Sabbath Meditations #4

The Resurrected Cosmos

The Sabbath Day under the Old Covenant was celebrated weekly on the seventh day. The symbolism is significant and links back to the creation of the universe. For six days God engaged in the work of creation. On the seventh He rested.

Under the Old Covenant the duty of God's people was to go forth and subdue the creation, be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. On the seventh day they rested, and celebrated. They brought all their work before the Lord for His blessing. They enjoyed the wonderful experience of deep communion with the Lord. He walked among them. In corporate gatherings they celebrated the warmth of human community together before God.

The more productive and blessed their labours in the six days previous, the more blessed their sabbath celebration. If, however, they had experienced six days of wearying struggle without much apparent progress, their sabbath was a blessed respite in which they would find solace, nurture, and new strength.

All of these realities and experiences continue to be true for believers under the New Covenant. The basic six days of labour, one day of rest pattern continues. However, there is one very significant change: the day of celebration was changed from the seventh to the first day of the week. The Gospels are all explicit: Jesus rose on the first day of the week; it was the day named subsequently by the apostles as “the Lord's Day”, and it became the day of holy, blessed, and joyful convocation where God's people gathered to commune with their risen Lord.

Just like the seventh day sabbath, the symbolism is very significant. In tying the sabbath institution to the first day, it was ever after to be understood as a rest which involves resurrection. This is the sabbath rest which was remains for the people of God. (Hebrews 4:9) We may put it this way. Up until the time of the sacrifice of our Lord and His being raised from the dead, the cosmos was under the realm of creation. From the time of Christ and the accomplishment of His work upon earth, followed by His entering into His perpetual work in heaven, the cosmos has been under the realm of re-creation.

Resurrection—life from the dead. Re-creating all things around the lordship of Christ. In the New Covenant, we re-create before we work. We celebrate resurrection life with Christ, before we go out to bring that life to the world. Our six days of labour are now a work of re-creation of all things into newness of life. The sabbath is a commencement, not a conclusion.

All of these things were implicit amongst the people of God under the Old Covenant, since the Old Covenant was grounded in God's saving grace, which would be made effective and applicable in the work of Christ. But under the New Covenant these things are explicit—not just because we can far more clearly understand, see, and comprehend the salvation wrought by God in His Son—but also because the whole cosmos has now come under the reign of that grace. Now is the day of salvation unto the whole world.

The entire creation is awaiting its full resurrection into the glory God prepared beforehand. That glory will see all things being summed up in Christ, things in the heavens and things upon the earth. (Ephesians 1:10) That glory is progressively coming to pass as the Lord Jesus brings and replicates His resurrection life upon the earth. Life will be brought out of death, as far as the curse is found. The Son of God appeared—incarnate, crucified, resurrected, ascended, coronated, and enthroned—that He might destroy the works of the Devil. (I John 3:8)

The symbolism of Scripture is never empty or vain. By using and deploying the symbols of the Bible, we enter into the reality symbolised, by faith. Every Lord's Day, when the covenant people of God cease from work and gather for celebration and worship, they not only symbolise resurrected life, they actually enter into it.

They commence the week before the Throne of God, entering into the new life, the life of God's Spirit, Who will shape and fructify all their subsequent six days of labour. By our lives, by our work on the subsequent six days we will be bringing life out of death, recreation out of deformation, resurrection out of the grave. We who were dead in our tresspasses and sins have been made alive together with Christ. We go forth to bring that new life, and all its universal implications, to all that God has entrusted to us.

The Decline and Fall of the Fourth Reich

The Unmentionable J-Word

There is an intriguing debate occurring, mainly in academic Roman Catholic and Anglican circles, on the current state and prognosis of Europe.

There are those who argue that the end of Europe “as we have known it” is inevitable. Europe is a dying continent. It has deserted its historical roots, has supinely lain itself down in the false love of promiscuous tolerance, has gutted residual unifying national identities with the cleaver of the European Union—a bureaucrat's paradise—and has deliberately turned its back upon its Christian roots and worshipped at the altar of pagan secularism.

Marriage as an institution is finished. Birth rates are falling. It is afflicted with “metaphysical boredom.” Because Europe stands for nothing, it will fall for anything. Most likely it will fall to Islam—which has clearly set its sights on taking over the continent, reversing the defeats it suffered in 732 at the Battle of Tours and in 1683 when it almost captured Vienna, the seat of the Holy Roman Empire.

Protagonists in this camp include George Weigel, Bernard Lewis, Daniel Pipes, Bat Y'eor, and Mark Steyn.

The opposing side, while acknowledging that Europe is “not in a good place” at the moment, argues that the doomsayers overstate the case. Much of Islamic influence in Europe is a paper tiger; Islamic immigrants tend to be poor and their religion cultural; as they assimilate into Europe they become just as secular as society. While institutional religion has all but died in Europe there are surprising signs of informal Christian faith. The leading protagonist of this view is Philip Jenkins, Professor of History and Religious Studies at Penn State University. (A good introduction to the debate by Richard John Neuhaus can be found at The Much Exaggerated Death of Europe.)

By all accounts Europe offers some striking parallels with Judah during the time of the Kings, when institutional faith had all but died out, the Temple being firstly filled with idol altars and worship, then closed completely, then reopened, only to become a centre of idolatry again. Or a further parallel is provided by the Inter-Testamental Period when the covenant faith was radically compromised by an onslaught of hellenic religion and its attendant cultural practices. The only way Israel's religious and political elite could see to survive was to join up with the hellenic tidalwave—and so they did. Ultimately this resulted in the great judgement of AD 68—70.

For modern Europe, substitute the secular humanistic tidalwave for the hellenic tidal wave and we see an historical pattern playing out again. An eerie thing is that secular humanism of Europe is really hellenism revived in modern garb. The religious and philosphical motifs are the same. It is the same Hydra.

In the debate referred to above there is one glaring lacunae—the J-word. We refer of course to God's Judgement of nations and peoples. While for modern academics the notion may seem a little strange or extreme—a little academically non PC—the Scripture is blindingly and persistently clear. The Governor of history is the Lord of Hosts. Has it ever not struck you as strange that one of the most frequently employed names for God in the Old Covenant is the name “Lord of Hosts”—which speaks of His militant activity in the world on behalf of His Kingdom and people—is virtually never uttered or heard of today? What does that tell us about modern misconceptions of our Lord?

In this regard many forget that the Ascension of our Lord to the right hand of God was to assume the responsibilities of Universal Commander-In-Chief for war—total war. He was invested as the Lord of Hosts. All His enemies He will cast down.

There is a grimly amusing event recorded in Joshua when the great Captainof Israel was before Jericho, contemplating the battle to come. We read,

“Now it came about when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing opposite him with his sword drawn in his hand, and Joshua went to him and said to him, 'Are you with us or for our adversaries?'

And he said, 'No, rather I indeed come now as Captain of the host of the Lord.' And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and bowed down, and said to him, 'What has my Lord to say to his servant?'

And the Captain of the Lord's host said to Joshua, 'Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing his holy.' And Joshua did so.”

Joshua 5:13—15

It is amusing that Joshua, the great Captain of Israel, did not protest and say, “Captain of the Lord's Host—that's my job.” He knew immediately that he was in the presence of the Lord, the pre-incarnate Christ, and he fell on his face and worshipped. This is a picture of the Son of Man as He is now.

Similarly, Jesus Himself warned the High Priest that he would live to see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven to judge him and all Israel. (Matthew 26: 62—64) Jesus was about to depart from His humiliation, rise from the dead and ascend to heaven to take up the duties and responsibilities of the Universal Commander in Chief of the Lord's Host. Look out!

So while modern Christian academia apparently finds the notion of God's judgment of nations and cultures somewhat offensive, even crude, the Scriptures leave us in no doubt.

What then can we say of Europe? Firstly, it is populated by people who have been granted the light of the Gospel for generations. Their spiritual privileges have been immense. Their covenantal opportunities extensive. But in general the last three hundred years have witnessed a persistent turning away and a rising tide of idolatry, false belief, and unbelief. The Bible makes clear that the Lord will not leave such people unpunished. To whom much has been given, much is expected.

Secondly, Europe has already been ravaged by divine judgements, but she has neither heeded nor listened. Horrors such as the Terror of the French Revolution, totalitarian Communism, National Socialism, and militant Napoleonic nationalism have racked the Continent with suffering and wars for over three hundred years. The scale is unprecedented. Were it not for the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbour, the two “world” wars of the twentieth century would be more clearly seen for what they were—European affairs resutling in the ravaging of Europe. But—and here is the point—all these “isms” and “movements” are directly descended from the Enlightenment—in both its French form of militant secular rationalism, and its German form of idealism.

Europe turned away from the Christian faith, and turned to the Enlightenment which was hellenism resurrected, and centuries of judgment have followed. Remind anyone of the time of the Kings of Israel and Judah?

Thirdly, despite these judgments Europe has not listened. They have only served to accelerate its increasingly frenzied drive to unbelief. Since the idols became broke in the Temple of Baal, the universal response across Europe has not been repentance and a turning back to the Covenant—it has been instead to a desperate, frenzied rebuilding of the idols. Again the parallels to Israel during the Intertestamental Period are illustrative. Despite all the suffering and affliction of Israel during this period there was no revival in the truth, no covenant renewal, no national repentance—only a more rigid determination to walk in the paths of the nations around about them.

In the light of the Christian philosophy of history, then, the outlook for Europe is not bright. Is there any Elijah, or Isaiah or Jeremiah in sight? Are there signs of any latter day Hezekiah or Josiah? Hardly.

Meanwhile, in other parts of the earth, the Gospel is running to the shores of a swift sunrise. Paul condemned the Jews of his generation with the sarcastic sentence: “Since you judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, we are turning to the Gentiles.” Europe collectively has likewise judged itself unworthy of eternal life. The Lord has turned to those who have never enjoyed Europe's spiritual privileges and covenantal advantages, particularly in the southern hemisphere, and they are receiving the Word with joy.

Let us humble ourselves before the Lord and worship Him, the Lord of Hosts indeed. And let us pray for Europe that, even at this late hour, He may extend His gracious mercy, before it is too late. Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus.

The Rot is Not Just in Denmark

The Emerging Untouchable Class

Something is rotten in the State of Denmark. So said Marcellus. And so it is with Athens. Athenian life and society is slowly dying out. It is rotting from within. It is integrating into the void.

This neither surprises us, nor dismays us. It is both expected and inevitable. We always knew that it would happen. We knew decades, even generations, in advance that modern Athens would die out. We knew that God is the God Who is not mocked; that society which becomes post-Christian and turns its back upon God, sowing to evil, will reap the consequent corruption.

Neither does it dismay because the necrosis of Athens will bring the very rod of discipline which will turn the hearts of people back again to the God of their fathers. Meanwhile, Jerusalem watches, works and prays that it might be so. We do not expect that there will be any quick revival of the Christian faith. The die is now too firmly cast. The direction is too firmly set: evil and its attendant social destruction is now self-perpetuating, self-feeding; with each generation moving further downwards.

Kay Hymowitz has introduced a striking term into our modern sociological lexicon. She speaks of caste. We had been raised to think of class—socio-economic stratification. Marx brought that into prominence in our lexicon. But caste was something which belonged to another age, in another part of the world. It indicated a rigid form of social stratification, where one's whole existence was pre-ordered and pre-determined by society itself. The caste system was both primitive and destructive.

But Hymowitz has been radical enough to use the word to describe the modern world. She speaks of certain castes emerging where people are locked into the existence of untouchables. Few emerge from the vice grip of being untouchable; thousands fall down into its clutches every year. Those unfortunate enough to be born into the caste are likely to be bound to it forever.

But, the important difference in our modern world is that caste is not prescribed by law nor entrenched by organised institutionalised religion. It is a function of the heart and mind.

Hymowitz, the William E. Simon fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal, has argued the thesis in her book Marriage and Caste in America: Separate and Unequal Families in a Post-Marital Age. A summary of the case can be found in Marriage and Caste, an article in the Winter 2006 edition of City Journal.

The breakdown of the nuclear family over the past fifty years is now well documented and passe. But what is now emerging is that when it comes to traditional marriage (get married, then have children, and stay together for life) there are now two societies in the United States. Traditional marriage is doing quite well amongst college educated men and women. But it has almost disappeared amongst lower educated, poorer men and women. This has not always been the case. Prior to the attack upon the nuclear family all socio-economic classes lived within this social norm. In 1960, the “percentage of women . . . who had children without first getting married was so low that you'd need a magnifying glass to find it on the graph. . . . Moreover, after getting married and having a baby, almost all women stayed married.”(1)

But now, it is the poorly educated, lower socio-economic segments that absolutely predominate in the nuclear family breakdown statistics. “All the statistics about marriage so often rehashed in magazine and newspaper articles hide a startling truth. Yes, 33 percent of children are born to single mothers; in 2004, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, that amounted to 1.5 million children, the highest number ever. But the vast majority of those children are going home from the maternity wards to low-rent apartments. Yes, experts predict that about 40 to 50 percent of marriages will break up. But most of those divorces will involve women who have always shopped at Wal-Mart.”(2)

So, if marriage is doing much better as an institution amongst college educated couples, and the children of those marriages tend to enjoy far better socio-economic prosperity, then the solution is blindingly obvious: roll out a massive government programme to ensure that children from low socio-economic groups and single parent families get a college education. It has long been the folly of Athenian governments to baptize social problems with torrents of stolen capital in an attempt to remove them.

But what Hymowitz is arguing is that the malady is far, far deeper. Ensuring that your children and grandchildren get a decent education—which in turn is seen as a key to a prosperous life—is a life-long mission. It requires self-denial. It requires shaping your choices about whether you marry, whom you marry, and when you marry. It governs not only how much income you strive to earn, but also how much income you save, denying yourself immediate consumption. Educating children is all about someone else, not about Me.

Then there are the children themselves. Somewhere along the line, the children need to internalise the aspiration and desire to learn and be educated. This will only happen if they are relatively confident of their place in the world. The world must make basic sense to them. They also need a degree of confidence that they can succeed and achieve and that their efforts will make a difference. They must also be very clear that education is important. All these vital attributes are learned primarily from the home. Non nuclear families, where children are wrenched or estranged from their biological parents, or single parent families, find is much much harder to inculcate these vital mores and beliefs to children. The daily existence of the child is a denial of the requisite world view.

It is not surprising, therefore, that children of divorced parents are under-represented in higher education. “Children of divorce are also less likely to graduate and attend college, and when they do go for a BA, they tend to go to less elite schools. Cornell professor Jennifer Gerner was baffled some years ago when she noticed that only about 10 percent of her students came from divorced families. She and her colleague Dean Lillard examined the records of students at the nation's top 50 schools and, much to their surprise, found a similar pattern.”(3) Moreover, children of divorced parents earned less and had lower occupational status.

Once you get into the matrix of the lower caste, you end up reproducing after your own kind. It is virtually impossible to break out. There are some exceptions—but they are rare indeed.

In a more Christian era, when Jerusalem was stronger and Athens weaker, there were socio-economic classes—which is to say that people could be classified according to their occupation and level of income. But movement between classes was far more fluid. The poor, who had the desire and determination to succeed and to ensure that their children lived in better circumstances than they did, usually achieved their desires. Class was not a type-caste but a temporary, shorter-term circumstance. The reason is that the faith and ethics of Jerusalem were more widely respected, even amongst Athenians, so that often times they thought and acted like Christians on so many matters.

Personal responsibility, accountability, self-effort, sacrifice, hard work, the dignity of work, hatred of theft, the integrity of marriage, the importance of children, and the basic hopefulness and meaningfulness of life itself—all of these values arise out of the Christian faith. The widespread acceptance of these values—even amongst many non-Christians—meant that one's current socio-economic class was not a life sentence. Progress and improvement was not only possible—it was to be expected, as one worked out the ethics and values inherited from one's forefathers.

But in a post-Christian world, where Athens is stronger and Jerusalem weaker, where inherited Christian capital was exhausted long ago, once people fall into, or are born into, lower classes it becomes iron-clad. It has become a caste system. People live in degraded circumstances and lock in similar or worse circumstances for their progeny. So the die is cast.

The parable of the Prodigal Son is true on a number of levels. One truth is that the Prodigal did not want to return to his father before his degradation, before he was reduced to eating the rotting food of the pigs. The great mission fields of the next decades will be amongst the rapidly swelling untouchable caste—but only as those within that caste come to hate what they have become, and recognise their own responsibility for it. For the moment far too many still believe that the government is their god and redeemer. The spiral of degradation still has further to run.

But Jerusalem must continue to watch, work, pray—and above all prepare for the labours of harvest ahead. But, as is ever the case, the harvest will neither be amongst the noble, nor the wise, nor the mighty of this world. It will be amongst the poor, the despised, the leprous—the very wretched of the earth. It will be amongst the Untouchable Class.

1.) Marriage and Caste, p.2
2.) Ibid, p.4
3.) Ibid, p.6

The S-Files

S-Award given to Poneke for exemplary Fourth Estate work exposing a supine BBC reporter.

Contra Celsum has given an S-Award to Poneke, to a professional Wellington based reporter who has exposed the standover tactics used by environmental activists against supine reporters who dare to report anything contrary to the official “truth”.

Citation:

Contra Celsum is delighted to give an S-Award to Poneke, professional Wellington based reporter and publisher of Poneke's Weblog. Poneke has exposed:

1. The level of activist organisation amongst environmental groups to ensure that only stories supporting the official state propaganda with respect to climate change appear in main stream media outlets

2. The intimidation and standover tactics employed by an environmental activist to “force” a BBC reporter to capitulate and change a story.

3. The barrage of hostile traffic received in his own weblog attacking his coverage of the story and the expose.

4. The e-mail trail that exposes the environmentalist religious mania coursing through the veins of the body politic.

BBC journalist Roger Harrabin first published a story last week based on a statement from the General Secretary of the World Meterological Organisation, who confirmed that according to measurement and observation, global warming has not taken place for the past ten years. This statement is consistent with an increasing number of evidences based on actual measurements showing that global warming appears to have peaked, with the highest point being reached in 1998.

Later, Roger Harrabin changed the story. Poneke queried Harrabin as to whether he had been pressured to change. He denied any pressure. Then, subsequently an e-mail interchange between Harrabin and a UK environmental activist came to light in which Harrabin was challenged, but twice refused to change the story.

The e-mail interchange, subsequently published by the activist, demonstrates conclusively that in fact Harrabin was pressured, and that he did change his story as a result of that pressure. Harrabin lied to Poneke—but we can understand why. The true account shows him up to be a coward and a disgrace to his profession.

The activist, meanwhile, has celebrated it as a victory in the war. Despite in the earlier e-mail exchanges Harrabin refusing to change his story twice, when the activist began threatening to undermine his career along the lines of “we know how to deal with little creeps like you” Harrabin changed the story significantly. The new version leads readers away from the idea that global warming is not happening.

In one chilling note, the activist argues that we are dealing with an “emerging truth” with respect to Global Warming, and that gainsayers are stopping that truth emerging, and so must be silenced. The reporter apparently had a higher duty to mankind to ensure that the views of the gainsayers were not dignified by being given the light of day. For “emerging truth” read “selective suppression of the facts so that only one 'truth' emerges.” But he who trafficks in half truths is a liar.

You can read about the whole tawdry affair, together with corroborating sources, on Poneke's Weblog.

Large parts of the Fourth Estate are a shame to a vitally imporant profession. No doubt Harrabin's career is now finished or at least deeply compromised—as it should be. But our own local reporter, Poneke, demonstrates that there are exemplary instances of the Fourth Estate continuing to do their jobs, and do it with professional integrity.

Poneke: S-Award, Class I for actions in the course of duty that are Smart, Sound, and Salutary.

ChnMind 1.21 There's Poison in the Well

The Pathology of the Unbelieving Mind

Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the toughts of his heart was only evil continually.
Genesis 6:5

The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God”.
They are corrupt, they have committed abominable deeds;
There is no-one who does good.
The Lord looked down from heaven upon the sons of men,
To see if there are any who understand
Who seek after God.
They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt;
There is no-one who does good, not even one.
Psalm 14: 1—3

In these series of studies on The Christian Mind: Foundations in Genesis we are seeking to understand the basic structures and orientations of the Christian Mind, as well as something of the fundamental conceptual furniture of that Mind. We need to do this because we have a duty to “take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.” (II Corinthians 10:5) A second reason is that if we Christians do not self-consciously root out the ideas and concepts of Unbelief within ourselves―ideas which are sinfully natural to us―we will end up continuing to be guided by the principles of Unbelief, and consequently do harm and damage to God's Kingdom.

One of the mental components furnishing God's House is believing in the God Who created all things of nothing in the space of six days and all very good. Another item of mental furniture is to understand that man's uniqueness amongst all creatures is his being in the image of God. These basic elements provide the fundamental principles and truths within which the Believing Mind operates. They, also, are elements which are fundamentally and infallibly true.

Prior to Adam's sin the basic structures and orientations of his mind were completely aligned to God and His truth. Adam's mind naturally thought and operated consistently with God and in perfect harmony with the good world He had created. As we say in modern parlance, Adam was mentally “in the zone”.

With the Fall, Adam's mind was radically changed to a mind of Unbelief. Now, he naturally and instinctively thought in unbelieving terms, in opposition to God, and, consequently, in a mode of lying and self-deceit. He had taken off the crystal clear, pure glasses of Creation and had put on a new set of glasses which coloured and tinted everything he saw, thought, and did. We see clear evidence of this in the text (Genesis 3: 7―13) immediately after Adam's sin:

1. Adam and Eve were conscious of shame (verses 7 & 10); the furniture of their minds and hearts had altered radically, such that they knew that things were fundamentally wrong.

2. They instinctively sought to hide their shame from themselves and one another (verse 7). This is the first act of denial of the truth within the human race—it occurred instantaneously and immediately after the Fall. It has governed and ruled fallen (non-redeemed) humanity ever since. From this point on a willing conspiracy to deny the truth has dominated the Unbelieving Mind. It was already walking after its new father—the Father of Lies.

3. They sought to hide from God (verse 8). Already they were naturally and instinctively thinking of God as a god, not the Living True Omniscient God before Whom all things like bare and exposed and nothing can ever be hidden. Adam would not have so distorted and misconstrued the truth prior to the Fall.

4. Adam now naturally and instinctively sought to elide away from responsibility for his actions, and pass accountability and responsibility on to his wife: “the woman Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate.” (verse 12) But even more sinister was the implication that it was God's fault―after all, it was God who had provided the woman as Adam's companion. Adam's thought patterns had now completely reinterpreted the world and its data according to the principles of unbelief and sin. He had a new set of “shades” with which he was interpreting all reality.

5. Eve shows that she too had undergone a fundamental mind shift: she also seeks to elide away from responsibility and blame the serpent: “the serpent deceived me and I ate.” (verse 13)

Adam and Eve were clearly the same creatures, but fundamentally altered. They were radically different from the creatures they were a few short hours previously. The difference shows up in their minds! How they thought about God, the world, and themselves in relation to one another and to God and the rest of the creation had radically changed.

The Bible makes clear that all mankind inherits from Adam an Unbelieving Mind. The basic furniture and contitutive frame of the mind of every man, woman, and child (apart from the One) when they come into the world is blighted with sin and unbelief. It is not a whole mind, but a pathogenic mind of lies and errors, instinctively thinking of God and everything else sinfully, deceitfully, and wrongly. That which is instinctive and natural to that mind is wrong. The curse of sin falls upon the mind insofar as it falls upon man in the totality of his being. Theologians call this the noetic effects of sin, from the Greek, “nous” meaning mind.

This truth, so clearly revealed in Genesis and elsewhere repeatedly in Scripture, is of such vital importance that it is hard to overstate it. The times when Jerusalem has neglected to face up to it has led it into all kinds of error, idolatry and sin. In the history of Jerusalem there have been traditions—which exist to this day—that have sought to argue that the mind of man escaped the influence of Adam's sin, so that it was possible for fallen man to think truthfully and correctly and rightly about the world and about God. These traditions have caused much harm and damage in the Holy City. They must be exposed and rejected wherever found, for they set the mind of man up as an authority over God and His holy Word. They insinuate filthy idols into God's City.

As a result of sin, the following features characterise the way all human minds think, apart from the regenerating grace of the Holy Spirit, when a man is born again from above and becomes a new creation:

1. Man is the ultimate authority in the universe. We call this doctrine humanism―the ultimacy of man.

2. Man's mind can determine truth for itself. We call this doctrine rationalism―the supposed ability not just to discover, but actually to establish truth by means of rational processes, where the human mind determines truth for itself, without prior submission to God.

3. Reality is not pre-interpreted. It is objective and independent. The data of the universe will provide the furniture and truth for man. Knowledge, meaning and interpretation is intrinsic to the universe; it does not come from outside the universe.

4. The human mind is not pre-conditioned in any way, but is a blank slate, open and neutral towards the objective data of the universe.

5. If any god or “higher power” does exist it does so only in frame consistent with the four fundamental principles above: that is, gods may exist, but only as determined, verified, authenticated, and established by man. All gods thus ultimately exist only by the good pleasure of man.

6. The God of the Bible is excluded from the bounds of possibility from the outset, since His existence would make a nonsense of the five fundamental principles above.

These six principles represent the fundamental doctrines of Unbelief. These six principles represent the fundamental constitution of Athens. These six principles all hang together and they represent the indelible frame of all human minds and souls―apart from the regenerating grace of God. These are the presuppositions of unbelief. They cannot be argued for or established by reasoning or evidence or argument without presupposing them as you commence. In other words, they must be assumed to be true even to argue for them or try to justify them.

All unbelieving thought is circular, and turns upon man, the creature. Consequently, the circle of all unbelieving thought operates in a vicious and destructive way, and is at root fundamentally contradictory, irrational and foolish. It is the fool, after all, who says in his heart that God does not exist.

What do we mean when we say that irrationality and foolishness are bound up in the heart of Unbelief? Well, consider some of the internal contradictions that rack the idolatry of Unbelief―and this is but a sample:

1. The Unbelieving Mind presupposes the objectivity of reality―the objective existence of the facts―which means that the Unbelieving Mind imposes objectivity on the universe as a pre-condition for human thought. But if the universe and the facts were truly objective nothing could ever be asserted about them in advance. Even the presupposition of the objectivity of the facts is a denial of the possibility of objectivity. But if nothing can be asserted about anything in advance, it is impossible and contradictory to assert their objectivity in the first place. It is both stupid and meaningless self-contradiction. Rather, if the universe were finally objective, it would be impossible to assert it to be the case. If it can be asserted, it cannot possibly be true.

2. The Unbelieving mind presupposes that the mind of man can discover and establish the truth of all things, and therefore there is no ultimate conditioning Being. Yet if the universe is not conditioned, it can only ultimately be random. Consequently, the world must be ultimately unknowable. A non-conditioned―a non-ruled universe―is a universe which cannot possibly be described, studied, researched or known. All appearances of regularity and order are just that: appearances which cannot possibly be true. They are a cosmic joke. Truth, verities and certainties are therefore impossible. Rationalism can only exist by trading on a universe it must also assert is ultimately irrational and unknowable. That is why the Bible declares unbelief to be foolishness at root.

3. If the mind of man is truly a blank slate, without any pre-conditioning, the mere assertion of that doctrine to self or another in a same breath equally asserts that my mind maintains a continuous conceptual frame that is common to all. Or still further, the concept of a universal tabula rasa (blank slate) mind is a contradiction in terms for that condition in itself represents a universal character, a mental pre-conditioning. But you cannot hold both to universal mental pre-conditioning, on the one hand, and assert no conditioning on the other. It is an irrational contradiction in terms. Once again, if you assert that man has no mental pre-conditioning, but that his mind is autonomous, neutral, and detatched, by that very proposition you deny that it can possibly be true.

We could go on, but these examples serve to illustrate that the Unbelieving Mind is only evil in its operation, self-deceitful in its mode, and self-contradictory and destructive in its procession. This is what the Bible means when it says that the Unbeliever suppresses the truth in unrighteousness and prefers the lie (Romans 1: 18―25). This, indeed, is the pathology of the Unbelieving Mind.

If we go back to the six fundamental propositions of the Unbelieving Mind, we can only conclude that by those propositions the Unbeliever evidences infallibly his bias, his conditioning, and the glasses which colour everything he thinks, says and does.

The citizens of Jerusalem used to live, move, and have their being in exactly the same frame. But, by God's grace they were transformed. They were born again from above. They were given a new heart and a new mind, so that for the first time they could think truthfully and in principle according to the way that Adam was able to think before the Fall.

But the citizen of Jerusalem is also conscious that many of the old habits of thought still remain, and old habits die hard. Therefore, Christians, when they realise that sin has noetic effects, that sin corrupts the mind, come to be self-conscious and highly self-critical of their innate and natural conceptions. They don't trust themselves. They feel the need―correctly so―to take nothing for granted, but test everything by the Word of God. As this process takes place, they progressively cast down every empty speculation and lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and learn to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ (II Corinthians 10: 5).

Between the Unbelieving and the Believing Mind is a great gulf. They have nothing in common in principle. They operate with irreconcilable world views. The Unbelieving Mind has a pathology of sin which asserts from the very outset its independence of God, which is also to assert in the same breath, that God does not, and cannot exist. For if God be true, then it is impossible that any mind, or atom, could be independent of Him. The Unbelieving Mind can no more comprehend the God of the Scriptures than it can deny itself. It is conditioned by Adam's sin to unbelief. It is dead in its trespasses and sins.

But, the pathology of the Unbelieving Mind goes deeper. Not only must it hold its independence amidst a sea of internal self-contradiction and irrationality, the Unbelieving Mind depends upon, draws upon the truth of God and His world in order to assert its unbelief. It presupposes order, structure, rationality, truth etc―it presupposes God and His creation of the universe in order to deny Him and His creation of the universe. It presupposes universal truth, in order to assert that universal truth does not exist. It presupposes the pre-interpretation and pre-conditioning of all reality when it asserts that all reality is objective and carries truth in itself.

It presupposes the non-randomness of the world, in order to assert the ultimacy of chance. But is also presupposes the ultimacy of chance in order to assert that the man is not pre-conditioned and that he can discover meaning and truth for himself. It presupposes that there is a correspondence between the mind of man and the external world, yet at the same time, denies that such things could ever possibly be proven or established.

These characteristics of all Unbelieving Minds makes the Unbelieving Mind not just wrong or mistaken, but wicked. This is what the Bible means when it declares that the unbeliever suppresses the truth in unrighteousness (Romans 1: 18).

This is why Jerusalem and Athens are engaged in an irreconcilable conflict. The Unbeliever is dead in his trespasses and sins. His mind is corrupted. Like Adam and Eve after the Fall his enmity toward God means that he can see and reason only in ways which deny the possibility of God existing in the first place. Just as Adam in his deadness could only think of God after the Fall as if He were a god―and that change was both radical and swift―so all his descendants can only proceed on sinful lines with respect to God. The very action of claiming or asserting or proceeding as if one were independent of God means that they must recraft and reinterpret God to be a mere idol.

Thus, when the Unbelieving Mind uses the three letter word “god” both the connotation and denotation of that word is not what the Bible reveals concerning the true and living God. Accordingly Believers and Unbelievers have no common ground to engage in debates and discussions about God. If we stand on the ground of the Unbelieving Mind to discuss God, we have already agreed with the Unbeliever that the God of scripture does not exist, and there are only a god—which is to say, there are gods. (A finite, limited god must contend with what limits it—which means that whatever limits it is equally entitled to be regarded as a god.) But, on the other hand, the Unbeliever will not, and cannot, stand on Jerusalem's ground when he discusses God. The pathology of his mind, his spiritual deadness, prevents it.

Our task as citizens of Jerusalem is not to seek to serve God by lies. We must not deny God, and agree with Unbelievers that we will only discuss gods, when we are speaking with them. We must always be faithful to the truth.

Must we ever then, Believer and Unbeliever, pass like ships in the night? No. For despite the deadness of the Unbeliever, the God revealed in Scripture is true. He alone makes meaning possible. The very fact of being able to think and communicate meaningfully about anything is an infallible ineradicable testimony to the Living God. Therefore, no man, woman, or child is beyond His reach. Every man, woman, and child already knows deep down, truly, that the God of Scripture is true and that they are lying to themselves. But there is no blindness so dark that He cannot remove. As we call all men to come, God is able to bring life, so that the deadness of heart ceases, and that no longer suppresses the truth about God. God is able to change the mind of dead Unbelief to one of Belief. He is able to remove and heal the pathology of the Unbelieving Mind―so that the new citizen of Jerusalem is able to declare, “Once I was blind, but now I see.”

God is able. But will He? Emphatically, yes. He has sent His Son into the world and raised Him from the dead that He might be made Lord of both the living and the dead―so that all creatures might be taught to walk in His commandments. (Matthew 28: 18―20) To God alone be the glory.

Have We Been Sold Down the River?

The Free Trade Agreement with China and Monied Class Welfare

As the ink dries on the now-signed Free Trade Agreement with China (“FTA”) serious disquiet is being expressed in chardonnay vale, where the chattering classes gather. So far the disquiet has been expressed in terms of two reasonably predictable chestnuts:

1. The foreign policy argument. The contention is that that one should oppose the FTA because China is engaged in some activities with which the protagonists disapprove. In particular, it is argued that NZ should not enter a FTA with China because of that country's unsavory human rights and environmental policies. (Maori Party, Greens) Just how opposing, or not signing, a free trade agreement might represent meaningful opposition to these problems is not immediately apparent. Largely the foreign policy arguments are just plain empty posturing in an attempt to curry some local domestic political favour.

2. The domestic policy argument. Here the concern is to protect the jobs of New Zealanders. The causality chain argument runs as follows: the FTA with China will bring lower cost Chinese manufactured goods, services, and labour into New Zealand. As a result New Zealand domestic firms will go out of business, jobs will be lost, and wages will be eroded. (NZ First, Greens, Maori).

The domestic policy arguments deserve more serious consideration because they raise so many fundamental issues about government, justice, and care for the poor. To cut to the chase, what we are really talking about here is the rectitude of using tariffs (taxes on imports or exports) to redistribute property from one section of the community (the purchasing consumer) to another (the manufacturing firm/shareholders/employees).

In our current world, tariffs which tax the movement of goods and services in and out of the country, do not exist for the purpose of raising revenue for the civil government. Revenue raising to fund the lawful activities of civil government is legitimate within the biblical constitution (Romans 13: 6,7)—and therefore the state has a general lawful right to tax to raise operational revenue for God-ordained, lawful activities. It is the duty of all to pay up. But tariffs to not fall into that category. Tariffs in our world exist for one purpose, and one purpose only—to redistribute wealth from one section to society to another. That is manifestly not a lawful activity of civil government—because no person (natural or legal) is allowed to steal.

How does this work? Consider garment manufacturer, Cut Price Clothes, which manufactures in South Auckland and sells throughout the country via general merchandise superstores, such as The Warehouse. Tariffs on imported clothing from China have kept the price of those imports higher, and has meant that Cut Price Clothes, which is not as efficient nor as low cost as the Chinese clothing manufacturers, has been able to stay in business. The owners and shareholders have consequently profited; its staff have been kept in jobs.

But at what price? The price is paid by all the purchasers of low cost clothing in New Zealand—because they have to pay a higher price for clothing. Consequently, all the buyers of the clothes, the consumers, are poorer—have marginally lower living standards—as a result. Property is being taken from one section of the community and redistributed, by means of the tariff mechanism, to a firm in South Auckland. Now, amongst the many thousands of purchasers of low cost clothing are those who are really struggling to make ends meet. Having an extra dollar or two at the end of the month is meaningful to these families. But the tariff mechanism means that these people are made poorer.

The leads to the second major issue with tariffs: they are not only a form of institutionalised theft, they also disadvantage and hurt the most poor and vulnerable in the community. In other words they steal primarily from the poor. They are a “grinding the faces of the poor” mechanism.

What will happen under the FTA with China? The first and most immediate impact will be upon Cut Price Clothes in South Auckland. The poor, less-well-off consumer will no longer be subsidizing their business. If they do not find a way to lower their costs of production, in the face of the less expensive clothing imports from China, profits will be eroded, staff will be laid off, and probably the firm will go out of business.

Cut Price Clothes will have a range of options to consider. It may invest in less labour intensive manufacturing. It may move to higher value add, higher priced garments. It may identify niche clothing markets where specialisation will sustain higher prices. It may move its manufacturing offshore where labour costs are lower. It may close down.

Let us be clear. There will be cost—but the cost has come about in the first place because of the immoral, unethical policy of a civil government stealing from one segment of the community and giving to another. If that policy had not been in place to begin with, Cut Price Clothes would never have gone into business—as least not in its current form.

The second impact will be upon the community as a whole—and most particularly upon the poorest segments of society that look to purchase low cost clothing. They will be able to clothe themselves and their children for less cost. By this one stroke of the pen, as it were, the living standards of the poor will go up. But not only that, they will go up in an ethical manner. Theft will not be intrinsically involved.

The Bible has much to say about authorities and governments which grind the faces of the poor. Tariffs always serve to grind the faces of the most poor and the most vulnerable in a community. They grind the poor down in order to advantage the favoured few.

Tariffs are really a form of monied class welfare. In the end, the real beneficiaries are the owners, the shareholders of the subsidised and supported businesses. Theirs are the pockets that are lined by the institutional theft of tariffs Why? Cut Price Clothes is not operating a sustainable business in a sustainable market. The owners are unlikely ever to face labour market competition where they are having to compete (and pay accordingly) for labour. They will be able to pay the minimum wage to their staff in perpetuity. Meanwhile, their margins and profits are protected by the civil government. They enjoy price protection.

Will the FTA with China solve all our economic problems? Of course not. It will actually cause hardship and difficulty in some quarters for some time. Is it more ethical and moral? Absolutely. Will it benefit the poor and needy without employing means of institutionalised theft? Absolutely. Does it reflect more the constitution of Jerusalem than Athens? Absolutely.

Disclosure of Interest: contributors own shares in The Warehouse--which seeks to Make the Desirable Affordable. We believe that, for the sake of the most vulnerable in our community, this is a great mission statement.

Meditation on the Text of the Week

Can the Wicked Succeed?

Psalm 1 is like a song of Tolkien's Bombadil, except it is the genuine article. It is a song of power which shapes the course of men and women in the world. It decrees and ordains divine blessing for the person who sets his heart upon the law of the Lord. This person will enjoy ever verdant fruitfulness of life. To use another Tolkien image, the righteous man blessed of the Lord dwells perpetually in Rivendell.

But the life course of the wicked could not be more different. They are like chaff which the wind dries away. Chaff is dry, dessicated, devoid of substance or life. It is without weight or significance. As the grain is tossed into the air, the feather-weight chaff drifts away.

In our post-Christian age the Lord's people can be fooled into assuming that this state of affairs will last—that it will be more-or-less permanent. But Psalm 1 tells us otherwise. The strength of the wicked is a chimera. It is a paper tiger. The strength and influence of the wicked will end up being of no more significance or substance than chaff which the wind drives away.

Rather, the Lord knows the way of the righteous. He establishes it. He approves it. He blesses it. But upon the wicked He turns His back and they perish.

The wicked neither believe nor pray, so the hand of God is not extended to them. The wicked are increasingly absorbed with themselves and their pleasures; they cannot build anything of lasting significance. The wicked are focused upon the immediate present; they are unable to sacrifice to build for the future. The wicked no longer believe in marriage and family. Children are rug rats and, at best, a lifestyle choice. The lines of the wicked are growing increasingly thin and tenuous. The wicked no longer care about laying up an inheritance for their children. It is all about present gratification. The wicked cannot build up capital; it will be consumed—always consumed upon their appetites. The wicked are full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. The wicked increasingly integrate into the void.

The righteous, however, go from strength to strength. Adversity simply becomes the drawing back of the catapault to forge them further ahead. Working with the creation and its divinely structured order—rather than against it—they are culturally powerful. The Lord God watches over them to make it so. The righteous are filled with days of life—powerful life.

But the doors and gates of the Great City are always open, and the righteous are always urging the wicked to leave the way of blight and rust and mould, and come—come, now!—for why would you stay in the paths which have been cursed by God's songs of power.

Sabbath Meditation #3

Theatre of Operations

In a war, the phrase “theatre of operations” refers to the locations of battle or where battle is being planned. It raises an interesting question: Since the Church is engaged in a battle, where exactly is the theatre of operations? Where is the battle being fought?

The answer given in Scripture is quite clear: earth, the world, is the theatre of operations. When Jesus ascended to be invested as Lord of the heavens and the earth He was not retreating or escaping from the battle. Rather, having won the decisive battle, which was the crucial engagement, on the Cross—a victory manifest through His resurrection from the dead—He also won the right to continue to lead the war. Complete victory was now assured and certain. But the size and scale of that victory is beyond human comprehension and imagination. Through the leaven of the Gospel the entire earth is being and will be renewed, all enemies have been and will be vanquished and abolished, heaven and heaven's throne will be established on the earth.

Our Lord's ascension and session at the right hand of God was not an escape or deliverance from the earth or from the war being waged here. Rather, His ascension was in order to engage the enemy more effectively, powerfully, and comprehensively than ever before. Whereas once God's focus was on the preservation of a small nation, then just a tiny remnant of that nation, then, finally, upon one single Man of that nation, now, with the decisive victory won, and with the investiture of the Messiah as Lord of heaven and earth, with His Spirit poured out upon His people, the Church of the Living God, the universal transformation of the creation has commenced. It is the great battle of our time.

Sadly many Christians seem to miss this point. They think that the whole focus of the Christian's life should be to escape or depart this world to be with Jesus. They tend to gloss the significance and point of Jesus' victory over death to be an escape from this world and going to heaven. Becoming one of His people, becoming a Christian means, in this view, that one's hope also should focus upon dying and going to be with the Lord. They see themselves, in nurturing this hope, as following in the footsteps of Jesus, who likewise died and went to be with God.

What a sad misconception of the truth. Probably when these saints depart and go to be with the Lord they will be in for a real shock. Yes, they will find that the whole focus of the heavenly realm is upon the Lamb, seated on the throne. But, the Lord's focus will not be on those around Him so much, as upon the earth, upon the theatre of operations which He is now conducting. Likewise, all the glorified saints in heaven and the angels be focused upon what the Lord is concentrated upon.

Pity the poor saint who enters heaven thinking that at last he has left the world behind, only to find that everyone there is actually focused upon the world which he thought he had left—for therein is the theatre of redemptive operations; therein is the glory of the Lord being manifest before the angels, the principalities, and the entire creation. No doubt there will be those who will regret that in their time of enlistment here they did not have more focus upon the theatre of operations.

Paul is a wonderful exemplar of this ethic. In prison for the faith—coming to the sunset of his life—he writes to the Philippians that he knows that if he were to die, it would be to his great personal gain. He had a genuine desire to depart and be with Christ, for that would be, in a personal sense, much to his advantage. But if he were to stay in the theatre of operations he would be able to continue to make a contribution to the war effort. Convinced of this—that he still had work to do, that he could still be useful to the Philippian congregation—he knew that the Lord would have him stay and continue the battle. (Philippians 1:20—26)

Paul knew that the focus of his and our Lord was upon the achievement of the restoration of heaven upon earth, which ultimately will manifest to all creation the glory of God in full measure. He knew that to accomplish this holy task required great labour and warfare. Like, Paul we each have limited time to engage in the great battle of our time. Our lives upon earth in the theatre of operations are very short. Our demobilisation will come soon enough.

In the meantime, let make every moment count. Let us make every Sabbath count. Let us be focused indeed on the entire theatre of His operations. Let each saint play his part in the battle array of the Lord. This Sabbath let us review the theatre of His operations with Him while the Captain of the Lord's host walks amongst us. Let us honour and worship Him as our Lord and King. Let us consult with Him, seek and secure His direction and aid in all the current battles, and with Him make plans to open new fronts of engagement.

How Classy are You?

Jerusalem, An Upper Class City with Cultural Power

In large measure, man creates his own world. Which is to say that the world-view of an individual, or of his covenant-affinity group, largely shapes and calls into being (reifies) the world so that he actually experiences his imaginations and finds it to be the way he thought of it in the first place. Life mirrors back to us according to what we think life is like.

So, at a basic level, if a man harbours bitterness in his heart toward his neighbours, he almost certainly will experience strife, disputes, and bitternesses in his relationships with them. The world feeds back to him what his heart tells him the world is like. Pop psychologists talk about the “power of positive thinking”. We are what we think. The proverb tells us that it is the friendly man who has lots of friends. These are expressions of the same general concept.

Obviously, there are limitations to one's ability to shape the world. We will be confronted soon enough with physical limitations and natural laws. While I may view myself to be a man who can leap buildings with a single bound, disappointment is sure to follow.

Behind all this, however, is the covenantal governance of the Living God. What we mean by this is that God governs over the world and the affairs of men in such a way that generally men reap what they sow and inherit what they invest. The covenantal governance of God has blessings and curses attached. If you keep God's commandments and laws (whether self-consciously or unconsciously) you are likely in God's ordinary governance of life to experience the blessings of the covenant. If you break God's laws you are likely to experience the curses and bad consequences of your actions.

This is what is happening when we say that a bitter man experiences bitternesses. He has harboured bitterness in his heart, and consequently treated others in bitterness; he will experience bitterness at the hands of others and in his future circumstances. Such is God's covenantal governance of the world. No-one can escape this fundamental social patterning because it is the Lord Himself Who ensures that men will experience the world as they conceive it to be—which is to say that they will reap as they sow.

There is nothing magical in this: we see it working out all the time. It is so commonplace that oftentimes we do not think about it. But we should, because it is critically important.

The divine modes of governance have two components: the first is intrinsic and is what arises from me and as a consequence my actions; the second is extrinsic and comes out of the blue, as it were. When we speak of God's judgment and causing people to reap as they have sown we often reflexively think of the second mode—the extrinsic. We imagine notoriously evil people being struck down by lightning or some other catastrophe. We think of Sodom and Gomorrah, of Noah's flood. We think of war, pestilence, or famine.

The Scriptures clearly teach that extrinsic judgments occur, leading to radical disjunctions of life, culture or nation. But ordinarily they occur at the end of a very long process of degenerate, inveterate wickedness and rebellion. This is clearly the case with the Canaanites, for example. Abraham was told that his descendants would be taken out of the land down to Egypt for four hundred years before they would be brought back under Joshua as God's army to execute judgment upon the Canaanites, for, said the Lord to Abraham, “the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.” (Genesis 15:16) When Noah was commanded to build the ark, God gave the human race another 120 years opportunity to repent under the preaching of Noah, before the judgment fell (Genesis 6:3).

Thus, extrinsic judgments of calamitous proportion, are rare and take a long time coming, such is the longsuffering of our gracious God. But intrinsic judgments, where individuals and groups are constantly reaping according to the way they have sown, happen all the time, constantly. This is how it pleases our Lord to keep evil restrained, weaken the influence of the Athens, and strengthen His people.

The dynamic of intrinsic judgment is so common and obvious that we do not often think about it. An individual is conditioned to think and act through his family life—whatever that might be. His family life will be reinforced through the covenant-affinity group of his family—which represents the basic motif of “birds of a feather flocking together.” As he grows to adulthood, the conditioned individual will enter covenant-affinity groups which reflect his own conditioning. These groups will reinforce his view of the world. They will powerfully call his world-view into actual experience. So, for example, if his world view is a bohemian or hedonistic “eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die” his covenant affinity group will practise the lifestyle accordingly, and the whole world as they know and experience it will be a realm of living for the appetites of the moment.

Change does happen, but it is rare and isolated. Genuine conversions also occur and people are saved out of the realms of death to life. But this is not the normal pattern, apart from a special outpouring of God's grace.

The Lord allows the world-view to be worked out through the next three or four generations. By that time, if the people have not repented and turned to the Lord, their line is likely to have died out.

The example above is extreme (although common enough in our day) to illustrate the point. However, many Athenians, by God's goodness even to unbelievers, are shaped in families where there remains a respect for the basic institutions of life: of families; of marriage, parenthood and children; of respect for authority, life, and property; and so forth. Because of a vague or general outward conformity to God's covenant law, they benefit from the good consequences that flow. They, too, reap as they have sown. This pattern of Athenian unbelievers who in their lifestyles are relatively more conformed “naturally” to God's commands through their social conditioning and who, therefore, are allowed to enjoy some of the blessings of the covenant (albeit it superficially and partially) is the mechanism that the Lord employs to keep human society intact and functioning. This is critical because it allows Jerusalem to be nurtured and to grow in the meantime.

Our Lord's parable of the wheat and the tares is vitally instructive on this point. The tares are to be left to grow in the field, lest if they were torn up, the wheat likewise would be destroyed. The social fabrics, essential to life upon earth, would be torn apart. (Matthew 13: 34—30)

So far the general construct. The Living God is a covenant making and keeping God. His Covenant with man shapes His governance over mankind. As a result of His Covenant, men reap what they sow. People who live in greater conformity to God's Law are allowed to enjoy some of the blessings that come from (even outward) obedience. Those that set their hearts against God and imagine a totally contrary world are afflicted with the consequences of their foolishness. The most extreme and overt expressions of rebellion against God usually have the consequence of a line dying out by the third or fourth generation.

In his book, The Unheavenly City Revisited, (Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1974) Edward Banfield provides a striking example of this divine governance at work. Banfield is analysing socio-economic classes and the potential of families to move from the underclass to higher socio-economic categories. From his analysis of New York throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, together with the observations and research of others, he argues, firstly, that the factors which are most important in moving people up or down the socio-economic scale are one's world-view—one's perspective upon life—and, secondly, within one's world-view the most important variant is how one regards the future. In particular, it is critical whether one apprehends the future in a short term or long term time frame.

People that prosper, that move up the socio-economic scale, are likely to be those for whom the long term future is vitally important. By long term, Banfield means not only the considerations of one's older age, but also, and equally importantly, those who contemplate their children and the grandchildren, and shape their lives out of concern for them, even though they may not yet exist.

Those who are moving down the scale to the underclasses, or who are already part of the underclass and will stay there until their line dies out, are those whose view of the future is very short term, who are seeking gratification immediately.

Banfield describes the two “ideal types” as follows: firstly, the “upper class mentality”

The the most future-orientated end of the scale, the upper-class individual expects a long life, looks forward to the future of his children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren (the family line), and is concerned also for the future of such abstract entities as the community, nation, or mankind. He is confident that within rather wide limits he can, if he exerts himself to do so, shape the future to accord with his purposes. He therefore has strong incentives to “invest” in the improvement of the future situation—i.e., to sacrifice some present satisfaction in the expectation of enabling someone (himself, his children, mankind, etc) to enjoy greater satisfaction at some future time. Future orientated culture teaches the individual that he would be cheating himself if he allowed gratification of his impulses (for example, for sex or violence) to interfere with his provision for the future.
(Banfield, p. 57)

Then, he describes the “lower class mentality”:

. . . the lower class individual lives from moment to moment. If he has any awareness of the future, it is of something fixed, fated, beyond his control: things happen to him, he does not make them happen. Impulse governs his behaviour, either because he cannot discipline himself to sacrifice the present for a future satisfaction or because he has no sense of the future. He is therefore radically improvident: whatever he cannot use immediately he considers valueless. His bodily needs (especially for sex) and his taste for “action” take precedence over everything else—virtually over any work routine. He works only as he must to stay alive, and drifts from one unskilled job to another, taking no interest in his work. . . (H)e “doesn't want much success, knows he couldn't get it even if he wanted to, and doesn't want what might help get him success.” Although his income is usually much lower than that of the working-class individual, the market value of his car, television, and household appliances and playthings is likely to be considerably more. He is careless with his things, however, and even when nearly new, they are likely to be permanently out of order for lack of minor repairs. . . .
The lower-class individual has a feeble, attenuated sense of self; he suffers from feelings of self-contempt and inadequacy, and if often apathetic or dejected. . . . In his relations with others he is suspicious and hostile, aggressive yet dependent. He is unable to maintain a stable relationship with a mate; commonly he does not marry. . . .
(Banfield, p. 61,62)

There are many observations that can be made from this characterisation. However, here are some immediate reflections.

1. Notice how in both cases the “upper” and “lower” classes are reaping what they are sewing. Their lifestyles are bringing into existence the very things about life in which they believe. This is a vivid example of God's covenantal governance at work.

2. The description of the “world-view” of the lower class reads like a present day description of many communities in New Zealand now. Thirty-five years after Banfield was writing, we see the lower class mentality growing in number and place.

3. No amount of money or social welfare or grants or education is going to change the lower class mentality—unless it is met head on and confronted—and even then the prospects of success are not high. Our firm belief is that it is only the Gospel of God's saving mercy extended in the Lord Jesus Christ that can change the hearts of people who have been brought so low. Throwing money at the lower classes only confirms them in their destructive world-view.

4. Jerusalem is by its animus and nature reflects a true upper class mentality—more closely approximating mankind in his nobility, as God created him to be. Jerusalem has an ethic of self-denial, of service, of considering others more important than oneself. Jerusalem has a time horizon that stretches out through many generations to come. Jerusalem has a commanded obligation to live one's life for the good of children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. Therefore, the present is relatively unimportant in comparison with the future. Therefore Jerusalem denies itself and invests and works for the long term good of the future and the generations to come.

Consequently, Jerusalem inherits the blessings of God and the favour of the Lord. But, as always, the doors of the Great City are open, always open, to any that may come.

The S-Files

S-Award given to Dr Jan Wright, Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment

Contra Celsum has given an S-Award to Dr Jan Wright who argues that New Zealand should not be forced to use biofuels.

Citation:

Contra Celsum is aware that many would have the view that Dr Jan Wright, an independent Parliamentary watchdog for the environment, should be given an S-Award, Class II because she has used her position to argue against mandatory use of biofuels in New Zealand—one of the great greenist hopes for the planet.

But Contra Celsum is pleased to give her the Class I award. In her testimony to a parliamentary select committee recently, not only did she note the increasingly environmentally damaging effects of the biofuel programmes, she also insisted that account must be taken of the social cost. Rising food prices are hurting people, especially and particularly in poor countries.

For far too long greenism has waged an ideological war against the human race—whether by intention or consequence—and it is positive and refreshing to see an official with environmental duties face our politicians up to the social, human costs of the latest greenist crusade.

Dr Jan Wright: S-Award, Class I for actions in the course of duty that are Smart, Sound, and Salutary.

Mass Starvation in a World of Plenty

There's a Rampaging Green Elephant in the Room and It's Man Made

There is no shortage of food in the world—only bad policies and governance. Can this really be true? After all, hunger is now on the rise again. Central Africa, for example, is a region where more than one third of people are hungry—that is, they do not get sufficient food. In India and Bolivia between a third and a fifth of the population do not get adequate food—they are malnourished.

Yet, last year saw a record world cereal harvest. Rising food prices will stimulate new investment and even greater production in the future. So, the experts say, there is no shortage of food in the world. (The Economist, 28th March, 2008). But global food prices are telling a very different story—and prices rarely lie.

Food, like any other tradeable good or service, is subject to the normal cyclical market forces of supply and demand. For the past five years, world food stocks have been decreasing, even while production has increased. Why? Well, demand has also increased—and it has increased more quickly than supply. There have been two long term reasons for this.

The first is the gradual, steady rise in world population. While overall population growth has slowed since the mid last century, it is still “ticking over”. The US Census Bureau projects that at current growth rates world population will have doubled by 2050. More mouths to feed mean inevitably a growing demand for food.

The second factor is rising living standards, particularly throughout Asia and the Middle East. As living standards rise, the “first” thing people do is eat more food. The second thing they do is change what they eat. They move from a cereal or starch based diet to a higher protein (Western) diet.

These two factors have led to demand outstripping supply over the past five years. More mouths to feed, and more food being eaten per mouth, as it were. When this happens we can expect the normal market, cyclical market response. Prices rise, leading to a short term lessening of demand. But, a second factor normally comes into play—namely, higher prices lead to greater profits for food producers, which incentivises them to invest more, to produce more—which eventually leads to greater supply. Eventually, of course, the market settles down to a general equilibrium point.

The food aid people tell us that this normal market mechanism appears to be working, and that the supply of food—as measured by the amount of grown—is rising in response to the higher prices. So, we should expect that food prices will eventually peak and track down again. Right? Well, no—at least not anytime soon.

Why? As we have described, the food market was at the critical point of a cyclical re-adjustment. Food stocks were falling, demand was rising, and prices were trending upwards. Farmers got busier and supply started to react, trending upwards. Then came the rogue element. It entered the arena right at the critical moment. This rogue element dislocated the food market, moving what would have been a normal (and gradual) market adjustment of demand, supply, and price to a situation of severe dislocation, which can only be described as a global food shock—as far as we know, the first in human history.

In the past, severe dislocations to the world food markets have occurred due to extreme weather—and they have been relatively short lived. Not this time. Western governments, particularly the EU, the US and Canada have now adopted the view that the world was getting warmer primarily because fossil fuels were being burnt. The world, if it were to be saved, had to move radically and quickly to renewable fuel sources. The age of biofuel had come.

The effect of this has been to turn vast swathes of grain producing land into production hubs for the raw material to produce ethanol. The most commonly used raw material is corn. Consequently, a huge amount of grain has been suddenly removed from the world's food supply. So the world food aid people are right: more food crops are being produced than ever before—and there is theoretically no shortage. That is only half right. Yes, food crops are being grown, but it is being diverted away into ethanol production. Food is no longer food; it is fuel.

At a time when global food supply and demand were tightly stretched anyway, suddenly the world food market has been distorted by a giant politician-cum-green monkey wrench. The result: huge market dislocation and a global food shock.

The relatively recent US Energy Bill legislated a target of producing 20% of fuel via ethanol within fifteen years. To achieve this, it provided a federal subsidy for the production of ethanol, which in turn meant that ethanol plants could pay higher prices for corn. So the price of corn shot up from $2 a bushel to over $6.

There are currently 134 ethanol refineries in the US. There are another 77 presently under construction. In just one year, demand for corn from ethanol distilleries jumped from 54 million tons in 2006 to 81 million tons in 2007. This more than doubled the annual growth in world demand for grain. But, even more insidiously, it removed this amount of grain out of the world food supply chain. This will not abate—it will get worse. It is expected that ethanol production will consume 28% of US grain production in 2008. But this only represents 3 percent of current US gasoline needs. And it will not stop there. We are on a mission to save the planet. Remember the US has legislatively mandated 20% of US gasoline to come from ethanol by 2020's—and that's just a short twelve years away, in case you need reminding.

Add to this situation a further element in the equation: the amount of global arable land able to produce food is pretty much fixed. Most of the arable land in the world is already in food production. So farmers can't simply head to the hills and produce more food. Arable land is now a scarce global resource.

Well, I hear you say, that's no problem. I don't like cornbread, and I can pass on tortillas. Sorry, four realities make it a problem—a problem that everyone in New Zealand is noticing right now—and we are hardly to be considered vulnerable.

1.The global price of other grains also shoots up, because other grains are suddenly subject to double the normal annual increase in demand. If people can't get corn, they move to rice or soy beans or substitute some other grain. Unexpected rapid increases in demand create severe shortages, leading to sharp price rises. If people in New Zealand are complaining that they can no longer afford food, how do you think millions and millions of people who were already hungry or malnourished are faring? Famine, disease, starvation and death is facing them. And there is no end in sight.

2.Corn is most commonly used in the US to feed chickens and cattle. This is normal in northern hemisphere, colder climate farming regions. With huge rises in the corn price due to the ethanol behemoth “confiscating” food supplies, the prices of eggs, chicken, beef and other grain-fed proteins is rising rapidly.

3.This has produced transfer-demand to other proteins. Hence global prices have begun to rise drastically for dairy products, fish and meat. Demand has transferred across, prices are rising.

4.The price of every food group is consequently rising. This is unprecedented. Normally, when the supply of one food type (rice, or corn) falls leading to price rises, demand substitutes across to other foods, leading to an eventual downward adjustment in the price of that initial food, as the original demand pressure eases. But the world is faced now with price rises in all food types across the board. This is why it is accurate to characterise what is now occurring as a global food shock.

And the reason? It is the ethanol elephant coming into the room. As we noted above world food demand was already rising, stocks were falling. The market was already under pressure. Yet, markets are remarkably robust and there was every reason to have expected that gradually supply, demand, and prices would have adjusted in an orderly and productive fashion. But not this time. The global food market has been dislocated beyond comparison. Into the already tight food supply and demand matrix has come the ethanol elephant and it smashing everything in the room.

So, let's look at the data. According to Lester R Brown of the Earth Policy Institute:

“The World Bank reports that for each 1 percent rise in food prices, caloric intake among the poor drops 0.5 percent. Millions of those living on the lower rungs of the global economic ladder, people who are barely hanging on, will lose their grip and begin to fall off.

“Projections by Professors . . . of the University of Minnesota four years ago showed the number of hungry and malnourished people decreasing from over 800 million to 625 million by 2025. But in early 2007 their update of these projections, taking into account the biofuel effect on world food prices, showed the number of hungry people climbing to 1.2 billion by 2025. That climb is already underway.

“Since the budgets of international food agencies are set well in advance, a rise in food price shrinks food assistance. The UN World Food Programme (WFP), which is now supplying emergency food aid to 37 countries, is cutting shipments as prices soar. The WFP reports that 18,000 children are dying each day from hunger and related illnesses.”

Now, let us be clear. This situation—which will cause people to starve and others to slip into malnutrition leading to sickness, diseases, and death—is a man-made disaster. It has been caused by the folly of mankind—in particular, a knee jerk reaction to a purported threat to the planet and mankind from global warming. It will turn out that the “cure” to what we believe is a fabricated fantastical problem will be far worse and far more damaging than the original imagined malady. Count every child lost, every person slipping into the degradation of poverty and malnutrition and think of Al Gore and his blasted, benighted, demonic Inconvenient Truth.

Give me global warming any day, even if it were true. At least no-one dies from global warming. At least people would have time to adjust. But as a consequence of the megalomaniac madness of modern governments, determined to tilt at climate windmills, all the while slyly seeking party electoral advantage at the expense of genuine needs of their people, human beings can, and are most certainly, dying. But who cares about the poor and wretched of the earth when there is money to be made, elections to be won, and Nobel gongs to be awarded.

Next time you consume a piece of now very (and soon to be more) expensive cheese, think about how our western governments, the EU, Canada, the US, Australia, New Zealand, not to speak of the UN, and all the vested interests that circle around, dancing their dervishes to line their tawdry pockets, have combined to act in a way that is likely to cause the death of millions and millions of people. Hiroshima will be a mere side show. The Holocaust will have nothing on this baby. Stalin will be a mere babe in arms in comparison. We may well see the mass kulakisation of the third world on a grand scale. And, oh, let's not forget—to assuage starvation widespread cannibal activity returned amongst the Kulaks, as Stalin strove mightily to save the world for dialectical materialism. But at least it was all in a good cause. Worth the price, I'd say.

Let's hear it for our wonderful Athenian nobles and overlords. Let's put our bloodied hands together and honour them as they deserve.

ChnMind 1.21 Is that a Gigantic Weasel Up There?

Theistic Evolution and the Grim Reaper

In our post-Christian world the antithesis between Belief and Unbelief is becoming sharper as the generations pass. Nowhere is this more evident than in the conflict between Biblical Creation and Evolution.

The Christian Mind rests confidently upon the revelation in Genesis of God “creating all things of nothing, in the space of six days, and all very good” (Westminster Shorter Catechism). But in the academies, streets, media, and belief environment of Athens the Unbelieving Mind asserts that the world came into being by chance through a self-developmental process that has taken billions and billions of years. The sheer dominance of theory of Evolution—its endlessly repeated reiteration—has given it the patina of credibility and veracity.

So dominant is Evolutionism within Athens that to cavil is to lose all credibility immediately and be instantly regarded as a total fool. In Athens, to question Evolutionism is equivalent to believing that the moon is made of green cheese. Sure, people do actually believe the moon and cheese myth, but they are nuts. People who believe in Biblical Creation are likewise nuts.

Faced with this universal and implacable rejection of Biblical Creation within Athenian streets some citizens of Jerusalem have lost courage. Firstly, they are uncomfortable with the disrespect and scorn heaped upon Jerusalem, and want to protect the honour of Jerusalem's Lord and defend the dignity of its people. Secondly, they think it is vital to credibility that one be seen to be rational and to have evidence for belief—otherwise, how can the charge that Christians are naïve, credulous, and foolish be counteracted. In a rationalistic world, to be charged with irrationalism or stupidity is equivalent to being charged with blasphemy.

So, regretably, some within Jerusalem have sought to gain a hearing and respect for the Holy City within the academies of Athens by seeking to reconcile the revelation of Genesis with the prevailing doctrines and “evidences” of Evolutionism. But they have only proved to be an embarrassment. They have adulated an emperor who has no clothes. (Actually, that fable is particularly apt to this discussion. The whole nation, you remember, willed itself to believe in the emperor's marvellous set of new clothes, creating all sorts of self and mutually reinforcing mechanisms to persuade everyone of the “facts” until the little boy spoke up. In the case of Biblical Creation versus Evolutionism, Athens has its emperor and fawning credulites, while Jerusalem its little boy.)

Evolutionism was spawned in the womb of the Enlightenment, which declared that to all intents and purposes Nature was god, and god was Nature. Life existed because Nature brought it into being. But how? Well . . . now, there was a plan. A plan so clever you could stick a tail on it and call it a weasel.

Over the top of a universe of absolute brute chaos, let's imagine a few laws to “make things work.” “Survival of the fittest” sounds like a handy suggestion. Then let's add a sort of vague notion that things ineluctably move from the simple to the complex―sort of by a magic cosmic force. Hey presto, before you know it, “scientists” all over the world were discovering “evidence” for this actually happening. Then, let's carefully hide in the bottom drawer our starting assumptions, which are a bit embarrassing after all. Let's just talk about the evidence and the facts.

So the theory was proved, so to speak. It had facts on its side! Soon Evolutionism became the new orthodoxy. Sitting on the throne of academic respectability was a gigantic weasel. It took three hundred years to enthrone the weasel, but it got there in the end.

The Enlightenment had effectively replaced the Christian faith by a new religion. Evolutionism does not just have religious implications. It is inescapably a religion in its own right, a cosmogony.

The Christian response has been―by and large―pathetic. There are reasons for this, historical reasons, theological reasons. Lord willing we will deal with these reasons in future posts when we come to tear apart the Enlightenment and expose its poisonous roots, which, it turns out, had been carefully nurtured in the bosom of the Church for over one thousand years before the Enlightenment. This, it will transpire, is the real Da Vinci code conspiracy! But for the most part the sterling response of many in Jerusalem has resembled not a bang, but a whimper when it comes to confronting Evolutionism. The Holy City has not been well served by her citizens in this regard.

There have been many who have sought to deal with Evolutionism by attempting to make room for it within the Christian faith. In following this course they had noble lineage. Had not Kant boasted that he would reconcile rationalism with faith? So, like Kant, there have been many in Jerusalem who have adopted the mindset of Eve in her sin―which is where rationalism began in the first place. It was in the Garden of Eden that the mind of man was elevated to a status equal in authority to God.

Just as Eve conducted some independent empirical research upon the Tree of Life and drew her own conclusions based on the discovered “facts”, so many Christians still harbour vestiges of mental idolatry in their hearts. For them, they agree with the Serpent and Eve that the facts are the facts are the facts. The facts speak louder to us than the Scriptures. They are more authoritative than the Bible. With great sadness, and not a little anger, we have to acknowledge the idolatry of the Enlightenment is alive and well in Jerusalem.

So, there have been many erstwhile Jerusalemites who have thought that if the Bible teaches that God made the entire universe in six days, and if the Bible stresses the twenty-four hour nature of the period by encapsulating each day in the coda, “it was morning and it was evening, the xth day” to convey the literal twenty-four hour period of time―then either the Bible must be wrong or it must be glossed to mean something entirely different. It must be glossed to fit the “facts.” In each of those “days” in Genesis we are now advised to see the passage of millions and millions and millions of years.

Why do they need to wrest the Bible this way? Well, they feel the need to acknowledge the speculations presented as facts by the Evolutionists. Otherwise Christian may be construed as foolish and mindless by unbelivers. So, we will tip the hat to the Athenian pagans, and we will call ourselves theistic evolutionists. We will “make room” for those millions of years demanded by Evolutionism―the theory requires the passage of billions and billions of years; “evidence” being then spun up to fit the theory―and we will posit God, or more accurately, a god superintending the processes of survival of the fittest, and every other patterned order which Evolutionism requires to make any sense at all. Then, we will read this back into Genesis. We will call our position “Theistic Evolution” and, then, like Kant, we will have saved reason and made room for faith. We will even give it additional fancy names―like “Intelligent Design”―to make us feel better.

In fact, Theistic Evolution, like Kant, does not save reason and make room for faith: destroys both reason and faith.

The plain and obvious meaning of the text in Genesis 1 is that of six literal twenty-four hour days. This perspective is reinforced by many other Scriptural evidences, such as references to the seven days in the Fourth Commandment, and references to the government of the sun and the moon over the passage and sequence of time in Genesis. Moreover, from a theological perspective the theory of Theistic Evolution is a nonsense. Why? Theistic Evolution―which is really another variant of the intellectual idol of Evolutionism―requires that death existed in the world long before the entrance of sin.

Evolutionism, including its Theistic variant, postulates death as an intrinsic and necessary part of the evolutionary process. Evolution does not work without death. The fittest survive; the less fit, . . . well, die. However, the Bible declares, “The soul that sins, it shall die.” (Ezekiel 18:4). Moreover, the wages of sin are death. (Romans 6:23). And again, “wherefore as through one man sin entered the world and death through sin . . .” (Romans 5:12).

It is clear that death did not exist in the Creation prior to Adam's fall. Death is the punishment for one reality, and a consequence of one reality, and one reality only―sin.

Theistic evolution says, “Well, no. The Bible is in error here. Death existed prior to sin―has always existed in the creation or natural order. Our theory of Theistic Evolution requires the perpetual and abiding reality of death in all life forms if it is to make any sense, and what the Bible says about it be damned.” So, Theistic Evolutionism destroys the undoubted Christian faith by being forced to hold, either to death not being the juridical punishment for sin, or to a world where sin is instrinsic to Nature and to God's creation of an evil world.

Theistic Evolutionism is an Athenian idol. Against it stands the invincible rock of the Word of the Living God. Against that Rock, Theistic Evolutionism has been, and will be, shattered―a fate which all those who cling to such idols also risk. To all those in Jerusalem who, still thinking like Eve, try to make the Bible fit to their so-called independent empirical analyses, who have created a most disgusting Athenian idolatry in the fantasy of Theistic Evolutionism―to all those we say, “Stop stroking and kissing the weasel.”

The S-Files

Winston Peters Receives S-Award

Contra Celsum has given an S-Award to Winston Peters whose political party is “giving away” $150,000 of other peoples' money to charities. The largesse is being given in bills of small denominations so that it cannot be traced.

Citation:

The S-Award is proudly bestowed on Winston Peters who exemplifies the modern Athenian politician. His actions have been remarkably consistent throughout all his political life, but have recently reached a high point of achievement. He has been a true faithful servant of the people.

Peters is one of the country's most sophisticated leaders. All his public life he has embodied the principle of common-sense pragmatism, devoid of empty idealism or naïve lofty principles. He knows that the Colosseum crowd loves to receive bread and other goodies at the hand of their Emperors. Politics is essentially about bribery.

His public career has embraced the corruption of modern democratic government with breathtaking honesty and candour. He has welcomed it without guile. His career is synonymous with a life long dedication to public bribery as a means of maintaining position and office. His public life is a living dedication to the principle that the State should exact as much as it can from its activities so that more and more can be distributed with grander “generosity”. Thus Peters has carefully groomed a loyal section of the Colosseum crowd that he has pleased with scraps of bread from time to time. He has done it with panache and skill—envied by his political opponents.

At the last election he and his faction were caught stealing $150,000 from the citizens. But consistent with his life long career he has determined not to repay the funds but to drip more largesse out to his admirers. In doing this he is being utterly consistent with his principles. He is rightly offended at the criticism from politicians of other factions. He knows they are hypocrites. After all, they, too, all their public lives, have played the same game—exacting money from the people and redistributing it to curry and buy favour from their respective Colosseum factions. Politics is all about bribery.

Peters has just taken the game to a new advanced level. The criticism he is unjustly having to endure is little more than envy from factional opponents who wish they had thought of it first. Winston Peters is a true citizen and loyal servant of the country. He is the true mirror of the country.

Winston Peters is New Zealand—necrosis in a flashy suit.

Winston Peters: S-Award, Class One for actions that are Smart, Sound and Salutary.