Putting Reformed in scare quotes sets up an ambiguity from the very beginning — and indeed, one can’t get closer to the beginning than the first word of the title. The predicate, “is not enough,” is also unspecified — not enough for what? Let us unpack each one separately:

1. “Reformed”

Let us consider how Wilson uses the word and how the word should be used. Just getting this straight would, I think, clear up much confusion in the church world today.

Exactly why the word is put in scare quotes is never explained. In the Forward, Wilson clearly wants to define Reformed as a category that can be claimed by someone, apparently anyone, holding to “the teaching of the Westminster Confession” or the “historic Reformed faith” (p. 7). He suggests that “this is a debate between the Enlightenment TRs (ETRs) and the historic reformed” (p. 9).

A little later he implies that the term when scare-quoted indicates a person as above but who has ossified, who has not continued to advance. “Because of the Reformational commitment, it is still necessary to say that to be Reformed is not enough. We must certainly live up to what we have already attained, but together with this we must not be allowed to assume that the last significant attainment was in the middle of the seventeenth century.” (p. 13). He unfortunately then quotes the bogus semper reformanda canard — it is “not something we should all chant together right up until someone actually tries it. ” Haha — but don’t let’s chant it either, shall we?

Thus Reformed in scare quotes seems to indicate that “Reformed” is a label that can be claimed by anyone holding certain beliefs, and moreover this claim to be Reformed is not sufficient to settle the questions in the book since it may harp back to a set of beliefs formulated in the 17th century: something more is needed.

But this move is unclear. If anyone claiming to be “holding to the teaching of the Westminster Confession” gets to be referred to as Reformed, and then Wilson making the same claim gets to say “that’s not enough,” then “Reformed” is indeed just a word in quotes. It has little if any value. Let me explain.

“Reformed” is properly not the designation for Calvinism any more than “Catholic” is a designation for Thomism. There is clearly an association, but the entailment is the opposite of how Wilson is using the terms. (It is not just him; the mistake is commonly made by friend and foe.) Instead, we should say that Calvinism is associated with the Reformed church, because the Reformed church in its judicial decisions historically embraced tenets compatible with Calvinism. Had the Synod of Dordt ruled for the Remonstrants, then Arminianism would be the “Reformed” doctrine. Thomism is associated with Catholicism, because the Roman Catholic Church endorsed Thomism. Now consider the converse.

Does some unchurched guy emerging from his study get to make the announcement, “As a Catholic thinker, I endorse Thomas”? Not at all. Agreeing with every word Thomas wrote does not make one a Catholic. Being admitted as a communing member makes one a Catholic. Then one could say, “Though a Catholic, I demur from Thomas at various points.”

Does some unchurched guy emerging from his study get to make the announcement, “As a Reformed thinker, I say ‘Reformed’ is not enough”? Not at all. His claim is just as presumptuous as the churchless guy (or worse yet, a Baptist) claiming to speak as a Catholic, just because he believes this or that also taught by the Catholic church.

What I am suggesting, in other words, is that a great deal of clarity would be injected into the current discussions by defining Reformed doctrine as “that which is taught by the Reformed church,” and a Reformed man as “a member of the Reformed church.” Reformed (with a capital R) is a name that designates a particular church settlement at the time of the Reformation, which has come down to us today by historical continuity reflected in succession of ordination.

If this seems strained or odd, play the logic out with Catholic (with a capital C) or Orthodox (with a capital O). The logic will immediately be clear.

One does not become “Reformed” in any ecclesiastically-meaningful way by starting a club with the word “Reformed” in it, like the “Confederation of Reformed Evangelical Churches” (CREC). So indeed, putting “Reformed” in scare quotes may have expressed a primal intuition of a real issue.

2. “Is not enough”

Once this is understood, the predicate can now be analyzed. “Reformed” is certainly “enough,” because being in the Reformed Church suffices, so we believe, to be in the holy catholic church “out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation” (WCF 25.2).

One could certainly point out that hypocrites should derive no assurance from their church membership. But then, the point would be, not that “being Reformed” is not enough, but that “being a church member” in general is not enough.

One could point out, that “being a member of the Reformed church” is not “enough” to permit one to announce his opinion as that of the Reformed church. Again, that is true but fatuous. It applies to every member of any church, unless it should be the pope (if his claims can be sustained).

One could grant that “being Reformed” or “being Lutheran” or being anything else “is not enough” for this, that or the other thing — like being a good engineer I suppose. But so what?

3. Wilson: what is he?

With that background, it simply needs to be pointed out that Douglas Wilson is not a member of a Reformed Church. If the unchurched man cannot come out of his study and announce, “I as a Catholic think…” nor “I as a Reformed thinker say…” then neither can ten such men band together and say, “we be a Reformed church.” There is only one way to become a Reformed man: and that is to join the Reformed Church. Not announcement, but joining is called for.

What makes the book so silly is that all kinds of analysis is given relevant to what it means to take covenant vows, and so forth, all of which is like a eunuch giving marriage counseling. Auto-ordained Wilson in the self-proclaimed CREC dares to instruct on what it means to be in covenant! As if blabbing on and on endlessly about being in covenant puts one in covenant!

4. “The” covenant

Lest it be thought that I am harping too much on the title, an extension of the semantic analysis can be made in respect to the word that could be said the book purports to be “about,” namely covenant. “One of the great reformational needs in the Church today is the need for us to understand the objectivity of the covenant, and so that is the thrust of this book” (p. 13). So the first point is that Wilson needs to join the Church before talking about what the Church needs to do. But the second is like unto it: “the” covenant is never specified. There are several covenants in Scripture, and even more sub-covenants or covenant administrations. So what possible sense is there in referring to “the covenant” as if there is only one? The “objectivity of the covenant,” so stated, is an empty abstraction.

It may seem like a mere semantic quibble, but it is not. Read the book while constantly asking, “what covenant is Wilson talking about” and you will see the problem.

It is not that the book has nothing good; but when the verbal legerdemain is removed, we must borrow the words of a wag who said “where it is original it is unsound, and where it is sound it is unoriginal.”

Douglas Wilson. “Reformed” is Not Enough. (Moscow, ID: Canon) 2002

1. The central issue addressed by Romans is not personal salvation, justification by faith, but rather, the problem of integrating jew and gentile into the people of God.

Thomas substantially excludes several of the chief premises of Augustine…namely: that the primary purpose of the letter is a theological articulation of the relationship between works and grace (Thomas understands it to be the instruction and coalescence of Jews and Gentiles in Rome, not a dispute about grace and free will)  (p. 106)

2. In consequence, the focus shifts from salvation of individuals. The rejected view had put everyone — specifically, jew and gentile — on the same plane.

Practical theological corollaries derive from these speculative, exegetical determinations. Theologians who assert justification sola fide as the thrust of Romans generally emphasize God’s impartiality and relativize the distinctive status of Jews and Gentiles because only one way exists in the personal economy of salvation: faith in Christ. If faith in Christ alone warrants salvation, no ongoing rationale exists for the Jews’ historical prerogatives nor for the maintenance of Jewish rites of worship. In other words, the historical priority of the Jews as the covenant people no longer assures priority in the present offer of salvation: usually it is expressed that the favored status of Jews has been superseded altogether by the “new Israel,” the Christian Church. (p. 124)

3. Consequently, election and predestination in chapters 9-11 are expounded in a corporate fashion, such that the election of Israel in the old covenant must continue to stand due to the faithfulness of God; their current falling away is part of the predestinating plan involving the admission of the Nations (e.g. p. 98). The ordinances and “dignity” of jews continue unabated.

Aquinas is presented as a course-correction to the then-dominating Augustinian position of supersessionism, i.e. that the church has replaced Israel, the continued existence of the jews being a scarecrow to the nations to show the fearful consequence of falling from grace.

Once corporate Israel has been redefined as the remnant Israel who believed in the Lord, historical Israel is replaced by a metaphorical, not an eschatological, Israel of Jews observing covenantal obligations. In turn, there is no need to preserve historical Israel except as an indirect or unwitting witness to the truths of Christianity. Therefore, when Paul states in Romans 11.26 that “all Israel will be saved,” Augustine must reconfigure who constitutes Israel in order to maintain a doctrine of election, reprobation, and, ultimately, divine salvation in accord with divine justice as he construes it. Paul’s teaching on these matters is thereby (consciously or unconsciously) subordinated to that of Augustine. However tolerant Augustine is alleged to be, he significantly denigrates the Jews’ function and dignity as articulated by Paul in Romans 9-11.  (p. 72)

The expositions of election and grace differ between the A’s in a surprising way: Augustine’s, apparently from an early period, posits election in terms of foreseen faith (though not foreseen merit), while Aquinas’ language is strikingly imbued by the freedom of God in unconditioned choice. The way this difference becomes significant to the subject at hand, is that Augustine’s approach pushed him in the direction of faith as decisive, with the apostasy from faith being consistent with rejection; thus the jews forfeited their prior position by apostasy and this ends things for them. For Aquinas, election rooted in the inscrutable purpose of God opens the way to view the jewish apostasy as a temporary phase within predestinated history that continues. Thus, the author suggests, the jews are still part of “salvation history” and enjoy a dignity therefore that should be respected.

In evaluating the argument of the book, several observations can be made.

1. The quotes from Aquinas on the subject of election and predestination are interesting in their own right, apart from the jewish question. Some themes may be part of the inheritance of our Westminster standards. For example, Predestination is distinguished from Providence in general, as “Predestination should be said properly only of those things which are above nature, in which the rational creature is ordered.” (p. 9) The “certain and definite” number that appears in WCF 3.4 has a long history: Aquinas “agrees with Augustine that ‘the number of those predestined is fixed, and can be neither increased nor diminished.’” (p. 106)

2. The failure to interact with Augustine’s more mature thought on election renders the connection to his solution of the jewish problem tentative at best. That is, when Augustine matured to see election based entirely on God’s freedom, apart from foreseen faith as well as works, would this alter his solution to the question of elect Israel?

3. It is interesting to note on the basis of information in this book that the “new perspective on Paul” is actually not a new perspective.

4. The author’s desired end of achieving a position favorable to jews is a scarcely concealed motive, so that the theological reflections bent to this end do not have the ring of seeking the truth at any cost.

5. There is the assumption throughout that a view that does not hold the jews up on a platform of dignity with respect to the plan of God will have the consequence of desiring their persecution.

Jews are tolerated as a pool of potential converts. In extreme form, such theological deconstruction of Israel’s dignity fomented the most virulent anti-Judaism historically, and abets contemporary anti-Semitism. (p. 125)

But substitute any other nation to test the thesis: obviously, it is false, unless there is something so obnoxious about jews that something overwhelmingly and theologically positive would always be needed to restrain the nations’ natural desire to eliminate such undesirables. But if that is so, it would contribute to honesty to state it plainly. Otherwise, the impression is sometimes given that this is, apart from what we might have learned from the Bible, just another tribe like many others, and their persecution something simply irrational and inexplicable, which could only be accounted for by a theology of “supersessionism” somehow — even though such an account makes no sense in the case of other tribes.

6. Building further on this point, even apart from the status of jews in “salvation history,” the political norms at stake are never addressed in this book. It is almost as though, if jews have a claim on God’s promises to Abraham, then the nations are obligated to carve out a place in their national life for jews. But what is the theory of politics and the life of nations that underlies such a conclusion? We get this even from people that see no connection between church and state in any other matter, though I am not suggesting this is the case with Boguslawski.

7. The use of the term “salvation history” (e.g. pp. 3, 66f, 127) is an unfortunate one for human history in which redemption, already accomplished, continues to be applied. He speaks of a continuing specifically jewish role in salvation history (e.g. p. 8).  But this would seem to contradict the finality of redemptive history in God the Son incarnate, as suggested in the book of Hebrews. Historia and ordo need to be distinguished.

8. Specifically, John G. Gager is quoted saying

Paul never explicitly equates Israel’s salvation with conversion to Christianity, but even more… he uses faith (pistis) not just of Christians but of Jews as well. Rom 3.30 asserts that God ‘will justify the circumcised on the ground of their faith and the uncircumcised because of their faith.’ …Paul uses faith here not as the equivalent of faith in Christ but as a designation of the proper response to God’s righteousness, whether for Israel in the Torah or for Gentiles in Christ.  (pp. 125f., citing Origins of Anti-Semitism: Attitudes Toward Judaism in Pagan and Christian Antiquity, pp. 261f.)

Boguslawski himself hedges Gager’s outlook in as “the extreme form of this position,” but he really gives no other way that the “ongoing role of Israel in salvation history,” preserving their “dignities” and so forth, could take place.  He is not exactly proposing a faith in faith: there is specific content to the faith that is essential in each case. A little bit of reflection should have instructed him that such a position is impossible, however.

i. The idea that faith in the sense of fidelity and trust toward Jehovah would be compatible with contemptuous loathing and hatred when confronted with Jehovah incarnate is simply untenable. “Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me.” (John 8:42). “Every spirit that confesseth not Jesus is not of God: and this is the spirit of the antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it cometh; and now it is in the world already.” (I John 4:3)

ii. Gal. 3:21, “If there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law.” If salvation could have been through the law, then it would have been. It could not; and so it wasn’t. Nothing could be more clearly taught in the book of Galatians.

iii. Bare election apart from propitiation is a mohammedan, not biblical concept. A jew that rests in being “elect” but with no expiatory content, is resting on an illusion. That the sacrificial system is everything in the Torah, and yet has been snatched from him in the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 should fill a jew with immortal terror. Instead, we find pride and arrogance — attitudes quite incompatible with saving faith as presented in either OT or NT.

iv. The author does not grapple with the fact that jews since their corporate rejection of Messiah are not a people of the Torah, but a people of the Talmud, of the Kaballah, of atheism, or indeed of whatever of man’s religious fevers each should choose. Only Christianity is excluded in fact, unless it should be explicit polytheism as well. Honest jews like Wex admit this candidly when their hair is down.  What does the Kaballah have to do with Abraham, or the books of Moses?

v. A difficulty that flows immediately from (iv) is whether blood or faith is the essence of “being a jew.” Can a gentile find God by converting to judaism without Christ? If so, why the gospel at all? and if not, where does this scheme put, for example, the Khazars and their descendants?

9. The Talmud controversy of the thirteenth century is glossed over in a rather superficial way (pp. 25-28). Indeed, on p. 128 it is identified as “anti-Judaism.”  Strictly speaking, this is true, but justifiably so. The newly-discovered Talmud was “full of blasphemies — claiming, among other things, that Christ was being cooked in boiling excrement in hell and that he was the illegitimate son of a Roman soldier and a whore named Mary.” (E. Michael Jones, Jewish Revolutionary Spirit, p. 118). But the impression left by Boguslawski, in contrast, is that the Talmud controversy was born of Christian bigotry.

This book is, however, suggestive of themes that call for further pondering. While it does seem as though our Lord dealt a one-punch knockout assertion of supersessionism in Matt 21:43 (“The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof”), all would be clear except for Romans 11. One problem is the relation between collective and individual. That a subset of individuals within the collective are the intended object of the promises seems clear enough: but then why does Paul see a necessity to include “all Israel” eschatologically? And even if a substantial number of jews come to God through Christ at some future time, how is that any kind of consolation to jews today? Obviously, it is not. But it makes us reflect on what the genius of Paul’s thought progression is. Is it that the promises not only apply to a mere subset of the collective, but are also generation-hopping? Where does that place the subjective appropriation of election? How is covenantal inter-generational continuity preserved through such a gap? In my opinion, the “final solution” to these riddles has not yet been presented.

As far as supersessionism per se, a couple points can be made. It is not really necessary to model the church as superseding Israel, because it is not necessary to put Israel on such a pedestal to begin with. The nation of Israel only comprises about a fourth of the chronological history of the OT, but the succession of the people of God, the “sons of God,” is a steady one from Adam to the present.  So part of the answer may be that there has always been just one “church” in all ages. Israel itself was a late stage of it.  It is no more and no less accurate to speak of the church superseding Israel as to say that Israel superseded the patriarchs. The New Testament is not the only “surprising development” in redemptive history. Israel itself was a surprising development in its time.

But perhaps we should try to drill a little deeper. There is after all a finality in the revelation of Christ, who commissioned his apostles to found his church. It does seem like the church makes the curtain fall for Israel, not only in its apostasy, but because the finality of Christ ends the Israel story as type. We need to reflect anew on the whole of redemptive history. Why was not the Seed born immediately to Eve? Why did a lot of history, but not all history have to pass? In any case, given that passage of time, the Seed had to be born in some branch of genetic humanity, and in that branch the oracles of God were appropriately embedded — though believed by only a small remnant. What most Christians think of as “Israel” is an ideal type of humanity as it should be when redeemed; empirical Israel was something else. It is as if Israel was a story within a story, with its own beginning, middle, and end. Empirical Israel itself narrows down, like the line from Seth to Noah had, through the apostasies, the exiles, finally down to one tribe, then down to a remnant of that one tribe, and finally to a single man, Jesus Christ. The redemptive arc of history begins and ends with a single man. Not the story of all humanity, but the story for all humanity. Humanity as ideal Israel widens, while empirical Israel narrows and completes his story in the rejected Messiah, then vanishes, except as a horror exhibit for humanity. Empirical remnant Israel then makes more sense as the exploitative, greedy, seditious, sexually debased, vulgar, blasphemous, self-absorbed people such as we observe today — indeed, it could turn out that the husk left over from the “story within the story” turns out to be the very most debased of all the nations, to remind humanity of its natural state, and of God’s favor shown toward fallen humanity — really fallen, fallen indeed, utterly depraved. Pride is excluded, for every gentile can truly say when observing jews, “but for the grace of God, there go I.” Likewise, the jew might begin his reflection by thinking, “I am no better than those Canaanites that Jehovah required to be exterminated for their sins.” The jews become both reminder of the typological story, and exemplar of humanity in its worst depravity. That the “kingdom of priests” (Ex. 19:6) so quickly became the kingdom of usurers, tricksters, and pornographers can serve as a warning to Christians; a reminder that “sanctification” that is not based on union with God through Christ will always prove to be a sham. Election should never be pondered except from the standpoint of humility.

Steven C. Boguslawski. Thomas Aquinas on the Jews (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 2008). Lib. of Cong. BM535.B648 (2008)

The first category (chap 1-4) undertakes to show how in view of the science of genetics, it could be that the vast racial diversity of mankind can be explained in view of a single starting pair of parents (Adam and Eve) and could do so in a relatively short period, on the order of a thousand years. To jump to the punch line: Adam and Eve must have been mulattos. A simplified model of genetics is explained to show how the various distinguishing marks of the races could emerge naturally, and quickly, by separation into groups containing a subset of the genetic pool. The analogy is made to selective breeding of dogs from the common genus that includes wolves.

From this, the authors conclude that there are no races. Racism is based on the false view that races exist.

Since race does not exist, any view that presupposes that it does is not just erroneous but probably involves sin such as acceptance of evolution, or pride.

The second category (chap 5-7) continues the attack with shorter arguments from Scripture, focusing on the question of inter-racial marriage. Scripture gives a criterion for marriage that is color-blind, and teaches that inter-racial marriage is not sinful by virtue of the example of Rahab and Ruth in the genealogy of Christ, and the marriage of Moses. The curse on Ham or Canaan is not allowed to be invoked in this regard either.

The third section (chap 8-10) contains appeals to emotions — or perhaps more fairly, one should say, to moral intuition — in the story of some Pygmies and other anecdotes. This section adds color but need not be interacted with as to substance.

The remainder of this review discusses the most important specific arguments critically, gathered under thematic rubrics. These are listed here, and will be turned into hyper-links as each section is discussed — coming soon.

• Adam and Eve as Mulattos
• The reason for the incest prohibition
• Racism and Evolution
• Does Scripture deny the existence of Race?
• Racism and the H-word
• The “minor” extent of genetic difference
• Miscegenation
• Rahab, Ruth and the genealogy of Christ
• Moses married a Negress?
• Concluding remarks

Ken Ham, Carl Wieland, Don Batten. One Blood: The Biblical Answer to Racism (Green Forest, AR: Master) 1999

The subject is an analysis of the sociological constituting of our world, with a focus on the medium of communication. The world and our consciousness of it have changed by virtue of the technological changes making mass-communication possible. As an entry into thinking about this, consider the difference between watching a movie and “reading the book.” Even if the story conveyed is identical, reflection shows there are significant differences in what has taken place in having the story “communicated.” The movie presents images created by someone else; reading involves creation of images by the reader himself. In the movie, real time marches forward inexorably as the viewer sits passively; in reading, it is under the control of the reader — one pauses to reflect;  one sets the book down to be continued later. Likewise, the fictional time-pacing within the movie is determined by the editor; in the book, it is at least partly determined by the imagination of the reader, not the invisible editor.

This aspect of the analysis — the “media ecology” proper — fits in nicely with the agrarian critique of modernity. There are analogies, for example, with transportation. Acquiring a horse meant that a round trip to the county seat might could be done in a single day rather than requiring an overnight. But the car allows sons to leave for a job in a distant city, never to come back. Once-bustling towns are now ghost towns, the only jobs left being the strip of fast-food joints along the interstate exit. Technology has brought a qualitative, not merely quantitative change to our way of living. We need to rethink whether the Amish have a true and valid insight, and not always write them off as having “stopped technology” at a merely arbitrary point.

A second major aspect of the subject Reynolds discusses is the study of mass communication by academics on the one hand, and by manipulators on the other. In turn, the latter category includes mass-marketing on the one hand, and political manipulation on the other. More on this below.

With the stage set, Reynolds is able to use the insights obtained to launch a strong attack on the methods of the church-growth movement, showing the inadvertent evils attendant upon the very fact that modern multi-media is used, in contrast to the methods of worship described in Scripture.

The Regulative Principle of Worship as defined by the Westminster Confession specifies that certain elements of worship are required by Scripture, elements not specified are forbidden, and a third category, “circumstances,” is subject to wisdom.  Reynolds argues (303-305) that the result of his analysis is that modern multi-media cannot be put into that third, “neutral” category, and thus we should regard them as forbidden.

In evaluating the work, I proceed chiastically. The commitment to the Regulative Principle is encouraging coming from a bright star like Rev. Reynolds, who is a scintillating conversationalist and a preacher that is at once engaging and searching, combining the best of Francis Schaeffer’s broad cultural concerns with a stronger attachment to the vantillian critical method. I had the pleasure of “hanging out” with him a number of times during my sojourn in New Hampshire in 1996. Those of our readers that reside anywhere near Manchester, New Hampshire should visit Amoskeag church and become a member there if not already a member of a true church somewhere else.

Reynolds’ work on the Regulative Principle in connection with media ecology sheds new light on elements of our form of worship that at first glance may appear to be dusty relics of a bygone century. For example, though the focus of his study is the preaching of the word, a new insight is also gained into the “genius” if you will of the reading of the Word (381-3) as a distinct element of worship, the performance of which moreover is restricted by our standards to the pastor in his executive function as an agent of the holy catholic church manifested in presbytery. A naturalistic approach might suggest that an age of universal literacy and Bible dissemination might render that element superfluous, requiring instead that members read the word privately and dispense with the public reading. Not so, Reynolds’ research shows. There is a mode of receiving the word of God which is instantiated in that element indispensably. This book makes an important contribution in the area of worship theory.

Unfortunately, the evaluation of the secular role of mass-media falls a bit short due to the dots that are not connected. The threads are already confusing because the distinction between study of media as such must be combined with study of the deliberate use thereof to manipulate the masses toward an end hidden from those being manipulated. And this involves both the practitioner — the actual creator of propaganda — and the theoretician — who performs studies with human guinea pigs to determine the most effective methods. We need to take note of the fact that the names of the movers and shakers of the theory and practice of the manipulation of the masses using technologies both new and old look like an attendance list at the Convention of Hebrew Congregations.

We can begin the story with the massive, national full-court press that was put in place by the Chosen Tribe in 1913-15 to exonerate rapist-sodomite-murderer Leo Frank, just because he was a jew. Though newspapers – a medium invented in the 17th century — were at the heart of this campaign, their coordinated use for manipulating public opinion probably never reached such focused intensity before the Frank case.   The mass-media campaign was led by Adolph Jew Ochs, publisher of the New York Times (though the murder took place in Atlanta). In addition to carefully-orchestrated press releases let out simultaneously by all the jew-controlled newspapers across the country, the services of Albert Jew Lasker (son-in-law of Sears and Roebuck chairman Julius Jew Rosenwald) were put into service. Lasker was an expert at national media “campaigns” to establish brand name recognition such as Quaker Oats and Budweiser Beer. Lasker came up with the slogan “the truth is on the march” which became, as if by magic, the rallying cry by the national media to get Frank off the hook. Likewise, allegations of Atlanta mobs chanting phrases like “Kill the jew or we’ll kill you” were simply made up out of whole cloth, without any factual basis. Newspapers that stood with the legal system against Frank were boycotted. William Randolph Hearst succumbed to the pressure and became a shabbes goy for the campaign, along with others hired for the purpose. Financing came from a variety of sources, especially from Jacob Jew Schiff, notable later as a major financier of the Russian Revolution. The goy detective William Burns was paid a pretty penny to “get to the bottom of the case,” arriving in town with lots of media fanfare to that effect, while in reality, his job was to spread walking-around money to bribe witnesses to recant their testimony. In the end, the men of Atlanta prevailed, and such was the jewish rage at one of their own being executed, that the so-called Anti-Defamation League was founded.

Reynolds missed this story, but the strands involving armchair academics and wartime “social researchers” he does pick up on are also part of the story, albeit less dramatic. It is a story that starts before the Frank incident with Karl Jew Marx and Sigmund Jew Freud. In the decade leading up to WW2, the story continues with studies of the effectiveness of radio in influencing public opinion and elections. Paul Jew Lazarsfeld invented the “focus group” and questionnaires to evaluate audience responses. “The Kate Smith War Bond drive, promoted by CBS in 1943, demonstrated the power of feigned personal concern in identifying with and manipulating a mass audience” (91).  Kurt Jew Lewin was one of the founders of social psychology. “The one who controls the flow of information through a medium (‘channel’) dictates the shape and content of messages” (93). His disciple Leon Jew Festinger continued the social research. The story is peppered also with wry neo-con pop critics like Neil Jew Postman, Allan Jew Bloom and Joshua Jew Meyrowitz as well as explicitly destructive critics like Jacques Jew Derrida and Stanley Jew Fish. In between was the “Frankfurter School” consisting of men like Herbert Jew Marcuse who wrote arcane books making leftism appealing to young shickse and Theodore Jew Adorno who worked on rhetorically preempting Aryan push-back by creating and propagating the theory of the “authoritarian personality.”  I am passing over various rabbit-trails like Shannon’s channel measure of information, which is properly an electrical engineering concept.

The jewish exploitation — and to large extent creation — of mass-manipulation by psychological study and marketing practice evidently has two main goals: personal or tribal enrichment, and neutralization of Christian civilization as a way to reduce the chance of harmful reaction by the goyish masses. It involved, in addition to the takeover of university sociology departments and creation of new ones, tireless agitation in favor of massive third-world immigration and the elimination of every trace of Christianity from public schools and the public square, as one can read about by surfing around on the ADL’s own website (click the story decade by decade and marvel).

Of course, goyim also have their place in the story — some, that were in the wrong place at the wrong time (esp. WW2); some, of the “usual culprits” of the City of Man, that provided financing, most notably the Rockefeller empire (136); others, like Reynolds’ personal hero Marshall McLuhan, were properly critical.

But how did Reynolds miss the main thread of the story? Partly, it is because of his acceptance of the odious judeo-christian myth (77, 137) popularized by Francis Schaeffer. As a result, jews are repeatedly not distinguished from “Germans” (73, 79) or “Europeans” (69). Partly, it perhaps must be attributed to the very success of the mass-media manipulation that is the subject of the book!

In fairness, the “media ecology” and its relation to worship is the strength and the main purpose of the book: the rest could have been excised without loss to the thesis, and perhaps should be in a subsequent edition.

Nonetheless, the story of the manipulators is important in its own right, and I hope many of our people will get this book as an introductory survey, and then do further research to connect more of the dots. To know that one is being manipulated, and understand even a little about how, is already an antidote to its poisonous effect. Eliminating the parasites can follow when enough people wake up and get wise.

Greg Reynolds, The Word is Worth a Thousand Pictures: Preaching in the Electronic Age (Eugene: Wipf and Stock) 2001.

There are some strengths to the book: notably, the suggestion of Scripture verses to memorize as part of the “remedy.” This kind of approach has always been a hallmark of Navigators, and should be recognized as a real contribution. Even this method can fall short, however. If Scripture verses function like marbles rattling around in an empty box, they are worse than useless. A verse, apart from understanding its place in the entire tapestry of revelation, is like thinking one has learned Greek just because the alphabet has been memorized — or for that matter, even the whole dictionary. Sometimes, meditating on a human but exemplary summary of Scripture is the medicine that is needed. Dr Bahnsen once counseled a young girl that was suffering from narcissism to memorize and rehearse the answer the Catechism gives to the question, What is God? And I think there was great wisdom in his counsel.

In reviewing this book, I will depart from my usual conformity to the academic book notice, which first gives a compendious summary and only then follows with critical comments, and instead, proceed straight to highlighting some concrete criticisms. Let the reader be the judge, but I think in this case such an approach will be sufficient to convey an idea of the thesis of the book and its method as well.

More than once, Bridges deplores a behavior he claims to have observed in the church, namely, that people lament the gross sins of society but not the failings in their own sanctification. But is this criticism cogent? First, it fails to divide the question accurately: would he be happier if people were apathetic about both their own and society’s sins? Second, it fails to make a public/private distinction: do we really want people hanging all their personal laundry out in public during the coffee hour? Third, there is an aspect of corporate solidarity that might be involved in the complaint about the gross sins of society: we are all in this together. In a life-boat far out at sea, when one observes some crazy people chopping holes in the hull, it is hardly a mark of piety to look away and fret about one’s own bad breath. There is also the distinction of greater and lesser responsibility: in a great military battle, if the general suddenly betrays his division to the enemy, it is missing the point a bit for the pious soldier Beetle to confine his remarks to lamenting that he, Beetle, could have been a better soldier if he had spent more time on the practice range.

Some of the sins chosen are valid but too broad. “Ungodliness” would be a good example. In the extreme, ungodliness is simply the fundamental problem of all men apart from regeneration: alienation from God. That is hardly a “problem” addressed by a book of this sort.  And is it likely that you, I, or any other modern could add much to what the Puritans already have written on this?

Thus, some sins are too broad; but others are concrete, but misguided. This is the main problem with this book. To illustrate, I will highlight one chapter in particular as a case exemplar of the general problem.

In the chapter on “judgmentalism,” Bridges fails to define “opinion,” so that the concept merges with “belief” simpliciter. One is supposed to feel bad for being judgmental of others if the point of difference is nothing but one’s own personal opinion. His examples of current controversies that have no more substance than baseless opinion are (1) worship style and (2) the formality vs casualness of dress in worship. Jerry trumps all such discussions by citing “they who worship must worship in spirit and truth” and observing that this verse says nothing about dress or musical style. However, note that exegesis is supposed to consider all of Scripture, not just one verse wrenched out of context. If the point of the chapter were to indicate that one should show kindness, patience, and hope for reform when confronting wayward brethren, then the examples chosen might better have been universally-recognized heresies such as Unitarianism or Arianism. But doing so would have revealed the falseness of Bridges’ thesis. In other words, there is a confusion between epistemology — what we can know to be the case — and how one should relate to people that one “disagrees with.” The hidden premise of Jerry’s presentation is that some controversies are unknowable; taking a position is thus merely the assertion of one’s own “preference.” But this we deny. Jerry’s thesis boils down to his own arbitrary assertion of agnosticism or unknowability on those issues. Oddly enough, another example he gives is one he claims to know something that is in fact unknowable. He mentions a father whose daughter went bad. On his death bed, the father bitterly “repented” of how he used to chide his daughter to sit up straight, look him in the eye when speaking, etc. Jerry “knows” that this led to the daughter losing self-esteem and eventually resorting to drugs and fornication. But Jerry does not in fact know this; indeed, neither does the father in question. Probably, the father, smitten with grief and longing for his wayward daughter, was afflicted with misplaced guilt that reflects the feminized mores of our degenerate society far more than Holy Spirit-induced repentance for an actual violation of the law of God. Jerry thinks he knows when he does not, and he thinks he does not know when he ought to.

The slender thread that Jerry can base this chapter on would be the distinction between convictions derived from the Word of God versus convictions derived from other sources. Only the former can be utilized as an objective judgment in the church. Lacking that basis, we ought not to form such judgments. (For example: forbidding the drinking of alcohol.)  But this is not exactly the distinction that Jerry makes. Instead, it is between “conviction” and “opinion.” The proof that this is not the correct distinction is that at the end, he encourages people that have “convictions” not to give them up. But they should be given up, if they are of such kind as Bridges thinks can be identified as sin if enunciated.

In what flight of fantasy would one identify “judgmentalism” as a respectable or socially-acceptable sin? On the contrary, one could say that anti-judgmentalism is a major plank in our popular civil religion. Likewise, some of the “sins” that irritate Bridges the most based on rate of mention seem more like hypersensitivity to the demands of women. I’m thinking of “sarcasm” for example. As if the Bible says that a bit of biting irony is an affront to the law of God! Jerry has appropriated as his own view many of the views on good and bad behavior given forth by our worldly religion, thoroughly saturated as it is with the self-centered whining of lost women. The claim that those examples are sins, let alone respectable sins, has no biblical basis. The exposition is itself a sly ratification of humanism.

As McPhee’s father said, show it me in the Word of God.

I do not blame rebellious women, let alone women in general, for the ascendancy of their peculiar sensibilities becoming the subject for all this public brow-beating. It is kitty-whipped males like Jerry Bridges that have cravenly capitulated to establish this environment — an environment in which women will not prosper any more than men.

Indeed, in most cases the theme of the book could more accurately be called “those behaviors that it is respectable to brow-beat about.”

Identifying respectable sin requires more soul-searching than a book like this exhibits. Actually, the list of sins is respectable in an opposite sense intended by the author, namely: agreeing that these are respectable sins. The really respectable sins would not be recognized as sins at all. That is where the knife would really cut. For example, consider the fashionable but deeply sinful attitude shared by virtually all white Christians with their white secular counterparts, namely their anti-”racism.” This sin involves a whole complex of adopting attitudes that are contrary to the natural affections and desire to preserve one’s own kin that one finds throughout Scripture, not to mention the sin of “stopping one’s ears against just defense” as our Catechism says. Yet most white Christians not only have adopted this sinful attitude, but positively think of it as one evidence of their real sanctification!

Don’t believe me? Then imagine the reactions if David Duke showed up as a visitor in the typical white church of today. The humble end of the spectrum would greet him with a expectant puppy-dog expression, ready to welcome him with open arms immediately upon his public confession of his “sin,” which they would with expectant hope wait for him to give forth. Never mind that they would be unable to state what Duke’s sin is in a sentence that would be both coherent and factual. But those are the good people. At the other end would be the many who would simply turn away in icy silence until the apparition passed, whereupon a torrent of gossip and abuse would be unleashed in their ranks that would not be tagged as sin at all — quite the contrary. It would be taken as a mark of piety all of a sudden, accompanied by appropriate eyes lifted heavenward and shaking heads. And too many pastors and elders would, I fear, be right in the vanguard.

How about Sabbath-breaking? This is a sin that is so respectable it is positively encouraged and egged on in most church circles.

Perhaps it would be useful to continue the list:

3. Complicity of silence in the theft of others. When you see a clerk not ring up a transaction, but just state the “amount” and take the cash, do you smile inwardly? Have you ever said anything about it?

4. A blood-thirsty form of nationalism. Has a war ever been waged by the USA (if you are an American) that did not make your heart leap for joy?

5. An unjust favoring of some and despising of certain other peoples. Do you support Israel, right or wrong? In your mind, are the Arabs’ complaints vis-à-vis jews always and necessarily wrong?

6. Incorrigibility. When a cherished belief is challenged by Scripture, do you change your belief, even if that belief is politically correct and socially acceptable? Or are your beliefs not really beliefs at all, but just social conventions that you participate in?

7. And while being incorrigible at bottom, do you at the same time take great pride in “not having the pride of doctrinal correctness,” of being very “humble” in the very way that Chesterton observed was not humility at all but deeply-rooted pride?

8. How about hospitality? Do you take pride in your hospitality, though you would never offer shelter or food to someone you despise? As Roger Wagner observed, biblical hospitality has to do with your behavior toward the unlovely; it has nothing to do with throwing a wine and cheese party for people you love being with.

9. Will-worship. Do your complaints about the worship service have more to do with your own idiosyncratic taste than with an honest exegesis of what God says pleases him in worship?

10. Willingness to declare this or that to be sin without warrant from the Word of God, especially when those faux-sins have been made unpopular by jews and other secular forces of our culture, acting in concert through entertainment and “education.”

I have been guilty of all these respectable sins; I am not throwing stones at others. Self-righteousness is always near at hand when listing sins. My point is not that Bridges has not written anything useful, but simply that the professed theme of “respectability” misses the mark quite widely.

A book that really tackled the respectable sins of our day would be ignored or ridiculed, not received with accolades; and it would not be published by Navigators or any other respectable publisher.

Bridges, Jerry. Respectable Sins: Confronting the Sins we Tolerate (Colorado Springs: NavPress) 2007.

We resume the story at the death of the Hapsburg (Austrian) King Albert II in 1439. Seventeen years earlier he had married Elizabeth, daughter of the German king Sigismund, who also held the scepter over Bohemia and Hungary. (Recall that at this time “Hungary” included the land we know as Slovakia as well.) In 1438, following the death of Sigismund, Albert was crowned king of Hungary, and then Bohemia. The latter was contested, however, and during the ensuing war with the Bohemians and allied Poles, he was also named Holy Roman Emperor by the Diet at Frankfurt — which office however he was never able to assume. His wife Elizabeth reasserted force into Hungary/Slovakia, rule over which was assumed by her son Ladislaus the Posthumous. The incursions of the Turks were taking place, so that within a couple of decades the only region still held by the Magyars was in fact Slovakia. Slovaks took part in the government. But for three hundred years the back-and-forth and divided loyalties of the lesser nobility meant that no political and cultural center of gravity developed for the Slovak people.

The Austrian Emperor Joseph II (1780-90) limited the historical rights of the Hungarian representatives and “did not have himself crowned King of Hungary.” By mentioning that, I suppose Kovac means to suggest that the Emperor simply ruled, and by not calling himself “King of Hungary,” in effect amalgamated Hungary directly into his own originary domain. By Germanizing the Empire, the otherwise divided loyalty of the “foreign” nobility reemerged in nationalistic tendencies. Both Magyar and Slav developed a sense of their racial roots. The Magyars tried to root out the Slovak language. Revolution broke out in 1848, as it did also throughout Europe. Slav, Magyar, and German were in three-way tension. The upshot for this story was a proclamation of renewed Slovak rights read on March 28, 1848 by a triumvirate of Louis Stur and, interestingly enough, two Lutheran ministers. The fallout of the revolutions was that the Empire recognized all nationalities in the realm. A new Imperial Constitution in 1860 turned some of these rights back, but this was answered by a Slovak Convention in 1861, which dispatched a memorandum to the Emperor in the hands of Roman Catholic bishop Stephen Moyses. As a result, high schools using the Slovak language were established, as well as a scientific society headed by Moyses.

Then the Prussians defeated Austria, in 1866. The settlement led among other things to the Austro-Hungarian compromise of 1867, in which the monarchy was divided into two states. The new Magyar hegemony led to renewed suppression of the Slovaks, even in the historical city of Nitra. The editors of Slovak newspapers were persecuted and imprisoned. (Think of Lincoln doing the same thing here.) But as the century came to a close, the patriotism of the Slovak people only increased. They were led by Bishop Moyses and a Lutheran, Karol Kuzmany. Something like a Slovak Renaissance in letters and science took place. Yet the suppression also continued, such that in 1907 the Slovak language was forbidden in the schools. From 1875 to 1914 nearly a million Slovaks emigrated to the US.

This base of expatriates itself became a political force that was decisive in the formation of Czechoslovakia in the aftermath of WW1. What happened was that the Moravian Thomas Masaryk approached the Slovak astronomer Milan Stefanik, then working in France, with the proposal of a Czech-Slovak alliance for the common goal of freedom and independence. These men came to America and the upshot was the Pittsburgh Agreement which assured Slovak rights and independence. After the war, the Allies defined Czecho-Slovakia with Masaryk as the first President. Stefanik was to be the Minister of War. However, his plane was shot down under suspicious circumstances on the way to his triumphant return. Kovak implies that the third power broker, Edward Benes, was responsible.

Despite that, the new settlement was at first joyfully received by the people. But resentment gradually set in at the naturally predominant position assumed by the Bohemians. 250,000 more Slovaks emigrated between 1922 and 1926. Andrew Hlinka became a leader resisting the “moral dissolution” brought by the Czechs, in “defense of the Slovak and Christian traditions of his nation.” In 1933 “Nitra was the scene of great jubilee celebrations, which recalled to the memory of the Slovak nation the dedication of the first Christian church on Slovak territory.” (101) In 1937, “Bratislava was the scene of riotous demonstrations, which were organized under the motto ‘Na Slovensku po slovensky’ (in Slovak in Slovakian).” The America-resident Slovak League Delegation brought a ceremonial copy of the Pittsburgh Agreement for the 20th year anniversary celebration, featuring the final public appearance of Andrew Hlinka, and attended by 100,000 Slovaks. It was June 5, 1938.

Just then Hitler was demanding that Czecho-slovakia find a solution to the Sudetan problem, or he would solve it for them. The events that cascaded make for a very interesting story indeed, and will be the subject for the final installment of this review.

1. Augustine – credited as the first to expound limits to warfare based on Christian theory.

2. Thomas Aquinas. 3 conditions under which war can be justified: (1) just cause, (2) under proper authority, (3) waged with good intentions (211).

3. “Later theorists” added two additional criteria: (4) reasonable chance of success, (5) proportionality (212).

4. 1625 Hugo Grotius’ De Jure Belli ac Pacis. The first philosophico- theological book on the subject of just war (216-220).

5. 1864 Geneva Convention protecting sick and wounded soldiers.

6. 1868 St Petersburg Declaration, by the International Military Commission hosted by the Imperial Cabinet of Russia. Emphasis was on eliminating weapons designed to cause pain and suffering, as opposed to weakening of enemy armed force. “The necessities of war ought to yield to the requirements of humanity.” (122)

7. 1874 Brussels Project for an International Declaration on the Laws and Customs of War. (223)

8. 1880 Institute for International Law, Oxford (223)

9. “Hague IV.” 1899 “International Peace Conference” in the Hague, sponsored by Czar Nicholas II and Queen Wilhelmina of Netherlands. Wording built heavily on (6), (7) and (8). (121, 123, 223-225). Prohibited for five years the launching of projectiles and explosives from balloons. “Populations and belligerents remain under the protection and empire of the principles of international law, as they result from the usages established between civilized nations, from the laws of humanity and the requirements of the public conscience.”

10. The Hague 1907 “most of the First International Peace Conference agreements were reasserted” (123, 226)

11. 1922/23 Hague. The Five Major powers (Britain, France, US, Italy, Japan) took part, though result was not signed by the governments. Clearly foresaw the danger of air power. (143-145)

12. 1925 Geneva Gas Protocol. Prohibited poison gas and bacteriological weapons (226).

13. 1925-32 League of Nations conference for arms control. (145)

14. 1932 Geneva Disarmament Conference (146). General Conference for the Limitation and Reduction of Armaments. Efforts to restrict bombing from aircraft failed, mainly because the British saw bombing as necessary for colonial control. The discussions broke down on deciding whether bombers were offensive or defensive weapons (227).

15. Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 — protection for civilians in time of war. (234-5)

16. 1977 additional two protocols, forbidding war against civilians, including area bombing. The Red Cross had pushed for this continuously since WW2, but it was resisted by the Allies, for reasons that are now obvious. The US is still not a signatory to these protocols (235-242). Spreading democracy throughout the world requires, of course, the ability to pulverize nay-sayers into oblivion.

Just a few comments as food for thought.

It is disheartening that advocacy of just war principles began with a Calvinist (Augustine), proceeded via Romish Thomas to Arminian Grotius and thence to forces that, from the quotes given, are clearly humanistic. Our side has clearly lost the initiative; except that the Geneva-based Red Cross has certainly played a big role in the conventions of the last century and a half. (It is nonetheless interesting how prominent the role is of historically Reformed cities Geneva and the Hague.)

The first Geneva Convention took place during our own War of Northern Aggression, though, I suspect, probably motivated more by developments of warfare in Europe than with America’s tragedy in view.

The interest in – that is, horror at the prospect of – bombing in particular seems to have been a recurring concern and motivation for the international conventions. There is, I suggest, something primally sound about this. Warfare should be fundamentally a matter of hand-to-hand combat. One should have the dignity of being killed personally. The hero of the movie Patton saw this, I paraphrase: “no heroes, no cowards, no generals? God help us. I want no part of it.” When anti-aircraft defenses create parity, then it is a war of the engineers. When the defenses break down, as they finally did in Germany, or where they never really existed, as Serbia in Miss Lewinsky’s war, a brutal massacre ensues where nothing is established, and there is really nothing historical. We become reduced to Africa with high tech. It is just raw materiality.

Simultaneous to pulverizing the German cities, and for that reason, Bomber Harris destroyed what was morally worthwhile about the British Empire. We Americans have taken it to the next logical step. Bombs and McDonalds. This is what America has become, at least from the understandable viewpoint of much of the world.

The information for this reflection was obtained from A. C. Grayling, Among the Dead Cities: The History and Moral Legacy of the WWII Bombing of Civilians in Germany and Japan (Walker 2006).

In the first chapter, “Religious Dimensions of Law” Berman tries to read from human history a consistent bond between religion and law by discerning four elements exemplified by both at all times: ritual, tradition, authority, and universality. “In every society these four elements, as I shall try to show, symbolize man’s effort to reach out to a truth beyond himself.” (25) The apparent falsifiers of both western secular and Soviet law systems (the book was published in 1974) is defeated by an ad hominem exposure of the inconsistency of the one, and claiming that Stalin “had to reintroduce into Soviet law elements which would make his people believe in its inherent rightness” (29). He points out however that law cannot be restored to its august place by manipulating society via those four elements (40). Instead, the two institutions are “dialectically interdependent dimensions.” (46)

In the second chapter, “The Influence of Christianity on the Development of Western Law,” Berman gives a sweeping summary of 2,000 years of legal developments in connection with the history of the church. The initial persecution under the Romans set the stage, Berman claims, for the eventual principle of freedom of conscience. The Bible-based laws of Alfred (890), the struggles of the church vis a vis emperor culminating in the Papal Revolution of Hildebrand, the codification of the canon law in 1140, and the “method of analysis and synthesis” of the scholastics are listed. Berman suggests that the Lutheran reformation led to a secularized vision of the state, but also induced developments in the areas of property, contract, and testament. (65) The calvinistic movement led to the ideas of the “consent of the governed” and “social compact.” The age of Revolutions, followed by liberal democracy and then socialism, kept much of the “values” of Christianity even while rejecting the kernel. He argues that law is organic, non-political, and not entirely rational. (74)

The third chapter, “Law as a Dimension of Religion” proposes that just as religion lies at the heart of law, so religion to be renewed must not be antinomian. He discusses several forms of antinomianism. A “law vs love” thesis is a false dilemma. Likewise, “law vs faith” and “law vs grace.”

The fourth and final chapter “Beyond Law, Beyond Religion,” is a sudden shift in theme to the idea of time and renewal. The popular metaphor of death and redemption is utilized to advocate society “dying” to itself and entering into a new age of synthesis.

Repeatedly, Berman counters antinomian tendencies in modern society with the reductio that some kind of system of rules is necessary for a community — even a commune — to sustain and propagate itself. In this way, he thinks he has proven that a law system is an inescapable concept (e.g. 78-79).

However, these examples fail to draw the needed distinction between what I will call “traffic-flow stipulations” and the law of God. There is enough confusion on this point that a whole post should be dedicated to discussing it. For now, however, it just needs to be observed that a system of stipulations that we drive on the right side of the road, stop at red lights, and proceed no faster than 45 miles per hour are prudent and wise to expedite traffic, given that there are cars and roads; but they have nothing to do with the law of God. Driving in such a way as to preserve the life of your neighbor does have to do with the law of God, and the latter will entail some degree of conformity with the former. But they should never be confused. And the pragmatic need for the former does not show that the latter is involved, contra Berman. So much for his slick reductio of antinomianism.

The most serious problem with the book, however, is that, while seeing the need for transcendence to validate a legal system, Berman’s vision of “faith” and “religion” amounts to making them interchangeable coinage; they are relative and contingent by the very way that he sets the problem up. His model negates transcendence, thus leading to a direct contradiction. It is the difference between saying, “You should not steal, because God said, ‘thou shalt not steal’,” vs saying, “we need to regard stealing as wrong, therefore we should adopt the saying, ‘God said [thou shalt not steal]‘.” The extra level of indirection betrays the bad faith.

The problem was already evident in Berman suggesting that religion is “man’s effort to reach out to a truth beyond himself.” If that’s all it is, then worrying about whether our legal system can sustain itself is the least of our worries.

If you don’t recognize God’s voice, it will do no good for someone to say, “to renew ourselves, we should recognize the voice of God.” This is pelagianism, but more than pelagianism: it makes God an object of manipulation, necessary to secure a just and orderly society. As if God exists for that purpose. Worse yet, a god of your choosing.

The Christian view of law is that God has spoken and thus we must obey. Moreover, as Creator he also speaks directly to every man, via General Revelation, so that there is a point of contact with all men when proclaiming the moral law, upon which the civil law should rest. Thus, civil society is possible even before all men have become Christians. The severely recalcitrant will be ruled by mere fear of consequence; and they will be ruled for their own benefit and that of the rest of society. But most citizens will voluntarily accede to a law system that approximates the divine law, consenting in view of an implanted sense of justice, and restrained from the full consequence of their own evil by common grace.

But for Berman, “religion” is an abstraction that can be instantiated by Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, paganism. It should be obvious that only an unbeliever can think this way. One might just as well add the Rotary Club to the list of religions if that’s what is involved.

It is thus not surprising that his concluding chapter is essentially an ode and manifesto to New Age “integration.” His conservatism is merely standing athwart the slide into the void yelling, “but affirm that your values are really ultimate.”

While Berman is formally respectful toward Christianity, his coupling of the judaica to it as if twin brothers with equal claims to knowing God is quite galling. Here are some examples:

“The influence of religion on Western law during the past two thousand years, including the influence not only of traditional Judaism and Christian …” (14).

What? The only “influence” of Judaism until the mid-1600s was to cause Christians to look away in horror from it. And really, it is only since the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s that the judaica has had a serious influence on American law, though surely the Tribe has influenced the waging of wars and the machinations of princes eager to get access to money in the preceding centuries. But law is something else.

He has to say, “the pews of our churches and synagogues…” (21); though jews are something like 2% of the population.

“Christian historiography carried over from Judaism, …” (51). Oy vey! Name the jewish precursor to Augustine.

Constantly, “in both Judaism and Christianity” (15), “originated in Christianity and Judaism” (71), “for both Judaism and Christianity” (82), “a basic, if neglected, concept of both Judaism and Christianity” (102).

Judaism is an anti-Christ denial of, not complement to Christianity, as we have explained again and again. Judaism is a man-made religion from the “Second Temple” period based on an explicit rejection of Moses and the prophets, unless Jesus Christ is a liar. You cannot have it both ways. Christians will wake up from this dream-inducing lotus plant of judaic submission when they stop fearing man and fear God more.

But so keen is Berman on the blurring of this distinction that he actually suggests the Hebrews were Indo-European (119)!

Berman was of judaic descent, and evidently became more self-conscious about that heritage toward the end of his life. I do not know if he converted formally to Christianity or not; the lack of genuine insight into notions like justification and repentance unto life would make me question that.

A final criticism is that the book does not address the more fundamental question of the question of origin of right. The civil magistrate is personal, not carved in stone. The locus of authority once established, he can then tweak and modify the form the law is to take, and a “history of law” emerges. But who is the civil magistrate, and by what succession was it derived? That may end up being the more interesting question. As a member of the law guild, Berman undoubtedly did not want to push the question of law and religion into that realm, for it might have cast some doubts on the legitimacy of the guild itself.

Harold J. Berman, The Interaction of Law and Religion (Nashville: Abingdon, 1974)
BL65.L33 B47 1974

The question of significance is relegated to a short chapter at the end of the book. The question is crucial: for, interpreted in terms of a non-Christian world-view, neither the resurrection of Jesus Christ nor any other “brute fact” implies the truth of Christianity, as Dr. Bahnsen pointed out repeatedly. But after a bit of confusing discussion of sense and referent (that evinces a third- or fourth-hand descent from Frege), Wright answers also this question in terms of the belief of those of the time, highlighting three imputed significations of the resurrection. These are discussed correlatively in the phrase, “resurrection of the son of god [sic].”
1. Jesus is Israel’s Messiah. (726-728)
2. Opportunistically, Jesus is rival to all pretenders to divine sonship, especially the Roman Emperors. (728-731)
3. The resurrection proves the verity of claiming Jesus as Son of the living and true God (731-736).

Thus, the lower-case ‘g’ is vindicated; what is formally merely the claim of the prerogatives of one tribal god against another is, via the resurrection, shown to be the god whose “narrative” includes creation, and power over creation: hence, the real God. This punchline clarifies the unusual title of the book as well.

The book could basically be seen as Josh McDowell for pointy-headed seminary types. It’s main usefulness would be apologetic, addressed to biblically literate non-Christians, especially those that dominate the mainline seminaries and graduate schools (though I doubt N. T. Wright would concede to saying it that way).

However, only a subset of those that already believe in the resurrection will, I suspect, actually study this 800 page tome, namely: professors at conservative seminaries and their captive students.

For, the issue of significance runs deeper than Wright suspects. That “three things” can be listed that the first generation Christians probably intended to be implied by their belief is merely of academic interest unless existentially appropriated. And noticeably absent in this connection is any reference whatsoever to the Protestant view of the resurrection as primarily soteric. For Wright, union with Christ in his resurrection, by faith alone, by which Christ’s righteousness is imputed, thus vouchsafing personal salvation, is ignored; and elsewhere, explicitly denied. The resurrection of Christ is finally merely an “issue” that academic gentlemen can discuss over their tea and crumpets, before proceeding to the auditorium to view the movie of the week. Wright’s tame and non-life-changing “take” on the question is welcome as one more historical novelty to chit-chat about.

The natural man will far sooner believe that a dead person came to life, than that an imputed, alien righteousness, to which he contributes nothing, is necessary for his eternal salvation.

In this connection, it is also disturbing, especially in view of the menagerie of theological apes that populate the index, to find that “our guys” are completely ignored: Ridderbos and Gaffin, to name just two.

Imagine an 800 page book on the resurrection of Christ that does not mention Gaffin’s work! Even the shroud of Turin gets a passing mention!

It illustrates Thomas Sowell’s insight, that everyone, no matter where he is on the spectrum, wants someone further to the right to castigate or ignore. There seems to be a natural leftward face of one’s sympathetic pleading and attempts at persuasion. Theonomists get the same cold shoulder from Westminster that Westminster gets from the likes of N. T. Wright. But the poor heavy-laden Westminster students! that are going to have to slug through Wright because he is a “serious thinker” that behooves “careful interaction” with! If they don’t burn out over it, I guess nothing will be lost except time.

==========================

Nicholas Thomas Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (Minneapolis; Fortress 2003). Lib of Cong. BS2398.W75 1992

Paul Schneider had a deep love for his blood and soil. He was an agrarian by instinct. At age 34 he reminisced in this manner:

“Here, on this piece of ground where my cradle stood, where I received my first impressions of childhood, I am more than ever convinced that we do well to cherish our memories of home, to remember its customs and its love. This little town, high up in the meadow land at the opening of the valley, the powerful woodland, the humble old cottages, the little shops, the street corners, the people — many of them hardly changed since I was a boy — the splashing fountains, still the same. All these capture my soul with a good, strong love. My body and my soul rest quietly in the lap of home.” (11)

During his time working as a young man as a factory laborer, “he found it much more difficult to learn what relation his Christian message had to the everyday work of his comrades. Gladly he joined his comrades in those outings that broke the monotony of the dull work; but returning to his diary, he confessed failure: “although I am afraid to wander alone, I am driven to the discovery that no one shares my interests. Loneliness frightens me and the company of men also frightens me. I have nothing more.” Which reminds of Siegmund’s lament:

Was Rechtes je ich riet,
andern dünkte es arg;
was schlimm immer mir schien,
andre gaben ihm Gunst.

But when he quit to continue his training, “they stayed up half the night bidding him farewell and, in the early morning, brought him to the train. They were genuinely sorry to see him go… He never forgot their last words to him. It was the greatest of compliments: ‘You are one of us. Try to stay like that.’” (20-21)

“What the human heart finds most difficult is courage. He has courage who is completely set free from himself and only he has it. We must learn to hate ourselves. The darkest hours of our life also lead us nearest to God and we should be grateful to him for them.” (21)

On his ministry to the sick: A dying young woman testified, “a happy dying hour is greater than the whole of life. That is what Pastor Schneider has taught me and who dare question it?” (26) By “happy,” of course, Schneider did not mean worldly euphoria, but a conscience that is reconciled with an offended God.

“Another incident is described by our deaconess: ‘I remember a young epileptic, who had a very bad attack, which lasted three days and three nights. His body was so fearfully distorted that, apart from the doctor, we all stood helpless around his bed and, despite the use of strong narcotics, we could not give him rest. The devil grinned at us from this helpless lad. Then Pastor Schneider came in and he soon had us all on our knees praying for the mercy of God. He took the sick lad in his arms and, what the nurse could not do, he did as he spoke gently to him and gave him rest and sleep. So often he had come like that.’” (26-27)

On a walk through the woods with his wife, “a gypsy encampment was pitched. The men lay round the fire. Paul went over to them and spoke to them with a sense of intense urgency. Paul did this quite naturally, without condescension, and placed before them the decisive question of accepting Christ. On the way back I used the moment we had alone to ask him to be careful. He replied that he could only promise not to seek martyrdom. But, whenever he was called to witness, he must witness, because on earth there is no other salvation for men than in Jesus Christ. My heart sank and I began to speak about his wife and children. That moment I can never forget. We stood on the stone bridge which led over the water. He looked at me with an indescribable look straight in the eyes, and said: ‘Do you think God gave me my children only that I might care for their outward needs to keep them strong in body? Do they not depend on me also to care for their eternity? And my wife? Perhaps it is for you that I must suffer, perhaps in this way and in no other can you break through to true faith.’ Silent and inwardly shaking we walked home. I can never forget.” (42-43)

In addition to these glimpses into the man Paul Schneider, there are small yet significant indications of the land and times. When Schneider arrived to his new pastoral charge in Womrath, the village hanged colorful banners in welcome. Later, the first time he was released from prison, the church bells were rung (65). Despite the stereotype of the “two kingdom” view that allegedly prevailed in Germany, there was a recognition of the pastoral office that had a public, civic aspect.

In 1936, there was an election in which one could only vote “yes” — there was no “no” box (43). We would like to see more information on this matter. What was the exact question on the ballot to which one was supposed to vote yes? There is work for a good historian to delve into.

The German Reformed were much more accommodating to symbols and days than the Scottish. The advent candles are mentioned (102) as well as “feasts” (105). However, the Reformed genius of not resting in such externalities and being willing to dispense with them when they became a hindrance was alive in Schneider and actually led to his first church conflict in Hochelheim (28-29). “Anyone who knows anything of village life, the love of old customs and their close connection with new clothes, will know what a difficult task Paul had undertaken.”

The works of German liberalism are well-known to every theology student, but there was an evangelical current in parallel. For the record, here are two authors that influenced Schneider that we may add to the list for further study: Ethical writings by K. Heim, and dogmatics by Adolf Schlatter.

The above anecdotes testify to the kind of man that was forged prior to the conflicts with the state in 1930s’ Germany. In the remainder of this review, I will advert to those conflicts with an emphasis on drawing parallels to our own situation.

The sequence of conflicts between Party functionaries and fellow travelers on the one hand, and on the other Pastor Schneider, is at once thrilling and heart-breaking. His story deserves careful reflection. But I fear that many Americans, puffed up with self-righteousness in contrast to the “evil Nazis,” and with their own part in defeating that, will be tempted to draw exactly the wrong lessons. There is actually much about the National Socialist movement that should be praised — notably, the restoration of national morale and a tribal concept of citizenship, and the fierce opposition to Bolshevism. On the other hand, where evil should be identified in the movement, I fear many Americans would instinctively adopt, in the analogous crisis of their own time and place, the very position which was on the wrong side of the fence if the analogy to Nazism were carried out.

Here, let me list the conflicts Schneider suffered with the Party, and suggest analogous situations in our own time.

1. There was first, Schneider’s zealous guarding of the rights of the church over against state interference. This was first seen in the cemetery incident (36-37). Later, he refused to turn his sermon notes over to the court, arguing that only publicly-uttered statements are properly in the jurisdiction of examination for treason (96-98). When banished, Paul “knew that this action — banning him from the Rhineland — was illegal. He must fight it. Earlier, he had maintained that the State had no right to banish a pastor from his parish unless he had broken the law…. He had been appointed to his church by God and he could not now betray his trust.” (66-67)

The nub of Schneider’s stance is in the phrase, “unless he had broken the law.” But notice that his stance is rooted in a different vision of what constitutes valid law than that promulgated by the government. How many modern churchman have in effect stated that valid law is “whatever the government says is valid law.” Romans 13 has become the shallow justification for slavish obedience, not just to courts, but even the whims of bureaucrats. Already, pastors may not get “political.” Soon, proclaiming the Bible on certain subjects will be declared “hate speech” — and how many pastors will take a stand against it? One does not have to read the blog sites of conservative churches like the OPC and RCUS very long to see how deeply entrenched this idea is even in leading elders of the church. One elder on the OPC site actually defended the practice widespread in Europe of imprisoning people for the “crime” of holocaust revisionism. (That’s when I quit that blog.) They tut-tut at the vision of Nazi students throwing books onto a bonfire; but they will look the other way if not applaud when internet censorship is introduced! (And the book-burnings were voluntary!) The mirror of Paul Schneider’s experience shows that, at that point where there is something that free men might indeed object to in the program of National Socialism, it is just there that these men fall in line with it. It is ironic indeed, but true.

2. Schneider’s second area leading directly to conflict with the state was his insistence on carrying out church discipline. The first two cases were to correct a man that angrily withdrew his child from Sunday School, thus violating the vows he had made when his child was baptized. The other was a man conspiring with “German Christians” to disrupt and subvert Schneider’s ministry. It was this situation that led to his second arrest and long imprisonment in Coblenz prior to being exiled.

But look how the instruments of the State are being used today by people to subvert church discipline, suing and threatening to sue. Churches obtain legal advice on whether and if so how to exercise discipline. Probably, most of our people do not like this development; but how many are going to take a courageous stand, even if it means losing everything, or being imprisoned? How many will not even on this issue appeal to Romans 13 to justify their cowardice? Such men should not dare to be the ones to feign solidarity with Schneider.

Moreover, the statement of discipline published by Schneider’s Session observed, “when it is suggested that the exercise of church discipline awakens enmity and divides the unity of the congregation, then it is not church discipline that is being criticized, but the false peace and false unity of the congregation.” (50)

What a great phrase: false peace and false unity. Yet “peace and unity” are often virtual maxims governing the polity of the modern conservative churches.

3. In the letter explaining why he would not vote in the 1936 election, Schneider observed, “We may well find a secular, non-Christian school forcibly replacing our own confessional school” (44). “The teachers did their best to twist the bible stories in accordance with the latest Nazi teaching (46).”

Most modern “conservatives” have completely capitulated on this issue. They are as dedicated to secular government schools as any Nazi ever was, and as indifferent if not hostile to the faithful remnant that has been resisting, as the Party was to Schneider. Not only that, but they are fully on board with politically correct speech, racial replacement, judicial sophistry, and all the other unjustified and unjustifiable winds of opinion promulgated by the secular media, entertainment, and schools. In all this, they are one with the faction that Schneider was resisting unto his own martyrdom. Substitute neo-con, Republican, or even just American for the word Nazi in the above quote, and you have it.

4. Schneider warned against requiring children to perform a mindless “Heil Hitler” at the beginning and end of every conversation, suggesting it was idolatry. (92) But how many good conservative churchmen do the same with the Pledge of Allegiance, or by requiring a National flag be planted at the front of the church?

In conclusion, the keynote phrase of Schneider’s witness may be taken as this: “the frightful seduction and idolatry of the spirit of our day.” (100)

We need to remember that when you are submerged in water, you don’t feel wet. People that think they are standing athwart the idolatrous spirit of their age yelling “stop” may actually be yelling in perfect conformity to that spirit. Think of William J Buckley, Jr.

There are many exceptions, but I fear a good number of our seemingly stalwart pastors and elders are passive fellow travelers if not cheerleaders for the form of rebellion against God that engulfs our age like a wind. They have no intention of dying for the rights of the church against the state. They will give up church discipline rather than risk a lawsuit. They work for, not against, the secular government schools. Their instinctive symbolism reeks of state-worship.

In short, most Americans have not yet even framed the question about Nazism correctly. Many of the cartoon-book evils were actually virtues. And many of the true evils of the movement characterize the attitudes of modern churchmen if anything to a greater extent than 1930’s Germany.

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Paul Schneider: The Pastor of Buchenwald, by his widow. English edition is “freely translated” from Der Prediger von Buchenwald: Das Martyrium Paul Schneiders by E. H. Robinson. (London: SCM Press Ltd., 1956) Lib. of Cong. #BX 9469.S35 A313 1956. The Westminster Theological Seminary Library copy was bequeathed from the library of E. J. Young.