Uncle Cephas has just reached an infallible scientific conclusion:
Whenever a bird dumps on your car's windshield, it invariably lands right in the driver's line of sight.
Monday, July 9, 2012
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Thoughts on Early Americans and Royalty--Happy 4th
Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe has written a column entitled "Celebrating, Royal-free", which I recommend.
However, the article has led me to put down a few of my own thoughts as to how Americans came to be disenchanted with royalty, even though humanity's predilections for that form of government run very strong and deep. Indeed, even in our own times, leaders of states supposedly devoted to the egalitarian ideal have come very close to the imperial, if not the royal, style.
Having been schooled in the Reformed, or "Calvinist", kind of Christianity, many Americans knew their Old Testament. The Tanakh is perhaps the best book in the world for instilling a healthy respect for the limits of royal competency.
As a young, 20th century American schooled in what the Psalmist called "the seat of the scornful" (Psalm 1), I "knew" early on that the God of the Old Testament was just an oriental despot writ large. At least, that was something I knew until I actually read the Old Testament for myself in my late teens and early twenties. What the Old Testament itself taught me about kingship was not what I had been led to expect.
Yes, the God of the Bible is a sovereign over the whole universe. But he does not thereby teach that a human ruler of unfettered powers his living icon; and that long line of continental enlightenment and Marxist historiography that insists that royal absolutism of the Louis XIV variety is "the" Christian political ideal is flat out wrong--as even a cursory survey of the monarchomach literature of the 16th and 17th centuries (much of it by Calvin's disciples) would show. Indeed, Marx and Engels, who did so much to describe the "Christian" political posture as "abject", should have known a lot better, especially since they idolized people like Jan of Leyden and Thomas Munzer.
The argument held in early modern times over the powers of monarchs took the form of an extended debate on the character of Nimrod in the book of Genesis, Deuteronomy 17:14-20; and First Samuel 8.
Preaching a sovereign God, a host of Reformed writers from both the continent and the British Isles noted that the first king was Nimrod from the line of Ham, wgim on a strictly literal reading of Genesis 10 and 11, ruled when Shem, father of the line that led to Abraham, David, and Jesus Christ, was still alive (Locke says as much in his First Treatise of Government, and the observation is by no means original with him). While the account of this first king in Assyria is terse, it is clear that the continental Reformed and their British Puritan brethren drew heavily from rabbinic sources such as the Midrash Rabbah, which portray Nimrod as ungodly and wicked.
Among Reformed authors, Knox, Buchanan, Althusius, Hotman, Beza, Goodman, Ponet, Rutherford, and Calvin himself note that Deuteronomy 17 limits royal power by law; for the Israelite monarch was expected to have a copy of the Torah by him and rule in its lilght. Far from echoing "enlightenment" advocates of constitutionalism, these sons of the Swiss Reformation were among its pioneers; living a century or more before the first of the philosophes was old enough to read Locke.
Yet First Samuel 8 sparked more debate. Royalists such as William Barclay and James VI and I noted that the Ius Regni (law or right of the king) would lead the king to take freely of his subjects' property, labor, and even children. Against this, Samuel Rutherford, in his 1644 work Lex Rex, noted that the Hebrew mishpat hammelek was more accurately read "manner of a king". He and numerous predecessors also pointedly called attention to the Almighty's remark to Samuel that the Israelites had not reject Samuel's judgeship in calling for a king, but had rejected God himself (I Sam, 8:7).
Certainly the royalists made their point in noting the Bible's high view of David's kingship, and how the author of Judges noted that "in those days, there was no king in Israel, and every man did what was right in his own eyes" (Judg. 21:25). However, the monarchomach point was underscored further in the reading of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, in their portrayal of a monarchy that not only degenerates, but also, on numerous occasions, leads Israel and Judah into sin. Hence, again, Rutherford held that unlimited power was a burden too great for mortal shoulders, and that such power in one who might sin was "an accursed power".
Believing in the sinfulness of man since the fall of Adam, the Reformed and Puritan writers did not follow the lead of either the Chinese Legalists such as Han Fei Zi and Shang Yang (whom they probably never read) or Thomas Hobbes(whom quite a few of the Reformed monarchomachs predate) in positing the need for an unfettered leviathan ruler to keep such sinful ways in check. Rather, they called for constitutional limits. These they found not only in Deuteronomy 17, but also in consensus and the safety of numbers. Noting that Samuel's anointing did not suffice to institute David's kingship, but also that it required making a covenant with the elders (II Sam. 5), Reformed thinkers found room for consent of the governed, and pioneered the concept of government as a compact.
Looking at these developments through Evangelical eyes, monarchy is the natural man's perennial political temptation--and disappointment. The divine plan for the redeemed is liberty under law, compact, and checks and balances to prevent the sins of one from destroying the many. This should allow us to critically examine the claims of our politicians, whether they promise "progress" towards goals justified by a very tentative "science", or guidance from one "inspired" earthly charismatic.
Many today say that the idea of social contract is in trouble. Of course it is. As our culture progressively loses touch with its biblical roots, it looks more and more to earthly political saviors rather than to a heavenly one. Americans like to believe in their own exceptionalism, and that the totalitarian horrors of the Old World cannot happen here. Yet the adulation which political leaders receive may well warn us that if our political forefathers became disenchanted with royalty, we, their heirs, have developed an unhealthy yearning for a new Camelot or a "One" to lead us into a utopian future. Under the wrong conditions, this can easily lead to the totalitarian temptation--the desire for an Egyptian Pharaoh or Babylonian monarch translated into Modernese.
Hence a re-education project is in order. Away with the modern mythologies that say materialistic philosophy liberates us, when after the 20th century, it is clear that it liberated us from the spirituality of the past only to put us under hamfisted tyrants who spilled more blood over the proper interpretation of Marx in a single century than "religionists" spilled over the proper interpretation of the Bible in fifteen. The enlightenment thinkers who gave us a republic may not have admitted it, but they stood on the shoulders of Puritan giants, who themselves stood on the rock of Holy Writ.
However, the article has led me to put down a few of my own thoughts as to how Americans came to be disenchanted with royalty, even though humanity's predilections for that form of government run very strong and deep. Indeed, even in our own times, leaders of states supposedly devoted to the egalitarian ideal have come very close to the imperial, if not the royal, style.
Having been schooled in the Reformed, or "Calvinist", kind of Christianity, many Americans knew their Old Testament. The Tanakh is perhaps the best book in the world for instilling a healthy respect for the limits of royal competency.
As a young, 20th century American schooled in what the Psalmist called "the seat of the scornful" (Psalm 1), I "knew" early on that the God of the Old Testament was just an oriental despot writ large. At least, that was something I knew until I actually read the Old Testament for myself in my late teens and early twenties. What the Old Testament itself taught me about kingship was not what I had been led to expect.
Yes, the God of the Bible is a sovereign over the whole universe. But he does not thereby teach that a human ruler of unfettered powers his living icon; and that long line of continental enlightenment and Marxist historiography that insists that royal absolutism of the Louis XIV variety is "the" Christian political ideal is flat out wrong--as even a cursory survey of the monarchomach literature of the 16th and 17th centuries (much of it by Calvin's disciples) would show. Indeed, Marx and Engels, who did so much to describe the "Christian" political posture as "abject", should have known a lot better, especially since they idolized people like Jan of Leyden and Thomas Munzer.
The argument held in early modern times over the powers of monarchs took the form of an extended debate on the character of Nimrod in the book of Genesis, Deuteronomy 17:14-20; and First Samuel 8.
Preaching a sovereign God, a host of Reformed writers from both the continent and the British Isles noted that the first king was Nimrod from the line of Ham, wgim on a strictly literal reading of Genesis 10 and 11, ruled when Shem, father of the line that led to Abraham, David, and Jesus Christ, was still alive (Locke says as much in his First Treatise of Government, and the observation is by no means original with him). While the account of this first king in Assyria is terse, it is clear that the continental Reformed and their British Puritan brethren drew heavily from rabbinic sources such as the Midrash Rabbah, which portray Nimrod as ungodly and wicked.
Among Reformed authors, Knox, Buchanan, Althusius, Hotman, Beza, Goodman, Ponet, Rutherford, and Calvin himself note that Deuteronomy 17 limits royal power by law; for the Israelite monarch was expected to have a copy of the Torah by him and rule in its lilght. Far from echoing "enlightenment" advocates of constitutionalism, these sons of the Swiss Reformation were among its pioneers; living a century or more before the first of the philosophes was old enough to read Locke.
Yet First Samuel 8 sparked more debate. Royalists such as William Barclay and James VI and I noted that the Ius Regni (law or right of the king) would lead the king to take freely of his subjects' property, labor, and even children. Against this, Samuel Rutherford, in his 1644 work Lex Rex, noted that the Hebrew mishpat hammelek was more accurately read "manner of a king". He and numerous predecessors also pointedly called attention to the Almighty's remark to Samuel that the Israelites had not reject Samuel's judgeship in calling for a king, but had rejected God himself (I Sam, 8:7).
Certainly the royalists made their point in noting the Bible's high view of David's kingship, and how the author of Judges noted that "in those days, there was no king in Israel, and every man did what was right in his own eyes" (Judg. 21:25). However, the monarchomach point was underscored further in the reading of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, in their portrayal of a monarchy that not only degenerates, but also, on numerous occasions, leads Israel and Judah into sin. Hence, again, Rutherford held that unlimited power was a burden too great for mortal shoulders, and that such power in one who might sin was "an accursed power".
Believing in the sinfulness of man since the fall of Adam, the Reformed and Puritan writers did not follow the lead of either the Chinese Legalists such as Han Fei Zi and Shang Yang (whom they probably never read) or Thomas Hobbes(whom quite a few of the Reformed monarchomachs predate) in positing the need for an unfettered leviathan ruler to keep such sinful ways in check. Rather, they called for constitutional limits. These they found not only in Deuteronomy 17, but also in consensus and the safety of numbers. Noting that Samuel's anointing did not suffice to institute David's kingship, but also that it required making a covenant with the elders (II Sam. 5), Reformed thinkers found room for consent of the governed, and pioneered the concept of government as a compact.
Looking at these developments through Evangelical eyes, monarchy is the natural man's perennial political temptation--and disappointment. The divine plan for the redeemed is liberty under law, compact, and checks and balances to prevent the sins of one from destroying the many. This should allow us to critically examine the claims of our politicians, whether they promise "progress" towards goals justified by a very tentative "science", or guidance from one "inspired" earthly charismatic.
Many today say that the idea of social contract is in trouble. Of course it is. As our culture progressively loses touch with its biblical roots, it looks more and more to earthly political saviors rather than to a heavenly one. Americans like to believe in their own exceptionalism, and that the totalitarian horrors of the Old World cannot happen here. Yet the adulation which political leaders receive may well warn us that if our political forefathers became disenchanted with royalty, we, their heirs, have developed an unhealthy yearning for a new Camelot or a "One" to lead us into a utopian future. Under the wrong conditions, this can easily lead to the totalitarian temptation--the desire for an Egyptian Pharaoh or Babylonian monarch translated into Modernese.
Hence a re-education project is in order. Away with the modern mythologies that say materialistic philosophy liberates us, when after the 20th century, it is clear that it liberated us from the spirituality of the past only to put us under hamfisted tyrants who spilled more blood over the proper interpretation of Marx in a single century than "religionists" spilled over the proper interpretation of the Bible in fifteen. The enlightenment thinkers who gave us a republic may not have admitted it, but they stood on the shoulders of Puritan giants, who themselves stood on the rock of Holy Writ.
Friday, June 29, 2012
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Maurice Sendak, Alov Hasholom
Maurice Sendak has died at the age of 83. While I have no knowledge of the state of his soul, there is no doubt that Sendak's sometimes dark, sometimes funny, sometimes intriguing stories and illustrations for children of all ages were never dull. I was too old to have _Where the Wild Things Are_ influence my childhood, but my nieces, nephews, and friends' children whom I babysat when young all related well to that story, as did my own sons. I trust that when my granddaughter is a little older, she will enjoy the tale of Max and his wolf suit, too. My own childhood knew the Little Bear stories, which I admit I liked most because of Sendak's skill as an illustrator. The honesty of his storytelling and willingness to let children face some of their fears was also part of his appeal.
While there are probably more artists waiting in the wings, Sendak was one of a kind, and won't be replaced.
Saturday, April 14, 2012
More for Obama
Re our great prex, it's wrong to get too curious
And ask about such things as growing debt,
Or of the operation that's called Fast and Furious,
Or of so many promises unmet.
(repeat two last lines)
He wants to punish all his racial en'mies,
From White Repub to Spanish Zimmermann,
And make our land a place that no-one ever envies,
A great and continental garbage can!
(repeat two last lines)
A Song for Obama, to be sung to the tune of the Horst Wessellied.
And ask about such things as growing debt,
Or of the operation that's called Fast and Furious,
Or of so many promises unmet.
(repeat two last lines)
He wants to punish all his racial en'mies,
From White Repub to Spanish Zimmermann,
And make our land a place that no-one ever envies,
A great and continental garbage can!
(repeat two last lines)
A Song for Obama, to be sung to the tune of the Horst Wessellied.
Monday, April 9, 2012
Useful Information
Here is a digest of quotes from John Gresham Machen, Princeton scholar and founder of Westminster Seminary, who labored during the early 20th century. His work on Jesus and Paul is masterful.
http://homepage.mac.com/shanerosenthal/reformationink/jgmjesuspaul.htm
Further, any of the works of F.F. Bruce are also recommended.
http://homepage.mac.com/shanerosenthal/reformationink/jgmjesuspaul.htm
Further, any of the works of F.F. Bruce are also recommended.
Monday, April 2, 2012
Apocalypse in both Jesus and Paul
The attempt to separate Jesus from Paul is a commonplace among both heirs of the so-called 18th century "enlightenment" on the one hand, whether secular liberal, nationalist, socialist, or anarchist, and the apologists of Islam on the other--tribes who are otherwise completely antithetical. Hence Muhammad's Isa (Jesus) is a turgid, purely human desert prophet; that of Jefferson a homespun philosopher; that of Gogarten and Grundemann a Teutonic warrior and anti-Semite; that of Carmichael a mid-20th century political radical. Clearly Jesus is an important figure to enlist on one's own side, regardless of how much one hates Jesus' church and the people who confess him as Lord. But it is also clear that people following this path must pare and peel Jesus to shape him to their own expectations. They have turned him into an "undefined banner" (to use Francis Schaeffer's phrase) into which any meaning may be poured.
One of the challenges which Albert Schweitzer offered to early 20th century academic biblical scholarship was his identification of Jesus as an apocalypticist who announced the imminent end of the world as we know it. The picture of a humanitarian reformer prominent from Ernest Renan onwards was no longer tenable to Schweitzer as he focused on Jesus' "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." Further, efforts of non-scholars such as Jefferson to turn Jesus into a mere "wise teacher" are also challenged by the importance of coming judgment and renewal of all things found in Jesus' teachings. Schweitzer's century-old observation thus reminds the reader of the New Testament that he is entering a "strange world" where the categories insisted upon by 18th and 19th century philosophers, historians, and exegetes had not been established, and may well face challenges.
Indeed, the Olivet discourse of Matthew 24-25, in which Jesus announces at least the upcoming destruction of Jerusalem (if not of the whole created order) is as important a dominical discourse as the Sermon on the Mount. Its context is the final week in Jerusalem, which occupies roughly a third of the Gospel narratives. It and the Upper Room Discourse appear as the last long discourses of Jesus, underscoring its importance.
Further, no other New Testament figure speaks as much about judgment as Jesus. Even the humanitarian interpreter's favorite passages in the Sermon on the Mount clearly speak of a coming judgment which men must face, especially concerning such issues as murder, anger, sexuality, swearing and oaths, and retribution (throughout Matthew 5). Jesus' model prayer in Mt. 6:9-15 petitions for forgiveness from judgment. The standard of behavior enjoined is one that must seek to please God, who sees in secret, rather than men.
How do Jesus' teachings about eschatology compare with those of Paul?
Again, Paul is another "apocalypticist". In the Thessalonian letters, he teaches a second advent of the Messiah, in which salvation will be consummated in the resurrection of the just and those saints alive at Jesus' coming meeting him in the air. The Man of Sin who exalts himself against God will be destroyed, and Christians will even be with their Lord. Nothing in this contradicts Jesus' teaching.
In First Corinthians 15, Paul also announces that the Gospel he preaches proclaims the Lordship of Christ, and the "beginning of the end". The resurrection of Jesus shows Jesus to be the promised Messiah, and constitutes a promise that in the end, we, too, shall share in the resurrection, when death, the last enemy, is finally defeated. Paul, like Jesus, accepted that the end of the world involves the resurrection of the dead and their judgment.
But understanding this judgment cannot be understood apart from how both Jesus and Paul understood the person of Jesus Christ and his work. Did Jesus indeed preach a religion of merit against Paul's message of grace? This will be our next topic.
One of the challenges which Albert Schweitzer offered to early 20th century academic biblical scholarship was his identification of Jesus as an apocalypticist who announced the imminent end of the world as we know it. The picture of a humanitarian reformer prominent from Ernest Renan onwards was no longer tenable to Schweitzer as he focused on Jesus' "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." Further, efforts of non-scholars such as Jefferson to turn Jesus into a mere "wise teacher" are also challenged by the importance of coming judgment and renewal of all things found in Jesus' teachings. Schweitzer's century-old observation thus reminds the reader of the New Testament that he is entering a "strange world" where the categories insisted upon by 18th and 19th century philosophers, historians, and exegetes had not been established, and may well face challenges.
Indeed, the Olivet discourse of Matthew 24-25, in which Jesus announces at least the upcoming destruction of Jerusalem (if not of the whole created order) is as important a dominical discourse as the Sermon on the Mount. Its context is the final week in Jerusalem, which occupies roughly a third of the Gospel narratives. It and the Upper Room Discourse appear as the last long discourses of Jesus, underscoring its importance.
Further, no other New Testament figure speaks as much about judgment as Jesus. Even the humanitarian interpreter's favorite passages in the Sermon on the Mount clearly speak of a coming judgment which men must face, especially concerning such issues as murder, anger, sexuality, swearing and oaths, and retribution (throughout Matthew 5). Jesus' model prayer in Mt. 6:9-15 petitions for forgiveness from judgment. The standard of behavior enjoined is one that must seek to please God, who sees in secret, rather than men.
How do Jesus' teachings about eschatology compare with those of Paul?
Again, Paul is another "apocalypticist". In the Thessalonian letters, he teaches a second advent of the Messiah, in which salvation will be consummated in the resurrection of the just and those saints alive at Jesus' coming meeting him in the air. The Man of Sin who exalts himself against God will be destroyed, and Christians will even be with their Lord. Nothing in this contradicts Jesus' teaching.
In First Corinthians 15, Paul also announces that the Gospel he preaches proclaims the Lordship of Christ, and the "beginning of the end". The resurrection of Jesus shows Jesus to be the promised Messiah, and constitutes a promise that in the end, we, too, shall share in the resurrection, when death, the last enemy, is finally defeated. Paul, like Jesus, accepted that the end of the world involves the resurrection of the dead and their judgment.
But understanding this judgment cannot be understood apart from how both Jesus and Paul understood the person of Jesus Christ and his work. Did Jesus indeed preach a religion of merit against Paul's message of grace? This will be our next topic.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)