The Annals of Soft-Despotism

Dereliction of Duty

The idol of the soft-despotic state must needs be mocked and ridiculed.  It is one of the more effective weapons God has given to His people to excise this particular demon from our lives.  As we engage in this divine sarcasm we are conscious of standing in a long line of prophets who did not hold back from mocking the idols of their day.  We have in mind Elijah on Mount Carmel, for example, ridiculing the priests of Baal, as they called upon their god but to no avail:

And at noon Elijah mocked them, saying, “Cry aloud, for he is a god.  Either he is musing, or he is relieving himself, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened.” (I Kings 18: 27.)

A recent tragedy has been the cold-blooded murder of innocents at the Navy Yard in Washington DC.  One wonders how it could be that a non-serving civilian could be granted admittance to a military installation, armed with a semi-automatic shotgun, to kill twelve people.  What happened to the nation’s god?  In the words of Elijah, perhaps the soft-despotic deity in Washington was musing somewhere amidst a brown study.  Or he was in the loo.  Or he had undertaken a long journey.  Or he had fallen asleep.  The answer–all of the above.

Governments that attempt to rule everything in an embrace of soft-despotic tyranny end up powerless and incompetent.
  Here is the most powerful nation on earth–a nation whose hubris has gone so far as to  lecture and regulate its citizens over what can be put on their plates and in their diets–utterly incompetent. It has failed dismally, not just to provide basic security on a military establishment, but to screen out the disturbed and mentally unstable from working there.  The nation which believes its government is competent to regulate everything ends up with a government utterly incompetent everywhere. This, from Breitbart News:

The government’s sprawling system of background checks and security clearances is so unreliable it’s virtually impossible to adequately investigate the nearly 5 million Americans who have them and make sure they can be trusted with access to military and sensitive civilian buildings, an Associated Press review found.  Case after case has exposed problems for years, including recent instances when workers the government approved have been implicated in mass shootings, espionage and damaging disclosures of national secrets. In the latest violence, the Navy Yard gunman passed at least two background checks and kept his military security clearance despite serious red flags about violent incidents and psychological problems.

One of the most profound observations on the tragedy came from the Secretary of Defense:

The Pentagon knows there are problems. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has ordered a sweeping review of all military security and employee screening programs. “Something went wrong,” he said.

You don’t say.  

Columnist Michelle Malkin had this to say:

 . . . the truth is seeping out about shooter Aaron Alexis. The 34-year-old Navy veteran had been treated since August by the Veterans Administration for a host of mental problems that plagued him for up to a decade.

Officials say Alexis was paranoid, had a sleep disorder, suffered from schizophrenia and was “hearing voices.” He told Newport, R.I., police after an altercation just last month that he believed a “microwave machine” was sending vibrations through a wall into his body. Friends say he was a heavy drinker and violent video game addict. A ticking time bomb, he had racked up a string of misconduct incidents during his military stint ranging from absenteeism to insubordination to disorderly conduct. He was arrested in Seattle in 2004 and in Fort Worth, Texas, in 2010 for separate anger-fueled shootings that terrorized neighbors and innocent bystanders.

Yet somehow Alexis passed several military background checks, gained high-level security clearance and had access to multiple military installations. The civilian contractor who employed Alexis blasted the feds on Tuesday for failing to fully disclose his history. “Anything that suggests criminal problems or mental health issues, that would be a flag,” Thomas Hoshko of The Experts told The Washington Post. “We would not have hired him.” And 12 innocent people might still be alive today.

There are two basic responses to this kind of manifest incompetence.  The first is to cling to the idolatry of omni-competent statism and double down–demanding more money, more bureaucracy, more rules, more regulations, etc.  The second is to repent of soft-despotic statism and limit the responsibilities of the state to what God has laid down for it.  Ironically, one of those is to provide for the common defence against military attack.  But because the government is so focused upon everything but, in its vaunting ambition to be as a god to the people, it cannot carry out even its lawful and fundamental responsibilities properly. 

There has been a manifestation of dignified nobility amidst this tragedy.  We found ourselves humbled and moved by the mother of the murderer, Alexis, who expressed relief that her son had passed from the sight of mortal men and would no longer be able to kill anyone and who, at the same time, lamented the damage and suffering to the families of his victims.   May God comfort her–and those who have suffered such terrible, unexpected loss. 

From An Admiring Antipodean

Dear President Obama

I was greatly encouraged to view your recent address to ‘Planned Parenthood’ and rejoice in your warm endorsement of their work and in your wishing of the blessing of God upon them and all they do for the cause of women’s reproductive health and the right to take control of their own bodies. The practice of some 3,000 abortions a week in the USA is a ringing endorsement of their work and proof of their deserving your support.

I have long supported the ‘Pro Choice’ cause as you have, and must commend you for your courageous stand in support of late term terminations.
You are able to see clearly the issue at hand- that if a woman has the right and indeed the responsibility to control her own body as she thinks best, and if her unborn foetus is unwanted, then the life of that foetus must obviously must be subsumed to the greater cause of the free choice of the women.

Could I now plead with you to seize the time and further advance the ‘Pro Choice’ cause? For the greater good and survival of his clan and supporters, President Assad of Syria has (so we are told) applied poison gas to some 1,500 man women and children in the suburbs of Damascus. Though these terminations are a tad later then we would desire, I am sure that you will see that his actions are a courageous application of the work that you have so faithfully supported in the USA. What the President of Syria has done is a reflection of his right to take control of the health of his own community as he thinks best, and these unwanted lives have been subsumed to the greater cause of his right and freedom to be ‘Pro Choice.’

Please could I ask you to once again show the leadership and courage and foresight for which we all hold you in such high esteem and sound out those words once again, this time to President Assad and his helpers- “God bless you in all you do.”

Calvin’s Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

September 21

Thine Is My Heart: Devotional Readings from the Writings of John Calvin

by John Calvin (compiled by John H. Kromminga)
Republished from the OPC Website

Bible Text:
These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren. —Acts 1:14

Devotional:
Luke expresses two things which are proper to true prayer, namely that they persisted and that they were all of one mind. This was an exercise of their patience, in that Christ made them wait a while, when he could have immediately sent the Holy Spirit; as God often delays, and as it were suffers us to languish, that he may accustom us to persevere.

The hastiness of our petition is a corrupt, yea hurtful plague. Wherefore it is no marvel if God sometimes corrects it. In the meantime he exercises us to be constant in prayer. Therefore if we would not pray in vain, let us not be wearied with the delay of time.

As touching the unity of their minds, it is set against that scattering abroad which fear had caused before. Yet, notwithstanding, we may easily gather, even by this, how needful a thing it is to pray generally, in that Christ commands every one to pray for the whole body, and generally for all men, as it were, in the person of all men: Our Father, Give us this day, etc.

Whence comes this unity of their tongues but from one Spirit? Wherefore when Paul would prescribe to Jews and Gentiles a right form of prayer, he removes far away all division and dissension. That we may, says he, being all of one mind, glorify God (Rom. 15:6).

And truly it is needful that we be brethren and agree together like brethren, that we may rightly call God Father. —Commentaries

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John Calvin was the premier theologian of the Reformation, but also a pious and godly Christian pastor who endeavored throughout his life to point men and women to Christ. We are grateful to Reformation Heritage Books for permission to use John Calvin’s Thine Is My Heart as our daily devotional for 2013 on the OPC Web site. You can currently obtain a printed copy of that book from Reformation Heritage Books.

The Annals of Soft-Despotism

The Might of the Gentiles

President Reagan once quipped that the most terrifying words in the English language were, “I am from the government, and I’m here to help.”  We are aware that for many such a statement  borders on blasphemy.  How dare anyone have such a cynical attitude toward the hand that feeds us.

Modern governments in the West have arrogated to themselves (with the ardent support and acclamation of the people) the vain hubris of being responsible and empowered to parent and provide for all citizens.  Welcome to life under the soft-despotic state.  Freedom and responsibility is at first attenuated, then killed off, by kindness.  Men–free men–depart, not with a bang, but a whimper.  Underneath lies a besetting sin: idolatry.  Today it is almost universal that “free” citizens worship the government in one way or another.  Become subjected to almost any trouble, any calamity and the reflexive, natural response now is to intone the litany of the secular idolater: “the government has to/should/ought/needs to do something”.  It is the secular version of fervent prayer.  It is the established religion of our day.

The First Commandment teaches us that God does not tolerate the presence or invocation of idols anywhere near Him: “thou shalt have no other gods in My presence”.  The most frequently found rendering of this commandment is, “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me,” which is perfectly acceptable, provided one remembers that the preposition has reference to God’s throne before which we come to bow, to worship God alone.  Thus, the commandment forbids worshippers coming into His presence, before His face, clinging to or clutching any idols, whether vainly imagined in the heart, or actually squirreled away in the pocket.

The translation “before” is far less helpful when folk misinterpret it to refer to a relative ranking of the gods.  In this perspective, the commandment is glossed to mean relative loyalty: “thou shalt make sure that whatever idolatries and loyalties you might have, they must not be greater than your loyalty to God.”  When it comes to the place of the government in the thinking of many Christians–and the honour and devotion to be given to it–this is how they think of the First Commandment.  Love God, and love the state as well.

When Christians bow down before the God of our fathers, it is grossly offensive and provocative to come also clutching to the state as our benign provider, our providential superintendent, our generous gift-giver, our saviour from harm and hardship, and the giver of our daily bread.  We fear that many do.  After all, it is what is taught and proclaimed almost universally these days.  It is so pervasive that it has become one of the fundamental assumptions about living, and moving, and have our being. 

This is a dangerous and sinister business.  After all, God is a jealous God.  He will not share His glory with another.  When we cling to idols, He will lift His hand to shatter them.  When a people cling to the government as their god, it does not bode well for the future of the nation.  In the end, we will be made like the ancient widows:

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord.

Douglas Wilson’s Letter From Moscow

President of Presidents

Posted on Saturday, September 14, 2013  

By Douglas Wilson 

Blog and Mablog 

I want to begin this exhortation with two qualifications. The first is that I know you have heard this point from me before. But as Paul says in Philippians, to repeat the same things over again is not a trouble to me, and it is helpful to you. Secondly, this is a word to Americans—and I know that not all of you here are Americans. You are nevertheless invited to listen in, and there are truths here that any believer may apply, making the necessary adjustments as you go.

As the recent op-ed by Vladimir Putin showed, the assumption of American exceptionalism is offensive to him. But because he is a former KGB thug, we shouldn’t really care that it is offensive to him. What we should care about is the way in which this manner of speaking might be offensive to God.


The Founding of our nation really was exceptional in many ways. God’s blessing was manifestly with us. But one of the most exceptional things about it was the fact that the men who approved our form of government were deeply suspicious of man in general, and Americans in particular. Do not trust an American with power as far as you can throw him (Art. XII). The genius of our founding framework is that it demonstrates no trust whatever in the innate goodness of all future politicians. At our founding, we knew that we were ordinary, mortal men, prone to sin and corruption. We knew that we were ordinary, and that realization was extraordinary.

But the notion of American exceptionalism that has taken root in recent days is really the photo negative of that founding vision. It seeks to separate this exceptionalism from the gospel of grace, the gospel that straightens out depraved Americans, which is quite a trick, and it wants to make this exceptionalism somehow innate with us. And this overweening conceit provokes anti-Americanism, a form of blowback which is itself just as much an enemy of grace as that which provoked it. The former says “God didn’t give us this; we did it ourselves” and the latter says “God didn’t give you that; the Great Satan did.” They both have this in common—they refuse to give glory to the living God. They refuse to show appropriate gratitude. They pretend that we must choose between proud and ungrateful and envious and ungrateful.

How about humble and grateful? That really would be extraordinary.

So you Americans who confess Christ, your ultimate allegiance, your highest allegiance is obviously to Jesus and His Bride, the City of God. To the extent that God calls you to be a partaker of this nation’s life—and He certainly does—you must learn to see every form of secularism as an idolatrous and arrogant ingratitude. So this is one litmus test with regard to whether your form of “exceptionalism” is acceptable. If it is secular, it is not.

As a people, we must hear the gospel summons, and we must return to Jesus Christ, the president of presidents.

Calvin’s Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

September 20

Thine Is My Heart: Devotional Readings from the Writings of John Calvin

by John Calvin (compiled by John H. Kromminga)
Reproduced from the OPC Website

Bible Text:
The righteousness of thy testimonies is everlasting: give me understanding, and I shall live. —Psalm 119:144

Devotional:
Farther, he here teaches that men cannot, properly speaking, be said to live when they are destitute of the light of heavenly wisdom; and as the end for which men are created is not that, like swine or asses, they may stuff their bellies, but that they may exercise themselves in the knowledge and service of God, when they turn away from such employment, their life is worse than a thousand deaths.

David therefore protests that for him to live was not merely to be fed with meat and drink, and to enjoy earthly comforts, but to aspire after a better life, which he could not do save under the guidance of faith. This is a very necessary warning;
for although it is universally acknowledged that man is born with this distinction, that he excels the lower animals in intelligence, yet the great bulk of mankind, as if with deliberate purpose, stifle whatever light God pours into their understandings.

I indeed admit that all men desire to be sharp-witted; but how few aspire to heaven, and consider that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. Since then meditation upon the celestial life is buried by earthly cares, men do nothing else than plunge into the grave, so that while living to the world, they die to God. —Commentaries

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John Calvin was the premier theologian of the Reformation, but also a pious and godly Christian pastor who endeavored throughout his life to point men and women to Christ. We are grateful to Reformation Heritage Books for permission to use John Calvin’s Thine Is My Heart as our daily devotional for 2013 on the OPC Web site. You can currently obtain a printed copy of that book from Reformation Heritage Books.

Books

Echoes of Eden

In his recent book, Echoes of Eden, Jerram Barrs [Echoes of Eden: Reflections on Christianity, Literature and the Arts (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2013)]  has a series of chapters on literature and the arts in general and then turns to some exemplars which exemplify his general theme.  Barrs argues that all art worthy of the designation reflects what he calls “echoes of Eden” in one way, shape or form. 

To make reference to Eden is to introduce the great underlying themes of all stories: the innate goodness of the creation in its original perfection, the brokenness of nature and of man which we experience daily, and the longing for redemption and deliverance.  In the latter portion of the book, Barrs turns to some examples or case studies of his theme: namely, Lewis, Tolkien, J K Rowling, Shakespeare and Jane Austen. 

The chapter on Tolkien alone is worth the price of the book.  Tolkien understood that myths are powerful in a culture because they inevitably sustain memories of God.
  Myths–that is, stories which pass down through generations–echo Eden.  He

saw them as containing memories of the truth about God, about the origin and desiny of our world, about the battle against supernatural evil that characterizes every age, and about the hope for redemption through God’s intervention in human history.  Myths hold within them the treasure of echoes of Eden.  Myths and fairy stories are vessels containing truth–and the gospel itself is the greatest of these.  (Op cit, p. 107)

In his elaborate and extensive history of Middle Earth, Tolkien set his stories in a time prior to the coming of Christ into the world.  He always denied his work was allegory–it clearly is not.  But he did describe it as myth.  He lamented the fact that the British had no myths any longer.  They had expunged the mythical stories of their past which were vessels carrying intergenerational truth about God, the creation, man, the Fall, and redemption.  He set out to produce a new mythical story, using the ancient poem, Beowulf as his inspiration which would recapture these truths and infuse them again into our modern culture.  In the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings,

just as in Beowulf, there will be no explicitly Christian story or message, but there will be hints, hope, courage, heroism, love, and self-sacrifice in the fight against evil that characterizes the whole of our age.  (Ibid., p.106.)

The question is, How successful has he been?  Did he achieve his objectives.  It is too early to tell, but the early signs are quite encouraging.  As is so often the case, Tolkien repeatedly tried and failed to get The Rings published.  It was too long, too detailed, too “unreal”, etc.  Thankfully it eventually made its way into print.  No-one could foresee how barren and empty a world relentless materialism would wreak.  Consequently few could have predicted how hungry the modern world would become for myth, for echoes of Eden.  Jerram Barrs asks,

So why do people enjoy these books so much?  Why are books published in the 1950’s creating such a stir today?  Even before the release of the movies there were more than fifty million copies of  The Lord of the Rings in print.  Today, after the huge success of the movies, even the publishers are hesitant to give figures for the overall sales of The Lord of the Rings. Besides the various editions of the book in English, there are translations into many languages. . . . (A)t the turn of the millennium Tolkien was declared the author of the century.  He won this hands down over James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, the authors that the scholars and critics doing the poll, wanted to win; in fact the pollsters were so unhappy that Tolkien won easily, they did their poll a second time hoping for a different result, but to no avail.  In a poll conducted by BBC television The Lord of the Rings was voted the best-loved book of the British people. (Ibid, p. 113.)

Barr puts this success down to the quality of the story itself; to the beauty of the writing; to the depth, complexity and realism of the central characters; and to the realism of Middle Earth itself where almost everything has a long lineage and historical depth and complex authenticity (people after all today communicate and correspond in Tolkien’s invented languages, Quenya and Sindarin).  But above all the popularity of the work rests upon, its mythical character, the echoes of Eden found therein, which have drawn a desperately empty people, living in a bleak and barren and voided land. 

It is certainly true that the books are influenced greatly by Germanic and Norse myths and sagas.  But they are much more deeply influenced by a Christian account of the world.  The stories reflect the Bible’s account of creation, the fall of humanity due to rebellion against God, and the redemption that God will accomplish.  (Ibid., p.117.)

It is for this very reason that some writers have expressed not just a disdain of Tolkien (and Lewis) but hatred.  One, Phillip Pullman, himself a fantasy writer, has said that he is fed up with the Christian impact of Tolkien and Lewis.

Other passionate humanists have said they hate Tolkien and Lewis, whom they see as “riding in on a white horse,” trying to rescue civilization by turning people back to the Christian faith.  (Ibid.)

The Lord of the Rings is not Scripture.  It cannot substitute for the Word of God, by which we are born again and brought to new life.  Tolkien would have abhorred such a notion.  But in a culture which is rapidly  integrating into the void such literature serves a powerful purpose.  It can capture the hearts of people making them long once again for another world, where those who believe that might makes right are defeated and broken by those who believe in honesty, loyalty, oaths and vows, integrity, courage, and righteousness.  Such works of literature so powerfully echo Eden, they can awaken again  a general longing for a Redeemer. 

Just as there are no atheists in foxholes, as the works of the Evil One become more manifest, such literary works can prepare hearts, can unclog ears, to long to hear the declaration of Him who says, “I am the Light of the World.”

Calvin’s Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

September 19

Thine Is My Heart: Devotional Readings from the Writings of John Calvin

by John Calvin (compiled by John H. Kromminga)
Republished from the OPC Website

Bible Text:
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. —II Corinthians 4:7

Devotional:
In the next place, I have something about which I wish to admonish yourself. For I understand the length of your discourses has furnished the ground of complaint to many. You have frequently confessed to us that you were aware of this defect, and that you were endeavoring to correct it.

But if private grumblings are disregarded because they do not in the meanwhile give trouble, they may, nevertheless, one day break forth into seditious clamors. I beg and beseech of you to strive to restrain yourself, that you may not afford Satan an opportunity, which we see he is so earnestly desiring.

You know that while we are not called upon to show too much indulgence to the foolish, we are nevertheless bound to give them something to allure them. And you are well enough aware that you have to do with the morose and choleric; and in truth their aversion arises simply from too much pride on their part.

Yet, since the Lord commands us to ascend the pulpit, not for our own edification, but for that of the people, you should so regulate the matter of your teaching, that the word may not be brought into contempt by your tediousness. It is more appropriate also for us to lengthen our prayers in private, than when we offer them in the name of the whole Church. You are mistaken if you expect from all an ardor equal to your own. —Letter to Farel

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John Calvin was the premier theologian of the Reformation, but also a pious and godly Christian pastor who endeavored throughout his life to point men and women to Christ. We are grateful to Reformation Heritage Books for permission to use John Calvin’s Thine Is My Heart as our daily devotional for 2013 on the OPC Web site. You can currently obtain a printed copy of that book from Reformation Heritage Books.

Douglas Wilson’s Letter From Moscow

Making It Flow to the End

Posted on Sunday, September 8, 2013  

By Douglas Wilson 

Blog and Mablog 

In the Syria saga, we are getting a good glimpse of how political decisions are made in a gargantuan democracy, and we are also getting quite a cash payout — worth a great deal to me at any rate — of Ron Paul’s apparently quixotic presidential runs.

Let me state the conclusion first. I am convinced that – despite the blinkered limitations of pure libertarianism when it comes to foreign-policy in the Middle East – the presence of a  significant libertarian mindset in the Republican Party has been beyond helpful in this situation. I think an ideologically pure libertarian foreign policy would be a disaster. But I also think the current endless war policy is a disaster, and I like very much the fact a good portion of our population — for whatever reasons — has gotten kind of surly about it.

Let us be frank.
There are many in the GOP who tend to give reflexive deference to the president when it comes to military actions like this, in which phrases like “in harm’s way,” “our men and women in uniform,” and so on can be used, but the presence of the libertarian faction within the party has meant an argument needed to have been made. In order to do something like this now, you actually have to persuade somebody.

In this case, because there wasn’t a good argument, we have had a surprising turn against Syrian military action among mainstream conservatives. Obama’s dithering gave that opposition time to think for minute and coalesce.

I mean, think about it. What are the odds of every war being a good idea?

Second, this whole fiasco, combined with Obama’s wafted-way-above-his-pay-grade-hubris, has apparently given us the great gift of Obama’s second term being lived out in lame-duck city for perhaps a full three years. The president has beyond bungled this whole thing, and is pretty miffed that the Syrians on both side of their conflict have not given him the affirmative action waiver that he has repeatedly requested. They won’t even return the State Department’s calls anymore.

In short, the president is now manifestly in that realm where his paradigm and self-identity are being completely overwhelmed by things like “experiences,” “events,” “exigencies,” “emergencies,” and “eggs.” I only said eggs because I needed another e to make it flow to the end.

The president is in a bad jam, pretty much of his own making, and pretty much everybody knows it. I am anticipating things getting, simultaneously, much muddier and much clearer, by which I mean that it will be very clear how muddy it is.

Calvin’s Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

September 18

Thine Is My Heart: Devotional Readings from the Writings of John Calvin

by John Calvin (compiled by John H. Kromminga)
Reproduced from the OPC Website

Bible Text:
Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: —Romans 5:1

Devotional:
The following observation of Bernard is worthy of recital; “that the name of Jesus is not only light, but also food; that it is likewise oil, without which all the food of the soul is dry; that it is salt, unseasoned by which, whatever is presented to us is insipid; finally, that it is honey in the mouth, melody in the ear, joy in the heart, and medicine to the soul; and that there are no charms in any discourse where his name is not heard.”

But here we ought diligently to examine how he has procured salvation for us; that we may not only know him to be the author of it, but, embracing those things which are sufficient for the establishment of our faith, may reject everything capable of drawing us aside to the right hand or to the left.

For since no man can descend into himself and seriously consider his own character, without perceiving that God is angry with him and hostile to him, and consequently he must find himself under a necessity of anxiously seeking some way to appease him, which can never be done without a satisfaction—this is a case in which the strongest assurance is required.

For sinners, till they be delivered from guilt, are always subject to the wrath and malediction of God, who, being a righteous Judge, never suffers his law to be violated with impunity, but stands prepared to avenge it. —Institutes, II, xvi, i

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John Calvin was the premier theologian of the Reformation, but also a pious and godly Christian pastor who endeavored throughout his life to point men and women to Christ. We are grateful to Reformation Heritage Books for permission to use John Calvin’s Thine Is My Heart as our daily devotional for 2013 on the OPC Web site. You can currently obtain a printed copy of that book from Reformation Heritage Books.

Cheap Slurs

Science in the Propagandist’s Hands

In his superb book, The Tyranny of Cliches, Jonah Goldberg has a rollicking chapter on science.  It turns out that science has often become a club to beat up ideological opponents.  One of the most damaging slurs, apparently, that can be hurled at one’s opponent is to accuse them of being anti-science.

Here are some classics of the genre:

Now, we don’t know who will win next year’s presidential election.  But the odds are that one of these years the world’s greatest nation will find itself ruled by a party that is aggressively anti-science, indeed anti-knowledge.  And, in a time of severe challenges–environmental, economic, and more–that’s a terrifying prospect.

Paul Krugman, “Republicans Against Science,” New York Times, August 28, 2011.

More intelligent individuals m ay be more likely to acquire and espouse evolutionary novel values and prefences (such as liberalism and atheism . . . ) than less intelligent individuals.

Satoshi Kanazawa, London School of Economics and Political Science, “Why Liberals and Atheists are More Intelligent,” Social Psychology Quarterly, March 2010.

We confess to enjoying great sport at lampooning the idiocy and stupidity of those who invest their own views and prejudiced cant with a veneer of superior intelligence.  There are none so dumb and stupid as those who proclaim their own (or their identify group’s) superior wisdom and intelligence, in the vain attempt to assure themselves they are “smarter than the average bear”.

Here is Jonah Goldberg’s amusing take on the circus:

A host of liberal activists and intellectuals are deeply invested in the idea that conservatives are “antiscience”.  Obviously, not all of these people argue in bad faith.  But many argue in very selective good faith.  They pick and choose the benchmarks of what constitutes being proscience.  So, for example, if you disagree with not only the diagnosis of climate change but the proposed remedies for it, you are antiscience.  Before it became clear that culling stem cells from human embryos was essentially unnecessary, it became a matter of faith that opposition to creating life in order to destroy it wasn’t a matter of conscience, but evidence of antiscience views.  . . . Defenders of embryonic stem cell research insist that opponents want to deny people life-saving remedies.  This is a horrendous slander on several levels, but if that is the relevant metric, how are we to deal with the armies of activists who oppose the use of DDT, which could save millions from malaria. . . . 

It is a scientific fact fire burns things.  One is not denying science when one seeks to ban arson.  No doubt, we could learn something  useful by conducting horrific experiments upon live human beings.  But conservative and liberals alike oppose such practices not because they are against science but because ethical considerations trump the pursuit of knowledge at all costs.  If Democrats came out tomorrow in favor of human vivisection and Republicans opposed it, Republicans would not suddenly become antiscience.  Rather, Democrats would suddenly become wrong.  [Jonah Goldberg, The Tyranny of Cliches: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas (New York: Sentinel/Penguin, 2012), p. 205f.]

All too often hurling the sobriquet antiscience against one’s opponent is a cheap slur, masquerading as an argument.  All too often science is a wax nose to be twisted and manipulated for ulterior ends.  All too often science is made to become the facile tool of  the propagandist. 

Impeccable Ignorance

Population Control Goes Out With a Whimper

Posted on September 6, 2013
by Stefano Gennarini, J.D.
Turtle Bay and Beyond

 Here are three articles from the past week that address the slow hard fall from grace of population control…

1. Jonathan Last’s Review of a book that exposes Paul Ehrlich for the fraud he was. Ehrlich, an entomologist, not a demographer or economist, wrote the all-famous “Population Bomb” in the 1960s and became a world celebrity by prophesying that resource scarcity would drive up commodity prices causing humanitarian disasters of biblical proportions. Needless to say, his poor science helped the world turn a blind eye to brutal population control programs for the past five decades. He was exposed repeatedly by Julian Simon, an economist, who rightly predicted that with population increases, production would also increase and commodity prices would go down. Simon believed human ingenuity could resolve resource scarcity, and he was right. He also insisted that what populations need are robust civil and political rights regimes to enable individuals and enterprises to flourish.
Simon perhaps never gained popularity among conservatives because his science led him to be in favor of a liberal U.S. immigration regime.

2. The Daily Beast has a piece about Obama’s “science diplomat”, John Holdren, people say he is a genius, but they find it hard to explain why he espouses Ehrlich’s bad science, even after it has been repeatedly disproven. So much for making decisions based on scientific evidence. The U.S. is still funding population control programs, and is still advocating that other countries do it. We are currently involved in re-educating women in the developing world, and especially Africa, to have fewer children. Apparently, they have been living for millennia with the false belief that having many children will ensure a comfortable retirement for their future. We are informing them instead that having fewer children (2 children max) will ensure a better future for them because the few children they have will love them all the more when in their old age they have to support them by themselves without the help of other siblings.

3. In this week’s Friday Fax, Susan Yoshihara looks at the profound instability created in China by the one-child policy. According to Yoshihara the changes to the one child policy that are in the works are too little too late. Not only is an economic and humanitarian disaster already unfolding, the one-child policy has actually become a cultural norm so engrained in the chinese way of life, that few chinese couples are even interested in having more than one child, preferably male. This is the kind of social engineering that U.S. family planning policies want to achieve in Africa. It is also the kind of norm that European countries are actively trying to fight, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, with little success.

After decades of population control programs to avert a seemingly inevitable population Armageddon, the people and institutions that are primarily responsible for the false alarmism are on their way out. While some at the United Nations, UNFPA, USAID and the Obama administration still cling to their condoms and bad science under the pseudonym “family planning program” or the oxymoron “reproductive rights” ( it never has to do with women choosing how many children to have and always with USAID telling women not to have any more children), economists and demographers are all agreed that the problem the world is facing is population aging and population decline – caused by human beings. Unfortunately, it will takes  decades, and maybe centuries to re-trace the trail of misery and ignorance they have left.

Calvin’s Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

September 17

Thine Is My Heart: Devotional Readings from the Writings of John Calvin

by John Calvin (compiled by John H. Kromminga)
Reproduced from the OPC Website

Bible Text:
Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? —Isaiah 53: 1

Devotional:
Let us reckon with this fact, that the world will never be so entirely converted to God that there will not be a majority possessed by Satan and remaining stupidly in his power, who would not rather perish than accept the blessing that is offered to us.

And there are different sorts of men:
some will be stupid, others will be so arrogant as to mock God and so madly presumptuous as to condemn everything in the Gospel; others will be wrapped up in the cares of this world, preoccupied with their refinements and delusions so that they have no taste at all for heavenly things; others will be so besotted that one cannot reach their minds so as to give them any teaching. So when we see this, let us reckon with the fact that, although the Gospel is preached and the voice of God resounds and echoes everywhere, many men will stay just as they were, quite unchanged, and all teaching will be, as it were, dead to them.

And thus let us take note that the number of believers is small. But yet we must not be led astray by that. Rather we ought to realize that God is bringing to pass what he declared with his mouth.

And meanwhile we ought to be so much the more careful to gather ourselves, as it were, under the wings of God, seeing that the world today is full of malice and rebellion…. When we see the whole world trampling the Word of God under foot, let us devote ourselves to it.

And not only that, but we must be all the more careful to cleave to our God when we see that scandals and bad examples might succeed in turning us from him; for we must remain in the integrity to which God calls us. —Sermons

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John Calvin was the premier theologian of the Reformation, but also a pious and godly Christian pastor who endeavored throughout his life to point men and women to Christ. We are grateful to Reformation Heritage Books for permission to use John Calvin’s Thine Is My Heart as our daily devotional for 2013 on the OPC Web site. You can currently obtain a printed copy of that book from Reformation Heritage Books.

Annals of Soft-Despotism

Regulating Rodent Love

The Christian faith has its believers professing from the heart, “The Lord will provide”.  The modern, Unbelieving substitute is, “The Government will provide”, which is idolatry, pure and simple.  God is not mocked.  When a culture turns away from the Living God to an idol, one of the divine indictments is to expose that idol to mockery.  A demonstration of the impotence of the idol, on the one hand, and a display of the dull stupidity of its devotees, on the other, is the standard divine approach. 

So, it is our duty as Christians to be active in sending up the idols of our age to the courts of mockery.  The incompetence of the State to be as God to us is to be displayed, described, and ridiculed at every opportunity.  Not the State in its legitimate functions, mind you–where it acts not to provide health, education, and welfare for all, but to administer retributive justice to the evil doer, and judge civil disputes with equity and fairness.  But we are addressing the State as idol, where it rears up to replace God in the mind and hearts of citizens.

Here is the latest folly from the “Master”, our all governing, beneficent, all-wise, providential government–this time addressing the vitally important manner of rat control, definitely in need of rules, regulations, procedures, protections, and punishments.

Glueboard traps

Glueboard traps are made up of a base (usually plastic) with a sticky glue layer intended to capture and hold live rodents. They are also used for insects, although this use is not affected by the Animal Welfare (Glueboard Traps) Order.

Internationally and within New Zealand, concerns have been raised over the humaneness of these traps. The main animal welfare concerns are injury and distress associated with being trapped, and the potential for inhumane disposal.

After consultation in 2008 the Government has decided to restrict the sale and use of glueboard traps in New Zealand. New regulations come into effect on 1 January 2010.

§  Animal Welfare (Glueboard Traps) Order 2009

The new regulations for glueboard traps are made under the Animal Welfare Act 1999.

As of 1 January 2010, the use of glueboards to catch rodents, including mice and rats, is prohibited, with the following exceptions.

§  Commercial pest control operators

§  People employed to conduct pest control on food production premises (excluding retail)

§  Department of Conservation employees and contractors

§  Boat operators transporting people or goods to or from islands that are free of mammalian pests (such as rodents), or who are working in close proximity to these islands.

All of the above people can use glueboards in the course of their work until the end of 2014. From 1 January 2015, the use and sale of glueboards by anyone is prohibited.

The use of glueboards for insects is not affected.

Using or selling a restricted glueboard is an offence under the Animal Welfare Act, carrying a maximum penalty of 6 months in prison or a $25,000 fine for an individual, or a fine of up to $125,000 for a body corporate.

Approval to use or sell a glueboard where it would otherwise be prohibited (and where it is in the public interest and no viable alternatives are available) can be gained from the Minister for Primary Industries.

Yours sincerely

John Corbett

Internal Communications Manager

Egg Producer’s Federation of New Zealand (Inc.)

So, why are insects not included, eh?  Why don’t they come under the same protections?  Or does our all-wise Government deem that insect life form is less important than rodent life-form?  It seems it does–which must surely be rank discrimination and prejudice on the basis of its own principles. 

Why, one asks, do rodents fall under the Animal Welfare Act?  To our knowledge, rats  are not husbanded (apart from the few kept as pets and for scientific research) and farmed in New Zealand.   Rats being eradicated in the community and on farms and in the wild are themselves wild animals and disease carriers.  Are they now to be placed in the same categories as domesticated animals, farm animals, and husbanded livestock?  Apparently so.  Will this arouse suspicion on international markets about the quality of our exported ground beef?  Will it suggest to our export markets that rat meat is now likely to be included in MacDonald’s beef patties? 

In the grand scheme of things, the “Master” is not only inconsistent in favouring rats over insects since flies can still be trapped on glueboards and made subject to cruel and inhumane treatment.  It would appear that the State in some ways values rats more highly than humans.  It is the small matter of penalties.  In New Zealand a thug can beat up a person in a cruel and inhumane manner and not get a prison sentence of six months.  But if he were to do something similar to a rat, the vengeance of the Master may  fall far more severely.  Six months prison and a $25,000 fine for the rat molester!  As for the brawler who knocks an old man’s teeth out–convicted and discharged. 

Behold the dumb stupidity and obtuse crassness of the “Master”.

Books

“Death by Living”

Life is meant to be spent. N D Wilson

[Thomas Nelson, 2013  208 pp., $19.99 ]

Book Review by John Wilson
Books and Culture

September 2013

Pardon me for quoting myself, but here is the way I started a book review for Christianity Today magazine in 2007: “Remember, you read it here first. N. D. Wilson (no relation, I hasten to add) is a name that will soon be widely known. He will write many books, Lord willing, in many genres for our instruction and delight. His first is Leepike Ridge (Random House).”

Six years later, and now in his mid-thirties, Wilson has already written a bunch of books, in several genres, not to mention a bit of screenwriting. His latest, Death by Living, is his second work of nonfiction and (so I think) his best book yet.

“This is a spoken world,” Wilson writes—”from galaxies to inchworms, from seraphs to electrons to meter maids, every last thing was and is shaped ex nihilo. It—and we—all exist as beats and rhythms and rhymes in the cosmic and constant word art of the Creator God. To fully embrace and attempt to apply such a vision is … dizzying.” The ellipses are his, and what he’s attempting is not just dizzying, it’s impossible—but it’s worth trying, again and again, over the course of a lifetime.

Death by living? That’s the fate we all share.

But we can choose to be aware of what’s happening, embracing it rather than hiding from the reality of our own lives. “Life is a story,” Wilson says—once, twice, twenty times.

Now you may be feeling itchy at the invocation of story. Don’t worry: the author is a step ahead of you: ” ‘Story, story, my life is a story,’ says the hipster to his Twitter feed.” Yes, story can be used superficially, evasively, to avoid unpalatable truths, to avoid conflict. (We’re all just telling our stories, you know.) Which is funny, because you can’t have a story without conflict.

So, one of the best stories in this book of good stories is Wilson’s account of a 2009 family trip to Europe (Chapter 4, “Going to Hell in a Seventeen-Passenger Handbasket”). The narrative involves repeated vomiting, in public places, by two-year-old Seamus, then known as “Fatty.” His spectacular displays of discomfort make the family entourage—already hard to miss in countries where the birthrate is well below replacement level—downright conspicuous. All of this is related as if by a master of gross-out comedy (it’s very filmworthy), but the story also includes glimpses of an enfeebled church in what was once the heartland of the Reformation (that’s comedy too, but of a much darker variety) and memories of Wilson’s maternal grandfather (the lives of both of his grandfathers are woven throughout the book).

And I haven’t even mentioned Chapter 8, “The (Blessed) Lash of Time,” which is one of the best treatments of that elusive subject I have ever seen. If I had to pick one part of the book to give to someone as a sampler—here, taste this—it would be this chapter, which also features a magnificent excursus on atheistic scenarios of “a world that is truly and intrinsically and explosively accidental.” (The riff on “nothingness” is particularly delectable.)

“The world never slows down so that we can better grasp the story,” Wilson writes, “so that we can form study groups and drill each other on the recent past until we have total retention. We have exactly one second to carve a memory of that second, to sort and file and prioritize in some attempt at preservation. But then the next second has arrived, the next breeze to distract us, the next plane slicing through the sky, the next funny skip from the next funny toddler, the next squirrel fracas, and the next falling leaf.”

From the ridiculous to the sublime, it’s all here, never far removed from this ordinary moment of death by living: “Life is here. Life is now.”

John Wilson is the editor of Books & Culture.

Calvin’s Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

September 16

Thine Is My Heart: Devotional Readings from the Writings of John Calvin

by John Calvin (compiled by John H. Kromminga)
Reproduced from the OPC Website

Bible Text:
The morning is come unto thee, 0 thou that dwellest in the land: the time is come, the day of trouble is near, and not the sounding again of the mountains. —Ezekiel 7:7

Devotional:
We know that hypocrites commit all their sins as if no eye were upon them; as long as God is silent and at rest they revel without shame or fear. But the chosen remain faithful even in secret; but God’s word always shines before them, as Peter says—ye do well when ye attend to the Prophetic word, as a lamp shining in darkness.

Although the faithful may be surrounded by darkness, yet they direct their eye to the light of celestial doctrine, so that they are watchful, and are not children of the night and of darkness as Paul says (I Thess. 5: 4, 5).

But the impious are, as it were, immersed in darkness, and think they shall enjoy perpetual night. As the rising morning dispels the darkness of night, so also God’s judgment, on its sudden appearance, strikes the reprobate with unexpected terror, but too late. —Commentaries

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John Calvin was the premier theologian of the Reformation, but also a pious and godly Christian pastor who endeavored throughout his life to point men and women to Christ. We are grateful to Reformation Heritage Books for permission to use John Calvin’s Thine Is My Heart as our daily devotional for 2013 on the OPC Web site. You can currently obtain a printed copy of that book from Reformation Heritage Books.

Annals of Soft-Despotism

Village Idiots Run the Place

There are two kinds of despotism.  The first is the jack-boot kind, which we call hard despotism.  Think Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Kim Jong Un, and a litany of others.  The second is the progressive smothering by the regulator state where the state takes more and more responsibility for citizens and increasingly regulates their lives all in the name of protecting them, providing for them and helping them.  This is soft-despotism. 

Soft despotism was prophetically described by Alexis de Tocqueville in the nineteenth century.

 The sovereign extends its arms about the society as a whole; it covers its surface with a network of petty regulations―complicated, minute, and uniform―through which even the most original minds and the most vigorous souls know not how to make their way . . . it does not break wills; it softens them, bends them, and directs them; rarely does it force one to act, but it constantly opposes itself to one’s acting on one’s own . . . it does not tyrannize, it gets in the way: it curtails, it enervates, it extinguishes, it stupefies, and finally reduces each nation to being nothing more than a herd of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd. [“Government as Shepherd”, Contra Celsum]

We in the West are victims of this creeping soft-despotic state which seeks to regulate all things human–for our own good, of course.
  Soft-despotism is anti-human insofar as human dignity necessitates and requires taking responsibility for ourselves.  Remove that duty and responsibility and we are all consigned to being less than human, or, at best, perpetually childish.

The soft-despotic state is welcomed by slaves–or those with the heart and mind of a slave. The idea that “Master” will take care of everything is almost universal now.  Is there a problem?  “Master” will fix it.  Is there a need?  “Master” will supply it.  Is there a danger?  “Master” will protect from it. Is there a risk?  “Master” will ameliorate it.

Naturally such hubris is doomed to failure and destruction.  It destroys itself from the inside.  It cannot escape God’s covenantal Natural Law which binds all human beings, whether they are aware of it or not.  When men turn away from the Living God to idol gods of their own creation, God destroys the idols and their worshippers.  Sometimes He does this by means of external avengers: invaders, natural calamities and the like.  But more often He brings judgement by means of secondary causes, which result in a culture or society reaping the fruit of its own folly.  The lecher contracts venereal disease.  The miser becomes poor in friendship and human conviviality.  The covetous man is racked with perpetual discontent.

Since most Western citizens believe in “Master”, the soft-despotic state, we can expect that one way the Lord will bring judgment is that “Master” will prove to be pathetically incompetent and become a by-word for stupidity.  “Master” will end up being mocked.  “Master” will be ridiculed.  “Master” will end up pathetically impotent.

Here is an example of what we are describing.  “Master”, the soft-despotic state, becomes the Village Idiot.
Child entrepreneurs have had their food stalls shut down under Auckland Council food safety regulations. 

Biz Kids at The Plaza hold a monthly fair in the Whangaparaoa shopping mall. The event is designed to give children business experience and has attracted more than 30 enterprises run by kids as young as 7.

The Plaza manager Anne Murphy and business owner Christina Galvin established the Sunday morning fair where, for $10, stalls are available to children to sell products to the public.  The fair was 4 months old when the council’s environmental health unit heard about it. The council told management the food stalls, selling goods ranging from home baked cakes to decorated biscuits, contravened food safety bylaws.  Food stands, which comprise about 20 of the 32 stalls, were deemed a possible health risk under the bylaws. Shopping centre management has been forced to close all stalls selling food as a result, despite meetings between various parties to try to find a compromise. 

Mmmm.  A “possible health risk”.  How nice to know that our soft-despotic “Master” is looking out for our good, protecting us from all possible risks in this world.  How lovely the cotton wool feels on our naked baby skin.   We wanted “Master” to protect us, but now we are all being treated like idiots.  More like idolaters getting their comeuppance–that’s what’s happening. 

Naturally, “Master” has a justification:

Council environmental health manager Mervyn Chetty says his staff received a complaint from a member of the public who was concerned about food hygiene at Biz Kids.  The council is required to follow up such complaints, he says.  Officers investigated then advised shopping centre management on the rules and requirements for selling food to the public, he says.

“Biz Kids need to comply with these requirements, as do all the other food stalls, including preparing foods, particularly high-risk foods, at a registered kitchen, not at a home kitchen,” Mr Chetty says.  “Our particular concerns were around the fact that some of the foods being sold, especially quiches, are high-risk foods.”

Mr Chetty says the council has looked at various options for enabling some of the low-risk Biz Kids activities.  “We have met with the centre manager to work out a way Biz Kids can sell certain foods safely and minimise the compliance costs.”

Let’s see.  How about a large sign: “Customers Eat Food At Their Own Risk”? 

The irony in all of this is that the project was started to give kids the experience of running a small business.  Excellent idea.  But now the kids have come face to face with “Master” and they have had to face the truth.  Complying with “Master”–all for our own good and safety–makes operating a small business almost impossible.  The entrepreneurial kids have had a reality check.  They have come face-to-face with the Village Idiot, and he runs the the show. 

Books–Darwinianism Becoming More Comical

E.O. Wilson has a new explanation for consciousness, art & religion. Is it credible?

Christopher Booker  

7 September 2013 

The Spectator

 

The Social Conquest of Earth Edward O. Wilson [W.W. Norton, pp.330, £18.99, ISBN: 9780871403636]

 

His publishers describe this ‘ground-breaking book on evolution’ by ‘the most celebrated living heir to Darwin’ as ‘the summa work of Edward O. Wilson’s legendary career’. As emeritus professor of biology at Harvard, Wilson, now 84, is revered across the world as the doyen of Darwinists. And in announcing that he will offer a new answer to those three cosmic questions scrawled in the corner of a Gauguin painting — ‘Where have we come from? Who are we? Where are we going?’ — he leads us to expect some profound new insight into how a billion years of evolution have made us a species unique on earth.

Wilson introduces his ‘big idea’ by arguing that the two forms of life which, in evolutionary terms, have been most successful in ‘conquering the earth’ are those rather disconcertingly described as ‘eusocial’ — that is to say they have evolved societies based on a complex division of labour between different groups, all working for the good of the whole. On the one hand there is Homo sapiens, ourselves; on the other are the ‘eusocial’ insects, bees, wasps and ants (on which Wilson is a world expert).

If extra-terrestrials had visited earth three million years ago, Wilson suggests, they might have concluded that ‘the apex of social evolution’ had been reached by the ants: certainly not by the few thousand early australopithecines shambling across the African savannah.
But he then devotes a third of his book to rehearsing the not-unfamiliar story of how, with astonishing speed in geological terms, that handful of higher primates not much removed from apes evolved ever larger brains, became recognisably human, discovered language and an ever greater range of skills, formed complex co-operative societies, fanned out across the globe and became masters of all they surveyed.

Clearly this has not come about just through the classical Darwinian process, whereby evolution works through that infinite series of minute genetic variations which has supposedly led life step by tiny step up the evolutionary ladder. Wilson therefore falls back on the idea of ‘cultural’ or ‘multi-level evolution’, allowing successive generations to pass on each progressive step along the way, independent of genetic mutations (taking side-swipes as he does so at the ‘inclusive theory’ championed by Richard Dawkins and others, which makes ‘kinship selection’ within particular groups the main driver of the process).

But Wilson then moves on to those ‘eusocial’ insects which have long been his special subject, showing how, like mankind, ants and bees have developed societies made up of different classes — queens, workers, soldiers, drones — each making a complementary contribution to the common good, even, as with Amazonian leaf- cutter ants, practising agriculture, as they mulch chewed up leaves with their faeces, to grow a unique fungus to feed their larvae.

All this may be fascinating enough, but what Wilson completely misses out is any recognition of what is by far the most glaring difference between humans and ants. What marks out humankind as unique is the degree to which we have broken free from the dictates of instinct. We may in terms of our individual ‘ego-instincts’, such as our urges to eat, sleep, live in social groups and reproduce our species, be just as much governed by instinct as other creatures. But in all the ways in which we give expression to those urges, how we build our shelters, obtain our food, organise our societies. we are no longer guided entirely by instinct. Unlike any other species, we have become free to imagine how all these things can be done differently. Whereas one ant colony is structured exactly like another, the forms of human organisation may vary as widely as a North Korean dictatorship and a village cricket club.

It is our ability to escape from the rigid frame of instinct which explains almost everything that distinguishes human beings from any other form of life. But one looks in vain to Wilson to recognise this, let alone to explain how it could have come about in terms of Darwinian evolutionary theory. No attribute of Darwinians is more marked than their inability to grasp just how much their theory cannot account for, from all those evolutionary leaps which require a host of interdependent things to develop more or less simultaneously to be workable, that peculiarity of human consciousness which has allowed us to step outside the instinctive frame and to ‘conquer the Earth’ far more comprehensively than ants.

But it is this which also gives us our disintegrative propensity, individually and collectively, to behave egocentrically, presenting us with all those problems which distinguish us from all the other species which still live in unthinking obedience to the dictates of nature. All these follow from that split from our selfless ‘higher nature’, with which over the millennia our customs, laws, religion and artistic creativity have tried their best to re-integrate us.

Nothing is more comical about Darwinians than the contortions they get into in trying to explain those ‘altruistic’ aspects of human nature which might seem to contradict their belief that the evolutionary drive is always essentially self-centred (seen at its most extreme in Dawkins’s ‘selfish gene’ theory). Wilson’s thesis finally crumbles when he comes up with absurdly reductionist explanations for the emergence of the creative arts and religion. Forget Bach’s B Minor Mass or the deeper insights of the Hindu scriptures — as a lapsed Southern Baptist, he caricatures the religious instinct of mankind as little more than the stunted form of faith he escaped from.

His attempt to unravel what makes human nature unique is entirely a product of that limited ‘left-brain thinking’ which leads to cognitive dissonance.  Unable to think outside the Darwinian box, his account lacks any real warmth or wider understanding. Coming from ‘the most celebrated heir to Darwin’, his book may have won wide attention and praise. But all it really demonstrates is that the real problem with Darwinians is their inability to see just how much their beguilingly simple theory simply cannot explain.
 

Calvin’s Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

September 14

Thine Is My Heart: Devotional Readings from the Writings of John Calvin

by John Calvin (compiled by John H. Kromminga)
Reproduced from the OPC Website

Bible Text:
And said, Remember now, 0 Lord, I beseech thee, how I have walked before thee in truth and. with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in thy sight. And Hezekiah wept sore. —Isaiah 38:3

Devotional:
“Remember now that I have walked before thee in truth.” He does not plead his merits against God, or remonstrate with him in any respect, as if he were unjustly punished, but fortifies himself against a sore temptation, that he may not think that God is angry with him for correcting the vices and removing the corruptions which prevailed throughout the whole of his kingdom, and especially in regard to religion.

Yet the Lord permits his people even to glory, in some degree, on account of their good actions, not that they may boast of their merits before him, but that they may acknowledge his benefits, and may be affected by the remembrance of them in such a manner as to be prepared for enduring everything patiently.

But sometimes the unreasonable conduct of their enemies constrains them to holy boasting, that they may commend their good cause to their judge and avenger; as David boldly meets the wicked slanders of enemies by pleading his innocence before the judgment seat of God (Ps. 7:8; 17:2).

But here Hezekiah intended to meet the craftiness of Satan, which believers feel, when, under the pretence of humility, he overwhelms them with despair; and therefore we ought earnestly to beware lest our hearts be swallowed up by grief. —Commentaries

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John Calvin was the premier theologian of the Reformation, but also a pious and godly Christian pastor who endeavored throughout his life to point men and women to Christ. We are grateful to Reformation Heritage Books for permission to use John Calvin’s Thine Is My Heart as our daily devotional for 2013 on the OPC Web site. You can currently obtain a printed copy of that book from Reformation Heritage Books.

Perpetual War

The Injustice of Even Contemplating War in Syria

As the war drums beat over Syria the controversy about casus belli rises again.  What are the just causes for going to war?  In the Western tradition what constitutes a just cause for war has become inflated significantly in the past two hundred years.  We see the fruits of that inflation in the debates swirling in the United States at present over Syria. 

The notion of a just war is rooted in Christian doctrine and in the first Christendom.  Whilst the idea of a just war is inherently right, the details can be diabolical.  Who or what determines what is just?  When you have medieval and post-medieval rulers fixated upon their own vanities the concept of justice can be stretched to cover a mountain of vainglory.  Any insult to the Sun-King of the day becomes intolerable; to punish the malefactors becomes cast as an act of retributive justice.  Therefore, to be genuinely so, the doctrine of a just war must be grounded in a higher law which defines wherein justice actually lies, not in the vanity of vainglorious rulers or nations. 

The situation got noticeably worse during the time of doctrines of the divine right of kings.
  King Henry VIII, for example, was an absolutist tyrant–his malefaction justified by the pernicious idea that he was God’s highest representative upon earth, and therefore the absolute ruler over church and state.  Wars under such misconceptions become manifestly unjust, and that very quickly.

The Christian concept of a just war can be neatly summarised, on the one hand, and tied to the teachings of Holy Scripture, on the other, by the doctrine of “clear and present danger”.  The phrase is regnant with significance.  A clear danger is one which is beyond doubt.  It is a danger not hypothetical, contingent, or theoretical.  It is self-evident.  It is a danger which threatens life and limb of citizens. It is a danger that even the cats and dogs can see. A present danger is one which is confronting a nation immediately, not contingently or potentially. 

The concept of a just war being tied to the doctrine of a clear and present danger means that wars ought  always to be defensive in nature. 

In modern and post-modern times the justification for war has expanded way beyond the strictures of a just war based upon a clear and present danger.  There are two additional doctrines which have overtaken the restrictive, yet inherently just, concept of defensive war.  The first is a war to defend national interests.  The second is a war in the name of humanity or human rights (that is, a humanitarian war). 

Many wars in recent times have been waged to defend US interests.  Since the US is the only remaining superpower, it has interests all over the show; consequently, under the doctrine of warring to protect national interests, one can expect that the US will be at war somewhere in the world all the time.  And so it has proved to be.  The doctrine of warring to protect national interests is really a continuation of the nineteenth century nationalistic imperialist doctrines.  It is also inherently corrupt.  Who, pray tell, determines where the national interests really lie?  National interests of the many immediately parley into the commercial interests of some.  The war powers of the state become applied to defend the commercial interests of the nation’s plutocrats. 

Hence, in the case of the recent wars in Iraq there was plenty of evidence that the West was thinking of its commercial interests in protecting its supplies of oil as the fundamental driver of war.  The fact that senior members of government had long-standing commercial interests in the region made the optics much, much worse.  Justifying war to defend (or promote) national interests is a pernicious concept.  It is a ghastly hangover from the period of Western imperialism where might made right and where pride was to be protected.  Wars waged to defend national interests are inherently immoral and unjust. 

The second modern justification is going to war to defend human rights, or in the name of humanitarian ideals.  This pernicious doctrine has been the stock-in-trade of the progressive movement in the West; it is regnant in the United Nations, and it now rules the war doctrine of the United States.  It turns the US into an international policeman, a Redeemer of mankind.  It is the most useless and empty justification for war imaginable.  For, in almost every case, it leaves the particular nation unfortunate enough to suffer the depredations of a humanitarian war far, far worse off. Wars in the name of humanity can destroy; they are powerless to build, restore, and reclaim.  They can tear down, but fail to built up.

Moreover, wars waged in the name of humanitarian concerns and human rights are always erratic and hypocritical.   A classic example is the current intention of the United States government to go to war in Syria.  Why Syria, and why now?  The purported provocation is the use of poisonous gas.  Apparently killing children with poison gas is beyond the pale.  Terrible as it has been, why now?  The civil war being brutally waged in Syria has killed north of  100,000 people, many of them non-combatant women and children.  Do they not count?  Are they not just as dead?  Are their human rights nothing?  Why does 400 children killed by poison gas become a cause c’elebre for human rights to be protected and avenged, but many thousands slaughtered in an ongoing civil war be regarded as “see no evil, hear no evil”.  Hypocrisies necessarily abound because man cannot remove evil from this fallen world.  Evil is ubiquitous, and mankind is not the redeemer: he is the problem. 

Wars in the name of human rights are riddled with inconsistencies, cant, and hypocrisy.  Therefore, they themselves are inherently unjust. 

As long as the war doctrines of defending national interests and protecting human rights are clutched to the bosoms of nations there will be no ending of wars and rumours of wars.  And the US, being the last super-power, will be at war all the time. 

If the question is asked, Does the situation in Syria represent a clear and present danger to the United States? the answer is self-evidently negative.  To consider war for a moment in such a case is wrong and unjust.  But if it were asked, Does the Syrian situation represent a threat to American interests?, or Does it represent a violation of humanitarian ethics? the answer can always be made affirmatively on both counts. 

When these doctrines are applied, the United States becomes like Sauron who would always have his wars.