Besetting Sins

If I Cannot Have It, Nobody Can

Envy is a besetting sin of our age.  It is also the sin few people talk about, which may just be a clue as to how pervasive and enslaving it has become.  Envy is covetousness on steroids--its most egregious expression. 

Kevin Williamson describes envy thus:

Of the seven deadly sins, envy may not be the wickedest, but it is the most embarrassing. To be possessed by envy is to admit a humiliating personal inadequacy: We do not envy others those attainments that we think we too might achieve, but those we despair of ever possessing. Wrath, greed, pride, lust — all assume a certain self-possession. Sloth and gluttony are practically standard issue in times of plenty such as these. Wrath and pride are the sins of great (but not good) men. Envy is the affliction of the insignificant. It is the small man’s sin.

But when does covetousness elide into envy, its most extreme manifestation?

Letter From Australia (About the United States)

World-class Fakery on Show

TIM BLAIR
The Daily Telegraph
December 16, 2013 12:00AM

 A RIDICULOUS and under-qualified faker took to the stage last week during Nelson Mandela's memorial service. And next to Barack Obama was some guy who hasn't quite mastered sign language. 
 
Thamsanqa Jantjie's erratic performance has drawn international ridicule, but all he really did was turn the failed president's words into a disappointing jumble of incomprehensible nonsense. As is now apparent, Obama is quite capable of achieving this by himself.

Many Australians were puzzled by American resistance to Obama's universal healthcare plan, back when it was first proposed in 2008. They couldn't understand why the US would not embrace an Australian-style system of health coverage.  One reason is that the system in the US was proposed by Obama and his hopeless administration. If you thought Labor's attempts in Australia to install home insulation and run grocery price websites were lame, they have nothing on Obama's bid to reshape the massive US health sector.

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

December 19

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

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

Bible Text:
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. —Colossians 3:16

Devotional:
Now let us fall down before the face of our good God, with confession of our faults, praying him to pluck us out of the vain confidence of our fleshly mind, and that we may serve him in such sort that we may be wholly given to him. And seeing it has pleased him to be so gracious to us as to give us his Word for our rule, let us be content to be ordered by it and to be instructed there more and more, and let it be always our goal to be fully built up in him; and in the meantime we may make him offerings and sacrifices both of our souls and bodies.

And let us be consecrated and dedicated to him in such a way that he may dwell in us as in his true temples and that he may reign there, and that his image may shine there; to the end that we may at length be partakers of his immortal glory which he has prepared for us. And let us pray that he may be thus gracious, not unto us only, but to all people and nations of the world. —Sermons

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

Misleading Unhelpful Poverty Propaganda

Charity is Mandatory

The chattering classes were all agog and aghast for a couple of days earlier this month over child poverty in New Zealand.  Such a problem is worthy of attention and concern.  Unfortunately the protagonists are once again proving to be dishonest traders and so have devalued their cause in a silly attempt to shock and (in marketing speak) achieve cut through to the common mind.  They have grossly exaggerated child poverty in New Zealand. 

A few years ago, the cause d'jour was violence against women (by men).  We were painted as a terribly violent society, since research "showed" that one in four women had suffered abuse.  But common sense is a tenacious beast.  Folk (both men and women) started to think, "Well, I know lots of women--and I am very sure that one in four of them have not suffered abuse at the hands of men.  Where did that figure come from?  Well, in a specious, dishonest attempt to gain attention and traction, the cause-protagonists decided to define abuse so broadly that abuse itself became an inflated, devalued concept.  The end result: people dismissed it and stopped listening.  Those who continued to quote the mantra ("one in four women in this country has suffered abuse") were increasingly seen as coming from the lunatic fringe. 

Now similar folly is being perpetrated by the child abuse industry.  Sadly, the cause is worthy; the issues are genuine.  The propagandists, however, are dishonest brokers.

Letter From Europe (About Hate Crimes)

EU: The Lunacek-Report, and homosexual/feminist hate crimes

Posted on  December 13, 2013 

By J.C. von Krempach, J.D.

After the defeat of the Estrela Report, the time has come to turn our attention to the next attempt of radical and extremist groups in the European Parliament to embellish their agenda, and provide it with the appearance of legitimation, by the use of human rights vocabulary.

This new attempt comes in the guise of another “initiative report” (i.e. a motion for a resolution on matters falling outside the European Parliament’s competences and will therefore not be legally binding), this time authored by Ulrike Lunacek, an openly lesbian politician from Austria, who also is the co-chair of the European Parliament’s gay and lesbian caucus. No wonder, therefore, that the draft takes a rather peculiar approach towards human rights, which strongly reminds of similar attempts of manipulating human rights through absurd re-interpretations, such as the so-called “Yogyakarta Principles”.

The political strategy underlying this approach, which can be described as the systematic “queering” of human rights, is a dialectic masterpiece.

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

December 18

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

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

Bible Text:
He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth: and the isles shall wait for his law. —Isaiah 42:4

Devotional:
"He shall not faint, nor be discouraged." I remember that there were in a populous city two preachers, one of whom boldly and loudly reproved vices, while the other endeavored to gain the favor of the people by flatteries. This fawning preacher, who was expounding the Prophet Jeremiah, lighted on a passage full of the mildest consolation, and having found, as he imagined, a fit opportunity, began to declaim against those harsh and severe reprovers who are accustomed to terrify men by thunderbolts of words.

But on the following day, when the Prophet changed his subject and sharply rebuked wicked men with his peculiar vehemence of style, the wretched flatterer was constrained to encounter bitter scorn by retracting the words which were fresh in the recollection of all his hearers. Thus the temporary favor which he had gained speedily vanished, when he revealed his own disposition and made himself abhorred by the good and the bad. —Commentaries

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

Rapid Collapse

Gone By Lunchtime

It is coming rapidly.  Opponents of the legal recognition of homosexual "marriage" have argued that it has opened the door to any form of cohabitation being recognised and protected by the state.  Proponents of homosexual "marriage" to date have scoffed.  That has never been their intention (they protest) and anyone suggesting that state sanctioned polygamy will follow in the train of homosexual marriage is either an ignorant emotive alarmist, or deceitful and misleading in their argumentation. 

Believe me, says the homosexual, we want only this--that the state recognise the genuineness of our "love" and want that to be recognised and protected by allowing us to enter into marriage.  We reject and oppose this privilege and honour being given to anyone else, they say.  Maybe.  Let's grant for the sake of argument that the Louisa Walls of this world are genuine honest brokers when they argue this way.  But the principles upon which they have built their case apply equally to any form of willing cohabitation.  Thus, a federal judge in the United States has recently ruled that of course the arguments for homosexual "marriage" must apply equally to other forms of human co-habitation.

This from Ken Klukowski:

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

A Purpose Driven Book Review

Posted on Thursday, December 12, 2013  

By Douglas Wilson 

Blog and Mablog

I won’t go into it now, but as a result of a series of odd events, I decided that at some point I needed to read a book by Rick Warren. I had picked up a copy of his Purpose Driven Life at a used bookstore, and despite the fact that California evangelical megachurch land is not my home territory, I decided to venture in.

And, I have to say, I was really surprised at how good it was. This thing has had monster sales in the evangelical world — and here my bigotries come out to play, like a box full of three-week-old puppies let loose in the garage — and as everyone knows, monster book sales in the evangelical world mean that the object that is selling briskly must be a eighteen-wheeled shipment of shinola.

Well, not this book.

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

December 17

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

Bhttp://www.opc.org/devotional.htmly John Calvin (compiled by John H. Kromminga)
Reproduced from the OPC Website

Bible Text:
That the saying of Jesus might he fulfilled, which he spake, signifying what death he should die. —John 18:32

Devotional:
"That the word of Jesus might be fulfilled." The Evangelist adds that it was necessary that this should be done, in order that the prediction which Christ had uttered might be fulfilled, "The Son of Man shall be delivered into the hands of the Gentiles" (Matt. 20:19).

And indeed if we wish to read with advantage the history of Christ's death, the chief point is to consider the eternal purpose of God. The Son of God is placed before the tribunal of a mortal man. If we suppose that this is done by the caprice of men, and do not raise our eyes to God, our faith must necessarily be confounded and put to shame.

It's Not Fair

Economic Ignorance and Moral Turpitude

In his book, Fairness and Freedom, David Fischer makes some observations which represent a touchstone for truth and error in economics.  Fischer has written a historical comparison of New Zealand and the United States.  The latter nation has focused over time upon political and social freedom (from government rules, regulations, and controls) whilst New Zealand has been shaped by notions of fairness (which implies egalitarian distribution at least of opportunity, if not actual goods). 

We will endeavour to critique Fischer's book in a future post, but for the moment consider this partly insightful, yet misguided quotation:

Letter From Europe (About a Defeat of Radicals)

European Parliament dismisses Estrela-Report: A Resounding Defeat for the Abortion and Homosexual Lobbies

Posted on | December 10, 2013 

By J.C. von Krempach, J.D. 

Turtle Bay and Beyond

10 December is World Human Rights Day. It is a beautiful coincident that on this day the European Parliament has rejected the so-called Estrela-Report.  One might say that today’s vote was not important, given that the controversial draft, if adopted, would not have had any legal effect anyway, given that the issues it dealt with clearly fell outside the EU’s competence. But that would mean to grossly misunderstand and underestimate the importance of what has happened today, even if it is only a symbolic victory.

Prior to the vote that took place this morning two groups of MEPs had tabled two different alternative motions. The first, which went into much detail to rebut the absurd and preposterous claims about “human rights” in Mrs. Estrela’s draft report, was rejected, but a second one, which briefly and clearly states that the EU has no competence to impose on its Member States any of the measures called for by Mrs. Estrela, was adopted by 334 against 327 votes, with 35 abstentions. This meant that it was not anymore necessary to vote on Mrs. Estrela’s controversial draft, as it had been implicitly rejected through the adoption of the alternative motion. . . .

And the official press release by the EPP (European People’s Party) group drily states the following:

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

December 16

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

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

Bible Text:
And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord of hosts, that I will cut off the names of the idols out of the land, and they shall no more be remembered: and also I will cause the prophets and the unclean spirit to pass out of the land. —Zechariah 13:2

Devotional:
We may deduce that the Word of God not only shows the way to us, but also uncovers the delusions of Satan; for hardly one in a hundred follows what is right, unless he is reminded of what he ought to avoid. It is then not enough to declare that there is but one true God, and that we ought to put our trust in Christ, unless another thing be added, that is, that we warn men of those intrigues by which Satan has from the beginning deceived miserable mortals.

Sunset Industries

Commercial Reality

Back in the day, New Zealand used to make cars.  We kid you not.  In fact, when Milton Friedman visited New Zealand around 40 years ago he was aghast that we had an automobile manufacturing industry.  It existed and was nurtured by government subsidies and grants--all in the name of creating employment.  Of course NZ Autos Incorporated has long since gone the way of the dodo.  Now punters import swanky second-hand (near new) cars from Japan at a fraction of the price.

The thing about government subsidies to start and maintain industries is that they are proof positive from the outset that the industry in question is not economic from the get-go.  In order to continue, it will need perpetual injections of government money.  Before you can say "Mitsubishi", pouring more money down the crankcase becomes a political necessity because, well, all those jobs are at stake.

We have seen a modern version of the same parable recently with the NZ film industry--stimulated by government interventions over the last twenty years.

Letter From America (About Ignorant, Desperate Politicians)

Spare Us

Forbidding cell phones and other electronic devices on aircraft has been a major irritant to air travellers.  Now commercial aviation is on the cusp of removing those restrictions.  Ah.  Not so fast.  Some overreaching, nannying ignorant politicians in the United States are opposing the nullification of the no-cell phone regulations, originally put in place for reasons of safety. 

Since technology has now moved on to where cell phone use does not pose any risk to commercial aircraft, on what grounds might the cancellation of such regulations be opposed?  We are glad you asked.  Something momentous to be sure.  This from The Hill:

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

December 14

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

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

Bible Text:
... they shall see the glory of the Lord, and the excellency of our God. —Isaiah 35:2b

Devotional:
"They shall see the glory of Jehovah." Till men learn to know God, they are barren and destitute of everything good; and consequently the beginning of our fertility is to be quickened by the presence of God, which cannot be without the inward perception of faith.

The Prophet undoubtedly intended to raise our minds higher, that we may contemplate the abundance and copiousness of heavenly benefits; for men might be satisfied with bread and wine and other things of the same kind, and yet not acknowledge God to be the Author of them, or cease to be wretched; and indeed men are often blinded and rendered more fierce by enjoying abundance.

But when God makes himself visible to us, by causing us to behold his glory and beauty, we not only possess his blessings, but have the true enjoyment of them for salvation. —Commentaries

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

Keeping Business Honest

Rotten Eggs

It is a truism that in the heart of every merchant lurks a craven monopolist.  Given the merest chance monopolist conspiracies will arise in the throat like nauseous bile to hobble competitors and corrupt the market.  We believe strongly that civil courts must be open, accessible, and vigilant to break up such conspiracies--whether upon the unsuspecting customer, or competitors, or upon regulators.  The civil courts need to be vigilant to prosecute with alacrity all forms of fraud, deception, theft, and false weights and measures.  The civil courts must be accessible to plaintiffs and inexpensive. 

Unfortunately, due to the ceaseless flood towards centralised government, none of this is the case.  Civil courts have long since languished into a very weak and expensive and anaemic relation of justice, whilst central government rules and regulations flood websites and exhaust printing presses.  Which suits the monopolists just fine.  They have sufficient funds, industry associates, and cabals of fellow merchants to massage and morph regulations to suit their own interests.  The consumer consequently becomes a well gnawed carcass.

The egg industry in New Zealand is certainly oligopolistic in structure if not virtually monopolistic. 

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

In a Pig’s Eye

Posted on Thursday, December 5, 2013  

By Douglas Wilson 

Blog and Mablog

The president’s Twitter account recently sent out this small dribbly contribution to the oceans of illiteracy that already exist out there. What’s another half pint?

Here’s how to improve our economy and create hundreds of thousands of jobs: #RaiseTheWage. http://OFA.BO/tXMYUq  pic.twitter.com/UDTcTSaqZJ

So here’s the comeback, and I must say that it is hard to type and snort at the same time.

So why don’t we just raise the minimum wage to a hundred dollars an hour and make everybody well off? Or, while we are in this compassion groove, why don’t we make it a hundred dollars a minute and make everybody fabulously wealthy? To reply that employers don’t have that kind of money to spare is to betray a churlish spirit, and is frankly unworthy of you. Why should we allow a detail like “not having the money” stand between us and the right thing to do?

But be a man. Run the thought experiment anyway.

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

December 13

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

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

Bible Text:
And the inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, Let us go speedily to pray before the Lord and to seek the Lord of hosts: I will go also. Yea, many people and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem, and to pray before the Lord. —Zechariah 8:21, 22

Devotional:
Faith then only produces its legitimate fruit when zeal is kindled, so that everyone strives to increase the kingdom of God, and to gather the straying, that the Church may be filled. For when anyone consults his own private benefit and has no care for others, he first betrays most clearly his own inhumanity, and where there is no love the Spirit of God does not rule. Besides, true godliness brings with it a concern for the glory of God.

It is no wonder then that the Prophet, when describing true and real conversion, says that each would be solicitous about his brethren, so as to stimulate one another, and also that the hearts of all would be so kindled with zeal for God that they would hasten together to celebrate his glory.

We must observe that the Prophet in speaking of God's worship sets prayer in the first rank, for prayer to God is the chief part, the main thing, in religion. It is indeed immediately added, "and to seek Jehovah." He explains the particular by the general; and in the next verse he inverts the order, beginning with the general.

However the meaning continues the same, for God seeks nothing else but that we should be teachable and obedient,

Ante-Diluvians All

Blast From the Past

John Minto is a serial, professional protester.  We have often wondered whether there is any consistent ideology at work when John shows up to protest his current cause d'jour.  He has had no real job, no career, nor profession.  He would probably describe himself as a "voluntary worker", since he apparently has lived off the tax payer's dime for much of his life--either directly or indirectly. 

But when the causes you espouse are BIG and really, really important all that counts for nothing.  The cause justifies the narcissistic indolence.  But we would be amiss to think that Minto has no ideology at all.  Some would mistakenly think him to be a committed anti-racist, having been at the forefront of protests against apartheid.  In other words, they see Minto as a human rights ideologue, committed to fundamental human civil rights, regardless of ethnicity or colour.  Maybe.  But Minto has not been well known for positive affirmation. 

One would have thought that, after protesting and campaigning against apartheid in South Africa, there would have been a note of triumphalistic celebration in his later career.  Not so.  It appears that he was deeply disappointed in Mandela and the subsequent course of non-racist South Africa.

Letter from the UK (About Chicken)

Water Worth Its Weight In Gold

The article below documents a rip-off practice in the UK.  We do not doubt that pretty much the same occurs in New Zealand.  When you next buy that oh-so-cheap chicken in the supermarket and find it to be superbly moist upon roasting, reflect on the origin of the moisture.  The same goes for most bacon.  Try frying it in the pan, and you have to evaporate the copious volumes of water coming out of the meat first, before you can brown and crisp the meat.  A sure sign that water has been injected into the meat. And think about that juicy chicken from the fast food restaurant--the juice is most likely just heated water. 

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

December 11

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

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

Bible Text:
And the women also, which came with him from Galilee, followed after, and beheld the sepulchre, and how his body was laid. And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the sabbath day according to the commandment. —Luke 23:55, 56

Devotional:
Consider what was the courage and constancy of women at the death of our Lord Jesus Christ; when the apostles had forsaken him, how they continued by him with marvellous constancy, and how a woman was the messenger to announce to the apostles his resurrection, which the latter could neither believe nor comprehend.

If he then so honored women, and endowed them with so much courage, think you ,that he has less power now, or that his purposes are changed? How many thousands of women have there been who have spared neither their blood nor their lives to maintain the name of Jesus Christ and announce his reign! Has not God caused their martyrdom to fructify? Has their faith not obtained the glory of the world as well as that of the martyrs?

Obamian Tolerable Religion

Acceptable in Private But Overruled Everywhere Else

The company Hobby Lobby in the US is owned by Christians.  They have self-consciously and deliberately sought to run their business subject to biblical commands, principles and teaching.  This has many implications (see the article below).  One implication is in the health insurance the company provides for staff.  The company's policy excludes coverage for abortifacient drugs and procedures, while covering other contraceptive medical interventions.

The US Federal Government is prosecuting (that is, persecuting) the company for breaching the religious freedom rights of staff, for attempting to force its particular religion upon others, and for being in violation of the Affordable Care Act (otherwise known as Obamacare).  It would be hard to think of a clearer, more egregious examples of  the secular state deciding what kind of Christian religion it will tolerate and of the secularist doctrine of religious liberty.  The only tolerable Christian is one who never seeks to live before and obey God in the public square (unless he happens to espouse causes approbated by the secular state).  The only good Christian is the one who, to all intents and purposes, is a dead one.

Climate Ostriches

Global-warming ‘Proof’ is Evaporating

By Michael Fumento

December 5, 2013
New York Post

The 2013 hurricane season just ended as one of the five quietest years since 1960. But don’t expect anyone who pointed to last year’s hurricanes as “proof” of the need to act against global warming to apologize; the warmists don’t work that way.

Warmist claims of a severe increase in hurricane activity go back to 2005 and Hurricane Katrina. The cover of Al Gore’s 2009 book, “Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis,” even features a satellite image of the globe with four major hurricanes superimposed.  Yet the evidence to the contrary was there all along. Back in 2005 I and others reviewed the entire hurricane record, which goes back over a century, and found no increase of any kind. Yes, we sometimes get bad storms — but no more frequently now than in the past. The advocates simply ignored that evidence — then repeated their false claims after Hurricane Sandy last year.

And the media play along. For example, it somehow wasn’t front-page news that committed believers in man-made global warming recently admitted there’s been no surface global warming for well over a decade and maybe none for decades more. Nor did we see warmists conceding that their explanation is essentially a confession that the previous warming may not have been man-made at all.

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

December 11

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

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

Bible Text:
But thou, 0 man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. —I Timothy 6:11

Devotional:
Why are we Christians? Why are we baptized? Why do we call upon God? Is it only to live in this world and to have our pleasures and delights? No, no, but to climb up higher, and to know that we must drive to the kingdom of heaven, knowing that our inheritance is in heaven, whereunto we must run, and pass through this world, not delaying in it at all.

Considering that our condition is such that we have no certain and abiding dwelling place here, but we must go higher, and God calls us daily to come to him; if we be given to covetousness, shall we be excused, I ask you?

If we remain still entangled in these worldly things after God has showed us the brittleness and shortness of our life, are we not worse than mad?

Pseudo-Hagiography

Already Playing Tricks Upon the Dead

Over recent days the world's Commentariat has been agog over the passing of Nelson Mandela.  We are witnessing hagiography in the making before our very eyes.  We wonder whether he will be proclaimed Messiah in the next week or so. 

There are many things to admire in Mendela's life and career.  There are other things to reject and despise.  Fairness and balance requires that we keep both in perspective.  The adulatory ululations have covered over the bad, making him already a quasi-mythical figure.  We find ourselves reflecting on the contrast when Scripture celebrates great men.  Always, in the case of  Scripture, it is a matter of warts and all.  Their sins, failings, mistakes are up front and centre, along with how they repented of evil, turned to the Light, and became faithful to the Lord.  Think David, Moses, Saul/Paul.  This, we suggest, is the model of honest, real hagiography.  The sad thing, in Mandela's case, is that all the evidence suggests that Mandela was repentant over his youthful wrongs, but those have been studiously ignored in the Commentariat's ululating.  By ignoring the obvious--being too polite and politically correct to talk about it--Mandela's actual remarkable achievements are undermined, being disembodied from humanity and history. 

Mandela's struggle against apartheid led him to advocate violent overthrow of the government and the system.

Turning to the Dark Side

Amnesty International is now “Abortion International”

Posted on | December 7, 2013 

By J.C. von Krempach, J.D.

Turtle Bay and Beyond

10th December is the day on which, in 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted. It is therefore commemorated as the “World Human Rights Day”. In the days and weeks preceding it, you will frequently meet information stands run by “Amnesty International” (AI), where you can buy candles or similar gimmicks with the organization’s logo (a lit candle with barbed wire around it), or you will be approached by activists asking you for donations. Some of these activists might be idealists who do this in their free time, whereas others are students or low-wage employees who do this for a small salary.

My advice to you is: do not buy their candles, do not give them one cent. Instead, if you are not in a hurry, tell them – politely but clearly – why you think that “Amnesty International” is not worthy of support.
The reason why Amnesty International should not be supported is that it no longer is the organization it used to be.

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

December 10

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

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

Bible Text:
Paul an apostle of Jesus Christ by the commandment of God our Saviour, and Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope; —I Timothy 1:1

Devotional:
"God our Savior and Jesus Christ our hope." True it is that this word Savior is often ascribed to the Son of God, because it is he who has fulfilled and perfected whatever was requisite to our salvation.

He shed his blood, to the end that we should be washed and made clean from our filth and loathsomeness; he abolished the curse that was upon us; he delivered us and set us at liberty from the slavery of death; he utterly put sin to flight. We see then that we must seek our salvation in our Lord Jesus Christ and that with good reason he is called our Savior.

But still it is not without good cause that Paul gives God the Father this title; and why? Let us see whence Jesus Christ came to us. He was sent us from God his Father, for so the Scripture witnesses; God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, delivering him to death for us (John 3: 16, I John 4:9).

Therefore, whenever we see our salvation in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, we must come to the very head and fountain from which he came to us, that is to say, from this love which God had for mankind.

New Model Colonies

Nineteenth Century Changes to Colonisation

In his book Fairness and Freedom, historian David Fischer provides some interesting insights into the world-view in Great Britain which shaped the colonisation of New Zealand in the nineteenth century.  He notes that the New Zealand experience was different from what occurred in the British imperialist and colonial experience up until that time. 

The Colonial Office was run by Sir James Stephen for much of the first half of the nineteenth century.  He took a particular interest in New Zealand.

Stephen summarized his purposes [for New Zealand] in a single sentence: "The two Cardinal points to be kept in view in establishing a regular colony in New Zealand are, first, the protection of the aborigines, and secondly the introduction among the colonists of the principle of self-government, to the utmost extent in which that principle can be reconciled with allegiance to the crown."

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

Conceit on Stilts

Posted on Wednesday, December 4, 2013  

By Douglas Wilson 

Blog and Mablog

Yesterday the president showed defiance on the Obamacare question, although, it must be said, it was an anemic kind of defiance. He said, in a calm and listless sort of way, that Obamacare would not be repealed “as long as [he was] president.” In this, he has, yet again, mistaken the actual position of affairs. The debate is no longer whether the law will be repealed. Rather, we are all wondering how deep the crater is going to be, and how thick the column of smoke will be afterwards.

I keep thinking of another great victory, that time when Napoleon invaded Russia, captured Moscow, and lived in posh surroundings for a considerable number of weeks. What a victory that was! Those were the times!

But let us extend this metaphor a bit, and come up with something to represent health care realities, economic realities, and web site construction realities. Let’s call that cluster of realities something like “Russian winter,” and let us also pretend that the president is (for some reason having to do with the machinations of the Koch brothers) unable to produce an adequate supply line for hundreds of thousands of troops merely by signing an executive order. And we may envision the defeated and humiliated Republicans as pursuing Cossacks, picking off stragglers, and not acting very defeated at all.

Thanks to Mike Lee and Ted Cruz the opposition to Obamacare is now in a position to stand back and do nothing by way of repealing Obamacare.

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

December 09

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

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

Bible Text:
Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. —Isaiah 53:10

Devotional:
And furthermore, each one of us ought to apply this to himself and not doubt that, although we may trail our wings and be still held captive under sin, God will nevertheless deliver us from our captivity, and will perfect what he has begun in us and correct what is still at fault. And how?

We must come to our Lord Jesus Christ; for it is he who puts his hand to the work since the charge of it has been committed to him and he has received this office from God his Father. So let us be satisfied that because he is ordained the minister of our salvation, there will be nothing lacking or unaccomplished by this means, seeing it is thus determined.