Resisting Resigning the Government To Elites

Statement Calling for Constitutional Resistance to Obergefell v. Hodges 

americanprinciplesproject

We are scholars and informed citizens deeply concerned by the edict of the Supreme Court of the United States in Obergefell v. Hodges wherein the Court decreed, by the narrowest of margins, that every state in the country must redefine marriage to include same-sex relationships. 

  

The Court’s majority opinion eschewed reliance on the text, logic, structure, or original understanding of the Constitution, as well as the Court’s own interpretative doctrines and precedents, and supplied no compelling reasoning to show why it is unjustified for the laws of the states to sustain marriage as it has been understood for millennia as the union of husband and wife.

The opinion for the Court substituted for traditional—and sound—methods of constitutional interpretation a new and ill-defined jurisprudence of identity—one that abused the moral concept of human dignity.

The four dissenting justices are right to reject the majority opinion in unsparing terms.

Daily Devotional

The Time For Speaking Seldom Arrives

TO Mrs. JESSUP, who seems to have written Lewis about the difficulties of being in a marriage in which one of the spouses is a Christian and one is not: On the slow process of being remade and how difficult we must be to live with after conversion as before; and on not concealing but not flaunting our conversion.

15 October 1951

C. S. Lewis

I agree with everything you say (except that I should publish anything on the subject: a bachelor is not the man to do it—there is such an obvious answer to anything he says!).

Our regeneration is a slow process. As Charles Williams says there are three stages: (1.) The Old Self on the Old Way. (2.) The Old Self on the New Way. (3.) The New Self on the New Way.

After conversion the Old Self can of course be just as arrogant, importunate, and imperialistic about the Faith as it previously was about any other interest. I had almost said ‘Any other Fad’—for just as the loveliest complexion turns green in a green light, so the Faith itself may have at first all the characteristics of a Fad and we may be as ill to live with as if we had taken up Nudism or Psychoanalysis or Pure Wool Clothing. You and I, clearly, both know all about that: one makes blunders.

About obedience, the principle is clear. Obedience to man is limited by obedience to God and, when they really conflict, must go. But of course that gives one very little guidance about particulars. The converted party must pray: I suppose it is not often necessary to pray in the presence of the other! Especially if the converted party is the woman, who usually has the house to herself all day.

Of course there must be no concealment, in the sense that if the question comes up one must say frankly that one does pray. But there is a difference between not concealing and flaunting. For the rest (did I quote this before?) MacDonald says ‘the time for speaking seldom arrives, the time for being never departs.’ Let you and me pray for each other.

From The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume III
Compiled in Yours, Jack
The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Volume III: Narnia, Cambridge, and Joy 1950-1963. Copyright © 2007 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers. Yours, Jack: Spiritual Direction from C. S. Lewis. Copyright © 2008 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.

Lawful Christian Resistance, Part VIII

Laws To Which Kings Are Held

. . . . Seeing then that kings are ordained by God, and established by the people, to procure and provide for the good of those who are committed unto them, and that this good or profit be principally expressed in two things, to wit, in the administration of justice to their subjects, and in the managing of armies for the repulsing their enemies: certainly, we must infer and conclude from this, that the prince who applied himself to nothing but his peculiar profits and pleasures, or to those ends which most readily conduce thereunto, who contemns and perverts all laws, who uses his subjects more cruelly than the barbarous enemy would do, he may truly and really be called a tyrant, and that those who in this manner govern their kingdoms, be they of never so large an extent, are more properly unjust pillagers and free-booters, than lawful governors.  [Junius Brutus,  A Defence of Liberty Against Tyrants.  A Translation of Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos.  With an Historical Introduction by Harold J. Laski.  (Gloucester, Mass: Peter Smith, 1963) p. 143.]

Letter From the UK (On The Second Islamic Generation in Denmark)

The Myth Of Integration

Muslims In Europe Getting More Radical With Time, Not Less

Oliver Lane
Breitbart London

Research in the European microcosm nation of Denmark has found three-quarters of Muslims in the country register on an important measure for radicalisation – more now than a decade ago.

Whereas 10 years ago Muslims in Denmark could have been considered to be comparatively moderate, today a poll by newspaper Jyllands-Posten finds attitudes have hardened – and the younger the Muslim, the more likely they are to hold hard-line views.

In a series of polls released by the paper over the course of this week, it has been revealed that Muslims are now more likely to take the word of the Quran literally, and that the teaching of the Islamic holy book should be implemented directly. In 2006 the number of people who agreed with the statement “the Quran’s instructions should be followed completely” was 62 per cent – today it has grown to 77 per cent; a strong majority.

While many have argued that the more violent verses of the Quran, which includes commandments to slay the enemies of the religion, have been taken out of context and are not to be interpreted literally, the view of three quarters of Muslims living in Denmark seems to contradict this view.

Daily Devotional

No Dark Foreboding

"But who may abide the day of his coming?"
Malachi 3:2

Charles H. Spurgeon

His first coming was without external pomp or show of power, and yet in truth there were few who could abide its testing might. Herod and all Jerusalem with him were stirred at the news of the wondrous birth. Those who supposed themselves to be waiting for him, showed the fallacy of their professions by rejecting him when he came. His life on earth was a winnowing fan, which tried the great heap of religious profession, and few enough could abide the process.

But what will his second advent be? What sinner can endure to think of it? "He shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked." When in his humiliation he did but say to the soldiers, "I am he," they fell backward; what will be the terror of his enemies when he shall more fully reveal himself as the "I am?" His death shook earth and darkened heaven, what shall be the dreadful splendour of that day in which as the living Saviour, he shall summon the quick and dead before him? O that the terrors of the Lord would persuade men to forsake their sins and kiss the Son lest he be angry!

Though a lamb, he is yet the lion of the tribe of Judah, rending the prey in pieces; and though he breaks not the bruised reed, yet will he break his enemies with a rod of iron, and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. None of his foes shall bear up before the tempest of his wrath, or hide themselves from the sweeping hail of his indignation; but his beloved blood washed people look for his appearing with joy, and hope to abide it without fear: to them he sits as a refiner even now, and when he has tried them they shall come forth as gold.

Let us search ourselves this morning and make our calling and election sure, so that the coming of the Lord may cause no dark forebodings in our mind. O for grace to cast away all hypocrisy, and to be found of him sincere and without rebuke in the day of his appearing.

Fool's Paradise

 Normal Rules Don't Apply

The public square in New Zealand is a nasty place, where all kinds of germs fester.  Hang around in it long enough and you will find yourself sick, very sick.

Most people who have worked their way through adult life and ended their working careers with most debt paid off and able to afford a roof over their heads has had to watch their pennies very, very carefully throughout.  Spending plans have been strictly controlled for decades.  Credit cards have been rarely used.  Lifestyle plans have been rigorously cut back.  Hard work, self-control and thrift have marked their lives.

In the public square, none of these things applies.  The vast gulf between personal financial discipline and public square financial management makes the Pacific Ocean look like a puddle.  In the public square the only recognised virtue is spend, spend, spend.  Not one's own money, but the money of others.  And when public authorities run out of other people's money, they start pillaging the money of those not yet working, including those not yet born.  They go into debt.  Not small amounts mind.  But billions of billions of dollars (which are big bikkies for such a very small country).

The Commentariat has only one response to this madness.

Letter From America (About Recycling)

The Reign of Recycling

By John Tierney

The New York Times

IF you live in the United States, you probably do some form of recycling. It’s likely that you separate paper from plastic and glass and metal. You rinse the bottles and cans, and you might put food scraps in a container destined for a composting facility. As you sort everything into the right bins, you probably assume that recycling is helping your community and protecting the environment. But is it? Are you in fact wasting your time? . . . . 

Despite decades of exhortations and mandates, it’s still typically more expensive for municipalities to recycle household waste than to send it to a landfill. Prices for recyclable materials have plummeted because of lower oil prices and reduced demand for them overseas. The slump has forced some recycling companies to shut plants and cancel plans for new technologies. The mood is so gloomy that one industry veteran tried to cheer up her colleagues this summer with an article in a trade journal titled, “Recycling Is Not Dead!”

While politicians set higher and higher goals, the national rate of recycling has stagnated in recent years. Yes, it’s popular in affluent neighborhoods like Park Slope in Brooklyn and in cities like San Francisco, but residents of the Bronx and Houston don’t have the same fervor for sorting garbage in their spare time.

The future for recycling looks even worse. As cities move beyond recycling paper and metals, and into glass, food scraps and assorted plastics, the costs rise sharply while the environmental benefits decline and sometimes vanish.

Daily Devotional

The Master Servant

. . . so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 2:7)

John Piper

To me, the Bible’s most astonishing image of Christ’s second coming is in Luke 12:35–37, which pictures the return of a master from a marriage feast:

“Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning, and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them.”

To be sure, we are called servants — and that no doubt means we are to do exactly as we are told. But the wonder of this picture is that the “master” insists on “serving” even in the age to come when he appears in all his glory “with his mighty angels in flaming fire” (2 Thessalonians 1:7–8). Why?

Because the very heart of his glory is the fullness of grace that overflows in kindness to needy people. Therefore, he aims “in the coming ages [to] show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:7).

What is the greatness of our God? What is his uniqueness in the world? Isaiah answers: “From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides thee, who works for those who wait for him” (Isaiah 64:4, RSV).

Cleaning the Swamp

Empty Slogans and Vacuous Epithets

In New Zealand the Chattering Classes have been rabbiting on for weeks, months, even for years about "Dirty Politics".  For some strange reason, no-one can provide a cogent definition of what Dirty Politics actually is.  We fear that it will turn out that Dirty Politics is simply what the "other side" does.  But, when "we" do the very same (or similar) things, it's subtle, clever, prudent, and skilful.

We are not going to waste time entering the debating lists of who did what to whom.  Nor are we going to pick sides, and defend one at the expense of the other.  Nor are we going to cast doubt upon the existence of conspiracies to discredit political opponents either by fair or foul means.  But we do issue a plea to move beyond the empty epithets, the slogans, the platitudes and the faux outrage.

We would issue an open challenge to all political parties: rather than hurling meaningless charges of "Dirty Politics" at opponents, define "Clean Politics".  If a politician or political party or media pontificator cannot delineate the meaning and standards of "Clean Politics", the epithet "Dirty Politics" is vacuous.

By what standard--ethical, moral, or otherwise--must Clean Politics be represented?  Until politicians can delineate a code of clean conduct by which the electorate may judge them, and to which they rightly ought to be held to account, they should be presumed to be disreputable.  It's ironic that businesses and other societal groups and organisations promulgate codes of professional and ethical conduct for staff and members, yet political parties find it so difficult. 

Presumably this is one reason society ranks "politician" as one of the least trustworthy and least admired occupations. 

We Thought You Said It Was Legal

Planned Parenthood: We’re Going To Stop 

By Bre Payton

The Federalist

Even though it swore up and down for weeks that it did nothing wrong, Planned Parenthood claimed today it will stop accepting payment in exchange for aborted baby parts harvested by its abortionists:

In order to completely debunk the disingenuous argument that our opponents have been using – and to reveal the true political purpose of these attacks – our Federation has decided, going forward, that any Planned Parenthood health center that is involved in donating tissue after an abortion for medical research will follow the model already in place at one of our two affiliates currently facilitating donations for fetal tissue research. That affiliate accepts no reimbursement for its reasonable expenses – even though reimbursement is fully permitted under the 1993 law. Going forward, all of our health centers will follow the same policy, even if it means they will not recover reimbursements permitted by the 1993 law.

Despite its previous claims of innocence, Planned Parenthood’s announcement today suggests that the organization knew its activities were almost certainly illegal.

When the shocking videos of Planned Parenthood were first released, the taxpayer-funded abortion mill said it only accepted reimbursement for the cost of harvesting and shipping aborted baby body parts. According to the group, accepting mere reimbursement, rather than profiting from the practice, is allowed by law. The undercover videos, however, showed multiple senior Planned Parenthood staff haggling over the prices they would accept in exchange for aborted baby body parts. In one video, one Planned Parenthood executive said she needed a good price for baby body parts because, “I need a Lamborghini.”

Daily Devotional

Sanctimonious Objections to Christ's Saving Work

C. S. Lewis

I have heard some people complain that if Jesus was God as well as man, then His sufferings and death lose all value in their eyes, ‘because it must have been so easy for Him’. Others may (very rightly) rebuke the ingratitude and ungraciousness of this objection; what staggers me is the misunderstanding it betrays.

In one sense, of course, those who make it are right. They have even understated their own case. The perfect submission, the perfect suffering, the perfect death were not only easier to Jesus because He was God, but were possible only because He was God. But surely that is a very odd reason for not accepting them? The teacher is able to form the letters for the child because the teacher is grown-up and knows how to write. That, of course, makes it easier for the teacher; and only because it is easier for him can he help the child. If it rejected him because ‘it’s easy for grown-ups’ and waited to learn writing from another child who could not write itself (and so had no ‘unfair’ advantage), it would not get on very quickly.

If I am drowning in a rapid river, a man who still has one foot on the bank may give me a hand which saves my life. Ought I to shout back (between my gasps) ‘No, it’s not fair! You have an advantage! You’re keeping one foot on the bank’? That advantage—call it ‘unfair’ if you like—is the only reason why he can be of any use to me.

To what will you look for help if you will not look to that which is stronger than yourself?

From Mere Christianity
Compiled in A Year with C.S. Lewis
Mere Christianity. Copyright © 1952, C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. Copyright renewed © 1980, C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers. A Year With C.S. Lewis: Daily Readings from His Classic Works. Copyright © 2003 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.

Masters of the Universe At Work

Waste of Precious Time

We posted several days ago a piece profiling the bucolic but asinine pedagogical theory operating in "state of the art" schools in the UK and New Zealand.  We embedded a video of a school in Auckland which was doing its level best to practise pupil-centric education, where the pupil decided what, when, and how they would be taught, as in:

Adult Facilitator (aka, Teacher): "What would you like to do today, O masters of the universe?"

Pupil: "I want to play electronic games"

Second Pupil: "I want to make some cookies."

Adult Facilitator: "Wonderful.  It's so exciting to come to school to share in your wonderful creative instincts. Now, let's talk about how we can study these things today.  Any ideas?"

Just in case you thought that this Auckland school was an weird outlier, think again.

And Now, Some Good News . . .

If You Have Been Killed, Thank God

God moves in mysterious ways, we are told, His wonders to perform. 

Recently, we posted a piece on the hunger of Jewish people in Israel to study and research whether Yeshua of Nazareth was actually the long awaiting Jewish Mashiach.  Such things are taking place beneath the radar screen of the madding crowd and the buzzing hives of Unbelief.  As one church historian once observed, some of the greatest movements of the Spirit of God drawing people to the Master of the Universe are only seen and recognised after the event. 

Now, hot on the heels of that report, friends sent another report, this one published in Christian Today. 

'We are living in the midst of the greatest turning of Muslims to Christ in history'

Lucinda Borkett-Jones

Christian Today

Despite the daily news of the persecution of Christians around the world by Islamist groups, there is another, lesser-known story of growing numbers of Muslims around the world who are turning to Christ as Lord.
Missionary David Garrison's book, A Wind in the House of Islam, charts this phenomenon, which he says demonstrates that "we are living in the midst of the greatest turning of Muslims to Christ in history".

The book is the result of two and a half years of research and involved travelling more than 250,000 miles to conduct interviews with more than 1,000 people around the Muslim world. In the study, a 'movement' of believers is defined as a group of more than 1,000 baptised believers or 100 new churches within a Muslim community. In total he found 69 movements that had started in the first 12 years of the 21st century, in comparison with virtually no voluntary movements of converts to Christianity in the first 12 centuries of Islam.

Daily Devotional

Learn of Him

"I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord."
Philippians 3:8

Charles H. Spurgeon

Spiritual knowledge of Christ will be a personal knowledge. I cannot know Jesus through another person's acquaintance with him. No, I must know him myself; I must know him on my own account. It will be an intelligent knowledge--I must know him, not as the visionary dreams of him, but as the Word reveals him.

I must know his natures, divine and human. I must know his offices--his attributes--his works--his shame--his glory. I must meditate upon him until I "comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge." It will be an affectionate knowledge of him; indeed, if I know him at all, I must love him. An ounce of heart knowledge is worth a ton of head learning.

Our knowledge of him will be a satisfying knowledge. When I know my Saviour, my mind will be full to the brim--I shall feel that I have that which my spirit panted after. "This is that bread whereof if a man eat he shall never hunger." At the same time it will be an exciting knowledge; the more I know of my Beloved, the more I shall want to know. The higher I climb the loftier will be the summits which invite my eager footsteps. I shall want the more as I get the more. Like the miser's treasure, my gold will make me covet more.

To conclude; this knowledge of Christ Jesus will be a most happy one; in fact, so elevating, that sometimes it will completely bear me up above all trials, and doubts, and sorrows; and it will, while I enjoy it, make me something more than "Man that is born of woman, who is of few days, and full of trouble"; for it will fling about me the immortality of the ever living Saviour, and gird me with the golden girdle of his eternal joy. Come, my soul, sit at Jesus's feet and learn of him all this day.

Lawful Christian Resistance, Part VII

Doctrines, Focus and Tactics: Lessons From Wilberforce

We have been considering the political and social philosophy of lawful Christian resistance to tyrannical government.  As persecution of Christians increases in the West--an inevitable outcome of militant secular and atheistic doctrines--this is something that Christians will have to bone up upon, fast.

There are some factors working to our advantage in this up-schooling process, however.  Firstly, there is plenty of instruction and counsel within the Scriptures on these matters.  Those professing Christians who revere the Bible as the very Word of the Living God will find much to teach, instruct and counsel them as they work through the issues.  Secondly, the history of the First Christendom--centred in Western Europe and then latterly in the modern  and post-modern Anglo-Saxon world--reflects a great deal of the principles of rule, government, law, justice, and freedoms derived from the Scriptures.  Thus, in general Western political history provides a work book of faithful Christian doctrines of the State and lawful government, on the one hand, and the opposite notions, on the other--together with their respective outworkings and consequences.

The watershed issue, however, which divides the Christian doctrine of government from all other political ideologies is this:

Letter From the UK (About How Good CO2 Is)

Carbon Dioxide Good For The Environment Says UN Scientist

by Nick Hallett
Breitbart London

Carbon dioxide emissions are making the Earth greener and more fertile, a United Nations (UN) climate scientist has said.

In a paper for the Global Warming Policy Foundation, Dr Indur Goklany, who has previously represented the United States on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), says that the rising level of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere “is currently net beneficial for both humanity and the biosphere generally”. 

The benefits are real, whereas the costs of warming are uncertain,” he adds.  “Carbon dioxide fertilises plants, and emissions from fossil fuels have already had a hugely beneficial effect on crops, increasing yields by at least 10-15 per cent,” Dr Golkany argues.  “This has not only been good for humankind but for the natural world too, because an acre of land that is not used for crops is an acre of land that is left for nature.”
Increasing crops yields has helped reduce hunger and improved human well being, as well as generating around $140 billion a year.

As well as crops, the “wild places of the Earth” have seen an improvement, becoming greener in recent decades.

Daily Devotional

In Defence of Tent-making

TO SHELDON VANAUKEN, who had asked whether he should continue with his postgraduate work in history or study theology: On the danger of combining one’s vocation with one’s spiritual interest.

C. S. Lewis

5 January 1951
We must ask three questions about the probable effect of your research subject to something more theological.

(1.) Would it be better for your immediate enjoyment? Answer, probably but not certainly, Yes.

(2.) Would it be better for your academic career? Answer, probably No. You would have to make up in haste a lot of knowledge which could not be very easily digested in the time.

(3.) Would it be better for your soul? I don’t know. I think there is a great deal to be said for having one’s deepest spiritual interest distinct from one’s ordinary duty as a student or professional man.

St. Paul’s job was tent-making. When the two coincide I should have thought there was a danger lest the natural interest in one’s job and the pleasures of gratified ambition might be mistaken for spiritual progress and spiritual consolation: and I think clergymen sometimes fall into this trap.

Contrariwise, there is the danger that what is boring or repellent in the job may alienate one from the spiritual life. And finally someone has said ‘None are so unholy as those whose hands are cauterised with holy things’: sacred things may become profane by becoming matters of the job. You now want truth for her own sake: how will it be when the same truth is also needed for an effective footnote in your thesis? In fact, the change might do good or harm. I’ve always been glad myself that Theology is not the thing I earn my living by. On the whole, I’d advise you to get on with your tent-making. The performance of a duty will probably teach you quite as much about God as academic Theology would do.

Mind, I’m not certain: but that is the view I incline to.

From The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume III
Compiled in Yours, Jack
The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Volume III: Narnia, Cambridge, and Joy 1950-1963. Copyright © 2007 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers. Yours, Jack: Spiritual Direction from C. S. Lewis. Copyright © 2008 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.

Dark Racism

Why Some Find Ben Carson Is So Offensive

Racism can run really, really deep in the human soul.  It can have many manifestations.  Some represent what we would call Dark Racism, a phrase used in the sense, not of skin colour, but in the same sense as the phrases "Dark Web" and "Dark State".  In other words, Dark Racism refers to a form of racism so institutionalised and well covered that it is reflexively tolerated by society, the large majority being unaware of its existence.

We grant that we are on dangerous turf at this point.  We despise the modern preoccupation to see all events, all crimes, all judicial actions--and virtually every social action--as racist.  When a white policeman shoots a black person, it is automatically and reflexively categorised as racist oppression by the police.  When a non-Caucasian person shoots a white cop, it is automatically and reflexively legitimised as understandable, given what non-Caucasian people suffer.   And so on.

How, then, should we understand and interpret the peculiar phenomenon of some successful black people being pilloried by members of the black Commentariat in the United States, and by the liberal, Progressive set?

Massive Political Obstacles

CO₂ Is Not the Problem

Miranda Devine believes that an electrical engineer's discovery will change the climate debate.  We have our doubts.  There is such a thing as invincible ignorance.  Nonetheless, she profiles an interesting development.

Perth electrical engineer’s discovery will change climate change debate

Miranda Devine

PerthNow

A MATHEMATICAL discovery by Perth-based electrical engineer Dr David Evans may change everything about the climate debate, on the eve of the UN climate change conference in Paris next month.  A former climate modeller for the Government’s Australian Greenhouse Office, with six degrees in applied mathematics, Dr Evans has unpacked the architecture of the basic climate model which underpins all climate science.

He has found that, while the underlying physics of the model is correct, it had been applied incorrectly.  He has fixed two errors and the new corrected model finds the climate’s sensitivity to carbon dioxide (CO2) is much lower than was thought.

Daily Devotional

Dancing With Joyful Anticipation

"Faultless before the presence of his glory."
Jude 24

Charles H. Spurgeon

Revolve in your mind that wondrous word, "faultless!" We are far off from it now; but as our Lord never stops short of perfection in his work of love, we shall reach it one day. The Saviour who will keep his people to the end, will also present them at last to himself, as "a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, but holy and without blemish." All the jewels in the Saviour's crown are of the first water and without a single flaw. All the maids of honour who attend the Lamb's wife are pure virgins without spot or stain.

But how will Jesus make us faultless? He will wash us from our sins in his own blood until we are white and fair as God's purest angel; and we shall be clothed in his righteousness, that righteousness which makes the saint who wears it positively faultless; yea, perfect in the sight of God. We shall be unblameable and unreproveable even in his eyes. His law will not only have no charge against us, but it will be magnified in us.

Moreover, the work of the Holy Spirit within us will be altogether complete. He will make us so perfectly holy, that we shall have no lingering tendency to sin. Judgment, memory, will--every power and passion shall be emancipated from the thraldom of evil. We shall be holy even as God is holy, and in his presence we shall dwell forever. Saints will not be out of place in heaven, their beauty will be as great as that of the place prepared for them. Oh the rapture of that hour when the everlasting doors shall be lifted up, and we, being made meet for the inheritance, shall dwell with the saints in light. Sin gone, Satan shut out, temptation past forever, and ourselves "faultless" before God, this will be heaven indeed!

Let us be joyful now as we rehearse the song of eternal praise so soon to roll forth in full chorus from all the blood-washed host; let us copy David's exultings before the ark as a prelude to our ecstasies before the throne.

Led By the Nose

The Father of Lies Knows His Own

Lena Dunham has been exposed as a fraud.  She is clearly a narcissist.  Yet like many pseudo-intellectuals she remains lauded by the glitterati, a class of doyens never inclined to let the facts get in the way of a good story.  So Marx, Tolstoi, Hemingway, Satre, Gollanz, Rousseau, and Lillian Hellman--notorious liars all-- were lionised by the Commentariat of their day.  They remain lionised amongst the "smart set" to this day.

It has been well said that a person's character can be known by their acquaintances and friends as well as by their enemies.  The glitterati of our day illustrate the point.  A fraud such as Dunham continues to be celebrated and lionised amongst them.  By so doing, the glitterati betray their true character.  Michelle Malkin puts the matter in perspective.

Holy Polemics

Fighting the Good Fight

Dr B. B. Warfield once held the chair of Polemical Theology at Princeton Seminary.  There is a great need for holy polemics--the will and skill to hammer the ruling prejudices and reigning vanities of Unbelief.

Douglas Wilson is one such warrior.  He responds to some of his facile critics:  

. . . But did Isaiah hate women?

“Moreover the Lord saith, Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, And walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, Walking and mincing as they go, And making a tinkling with their feet . . .” (Is. 3:16).

When I say that some women are biddies, this is not because they differ with me. It is because they are biddies. If I say a woman is a harridan, it is not because she disagrees with me about something. Other factors are in play, one of them being that she is a harridan.

This is one of the central reasons why a certain kind of feminist mind is not capable of engaging with serious thought. Were I to describe a man coming out of his apartment in a wife-beater tee, gold chain nestled in his chest hairs, would I be attacking men? Or would I be attacking a particular version of little coxcomb men?

Suppose a group of feral feminist females organize a slut walk. Bear with me — I am reproducing yet another instance of the problem.

Daily Devotional

Possibly The Most Important Text in Scripture

God put [Jesus] forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. (Romans 3:25–26)

John Piper

Romans 3:25–26 may be the most important verses in the Bible.
God is wholly just! And He justifies the ungodly!
Not either/or! Both! He acquits the guilty, but is not guilty in doing so. This is the greatest news in the world!

• “[God] made [Jesus] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)


• “By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh.” (Romans 8:3)


• “[Christ] bore our sins in his body on the tree.” (1 Peter 2:24)


• “Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God.” (1 Peter 3:18)


• “If we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” (Romans 6:5)

If the most terrifying news in the world is that we have fallen under the condemnation of our Creator and that he is bound by his own righteous character to preserve the worth of his glory by pouring out his wrath on our sin . . . . Then the best news in all the world (the gospel!) is that God has decreed a way of salvation that also upholds the worth of his glory, the honor of his Son, and the eternal salvation of his elect. He has given his Son to die for sinners and to conquer their death by his own resurrection.

Renewed Hearts and Minds

One Whom God Draws

A friend recently passed on a book by Holly Ordway [Not God's Type: A Rational Academic Finds a Radical Faith (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2010)].  It is an autobiographical account of the author coming to faith out of a state of antipathy and disdain for Jesus Christ, Christendom and Christians.  It is one more compelling account of God's saving power, the truth of His electing, choosing grace, and the irresistible power of the Spirit of God, the Hound of Heaven.

We always find such accounts thrilling and humbling at the same time.  Ordway found herself a typical child of a secularist age.  She makes no mention of father, mother, siblings or the home in which she was raised.  This is somewhat curious, as doubtless her home conditioned her to Unbelief.  But she focuses instead upon the conditioning effect of her schooling:

A memory from first grade: the teacher giving us children words to spell on the chalkboard.  I was a precocious reader and writer, so I wrote the word confidently: "g o d."  But the little boy next to me who wrote "G o d" was praised for his correct spelling, not me.  I knew about Greek and Norse gods, characters in my storybooks on myths, so the capital G puzzled me.  I did not understand that God was a name, the name of the Lord.

My indifference persisted as I grew up, went through high school, and started college.  In high school, religion of any kind seemed to me an odd but harmless pursuit, one that I treated with the same incurious disdain I held for other activities that didn't interest me, like golf or chess. [Op cit., p. 13f.]

But in later, college years the conditioning to Unbelief remained subtle, but became more negatively cast.  Indifference morphed into prejudice.

Letter From America (About Dying With Faith, Hope, and Dignity)

My Mom Just Died Of Brain Cancer

Here’s Why She Opposed Assisted Suicide

Mary Karner

The Federalist

I’ll admit it, I’m an adrenaline junkie. And judging from the plethora of new TV shows like “Trauma: Life in the ER” or “Code Black,” most of America is too. Except that’s my life. I’m a Trauma Nurse. I eat, sleep, and breathe trauma.

Every time I walk into work with a French Vanilla Swirl Latte from Dunkin’ Donuts in my hand, life and death are waiting for me. And up until this week I thought I’d seen just about everything. I’ve performed CPR till I thought my arms would fall off to keep blood pumping through a child’s body. I’ve administered life-saving medication to a patient having a stroke and seen the joy on his face when he regained his speech. I’ve had a patient fall through a ceiling onto another patient (I can’t even make that up.) I’ve held the hand of patients as they’ve taken their last breath, and I’ve hugged family members so tight I couldn’t breathe. I really thought I’d seen it all.

And then last week, my mom died.

Daily Devotional

Private Religion is an Oxymoron

C.S. Lewis

No Christian and, indeed, no historian could accept the epigram which defines religion as “what a man does with his solitude.” It was one of the Wesleys, I think, who said that the New Testament knows nothing of solitary religion. We are forbidden to neglect the assembling of our- selves together. Christianity is already institutional in the earliest of its documents. The Church is the Bride of Christ. We are members of one another.

In our own age the idea that religion belongs to our private life— that it is, in fact, an occupation for the individual’s hour of leisure—is at once paradoxical, dangerous, and natural. It is paradoxical because this exaltation of the individual in the religious field springs up in an age when collectivism is ruthlessly defeating the individual in every other field. . . . . There is a crowd of busybodies, self-appointed masters of ceremonies, whose life is devoted to destroying solitude wherever solitude still exists. They call it “taking the young people out of themselves,” or “waking them up,” or “overcoming their apathy.”

If an Augustine, a Vaughan, a Traherne, or a Wordsworth should be born in the modern world, the leaders of a youth organization would soon cure him. If a really good home, such as the home of Alcinous and Arete in the Odyssey or the Rostovs in War and Peace or any of Charlotte M. Yonge’s families, existed today, it would be denounced as bourgeois and every engine of destruction would be levelled against it. And even where the planners fail and someone is left physically by himself, the wireless has seen to it that he will be—in a sense not intended by Scipio— never less alone than when alone.

We live, in fact, in a world starved for solitude, silence, and privacy, and therefore starved for meditation and true friendship.
From The Weight of Glory
Compiled in A Year with C.S. Lewis

Some Qualifications to Margaret Thatcher's Bon Mot

Bounds, Limitations, Rights and Fundamental Truths

The NZ Taxpayers' Union has a "Quote of the Week" usually reproduced in Kiwiblog. This week's is a doozy which cuts through smoke and mirrors, the lies and deceit, and rams home a fundamental truth:

“Let us never forget this fundamental truth: the State has no source of money other than money which people earn themselves. If the State wishes to spend more is can do so only by borrowing your savings or by taxing you more. It is no good thinking that someone else will pay – that ‘someone else’ is you. There is no such thing as public money; there is only taxpayers’ money.” 

– Margaret Thatcher

However, a qualification is required.  A Christian qualification.  Well, actually two qualifications.  Upon these two qualifications hang the Christian doctrine of the State--and, therefore, by extenuation, the doctrines of justice and freedom.

First, the original and absolute owner of all money, wealth, property, goods, and kind is the Almighty God, "infinite, eternal, unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth."  The earth is His, and all that it contains.  That's the first fundamental qualification to Thatcher's dictum.

Most Peculiar

"Amazing", Said the Gruffalo.

Is Hillary Clinton a sandwich short of a picnic?  One never ceases to be surprised on the downside when politicians who have a fervent belief, not in the inane slogan, "Yes we can" but even worse, "Yes, the Gummint must" splutter forth. 

Hillary has been touted as a highly intelligent person--even, it is said, smarter than the average bear.  How come then this doyen of the Commentariat has uttered the following inanity: she has promised that, via executive action (that is, illegally) she will permit the families of people shot in the United States to sue the respective gun manufacturers. 

Two quick thoughts.  This sounds like a huge benefit to non US gun manufacturers.  One imagines the makers of kalashnikovs, berettas, and glocks--along with their shareholders--will sense a significant commercial opportunity. 

But even worse, why would Dillary stop with suing the manufacturers of guns which, way beyond their control, are used to hurt people?  The civil courts in the United States certainly won't.

Daily Devotional

Heavenly Calling

"Whom he did predestinate, them he also called."
Romans 8:30

Charles H. Spurgeon

In the second epistle to Timothy, first chapter, and ninth verse, are these words--"Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling." Now, here is a touchstone by which we may try our calling. It is "an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace." This calling forbids all trust in our own doings, and conducts us to Christ alone for salvation, but it afterwards purges us from dead works to serve the living and true God.

As he that hath called you is holy, so must you be holy. If you are living in sin, you are not called, but if you are truly Christ's, you can say, "Nothing pains me so much as sin; I desire to be rid of it; Lord, help me to be holy." Is this the panting of thy heart? Is this the tenor of thy life towards God, and his divine will? Again, in Philippians, 3:13, 14, we are told of "The high calling of God in Christ Jesus." Is then your calling a high calling? Has it ennobled your heart, and set it upon heavenly things? Has it elevated your hopes, your tastes, your desires? Has it upraised the constant tenor of your life, so that you spend it with God and for God?

Another test we find in Hebrews 3:1--"Partakers of the heavenly calling." Heavenly calling means a call from heaven. If man alone call thee, thou art uncalled. Is thy calling of God? Is it a call to heaven as well as from heaven? Unless thou art a stranger here, and heaven thy home, thou hast not been called with a heavenly calling; for those who have been so called, declare that they look for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God, and they themselves are strangers and pilgrims upon the earth. Is thy calling thus holy, high, heavenly? Then, beloved, thou hast been called of God, for such is the calling wherewith God doth call his people.

Millennials' Expectations

Getting That First Job

As the phrase "job market" implies, labour is a market place which is subject to the normal dynamics of every other market. Forces of supply and demand set a price of labour, for instance.  Since this is so, we predict there are likely to be huge opportunities opening up for the "right kind" of prospective employees in the forthcoming decades.

The reason our confidence is buoyed is that it appears the labour market is increasingly characterised by "Millennials" who believe that the work place exists to serve them, rather than the other way around.  Apparently there is a gulf opening up between the expectations of employers and employees.  This implies that any employee who has reasonable expectations is going to have a significant competitive advantage over the "you need to do more for me" applicant.

Millennials are wanting international career opportunities, investment in technology and rapid career progression from their jobs, with differing expectations between generations causing problems for employers according to research by recruitment company Robert Walters.  The international company surveyed 1,400 professionals and hiring managers across New Zealand and Australia to find out the habits of millennials (those born roughly between 1980 and early 1990's) and their employers as well as what motivated them. [NZ Herald]

What might be going on in the minds of folks graduating from school or university and seeking a job?