Chrestomathy

The Significance of AD 70

. . . the destruction of Jerusalem and of the Temple was not only a symbol, but in an initial sense the very coming of Christ into His Kingdom.  That coming of Christ into His Kingdom, which had been denied in explicit words, and negtived by public deed, when by wicked hands they slew Him, was vindicated, and, so to speak, publicly enacted when the Roman solider threw the torch into the Temple, and when afterwards Jerusalem was laid level with the dust.  As regard the men of that land and generation, it was the public proclamation, the evidence, that the Christ Whom they had rejected had come into His Kingdom.  By the lurid light of those flames no other words could be read than those on the Cross: “This is the King of the Jews”.

I say, then, the burning of Jerusalem was to that generation–and  whatever kindred events successively came within the focus of the telescopic vision of following generations, were to them, the fulfilment of that prophecy, of which the final completion will be the Personal reappearance of Christ at the end of the Aeon.

Alfred Edersheim, Prophecy and History in Relation to the Messiah (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, [1901] 1980), pp.132–133. (Alfred Edersheim (1825–1889) was born and educated in a Jewish home but later converted to Christianity. His perspective therefore is unusually keen and comprehensive on the subject of Jewish history and Old Testament prophecy and its fulfilment.)

A Silent God Would Be Silent on Rights 

Culture and Politics – Sex and Culture
Written by Douglas Wilson
Thursday, 13 September 2012

So I have made a distinction between certain negative rights (leave me alone in these specified areas) and positive rights (free chocolate milk for everybody). But surely it is more than how it is stated, whether negatively or positively. Couldn’t a master of circumlocution cast gay rights as a “leave me alone” issue? The answer to that is “certainly,” and so it is not simply a matter of abstract individual rights, negatively stated.

We have no right to be left alone across the board, in every area. We have the God-given right to be left alone in specified areas — gun purchases, for example. Free speech for another. Free assembly for another. But you don’t have the right to be “left alone” in the production of child porn. You don’t have the right to be left alone with that abortion decision. The child is present, which means that you are not alone.

Rights come from somewhere, and it isn’t the government. If we assert the doctrine of rights anywhere, we have to be prepared to defend the content of what we have said. The Declaration addresses this question quite well when it says that men are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.”

Note what this presupposes. It presupposes that atheism is wrong, that rights come from God, not the government, and that the rights cannot therefore be legitimately taken from someone. It presupposes that atheistic evolution is not the case. If there is no God, then whatever “rights” we may have are granted by mankind collective, which is to say, the government, and it also means that your particular case will be handed from department to department up to the final arbitration group, affectionately called the Death Panel.

If the state gives rights, the state can take them away. If God gives us our rights, then other men cannot take them away. The Lord gives, the Lord takes away; blessed be the name of the Lord. But if God gives us these rights, then we have to be prepared to answer questions about how we think we know what God did.

The answer has to be that He tells us. God reveals Himself. A God who exists, but who is silent, cannot be appealed to as the source of any rights whatever, because the question “how can you know that?” will shut every conversation down. A silent God is a God who is silent on the subject of rights. A God who speaks on the subject of rights is the God of revelatory religion — which means He is the Father of Jesus Christ.

So God does reveal Himself, and He tells us that we have rights because we bear His image. We have rights because the image of God is to be respected and honored. Moreover, He also describes for us the nature of this image.

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them” (Gen. 1:27).

When we think of the imago Dei, we ought to think less of things like the capacity for abstract rationalization, and more about boys and girls.

Jesus teaches us the importance of this image-bearing when He is discussing the believer’s relationship to Caesar — which interestingly is the same topic that is before us now in this discussion of gay rights.

“And they brought it. And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription? And they said unto him, Caesar’s. And Jesus answering said unto them, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s. And they marvelled at him” (Mark 12:16-17).

If it has Washington’s image on it, as your quarters do, it is appropriate to ship it off to Washington. But if it has God’s image on it, it may not be rendered to Caesar, and must be rendered to God. What has God’s image on it? Mankind, Adam, male and female together. Endowed by their Creator . . . Male and female created He them.

This means the locus of rights, the place where God’s image must be centrally respected, is the holiest place in the temple. Where do we find His image most clearly represented? In the creation, we find it in marriage, and in the gospel we find it in the marriage of Christ and His church. The gospel is a marriage, but it is not a homosexual marriage.

Beneficiary Bashing, or Not . . .

 Some Debates are Just Plain Tiresome

The furore over “beneficiary bashing” is making its seasonal reappearance.  We have grown somewhat bored with the whole thing.  Same old, same old.  Whenever a government moves to put terms and conditions around state payments to some the furore reappears.  It’s boring because there is absolutely no way to resolve the issue and move forward.

The reason for the issue’s intractability is state welfare benefits are universally regarded as a human right.  The type of right in question can only be regarded as a demand right–although most people use the term “right” crudely without that nuance.   A demand right functions as follows: I have a need (for food, clothing, heating, recreation, etc.) and my need constitutes a right to demand of others that my needs be met.  The enforcer of the demand is the State.

Virtually everyone in New Zealand believes that demand rights are intrinsic to justice itself.
  A just society is one which meets the “legitimate” need-demands of its citizens.  Endless debates revolve around the minutiae of the issue: namely, which demand rights are legitimate and which are not.  Is a free education in a government school a legitimate (demand) right such that every parent has a right to require others pay for their child’s education, enforceable through the state’s taxation mechanism?  Since 1870 New Zealand has answered affirmatively. 

Is free health care in a government hospital a legitimate (demand) right for every citizen enforceable through the taxation and redistribution system?  New Zealand has answered affirmatively since 1935.  Is it a legitimate demand right that everyone can stop working at a specified age and require others to support them financially–a demand also enforced through the tax system?  New Zealand believes so.  To almost every citizen in this country these things are beyond dispute and question. 

But the basis of these shared convictions is rarely, if ever discussed.  They are virtually asserted to be self-evident. 

The endless debates, then, are not about demand rights per se.  These are universally acknowledged.  The debates are between ideologues and the pragmatists.  The ideologues will not rest until demand rights have created a perfect egalitarian utopia where everyone has exactly the same life terms and conditions, actionable and enforceable through the taxation system.  For the ideologues, every human need constitutes an injustice which society is obligated to remove.  Every human desire constitutes in principle a demand and obligation upon society as a whole.  Every human need represents a demand right in principle. 

The pragmatists take the view that demand rights have to be restricted to the affordable.  The pragmatists would theoretically acknowledge demand rights but would argue that society can only do what it can afford to do.  That is, there are actual limits to how much demanding is enforceable and tolerable.  Too much demand destroys incentive. 

The incessant argument between ideologues and pragmatists is over whether justice must trump practicalities or whether practicalities must temper the application of justice.  There is no conclusion to this debate.  Hence its incessant, go-nowhere characteristic. 

For the Christian there is no such thing as a demand right.  Not only do demand rights enforceable through the tax system not exist in the Kingdom of God, they themselves represent nothing more than theft and envy.  One cannot successfully construct a doctrine of rights upon a foundation of lawbreaking.  In the Scriptures, the thief does not have a demand right to my property.  It matter not at all whether the thief would walk into my house and expropriate my assets, or whether he would get the state to enforce his demand.  Both constitute theft. 

By the same token Christians have an ethical obligation before God to be charitable to others in need.  The word charitable comes from the Greek, and it refers to the extending of grace or mercy.  Grace and mercy can never be compelled: to be grace and mercy they must be freely given.  Thus, the Christian commonwealth refuses to recognise demand rights, giving them no credence whatsoever.  But it champions grace, and mercy, and compassion to the needy: family to family, neighbour to neighbour, community to community–with no other compulsion than the convictions of heart and conscience.

The social welfare state is an attempt to replicate the Kingdom of God and the Christian commonwealth by another means: the means of law and compulsion.  Its fruits are bitterness, anger, resentment, and coldness of heart.  It’s also why we have tiresome harangues about beneficiary bashing and claims of injustice.  A pox on the entire house!     

Letter From America (About China)

Shock Move: China Calls for End to Forced Abortions After International Outcry

Horrific stories about forced abortion are common in China. The nation’s controversial one-child policy has traditionally been upheld by savagely forcing women to abort their babies if, indeed, they become pregnant after already having a child.

With the rest of the world learning more about the horror, international pressure has mounted for the country’s leaders to abandon the controversial policy. Now, in a surprising move, Chinese officials are finally calling for an end to the practice.

The Christian Post is reporting that China’s Population and Family Planning Commission has ordered that all forced abortions related to the nation’s one-child policy be ceased — a move that is being heralded as a step in the right direction when it comes to human rights. The move comes after one story, in particular, went viral in June.

Earlier this summer, Feng Jianmei, a Chinese woman who was forced to abort her child, made international headlines. Her story may very well be the catalyst that led the nation to re-consider its stance. As TheBlaze’s Tiffany Gabbay reported, Jianmei was savagely beaten by family planning officials, dragged into a vehicle, and taken to an undisclosed location where she was forced to undergo an abortion. The woman was seven months pregnant at the time. . . .

The government’s new pledge to stop the practice of forced abortion is being met by human rights advocates as a positive development. Chai Ling, founder of the group All Girls Allowed, an organization fighting gendercide in China, called the move “awesome progress.” . . .

All Girls Allowed confirmed with the family planning office in Chongqing that the order to end forced abortions, particularly late-term abortions, and sterilization was issued on Aug. 30. The order came from the Population and Family Planning Commission in Beijing.

In July, during the commission’s semiannual meeting, Minister Wang Xia had called upon policy enforcers to “absolutely stop performing late-stage abortions,“ saying they should only ”guide people to do family planning voluntarily,” according to All Girls Allowed.
“This contrasts starkly with earlier family planning statements in China, which have called for mandatory abortion as a ‘remedial measure’ and encouraged enforcers to ‘spare no effort’ in terminating the pregnancies of women who lacked birth permits,” said the human rights group.

Despite the advance, abortions will likely continue in China, a nation that terminates 13 million pregnancies each year. The government still has other mechanisms to keep families from growing. Huge fines for additional children is one of the methods that is used to control the population, The Christian Post reports.

In one example, Xiao Zheng and Xiao Guo fined $11,000 — several times the couple’s annual income — after they had their second child. Considering these constraints and the recent move to end forced abortions, which were previously on the books in 18 of the nation’s 31 provinces, it will be interesting to see what China does next.

Hat Tip: The Blaze

The Eye of the Beholder

 Loving Father or Corrupt Cop

A “just so” story peddled by Unbelief is that the yellow brick road to the Wizard of truth is paved with objectivity.  One who seeks after truth successfully, the one who finds truth, will be marked by objectivity–the discipline of stepping outside of oneself and seeing things as they really are, in themselves. 

Of course absolute objectivity is non-existent in creatures, finite creatures.  The limitations of being a finite creature intrude upon all our attempts to be objective.  Our objectivity can always, ever, only be, of the relative kind. Relative objectivity proceeds by disclosing to self and others our limitations, cant, and biases–that is, our lack of objectivity. 

That being said every so often Unbelievers are remarkably honest about God and their subjective prejudices against Him.
  Take, for example, the atheist philosopher Thomas Nagel who argues for a relative objectivity which takes account of subjectivity.  In his own case, he acknowledges he is neither objective nor neutral when it comes to God:

I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers.  It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief.  It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.  [Cited in Mitch Stokes, A Shot of Faith to the Head (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2012), p. 55.]

Nagel is relatively objective on the matter.  He is more aware of his own prejudices and subjectivity than most.  Not so in the case of the late Christopher Hitchens, whose passion frequently got the better of him:

There are . . . atheists who say that they wish the fable were truth but are unable to suspend the requisite disbelief, or has relinquished belief only with regret.  To this I reply: who wishes that thee was a permanent, unalterable celestial despotism that subjected us to continual surveillance and could convict us of thought-crime and who regarded us as its private property even after we died?  How happy we ought to be, at the reflection that there exists not a shred of respectable evidence to support such a horrible hypothesis. (Ibid.)

Hitchens conclusion that not a shred of respectable evidence exists for God’s existence says it all.  After all, respectability is in the eye of the beholder.  And Hitchen’s eye was riddled with bitter prejudice.  As Mitch Stokes puts it, where some people see a loving and caring father, others see a corrupt cop. 

Human Rights Go Phhhht in Europe

When a culture or society rejects the Living God they do not continue in a vacuum.  Rather, the culture moves to replace God with gods of its own making.  In our modern secular world this inevitably means gods of power–state power. 

We have seen an example most recently in the extension of powers claimed by the European Central Bank and the European Stability Mechanism.  Consider the following:

Draghi reinvents the Divine Right of Kings

Hitler’s 1933 Post-Reichstag Fire Emergency Decree had nothing on the newly drafted ESM Charter. You can read it here in full at the EU website: the mad folks are getting more brazen by the day, but they’re still leaving the nasties until the contemporary MSM journalists get bored: so the really startling stuff doesn’t appear until  Article 32. These are the extracts that matter, quoted verbatim except for the usual deliberately baffling legalese:

Article 32, para 3: The ESM, its property, funding and assets, wherever located and by whomsoever held, shall enjoy immunity from every form of judicial process. (There is one exception – entirely in the ESM’s favour)

para 4: The property, funding and assets of the ESM shall, wherever located and by whomsoever held, be immune from search, requisition, confiscation, expropriation or any other form of seizure, taking or foreclosure by executive, judicial, administrative or legislative action

para 8: To the extent necessary to carry out the activities provided for in this Treaty, all property, funding and assets of the ESM shall be free from restrictions, regulations, controls and moratoria of any nature

Article 35, para 1:  In the interest of the ESM, the Chairperson of the Board of Governors, Governors, alternate Governors, Directors, alternate Directors, as well as the Managing Director and other staff members shall be immune from legal proceedings with respect to acts performed by them in their official capacity and shall enjoy inviolability in respect of their official papers and documents.

There are other worms in this charity tin, but trust me, these two articles are the ones that ensure it really isn’t the standard contract. The Sun headline is this: the ESM can steal your granny’s favourite sherry decanter, and there’s nothing you can do about it; any media hacks investigating grand larceny, murder and mass rape can whistle Dixie; no matter who they subordinate, cheat, or screw over, they’re allowed to, so there; and if I Mario Draghi deems it in the public good to stuff 46,000 gold bars in a Gnome’s private bank, it’s none of your business.

But there is one astonishing phrase in there which I feel duty bound to lift and separate from even this stuff above:

‘The archives of the ESM and all documents belonging to the ESM or held by it, shall be inviolable. The premises of the ESM shall be inviolable.’

The International Law Society definition of ‘inviolable’ is ‘unassailable and impregnable’. Or in one word, untouchable. Or an yet another word, supreme.

Or in a final word, Sovereign.

You have been warned.

When a culture believes in the Living God, all human authority is limited to the bounds set for it by God Himself.  Therefore parental authority, self-authority, church authority, commercial authority, and governmental authority is limited.  Societies can be ruled by law because law itself has a divine warrant–provided it remains grounded in God and His Law.  

The institution of the European Stability Mechanism is now asserting that it is a law unto itself and sovereign over all other.  It was inevitable that the fortress of secular humanism would eventually morph into its own brand of totalitarianism.  It appears well on its way. 

Something Much More Comprehensive

National Standards are So Nineteenth Century

Commentators are chortling gleefully over David Shearer, the NZ Labour Party leader appearing to do an about face on education.  His party, always in abject submission to its controlling unions–of which the teacher unions are dominant–has been taking great umbrage at any suggestion that the government education system is failing.  Apoplectic tirades have poured forth insisting that there is nothing wrong with government schools: they are the best in the world, etc. etc.

But Shearer knows that parents and the public in general really like the idea of National Standards in government schools, testing for age competence in reading, writing, and maths.  So, he has done the next best thing: he has promised that his government would spend more money for underachieving schools (which hitherto did not appear on Labour’s radar screen).  He has also promised that he would keep National Standards. 

His critics are mocking the about turn.  But not so fast.
  Education unionists are clever–and very skilled and rorting the system to achieve their own ends.  They are past masters at the black arts of propaganda.  A decade or so ago they foisted a great rort upon the government education system–a rort supported by both political parties, as it turns out.  They pushed for, and got, a new national educational qualification in years 11 through 13 of schooling: the NCEA qualification.  The objective was to ensure that no-one left school without a qualification.  To achieve this they broadened the number of “subjects” in which one could achieve a certificate. 

And so we saw the NCEA qualification at levels I, II, and III in tiddly winks. Everybody thought it was great.  The dark art of union manipulation and rorting of the system vastly expanded the number of subjects in which one could gain a qualification so that no pupil would fail.  They could all succeed and achieve at something.  End result: twenty percent of pupils still leave secondary education with no qualification whatsoever–not even in tiddly winks.  But for a while the education establishment, the Ministry bureaucrats, the unionists and the politicians told themselves they had a world-class education system on their hands, superior to anything else in the world.  And the public was gulled, for a time.

The education establishment and the unionists have now realised that the public will not put up with tossing out National Standards testing.  Too many parents and teachers really appreciate it.  So, the next best thing is to have National Standards not just in reading, writing and maths, but in everything.  Expand it, until it becomes meaningless.  Then the hopeless freeloaders in the government system will be able to say, “It’s true our pupils are below National Standards in reading, writing, and maths, but we are ahead in dramatic arts and peace studies.”    

How do we know that this is coming?  Look carefully at Mr Shearer’s words:

Labour Party leader David Shearer says a Labour government would not cancel National Standards in schools, as it rolls out a Reading Recovery programme.  Labour’s new education policy highlights the need to extend the Reading Recovery programme to an extra 5000 students a year by making the one-on-one help available in all schools. 

Shearer told TV ONE’s Breakfast Labour is not going to abolish National Standards, but the Prime Minister should understand how the education system works.  “We’ve been measuring reading for 100 years. We know which kids are falling behind, National Standards doesn’t change that,” Shearer said, adding that National Standards simply say students should be at a certain point at a certain age.

“We won’t cancel National Standards. But many schools will want to move onto something a lot more comprehensive and we won’t stand in their way at doing that either,” he said. (Emphasis, ours)

The fix is in.  When Labour become the next government standards testing will be inflated to the point of meaninglessness.  Nearly two years ago when National Standards were first being introduced we wrote the following prognostication on how National Standards would likely play out in New Zealand:

But the pervasive influence of our established and official Unbelief leads us to doubt that the national standards policy will survive. The established religion is just too strong, too pervasive, and too consistently interwoven throughout the fabric of the state school system–as you would expect it to be. So, here is how we expect it will play out: the educational unions will continue their dissent and campaign of opposition. Ninety percent of schools will comply with the new government testing programme. The educational establishment will ostensibly embrace national standards, then morph them until they become moribund. Firstly, they will call for national standards in more than just reading, writing, and maths. (“National testing is good. It’s just too narrow and restricted. We need to extend it to other equally important subjects”, etc.) Secondly, they will tweak the standards to reduce their meaning and usefulness. (“Language testing must reflect the diversity of our multi-cultural society. We need reading and writing tests in ‘bro-talk’ and ‘txting’ and other wonderfully vibrant lingual dynamic evolving lingual developments.”). Testing in arithmetic will extend to IT skills and competency, computer use, keyboard facility, and so on.

Within five to seven years the national standards will be as meaningless as NCEA is today. 

And so it will come to pass.  The educrats and the teacher unions are smarter and more consistent than the average bear.  Competence in reading, writing, and maths is so regressive, so old fashioned, so nineteenth century.  We have moved way, way beyond that now.  Shearer is on the curve.  His critics are missing the point.  

Homosexual Hypocrisy

Libertines and Their Fellow Travellers

In the propaganda that is swirling around the push to institute homosexual “marriage” in New Zealand, the proponents are amongst other things are engaged in special pleading.  They want homosexual “marriage” to be put in a special category, deserving (in their minds) special treatment which they are unwilling to grant to other human beings.  To this point, their argument is nestled amongst a putrid swamp of hypocrisy.  

The Wall bill to institute homosexual marriage is replete with restrictions and definitions which prohibit marriage for certain types and classes of adults.  Yet at the same time it claims that homosexuals must be allowed to enter homosexual “marriage” because it is a fundamental human right.  Why is homosexual marriage a fundamental human right while other forms of marriage are not?  Why is homosexual “marriage” so privileged?  Why is it in a special category?

Consider the Preamble to the Bill:

Marriage, as a social institution, is a fundamental human right and limiting that human right to 1 group in society only does not allow for equality. This Bill will ensure that there is equality for people wishing to marry regardless of their sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity and will be in accordance with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 and the Human Rights Act 1993.

Marriage is a fundamental human right, but not for a whole bunch of types of people apparently.  The second schedule of the Bill contains an extensive list of “marriages” that currently are (and would be) prohibited by the law.  People falling into these categories and relationships would be forbidden to marry.  Pity about their “fundamental human rights”. 

Under the Bill the following shall be prohibited from marrying:

(1) A person may not marry their—
(a) grandparent:
(b) parent:
(c) child:
(d) grandchild:
(e) sibling:
(f) parent’s sibling:
(g) sibling’s child:
(h) grandparent’s spouse or civil union partner:
(i) parent’s spouse or civil union partner:
(j) spouse’s or civil union partner’s parent:
(k) spouse’s or civil union partner’s grandparent:
(l) spouse’s or civil union partner’s child:
(m) child’s spouse or civil union partner:
(n) grandchild’s spouse or civil union partner:
(o) spouse’s or civil union partner’s grandchild.
(2) The prohibited degrees of marriage apply whether the relationships described are by the whole blood or by the half blood.
(3) In this Schedule, spouse and civil union partner includes a  former spouse or former civil union partner, whether alive or  deceased, and whether the marriage or civil union was terminated  by death, dissolution, or otherwise.

Given the reasoning and the foundational arguments to permit homosexual “marriage” we insist on the propagandists and protagonists for homosexual “marriage” to explain why–if they are to be taken seriously.  Why should some people have their fundamental human rights traduced?  Why should they be victims of discrimination?  Do some classes of people have rights that are more fundamental than others? 

Consider the “arguments” of the latest public protagonist for legitimising incest, for example, reported in Breitbart News:

Writer-director Nick Cassavetes unveiled his new movie “Yellow” at the Toronto Film Festival this weekend and found himself defending the main character’s incestuous love affair with her own brother….
“I have no experience with incest,” he told TheWrap in an interview on Sunday. “We started thinking about that. We had heard a few stories where brothers and sisters were completely, absolutely in love with one another. You know what? This whole movie is about judgment, and lack of it, and doing what you want.
“Who gives a shit if people judge you?” he continued. “I’m not saying this is an absolute but in a way, if you’re not having kids – who gives a damn? Love who you want. Isn’t that what we say? Gay marriage – love who you want? If it’s your brother or sister it’s super-weird, but if you look at it, you’re not hurting anybody except every single person who freaks out because you’re in love with one another.”

The ethic is that of the Libertine.  But that is precisely where Louisa Wall and the champions of homosexual “marriage” are coming from-with respect to homosexuality.  If you want to do it, do it.  To paraphrase, the whole propaganda push for homosexual “marriage” is “about judgement [bad], and lack of it [good], and doing what you want.”  So why would the happy clappers cheering for Libertine homosexual “marriage” not get serious and argue for incest as a properly recognised marriage (provided of course the parties really want to)? 

Answer: deafening silence.  Wall and her supporters are feeling good about themselves, taking the high ethical ground: the appeal to fundamental human rights.  But it is all a sham.  These same people support a Bill which denies those same fundamental human rights to those who would want to enter into incestual “marriage”. 

Either the appeal to “fundamental human rights” is genuine or it is not.  If it is, then get rid of all the restrictions upon who or who not may marry.  Rewrite the Bill and entirely remove Schedule II.   Be consistent.  How can you blithely disregard the fundamental human rights of some, whilst promoting the human rights of others?  Are you saying that some groups (homosexuals) deserve special, privileged treatment? 

But if the appeal to human rights is not genuine, then tear off the hypocritical mask.  Either way, homosexual “marriage” would then be seen for what it is: it is not about rights at all, but the ethics of the Libertine. 

Letter From Canada (About Organic Food)

Marni Soupcoff: Stanford study shows organic food no safer or healthier than conventional food

Marni Soupcoff  

Sep 5, 2012 12:16 PM ET 
Last Updated: Sep 5, 2012
National Post

When a new study by doctors at Stanford University found that organic foods are not any healthier than conventional foods, Canada’s organic growers must have been at a loss.

What could they possibly say to the dreary news that paying big bucks for organic products actually provides no positive physical or nutritional benefits? Would the growers be humbled or embarrassed? Would they graciously admit the evidence that their products are no better for consumers than the less pricey non-organic varieties?

Well, what do you think?
No, the organic growers have chosen to react to the study by ignoring the elephant in the room — the finding that there’s no reason to believe organics are safer or more nutritious than conventional foods. Instead, they have rather bizarrely insisted that the study is a vindication of their products.

Here is the topsy turvy conclusion of Beth McMahon, who is executive director of Canadian Organic Growers: “I look at [the study] and I think they found only good things about organic food.” Ummm, okay. Not sure how organics’ failure to provide any health or food safety advantage is GOOD, but let’s follow her reasoning.

From behind her intensely rose-coloured glasses, Ms. McMahon tries to support her assessment by pointing out that the study found that organics reduce people’s exposure to pesticides. What she doesn’t point out is that the study found the “reduction” insignificant to people’s health because the pesticide levels in conventional foods are already so miniscule as to be harmless.

Ms. McMahon further bolsters her glass-half-full view of the study by noting that it did not find that organic foods were any LESS safe than conventional foods — which is hardly a ringing endorsement of her products. What are consumers supposed to think? “Oh, good! This organic food that has been costing me $250 more a month than my regular groceries is no more likely to kill me or my family than the conventional stuff was. I’m so glad I made the switch!”

The one point McMahon highlights from the study which is worth noting is that although organic meat is just as likely as conventional meat to be contaminated with bacteria (and the likelihood in both cases is low), when that contamination does occur, the germs found in conventional meats are 33% more likely to be resistant to multiple antibiotics than the germs found in organic meats.

On that small point, organics come out ahead. The problem for the organic industry is that this is truly the only score on which they offer a measurable advantage. And it’s an area that the conventional food industry could easily address by adopting a more responsible approach to antibiotic use in feed animals.

Fundamentally, what the choice to buy organic comes down to is a squishy, non-scientific desire to feel that what one is eating is wholesome and “natural,” even though there is no evidence that organic food is actually any more of either of those things than the alternative. In most instances, an organic purchase is the culmination of a mild pesticide phobia (most of us have one) and a vague but completely untested (and erroneous) belief that organic food contains more nutrients or less fat or is just simply BETTER.
But it’s not.

As the Stanford study shows, organic food is not safer or healthier for individual consumers than conventional food. And it’s not better for the environment, either. Organic farming is less productive than conventional farming — it produces lower crop yields and does not restore minerals like potassium and phosphorus to the soil the way conventional farming does through its use of inorganic fertilizers. That means organic farming requires far more land use for a far smaller payoff.

As Ronald Bailey, science correspondent for Reason magazine and Reason.com, has argued persuasively, there’s far more promise for reducing negative environmental impacts (not to mention effectively feeding the world) with no-till farming and genetically modified crops than there is with organic farming.

Mr. Bailey has quoted Cambridge chemist John Emsley, who said, “The greatest catastrophe that the human race could face this century is not global warming but a global conversion to ‘organic farming’ — an estimated 2 billion people would perish.”

It’s fine if individuals who can afford to pay more for a basket of organic peaches choose to do so because it gives them a pleasant feeling. But the Stanford study should be a reminder that there is no compelling reason to make “going organic” a wider policy objective. The advantages are negligible, if any. On the other hand, the disadvantages are huge. Driving up food prices (particularly for fresh produce) and driving down food supply causes measurable harm to the health and safety of the many around the world who can’t afford to indulge fuzzy notions of “natural goodness” just for the heck of it.

In an editorial Wednesday, the Los Angeles Times expressed its doubts that “the folks at Whole Foods are trembling in their Birkenstocks” as a result of the Stanford study.

I’m sure the Times is right. Which is fine. Why shouldn’t Whole Foods cater to a wealthy constituency that demands organics? The key is not to confuse that demand with evidence that organic actually means better.
National Post

Neglecting Duties

Subtle Disobedience

An abiding temptation to Christians and the Church is to distort the truth by emphasis.  It is a subtle form of disobedience.  If the landowner gave his stewards a list of ten responsibilities and they focused on one only, neglecting the other nine. the unfaithfulness and disobedience of the stewards would be apparent to all. But not to the stewards, we suspect.  Their uber-faithfulness to one duty would be used to justify the neglect of their other duties. 

When Christians overemphasise a responsibility clearly taught in Scripture to the neglect of other commandments their defalcation is usually not immediately apparent to them.
  Their zeal for the one commandments often justifies their neglect of the others.  At least we are getting the “main things” right, they tell themselves.  Our Lord knew all about this deceit of heart.  At one point He condemned the Pharisees who focused on less important duties (tithing the produce of the herb garden) whilst they neglected the more weighty matters of the law (justice and mercy and faithfulness,  Matthew 23:23).  Our Lord said they should have done both: faithfully tithed their herb gardens and faithfully practised justice, mercy, and faithfulness. 

In some Christian circles evangelism has become the Most Important Duty–to the eclipsing and neglect of other commandments.  One place this shows up is in our worship services.  The worship of God has now morphed into an activity with the prime focus being to reach the Unbeliever with the Gospel.  Worship has become a means to a “higher” end: gaining converts.  Disobedience is the inevitable outcome of such a distortion. 

T. David Gordon deliberately understates the outcome to drive the point home:

. . . we can probably agree that a meeting between God and his people becomes very different when those who are self-consciously not his people are invited not only to observe, but to participate and feel comfortable.  As a meeting between God and his people, the meeting is compromised.  [Why Johnny Can’t Sing Hymns (Phillipsburg: P & R Publishing, 2010), p. 152f.]

 Arguably, worship–public worship–must be considered one of the weighty matters of the law.   The first four commandments all address different aspects of worship.  How should the Unbeliever “feel” when attending a Christian worship service?  Should he or she be invited to observe or participate?  The Gentiles during the Jewish disapora in the inter-testamental period attended synagogues as observers; the court of the Gentiles in the temple was likewise to encourage Gentiles to attend and observe, not participate.  This is where the God-fearers mentioned in the book of Acts came from: attending, watching, observing and respecting the synagogue services. They were welcomed as observers, not participants.

When the duty to evangelise becomes elevated into the status of an uber-responsibility, worship morphs into an activity centred upon non-Christians, rather than on God meeting with His people.  The service of worship must be “seeker friendly” whatever that may mean.  Usually it means conducting the service so that non-Christians can participate in the activities of worship.  The prayers, songs, music, preaching are all made relevant to non-Christians so they can take part.  This is a grave mistake. 

Inevitably it means that worship becomes a meeting between God and those not His people, which means in turn that the actual duties and obligations of worship by God’s people are neglected. 

This always happens when one duty is elevated into an uber-duty–a duty above all duties.   

Douglas Wilson’s Letter From America

Hey, This Knife Cuts in Two Directions! 

Political Dualism – Mere Christendom
Written by Douglas Wilson
Friday, 07 September 2012

Suppose the point were to be made — and it is a worthy point to make — that being a Christian trumps being an American. This is a point with which I am in whole-hearted agreement, and which I have made in this place numerous times. A conservative Republican believer in Jesus has far more in common with a Palestinian Christian than he does with a secular representative of the state of Israel. A thousand amens. Jesus makes all the difference.

But there is a way of agreeing with this that shows one is growing up into the fundamental tenets of “mere Christendom,” and there is another way of agreeing with it that shows one is just becoming a liberal. There is a way of appealing to Jesus because you find Jesus appealing, and there is a way of appealing to Jesus because you find American hegemony unappealing.

So here is a litmus test for you. I am afraid it is an unpopular litmus test because it works every time. It is that kind of unpopular.

If you find yourself in real solidarity with Palestinian Christians, and you want to know if it is love for Jesus, or just your nascent inner-anti-Semite rising, just ask yourself this question, which, in its theological structure is exactly the same question. Who do you have more in common with — a Palestinian non-Christian or a devout Christian woman with hoop earings who just got back from the RNC, where she spent the entire convention wearing a big hat shaped like an elephant?

I said it is exactly the same question, and it is. The reason we might get radically different answers is that something else is going on. There is a lot of “radical” Christianity out there that is just a pretence — it is simply a stalking horse for another tired form of anti-Americanism. Show me something new.

I say all this knowing that there is a prophetic case to be made against America’s sins, which are great, and I know further that it is our duty in the church to make that case. I know also that the heavy gravitational pull of various American idolatries has many conservative believers trapped in a criss-cross spider web of red, white, and blue. But faux-solidarity with Christians on the other side of the world is nowhere near escape velocity. If shared love for Jesus can transcend the barriers thrown up by the conflict in the Middle East, then why can’t it transcend the barriers created by your neighbor’s love for the 700 Club, and your inability to abide that man?

It turns out that love for Jesus, of this sort anyway, only creates solidarity if we know next to nothing about a situation. We have created our own version of Linus’ maxim — “I love mankind. It’s people I can’t stand.” We say “I love Palestinian Christians. It’s dispensational Zionist Southern Baptist Christians I can’t stand.” And it turns out that the whole thing hinges on the fact that you actually know some people in this latter group. And their entire outlook and demeanor (and support for Israel!) means loving them constitutes a whole new level of Christian discipleship. Might as well get started.

Supercilious Schtick

Hegemonic Liberals

The New Zealand Labour leader, David Shearer has been getting a lot of schtick.  He has confirmed his belief that New Zealand needs to take taniwha seriously.  For our non-Kiwi readers, taniwha are, according to Maori, mythical spirit monster which dwell in the lands, seas, and rivers.  They need to be placated at appropriate times and places, lest they become angry and do damage. 

This from Patrick Gower at TV3 News:

Labour Party leader David Shearer has long-held beliefs that taniwha must be respected when it comes to Maori and their interests in water. His views can be traced back to his master’s thesis, and he stands by them today.  Water has been the big political issue of the year, but when Mr Shearer was first asked who owned it he didn’t know.

But it turns out Mr Shearer has a degree of expertise on the issue – a master’s thesis in fact. It was called Between Two Worlds, Maori Values and Environmental Decision-Making.  In his thesis he advocated that “the belief in taniwha or spiritual pollution…while they may appear irrational to many…cannot simply be dismissed as irrelevant”. It’s a belief he still holds today.  

“I absolutely stick by that,” says the Labour Party leader. He says we should acknowledge taniwha. “We have been doing that for the last 20-something years when we have made decisions around water.”

Our interest is not so much on what Shearer believes–if he is someone who holds to superstitious animist nonsense, so what.  That’s par for the course for a modern, rationalist politician who is both a socialist and an egalitarian.  As such, idiocy doth become him.  Rather, our interest has been piqued by those superstitious rationalists who are rejecting Shearer’s position.

Take, for example, David Farrar, who opines sarcastically:

Well I don’t think we should acknowledge or give any credence to taniwha. Such spiritual nonsense should play no part in our laws or decisions.

This from a chap who has gone on record supporting homosexual “marriage” on the grounds that homosexual desires are a combination of genes and conditioning.  Since homosexuals are what they are, they need to be allowed to be what they are: ergo, homosexual “marriage” must be respected and accommodated in law.  One wonders why Mr Farrar takes a different view when it comes to Maori who believe in taniwha. 

Since Maori belief in taniwha has to be a combination of genes and nurture on what basis does Mr Farrar reject such beliefs as “spiritual nonsense”.  If enlightened social policy according to Mr Farrar requires recognition of homosexual “marriage”, why not taniwha? 

This is the same Mr Farrar who imperiously tells us that abortion is not murder because, because . . . . he said so.  Yes, we inquire, but why?  Because the “thing” inside the mother’s womb depends upon the mother and has no independent existence.  And this is important because?  “Because I said so–so there!”

The supercilious arrogance of Unbelief is a fearsome sight to behold.  Rational argument and principles come down to nothing more than bias, cant, and superstition.  As any good post-modernist will tell you, Maori perspectives are just as valid as white, middle class, liberal, male perspectives.  Mr Farrar’s attempt to use law to ram his particular narratives down the throats of those he disagrees with–whose views he happens to consider “superstitious nonsense”, denying them the right to be reflected in law or decisions–is nothing more than arrogant, intellectual hegemonic imperialism. 

When Unbelief magically conjures up sky hooks on which to hang its prejudices, disguised as ethical or rational precepts, the only sound worthy of attention is the laughter of Christians mocking those who profess to be wise, but cannot help playing the fool every time they get on the field. 

Letter from the UK

Nicholas Stern: The Most Dangerous Man You’ve Never Heard Of 

James Delingpole
The Telegraph

Ask almost anyone who Nicholas Stern is and you’d surely draw a blank. But as Andrew Montford suggests at his Bishop Hill blog, there are few men who have had quite such a deleterious effect on our lives as this dreary ex-civil servant now known – to those few who do know of him – as Lord Stern and doing very nicely thank you at his extremely well-paid job fomenting climate alarmist drivel at the Grantham Institute.
Says Montford (and gosh how it does the heart good to see this mild-mannered fellow getting so righteously, viciously angry!)

Nicholas Stern is to blame.

When you see wind farms covering every hill and mountain and most of the valleys too, you can blame Stern. If you can’t pay your heating bills, ask Stern why this has happened. When children are indoctrinated and dissenting voices crushed, it is at Nicholas Stern that you should point an accusing finger. When the lights start to go out in a few years time, it’s Stern who will have to explain why.

Montford is right but for the full gory details you must go to the devastating and excoriating new report written by Peter Lilley and published this morning by the Global Warming Policy Foundation.
The report is titled: What’s Wrong With Stern? (Though, maybe, a better one would be “What Isn’t wrong with Stern?”)

To recap, Stern was the author of The Economics Of Climate Change: the Stern Review – a 712-page report described by the then prime minister Tony Blair as “the most important on the future ever published by this government.” (And Blair was probably right: the damage Stern’s dangerous nonsense would end up doing is almost incalculable).

Stern’s headline conclusions were:

“If we don’t act, the overall costs and risks of climate change will be the equivalent to losing at least 5 per cent of global GDP each year now and forever”  whereas  “The costs of action – reducing greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the worst impacts of climate change – can be limited to around 1 per cent of GDP each year.”

Pretty much every piece of dire “environmental” policy enacted or proposed since – the carbon taxes, the devastation of our landscape with wind farms, the rise in energy bills, the growing regulatory burden, the abject misery which comes from being controlled by hair-shirt eco loons – is the result of Stern’s bravura combination of junk economics with junk science.

Sure, others such as Al Gore had sowed the seeds; but it was Stern’s apparently rigorous, cost-benefit-analysing report which gave politicians the justification they felt they needed to go ahead and bomb our economies back to the dark ages in order to save the planet for “future generations.” (Future generations, it should be noted, who are going to be a hell of a lot richer than we are, and consequently far better capable of dealing with any climate disasters that might arise)

Except, as Richard Tol notes in his scathing intro to Lilley’s report, Stern was quite unfitted to make such claims.

“Sir Nicholas, now Lord Stern, was portrayed as an expert even though he had never published before on the economics of energy, environment or climate.”

The result was a report riddled with errors which are “systematic and suggestive of an ideological bias”.
Tol concludes: “Its academic value is zero.”

And Tol should know. He is one of the world’s leading environmental economists, who had been involved with all three IPCC working groups, was author of the UN’s Handbook on Methods for Climate Change Impact Assessment and Adaptation, and who remains a “warmist.” Within weeks of the Stern review’s publication, Tol had dimissed it as preposterous. So it’s no surprise that he should welcome Lilley’s renewed attack.

Stern’s report was never really an economic or scientific work, but a piece of propaganda designed to please his political masters and advance a particular cause.

Or, as Lilley puts it:

[H]is Review was an exercise not in evidence based policy making but in policy-based evidence making.

The big problem with Stern’s report, as has long been noted by critics, is its improbably low discount rate. Andrew Orlowski at the Register offers a useful summary:

So what, then, is a discount rate?
“It’s the cost of doing something now, versus the benefit accrued in the future,” says Lilley. “Everyone does it; it’s a calculation we do instinctively, even if we don’t realise we’re doing it.”
Stern’s ‘trick’ was really twofold. Firstly, he used an improbably low discount rate – the exact figure, over 700 pages, he omitted to disclose. The second was the use of the word ‘forever’. Stern made a projection of the losses to infinity. The result was that the costs were underestimated by a factor of between 2.5x and 5x.
Fundamentally Stern was asking the current generation to accept a 5 per cent hit in income, so that a future generation seven times richer would not suffer 5 per cent loss of income.
“He is entitled to use a low discount rate, but only if he accepts that, logically, he should advocate investing in a Norwegian-style ‘fund for the future’, not just in mitigating climate change but in any projects with returns above his discount rate until the market rate and his discount rate converge,” notes Lilley’s study.
Stern made some other curious assumptions, Lilley points out. The World Bank has estimated that Bangladesh needs to devote 1 per cent of its GDP today to stop flooding.
“Bangladesh today is far wealthier than Holland was when it built its dikes,” says Lilley. “The idea that they can’t build irrigation, that they can’t adapt, is a racist view.”

Lilley’s findings are not new – but this is no reflection on Lilley or the Global Warming Policy Foundation. Rather, its a terrible indictment of the gulf that exists between those in the bubble of environmental policy making (the politicians, the junk science establishment and their various rent-seeking friends and hangers-on in the media and industry) and those of us living in the real world who have to bear the consequences of their incompetence, malfeasance and poor thinking.

Lilley’s report gives Stern the kick in the teeth he has long, long deserved. Will it make any difference? I doubt it. I mean, have you heard been reported much – if at all – anywhere in the mainstream media?

Nothing New Under the Sun

The Primitivism of Moderns

Idolatry–the elevation of  some aspect of creation into the status of a demi-god–is as natural to the fallen heart as breathing.  Instinctively Unbelief will seek the One–an organising principle, or a precept, or an imagined being, or a ruler–and will devote their loyalty, devotion, and commitment to whatever  manufactured idol is at hand.   Sometimes the idol will be Me–with self being the centre of one’s devotion and loyalty.  Sometimes it will be a nation–America the Exceptional, for example.  Sometimes it will be an ideology: socialism or libertarianism, for example. 

Whatever replaces the Living God as the centre and apex of human loyalty, devotion, and service is a manufactured idol.
  Most idols are part of a polytheistic pantheon.  Modern Unbelieving man may live for sport, entertainment, gym workouts, alcohol, work, sex, family, children, each in their turn.  This is no idle concern.  The Bible tells us that behind the pantheon of idols to which the human heart genuflects and makes sacrifices lurks the malice of the demons.  (I Corinthians 10:20)

The Garden of Eden saw the first manifestation in human history of idolatry pure and simple.  This incidence is the clearest example of the essence of idolatry.  It involved only four beings: the Living God, Satan masquerading as the serpent, and Adam and Eve.  Our first parents were presented with a simple choice: either God was God, or man could have a say on the matter.  Adam and Eve chose the idol of determining good and evil for themselves.  Adam’s idol was Adam; Eve’s was Eve.  Behind this choice lay the malice of the Evil One. 

All idolatry is at root self-worship, and self-devotion.  Amongst the immediate consequences of Adam’s rebellion against God was blame shifting:  Adam blamed Eve; Eve blamed the serpent.  Adam said, “The woman Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate.”  Eve said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”  (Genesis 3: 12,13) Self-devotion inevitably results in shifting responsibility and blame on to others. 

The modern secular world is a culture in the thrall of idols and idolatry.  Self-worship and self-devotion is arguably more overt, more prevalent than in previous cultures.  The idols of our age are impersonal abstractions or things or experiences.  Behind it lurks the malice of the demons.  Blame shifting is ubiquitous.  Nothing has changed from the manifestation of Unbelief in the Garden.  The modern Western world is about as primitive as things can be. 

Pro-Life Records

Where US Pollie Parties  Stand on Abortion

Kevin de Young presents a useful survey on the respective positions of the Republican and Democratic parties on abortion from 1976 to the present day.  Here are the summary points:

First, on the Republicans:

• Initially, the party was much more hesitant to take a firm stance on abortion.
• The pro-life statements have generally gotten more expansive over the years.
• The position has not really changed since 1980. The last three platform statements (2004, 2008, 2012) have been very similar.
• I could not find language on abortion in 1984. It’s probably in there and I just didn’t see it. Curiously, though, 1984 was the only year for which I couldn’t find a Democratic statement on abortion. If the statements were in there and I missed them, they must not have been a big deal.

And here are some observations on the Democrats:

• The Democratic statements tend to be shorter. They emphasize the right to choose and then move on fairly quickly in most instances.
• In recent years, the platform has emphasized that abortion should be legal but also rare. The statements often celebrate the right to choose an abortion while at the same time celebrating the decline of the abortion rate.
• Like the Republicans, the Democrats were hesitant to be too dogmatic about abortion in the immediate aftermath of Roe v. Wade (1973).
• The Democrats included a strong statement of inclusion (respect for differing opinions on abortion) in their 2000 platform. I did not see the same language in 2004, 2008, or 2012. In fact, judging by the past few weeks and this year’s convention, the Democrats are making a gamble that pushing leftward on abortion is a winning strategy.

Justin Taylor provides a brief conclusion:

Kevin’s final point was confirmed by the start of the Democratic National Convention: the Democrats have chosen a new tack this year in explicitly highlighting and celebrating their support of unrestricted legal abortion. It’s an interesting strategy, given that those self-identifying as “pro-choice” are at a recorded-low.

The theme, however, is consistent with the fact that President Obama—whether you agree or disagree with his philosophy in other areas, has to be acknowledged as the most extreme presidential advocate of abortion-rights in American political history.

On the Republican side, inarticulate advocates of life like Todd Akin have certainly not helped the cause or the case for life. The best article on his mind-numbing gaffe and its aftermath can be found here.

It’s important to point out, however, that the Republic Party platform on this is important and not inconsequential. Pro-life presidents do matter. And despite the fact that Roe v. Wade is still the law of the land, 2011-2012 was a record year in terms of pro-life legislation at the state level.

It’s A Small Matter–Or So We Are Told

Music And Worship

Music is a contentious issue in the Church.  This is not surprising.  It has been contentious for a long, long time.  One of the issues abroad today is whether church music and song should reflect the currently prevailing musical idioms of our culture. 

On any given Sunday, up and down the country churches listen to (and sing) songs which imitate trite “love songs” playing on just about every radio station, 24/7.  With one difference: the love songs are sung about Jesus.  It is banal and disrespectful.  It breaches the third commandment–being nothing more than the using of God’s holy Name in a vain and empty manner.

T. David Gordon, in his Why Johnny Can’t Sing Hymns puts the matter in a wider perspective. 

Biblically, then, neither music nor song is merely a matter of entertainment or amusement.  Both are very serious business, both culturally and religiously.  Song is the divinely instituted, divinely commanded, and divinely regulated means of responding to God’s great works of creation, preservation, and deliverance. 

Worship song is both the remarkable privilege and the solemn duty of the redeemed.  Therefore, to suggest that worship song is “merely” or “just” anything, whatever that “anything” is, is to deny the very teaching of Scripture about the importance of worship song in God’s economy–an importance so great that it characterizes the life of the redeemed in the world to come.  Thus, the unfortunately common statements, by both proponents and opponents of contemporary worship music, that this is “merely” a matter of taste or preference are erroneous and must be regarded as unbiblical. 

This . . . posture that worship song is merely a matter of amusement or entertainment . . . . arises from a culture that has come to be characterized, as Neil Postman argued, by amusement.  In such a culture . . . it is not surprising that even Bible-believing people have unwittingly adopted such an anti-biblical stance.  They simply aren’t aware of the conflict between the teaching of the Bible and the values of our culture on this point.  [T. David Gordon, Why Johnny Can’t Sing Hymns (Phillipsburg: P& R Publishing, 2010), p.31f.]

No Dissent Permitted

The New Heretics

This will be an interesting case to watch.  Four UK Christians are taking a case to the European Court of Human Rights, claiming they were discriminated against in the workplace because of their religious beliefs.  This from The Telegraph:

UK Christians take complaints to court

September 05, 2012
FOUR British Christians who say they lost their jobs because of their Christian beliefs are taking their cases to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. 
 
In a challenge to what former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey described as the “reigning orthodoxy of diversity and equality”, the four alleged they suffered discrimination as a result of their Christian values.  Two of the four lost their jobs over their conviction that homosexual relationships are contrary to God’s law and that it is incompatible with their religion to do anything to condone homosexuality.

One, a registrar, objected to officiating at civil partnership ceremonies between same-sex couples, while the other, a therapist, did not wish to give counselling to same-sex couples.  The other two – an airline worker and a nurse – fell foul of their employers after wearing necklaces with crosses at work.

Carey said that in most of his lifetime the beliefs of the four Christians would “have earned widespread respect”.  But their cases had prompted him to “question whether… faith is a bar to public service”.  “In the past, there was space for negotiation between individuals and their employers, but the burden of ever-increasing regulation has meant that questions of conscience and freedom are neglected in favour of conformity,” he said.

The four took their cases to the court in Strasbourg after employment tribunals in Britain ruled against them.  Writing in Tuesday’s online edition of the Daily Mail, Carey said the four were the “new heretics”.  “Indeed, it seems the secular equivalent of the Inquisition will brook no dissent from the reigning orthodoxy of diversity and equality,” he said.

A ruling by the Strasbourg-based court is not expected for several months.

We wonder what the employment situation will be for New Zealand Christians who refuse to participate in homosexual marriage enactments for reasons of conscience and are employed by the State–should Wall’s Bill pass. 

Christian Public Worship and Popular Culture

Worship is Neither Relaxing Nor Soporific

Music use in churches has increasingly become a descent to the lowest common denominator.  The intentions may be good: the overriding goal is to make public worship accessible to “outsiders” or non-Christian visitors.  The consequence has been a turning to “pop music” as the appropriate musical idiom for the public worship of the Living God.  This is a short-sighted mistake.   

Pop music is like pop psychology–superficial, bland, inconsequential.  Music which is popular is that which can be played as background music in shopping malls.  It is soporific, calming, pleasing, entertaining–without demanding concentration, work, or undivided attention.  As T. David Gordon puts it:

For commercial reasons . . . pop culture and pop music cannot be either beautiful or ugly; pop music must be easy and therefore it must be fairly inconsequential.  [Why Johnny Can’t Sing Hymns: How Pop Culture Rewrote the Hymnal (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2010), p. 67.] 

But–and here is the problem–how does such music (which has its own place and utility) fit appropriately into public worship of the Almighty God?   The music and lyrics employed in worship must be fit for purpose.  They ought to reflect what worship is.  If worship were fairly inconsequential, pop music idioms would be entirely appropriate.  But it is not; and pop idioms are not. 

But now, is worship inconsequential, trivial, or insignificant?  Is meeting with God a casual, inconsequential activity, or a significant one?  Is religious faith itself insignificant?  If the music or lyrics of our hymns are insignificant or inconsequential, do they not send the wrong meta-message? . . . The lyrics of a hymn might say, “Holy, holy, holy,” but the music might say, “Ho-hum, ho-hum, ho-hum.”  In such a case, the meta-message competes with and contradicts the message. 

Neil Postman rightly said: “I believe I am not mistaken in saying that Christianity is a demanding and serious religion.  When it is delivered as easy and amusing, it is another kind of religion altogether.”  So what is at stake is the kind of religion presented in music that is easy, trivial, light, inconsequential, mundane, or everyday. 

The very existence of the expression sacred music once conveyed the notion that some music was different from other music, intentionally different, different precisely because it was devoted to a sacred (not common) cause.  (Gordon, ibid., p. 68)

To be sure, pop music can be thoroughly enjoyable, as can a racy detective novel.  Both have the quality of escapist relaxation–entirely appropriate at the right time and place.  Public worship is not one of those times or places.  

Letter From America (About Crony Capitalism)

Palliative Care

Pressie Obama is making a big deal about his government’s huge bailout of near-bankrupt General Motors in 2008.  He offers it as indisputable evidence that using tax payers to save a failing company works: jobs are protected, industry is buoyed, and everybody benefits.

The reality is very different from the political spin.  And commercial reality is eventually brutal: it does not fool itself or others forever, unlike politicians.  You can dress mutton up as lamb in politics every day, because you can fool all of the people most of the time.  But markets–that’s another story.  While markets may fool themselves and you for a good long time, in the end the truth comes out; reality actually does eventually intrude into the specious narratives, and a cleansing enema takes effect.  Governments, however, think and acts as if they can keep spinning the fairy tale forever. 

So GM is a great example of what big government and big industry can do when yoked together in partnership.  Not according to the share market.
  GM’s stock is bottom feeding.  GM shows all the signs of needing another bailout in the future–if it is to survive.  More fiscal debt coming up.  More waste.  More pork barrel politics.

The moral of the story is simple: when governments expand their mandate beyond what has been ordained and commanded by the Almighty the fruit is not just misshapen, it is quickly rotten to the core. 

Here is Michelle Malkin’s take:

Obama’s Failed Auto Bailout 

The Democrats will pretend it was a success.
By Michelle Malkin
September 5, 2012
National Review Online 

Charlotte, N.C. — Cue Fanfare for the Common Man and rev up the Government Motors engines. Wednesday is Great American Auto Bailout Day at the Democratic National Convention. Party propagandists have prepared a prime-time-ready film touting the “rescue’s” benefits for American workers. UAW president Bob King will sing the savior-in-chief’s praises.

But like all of the economic success stories manufactured by the White House, the $85 billion government handout is a big fat farce. “I said I believe in American workers, I believe in this American industry, and now the American auto industry has come roaring back,” Obama bragged on the campaign trail. Here’s the inconvenient story they won’t tell you:

GM is once again flirting with bankruptcy despite massive government purchases propping up its sales figures. GM stock is rock-bottom. Losses continue to be revised in the wrong direction. According to the Detroit News, “the Treasury Department says in a new report the government expects to lose more than $25 billion on the $85 billion auto bailout. That’s 15 percent higher than its previous forecast.”

The claims that GM paid back its taxpayer-funded loans “in full” — a story peddled in campaign ads narrated by Hollywood actor Tom Hanks — were debunked by the Treasury Department’s TARP watchdog this summer. GM still owes nearly $30 billion of the $50 billion it received, and its lending arm still owes nearly $15 billion of the more than $17 billion it received. Bailout watchdog Mark Modica of the National Legal and Policy Center adds: “In addition to U.S. taxpayers anteing up, Canada put in over $10 billion, and GM was relieved of about $28 billion of bondholder obligations as UAW claims were protected. That’s an improvement of almost $90 billion to the balance sheet, and the company still lags the competition.”  While the Obama administration wraps the auto bailout in red, white, and blue, it’s foreign workers and overseas plants that are reaping redistributive rewards.

GM has increased its manufacturing capacity in China by an estimated 55 percent after the bailout, according to industry watchers. GM’s Dan Akerson crowed at the Beijing auto show earlier this year: “One of our aims is to help grow a new generation of automotive engineers, designers, and leaders right here in China.” The U.S. auto giant’s ventures with the Communist regime include Shanghai OnStar Telematics Co., Ltd.; GM China Advanced Technical Center; FAW-GM Light Duty Commercial Vehicle Co., Ltd., in Harbin, Heilongjiang; FAW-GM’s Changchun plant in Changchun, Jilin; FAW-GM Hongta Yunnan Automobile Manufacturing Co., Ltd., in Qujing, Yunnan; and Shanghai Chengxin Used Car Operation and Management Co., Ltd.

In Europe, the UAW’s appointee to the Government Motors board of directors, Steve Girsky, recklessly pushed the feds to hold on to GM’s failing German-based Opel AG. The Great American Auto Bailout has been subsidizing this hemorrhaging enterprise while Obama has failed to deliver on his 2008 campaign promise to salvage plants like the one in GOP vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan’s hometown of Janesville, Wis. According to Forbes magazine, “GM Europe, comprised mostly of Opel and its sister brand, Vauxhall, lost $617 million in the first half of 2012, on top of a $747 million loss in 2011 and a $1.8 billion loss in 2010. In all, GM has lost almost $17 billion in Europe since 1999.”

While Team Obama lambastes GOP rival Mitt Romney for outsourcing, Government Motors is now planning to invest $1 billion over the next five years — not in America, but in Russia. That’s on top of $7 billion total in China, close to $1 billion in Mexico, and $600 million for a shirt-sponsorship deal with Manchester United, the British soccer club.

The DNC will put a rank-and-file U.S. autoworker on stage to back up Big Labor’s cheerleading of the deal. Rest assured, this human shield will not tell viewers how Obama and the union bosses colluded to pervert bankruptcy law and shaft some 20,000 nonunion Delphi auto-parts workers. The forgotten victims saw their pensions erode by up to 70 percent; their health benefits disappeared. The first lady is radio-silent. Here in Charlotte, Obama consigliere Valerie Jarrett ducked questions about the Delphi injustice from the Washington Times.

Only in a fantasyland where America has 57 states, “jobs” is a three-letter word, and bailouts are “achievements” does Obama’s rescue math add up. “Now I want to do the same thing with manufacturing jobs, not just in the auto industry, but in every industry,” Obama vows. God help the American worker.

— Michelle Malkin is the author of Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies. Her e-mail address is malkinblog@gmail.com. © 2012 Creators.com

General Motors–a failed business, propped up by the government, acting like it’s a commercial success, noting big time around the world–all on the bent back of the taxpayer.  Nice. 

For the record–is it likely that a change of government in the US will allow GM to go to the wall?  No.  When Democrats do crazy and illicit things, it’s shockingly reprehensible.  When Republicans do it, it’s OK because we are the good guys.  Right.  You betcha. 

More Time Please . . .

Irreducibly Complex

How often have we heard the refrain, “It’s more complex than we thought.”  We have heard it in evolutionary biology, sotto voce of course.  The narrative of evolutionists is that primitive life forms are simple; if they are simple, it is an evidence of their age and early positioning on the evolutionary tree.  Man is the most complex  creature: therefore, a late development on the evolutionary tree–at least, that’s what the “just-so” story of evolutionism would have us believe.

A problem in the narrative arises when it becomes evident that some of the allegedly oldest and most primitive creatures on the planet are also incredibly complex.  Take, for example, the “most primitive” deep sea dwellers.  Their large compound eyes are far, far more complexly constructed than initially assumed.

Another evolutionist narrative is that due to evolutionary forces human beings have a lot of “junk” in their systems.  This is “stuff” which once was useful, but as evolution took place, became redundant or superseded and so was made inert.  The appendix and tonsils are organs which evolutionists in days gone by have interpreted in that way.

So with research into human genetics.
  The initial evolutionist view was that there was tons of junk in the human genetic structure.  It was unused and redundant.  So far the just-so story.  New research, however, is debunking that refrain.  This from Stuff:

A colossal international effort has yielded the first comprehensive look at how our DNA works, an encyclopedia of information that will rewrite the textbooks and offer new insights into the biology of disease.
The findings, reported overnight by more than 500 scientists, reveal extraordinarily complex networks that tell our genes what to do and when, with millions of on-off switches.

“It’s this incredible choreography going on, of a modest number of genes and an immense number of … switches that are choreographing how those genes are used,” said Dr Eric Green, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, which organised the project. The work also shows that at least 80 per cent of the human genetic code, or genome, is active. That’s surprisingly high and a sharp contrast to the idea that the vast majority of our DNA is junk.. . .

This research development parallels developments in sub-atomic nuclear physics where the deeper into the atom research and mathematical theory has penetrated, the more complex things have become.  The so-called basic, evolutionary building blocks have turned out to be fearsomely complex–far more so than supra-atomic reality.  It’s not supposed to be that way.  But ain’t randomness a wonderful thing.  Except that irreducible complexity does not fit the narrative of developing from the simple to the more complex. 

Apparently the workings of our DNA resemble a near impenetrable jungle.

It’s “our first global view of how the genome functions,” sort of a Google Maps that allows both bird’s-eye and close-up views of what’s going on, said Elise Feingold of the genome institute. While scientists already knew the detailed chemical makeup of the genome, “we didn’t really know how to read it,” she said in an interview. “It didn’t come with an instruction manual to figure out how the DNA actually works.”

One key participant, Ewan Birney of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Hinxton, England, compared the new work to a first translation of a very long book.”The big surprise is just how much activity there is,” he said. “It’s a jungle.” . . .

So what is it doing? In recent years, scientists have uncovered uses for some of that DNA, so it was clearly not all junk, but overall it has remained a mystery.  Scientists found that at least three-quarters of the genome is involved in making RNA, a chemical cousin of DNA. Within genes, making RNA is a first step toward creating a protein, but that’s not how it’s used across most of the genome. Instead, it appears to help regulate gene activity. 

Apparently we are really, really complex machines.  Machines mind you, but at least now we are getting some appreciation of the almost limitless complexity involved.  So much for crude evolutionism.  

Scientists also mapped more than 4 million sites where proteins bind to DNA to regulate genetic function, sort of like a switch. “We are finding way more switches than we were expecting,” Birney said. . . .(W)ith the finding of widespread activity across a person’s DNA, scientists will be debating how much of it is really crucial to life.  Still, “it’s worth reminding ourselves that we are very, very complex machines,” Birney said. “It shouldn’t be so surprising that the instruction manual is really pretty fearsomely complicated.”

 But weren’t we told that DNA research would unlock all the dark mazes and enable us to discover the secrets of life itself?  Not so fast.  Irreducible, fearsome complexity sounds like something else entirely.