Creative Misrepresentation

5 Quotations that Luther Didn’t Actually Say 

Justin Taylor
Feb 20, 2014

Here are a few quotes you’ll often hear attributed to Luther, though none of them are exact actual quotes, and a few of them are things that Luther would have disagreed with!

Alleged Luther quote #1:

If I believed the world were to end tomorrow, I would still plant a tree today.

Luther didn’t say this. For a thorough discussion, see Martin Schloemann, Luthers Apfelbäumchen: Ein Kapitel deutscher Mentalitätsgeschichte seit dem Zweiten Weltkrieg (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1994), 246-251 (via Frederick Gaiser, HT: Garrett Lee). Schloemann argues that it’s not only something Luther didn’t say but wouldn’t say, unless it was put into a Christocentric eschatology emphasizing “creaturely service of neighbor and world.”

Alleged Luther quote #2:

The maid who sweeps her kitchen is doing the will of God just as much as the monk who prays—not because she may sing a Christian hymn as she sweeps but because God loves clean floors.
The Christian shoemaker does his Christian duty not by putting little crosses on the shoes, but by making good shoes, because God is interested in good craftsmanship.

Luther didn’t say this. As with the quote from the first example, Gaiser argues that it doesn’t sit very well with Luther’s actual views on vocation. The idea that God is pleased with our work because he likes quality work “would be the American work-ethic version of vocation, theologically endorsing work as an end in itself. In the hands and mouth of a modern boss, good craftsmanship and clean floors (or a clean desk or a signed contract) to the glory of God could be a potent and tyrannical tool to promote the bottom line. . . . [W]hat marks Luther’s doctrine of vocation is the insistence that the work is done in service of the neighbor and of the world. God likes shoes (and good ones!) not for their own sake, but because the neighbor needs shoes. . . .”

Alleged Luther quote #3:

If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the Word of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Him. Where the battle rages there the loyalty of the soldier is proved; and to be steady on all the battle front besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.

Luther didn’t say this exactly, but this one is closer. Denny Burk looked into this one:

Most writers quote other writers’ use of the term. The few that credit an original source cite a letter published in the Weimar edition of Luther’s works [D. Martin Luther’s Werke : kritische Gesamtausgabe (Weimarer Ausgabe) : [3. Band] Briefwechsel, ed. (Weimar: H. Böhlaus Nachfolger, 1933), 81-82]. Here’s a scan of the relevant text from the Weimar edition:

Here’s a rough translation:
“Also it does not help that one of you would say: ‘I will gladly confess Christ and His Word on every detail, except that I may keep silent about one or two things which my tyrants may not tolerate, such as the form of the Sacraments and the like.’ For whoever denies Christ in one detail or word has denied the same Christ in that one detail who was denied in all the details, since there is only one Christ in all His words, taken together or individually.”
As you can see, this does not match the first quotation, though the sentiments described in the former are similar to the latter.

Alleged Luther quote #4:

I’d rather be ruled by a wise Turk than by a foolish Christian.

Luther didn’t say this one, and wouldn’t have. Gene Veith offers an extended analysis. Here is his conclusion:

These statements by Martin Luther and their context within the various documents he wrote are more than sufficient to convince reasonable readers that Luther would never have uttered the falsely attributed quote and would never regard as a preferable desire or choice to be ruled by a Turk. [It] is not “Luther-esque” and in fact, it is diametrically opposed to the position on which we know from his writings Luther firmly stood.

Alleged Luther quote #5:

Justification is the article by which the church stands and falls.

This one is pretty close.

The first use of this exact Latin phrase (justificatio est articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae) seems to be by Lutheran theologian Balthasar Meisner—born 40 years after Luther’s death—who said that it was a “proverb of Luther” (Anthropôlogia sacra disputation 24 [Wittenberg: Johannes Gormannus, 1615]).
In 1618 Reformed theologian Johann Heinrich Alsted wrote articulus iustificationis dicitur articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae (in Theologia scholastica didacta [Hanover, 1618], p. 711)— “The article of justification is said to be the article by which the church stands or  falls.”

We don’t have record of Luther using the exact phrase, but very close: quia isto articulo stante stat Ecclesia, ruente ruit Ecclesia—“Because if this article [of justification] stands, the church stands; if this article collapses, the church collapses.” (WA 40/3.352.3)

So the famous version is more like a summary of paraphrase of his actual quote.

Douglas Wilson’s Letter From Moscow

Not Really Luther

Posted on Thursday, November 7, 2013  

By Douglas Wilson 

Blog and Mablog

We confess to referring to the quotation attributed to Luther, which urges Christians to defend the truth of God at the point at which it is facing attack.  But, according to Douglas Wilson, it would seem that Luther did not make that observation at all.  Someone else did.  It turns out the original statement is even more compelling.  [Ed]

There is a famous Luther quote that he actually didn’t say, and which my son-in-law Ben Merkle recently tracked down. Here is the quote, and it is a hummer.

“If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battlefield besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.”

The source of the quote was Elizabeth Rundle Charles, in a book called The Chronicles of the Schoenberg-Cotta Family, published in 1865. She was referring to Luther, but somewhere and somehow, it was attributed to Luther himself and has been cited merrily as such for some time.

That and, in my opinion, the one about the wise Turk and the foolish Christian. Somebody ought to track that one down.

I am posting this under Retractions because I know I have mis-cited it before, and probably more than once.

Amen

Martin Luther on How to Say Amen 

Luther: . . .

you must always speak the Amen firmly. Never doubt that God in his mercy will surely hear you and say “yes” to your prayers. Never think that you are kneeling or standing alone, rather think that the whole of Christendom, all devout Christians, are standing there beside you and you are standing among them in a common, united petition which God cannot disdain.

Do not leave your prayer without having said or thought, “Very well. God has heard my prayer; this I know as a certainty and a truth.” That is what Amen means. 

—Martin Luther, “A Practical Way to Pray” (1535), in Martin Luther’s Basic Theological Writings, 2d ed., ed. Timothy Lull (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2012), 35.

Justin Taylor

The Sacredness of the Ordinary

Hidden Away

In the novel Gilead, the aging minister, John Ames professes how as the years have passed he has more and more come to see the creation as a wonder–an awe inducing realm of which he is a part.  As he has grown older, he has come to love his own body more and more, confessing it to be fearfully and wonderfully made by God.

Such earthiness has always been a hallmark of Christian orthodoxy.  To believe in “God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth” necessarily requires we hold the creation in reverence and respect, delight and awe.

God’s Masks and God’s Speech

Living Holy Lives

Martin Luther had a profoundly biblical understanding of the creation.  He also had a profound understanding of the immanence of God in all He has made.  God is working in and through all things.  All things.  So declares the Bible (Romans 11:33-36).  So believed Martin Luther. 

One implication was that Luther had a deep respect for one’s circumstances in life.  They were a living Bible of natural revelation.  Our circumstances, he said, were comprehensively ordained and ordered by God.  They were God’s “masks”.  Behind each and every circumstance was the Person of God Himself.
In our circumstances God comes to us.  Now, since God had commanded us to love our neighbour as ourself, discovering what God wants us to be busy doing each and every day is not hard.

There is no place for inner contemplation to try to discern God’s will and calling (or vocation) for our lives.  God is speaking to us constantly and comprehensively, not only in Scripture, but in the circumstances of our lives, all of which have been personally ordained for us (and all others) by God Himself.  

Here is Gustaf  Wingren’s paraphrase of Luther’s instruction on the matter:

The incomparably clearest sign in God’s providence is that fact that we have the neighbour we actually have.  In that fact lies the law, an evidence of a definite vocation.  Uncertainty as to whether one is called is often due to regarding oneself as an isolated individual, whose “call” must come in some inward manner.

But in reality we are always bound up in relations with other people; and these relations with our neighbours must affect our vocation, since these external ties are made by God’s hands.  A craftsman’s workshop is like a Bible, in which is written how he is to conduct himself toward his neighbor.  Tools and food, needle and thimble–not excepting even “your beer-vat”–call aloud, “Use us for the well-being of your neighbour!”  Things are the vehicle of the Word of God to us.  [Gustaf Wingren, Luther on Vocation (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock), p.72.]

Wingren then goes on to quote Luther directly:

To use a rough example” If you are a craftsman you will find the Bible placed in your workshop, in your hands, in your heart; it teaches and preaches how you ought to treat your neighbour.  Only look at your tools, your needle, your thimble, your beer barrel, your articles of trade, your scales, your measures, and you will find this saying written on them.  You will not be able to look anywhere where it does not strike your eyes.  None of the things with which you deal daily are too trifling to tell you this incessantly, if you are but willing to hear it; and there is no lack of such preaching, for you have as many preachers are there are transactions, commodities, tools, and other implements in your house and estate; and they shout this to your face, “My dear, use me toward your neighbor as you want him to act toward you with that which is his.” (Ibid.)

How sad that so many Christians today are confused on this matter.  They disbelieve the clear teaching of Scripture and divide their lives up into the “secular” versus the “sacred”.  Worldly, or secular things are necessary evils.  By them we support ourselves so that we will have some spare time and money to do God’s work, the “sacred” things.  Such perversity is blind to Who God is and what He has done, and is doing, every day.  Such perversity makes us deaf to the living words of God, spoken to us loudly and clearly every day.

Reforming Spirituality

Liberation and Subjection

The Reformation was an attempt to reform Christianity, back to its historical doctrinal positions and to the Scriptures itself.  The Reformers taught that contemporary Christianity as they experienced it in Western Europe had departed significantly from the early Church fathers and the Scriptures. 

An evidence of this is how often the Reformers cite the early Church fathers in their writing.  For example, in The Institutes of the Christian Religion Calvin cites and quotes Augustine most often amongst the fathers, but the work contains wide ranging references to ante-Nicene and post-Nicene theologians and church leaders. 

One of the reformulations of the Reformation had to do with how we understand the spiritual.  For many in pre-modern Europe the notion of spirit and spiritual was more informed by neo-platonic pagan conceptions than the Scriptures.
  It was understood as being immaterial, opposed to matter and physical reality.  It was a case of body versus spirit–a dualism which ran right through all reality.  God was a pure Spirit, without corporeal reality.  Man was a dualistic being, having both body and spirit.  The more he departed from the body, as it were, ascetically subduing it, the closer he came to resemble and reflect God Himself. 

Thus, even to this day, many Christians mistakenly think that anything which involves bodily and material activity cannot be rightly thought to be spiritual.  Eating food, for example, may be a necessary activity (one shared with all other sentient creatures) but it cannot be regarded as spiritual.  Spiritual activity is attending worship, praying, reading the Bible and so forth. 

One of the reformulations of the Reformation was to recover spirit and spiritual to mean “of the Holy Spirit”, and being subject to God’s Word and to acting out of faith and trust in God Himself. In this way, one’s eating and drinking could and ought to be spiritual acts.  Here, for example, is Luther’s re-formulation:

Everything that our bodies do, the external and the carnal, is an is called spiritual behaviour, if God’s Word is added to it and it is done in faith.  There is therefore nothing which is so bodily, carnal, and external that it does not become spiritual when it is done in the Word of God and faith. [Taken from Luther’s exposition of I Corinthians 7, cited by Gustaf Wingren, Luther on Vocation (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2004 {1957}), p.70]

There are many Christians today who would find such truth radically liberating.  They would also find it to be profoundly challenging.  Every thought, word and deed must needs be sanctified and holy, and it must also be thoroughly engaged with the created world in which we live.  If there is no spiritual realm to escape to then the demands of spirituality encompass everything one is responsible to be and do in this world.  One cannot be spiritual without being engaged thoroughly in the material and the fleshly, the carnal and the bodily.

Ageless Wisdom

God Feeding Babies

Luther’s understanding of calling and vocation is startling and radical to modern ears, influenced by secularism.  But it is true to Scripture itself.  Consider the following account from Gustaf Wingren on Luther’s understanding of divine providence and the multiple offices of every human in carrying out His providence:

God creates the babes in the mother’s body–man being only an instrument in God’s hand–and then he sustains them with his gifts, brought to the children through the labors of  father and mother in their parental office.  “Even though a father is an instrument of procreation, God himself is the source and author of life.”

God himself will milk the cows through him whose vocation that is.  He who engages in the lowliness of his work performs God’s work, be he lad or king.  To give one’s office proper care is not selfishness.  Devotion to office is devotion to love, because it is by God’s own ordering that the work of the office is always dedicated to the well-being of one’s neighbour.  Care for one’s office is, in its very frame of reference on earth, participation in God’s own care for human beings. [Gustaf Wingren, Luther on Vocation, trans. by Carl C. Rasmussen (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 1957), p.9.] 

From this flow some scintillating truths.  Firstly, human work, agency, and labour is not co-labouring with God in the sense that we do something and God does something, each contributing to the whole.  Rather, God is the entire complete and whole actor; we are His servants, God working in and through us.  

Secondly, because when a mother feeds her child, God is feeding the child, and because when the soldier defends his neighbours, God is defending the neighbours, likewise all work, all human agency must be regarded as God providing and God working.  All of life, then, is holy.  All lawful work, and offices, and responsibilities are holy.  The distinction between sacred and secular evaporates. 

Luther’s Advice For Proud Preachers

Donkey Ears

Martin Luther:

If, however, you feel and are inclined to think you have made it, flattering yourself with your own little books, teaching, or writing, because you have done it beautifully and preached excellently; if you are highly pleased when someone praises you in the presence of others; if you perhaps look for praise, and would sulk or quit what you are doing if you did not get it—if you are of that stripe, dear friend, then take yourself by the ears, and if you do this in the right way you will find a beautiful pair of big, long, shaggy donkey ears.
Then do not spare any expense! Decorate them with golden bells, so that people will be able to hear you wherever you go, point their fingers at you, and say, “See, see! There goes that clever beast, who can write such exquisite books and preach so remarkably well.” That very moment you will be blessed and blessed beyond measure in the kingdom of heaven. Yes, in that heaven where hellfire is ready for the devil and his angels.

—Martin Luther, LW 34:287-288.

HT: Justin Taylor

>That Castle Church Door

>Reformation Day

Luther’s 95 Theses: An Interview with Carl Trueman

Justin Taylor

This Sunday is Halloween. But more importantly, it’s Reformation Day—when the church celebrates and commemorates October 31, 1517. It was on this day (a Saturday) that a 33-year-old theology professor at Wittenberg University walked over to the Castle Church in Wittenberg and nailed a paper of 95 theses to the door, hoping to spark an academic discussion about their contents. In God’s providence and unbeknownst to anyone else that day, it would become a key event in igniting the Reformation.

I thought it might be helpful to ask a few questions of Carl Trueman, Professor of Historical Theology and Church History, and Academic Dean, at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. Dr. Trueman wrote his dissertation on Luther’s Legacy, http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=jtertullian&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=019826352X&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifrteaches on Luther’s life and theology, and is writing the volume on Luther for the Theologians on the Christian Life series, forthcoming from Crossway, edited by Steve Nichols and me.

Had Luther ever done this before—nail a set of theses to the Wittenberg door? If so, did previous attempts have any impact?

I am not sure if he had ever nailed up theses before, but he had certainly proposed sets of such for academic debate, which was all he was really doing on October 31, 1517. In fact, in September of that same year, he had led a debate on scholastic theology where he said far more radical things than were in the Ninety-Five Theses. Ironically, this earlier debate, now often considered the first major public adumbration of his later theology, caused no real stir in the church at all.

What was the point of nailing something to the Wittenberg door? Was this a common practice?

It was simply a convenient public place to advertise a debate, and not an unusual or uncommon practice. In itself, it was no more radical than putting up an announcement on a public notice board.

What precisely is a “thesis” in this context?

A thesis is simply a statement being brought forward for debate.

What was an “indulgence”?

An indulgence was a piece of paper, a certificate, which guaranteed the purchaser (or the person for whom the indulgence was purchased) that a certain amount of time in purgatory would be remitted as a result of the financial transaction.

At this point did Luther have a problem with indulgences per se, or was he merely critiquing the abuse of indulgences?

This is actually quite a complicated question to answer.

First, Luther was definitely critiquing what he believes to be an abuse of indulgences. For him, an indulgence could have a positive function; the problem with those being sold by Johann Tetzel in 1517 is that remission of sin’s penalty has been radically separated from the actual repentance and humility of the individual receiving the same.

Second, it would appear that the Church herself was not clear on where the boundaries were relative to indulgences, and so Luther’s protest actually provoked the Church into having to reflect upon her practices, to establish what was and was not legitimate practice.

Was Luther trying to start a major debate by nailing these to the door?

The matter was certainly one of pressing pastoral concern for him. Tetzel was not actually allowed to sell his indulgences in Electoral Saxony (the territory where Wittenberg was located) because Frederick the Wise, Luther’s later protector, had his own trade in relics. Many of his parishioners, however, were crossing over into the neighboring territory of Ducal Saxony, where Tetzel was plying his trade.

Luther had been concerned about the matter of indulgences for some time. Thus, earlier in 1517, he had preached on the matter and consulted others for their opinions on the issue. By October, he was forced by the pastoral situation to act.

Having said all that, Luther was certainly not intending to split the church at this point or precipitate the Holy Roman Empire and the Papacy into conflict and crisis. He was simply trying to address a deep pastoral concern.

Was Luther a “Protestant” at this point? Was he a “Lutheran”?

No, on both counts. He himself tells us in 1545 that, in 1517, he was a committed Catholic who would have murdered—or at least been willing to see murder committed—in the name of the Pope. There is some typical Luther hyperbole there, but the theology of the Ninety-Five Theses is not particularly radical, and key Lutheran doctrines, such as justification by grace through faith alone, are not yet present. He was an angry Catholic, hoping that, when the Pope heard about Teztel, he would intervene to stop the abuse.

How did that act of nailing these theses to the door ignite the Reformation?

On one level, I am inclined to say “Goodness only knows.” As a pamphlet of popular revolution, it is, with the exception of the occasional rhetorical flourish, a remarkably dull piece of work which requires a reasonably sound knowledge of late medieval Catholic theology and practice even to understand many of its statements. Nevertheless, it seems to have struck a popular chord, being rapidly translated into German and becoming a bestseller within weeks. The easy answer is, therefore, “By the providence of God”; but, as a historian, I always like to try to tie things down to some set of secondary or more material causes.http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=jtertullian&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=080103180X&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr


Certainly, it was used in a way that appealed to popular anti-clericalism, resentment of the Roman curia, and a desire to stop money flowing out of German speaking territories to Rome. Yet, even so, the revolutionary power of such a technical composition is, in retrospect, still quite surprising.

For those today who want to read the 95 Theses, what would you recommend?

The place to start is probably Stephen Nichols’s edition (with an introduction and notes).

Nevertheless, if you really want to understand Luther’s theology, and why it is important, you will need to look beyond the Ninety-Five Theses. Probably the best place to start would be Robert Kolb and Charles P. Arand, The Genius of Luther’s Theology.

For younger readers, we recommend Paul Maierhttp://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=jtertullian&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0758606265&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr’s excellent book, Martin Luther: A Man Who Changed the World.

>Tough Love, Luther-Style

>Robust Friendship

When self-pity or narcissism tempts, consider Luther’s letter to his good friend, Philip Melanchthon (June 27, 1530) who was at that time afflicted with the blues.

Those great cares by which you say you are consumed I vehemently hate; they rule your heart not on account of the greatness of the cause but by reason of the greatness of your unbelief. . . .

If our cause is great, its author and champion is great also, for it is not ours. Why are you therefore always tormenting yourself?

If our cause is false, let us recant; if it is true, why should we make him a liar who commands us to be of untroubled heart?

Cast your burden on the Lord, he says. The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him with a broken heart. Does he speak in vain or to beasts? . . .

What good can you do by your vain anxiety?

What can the devil do more than slay us? What after that?

I beg you, so pugnacious in all else, fight against yourself, your own worst enemy, who furnish Satan with arms against yourself. . . .

I pray for you earnestly and am deeply pained that you keep sucking up cares like a leech and thus rendering my prayers vain.

Christ knows whether it is stupidity or bravery, but I am not much disturbed, rather of better courage than I had hoped.

God who is able to raise the dead is also able to uphold a falling cause, or to raise a fallen one and make it strong.

If we are not worthy instruments to accomplish his purpose, he will find others.

If we are not strengthened by his promises, to whom else in all the world can they pertain?

But saying more would be pouring water into the sea. (Hat Tip: Justin Taylor)

We note in passing that Luther himself was at times afflicted with bouts of depression and great discouragement. One wonders if Melanchthon returned the boon to Luther from time to time.

The story is told that Luther’s wife, Katie was also able to administer tough love.. In one of his down times Luther had been moping about the study for days. Apparently Katie suddenly came in dressed in black mourning clothes. Startled, Luther stood up and asked who had died. “God has”, said Katie. “Otherwise, how else can your melancholia be excused.”

The story may be apocryphal, but the point is apt. And given his letter to Melancthon, it is a jibe to which Luther would have assented wholeheartedly.

>The Dreaded "H"

>The Significance of “Whanganui”

Martin Luther once quipped that the only part of the human anatomy the Pope had not sought to control was the rear end. But the Pope of Martin’s day had nothing on modern western democratic governments. The control being exerted over human life by our government is unconscionable–and would have been inconceivable to both Luther and the sixteenth century papacy.

Should “Wanganui” be spelt with an “h” or not? This momentous issue, upon which the fortunes of millions of people depend, has been deliberated upon and decided by an organ of government (“The New Zealand Geographic Board”). For those readers qualifying as complete ignoramuses who had not even heard of the esteemed Board, we will do our best to fill in the obvious yawning chasms in your head by instructing you more perfectly:

The New Zealand Geographic Board Ngā Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa (NZGB) assigns, approves, alters or discontinues the use of names for geographic features (eg place names), undersea features and Crown protected areas in New Zealand, its offshore islands and its continental shelf and the Ross Sea region of Antarctica.

NZGB legislation

The NZGB is a statutory body of government operating under the New Zealand Geographic Board (Ngā Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa) Act 2008 and reporting to the Minister for Land Information.
(http://www.linz.govt.nz/placenames/about-geographic-board/index.aspx)

Now before we animadvert upon the decision to change the spelling of “Wanganui” to “Whanganui” we want to set some wider context. Firstly, on the relentless growth of government in the United States, the so-called “land of the free”. David L. Bahnsen asks, Are you getting what you are paying for?”

I am borrowing this from newsletter guru, John Mauldin, who apparently borrowed it from The Privateer. It is verifiably true, and stunning beyond words.

In 1909 the federal government had an annual budget of $0.8 billion (yep, just $800 million). The population was 90 million. The cost of government was $9 per capita. In 2009, the federal government had a budget of $3,550 billion (yep, $3.55 trillion). The population is just over 300 million. That is a cost of $11,675 per capita.

So, are we 1,200x better off than we were 100 years ago in government services? 1,200x. Stew on it.

Conservatives err when they solely focus on the unaffordable nature of present government. It is too big, period. Too expensive, yes. Irresponsibly expensive, yes. And just too big. 1,200x more expensive (adjusted for population growth, mind you) than 100 years ago. Anyone care to compound the math out another 100 years? Heaven help us.

Government is just too big, period. That’s the real point. That is what would have gobsmacked Luther and the Pope. But how did it come to this? At root such things are always religious: it is the dominant religion of our age which has produced such a calamity.

That leads us to our second contextual observation. One of the most penetrating and prescient pieces of writing on modern government we have ever come across is reproduced below. It is from the pen of Alexis de Toqueville, writing in the first half of the nineteenth century. If you find yourself shaking your head at the furore over the dreaded “h” in “Wanganui”, and wondering with King Theoden, “How did it ever come to this?” then de Toqueville explains:

I would like to imagine with what new traits despotism could be produced in the world. I see an innumerable multitude of men, alike and equal, who turn about without repose in order to procure for themselves petty and vulgar pleasures with which they fill their souls. Each of them, withdrawn apart, is a virtual stranger, unaware of the fate of others: his children and his particular friends form for him the entirety of the human race; as for his fellow citizens, he is beside them but he sees them not; he touches them and senses them not; he exists only in himself and for himself alone, and, if he still has a family, one could say at least that he no longer has a fatherland.

Over these is elevated an immense, tuletary power, which takes sole charge of assuring their enjoyment and of watching over their fate. It is absolute, attentive to detail, regular, provident, and gentle. It would resemble the paternal power if, like that power, it had as its object to prepare men for manhood, but it seeks, to the contrary, to keep them irrevocably fixed in childhood; it loves the fact that the citizens enjoy themselves provided that they dream solely of their own enjoyment. It works willingly for their happiness, but it wishes to be the only agent and the sole arbiter of that happiness. It provides for their security, foresees and supplies their needs, guides them in the principal affairs, directs their industry, regulates their testaments, divides their inheritances. . . .

After having taken each individual in this fashion by turns into its powerful hands, and after having kneaded him in accord with its own desires, the sovereign extends its arms about the society as a whole; it covers its surface with a network of petty regulation–complicated, minute, and uniform–through which even the most original minds and most vigorous souls know not how to make their way past the crowd and emerge into the light of day. It does not break wills; if softens them, bends them, directs them; rarely does it force one to act, bit it constantly opposes itself to one’s acting on one’s own; it does not destroy, it prevents things from being born; it does not tyrannize, it gets its own way; it curtails, it enervates, it extinguishes, it stupifies, and finally it reduces each nation to nothing more than a herd of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.
Cited by Paul A. Rahe, Soft Despotism, Democracy’s Drift (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), p. vi.

Despotism is back in the world–with a vengeance. Soft despotism–all embracing, all smothering. It “extends its arms about the society as a whole; it covers its surface with a network of petty regulation–complicated, minute, and uniform . . . “. It has reduced us “to nothing more than a herd of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.” That is the real significance of the government ordered and commanded “h” in “Wanganui”.

In our world the soft despotism of our government controls not just the rear end of the human anatomy, but the front end–and everything else in between. Luther and the Pope would have been aghast. But we . . . ? Let’s just say it feels nice, and safe, and comfortable.

>When Titans Clash

>Antony Flew: Celebrated Convert or Believer in Drag?

Every culture and every “ism” likes its heroes. Not only in sport, but even in intellectual discourse, or matters of public debate, people love the spectacle of the titans clashing. We all love gladiatorial combat. Imagine, for example, how the media would relish a debate between Al Gore and Bjorn Lomborg. They would see their respective hero doing valiant battle on their behalf.

Christians are no exception. We too have our heroes of the faith, our trophies, our Abraham’s, our David’s, our Luther’s. Recently many Christians have been cheered by the the prospect of another heroic trophy joining the ranks. One of the more notoriously intellectual atheists, Antony Flew has recently renounced atheism and pronounced his belief in a god. Now, Flew is 85, and some have churlishly claimed that his newfound belief represents the beginning of senile dementia and is not to be taken seriously. Flew, however, insists that he is of sound mind, and his position is based on inexorable rationalistic logic.

This has got many within Jerusalem excited. They have gotten even more excited because recently Flew has reviewed Dawkins’s The God Delusion, and judges Dawkins to be a secular bigot. Wow. This is significant. Flew is a big hitter, once adjudged to be the world’s most influential philosophical atheist. We guess that appellation will no long apply, but he appears to have come over to “our side”.

But as they say in the movies, “Not so fast.” We need to be far more discerning and critical here. The naïve credulity of many Christians is unbecoming. Oftentimes we are so desperate for good press that we will clutch at any straw.

Let’s be very, very clear. Antony Flew, whatever opinions he holds and whatever beliefs he may have, does not believe in God; the God Who has revealed Himself in the Holy Scriptures; the God Who created all things—the entire universe—out of nothing by the utterance of His Word, in the space of six days; the God Who announces things from the beginning and from ancient times things which have not yet taken place, saying that He will do all things that please Him; and the God Who is One in three Persons. He apparently believes in a god. But then the Philistines believed in a god—in fact several of them. The Babylonians believed in Bel and Marduk. They were idolaters, and so, we regret to say, is Antony Flew.

Is this harsh? No, it is simply truthful and realistic. Flew has moved his position to one of being a deist. A deist, Flew tells us, is one who believes in the existence of a god (Flew writes “God”) but not, he tells us, the God of any revelation. Thus, whatever god Flew now believes in, it is not the God of the Scriptures. And to be blunt—but fair—if you are standing upon the holy ground of the Scriptures, you are bound to aver that since Flew does not believe in the God Who has revealed Himself in the Holy Scriptures, he must believe in a false god, an idol. An idol is a god of human construction and making. If you are standing upon God’s ground, upon His holy Word, and there is no other ground upon which a Believer may stand, there is no other position to take.

Thus, in scriptural terms, Antony Flew remains an idolater. We say “remains” deliberately. All Unbelievers are idolaters—whether they profess belief in a god or not. All atheists are idolaters, believing in some kind of god, personal or impersonal. All Unbelievers believe something to be ultimate. All Unbelievers ground their belief in the mind and heart of Man as the ultimate basis for truth. They will inevitably point to some evidence, some argument, something which they find acceptable, which warrants their ultimate belief.

Richard Dawkins is a prime example. He is a useful illustration of the point because, on the one hand, he denies the existence of any god. He is an atheist. But, on the other hand, the ultimate ground for his position is the ratiocinations of his (and his colleagues’) minds. Dawkins worships and serves his rationalistic faculty—which is to say that he worships and serves Man. The world is as Dawkins declares it to be. Further, the entire universe is as Dawkins declares it to be. Dawkins is not only his own self-interpreter, but the interpreter of every human being, the entire human race. He knows infallibly and authoritatively the ultimate truth about every human being that has ever lived or ever will live—or so he claims. He believes the entire human race conforms to “Dawkins-truth”.

Dawkins presumes to proclaim something truthful—truthful in an ultimate sense—about everything. In this sense, Dawkins is claiming omniscience. Further, since his mind and his declaration of “Dawkins-truth” has encompassed the entire universe he is also claiming he has a meaningful omnipresence throughout all reality, past, present, and future. These attributes, of course, are all attributes of deity. Dawkins is an idolater. He worships Man, and, in particular, Man as he is manifested and incarnated in himself.

Oh, and let us not decamp from the altar of Dawkins, without observing that these truth claims to say something universal and meaningful about all reality, about the entire universe, about the universal past, present, and future, are grounded upon the Dawkins-enunciated truth of the ultimate irrationality of the universe. Yes. Incredible, but true. This is why the Scripture says of Unbelievers: “professing to be wise, they became fools.” Could anyone be so stupid? Yes. It is the stock-in-trade of all Unbelief.

Flew worships the same god as Dawkins, albeit now in slightly different dress. His ratiocinations have led him to make similar claims about his own (Flew’s) omniscience and his own omnipresence, but the difference with Dawkins is that he has arrived at a position where he wants to project his rationalising outside himself on to a being of some kind—which he calls god. This mental construct forms the useful function of offering an explanation for what Flew cannot explain. The attributes of this god are as Flew reveals them. He who reveals a god on the ground of his own ratiocinations, is god. Flew’s world-view or religion has the presumption to think that the infinite mind of god and the finite mind of man are one and the same thing. But this is precisely the same world-view to which Dawkins also holds.

The debate between Flew and Dawkins is inter-mural, not intra-mural. It is a debate between the equally idolatrous. It is an argument over the respective merits of two idols. But Dawkins and Flew have a common ground—common ground that is both deep and broad. Both believe that all meaning, the infallible revelation and interpretation of all being and the whole universe, resides in the mind of Man.

They remain as true seed of the Serpent. Flew, regrettably, is not a hero of the Faith. Neither will he become so, unless it pleases the Spirit to regenerate him from above. But then he will delight to profess the one true God, and Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, our Lord.

>ChnMind 1:12 The Imperial Power of The Christian Faith

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Not by might, not by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord of hosts. (Zechariah 4:6)

Some cultures are weak and insipid. They become subjugated. Some emerge initially as powerful, only to die away. Others are, and remain potent. Jerusalem’s culture is the most powerful of all. It alone has the power, the resources, the inspiration, the hope, and the will to subdue all the earth.

The Christian Mind is one attuned to power and might. It seeks after power. But the power that it seeks is not that which comes from the sword. It is not that which comes from forced domination. It is not the power of politics or government. It does not come from lording it over others. It does not come from great wealth.

The power-complex of Jerusalem is diametrically opposed to the power-complex of Athens. Messiah Jesus charactertises the antithesis as follows: “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. It is not so among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be the first among you shall be your slave; just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20: 26, 27) The power complex of Jerusalem is distinct in its origin; it is distinct in its application.

The power of Jerusalem is spiritual power—which is to say that it comes from the Holy Spirit. This spiritual power is not anti-material—which is the old Athenian heresy—but it is influence over the entire creation which comes doing all things spiritually—that is, doing all things under the control and direction of God. Secondly, it is ministerial in its application, not lording it over others. Above all, Jerusalem seeks to minister to, or serve the Living God. This requires, in turn, that it is dedicated to the service of the creation. As Jerusalem serves all mankind and the entire creation, it subdues everything. Spirituality means doing all things in creation according to the will and command of the Creator. As Jerusalem ministers in this fashion, she becomes enormously powerful.

Which is more powerful (influential): the Formula One race car or the John Deere tractor? The correct answer depends on whether we are working on a farm or racing at Le Mans. When the tractor does the work for which it was designed and intended, it becomes extremely powerful, able to influence much in the creation order. Similarly with the racing car. When man starts to believe, think, live and act in the way intended and prescribed by the Lord, he becomes exponentially more potent and influential. The power of God to influence and fructify the creation flows through him.

Below are some of the keys to Jerusalem’s power in the world—for Jerusalem is the city made up of people seeking to serve God, according to God’s direction, in God’s world. It is a city of people seeking to bring every thought and act into subjection to His Christ, Who is the head of the new human race.

The Holiness of Creation

The first building block of imperial Jerusalem is to regard all of life as holy and sanctified. Not only has every part of me (heart, soul, strength and mind) to be set aside for holy service to serve God, but all of creation is likewise holy—regarded as belonging to God, and created for His glory and honour. This includes every atom of the entire creation. It is universally valid. Whenever Jerusalem has been persuaded by Athenian whispers that parts of the creation are intrinsically evil and to be disregarded, she has lost spiritual power. God’s covenant is with all that He has created, and he who refuses to accept this, loses spiritual traction and power. “Every square inch for Christ,” is the imperialist slogan of Jerusalem.

Mircea Eliade in his classic volume, The Sacred and the Profane argues that all religions have the motif of two realms: the sacred (special, holy, divine) and the profane (ordinary, common). The Christian faith has this motif as well: when we worship God, particularly gathering with His people to worship on the Lord’s day, we are engaging in a holy activity,unlike any other. “Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy. . . . Therefore the Lord blessed the seventh day and made it holy.” (Exodus 20: 8,11) However, the Christian construct of the profane is very different from Athenian religions. For the Christian all of the creation is holy unto the Lord: Christian worship is declared to be particularly holy because it is a celebration of that fact before the Lord. Thus, the Christian sacred/profane distinction is one of focus, not a distinction of being.

Because Jerusalem self-consciously belongs to the all-creating-One, it knows that everything lives and moves and has its being in God. Therefore, everything in the creation belongs to God for His disposition and purpose—and, in that sense, everything is holy to the Lord. “The Lord has made everything for its own purpose; even the wicked for the day of evil,” declares the Proverb. (Proverbs 16:4) As Jerusalem carries out its duties and responsibilities under the Cultural Mandate—going forth to fill the earth, multiply in it, and subdue it—it sees these as acutely holy and spiritual activities.

God Milking the Cows

A second key building block of Jerusalem’s power lies in the concept of vocation or calling. The Cultural Mandate represents a general divine calling by God to man to rule over the creation, subdue it, and cause its potentiality to become actuality. Within that call are manifold individual callings or tasks which come to every man—whether he will acknowledge it or not, obey or not. Jerusalem’s distinctness is reflected insofar as Jerusalem is the city where the inhabitants acknowledge their callings and vocations and seek to carry them out with faithfulness and energy.

God calls some to be teachers, some to be artisans, some to be greenkeepers, some to be judges, and so forth—to represent Him and carry out His work in the creation. Within Jerusalem these tasks are radically and acutely spiritual duties, as spiritual as praying, meditating, giving, or worshiping. The classical text in this regard is found in Exodus 35:30—31, where God provided skilled craftsmen to build the ark and tabernacle: “then Moses said to the sons of Israel, ‘See the Lord has called by name Bezalel, the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah. And He has filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom, in understanding and in knowledge and in all craftsmanship.’” Being Spirit filled meant that Bezalel became a wonderful craftsman.

As Jerusalem embraces the concept of vocation, its citizens prosecute their respective duties and callings with great energy, passion, excitement and skill—because they are spiritual services of worship to Christ the King. Herein lies the source of Jerusalem’s power and influence over the world.

The Protestant Reformation has been viewed as a time of great progress in the Christian faith. However, in may ways, it was not progress, but a recovery (a re-formation) of vital life that had been lost, or had become deeply infected with the idolatry of Athens. Luther, reacting against the limp “other worldliness” of the church of his day, and reflecting instead upon what was taught in Scripture, declared that the plough boy, engaged in his furrows, was involved in just as spiritual and holy a task as the most eminent and effective preacher. The work of the plough boy was as spiritual as the great doctor, Luther. Still further, Luther declared that when the milk maid milked the cows, God was milking the cows! That is how spiritual the activity was and is.

In declaring this, Luther was saying nothing new, but was restating in idiomatic force and colour what God had revealed to the Church in the time of the building of the tabernacle. Paul reiterated this when he declared, “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God,” (I Corinthians 10:31); and, “Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father” (Ephesians 3:17); and, “Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men,” (Ephesians 3:23).

Athens, in denial of the Creator, has no mandate to rule over the earth. It is gnawed with uncertainty, doubt, and guilt over the place of man upon the earth. If you ask an Athenian whether the world would be a better place if mankind were not in it, most would affirm that it would be better if man were not here at all. Nature would be far better off, left alone, without man, the great destroyer. For the Athenian who asserts that man has a right to rule and subdue Nature, if you ask where that right comes from and in what it resides, the only answer Athens can provide is that man’s right to rule the world arises from his ability to do so. If you can, you have a right to. Might makes right. In either case, Athenians at root, are gnawed with the suspicion that mankind’s presence and activity in the world is immoral and evil.

Cultural Power Explodes Under the Reformation

Medieval Christianity was deeply infected with Athenian platonic thought. It was virtually universally believed that the material world was unspiritual and warred against the “true” concerns of God’s kingdom. True spirituality could be achieved only by escaping from the cares, distractions, and concerns to do with the material aspects of life. In other words, medieval Christianity had adopted the pagan view of the sacred and the profane. The Reformation—a widespread return to the Word of God as infallible and final authority over all of life—reversed a great deal of Athenian unbelief in this area. Consequently, as significant parts of Europe returned to a more biblical view, the believing community became empowered, and much more influential over all areas of life. Economic growth exploded, wealth increased, and the creation was more powerfully subdued, leading to a greater unfolding of latent potentialities than ever before.

The impotence of medieval culture and its inability to exercise dominion and power over the earth began to be replaced as Jerusalem started throwing down some of the more pervasively worshiped idols in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. As a result prosperity began to increase. (A perusal of Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism [trans. by Talcott Parsons, (London and New York: Routledge, 1992, first published by HarperCollins in 1930], gives the case for demand side economic growth under the influence of the Reformation. The supply side case is found in Robert B Ekelund, Robert F Hebert, and Robert D Tollison, “Protestantism and Capitalism: A Supply-Side View,” [www.terry.uga.edu/~selgin/files/Tollison2.pdf. ])

Under the influence of biblical faith, all of life came to be seen as a holy calling, and all work spiritual. Feast days were abolished—which had accounted for about one third of all annual work days. Instead of six days of labour, the medieval man and his wife had their work week reduced to four days (the 30 hour week!)—as they wasted time attending endless and increasing feast days. Scarce capital and labour was re-allocated from monumental cathedral construction projects which consumed the resources of generations, pilgrimages, paying for religious festivals, and the construction and sale of pilgrim souvenirs (all designed to help people escape the mundane material world) to far more productive uses related to subduing the creation and causing its potentiality to unfold. As Ekelund, et al. state, “The important thing here is that there was a supply side effect of Protestantism on the labour supply. Festivals, pilgrimages, holy days, and widespread feasting . . . meant a large withdrawal of work effort.” (Ibid., p. 25.)

In addition the number of people materially supported in various capacities within the church was sharply reduced under the Reformation. The medieval church had, not only a profusion of monastic orders, but a wide variety of classes of officers and functionaries within them. Outside the monastic orders, the ecclesiastical establishment (the clergy) was represented in a vast array of offices, positions, and livings. All these offices were regarded as more holy spiritual than the the “office” of plough boy. The Reformation did away with all this leech-like waste.

Incidentally, the medieval church’s adoption of the Athenian sacred versus secular distinction, did not arise out of nothing. It had its roots in pagan Rome. The medieval church did significant damage to Jerusalem by welcoming and abetting the insinuation of Greek idolatry into the holy city—and it was comprehensively done, so much so that it became largely an unconscious development. The development of a feast-day-economy came from Imperial Rome. At the end of the Roman Empire the number of pagan feast days had reached to between 175 and 200 per year. (Webster Hutton, Rest Days: The Christian Sunday, the Jewish Sabbath and Their Historical and Anthropological Prototypes [New York: The MacMillan Company, 1916], pp. 305,6) Many of the “Christian” festivals were borrowed from this pagan calendar—both as to frequency and spirit. The polity and culture of Imperial Rome in the end crumbled under this dead weight. Rome—which had earlier prided itself on its engineering brilliance—drowned itself in mysticism and superstition. Without a Believing Mind, Imperial Rome could not continue to subdue the earth. Its original vigorous practical pragmatism became an attenuated shadow of impotent superstition and ignorance.

Under the Protestant Reformation, there was a significant increase in the demand and supply equations of both capital and labour. This, coupled with what Weber called the Protestant Ethic, meant that post-medieval man was powerfully effective, far more so than centuries of predecessors, in subduing the creation. It serves as a signal demonstration of the imperial power of Jerusalem—power that comes from faithful service to God—over the creation.

When a people or culture work in the way that God has commanded and intends, that culture will become enormously powerful. Ultimately, that power and influence flows to Jerusalem, for she is the City of God. Athens has a name for being alive and potent, but it is dead. The Unbelieving Mind, ever gnawed by the uncertainty of that about which it does not know and cannot speak, by the uncertainty of the random other, is weak, and like Rome of old, will fall before the dead weight of its superstitions. The Believing Mind ever seeks to achieve and wield true, spiritual ministerial power, ultimately exercising enormous influence over mankind and the creation. It is overtly and nakedly ambitious for the glory of God in Christ to be revealed in an ever-increasing panorama.

The Christian Mind seeks the power over the world that arises from being a faithful servant of God.