Look How Far We’ve Come

According to the America mythology a cruel people once enslaved a noble race of men. Over time this noble but mistreated race of men persevered and by herculean effort, despite incredible opposition and against all odds this noble race reclaimed their nobility. Inch by inch this distinguished sable race of men advanced against all the evil machinations that a cruel majority race could contrive. Eventually, one of the noble race reached the pinnacle of achievement by being nominated to be President of these United States. A member of the noble race would be the standard bearer for the socialist party.

So on one hand we are all proud that a Black man could actually be elected as President. We are proud because it putatively shows how far we have come inasmuch as a man from a noble people — a people who did not have any rights and were subjugated by a cruel barbaric people — is now on the cusp of being elected to President. We are proud because this ennobles all of us. It ennobles the barbaric race because they have grown past their barbarity towards the noble race of men they once enslaved. It ennobles the already noble race even more because it reveals how great they really are to have come so far.

And yet on the other hand this very man, who has had projected upon him the role of poster child for of how far America has come, treats a different constituency in this country far worse then his people were ever treated. This Black man from this noble race denies life and liberty to the unborn. When Obama was an Illinois state legislature in 2002, he voted against the Induced Birth Infant Liability Act. The bill was designed to extend the same medical care to babies who happen to survive an abortion attempt as is enjoyed by all babies born alive under duress. In other words Obama’s vote was a vote in favor of leaving babies who had survived abortion gasping for life, squiggling and crying in pain. Obama’s vote was a vote to legally forbid medical treatment to those babies. More then that it was a bill requiring that medical treatment not be given. When a similar bill came before the US Senate not even NARAL, the pro-abortion organization, was in favor of it.

Come on people… this barbarity makes the treatments of slaves in earlier US history look like floods of mercy. This support for hacking, burning, and torturing the unborn and then voting to leave them in their agony if born alive completely overturns the whole myth about a noble race. A noble race which has overcome oppression doesn’t act this way towards a different people contending for their own liberty.

Is this the way a man acts who comes from a people who have themselves overcome tyranny and oppression? Is this the way a man acts who is supposed to be the living embodiment of how far we’ve come as a nation? Is it progress to elect a man from an oppressed people who oppresses another people — the unborn — in ways far more severe then his people were ever oppressed?

Yes indeed… Look how far we’ve come.

Change, Change, Change…

Barack Obama’s campaign theme has been “Change.” This sing-song of change has already mesmerized large portions of the electorate. If you read people write about Obama or if you listen to people interviewed you begin to notice there is real belief on their part in the idea of change for the sake of change. They don’t ask what Obama’s change is from and to. They don’t ask just exactly what change Obama has in mind. They don’t care if the change that is being proposed is realistic or possible. They only want change.

Most Americans, not being able to remember the last episode of their favorite television sitcom, don’t remember that this is not the first time that change has been a campaign theme. Jimmy Carter, in 1976 ran a campaign theme of change. America had just been through Watergate and Vietnam and Carter, a political neophyte, ran as an someone outside the beltway who could bring real change to Washington D.C. Again in 1992 Clinton & Gore ran on a change campaign promising to bring generational change to Washington D. C. Even as far back as 1952 in the Eisenhower campaign the idea of “change” was prevalent.

Now some of this is natural and inevitable. One way to move the party out of power into power is by accentuating the differences and calling for change. The problem though, is that in recent campaigns you don’t really get an explanation of the differences on a policy by policy basis but rather instead what one gets is an appeal to change that is based on change for changes sake. Since 1976 the appeal of change has been been on a more visceral, emotive and personal level. Change is now more about somebody’s charisma then it is about the policies by which they would govern.

This kind of change — a change for change sake — is the kind of change that one would expect of a people who are governed by an existentialist World and life view. For the existentialist the central motif is the idea of becoming or of always being in process. An existentialist world and life view thus automatically recoils against continuity and the status quo since existentialism is itself about always changing, always becoming, always remaking ones-self. Is it the case that Obama, with his campaign theme of “change” has tapped into the mother vein of American self-consciousness? Has he become the existenialist candidate for a existentialist people.

This cry for change is also reminiscent because in it we may hear echoes of pagan religion where the pursuit of chaos was seen as the means of social regeneration. This was a theme that R. J. Rushdoony mentioned frequently in his writings. An embrace of change merely for the sake of change as that is pursued by a functionally existentialist people communicates the irrational belief that order and social regeneration can arrive by the means of chaos. What else can a support for change merely for the sake of change be but a pursuit of the chaotic?

Also when we consider that to support change merely for the sake of change, with no ability to rationally articulate whey change is being supported is a prime example of existentialism where an irrational faith in irrational faith is all the reason one needs to have in order to believe in anything. If the American electorate, or any large portion of it, is going to vote for Obama merely on the “gut instinct” that the change he represents would be “good” then we must conclude that that portion of the electorate are functional existentialists.

Now, this is not to argue that change is always bad. A hard bitten allegiance to the status quo and to old paths represents its own set of unique problems. Change has its place, but there is a difference between notions of Biblical change and notions of pagan change. I see very little in the messianic attraction to Obama’s call for “change” that is representative of Biblical notions of “change.” What I see instead is a existentialist people prepared to vote for a existentialist candidate for existentialist reasons.

Wall Street Journal Analysis

“The truth is that, more than we like to admit, polls consistently show a correlation between race and ideology in American society. White voters, as a group, are more likely to favor a limited role for government here at home and a more aggressive posture overseas. In general, polls show Democrats — and a disproportionate share of black voters — favor a smaller, less adventurous military and a larger role for government on the domestic front.

http://blogs.wsj.com/politicalperceptions/2008/06/29/obama%e2%80%99s-weakness-with-whites-party-problem-as-much-as-race/

Jesus People Phase II

www.yahoo.com/s/909006

They are neither left nor right but only deeper. They bang drums and drive a “Jesus For President” bus that burns vegetable oil. They care about abortion, and homosexual marriage but they also care about poverty, the environment and social justice. They are the next generation of evangelicals. Experts are prognosticating that their influence will diversify the evangelical vote in the 2008 election cycle.

I think they are the grandchildren of the original Jesus people.

The Doctor Makes A Housecall — Chatting w/ Dr. R. Scott Clark

The esteemed Dr. R. Scott has decided to visit IronInk and leave commentary. It should be immediately noted how thrilled I am with the venerable Doctor’s visitation. It is not often that a gentleman of such stature visits humble environs such as IronInk and so we are pleased to welcome him to our domicile and hope that he will think himself free to come again with his friends for future visits. We all have a great opportunity to learn in this exchange.

Below I interact with some of his gracious comments. We still do not agree but I trust that the readers will find our disagreements anything but disagreeable.

”There’s no incipient dualism in the two-kingdoms ethic, it’s full-blooded, self-conscious dualism! It’s the same sort of dualism one finds in the apostle Paul and our Lord Jesus who distinguished between “this age” and “the age to come” and the “the kingdoms of this world” and “the kingdom of God.” Not all dualisms are of the Platonic/Ontic sort. There is a proper, Christian body/soul dualism. That’s the same thing as a spirit-matter dualism — which is sub-Christian because it denies the goodness of created matter.”

First, in order to clear things up I think Dr. R. Scott Clark meant to have a negation between the word “That’s” and the word “the” in the last sentence. I think it is supposed to read, “That’s not the same thing as a spirit-matter dualism…” Still, it is possible that it was some kind of Freudian slip and that Dr. R. Scott Clark spoke the truth that what he is advocating is indeed “the same thing as a spirit-matter dualism – which is sub-Christian because it denies the goodness of created matter.”

Second, I find no full blooded self-conscious dualism at all in the Apostle Paul or in our mutual Lord Jesus. When Jesus distinguished between “this age” and “the age to come” he wasn’t positing two realities that were hermetically sealed off from one another. Dr. R. Scott Clark seems to be positing the Reformed anti-thesis between “This age” and “The age to come” as if the transforming of this “present wicked age” by the “age to come” is impossible. The evidence that the “age to come” is present in this present wicked age is found in passages like Colossian 1:13-14 where the Colossians are told that “they have been delivered from the power of darkness and conveyed into the Kingdom of the Son of God’s Love.” Here is a passage that reveals that even now believers are living in the “age to come.”

With the Death, Resurrection, Ascension and Session of Jesus the “age to come” has arrived. Now, to be sure, there remains a “not yet” component to the “nowness” of the “age to come,” but certainly there can be no thinking that the “age to come” is hermetically sealed off from believers to some future point and I see no reasoning in the Scriptures that lead us to believe that the “age to come” is only located in the Church. Such thinking would reveal a under-realized eschatology.

Christ has brought the “age to come” and has placed us in it. By the proclamation of the Gospel by Christ’s “age to come” people the Gospel goes triumphantly forward with the result that the present “age to come” continues to overcome “this present evil age.” With the death of Jesus the strong man who is the king of “this present evil age” as been bound and Jesus is now, through the obedience of His people, pillaging the belongings of the strong man so that eventually the Kingdoms of this world which already belong to Christ shall become the Kingdoms of our Christ. We know this will happen because all authority has been given to King Christ in heaven and earth and He has instructed us to pray that “His Kingdom come and His (“age to come”) will be done on earth (not just in the Church) as it is in heaven.”

Look, God’s people have been saved with an “age to come” salvation. That “age to come” salvation affects all of our living in this present wicked age. This is why we can be told to take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ. “Age to come” people think different thoughts then people who belong to this “present wicked age,” because they begin and end all of their thinking in all areas of life with the God of the Bible. Scripture teaches God’s “age to come” people are to be transformed by the renewing of their minds. Are we to believe that the call to be transformed is somehow limited to being transformed every place except the public square which is to remain part of “this present wicked age” until the hermetically sealed off “age to come” arrives?

Second, I can’t agree with Dr. R. Scott Clark about the body-soul dualism. Certainly, I agree that we have to make a important and necessary distinction between body-soul but to say that a dualism exists between body and soul is a bridge to far. I prefer to speak of the body-soul being part of a modified uni-chotomy. This is an important disagreement to note for the difference between insisting that a body-soul dualism exists and insisting that man is a modified unichotomy is a difference that finds itself expressing itself in our differences between the relations of “this present evil age” and “the age to come.” That can be seen in what has been already advanced. I am arguing for a distinction between “this present age” and “age to come” seeing that we need to speak of a modified unity here that allows for clear distinctions without involving ourselves in the error of collapsing the two into one another. Dr. R. Scott Clark seems to be arguing for a hard and fast dualism between “this present age” and “the age to come,” thus not allowing for any eschatological perichoresis between the two.

”As to individuals v the church and social transformation. As far as I am concerned Christians as private persons may form non-ecclesiastical societies to achieve any number of admirable ends. The church as the visible, institutional society, however, instituted by Christ has three marks: the pure preaching of the gospel, the pure administration of the sacraments, and the administration of church discipline.”

First, I quite agree with the three marks. I would say that under the first mark is included the preaching of God’s whole counsel which would include speaking to cultural issues where God’s work speaks to those cultural issues. So, we have agreement here.

Second, I also agree about non-ecclesiastical societies. What I don’t agree on is that the Church has no role to speak when non-ecclesiastical societies war with one another. Let us say that there is a non-ecclesiastical society formed to advance the cause of “Christian” socialism in our country. Another non-ecclesiastical society organizes to advance the cause of some form of “Christian” Fascism in our country. Now the Church ought to be able to be a voice that authoritatively shows, from the Scriptures, why both are wrong, going on to speak to what God’s word has declared about Biblical economics and Biblical government.

Christ came to save all of man – body and soul – and to think that preaching only applies to man’s soul or to his personal ethic misses the wholeness of the salvation that Christ came to bring.

”There’s no reason why the church as such must be engaged in social transformation any more than may result in the preaching of the holy gospel. The outcome of the preaching of the gospel and the administration of sacraments and discipline belongs to the Spirit and to most a-millennialists there is no promise of massive social/cultural transformation. We may be wrong. If so, praise God. The major issue is to see that the church as such is focused on those three things for which she has a explicit commission.”

Again, I quite agree. Our difference lies in what we understand to be “explicitly commissioned.” Jesus commissioned his royal courtiers to teach the peoples to “observe all things wherein I have commanded you.” I take the “all things” to be far broader than you take the “all things.” This is especially so when you consider that Jesus said that he did not come to destroy the Law and the Prophets. As you know these were men who were consumed with what justice looked like in the public square. These were men who longed to see social / cultural transformation. It is my conviction that Scriptures teach that Jesus came to bring an “age to come” salvation that works like leaven to bring about social and cultural transformation in this present evil age.

”One more time: Christians as private persons, not necessarily only as individuals, may form societies to achieve desirable ends. They ought, however, not to enlist the visible church as an entity to accomplish anything other than that required by the Lord.”

I offer my thanks to Dr. R. Scott Clark for re-articulating his basic convictions. As I am a person who is kind of slow, it is important for smart people to repeat themselves to me so I can catch what they are saying. Still, even after hearing this basic commitment re-articulated I can not agree with it.

Even if you put people into non-ecclesiastical societies it does not solve the problem of creating an ‘each man (or non-ecclesiastical society) doing what is right in their own eyes. In your arrangement there remains no “Thus Saith The Lord” in order to adjudicate between competing non-ecclesiastical societies. All we are left with is opinions. Should homosexual marriage be allowed? The non-ecclesiastical society formed by soon to be Dr. Lee Irons and his lovely wife Misty say’s “yes.” The non-ecclesiastical society formed by Mark Chambers says “no.” Who is to decide? By your reasoning there is no answer that can be considered absolute. By your reasoning the Church is forbidden to speak to that issue and a host of others. By your reasoning we are left adrift on the sea of Natural law subjectivism.

And the really ironic thing Bob is the more the Church refuses to speak to what God’s word clearly speaks to the more the culture insists that we should keep our mouths shut about everything. The political conversation today, as seen again in the latest dust-up between B. Hussein Obama and Dr. James Dobson reduces to the ability to be able to authoritatively say whether or not there is a right and wrong that all people must adhere to and your advice is that the Church can’t speak to that question because it is political.

That may sell in Escondido Dr. R. Scott Clark, but it isn’t going to get off the ground in these parts.