Son of Hamas

Surprised by Joy

Tim Challies has written a review of Son of Hamas, by Mosab Hasson Yousef. We recently blogged on the conversion of this man to Christianity. He is the son of a founder of Hamas and was raised a jihadist. The book, recently released, has hit the NYT Bestseller list.

From his earliest days, Mosab Hasson Yousef had a view of the inner workings of Hamas. The son of one its founders, from childhood he was immersed in the shadowy world of Middle Eastern terror and politics. Arrested time and again by the Shin Bet, the Israeli internal intelligence service, he eventually made the decision to become a double agent, working for Israel instead of against her. For ten years, from 1997 to 2007, he lived like this, deeply embedded within Hamas, suspected by no one, yet passing vast amounts of information to Israel. In this way he prevented assassinations, stopped suicide attacks and provided information leading to the arrests or killings of many terrorists. He was Shin Bet’s most valuable source of information about Hamas.

In 1999 he had a chance encounter with a British visitor who invited Yousef to learn about the Christian faith. Curious and intelligent, Yousef took this opportunity and was immediately struck by the difference between Jesus Christ and Mohammed, between the Christian faith and the Islam he had inherited from his fathers. In the months that followed he made a slow conversion to Christianity and was quietly baptized.

Eventually Yousef grew tired of his double life and convinced the Israelis to release him from his position with them. With some reluctence they agreed and allowed him to move to the United States where he continues to live today. Son of Hamas is the story of his life, “A gripping account of terror, betrayal, political intrigue, and unthinkable choices,” according to the rather verbose subtitle.

And it’s a good story that is told well. Yousef offers a uniquely interesting perspective on Hamas and on the political background and context in that area of the world. His story involves just enough action and intrigue to keep it interesting. At times it is almost (but not quite) unbelievable.

One thing I found interesting is that Youself reveals the Israelis not as the good guys but as the less-bad guys. He develops some level of respect for them when he sees that they are fighting for their lives against a host of nations bent on their destruction. But still he shows how they are every bit as willing as the surrounding nations to torture and kill to further their own ends. Their respect for life is not much greater than that of their enemies. So the Israelis really are not the good guys in this story.

And of course I enjoyed reading not just of Yousef’s conversion to Christianity but also the long process and the inner turmoil that got him there. It was only through much soul-searching that he was able to see Jesus Christ not just as a prophet but as the Son of God who died for the sin of the world. So often I read books like this and am disappointed to see that the author finds joy in everything but Christ. But here Yousef finds rest and joy and peace only when he submits his life to Christ.

Yousef does not want to be a hero to Christians. At the end of the book he admits his own unsuitability for that task. He is a new Christian and one who is unskilled–still a novice. And yet he is one who has now written a book about his conversion that has landed on the New York Times list of bestsellers. His testimony is powerful and I both hope and expect that God will use it to show others the light that can be theirs if they turn to Christ.

This one is well worth reading. Buy a copy and marvel at God’s grace. Marvel at how God will go to great lengths to draw his people to himself.Verdict: Buy it and rejoice in the grace of God.

Secularism in the Twilight

The Mermaids Sing, But Not to Me

It's always amusing and gratifying when Unbelief has gnawing doubts about its so-called emerging ascendency. A profound belief in the inevitable triumph of the cause has always proved deeply motivational to all chiliasts. Secular humanists have been no exception.

For the past forty years or so the ideology of secular humanism has included a belief in the inevitable triumph of its cause. The West was becoming progressively more secular, less religious; scientific rationalism would inevitably reign supreme. It was just a matter of time. The tide of history was running strongly down secular main street. But no longer, it seems.

In a recent article in the New Humanist, entitled, Battle of the Babies, Caspar Melville captures the gradually emerging despondency amongst the secularists. A prescient few are starting to realise that, far from achieving ascendency, their anti-Christian ideology is going to fail.

The reason: non-secular fundamentalist groups (by which is meant anyone whose religious beliefs are held sufficiently seriously that they actually shape one's life) are reproducing well above their replacement rate, whereas secular humanists are (demographically) a dying breed.

His article is based on an interview with "political scientist Eric Kaufmann, a reader in politics at London’s Birkbeck College, and the author of the new book Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth?, out in March from Profile Books." Kaufmann is "joining the dots", as it were, between the undeniable fact of far higher birth rates amongst serious religious people in the West, and the demographic death spiral amongst secular humanists.

What Kaufmann is arguing is that the secularisation thesis, the assumption that modernity leads inexorably to a lessening of religious belief and a day when we are all rational humanists, is wrong – at one point Kaufmann approvingly quotes Rodney Stark and Roger Finke’s view that this is “a failed prophecy”. Further he is saying that there is something about our current form of liberal secularism that contains (here’s another headline) the seeds of its own destruction. Since the birth rate of individualistic secular people the world over is way below replacement level (2.1 in the West), and the birth rate of religious fundamentalists is way above (between 5 and 7.5 depending on sect), then through the sheer force of demography religious fundamentalism is going to become a much bigger force in the world and gain considerable political muscle. Literalist religious conservatism is being reborn and we secular liberals are the midwives.

In this view, secular humanism is self-destructing. The first reason is that it is narcissistically individualistic. Children are "rug-rats" which spoil the indulgent lifestyles of the secularists. Secondly, the toleration ethic in secular humanism means that it tends to indulge fundamentalists, not oppose them up front. In former days, he notes, governments went to war to deal with religious zealots, such as Mormons. Hardly acceptable today, he admits somewhat wistfully. Finally, and in our view, by far the more serious reason is that secularism has nothing "big" to live for any longer. It is a broken down ideology which is unable to stand for much any longer. It no longer has any "big ideas".

These three things mean that secularism is anaemic and weak in the face of people with fundamental religious beliefs.

The article notes that committed Christian groups and movements in the United States are linking together fecundity and larger families, with a longer term plan to make the United States part of a new Christendom. This agenda is identified as being "sinister".

What can be done? Well, firstly there could be active policies to restrict people having lots of children.

“Well, I don’t think we want to get in a population footrace. It may be necessary for secular people to have slightly more children but it would be nicer if we could get fundamentalists to have fewer children.” A strangely authoritarian notion to fall from the lips of a self-confessed liberal. “Yes,” he admits, “imposing restrictions would be condemned as discriminatory. But there are carrots as well as sticks."

Secondly, there is the option of converting the Christians.

Another scenario he imagines in his conclusion is that secularism might start to do a better job of winning over the children of religious fundamentalism. But at the moment he sees no statistical sign of this, and he seems gloomy about the prospect. Why? “Part of my argument is that religion does provide that enchantment, that meaning and emotion, and in our current moment we lack that. This is the challenge for secularism: can it come up with such an ideology?”

To my mind this looks a worrying prospect. Counter religion by producing a new kind of secular enchantment? Doesn’t it also betray a lack of conviction about the values that underpin our current society and the appeal they might hold for anyone who comes into contact with them?

Secular enchantment? Good luck with that. The only enchantment it will ever have is the age-old enchantment of sin itself--and that will not get any traction amongst truly converted Believers. Secular humanism is now world-weary. It has nothing left to live for, as one of its cheerleaders has noted:

Kenan Malik undercuts the scaremongering that so often accompanies discussion of demography by suggesting that we already have a powerful weapon against the trends, if only we could see it. “What has eroded,” he argues, “is faith in the idea that it is possible to win peoples of different backgrounds to a common set of secular, humanist, enlightened values. And that is the real problem: not immigration, nor Muslim immigration, but the lack of conviction in a progressive, secular, humanist project.”

What Kaufmann and Malik are certainly in accord on is the need to displace the multicultural “celebration of difference” model of toleration with one that contains a far more robust sense of common values and a far more stringent rejection of reactionary fundamentalism. “We need a stronger sense of liberal values,” Kaufmann told me. “We should answer back to all fundamentalisms.”

But secularism and values are always uneasy bed-fellows. Values have to be based upon something other than brute matter. Go too far down that track, and the foundations of secularism crumble, and it ends up looking more and more as it truly is--just one more faux-fundamentalist religion, albeit one lacking any cultural power.

Kaufmann wants to give a final bit of advice to salvage the cause: secular humanism needs to find common ground with "moderate" religious people (by which is meant, religious people who keep their religion strictly private and to themselves, and who have eschewed bringing their religious beliefs with them into the public square.) New Zealanders will recall that this was attempted recently by the Labour government under Helen Clark. It failed miserably, as one would have expected. Such folk are really just secularists in drag. Their cultural enervation is already complete.

(S)ecularists might need to collaborate more with religious moderates – find common cause in the way fundamentalists are doing. “The issue is not belief in God, but organised religion, especially fundamentalism. Non-believers can still have a rich conversation with moderate people who believe in God. You can’t have a conversation with a fundamentalist.”

If Kaufmann admits that his scary headlines somewhat belie the provisional nature of his findings, he has an answer: “I am trying to force a certain rethink of the idea that we are moving naturally toward secularism. To shake up our complacency and, perhaps, stir up some debate.”

Secularists may well be shaken by his book, but will they be stirred?

We believe secularists will be neither shaken, nor stirred. Once its inevitable attendant narcissism has captured the soul, one's attention span can only have an ever diminishing half-life.

Welcome to the world-weary existence of J. Alfred Prufrock.

Meanwhile, the people of God will go from strength to strength because Zion has already been established as the greatest, above all mountains.

Tough Love, Luther-Style

Robust Friendship

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

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

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

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

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

What good can you do by your vain anxiety?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Sign of Things to Come . . .

Even the Left Are Getting Worried About Debt

The Chicago Tribune, normally a cheerleader for its native son, Barack Obama and a fan of left-wing, big government spending policies in general, has discovered a late case of anxiety over exploding government debt. But, better late than never, one could argue.

Debt is the Achilles heel of all Western societies. It is an inevitable outcome of the prevailing narcissism of demand rights, entitlement ideology, and a widely held belief in the State as Mother Superior. Debt is simply a result of a polity insisting upon consumption now, whilst leaving future generations to pick up the tab and be enslaved to pay it back. Because the present generation does not have to pay the price the more the merrier has been the attitude to debt to date.

Everybody knows that the debt burden of the US government it beyond imagination. Everybody knows that something will have to happen--sometime. But most people hope that the something will be faced by someone else--preferably those who are at present children, or yet to be born.

The Chicago Tribune, in a recent editorial called its readers' attention to a little signal of things to come. It referred to something potentially quite significant, albeit largely unnoticed. It turns out that recently, Berkshire Hathaway--the company owned by Warren Buffett, raised some capital in the US debt markets. Berkshire Hathaway was able to borrow at a lower interest rate than what the Federal Government has been able to secure.

Why is this significant? The Trib explains:

With federal budget deficits running wild, investors are growing uneasy at the idea of lending money to an institution that seems unable to stop spending beyond its means. Last month, something extraordinary happened: Two-year bonds offered by Berkshire Hathaway Inc. commanded lower yields than those offered by the U.S. government. As Bloomberg.com put it, "The bond market is saying that it's safer to lend to Warren Buffett than Barack Obama."

Normally government debt securities carry the lowest interest rates, because they are deemed to be the safest investments of all. In this case money lenders are saying they believe Berkshire Hathaway is a more safe and secure investment than the US government. Not only that, but investors apparently believe that the US government is a more risky investment over two years--which is a very short time frame. Surely not. The US government can tax and print money till the cows come home. This would be like investors in New Zealand believing it was safer to lend money to Telecom than to the NZ Government.

Berkshire Hathaway, after all, conceivably could make so many mistakes that it runs out of money and closes down. But the U.S. government is not about to run out of money, even if it keeps overspending.

Why not? First, it can appropriate more of its citizens' earnings through the tax system. Second, and more important, it can print money to pay its bills. Warren Buffett doesn't have those options.

Ah, yes--but there is a catch. There is something rotten in the state of Denmark, or on the Potomac, and investors have worked it out.

So it's hard to see why investors would be leery. Well, actually, it's not so hard: The federal government is digging itself deeper into debt every month and intends to keep doing so indefinitely.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office offers a prognosis: "Under the president's budget, debt held by the public would grow from $7.5 trillion (53 percent of GDP) at the end of 2009 to $20.3 trillion (90 percent of GDP) at the end of 2020." Interest payments would quadruple.

The long-term problem here is not that the government eventually would default on its obligations. The danger is that it would create money to make those debts payable, a course that would lead to much higher inflation. Then, yields on even impeccable corporate bonds would climb with those of T-bills.

The economy would also suffer as businesses and households scrambled to cope with the disruptive effects of soaring prices. It would suffer again if and when the government decided to curb inflation by driving up interest rates — a step that virtually guarantees a sharp downturn.

Frightened investors may be wrong to think they're less likely to get their money back from the government than from Buffett's Berkshire.

But they're not wrong to be frightened.

Now, we suspect that the Trib has not got this quite right. After all, it's only two-year debt that is being discussed. Can the debt market really be reckoning that the US government's debt problems will explode within two years, so that inflation is going to ignite that quickly? Possibly it has more to do with the amount of government debt being issued, whereas Berkshire Hathaway debt-paper is pretty scare.

What is more significant is that the Trib is starting to focus on the national debt set to explode over the next six to ten years, and expressing the belief that people are right on the money to be frightened about it. And this from an Obama supporting, left-wing orientated, big-government-spending newspaper.

Signs of things to come.

NASA Confirms Temperature Data is Suspect

Bogus Science a Tarnished Jewel

We blogged earlier this year on Freedom of Information requests that had been submitted to NASA in an effort to get to the bottom of whether its global temperature data was kosher. Readers will recall that there are four major "sources" for global temperature data. All the three databases "show" global temperatures rising over the last one hundred years.

Now, according to a report filed by Fox, NASA has come clean, or more accurately has disclosed its dirty linen in public.
Now, a defence of the data series has been made by global warming advocates. The defence amounts to claiming that the data is robust because all four databases show the same thing. Which seems fine, until it is understood that all the databases actually share data--that is, they rely on each other.

Global warming critics call this a crucial blow to advocates' arguments that minor flaws in the "Climate-gate" data are unimportant, since all the major data sets arrive at the same conclusion -- that the Earth is getting warmer. But there's a good reason for that, the skeptics say: They all use the same data.

"There is far too much overlap among the surface temperature data sets to assert with a straight face that they independently verify each other's results," says James M. Taylor, senior fellow of environment policy at The Heartland Institute.

"The different groups have cooperated in a very friendly way to try to understand different conclusions when they arise," said Dr. James Hansen, head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, in the same 2007 e-mail thread. Earlier this month, in an updated analysis of the surface temperature data, GISS restated that the separate analyses by the different agencies "are not independent, as they must use much of the same input observations."

There has long been an argument run by Anthony Watts that the temperature stations are systematically biased to show rising temperatures over time because of the "Urban Heat Inversion" effect. As urbanisation takes place, temperature stations end up having heat producing buildings and industries located near them.

Watts has been ridiculed by the global warming advocates. Now, however, NASA has admitted the obvious, and is changing its database, yet again.

But NASA is somewhat less confident, having quietly decided to tweak its corrections to the climate data earlier this month.

In an updated analysis of the surface temperature data released on March 19, NASA adjusted the raw temperature station data to account for inaccurate readings caused by heat-absorbing paved surfaces and buildings in a slightly different way. NASA determines which stations are urban with nighttime satellite photos, looking for stations near light sources as seen from space.

Of course, this doesn't solve problems with NASA's data, as the newest paper admits: "Much higher resolution would be needed to check for local problems with the placement of thermometers relative to possible building obstructions," a problem repeatedly underscored by meteorologist Anthony Watts on his SurfaceStations.org Web site. Last month, Watts told FoxNews.com that "90 percent of them don't meet [the government's] old, simple rule called the '100-foot rule' for keeping thermometers 100 feet or more from biasing influence. Ninety percent of them failed that, and we've got documentation."

Once again, when people assert that the world has got warmer over the past one hundred years, they need to be challenged. "How do you know?" is the really apt and appropriate objection. Those who cite the global temperature databases need to be politely asked, "And which modified and adjusted version of the data are we talking about?"

Meanwhile, the Arctic ice cover has returned to its long term normal levels. Just saying. The shrinking Arctic ice cover, of course, was the trumpeted "evidence of global warming happening before our eyes." Now, its just climate, nothing to do with global warming at all.

Money, Greed, and God--Part III

Good Intentions are Not Sufficient

The second myth Richards discusses in his book, Money, Greed, and God is what he calls The Piety Myth, which focuses upon the intentions of policies or law, rather than on the (unintended) consequences. Now, when it comes to economic laws and property rights, most Christians focus upon motivations such as love and a desire to do justice and goodness. Many do so superficially and naively. They assume that if the intent of a law or policy is to help the poor, or remove injustices, then virtually any legal philosophy or government action is thereby justified.

However, while the Bible clearly speaks a great deal about motives and intent, it also speaks equally authoritatively about statutes and law (that is, the rules under which our motivations are to be worked out). It also authoritatively speaks about the end results which are to be achieved. To be faithfully biblical, then, is to be subject consistently and comprehensively to Scripture's rules for motives, law, and goals, without cutting off any one leg of the stool. In Scripture, the end never justifies the means; moreover, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

In particular, Richards is concerned to re-establish the importance of the goals actually accomplished. He argues that the consequences or effects of our beliefs and actions concerning personal property rights must be consistent with Scripture. Often these consequences are not immediately obvious when there is an overemphasis upon motives.
Economics is not so much concerned about motives, but outcomes.

Economically, though, only what you dois important, whatever your reason. Buying a bunch of bananas at Costco will have the same economic effect, no matter why you buy them. (p.35. Emphasis, ours.)

What he means by this is that if we buy bananas with bad motives, the impact upon personal property rights and the surrounding legal and justice framework for the community at large will not be affected one way or the other. However, any bad motives we may have in buying a banana may impact positively or negatively on our families, our souls, our walk with God and so forth.

But if what we do affects others in such a way that it weakens or undermines their personal property rights (that is, the stewardship and ownership bestowed upon their property under the eighth and tenth commandments) then, even if our motives were absolutely pure, the actions themselves would be wrong. For example, if out of genuine compassion upon the impecunious beggar in the street, I walk into a shop and lift a banana to feed the beggar, the action would be clearly wrong, regardless of my true motive. If, however, I am moved with compassion for the beggar, enter the shop and purchase a banana, and give it to him or her then both my actions and my motives could be in accordance with Scripture.

Henry Hazlitt, an economic journalist, thought this was so important that he defined economics in terms of consequences. “The art of economics,” he said, “consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.”

This is one of those principles that are easy to get and even easier to forget. Unfortunately, Christians have supported all sorts of policies that were well motivated but made matters worse, not better. (p. 36)

Richards gives some examples. The first is the minimum wage. While the intention of setting a minimum wage might be noble enough, the consequence more often than not is that it makes it harder for the poor, the young, and the vulnerable to get and keep a job. It takes away or devalues their personal property rights in their own labour which they can sell in the market place for gain.

A wage is a price on a commodity—labor. Different kinds of labor, such as dishwashing and retina surgery, are going to have different values economically, depending on the who, where, when, what, and how of the labour. A minimum wage fixed by law ignores that reality. It's a form of price fixing that tries to distribute wealth before it's been created. (p.38)

Let's say economic times are tough. I have just left school and am trying to get a job. The government increases the minimum wage rate. The costs of labour rise; businesses already cutting costs due to recession, freeze all new hiring unless absolutely essential. The personal property rights of businesses and all those looking for a job have been compromised and weakened.

The people most likely to suffer from these laws are those at the bottom: the unskilled, young inarticulate, and handicapped workers, who need to grab the bottom rung of the economic ladder. Raise it too high, and the rung is out of reach. In a diverse economy, remember, low-paying jobs are entry-level jobs. Like it or not, some people need entry-level jobs very close to the ground floor. Few people stay in these jobs forever. The experience and connections that such jobs provide can be more valuable than the salary itself. Minimum-wage laws favor vocal and visible workers over the vulnerable workers who can least afford to be unemployed. Good intentions don't change that. (p.39)

Another example is foreign aid. The record of its effects is dismal, to say the least. Personal property is exacted through the tax system and governments send money to undeveloped, poor countries.

More often than not, the money has either been wasted or helped prop up corrupt dictators who keep their countries poor. In one sad case, a group of refugees had to flee from an African dictator who was supported by foreign aid. To balance the scales, the refugees were awarded aid as well. Guns and butter for everyone, just to be fair? (p.46)

Those who have bothered to research the issue tell us that foreign aid does little more than generate an enervating cargo-cult mentality amongst the recipients, or a sense of victimisation. Those controlling the flow of aid usually become fabulously wealthy through theft and corrupt practices. Oftentimes, when foreign aid has been applied directly to infrastructure such as dams or power stations, massive wasteful white elephants have been created.

We recall hearing just one example of extravagant waste. A poor area in Uganda was persuaded by the local foreign aid workers that huge health benefits could be achieved by sinking wells in every village. It was proposed that crude, but functional wells be dug. But the foreign-aiders said this was not good enough. More could be done. They roared into villages, using mechanical well borers to sink deep wells and fitted each with a gasoline engine-driven pump. Then they roared off again into the sunset, having overlooked the fact that there was no available fuel for the pumps. The outcome was useless.

Government welfare is fraught with all sorts of bad consequences—mainly, increasing rates of permanent intergenerational welfare dependency. But it also is intrinsically evil, in that it requires the state expropriation of personal property and bestowing it upon others. This is what is otherwise known as theft. Thus, government welfare fails in terms of the bad consequences it produces, and because it is an evil act.

Using the state to redistribute wealth from one citizen to another is different from general taxation for legitimate governmental functions . . . . Rather than promoting general welfare, redistribution schemes involve a group of citizens voting to have the government take property from others and give it to them. Rather than celebrating such schemes, Christians should be holding them up to the light of moral scrutiny. . . .

When government takes the property of one person and gives it to another, it sets up a lose-lose game disguised as a win-win game. One group is coerced; the other is degraded. (p. 53,54)

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Good work must be done God's way. Those who do not follow His prescriptions and requirements as to correct goals, standards, and motives end up doing far more long-term damage than the ills they seek to combat. The fact that the damage can take decades, even generations to be wrought does not mitigate or lessen the evil in any way. It actually makes it worse because when bad consequences are not immediate the wicked tend to double down on their evil deeds.

Voting Guidance to the Faithful

All Jakesy Jukesy

Culture and Politics - Obama Nation Building
Written by Douglas Wilson
Wednesday, March 24, 2010

The national debt apportions out to each citizen at about 40K apiece. This would not be counting any off-ledger shenanighans, whose name is no doubt Legion, and it is not counting the bender that the president yesterday signed into what passes for law these days.

It was good that no Republican voted for the health care in either chamber. Yay. But before we hand out the trophies, there are a couple of things that the Republicans have to do before they convince me that they really got saved at that tent meeting, and weren't just there checking out the girls. If you are of the same mind that I am, it would be premature to declare everything jakesy-jukesy.

So here is a simplified congressional scorecard that you can readily memorize, and use:

1. It may be lawful, under certain limited circumstances, to vote for a Republican without fear of lawful church discipline. It can be done. Under no circumstances should you vote for a Democrat, not even the ones who allow themselves to be photographed hunting pheasants with a shotgun. Any Democrat is susceptible to the kind of pressure we saw applied to that Michigan feller before he Stupaked it in. As one analyst observed, the current administration is a potent cocktail mix of Springfield corruption, Chicago thuggery, and Alinsky radicalism. Don't vote for anybody who feels any kind of loyalty to that.

2. Do not vote for any Republican who uses the word bipartisan in a positive way. If a Republican says bipartisanship, and then spits and crosses himself, he might be okay.

3. Here is where it is possible to walk over to the sunny side of the street. If the congressional elections in the fall of 2010 go the way they are quite possibly going to go, and the Democrats lose control of the House, all that is necessary to thwart this debacle is for the House, which controls the purse strings, to refuse to fund anything about it. So don't vote for any candidate who is not solidly on record saying that he will not vote to apportion "one thin dime" for the health care reform bill. This thing can be stopped dead eight months from now -- but only by newly minted congressmen who have promised to stop it dead. Ask your congressman, and ask your candidates, if they would vote to provide no funds for this.

4. And last, don't vote for any congressional candidate who has not promised to fight for, and vote for, eventual repeal of this ugly quivering lump of legislation. By the time your grandkids hit kindergarten, you shouldn't really want each citizen's debt load to be a quarter million.

When Will They Ever Learn?

Run, Baby, Run

We have posted several times in the past on how labour and capital are mobile. If a government, enabled by governed who consent to it, continue to oppress by rules, laws, taxes, and other impositions, capital and labour will end up moving elsewhere. This is the dismal reality in New Zealand, where over 25% of our native born now live offshore. Entrepreneurs, labour, and capital have voted with their feet, and got up and moved.

The governing secularist classes in the United States have forgotten that their nation was begun by people who made themselves mobile so as to escape the oppression of Stuart monarchs claiming they ruled by Divine right. These folk were continuing a long held, noble tradition. Throughout most of the sixteenth century Protestants and others moved from city to city, province to province, country to country when threatened by oppression (there being no passports or border controls in those days.)

A form of soft-despotism has crept over the United States--and exactly as you would expect, people and capital are moving elsewhere. As state and federal taxes rise inexorably to fund the messianic madness of statism, businesses and people are becoming mobile, once again. Capital and labour flight is hollowing out the most despotic areas in the US. In 2008, the state of Maryland had a budget shortfall, so it increased taxes on millionaires in that state to help pay for it. Within one year, the number of people earning over a million dollars had fallen by one third. Some had ceased to earn that much; many others had just up and moved out of state.

We heard recently of a US company that was moving its business to Canada. Why? Wait for it . . . Canadian tax rates were lower! And now, Forbes magazine has publisheda piece on McAfee, the virus protection software company, which is leaving Silicon Valley. Why? Taxes and employee expenses. It too expensive to hire suitable labour in California, with all the state impositions and add ons which are required.

Security giant McAfee has had a very nice run. The company has doubled revenues to $1.9 billion in the past four years and aggressive hiring has followed. This should be fantastic news for California, where McAfee was founded. But it isn't, and the reasons are troubling.

David DeWalt, who heads McAfee, is very intentionally not hiring new staff in the Golden State. Even worse for California, the company a while ago transferred entire departments elsewhere. Is McAfee based in California? Kind of. Only 14%, or roughly 900, of McAfee's 6,500 employees are left in Silicon Valley.

This is a cost-saving measure. McAfee ranks Silicon Valley fourth with the dubious distinction of most expensive places to do business, behind Russia, Japan and London. That's kind of shocking. Mountain View, Calif. sure ain't Tokyo in any sense.

DeWalt figures he can save 30 to 40% every time he hires outside of California. And that's roughly the premium he has to pay in the form of a moving bonus to get someone to relocate to California. Sunshine, pretty hills and nice beaches aren't enough? Apparently not.

"We have to compensate them generously for coming here," he says. There is, of course, the higher housing costs that push up salaries. And California's high income tax rates, which act as immediate surcharges on salaries. But DeWalt also has to make up for the state's lousy public schools, which push people into distant suburbs where schools tend to be better (meaning longer commute times) or pay for those pricey private school tuitions.

It's not just that labour and capital flight is out of particular states either--it's that the flight is offshore to other countries. In McAfee's case it is to Canada and India.

The job flight extends to areas that California, and Silicon Valley in particular, are supposed to be ideal for: engineering. DeWalt has been expanding research labs in Oregon and Ontario. Both places gave him nice tax credits. Where does McAfee have the most employees, overall? India. He's hiring there, too.

The growth of soft-despotic state is gradual and incremental. It is like the frog in the pot syndrome. Then things reach the point of no return, where even if you removed the pot from the heat dramatically it's too late. The frog is going to die. California has reached that place, as have several once-leading US states. It's hard to see California "coming back" without a radical rejecting of its soft-depotism of choice, and even then the rebuilding will take decades.

This is bad on a lot of levels. It means Silicon Valley's high joblessness will likely continue. It also means a crucial slice of California's tax base is gone or leaving just as the state is facing a $52 billion deficit, double the next worst, New York. According to public policy lecturer Joe Nation, who recently spoke at Stanford's SIEPR economic summit, California's debt service soon will balloon to 10% of the state's budget, from just 1 or 2% historically.

Californians are already taxed more than most. And this only increases as Washington imposes more taxes on high earners and investments. Some well-heeled residents will flee for income-tax-free havens like Texas, Nevada and Wyoming.

This doesn't seem like a big deal until you consider that half of California's income tax revenue is from a stunningly elite group of some 142,000 taxpayers.

The last sentence says it all. More and more people and larger and larger amounts of capital are going to be checking out of Hotel California, regardless of what happens now. This development has a long and noble tradition. As the despotic ambitions of statism grow relentlessly, "Run, baby, run" will ever be the outcome. Those who will not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.

Hat Tip: Patterico

Peter Hitchens--Part VI

Tattered Magnificence

The Rage Against God
Written by Douglas Wilson
Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Peter' next chapter is a brief one, and I will be even more brief. It is more explicitly autobiographical, and concerns the tattered magnificence of an England that was clearly visible when Peter was a boy, and which is now almost entirely gone. It is important to note that this chapter is not Peter giving way to nostalgia, but that this is an essential part of his argument. He is showing how it was possible for him to walk away from the God of his fathers, and it was all tied up in the decline of his fathers. Further, he is setting the stage for his next chapter -- on the false religion that came to replace Christianity after the Second World War. Peter writes well throughout, but this chapter is beautifully written.

Money, Greed, and God--Part II

The Nirvana Myth

This is the second post in a series we will be publishing as we work through the recent book by Jay W. Richards, entitled Money, Greed, and God: Why Capitalism is the Solution and Not the Problem (New York: Harper One, 2009). In this book, Richards identifies and rejects eight myths about money and wealth pervasive amongst Christians.

The first myth, widely believed, is that we can solve many problems and injustices in the world by changing the owners of property. Richards argues that everyone agrees there are grave problems in the world—and these problems exist to some degree or other in every human society. Such is the inevitable reality in a fallen world.

Many Christians hear repeatedly of blights that afflict their own particular country: poverty, illiteracy, disease, the gap between rich and poor, and other ills. Being Christians they tend to have a deeply felt compassionate concerns about these afflictions. They find such attitudes to be commanded in Scripture. But, then, at that point, many Christians lay their Bibles aside and turn to the smörgåsbord of options available in the world of Unbelief. Naturally, they find themselves drawn to align with those alternatives which appear to be compassionate and offer relief for the poor and downtrodden, since the Bible commands such compassion and concern.

What many fail to do at this point is think through what the consequences might be if Unbelief's proposed solutions were actually applied. They do not realise, or will themselves not to see, that a whole host of different, worse problems quickly transpire when solutions that call for a forcible, involuntary change in the ownership of property are applied. They naively believe that if “things were changed” a utopia would emerge in which all problems would have been overcome. Richards calls this the Nirvana Myth. The Myth contrasts, for example, societies built upon personal property rights (which naturally have attendant problems) with unrealisable utopian ideals which are naively supposed to remove or avoid problems altogether.

The Nirvana Myth is not simply the belief that good will triumph in the end or the belief that the Kingdom of God is already present in human history. It's the delusion that we can build utopia if we try hard enough, and that every real society is intolerably wicked because it does not measure up to utopia. (Richards, p.31)

Richards goes on to argue that if any generation ought to be utterly and brutally realistic about the folly of such an approach it should be we who live at the beginning of the twenty-first century, since we have the benefit of near hindsight. We can look back on the twentieth century which has tried just about every conceivable alternative to achieve Utopia and the terrible outcomes have been plain for all to see.

While Richards does not make this point, every Utopian scheme we are aware of in the twentieth century substituted personal property rights with communal or social property rights. Where persons living in such Utopian schemes continued to own property, it was only at the pleasure of the community or society. At its most extreme, the community through the power of the state was deemed to own all property. Private property was declared to be an act of theft.

Richards cites The Black Book of Communism which estimates that between 85 and 100 million innocent and defenceless people lost their lives to communist experiments in the twentieth century.

Never has an idea had such catastrophic consequences. It illustrated a grim, simple equation: extreme moral passions minus reality equals mass death. (p.21)

The variant of the ideology of communal ownership of property most familiar to us in the West is the “mixed economy” where private persons own property and have legal title to it, but the state can expropriate at legislative or regulatory will to achieve whatever ends it deems appropriate.

This is probably the most attractive to people driven by their emotions. When a government subsidizes the houses of the poor or gives out money to the unemployed or pays a retirement pension to the elderly it gives expression to our pity and assuages our guilt. Many see it as Christianity in action. But the actual record of such mixed economies is poor: a growing permanent non-working indigent class, alcoholism, drug abuse, high debt levels, low productivity, rising migration, increasingly violent criminal gangs, and a permanent underclass. Richards cites Thomas Sowell:

Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it. (Richards, p. 21)

The “third way” or the “mixed economy” is really socialism in sheep's clothing. Or, as Richards cites Richard John Neuhaus:

The vicissitudes of history . . . have not dissuaded [leftist intellectuals] from their earnest search for a “third way” between socialism and capitalism, namely socialism. (p. 18).

As the old saw goes, if you would be willing to prostitute your wife to another man for ten million dollars, we have established definitively that you are a pimp and your wife is a prostitute, and all we are haggling over is the price. If you would justify personal property rights being overridden to alleviate some great social evil then in principle the state can expropriate anything you own at its will. The state powerful enough to take from others in order to give us what we want is a state to be feared.

In summary, the Nirvana Myth falls down because personal property rights are not the cause of sin and evil in the world. In fact, inviolable personal property rights have the effect of restraining evil because personal property is effective in building protective walls against the depredations and evils of the predatory. The cause of sin lies elsewhere, in the Garden of Eden, a long time ago.

But the the terrible results of societies that consistently weaken or deny personal property rights have been demonstrated for all to see. When personal property rights are weakened, the predatory become more powerful, and wickedness waxes. The wicked seize or extort property, then use their immoral gains to engage in even more potent, despotic thefts, whilst whispering unctuously in the ears of their rulers, easing their path with the bribe. Finally, the state itself becomes the ultimate predator and oppressor.

Peter Hitchens--Part V

A Pointy Hat With Stars and Crescent Moons

Atheism and Apologetics
Written by Douglas Wilson
Monday, March 29, 2010

In his next chapter, Peter Hitchens writes about the Christian education he received, and the reasons it didn't "take." The main reason is that the Christianity, what there was of it, was on autopilot. He learned the same content his fathers had learned, including the missionary journeys of Paul, but what was taught to him about Christ and the gospel was largely through the force of inertia. Those classes were there, but they did not inform everything else. At the same time, something equally mindless, but much more potent, was going on.

The Christian conservatism of my schools did not protect me from the rather Victorian faith in something called 'science' that was then very common. Perhaps this is because Christianity was not implied in every action and statement of my teachers, whereas materialistic, naturalist faith was (p. 46).

And Peter, in retrospect, wonderfully puts his finger on the inanity of this kind of faith in materialistic science -- the utter inability to keep straight the difference between description and explanation. Whenever a bright student asks why, his professors solemnly explain to him how. And, at least for a little while, everybody seems satisfied. Christopher was taught the same faith that Peter was and, far from being a contrarian, he is still singing the same songs he learned as a choir boy. But eventually, sometimes decades later, among all the former students, the thoughtful ones realize that this makes no sense whatever.

Because we could observe gravity in action, we somehow knew what it was . . . Why and how were silently but inextricably confused. The use of the majestic word 'laws' curiously turned the mind away from speculation about whose laws they might conceivably be or why they might have been made (p. 47).

Ask why a rock falls when dropped, and all you will get is a detailed explanation of how fast it accelerates when dropped. The jargon is arcane (9.8 m/s2), and it helps if the wizard doing the explaining has a pointy hat with stars and crescent moons on it. Peter was never given the benefit of an argument that showed how this was all necessary. No, indoctrination doesn't work that way.

"I was simply given the impression by adults that these things were the case, and that this was all settled forever" (p. 48).

But nonsense is nonsense, and nonsense will out.

Meditation on the Text of the Week

We Remain Here, Whilst He has Departed, For a Reason

I do not ask Thee to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one. John 17:15

What is Christ's desire for His people?

It is certainly not that they should remain in the world, in its ethical sense. Already they had been given Him out of the world, and therefore they were no more of the world--no more than Christ Himself was. The truth had already been given them (John 17:8), that truth which should free from sin, God's own name had been manifested to and in them (John 17:6)and they were in radical opposition to the world, so that the world hated them (John 17:14).

Accordingly His prayer distinctly is that they should be kept from that evil which constituted the very characteristic of the world, and that their sanctification should be continued in the truth. (John 17:16--17) He does not desire them to remain in the world in this sense. He has instituted a radical contrariety between them and "the world" ethically considered; and He is providing for this contrariety to widen into an ever broadening gulf.

Just as certainly, it is not that they should remain always in the world in its more local sense. The tone of joy with which the Lord notes that the time of His sojourn on earth is over and he is ready to re-enter His heavenly glory is unmistakable (John 17:1-2). Equally unmistakable is the tone of sadness with which he adverts to leaving His followers in the world. (John 17:11) They are in danger there; in danger from the world's hate; in danger from the world's temptation. They are away from their true and proper home there--in the enemy's country--not householders at home, but soldiers on duty, pilgrims on their journey.

He longs for them to enter their rest. And though He leaves them joy and the means of more joy in the word of truth, His desire for them is something higher than they can find there below. Nay, His distinct "will" for them is that they also may be with Him where He is to be; that they may behold His glory; that they may share in that glory. (John 17:24) He wishes for them what His servant afterwards declared to be "far better" (Philippians 1:23), that they too like Him should go out of the world and enter into glory--where Christ is on the right hand of God, where God dwells and His knowledge is, and where love is perfected in all.

But it is that they may temporarily remain in the world, out of which they have in one sense already come, but in which, in the other sense, they are still left, while kept from the evil of it.

Why? Well, for one thing, for their own sakes--that they may be sanctified. God's name has already been manifested to them; God's world have already been given to them; and they have received them; and men hate them for it. The good work is already, therefore, begun with them. Its fruits are already shown it their radical departure from the world and the world's consequent hatred. But the work is not completed. Therefore, the Saviour prays that "they may be sanctified in the truth", just as He had been.

They are to remain in the world then for their own sakes that the good work begun in them may be perfected unto the end. This appears as needful. Not, of course, as if they might not conceivably, like the dying thief, be prepared for heaven in a moment. God's almighty grace can work wonders. But that is not God's ordinary way; the muscles of holiness must grow by practice; hence temptation itself and trials are blessings. Hence, too, it emerges that sanctification is to take place in this life, in the ordinary provision of God. God's children are to remain in the world for their sanctification.

For another thing--(they are to remain here) for other's sake. God's plans need their presence in and work for the world. They are not the whole harvest, but the first fruits only. And that the first fruits may share in the harvest, it is needful to have them stay and labour here. They are to be the seed--"the good seed are they who . . ." And after a while this sowing is to ripen into a good in-gathering. Accordingly, our Lord prays not only for them but for them also who believe--throughout the whole future--on Him by their word (John 17:20). His glance takes in His whole Church, of all the ages; and these are to abide for it.

For still another thing, (they are to remain here) for the sake of the world itself. . . . The world is to be convicted of sin and convinced of Christ's mission and glory. His own are to remain in the world and to propagate and grow into a mighty, unitary Church, in order that the world itself may know that the lowly Jesus whom it has despised and rejected is none other than the Son of God; and that these lowly followers of His, despised and persecuted by it, are loved of the Father even as the Father loves them (John 17:20--23). The mighty testimony of the Church of God! how little we are bearing it! How we ought to bestir ourselves to it!

And then, finally, we must say also, (they are to remain here) for the Son's own sake. For He, too, reaps advantages for their abiding below. So, and humanly speaking, so only, may His mission be vindicated and His glory manifested to the world, in His Church; may His glory be fully manifested to His own, when at last they come to Him; may His love then be perfected in them (John 17:25-26).

For these reasons, at least, it is well that Christ's people remain for a season in this wicked world.

"Miserable Sinner" Christianity

A Life of Exultant Joy

B.B. Warfield (1851--1921), Professor of Polemical Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, wrote an essay in 1920 entitled, “’Miserable-Sinner Christianity’ in the Hands of the Rationalists,” published in The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield, vol. 7, pp. 113-114.

The essay deconstructs the attempts by rationalistic theologians of his day to re-interpret the Gospel of Christ to make salvation a synergistic work between man and God. Here is an excerpt:

We must always be accepted for Christ’s sake, or we cannot ever be accepted at all.This is not true of us only “when we believe.” It is just as true after we have believed. It will continue to be true as long as we live.

Our need of Christ does not cease with our believing; nor does the nature of our relation to Him or to God through Him ever alter, no matter what our attainments in Christian graces or our achievements in Christian behavior may be.

It is always on His “blood and righteousness” alone that we can rest. There is never anything that we are or have or do that can take His place, or that can take a place along with Him. We are always unworthy, and all that we have or do of good is always of pure grace.

Though blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ, we are still in ourselves just “miserable sinners”: “miserable sinners” saved by grace to be sure, but “miserable sinners” still, deserving in ourselves nothing but everlasting wrath. That is the attitude which the Reformers took, and that is the attitude which the Protestant world has learned from the Reformers to take, toward the relation of believers to Christ.

There is emphasized in this attitude the believer’s continued sinfulness in fact and in act; and his continued sense of his sinfulness. And this carries with it recognition of the necessity of unbroken penitence throughout life. The Christian is conceived fundamentally in other words as a penitent sinner.

But that is not all that is to be said: it is not even the main thing that must be said. It is therefore gravely inadequate to describe the spirit of “miserable sinner Christianity” as “the spirit of continuous but not unhopeful penitence.” It is not merely that it is too negative a description, and that we must at least say, “the spirit of continuous though hopeful penitence.” It is wholly uncomprehending description, and misplaces the emphasis altogether.

The spirit of this Christianity is a spirit of penitent indeed, but overmastering exultation. The attitude of the “miserable sinner” is not only not one of despair; it is not even one of depression; and not even one of hesitation or doubt; hope is too weak a word to apply to it. It is an attitude of exultant joy. Only this joy has its ground not in ourselves but in our Savior.

We are sinners and we know ourselves to be sinners, lost and helpless in ourselves. But we are saved sinners; and it is our salvation which gives the tone to our life, a tone of joy which swells in exact proportion to the sense we have of our ill-desert; for it is he to whom much is forgiven who loves much, and who, loving, rejoices much.

Hat Tip: Justin Taylor

Peter Hitchens--Part IV

Too Clever By Half

Doug Wilson's Letter From America
Atheism and Apologetics - The Rage Against God
Written by Douglas Wilson
Sunday, March 21, 2010

The first chapter of Peter Hitchens' book is entitled "The Generation Who Were Too Clever to Believe." He begins with his own story, how he burned his Bible as a fifteen-year-old in full revolt against everything he had been brought up to believe (p. 17).

At that moment I knew -- absolutely knew -- that it was the enemy's book, the keystone of the arch I wished to bring down (p. 18).

But dismantling an arch is far easier than building one, particularly if the arch is the kind that points toward Heaven.

I know now that proper virtue is easier to lose, and harder to find, than I thought it was then. I rather think I imagined this was a tremendously original thing to do and a shrewd blow at the dull believer who needed to be scared or bribed into goodness (p. 19).

Peter begins here by giving us his testimony, and he diligently walks a fine line -- he is specific enough, but is careful to do it without falling into the lamentable practice of "over-sharing."

That is pretty much as far as my personal confessions will go. My sins are unoriginal. The full details would be tedious for most people, unwelcome to my family (who have enough to put up with anyway), and upsetting for those directly affected by my very worst behavior (p. 21).

He simply lets us know that his rejection of a belief in God had ethical consequences which did not bother him at all at the time, but which he now recognizes as a devastating lie.

I believe that nothing I could now do or say could possibly atone for [the sins committed] (p. 21). I should be careful here. Confession can easily turn into showing off one's wickedness (p. 22).

And lest anyone think that he is simply giving himself a backhanded compliment for how virtuous he is now, Peter settles that point.

I would add, for those who mistakenly think that religious persons imagine they are better than the rest, that my misbehavior did not stop when I crept stealthily into the pew behind the pillar at the back of the church . . . It merely lost its organized, deliberate character. I do not claim to be 'saved' by my own declarations or by my attendance at the Lord's Supper. That is up to other authorities, which know my inward heart, to decide (p. 22).

He is very specific in this chapter. Nothing he could ever do could atone for how he behaved in the course of his unbelief, and nothing he is doing now is in any way manipulating the levers that control his own personal salvation. He is simply surrendering the point to God. Salvation is all of grace.

The value of Peter's testimony here is that it pinpoints exactly where the unbelief of a generation arose. It arose from the hearts of the individual members of that generation. That generation did not follow Christ because, to speak bluntly, they did not feel like it.

This blatant truth that we hold opinions because we wish to, and reject them because we wish to, is so obvious that it is too seldom mentioned (p. 24).

But why did he not wish to believe? At the time, Peter was entranced by the "crooked smiles," the "knowing worldliness" of the erudite unbelievers serving as his examples and mentors.

It did not then cross my mind that they, like religious apologists, might have any personal reasons for holding to this disbelief. It certainly did not cross my mind that I had any low motives for it. Unlike Christians, atheists have a high opinion of their own virtue (p. 25).

And so we come to headwaters of modern atheism -- coddled and pampered vanity.

"I had, like so many other young men and women of my age, been encouraged by parents and teachers (made soft by their own hard childhoods) to believe that I was clever, and so better than my fellows. Such vanity seeks company. If I could become one of them -- the clever, dry ones -- I could escape . . . conventionally dull, commonplace people" (p. 25).

And so it was that Peter assumed his place in the clever generation, a generation who were too clever to believe. Too clever by half.

How Not to Raise Narcissistic Children

Schooling and Self-Esteem

When a culture turns away from God, such as our own has done, it becomes rootless. It does not stand for anything and so falls for everything. Each generation is subjected to the latest "bright" idea--particularly ideas about human beings, family, marriage, an raising children--that comes down the pike. Then within a generation, the unintended side effects of these "trendy" concepts begin to show up, and society says, "Oops. That was a bad idea". But by then the damage is done.

One really bad idea in our generation has been the notion that children must have their self-esteem constantly reaffirmed and reinforced. This has led to a praxis in the home and in the classroom of constantly affirming children, and minimising criticism--particularly telling children and pupils they are wrong, or allowing them to fail. But now the results are showing up from a generation's application of this half-baked idea to children. They are not good.

A recent article in the Sydney Morning Herald documents the problems and the emerging consequences.

The belief that regular praise will improve the self-esteem of students has backfired, with educators urging over-anxious parents to let their children fail so they can learn from their mistakes. Parents were also doing too much for their children who were becoming less resilient and unable to cope with failure. Some were even too scared to put up their hand in class and risk giving the wrong answer.

As new research shows that members of Generation Y are entering the workforce with an inflated sense of their abilities, principals are warning ''helicopter parents'' against putting too much pressure on children to be successful, which could discourage them from risking failure.

One Sydney principal has stated bluntly that the principle of educating to build a child's self-esteem is the most damaging educational concept that has ever been thought up.

Rod Kefford, the headmaster of Barker College, has warned: ''We are creating a generation of very fearful learners and the quality of our intellectual life will suffer as a result.''

Today's students are let down lightly by teachers and wrapped in cotton wool by some parents. But in the 1960s, it was not uncommon for teachers to tell students bluntly that they had given a wrong answer.

''Then someone invented the concept of self-esteem,'' Dr Kefford said. ''In some ways it has been the most damaging educational concept that has ever been conceived.
''We couldn't do anything that would upset or harm the self-esteem of students, which was very fragile, we were led to believe … That is when we stopped our proper work in the character formation in young people. If we are serious about building resilience, we have to let them fail. It is only through our failings in the learning process that we learn anything.'' He said schools needed to give children the confidence to risk failure to encourage more creative thinking.

A generation of pampered, cosseted, self-indulged children are now entering adult life. They are failing!

''[Through] this fear we have of ever allowing them to fail, we are selling them short as human beings and as future adults,'' he said. One of the first empirical studies on generational differences in work values shows Generation Y or the ''millennials'' (born between 1982 and 1999) are entering the workforce overconfident and with a sense of entitlement. The research, led by Jean Twenge at San Diego State University and published in the Journal of Management, shows this generation wants money and the status of a prestigious job without putting in long hours. When they do not get the marks they expect at university or rise quickly enough in their jobs, they turn into quitters.

''More and more students are reaching university not knowing how to do things for themselves. Parents think they are helping young people by doing things for them but they are actually making them less independent,'' Professor Twenge said.

''It is now common for parents and teachers to tell children, 'you are special' and 'you can be anything you want to be'.'' While such comments are meant to encourage students and raise their self-esteem, experts say they can inflate students' egos.

''Feeling special often means the expectation of special treatment,'' she said. ''Your parents might think you're special but the rest of the world might not. This can be a difficult adjustment.''

Our parents raised a previous generation on the maxim, "Spare the rod and spoil the child". Our generation has reversed this, replacing it with the faddish, "Spoil (aka, build self-esteem) the child, and spare the rod." The fruits of this indulgence are now becoming evident.

Successful parenting and educating must above all be grounded in honesty and integrity. When a culture turns its back upon God, honesty and integrity quickly become seen as old-fashioned concepts, well past their use-by-date. Instead, parents and teachers want to be loved and liked and replace tough, honest love with cheap psycho-babble "love" which denies their children access to the truth that hurts, but also builds character and resilience and appropriate self-respect that does not tolerate in oneself a perpetual narcissism, believing that the whole world exists to serve me.

We thank God that He has delivered us, through His Son, from such folly and self-deceit.

Doug Wilson's Letter From America

Civil Obedience in Context
Romans 13, Part II

Written by Douglas Wilson
Saturday, March 20, 2010

INTRODUCTION:
As we begin the task of unpacking this crucial part of Romans, always remember the context. In the latter part of chapter 12, we saw that Paul was arguing from Deut. 32 that Moses had predicted that God would be avenged upon the Jews, and that He would use a nation that has no understanding to do it (Deut. 32:21, 35). That nation was to be the Roman nation, and this is how Paul knew that the believers of the first century were to be in Jeremiah’s position, and not Hezekiah’s. On top of that, the Lord Himself had prophesied that Jerusalem would be flattened within one generation (Matt. 24: 34). Jesus had said this around 30 A.D., and Paul is writing almost 30 years later (57 A.D.). So the clock was ticking. The Jews erupted in open revolt in 66 A.D.—just 9 years after Romans was written. So Paul’s writing on this subject was not an academic exercise.

THE TEXT:
“Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same” (Romans 13:1-3).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT:
Every soul is to be obedient to the higher powers (v. 1). There is no authority except what God has established (v. 1), and this includes the emperor Nero, who was emperor at that time, despite his unbelief and paganism. Paul is arguing that the Roman control of Jerusalem was God-ordained, and that those who tried to recruit Christians to join with the Jews in resisting Rome from the “holy city” were actually recruiting them to damnation and judgment (v. 2). Paul then gives his rationale for this, which is that rulers are a terror to evil works, not to good works. If you don’t want to live in fear of those in power, then earn their praise by doing what is good (v. 3).

EVEN MORE CONTEXT:
In this setting, it would be difficult to overemphasize the importance of historical context. Nero had become emperor in 54 A.D. and the first five years were known as his golden years. So when Paul wrote these words, he was not living in some utopian fantasy land—the rule really was decent. Nero was at that time advised by a man named Burrus and the Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca. That golden period ended in 59, when Nero had his mother murdered, an act that appalled pretty much everybody.

Further, this man Seneca had published a book On Clemency in 55 A.D. Interestingly, a commentary on this book was the first book that John Calvin ever had published. And if you compare Romans 13:1-7 and De Clementia 1:1-4, the chances will appear outstanding that Paul was acquainted with Seneca’s work, and was laboring to have the Christians do their part. How necessary this was can be seen in the subsequent events. (Incidentally, Seneca was the brother of Gallio in Acts 18:17.)

Later, when the Jewish revolt broke out, it initially looked like it had good chance of success. In the middle of the war, in 68 A.D. there was a coup against Nero, and he was forced to commit suicide. He was replaced by a rapid succession of emperors, each of whom reigned for a matter of mere months. There was to be no real consolidated rule in Rome (in the city where the recipients of this letter were living, remember). As you know, the Temple in Jerusalem was finally burned in 70 A.D. but this was preceded by the burning of the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill in Rome in 69 A.D. (it is not surprising that 69 became known as the year of the four emperors—Galba, Otho, Vitellius and Vespasian). Vespasian appears to have been the one adult in the lot—and he had to leave the siege of Jerusalem to save Rome, leaving his son Titus to finish up the conquest of the Jews.

So the time between Paul’s letter and these events in 68, was the same length of time from 1999 to the present—not a long time at all.

CONDITIONED OBEDIENCE:
The reason Paul gives for obeying the existing authorities was that rulers punish evil deeds, and reward good ones. When he wrote this, it was true. But everything was about to come unstuck. So consider this—to take just one example from these years—what would it mean to subject yourself to the higher powers when Vitellius was (temporarily) ruling in Rome, and Vespasian was marching on Rome with his legions? And further, let us say that Vitellius had already distinguished himself as a debauched thug, driving the city into economic chaos by means of triumphal parades and three orgiastic banquets a day, and then trying to solve the economic problems by executing anybody who had declared him to be their heir. What about then? If there is a riot in the streets, and somebody clambers up on the courthouse steps with a megaphone, and shouts to everybody that he is the king, do you have to obey him because of Rom. 13:1? What about the second guy who shouts that? So just ten minutes of such conditions should show why Paul was as urgent in his exhortation here as he was. In this fallen world, sinful anarchy is far, far worse than a sinful stability.

THE MEASURE OF FAITH:
And so this goes back to a foundational principle that Paul set down in the previous chapter—no one should think they are more important than they are (12:3). As the drama unfolds, who are you in that drama? Are you Vitellius or Vespasian? Seneca or Paul? John Knox used the apt illustration of a father who lost his mind and tried to commit mayhem against his family. If a couple of his sons sit on him until the madness passes, are they dutiful sons or rebellious sons? If they are one, might someone else say they were being the other? Certainly. And so what is our duty? We must be steeped in the Scriptures, and must not think of ourselves more highly than we ought. How? According to the measure of faith.

Japanese to Press Charges

Japanese Legal System at Work

Eco-terrorist, Peter Bethune, who boarded a Japanese whaling ship in the Southern Ocean, and who has been in irons (figuratively) and transported to Japan has been told that he will face serious charges. This is very good news. According to one news report:

The Japanese are throwing the book at New Zealand anti-whaling protester Pete Bethune.

They are bringing five charges against him over his boarding of the Shonan Maru 2 in the Southern Ocean.

He is accused of trespass, possession of weapon, injury to persons, damage to property and obstructing the passage of a vessel.

Bethune's lawyer Dan Harris says it's potentially a very serious situation.

He says he is surprised the charges have been brought and is calling the situation absurd.

Harris says there is literally no foundation to changes (sic) and Bethune will defend them vigorously.

Good luck with that. Maybe he will use the "Waihopai Defence"--that he was illegally boarding a ship and trying to kidnap the captain for the greater good.

Were You There, When They Crucified My Lord?

. . . We Were There

Alas! and did my Saviour bleed

And did my Sovereign die?

Would He devote that sacred head

For such a worm as I?

Was it for crimes that I had done

He groaned upon the tree?

Amazing pity! grace unknown!

And love beyond degree!

Well might the sun in darkness hide

And shut his glories in,

When Christ, the mighty Maker died,

For man the creature’s sin.

Thus might I hide my blushing face

While His dear cross appears,

Dissolve my heart in thankfulness,

And melt my eyes to tears.

But drops of grief can ne’er repay

The debt of love I owe:

Here, Lord, I give my self away

’Tis all that I can do.

Consent of the Governed

Sharkey for President

Romans 13, Part I
Written by Douglas Wilson
Friday, March 19, 2010

At the glorious close of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, the war-weathered hobbits come back to the Shire, and find that it needed a scouring.

"All right, all right!" said Sam. "That's quite enough. I don't want to hear no more. No welcome, no beer, no smoke, and a lot of rules and orc-talk instead" (The Return of the King, p. 977).

"What's all this?" said Frodo, feeling inclined to laugh.
"This is what it is, Mr. Baggins," said the leader of the Shirriffs, a two-feather hobbit: "You're arrested for Gate-breaking, and Tearing up of Rules, and Assaulting Gate-keepers, and Trespassing, and Sleeping in Shire-buildings without Leave, and Bribing Guards with Food."
And what else?" said Frodo.
"That'll do to go on with," said the Shirriff-leader.
"I can add some more, if you'd like it," said Sam. "Calling your Chief Names, Wishing to punch his Pimply Face, and Thinking you Shirriffs look a lot of Tom-fools" (p. 978).

"We're not allowed to," said Robin.
"If I hear not allowed much oftener," said Sam, "I'm going to get angry" (p. 979).

But many evangelicals, badly taught, sound far more like Robin than Sam. They have come to believe that "not allowed" is the necessary meaning of -- all together now! -- Romans 13. When you get back to the Shire, whatever the sallow-faced thug leaning against the gate says you have to do, you have to do. He is leaning against the gate, isn't he? I know there is nothing in the Constitution about that, but the Supreme Court said there was. And they are leaning against the gate too.

The doctrine is a convenient one, and it comports well with those who would make cravenness into a theological virtue. A great deal can be said about Romans 13 (which I hope to do, Lord permitting, in the weeks to come), but in the meantime, let this suffice.

Although the populations of different nations and cultures have different threshholds for what they will put up with, the consent of the governed is still a bedrock principle. At a certain point, it becomes obvious that the "consent of the governed" is not an ideal for democracies to strive for, but is rather an unalterable reality under every form of government. Every regime, however tyrannical, at some point discovers what the tipping point is. And when that tipping point is past, and the teeter to the previous totter sets in, all the military might in the world will not protect those rulers who forgot where their center of gravity was. I will never forget the closing days of the Soviet Union, one of the world's nuclear superpowers, in their standoff with Boris Yeltsin, a Russian with a drinking problem holed up in a house. What happened?

When a nation is blessed by God, the consent of the governed is managed in an orderly way. Elections are relatively honest, and you don't have to make your way to the polling place by walking past concertina wire and armed guards. Tanks are not out on the street in case the election goes the wrong way. But in other nations, the elections are rigged, the dead vote, and powerful interests consider a politician honest if, when bought, he stays bought. But this does not mean that the consent of the governed is not operative under such conditions. It is most certainly operative -- it is just that the center of gravity is in a different place. Different bodies have different shapes, and hence the balancing point is different. But there still is a center of gravity. In an orderly government, the consent of the governed is counted and honestly weighed. Under tyrannies and despotisms, whether hard or soft, the rulers can wake up on any given morning and discover that the consent just evaporated.

Sometimes there is a battle over that tipping point, which the commies won at Tiananmen Square, and which is currently an ongoing affair in the streets of Iran. The communists bought themselves some extra decades via some brutal repression and with regard to Iran, we shall see. But other times and places, the consent just . . . evaporates.

What does that have to do with us? All the tawdry dishonesty on exhibit in Congress right now has been there for a long time. Those who understand biblical principles of governance have understood that, and have been writing about it for decades. And (I am convinced) they were right, at least as far as the argument goes. But there is an immense practical difference between a naked emperor that just one boy sees and a naked emperor that the whole populace sees. If it were a matter of simple argument, he is naked the whole time, and point taken. But it is not until everyone sees it that it becomes a political problem for the emperor.

When support for a system just evaporates, as I am convinced it is in the process of doing with ours, the whole thing is a mystery to the folks it is happening to. They are judicially blinded. The denizens of Congress know that they have been logrolling up there for year after weary year, and so they are naturally shocked when all of sudden everybody sees it and is appalled -- like it was a recent development or something. In vain they point to all those previous examples of deeming and reconciling and bribing and cajoling. Okay, everybody says. So?

What about Romans 13? When this consent evaporates, it is like . . . what is it like? It is like a sodden hillside in California giving way. It is like an avalanche in Colorado, started by a trivial noise. It is like a sinkhole in Florida, just appearing in the middle of a suburban neighborhood. It is like a forest fire in central Idaho. It is like "the powers that be." Try telling them to stop. Good luck.

Doug Wilson's Letter From America

When Civilizations Are Baptized in Infancy

Political Dualism - Dualism Is Bad JuJu
Written by Douglas Wilson
Tuesday, April 20, 2010

When theological folks dichotomize, they often do it without regard to the reality of time. And this causes no end of trouble.

Given their assumptions about the political dualities of life, the anabaptist impulse to reject infant baptism is a shrewd one, because all these things are connected together. And infant baptism is a statement, among other things, about time. The tangles we get into over visible/invisible church, the City of God/city of man, kingdom of God/kingdom of the devil, heaven/earth all occur because we try to conceive of them all as static realities, and not as categories that exist in various forms of tension or battle over the course of history. Time matters; history matters. An infant you baptize is not the same person who goes to heaven, and yet is very much the same person. There is continuity/discontinuity, and much of it is revealed over time.

Some of us were baptized as infants, and some of us were not. But Western civilization sure was baptized in infancy and, some might say, this accounts for many of the troubles we have had. I grant it, I acknowledge it. But the messiness of growing up to maturity is a messiness that (I would argue) God wants us to embrace.

The impulse to theological perfectionism is a deep one in every theological tradition, because imperfect creatures such as ourselves like to believe that God's perfections are more like a proof out of Euclid than anything else. But God is perfect . . . not a perfectionist.

Perfectionists want static categories; they want things to be defined and to stay put. They want the kingdom of God to stay here, right where we put it, and they want the kingdom of man to stay right there, on the unbelieving shelf. And then Constantine converts. Darn.

Maybe we can say he didn't really convert, and keep all our categories. Or maybe not. Once we have a king who professes Christ, we immediately have new and interesting dualities. He may have meant it and he might not have meant it. He could be true Christian or a false one. More time goes by (what a pesky thing time is for theologians!) and then we have to consider another option. Maybe the magistrate is a true Christian, but an immature one. Maybe the Christian civilization he represents, baptized in infancy, is just going through the terrible twos. And now adolesence, and what next?

A lot of our debates are caused by a failure to recognize that history will answer and resolve a lot of our debates. We are growing up into maturity, which means that we are not mature now. We, and by this I mean all our theologians, bloggers, librarians, scribes, college presidents, authors of fat books, heresy hunters, heretics, orthodox men thought to be heretics, heretics thought to be orthodox men, and everybody else, are just a bunch of Dufflepuds. We will get there, but it is going to be a while.

The one thing I would urge -- which even Dufflepuds should be able to do -- is for us to live up to what we have already attained. In the Reformed world, for example, custodians of Reformed confessionalism should be able to take exceptions (as appropriate) to their confessional documents, and as appropriate, amend them. But they should not be allowed to accuse those who don't take the exceptions, and who don't want to amend the standards, of being "unconfessional." It is one thing for us to be Dufflepuds, making progress with agonizing slowness. It is quite another for us to be Dufflepuds going in the wrong direction.

One quick example, and I am done. In the revised Belgic 36, it says that:

God "has placed the sword in the hands of the government, to punish evil people and protect the good . . . civil rulers have the task, subject to God's law, of removing every obstacle to the preaching of the gospel and to every aspect of divine worship . . . They should do it in order that the Word of God may have free course; the kingdom of Jesus Christ may make progress; and every anti-Christian power may be resisted."

Do I have a problem with R2K gents differing with this, or taking an exception to it? No, let's have a discussion. But when they take an exception to it by by refusing to talk about it, and then they accuse those who still hold to it of being "unconfessional" and not really Reformed, well, then it's a bit thick. But I want to defend my bona fides -- fathers, brothers, I, like you, am a Dufflepud, the son of Dufflepuds, of the tribe of Benjamin . . .

That Superbowl Ad

Was It Worth It?

Readers of this blog will remember our posts on the brouhaha that erupted over the broadcasting of an ad during the recent Superbowl. The ad, purchased by Focus on the Family, celebrated the joy of life in families. It was offensive to many of those dead in their trespasses and sins.

Focus on the Family recently provided an update on their post-ad experience.

Super Bowl Commercial Update
by Ted Slater
It's been over a month since Focus on the Family's ad appeared in the Super Bowl. From time to time I hear comments that maybe Focus shouldn't have placed the ad, or should have placed a more hard-hitting ad. "What good has it done?" I hear some ask.

I figured since I'm on "the inside," I'd share one letter (of many) that we've received. This is from Susan, who's given us permission to publish it here:

"I need to thank you so much. It's not like me to reach out to strangers or agencies for help. I was truly feeling lost. I saw the ad during the Super Bowl and it stuck in my head. I feel like that commercial was made to reach out to me.

"Later that week I googled it and watched the ad over and over. Then I went to your website and watched the related interview. I felt drawn to reach out to you and I am so glad that I did. You may think that all you did was email me back, but you did so much more than that!!! You gave me hope and encouragement. You let me know that if I need help it's out there. (I went to the related website you suggested in your email.) You reminded me that I can't be perfect, but God loves me.

"You also gave me a wake up call. Why was I worrying about what the baby's father wanted me to do? I am always trying to make other people happy. I kept thinking that unless I have an abortion, he won't be happy. Well, you put the focus back where it belongs. It doesn't matter what makes him happy, or me happy for that matter. It's about what will make God happy.

"I tried to convince the father of this and he wouldn't listen. I just kept telling myself what you said about how I can't control how others feel about my pregnancy. Once I made the decision that it didn't matter what he says or thinks, I'm keeping the baby, I felt so much better! I am excited. I do want to be a mom and I will do my best (although we know I'll be far from perfect) for this baby. I mean I'm scared, too. I have a lot to figure out, especially financially, but I will put my trust in God.

"I think I was partly afraid that God was mad at me for getting pregnant out of wedlock. While I know he isn't proud of me for it, thank you for reminding me that he still loves me. I didn't need to compound one sin with another. My mistake can't be erased, but I can ask for forgiveness.

"The father is mad at me and says I'm ruining his life. That's OK. I can not control him or his feelings. I can only protect the baby.

"I can not thank you enough for putting me back on the right track and reminding me what actually matters in life. I don't know how I forgot something so important, but I did.

"Your organization, through the Super Bowl ad and your thoughtful email, saved this baby's life. I have no doubt about that. And in the process maybe you saved my soul. Words just can not express my gratitude, but thank you, thank you, thank you!"

The Lord moved so powerfully to save this woman's heart and her baby's life. And her story is just one of many. Because of the Super Bowl ad, more than 1.5 million people have visited FocusOnTheFamily.com to watch a video of the full story hinted at in the ad.

And surprisingly (to me, at least) the ad itself -- a light and friendly affirmation of life -- has "caused over 5 million viewers to reconsider their view of the legality/morality of abortion."

Isn't it wonderful what the Lord has done through a seemingly innocuous commercial that simply affirms the preciousness of life?

Yes, indeed. Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised.

Hat Tip: Justin Taylor