In his book, I May Not Get There With You (full bibliog. info at bottom), Rev. Michael Dyson discussed a variety of contemporary topics in racial politics using the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. (hereafter: MLK) as springboard. He is clearly upset that conservatives of many stripes and variations have appropriated the MLK mythos, and wants to set MLK’s iconic status back in service to radical politics. Actually, blacks, whites, liberals, and conservatives have all wandered from the right track due to having come under one or another forms of “amnesia” (290-4) which Dyson details. Continue reading…
Book review
Paul Schneider was a German Reformed minister whose early ministry coincided with the ascendancy of the National Socialist movement in the 1930s. His critique of the folk’s movement in view of the Word of God as well as a series of stands for the independent rights of the church vis-à-vis the state led to continual conflicts with Party functionaries, and penalties of increasing severity. At length, the conflict culminated in consignment to the concentration camp at Buchenwald, where his life ended. Continue reading…
Today is the 64th anniversary of the Allied fire-bombing of Hamburg known as Operation Gomorrah. The British part, which deliberately targeted civilians, actually involved four night-time attacks beginning the nights of 7/24, 7/25, 7/27, and 8/2 of 1943. (There were supplemental American attacks by day that aimed at military targets.) Thus, this night is actually the anniversary of the third night of bombing; but that was the one that created the fire-storm that killed tens of thousands in horror- Continue reading…
The book entitled The Philosophy of Science and Belief in God expounds Gordon H. Clark’s view of science. The book proceeds by historical survey, and the three chapter divisions divide the history into the ancients, the Newtonians, and the 20th century. Roughly speaking, this corresponds to views of science that we could call rationalist, empirical-determinist, and empirical-indeterminist. Each of these is shown to come up short of the standard Clark has set for what science needs to accomplish Continue reading…
Philip Jacob Spener wrote this initially as a preface to an edition of some sermons by J. Arndt; it became popular in its own right and subsequently was published by itself Continue reading…
Johann Arndt (1555-1621) was a Lutheran minister that was troubled by formalism or dead orthodoxy among the German people. He wrote this book, True Christianity (Wahre Christenthum) to counter this trend, arguing that mere assent to correct doctrines Continue reading…
What does a fifteenth century German Diet have to do with American “no taxation without representation”? Quite a lot, actually. Continue reading…
Review of Robin Bruce Barnes, Prophecy and Gnosis: Apocalypticism in the Wake of the Lutheran Reformation (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1988). BT 819.5 .B35 1988
Under the rubric of apocalypticism, this book weaves together a story about views of time and history, eschatology, astrology, magic and secret societies in Lutheran Germany in the century following the Reformation.
Prof. Barnes (of Davidson College) defines apocalypticism as a view of the future combining prophecy and Continue reading…
When I was young, I had a friend whose father but not mother was Jewish; thus, by the rabbinic rule, he was not Jewish; he was raised Methodist. But from his father he knew a lot about the Jewish ways. One thing I remember him saying was that Yiddish was basically a slang German that allowed Jews to insult Continue reading…
In this book, Jewish Prof. Neusner interacts with Christianity by imaginatively projecting himself to first century Palestine. The interactions are with the text of Matthew. He proposes the Torah as the shared “given” from which argument can proceed, and poses the question, Continue reading…
This was written by Robert Louis Stevenson in 1886 at age 35. It is a little book that can be read in an hour or two, and should be by everyone. It left such a powerful Continue reading…
Full title: William Lane Craig. Time and Eternity: Exploring God’s Relationship to Time (Wheaton Continue reading…
Part paean, part apologia, part theater of the absurd. The “great Americans” who listen to Hannity and religiously watch “The Factor” may take this book seriously. Few others will.
Here are some surprising things that are justified or glossed over in this volume:
How imperialistic crusades that only benefit big petro, big pharma, the industrial-military complex, and the criminal regime quarted in Tel Aviv are justified on ”national security” grounds.
How $2 billion per day deficits and lax monetary policy have “jump-started” a sustained economic recovery that our grandchildren will enjoy (provided that are not drafted as cannon-fodder in the current Hundred Years War).
How increased funding for Planned Parenthood through Title X and the allocation of grants to the W.H.O.’s African sterilization program is consistent with Christian principles of family values. (No surprise here; G.W.’s grandfather, Prescott Bush, was the Treasurer of Planned Parenthood, New York.)
How pushing for corporate money grabs such as CAFTA and the FTAA is consistent with U.S. sovereignty.
How the Department of Homeland Security, empowered by the “Patriot” Acts, only resembles the German Stassi (Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, lit. “Ministry for State Security”) on paper, but is no actual threat to our civil liberties.
The book could be excused if the authors left the impression that they were laughing as they wrote it. Propaganda with a wink and a wry smile can be entertaining if handled adroitly. Unfortunately one soon realizes that the writers are as serious as TSA officials frisking down nine month old babies at air port terminals (an outrage my youngest child was subjected to).
After finishing the book, one comes to realize that he should not, excuse the paraphrase of our Malaprop-in-Chief, misunderestimate the Bush cult’s ability to disassemble.
This book (see bibliog. at end) is a discussion of the philosophy of time, with specific attention to the question of the relation between God and time. Continue reading…
Italian Umberto Eco is a creative linguist and semiologist made famous in American literary circles by his novel “Name of the Rose” (which should not be judged by the dirty movie based on the novel). Cardinal Martini is an Italian prelate noted for his intellectual gifts. This book reprints a friendly newspaper debate between the two some years back.
Here is a just a brief sampler of some of the topics.
Abortion
Eco is “pro-life” but “doesn’t want to impose” etc. Sees Creationism (as opposed to Traducianism) as allowing for flexibility as to when the human soul is present. Martini appeals to meaning of life as participation in divinity, rather than divine fiat by covenant. Refers to “mother earth” “with all her tremors, fecundity, and breath.” (p. 47).
That intellectual popery must appeal to pantheism to ground a key social position of the church says all that needs to be said there. On the other side, Eco’s appeal to Creationism (thus, ironically, showing more theological acumen as an agnostic than his churchman opponent) is however very weak indeed. At best, Creationism plus a “but who knows when” converts the problem of abortion from “this is homicide” to “this might be homicide.” But this is hardly a solution to one desiring a clear conscience before God.
Role of women
Eco sees scriptural evidence as culture-determined. Can’t understand why women can’t be ordained.
Martini says…Tradition! Earlier justifications have fallen by the wayside, but they were merely culture-bound attempts to explain something that must be profound and divine to have lasted this long in both west and east.
Again, though both parties are confused, at least agnostic Eco is dealing in a theologically coherent category.
Martini’s appeal to tradition as pointing to something “profound and divine” is too convenient. At one time, any given practice that we now, with centuries of hindsight, refer to as tradition was not tradition. The question every traditionalist needs to ask is what the justification of the practice at that earlier point would be.
The hidden premise seems to be that any incorrect practice or belief will eventually die out; consequently, hindsight can be appealed to under the rubric of “tradition” to argue, by modus tolens, that a surviving practice “must be” good, divine, beneficial, or whatever.
Oddly enough, this viewpoint is a kind of conceptual Darwinism. Or we think of Marx, with his prediction that capitalism would die out due to its own contradictions.
There is some truth to the model. However, that it proves divine warrant is a category confusion. A surviving practice might show a propensity to survive certain hostile conditions in a brute way; and that might be all.
Foundation of ethics without God
At length, Martini springs the ethical “nuclear” argument: without God, how do you get to first base with an ethical “ought”?
Eco sees the answer in an ego-other dialectic that is rooted in the ego. The other defines and validates the ego; thus, an other-oriented ethic is inescapable.
However, this confuses “is” with “ought.” Mix together “this is” and “I prefer” and shake as hard as you like; you will never get an “ought,” as C. S. Lewis and others have pointed out.
The weakness of both men’s arguments on various issues should serve as a confidence-booster to reformed ethicists of presuppositional orientation.
