Happy New Year's to all who read this post!
新年快乐！
Just a few thoughts before I run off to bed--
I wish I had a green dollar for every time I turned on the TV last year, and saw some show about how the Mayan calendar says that we are entering the last year of the world, or something about Nostradamus (whom I have never read). I'd be a rich man.
Well, Jesus Christ says that no man knows the day nor the hour, so Uncle Cephas confidently predicts that 2012 will NOT, I repeat NOT, mark the end of the world.
May God crown this new year with grace.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Jolly Old Saint Nicholas
Now that Christmas has come to our land, and Santa Claus is on every child's mind, it might be worthwhile to review a little bit about the original Saint Nicholas--Santa Claus arising from a childish German and Dutch corruption of his name.
There actually was a bishop of the Lycian city of Myra, now in southwestern Turkey, by the name of Nicholas, who died somewhere between 345 and 352 A.D. Apparently, as a young man, he went on a pilgrimage to Egypt and Palestine, and shortly after his return became the Christian bishop of Myra. His association with the city of Bari in Italy stems from the theft of his relics from Asia Minor by a group of Italian merchants in 1087. But, to return to his actual life, he was famous for his generosity towards the poor, including providing dowries for impoverished young women. This, apparently, is the origin of the medieval tradition that associates him with gift-giving. In the medieval Roman Church, his festival was celebrated in December, so it was not difficult for it to be assimilated to Christmas, the remembrance of God's ultimate gift of His Son, Jesus the Messiah.
However, Nicholas' life took interesting turns in the early 4th century. In 302-303 A.D., Diocletian, the Emperor of the East, initiated the last major persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire. Among those arrested and tortured was Nicholas, for as a bishop, he was very prominent among the Christians. However, Diocletian's health failed while the political star of Constantine was rising,so when Constantine became emperor and declared Christianity a legal religion, Nicholas avoided becoming living lion chow and was released to go back to his prior work of winning and nurturing souls for Christ.
But things did not end happily ever after. In Alexandria, a presbyter by the name of Arius anticipated the Jehovah's Witnesses by more than fifteen hundred years by declaring that Christ, as God the Son, was not co-eternal with the Father, but the first created being. Much of the Greek-speaking Eastern Empire accepted Arian teaching, although Nicholas did not. When Constantine called an ecumenical council at Nicaea in 325, Nicholas attended, where he was such an ardent supporter of the formula that Christ is "very God of very God, being of one substance with the Father" that he punched out Arius when the two men met. Things probably did not go all that well for Nicholas in the following years, since despite the pronunciations of the bishops of Nicaea, the heirs of Constantine tended to favor the Arian or Semi-Arian (Christ is of "like substance" with the Father) positions.
However, when all is summed up, Nicholas remained a witness to the deity of Jesus Christ as taught in the Gospel and Epistles of John the Apostle, and stands as an exemplar of Christian charity. As such, he deserves to be remembered fondly by those who know and love New Testament truth.
Uncle Cephas wishes all a Merry Christmas!
There actually was a bishop of the Lycian city of Myra, now in southwestern Turkey, by the name of Nicholas, who died somewhere between 345 and 352 A.D. Apparently, as a young man, he went on a pilgrimage to Egypt and Palestine, and shortly after his return became the Christian bishop of Myra. His association with the city of Bari in Italy stems from the theft of his relics from Asia Minor by a group of Italian merchants in 1087. But, to return to his actual life, he was famous for his generosity towards the poor, including providing dowries for impoverished young women. This, apparently, is the origin of the medieval tradition that associates him with gift-giving. In the medieval Roman Church, his festival was celebrated in December, so it was not difficult for it to be assimilated to Christmas, the remembrance of God's ultimate gift of His Son, Jesus the Messiah.
However, Nicholas' life took interesting turns in the early 4th century. In 302-303 A.D., Diocletian, the Emperor of the East, initiated the last major persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire. Among those arrested and tortured was Nicholas, for as a bishop, he was very prominent among the Christians. However, Diocletian's health failed while the political star of Constantine was rising,so when Constantine became emperor and declared Christianity a legal religion, Nicholas avoided becoming living lion chow and was released to go back to his prior work of winning and nurturing souls for Christ.
But things did not end happily ever after. In Alexandria, a presbyter by the name of Arius anticipated the Jehovah's Witnesses by more than fifteen hundred years by declaring that Christ, as God the Son, was not co-eternal with the Father, but the first created being. Much of the Greek-speaking Eastern Empire accepted Arian teaching, although Nicholas did not. When Constantine called an ecumenical council at Nicaea in 325, Nicholas attended, where he was such an ardent supporter of the formula that Christ is "very God of very God, being of one substance with the Father" that he punched out Arius when the two men met. Things probably did not go all that well for Nicholas in the following years, since despite the pronunciations of the bishops of Nicaea, the heirs of Constantine tended to favor the Arian or Semi-Arian (Christ is of "like substance" with the Father) positions.
However, when all is summed up, Nicholas remained a witness to the deity of Jesus Christ as taught in the Gospel and Epistles of John the Apostle, and stands as an exemplar of Christian charity. As such, he deserves to be remembered fondly by those who know and love New Testament truth.
Uncle Cephas wishes all a Merry Christmas!
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Original Sin, Total Depravirty, and Modern Politics
The influence of theology on politics has become a minor cottage industry in academic political science. The late Daniel Elazar wrote a multi-volume work on The Covenant Tradition in Politics, in which he argued that Reformed covenantalism played the key role in shaping the ideals of federalism and political cocmpact. While it is true that federalism and political compact sank deep roots into countries that were historically Reformed,covenantalism per se does not seem to be the most important element in shaping at least the ideal of political compact.
Elazar find most of his support in the Politics of Johannes Althusius, city syndic and Reformed church elder in the northwestern German city of Emden in the early 1600's. Althusius' argument holds that the Holy Roman Empire constitutes a federation of states and cities held together by a kind of compact, hence Emden should be allowed to stand as a Reformed city in the Lutheran Duchy of Oldenburg (East Friesland) within the still heavily Roman Catholic Empire. Elazar (a Sephardic Jew) duly notes the biblicism of early Reformed theology, its adherence to covenantal theology, and then concludes that it was the idea of covenant that gave rise to that of political compact and political federalism.
Elazar is, of course, correct in noting how the idea of covenant informs classical Reformed theology. But Elazar's excursions into the realm of classical Reformed theology are those of an outsider seriously misled by various streams of modern academic theology, which he rightly recognizes as deviations from Reformed Orthodoxy, but from whose guidance he cannot quite escape. For instance, in his volume Covenant and Commonwealth, dealing specifically with the continental Reformed and British Puritan theorists,he follows J. Wayne Baker in seeing "Calvinism" (identified as first, last, and always predestinarianism) and "Covenantaalism" as alternative Reformed "theologies" (in the plural), whose schism was averted by the Consensus Tigurinus of 1549. Unfortunately for Elazar's argument, the Consensus Tigurinus settled no debate between predestinarianism and covenantalism (which was non-existent, save in the minds of 19th century liberal theologians eager to live down their "Calvinist" past), but represents the theologians of German-speaking Switzerland accepting Calvin's doctrine of Christ's spiritual presence in the elements of the Lord's Supper as close enough to their own, and not a capitulation to the Lutheran doctrine of consubstantiation. Further, Elazar does not see how covenantalism in Reformed theology is the means whereby the eternal decree to save the elect enters into and takes effect in the time-bound world of finite human exisstence. Hence, Elazar's work requires correction.
However, from reading in a range of early Reformed political thinkers from the Huguenots on down to the Puritans, the doctrine of total depravity played a much larger role.
The number of early Reformed writers on politics is large, and virtually all (with the noteworthy exception of Thomas Erastes) oppose the state or civil magistrate impinging on the church's independence within its sphere and criticize the idea that the divine institution of government grants the monarch an unlimited power over his subjects. Rather, public law represents an agreement between rulers and people, and that if this law is broken, the lesser magistrate has both the right and duty to lead the people in rebellion against the monarch. Hence the title "monarchomach" given to the critics of royal absolutism by royalist writers of the 16th and 17th centuries.
One of the most common justifications for limited government was, as Samuel Rutherford said, that unlimited power in one that can sin is an "accursed power". Rutherford, as a devout Calvinist, saw sinfulness as the natural heritage of all descended from Adam by ordinary generation, hence its taint affects all members of the human race save Jesus Christ. However, government is a divine institution to protect mankind. Hence, there had to be compact between people, rulers, and God to prevent the rulers from having a power that might destroy rather than preserve the people.
By the same token, Calvin himself urged the best government as a mix of democracy and aristocracy in the last chapters of his Institutes of the Christian Religion. His reasoning was simply that kings could not always be trusted to do what is right. While Calvin differs from many of his disciples--Knox, Buchanan, Marnix van St. Aldegonde, Hotman, Junius Brutus, and others--in shying away from declaring a right of rebellion against a tyrant, his conclusions about the best constitution are remarkably similar to theirs.
The Reformed doctrine of total depravity grates on modern, democratic sensibilities. Yet the seed of the constitutional, limited governments that marked the North Atlantic countries were planted by something quite unlike the sunnier estimate of human nature springing from the French Enlightenment.
Elazar find most of his support in the Politics of Johannes Althusius, city syndic and Reformed church elder in the northwestern German city of Emden in the early 1600's. Althusius' argument holds that the Holy Roman Empire constitutes a federation of states and cities held together by a kind of compact, hence Emden should be allowed to stand as a Reformed city in the Lutheran Duchy of Oldenburg (East Friesland) within the still heavily Roman Catholic Empire. Elazar (a Sephardic Jew) duly notes the biblicism of early Reformed theology, its adherence to covenantal theology, and then concludes that it was the idea of covenant that gave rise to that of political compact and political federalism.
Elazar is, of course, correct in noting how the idea of covenant informs classical Reformed theology. But Elazar's excursions into the realm of classical Reformed theology are those of an outsider seriously misled by various streams of modern academic theology, which he rightly recognizes as deviations from Reformed Orthodoxy, but from whose guidance he cannot quite escape. For instance, in his volume Covenant and Commonwealth, dealing specifically with the continental Reformed and British Puritan theorists,he follows J. Wayne Baker in seeing "Calvinism" (identified as first, last, and always predestinarianism) and "Covenantaalism" as alternative Reformed "theologies" (in the plural), whose schism was averted by the Consensus Tigurinus of 1549. Unfortunately for Elazar's argument, the Consensus Tigurinus settled no debate between predestinarianism and covenantalism (which was non-existent, save in the minds of 19th century liberal theologians eager to live down their "Calvinist" past), but represents the theologians of German-speaking Switzerland accepting Calvin's doctrine of Christ's spiritual presence in the elements of the Lord's Supper as close enough to their own, and not a capitulation to the Lutheran doctrine of consubstantiation. Further, Elazar does not see how covenantalism in Reformed theology is the means whereby the eternal decree to save the elect enters into and takes effect in the time-bound world of finite human exisstence. Hence, Elazar's work requires correction.
However, from reading in a range of early Reformed political thinkers from the Huguenots on down to the Puritans, the doctrine of total depravity played a much larger role.
The number of early Reformed writers on politics is large, and virtually all (with the noteworthy exception of Thomas Erastes) oppose the state or civil magistrate impinging on the church's independence within its sphere and criticize the idea that the divine institution of government grants the monarch an unlimited power over his subjects. Rather, public law represents an agreement between rulers and people, and that if this law is broken, the lesser magistrate has both the right and duty to lead the people in rebellion against the monarch. Hence the title "monarchomach" given to the critics of royal absolutism by royalist writers of the 16th and 17th centuries.
One of the most common justifications for limited government was, as Samuel Rutherford said, that unlimited power in one that can sin is an "accursed power". Rutherford, as a devout Calvinist, saw sinfulness as the natural heritage of all descended from Adam by ordinary generation, hence its taint affects all members of the human race save Jesus Christ. However, government is a divine institution to protect mankind. Hence, there had to be compact between people, rulers, and God to prevent the rulers from having a power that might destroy rather than preserve the people.
By the same token, Calvin himself urged the best government as a mix of democracy and aristocracy in the last chapters of his Institutes of the Christian Religion. His reasoning was simply that kings could not always be trusted to do what is right. While Calvin differs from many of his disciples--Knox, Buchanan, Marnix van St. Aldegonde, Hotman, Junius Brutus, and others--in shying away from declaring a right of rebellion against a tyrant, his conclusions about the best constitution are remarkably similar to theirs.
The Reformed doctrine of total depravity grates on modern, democratic sensibilities. Yet the seed of the constitutional, limited governments that marked the North Atlantic countries were planted by something quite unlike the sunnier estimate of human nature springing from the French Enlightenment.
A Song for Obama
OBAMA'S FACE (with apologies to Spike Lee)
When Obama say we're all for hope and change
And not to love Obama seems so strange
It means there's no pipeline across the Bison Range
For Red State poverty just mustn't change!
When Obama says he's full of peace and love
And unlike Bush he's a very peaceful dove.
On Yemen and Libya there rained from above
A most explosive kind of peace and love!
Are we not Progressive folk?
Yes! We are progressive folk!
And this progress is no joke!
In self-righteousness we soak!
We are SUCH progressive folk!
When Dame Hill'ry says the Ikhwan is just fine
And those who criticize them are just swine,
For the age of Newspeak she doth sigh and pine
Because Obama is our Fuehrer fine!
When our spokesmen say the Arabs have a Spring,
And for the world it's just a peachy thing,
The Mainstream Media loves to clap and sing
Forgetting that the Copts now feel the sting!
When the papers say that you're a racist pig
'Cause you won't buy Obama's lousy gig,
Just remember, Wright's positions weren't so big
And for his ravings you mustn't care a fig!
For Obama to unite us is a breeze,
Just forget about Old Blago's graft and sleaze,
And that Obie wants to punish enemies
Of whom not one is overseas!
ANOTHER SONG FOR OBAMA--revised and updated, with no apologies to Horst Wessel or the rotten movement he represented.
With Fannies high, Obama's marching minions
Go prancing down America's main drag.
It's time to pack up all your un-PeeCee opinions,
Whether in speech, on airwaves, or in mag.
It's time to pack up all your un-PeeCee opinions,
Whether in speech, on airwaves, or in mag.
The media, subservient and ga-ga,
Care not that Geitner cheats the IRS.
Chicago pol's tale has become a sacred saga,
"Messiah's come!" They loudly doth profess.
Chicago pol's tale has become a sacred saga,
"Messiah's come!" They loudly doth profess.
His entourage is full of Maoists, Truthers,
Alinsky fans, and commies like Van Jones.
No Colbert dares to stand up as a comic spoofer--
Such things are now deeply forbidden zones.
No Colbert dares to stand up as a comic spoofer--
Such things are now deeply forbidden zones.
You're in the way if you're not with the program!
It's criminal to disagree, demurr--
No matter if his plans will bankrupt the whole country,
You must roll over, play dead, wag and purr!
No matter if his plans will bankrupt the whole country,
You must roll over, play dead, wag and purr!
Next thing, our youth will join in brown battalions
To sing and chant our fearless leader's name.
And prance along like well-trained gelded stallions,
To once-free people's deep and lasting shame.
And prance along like well-trained gelded stallions,
To once-free people's deep and lasting shame.
Our fearless leader--he would never fib ya'--
Has promised no more Middle Eastern fights,
Please don't remind us that he's bombed Yemen and Libya
To let Al-Qaida followers have rights.
Please don't remind us that he's bombed Yemen and Libya
To let Al-Qaida followers have rights.
With Fannies high, Obama's marching minions
Go prancing down America's main drag.
It's time to pack up all your un-PeeCee opinions,
Whether in speech, on airwaves, or in mag.
It's time to pack up all your un-PeeCee opinions,
Whether in speech, on airwaves, or in mag.
When Obama say we're all for hope and change
And not to love Obama seems so strange
It means there's no pipeline across the Bison Range
For Red State poverty just mustn't change!
When Obama says he's full of peace and love
And unlike Bush he's a very peaceful dove.
On Yemen and Libya there rained from above
A most explosive kind of peace and love!
Are we not Progressive folk?
Yes! We are progressive folk!
And this progress is no joke!
In self-righteousness we soak!
We are SUCH progressive folk!
When Dame Hill'ry says the Ikhwan is just fine
And those who criticize them are just swine,
For the age of Newspeak she doth sigh and pine
Because Obama is our Fuehrer fine!
When our spokesmen say the Arabs have a Spring,
And for the world it's just a peachy thing,
The Mainstream Media loves to clap and sing
Forgetting that the Copts now feel the sting!
When the papers say that you're a racist pig
'Cause you won't buy Obama's lousy gig,
Just remember, Wright's positions weren't so big
And for his ravings you mustn't care a fig!
For Obama to unite us is a breeze,
Just forget about Old Blago's graft and sleaze,
And that Obie wants to punish enemies
Of whom not one is overseas!
ANOTHER SONG FOR OBAMA--revised and updated, with no apologies to Horst Wessel or the rotten movement he represented.
With Fannies high, Obama's marching minions
Go prancing down America's main drag.
It's time to pack up all your un-PeeCee opinions,
Whether in speech, on airwaves, or in mag.
It's time to pack up all your un-PeeCee opinions,
Whether in speech, on airwaves, or in mag.
The media, subservient and ga-ga,
Care not that Geitner cheats the IRS.
Chicago pol's tale has become a sacred saga,
"Messiah's come!" They loudly doth profess.
Chicago pol's tale has become a sacred saga,
"Messiah's come!" They loudly doth profess.
His entourage is full of Maoists, Truthers,
Alinsky fans, and commies like Van Jones.
No Colbert dares to stand up as a comic spoofer--
Such things are now deeply forbidden zones.
No Colbert dares to stand up as a comic spoofer--
Such things are now deeply forbidden zones.
You're in the way if you're not with the program!
It's criminal to disagree, demurr--
No matter if his plans will bankrupt the whole country,
You must roll over, play dead, wag and purr!
No matter if his plans will bankrupt the whole country,
You must roll over, play dead, wag and purr!
Next thing, our youth will join in brown battalions
To sing and chant our fearless leader's name.
And prance along like well-trained gelded stallions,
To once-free people's deep and lasting shame.
And prance along like well-trained gelded stallions,
To once-free people's deep and lasting shame.
Our fearless leader--he would never fib ya'--
Has promised no more Middle Eastern fights,
Please don't remind us that he's bombed Yemen and Libya
To let Al-Qaida followers have rights.
Please don't remind us that he's bombed Yemen and Libya
To let Al-Qaida followers have rights.
With Fannies high, Obama's marching minions
Go prancing down America's main drag.
It's time to pack up all your un-PeeCee opinions,
Whether in speech, on airwaves, or in mag.
It's time to pack up all your un-PeeCee opinions,
Whether in speech, on airwaves, or in mag.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Newt and the "Palestinians"
Go, Mr. Former Speaker!
The time is long past due for the world to tell its Arabic-speaking portion that it needs to naturalize the Falastin Arab refugees and their descendants.
It ought to be a mandatory talking point for everyone in the US foreign policy community that there are roughly around 30,000 victims of an-Nakhbar and their descendants in the USA, and that these people carry US passports whenthey travel, may freely buy and sell real estate, vote in US elections, and even run for office. Yet in the whole of the Arab world from Iraq and the Gulf to Mauretania, only Jordan, the PA, and Israel itself give the Falastin Arabs real citizenship--and even the PA is thinking of denying it to those from pre-1967 Israel.
Yet the Arab states, which insit on keeping the Falastin Arabs stateless, dare to use them as an excuse to trash US embassies and demonize the USA in their government-controlled media (Egypt, the recipient of so much US aid, was notorious in this regard).
The enormity of this travesty is that Lahore-born Manmohan Singh and Delhi-born Pervez Musharaf sat down to talk about defusing Indo-Pakistani tensions, when both men were young refugees in 1948, and ended up as leaders of their countries. Further, Jews descended from the Arab countries--and there were Jews in Egypt, Iraq, and the Maghreb before there were Arabs--are now no-questions-asked Israelis. This is perhaps one of the most obscene imbalances in the Middle East.
Good for you, Mr. Speaker--and I was raised Democrat!
The time is long past due for the world to tell its Arabic-speaking portion that it needs to naturalize the Falastin Arab refugees and their descendants.
It ought to be a mandatory talking point for everyone in the US foreign policy community that there are roughly around 30,000 victims of an-Nakhbar and their descendants in the USA, and that these people carry US passports whenthey travel, may freely buy and sell real estate, vote in US elections, and even run for office. Yet in the whole of the Arab world from Iraq and the Gulf to Mauretania, only Jordan, the PA, and Israel itself give the Falastin Arabs real citizenship--and even the PA is thinking of denying it to those from pre-1967 Israel.
Yet the Arab states, which insit on keeping the Falastin Arabs stateless, dare to use them as an excuse to trash US embassies and demonize the USA in their government-controlled media (Egypt, the recipient of so much US aid, was notorious in this regard).
The enormity of this travesty is that Lahore-born Manmohan Singh and Delhi-born Pervez Musharaf sat down to talk about defusing Indo-Pakistani tensions, when both men were young refugees in 1948, and ended up as leaders of their countries. Further, Jews descended from the Arab countries--and there were Jews in Egypt, Iraq, and the Maghreb before there were Arabs--are now no-questions-asked Israelis. This is perhaps one of the most obscene imbalances in the Middle East.
Good for you, Mr. Speaker--and I was raised Democrat!
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