a necessary aspect of a Christian Economics. This simple tenant immediately informs us that all Marxist type of Economic arrangements are unbiblical since Marxist theory denies the individual claim to property to the individual. We know that individual property claims are biblical by looking, as just one example, at the account of Naboth’s vineyard in the Scripture (I Kings 21). Other Biblical principles for Economics that we can derive from Scripture is the necessity of the keeping of contract (James 5), the idea of a just wage (Malachi 3:5), the prohibition against oppression of the worker by the Rich (Deut. 24:14-15), and that Government theft is a positive evil (I Samuel 8). Another key Economic theme of Scripture is the reality that God’s people are Stewards of all that God has given them and all that God has given them must be handled, not as absolute owners, but as stewards unto God. After all, I am in body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Savior Jesus Christ. Any Christian Macro Economic theory must reflect these realities.
These themes alone go a long way towards informing a Christian Macro-economics.
Now, to be sure, the Marxists and the Progressives who call themselves “Christian” will come in and deny these aspects but at that point all we can do is to go to the Law and to the testimony to see if these things are so (Isaiah 8). Also, we need to realize that there are those who will claim that Economics, like all other disciplines are NOT theology dependent. As previously, all that can be done is to appeal to Scripture and trust that the Holy Spirit will open people’s eyes to see that there is no Neutrality, no not even in what is called the “common realm.”
c.) In the end Marco-economics is needed for those who would be ministers because they are to speak forth the whole counsel of God. Christianity does not end at the Church doors. Christianity is not merely about Jesus living in my heart. Christianity is not restricted to some zone beyond which it is forbidden to go. As Abraham Kuyper once said, “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!’ That includes Economics Jillian.
2.) Dr. Thomas Sowell is not Reformed. Of that there can be little doubt. However, having said that, his theories, as existing in the context of a Reformed Christian worldview support many of the idea set forth immediately above. Sowell believes in individual property claims. He is against totalistic Economic claims of the God state. He supports individual right of contract. Sowell, of course, is not to be absolutized. Only the Scriptures are absolute. And of course there will be aspects of Sowell’s theory that need to be reinterpreted through a Biblical grid. For example, the Austrian school of Economics, that he is associated with, does have elements in it that are thoroughly unbiblical and would need to be purged from a Christian Economics.
3.) We have to frame Marco-Economics in these types of terms because these types of terms are inescapable concepts that can’t be escaped. Because all of reality is Theologically driven, all that composes reality will likewise be theologically driven. Further, without Macro-Economics being framed in such a way we lose the ability to distinguish some time of Economic activity as “wrong” as compared with other types of Economic activity we would say is “right.” If we lose the concept of Christian Economics we lose the ability to say, “Marxist Economics is wrong,” because Marxist Economics presupposes an Economic determinism that doesn’t submit to the reality that God rules. If we lose the concept of Christian Economics we lose the ability to say Wall Street Crony Capitalism is wrong because Wall Street Crony Capitalism (Corporatism) absolutizes wealthy in their oppression of the poor and the needy. If we fail to frame Macro-Economics in these type of terms then we are forced to live with whatever oppression the State, as God, determines as our lot.
4.) God and His Word makes something reflective of a reformed worldview and it is the Scriptures that get to decide that since all Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; 17 so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. I believe that Economics is a good work that the man of God can be equipped for by understanding Scripture.
In the end Jillian, I don’t want to be the one to tell God that Macro-Economics is none of his damn business and he should just butt out of the whole discipline.
“I think is is appropriate to distinguish Lutheran 2K from this recent R2K, but an important point is often missed, and that is that some influential R2K proponents really don’t seem to take natural law seriously. Natural law theory (as historically affirmed by RCs, Lutherans, and Reformed) unequivocally affirms that heterosexual marriage is a teaching of natural law. In fact, the Magdeburg Confession of 1550 that DGH (Darryl G. Hart) loves to cite says,
“But if a ruler is so demented as to attack God, then he is the very devil who employs mighty potentates in Church and State. When, for example, a prince or an emperor tampers with marriage against the dictates of natural law, then in the name of natural law and Scripture he may be resisted.”
So why is it that the big topic in R2K discussions right now is that the church has nothing to say in the public square about SSM (Sodomite Marriage)? I can only conclude that they really are not very serious about their affirmations of natural law, and that R2K is really, as I’ve said elsewhere, a “theological fig-leaf for culture war fatigue” and an excuse to remain silent.”
Dr. William B. Evans
Younts Professor of Bible and Religion, Erskine College
Chair, Dept. of Bible, Religion, and Philosophy
Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church
Natural law is a shield against getting involved in the public square until it might force us to take a concrete stand against wickedness in the public square. Then Natural law is up for debate, just like Scripture has been made to be up for debate.
The Church really is at a crossroads. We can either follow the equivalent of the WW II ghetto Judenrat and work with the enemy or we can draw a line, plant our banners, and unfurl our bold colors.
Just a few lines regarding Gnostikoi Hart’s latest temper tantrum over at moldlife.
1.) D. Gnostikoi Hart accuses me of a lack of intelligence. Now this is what we would expect from someone of the Gnostic faith. I don’t have the special knowledge that Gnostikoi Hart has therefore I must lack intelligence. In Darryl’s Gnostic world intelligence equals having a special knowledge that only the enlightened Gnostikoi can have. All others are obviously just too stupid to plumb the secret knowledge.
2.) Darryl complains that without his special knowledge I can not have certainty. Darryl’s R2K teaches him that no one can have certainty regarding finding solutions to social woes in Scripture. Here we see that Darryl can find certain knowledge in the Scripture that one can’t be certain but those who disagree with R2K can’t find certainty.
Now lets tease this out. Darryl insists that R2k, “denies the certainty that supposedly comes with finding the solutions to social woes in Scripture .”
In light of this, let’s make a small list,
a.) Sodomite marriage — R2K denies the certainty that supposedly comes with finding the solutions to social woes in Scripture.
b.) Abortion — R2K denies the certainty that supposedly comes with finding the solutions to social woes in Scripture.
c.) Passing laws allowing Bestiality — R2K denies the certainty that supposedly comes with finding the solutions to social woes in Scripture.
d.) Killing off 4 million Ukrainian Kulaks in a policy of political starvation — R2K denies the certainty that supposedly comes with finding the solutions to social woes in Scripture.
e.) The State pursues a policy where it owns all property — R2K denies the certainty that supposedly comes with finding the solutions to social woes in Scripture.
f.) The State pursues a policy wherein they have legal ownership of all children — R2K denies the certainty that supposedly comes with finding the solutions to social woes in Scripture.
3.) Darryl complains about my lack of intelligence and yet he seems to hold that somehow having a “B” in one’s name accounts for why people reject R2K. I suppose in Darryl’s special Gnostikoi knowledge “B” is an evil letter that has less light in it then the letters D-A-R-Y- and L.
4.) Yes, R2K, destroys the Gospel. Any “Christian” movement that has ministers holding that it would not be an offense unto discipline if a Church member campaigned politically to overturn laws forbidding bestiality obviously is destructive of the Gospel. Any “Christian” movement who has Seminary professors saying publicly that Christianity can allow into its membership, those who advocate that sodomite civil unions should be made legal is a movement that is destructive to the Gospel. This is really not that controversial.
5.) Darryl seems to think that teaching Economics in the context of a Christian Worldview is destructive of the Gospel. I would dearly love to see that teased out.
6.) Darryl accuses me of being Manichean. Actually that is not true since a Manichean worldview would require me to believe that God and Satan are equally equipoised against each other so that neither of them can advance. I simply don’t believe that. God is sovereign. Satan does absolutely zero to resist God’s sovereign doing. Darryl is just practicing the politics of personal destruction when he suggests that I am Manichean. (Isn’t it interesting how the dualists accuse the non-dualists of dualism?)
7.) Darryl will have to take it up with Scripture when I talk about the Kingdom of God rolling back this present wicked age. Colossians 1 says that, Christians have been translated from the dominion of Darkness to the Kingdom of God’s dear Son. I am merely using the language of Scripture when I write about the triumph of God’s Kingdom over the opposition of the Serpent. No Manicheanism here.
8.) Darryl reveals his lack of suppleness in his thinking when he doesn’t seem to understand that many people I read and recommend others to read can have insight precisely because they have stolen Christian capital in their own Worldviews and writings. This stolen capital thus make them worthy of reading. It’s called plundering the Egyptians from what they plundered from us to begin with. Even an intelligent Professor like Darryl ought to understand this. In this complaint Darryl really reveals his lack of understanding of non R2K positions. We need to have compassion, patience and sympathy upon those who struggle to understand.
9.) Poor, confused Darryl asks,
“But how can Rabbi B account for the truths that non-believers, people who belong to Satan’s kingdom, see?”
Now anyone who has read Van Til could answer this even if in a haze. The answer is that they have borrowed capital in their worldview. No Worldview is perfectly anti-Christ and so Christ haters will often import, inconsistently, Christian capital into their worldview to get their Christ hating agenda off the ground. Has Darryl never read Van Til?
10.) Darryl’s accusation that I employ the antithesis only when convenient has been put to rest by #8 and #9. What Darryl then proceeds to tell us is that he employs the antithesis only when convenient. It is convenient for Darryl to employ it when it comes to Church membership. But it is not convenient to use it when using it in 95% of his living that goes on outside the Church.
11.) Darryl mentions God’s Kingdom vs. Christ’s Kingdom. Is that Kind of like the Dispensational distinction between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven?
Seriously though … I get Darryl’s putative point. According to R2K, God rules over all things providentially but has entrusted to Christ a Spiritual Kingdom that has nothing to do with God’s providential rule outside the Church.
I’ll just speak to that via a quote from Ridderbos. Darryl’s worldview capacity may not allow him to understand this quote but certainly others will.
“But the Kingdom of God also defines the Church in its relation to the world. The Church has a foundation of its own, has its own rules, its own mode of existence. But precisely because of the fact that it is the Church of the Kingdom, it has also a positive relation with the world, for the Kingdom of God is seeking acceptance in the world.
A sower went forth to sow. And the field is the world. That is why the Church is seeking catholicity. And this catholicity has a double aspect, one of extension and one of intensity, in accordance with the nature of the Kingdom. So the Church is as wide as the world. The horizons of the world are also the horizons of the Church; therefore its urge to carry on missionary work, to emigrate, to cross frontiers. This is because the Church is the
Church of the Kingdom. She is not allowed to be self-contained.
But there is also an intensive catholicity of the Church because of the Kingdom. The Church is related to life as a whole. It is not a drop of oil on troubled waters. It has a mission in this world and in the entire structure of the world. This statement does not arise from cultural optimism. This is the confession of the kingship of Christ. For this reason, too, the Church is the Church of the Kingdom.
And the third remark is my concluding one: as Church of the Kingdom, the Church is seeking the future. She has received her talents for the present. But her Lord who went into a far country will return. Her waiting for Him consists of working. Otherwise she will hear: What have you done with my talent?”
Herman Ridderbos,
“When the Time Had Fully Come: Studies in New Testament Theology”