Gospel victory in difficult times

Part of the good news that is ours in Jesus Christ is that now that Christ has won his victory, he extends that victory to us; accept that victory, accept his gift to us, and live accordingly. This is critical for us in understanding what it means to live the Christian life, because it points us to the fact that we should not expect Christ to leave us as we are, with the same old behavior patterns and the same old comfort zones. We may well have many of the same struggles—Jesus doesn’t magically make all our temptations go away when we become Christians—and indeed, as we grow closer to him, we tend to find new ones, as his Spirit convicts us of areas of sin that we’d overlooked; but though our struggles don’t disappear, our attitude toward them ought to change, and we ought to see progress in our lives toward the holiness of God. Our lives should not look the same as everyone else’s.

The problem in talking about Christian victory, though, is that we have to be careful to explain what we mean. After all, we have an idea of what victory means that we’ve learned from the world, and so it’s easy and natural to assume that God is talking about the same thing; that’s why we have the “prosperity gospel” types who teach that victorious Christian living means job success, financial comfort, a perfect marriage, kids who turn out exactly how you want them to turn out, and whatever else it might take to give you a perfect sense of self-satisfaction and self-fulfillment on your own terms. It’s basically your dream life on steroids, and if you don’t get it—if your life has disappointments and struggles and failures—well, then, you just must be a bad Christian.

And that isn’t the gospel. That isn’t even related to the gospel. When we talk about gospel victory, we need to remember first and foremost that our exemplar for gospel victory is Jesus—and what did his victory look like? Thorns—nails—public humiliation—and death from heart failure due to blood loss and dehydration. Victory in Jesus is not necessarily going to be a dream come true. In point of fact, where some like to talk about living in victory—your “best life,” whatever that means, now, without all the messy growth process—I think we do better to talk about living into Jesus’ victory, because it’s really not something that comes naturally for us. We have to retrain ourselves and our expectations, and our sense of what that victory actually means for us and our lives.

That begins, I think, with accepting that Jesus’ victory doesn’t mean victory over circumstances so much as it means victory in the midst of circumstances. God doesn’t save us out of the world, but rather into the world, for the sake of the world; he doesn’t insulate us from its problems because that would insulate us from the part he wants us to play in addressing them. As we look at the world around us, as we consider the hard times so many are facing, with layoffs and stock losses and foreclosures, it’s tempting to circle the wagons and focus on what this is doing to us. It’s a lot harder in times like this to sit up and say, “We don’t exist for our own sake, just to take care of ourselves; we exist for the world around us, and we need to keep our focus there.” But you know what? Hard as it may be, that is why we exist, and that is what we need to do; as Mordecai said to Esther, it’s for such a time as this that God placed us here to begin with.

(Excerpted, edited, from “For Such a Time as This”)

Bumper-sticker theology

I saw a bumper sticker the other day that read, "God bless the whole world—without exceptions."  You see variations on that theme from time to time.  I always want to catch the driver and thank them for their desire that God bless George W. Bush, Sarah Palin and the Republican Party, and then see what they say; and then to follow that up by asking them what they understand a prayer to bless Osama bin Laden, Ayman al'Zawahiri, and al'Qaeda to mean.  For my part, I know what it would mean for God to bless Osama—it would mean to bless him with repentance and to bring him to worship the one true God of the universe—but somehow I tend to doubt that those folks would agree with me.

Still, that bumper sticker catches in my mind because it makes me uncomfortable, and not for the reason you might think.  The truth is, I don't think I would ever put that on my car, not because I object to what people would assume it meant about my political leanings, but rather because I could never live up to it.  Taken seriously, that's a powerful gospel prayer—and I couldn't claim to mean it consistently enough.  I have too much Jonah in me.  Some days, I can feel pretty good about the command to us to love our enemies . . . but that's only when I don't really have any enemies around.  At times when I've actually been suffering, I've been much less sanguine about that.  God send me grace to love my enemies when I actually have them.

The theological politics of John Rawls

Those of you who are interested in political philosophy ought to check out William Galston's TNR piece on the roots of John Rawls' views in his college flirtation with serious Christian theology.  I can't claim more than a superficial knowledge of Rawls' work, but the questions Galston raises are interesting ones.

Continuing reflections concerning egalitarianism and heresy

Following on my previous post . . .

Again, the nub of my argument in the post that touched off this discussion was as follows:

Heretical doctrine is not merely doctrine which is in error, but doctrine which is in error on the core matters of the Christian faith, in such a way that the doctrine fundamentally threatens the integrity of the gospel message; it's a significant departure from what C. S. Lewis called 'mere Christianity,' nothing else, and nothing less.

James Altena, another of my interlocutors, considered this a nefarious statement:

First, this substantially subscribes to the infamous PECUSA Bp. Righter trial assertion of "core doctrine"—which was, of course, a category invented precisely to provide a green light to all sorts of heresies, as the sequel has shown.

Interestingly, he followed that up by contradicting himself:

No orthodox thinker denies that certain doctrines are more critical to faith (in the doctrinal sense) that others.

Thanks for conceding my point.  I'm not sure why he felt the need to call it "infamous" and "a category invented precisely to provide a green light to all sorts of heresies" first, but whatever works, I guess.  Of course, having called my point orthodox, he then proceeded to return to attacking it, charging me with two fallacies.  First,

It implicitly presumes that some doctrines are not inter-related but independent, and therefore that an erroneous or heretical doctrine can be quarantined from its effects on other doctrines. Thus, a lower-level error or heresy does not necessarily imply a high (or deeper) level error, or else cannot spread more deeply and lethally. But heresy is like gangrene—it spreads, and penetrates more deeply, so that one goes from losing some flesh, to losing appendages, to losing limbs, and finally to losing life itself.

I have several responses here.  One, there is no such presumption.  All doctrines are interrelated, as in fact all our beliefs about everything are interrelated.  The presumption, rather, is that while theoretically, a small theological error (such as, I believe, the refusal to baptize infants) could spread throughout our theology and poison the whole thing, practically, that rarely happens.  Such errors do not directly challenge the "doctrines [that] are more critical to faith," and we either do not perceive the indirect challenge they pose or find some line of argument that convinces us that there is no challenge, and so in fact the error does not spread at all.

Two, the difference between doctrines which are merely errant and those which are heretical is precisely between those which do not generally spread, because they do not directly contradict the essential tenets of the Christian faith (to borrow a phrase), and those which do.

Three, the alternative to this position is to declare us all lousy rotten heretics and have done with it—or, if you're arrogant enough to think yourself pure, to take the Roger Williams route and conclude that the only possible pure church is one that only includes you.  None of us is free from theological error, and so if any error is sufficient to be called heresy, then none of us can escape the label.  Of course, once you get to that point, the word becomes meaningless, and you need a new one to describe the errors which actually do destroy people.

Second, Altena contends,

It implicitly presumes that traditionalists believe (contrary to I Cor. 13) that doctrinal accuracy alone suffices for salvation apart from charity. Or, to put it a bit differently, that they hold faith to be fundamentally doctrinal, rather than primarily a matter of trust [pistis]. In fact, traditionalists actually hold instead that adherence to orthodoxy is properly an act of willing submission, obedience, and humility, which is a sign of such trust.

Again, there is no such assumption; in this case, I don't even see how he thinks this logically follows.  As such, I'm really not sure how to respond to this one except to say that some traditionalists are guilty of that error, and some aren't.

Moving on, he writes,

Second, this fails to distinguish between heresy and theological error. Heresy is knowing and intentional rejection of orthodoxy; theological error is unknowing or unintentional rejection. Hence, while all theological error may imperil salvation to a greater or lesser degree, it is heresy that ensures it—not due to the magnitude or centrality of the error, but rather due to the sin of pride involved in the very manner in which the heresy is held and asserted.

This is purely a doozy.  By that standard, straightforwardly interpreted, the only heretics are those who take the stance of Richard III:  "I am determined to prove a villain/And hate the idle pleasures of these days."  Only those who are actively trying to be heretics are heretics—no one else is.  That would be an extraordinarily generous stance.

Of course, it seems safe to me to say that that isn't what Altena means at all.  I think Tyler Dawn cut to the core of this one:  given his previous statements, it seems to me that what he really means is "Heresy is knowing and intentional rejection of orthodoxy according to my definition of orthodoxy."  Those who hold different positions merely because they haven't had the chance to agree with him get off with the lesser label of "theological error."  He may accuse others of pride, but I think he shows some of his own at this point.

Continuing on with Altena's arguments, he says,

Third, a heretical view of divine anthropology indeed "fundamentally threatens the integrity of the gospel message" because it does imperil salvation.

I would of course agree with that, aside from his poor grammar.  I simply deny that the line is where he says it is.

Mr. Harrison speciously tries here to invoke the support of C. S. Lewis.

No, I was merely giving attribution to the quote and concept.  Academic politeness, nothing more.

He should go back and read Lewis' essay, "Priestesses in the Church?", in which Lewis made it as evident as possible that he did regard women's ordination as being, to use Mr. Harrison's own term, one of the "core matters of the Christian faith," the adoption of which would have as its inevitable and necessary end a reversion to paganism.

That's fine.  I freely admit that I haven't read the essay, but I have no trouble believing that Lewis took that position.  I also have no trouble believing that if that's the case, then he was mistaken.  By Altena's logic, I should now proceed to declare Lewis a heretic—but I won't.

Finally, Altena contends that

the fundamental division reflected here is that which I have termed essentialism vs. functionalism. For those who may wish to brave it, a lengthy essay I wrote upon the topic was posted several months ago.

Having read the essay (I respect the Baylys), I think there's a lot of truth in it.  I disagree with his concept of "essentialism" to this extent:  I believe it is not "a divinely created and endowed unique inherent constitution" that "both endows it with an inherent and ineradicable value, and intrinsically determines its capacities and relations to other things, and thus orders them all to their proper goals or ends"; I believe, rather, that it is God who endows, determines, and orders.  It may seem a small point, and for the purposes of his argument, it is; I do think it's a telling one as to his mindset and approach, however.  I also think that to the extent that his grand philosophical argument connects to the practical issue of gender roles, those connections are asserted rather than argued, and that what he's arguing against is a caricature of gender egalitarianism that no one (that I know of, anyway) who holds that position would recognize.  It's easy to argue against people if you don't care what they actually believe.

Finally, we have Kamilla's comment, which I must confess I found irresistably amusing.  Her criticism provoked me to two thoughts:  first, that she's obviously never seen me argue; and second, that since I was working off a comment by Mark Driscoll, she essentially accused him of contributing to "the feminication of discourse."  The irony is astounding.  Kamilla appears to be one who believes that the only alternative to "just be nice" (something for which I did not, do not, and will never argue) is to unleash one's anger at everything bad.  Beyond pointing out that one can in fact say something "without hesitation . . . firmly, forcefully and leaving the listener in no doubt" while also doing so gently, lovingly, and in a spirit of sorrow rather than anger, I will simply direct her to James:

let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.

As a coda, let me respond to TUD's comments on the first part of this post:

Pastor Harrison, do you consider your response pastoral when you write "poor crippled excuse for an elipsis"?

Actually, yes, I do.  A few raps over the knuckles like that from his teachers might have taught him to be kinder to the language; leaving people with a poor command of English does them no favors.  One rap over the knuckles to me for misspelling "ellipsis."

I'm just pointing out the unspoken presupposition on your part. Furthermore, there are some Christians who don't accept a hierarchy of doctrines.

It wasn't unspoken; and I've known of very few Christians who don't accept any hierarchy of doctrines, whatever they may say.  As far as I can tell, they're about as common as liberals who are actually as tolerant as they claim to be.

You think that egalitarianism doesn't merit the charge of heresy. Dr. Hutchens does. Ergo, there's no consensual agreement.

I believe the proper response here is "Duh!" Obviously there's no consensual agreement—that would be why we're disagreeing.  The point is, the fact that we're disagreeing doesn't mean neither of us is right—and therefore, equally, the fact that we're disagreeing doesn't in and of itself mean that I'm wrong.

If I understand your argument correctly, you're saying that only doctrines which merit something along the lines of "Let him be accursed" deserves to be called a heresy? Is that your position?

My position is that Paul clearly does not regard all false doctrines as equally serious errors, though he regards all of them as equally false.

That's one of your major problems. You're not drawing on the wisdom of Christians of all ages in discussing this issue.

I didn't say I'm not drawing on their wisdom; actually, I explicitly said the opposite.  What I said is that I don't consider myself constrained by stare decisis.

Well, with all due respect, I must also confess to being rather underwhelmed by your arguments in your original post and in this one as well.

He is of course entitled to his opinion.

Further reflections on egalitarianism and heresy

A week and a half or so ago, I put up a post offering a few thoughts on the right use of the word "heresy," riffing on a comment of Mark Driscoll's at GCNC and interacting with an editorial by S. M. Hutchens in the latest Touchstone.  As I expected, it met with no particular response—initially.  It appears, however, that someone (who disagreed with me) started e-mailing it around, and a few days ago, comments started popping up—including, interestingly, a response from Dr. Hutchens himself.  I'm rather surprised he took the time to answer a no-name blogger like me, but it's always gratifying to be taken seriously.

Nevertheless, I still don't agree with his position; and I must confess myself somewhat underwhelmed by the arguments raised against mine.  For one thing, with regard to the question of whether it's appropriate to label egalitarianism a heresy, I'm struck by the complete absence of any biblical or biblical-theological arguments on the point at all.  The argumentation is purely at the level of systematic theology, and essentially consists of assertions as to the inevitable negative consequences in other areas of an egalitarian position.  This is problematic, at best.  I agree that there is value in arguing at this level, for certain purposes; I do not, however, consider such arguments sufficient in and of themselves for proving the correctness or falsity of a given doctrine.  They may serve a useful purpose as part of such a proof, but our doctrines should not be grounded in our theological systems.  They should, rather, be grounded in Scripture.  Biblical theology is necessarily prior to any truly Christian systematic theology (and exegesis and hermeneutics are necessarily prior to biblical theology).

The truth of the matter is, of course, that neither Dr. Hutchens nor any other of my interlocutors feels any need at all to actually defend their view on this point; they simply take it as a given and assert it.  Then, as noted, they proceed to offer arguments as to why, given that egalitarianism is false (which I do not grant, but which they assume), it is necessary to label it as a heresy.  Should any of them cycle back to offer any actual argument for their assumption that this position is in fact false, we can discuss that; for now, since they have opted to argue not with Scripture but with logic-chopping, I will seek to answer them in their chosen terms.

The nub of my response to Dr. Hutchens' editorial was that error in one's view of male and female roles is not necessarily serious enough to merit a charge of heresy (and specifically, that the egalitarian position as such does not merit that charge).  At one point, I wrote,

Heretical doctrine is not merely doctrine which is in error, but doctrine which is in error on the core matters of the Christian faith, in such a way that the doctrine fundamentally threatens the integrity of the gospel message.

An individual who's chosen the handle "Truth Unites... and Divides" (henceforth TUD, if only so I can avoid retyping that poor crippled excuse for an elipsis) had four comments.

#1. The argument assumes a hierarchy of doctrines.

Yes, it does.  There's nothing terribly non-standard about that.  As I noted, the very idea of "mere Christianity" requires at the least the idea that some doctrines are essential and some are non-essential.  Another example of this would be the line (which I've seen attributed to many people, so I won't credit it to anyone until I can see the primary source) "In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity."

#2. Assuming a hierarchy, there is no consensus as to what are the "1st-order" doctrines which merit what you say deserves the rightful label of heresy.

True, but not on point.  There is no consensus on national economic policy either, but that doesn't mean that all national economic policies are equally likely to produce prosperity.  Similarly, the absence of complete consensus on what doctrines are first-order (notice, I say complete consensus; I think there is consensus on many if not most of them) doesn't invalidate the argument that some are and some are not.

#3. What Scriptural support do you offer for your argument that only aberrant teaching which negatively impacts salvation rightfully deserves the label of heresy?

For starters, look at St. Paul.  In 1 Corinthians 7, he clearly sees the views of some in the Corinthian church with regard to sexual abstinence as errant, and so he corrects them.  He just as clearly does not see those errors as equal in significance to those of the Judaizers who were leading the Galatian church astray.  It's only in Galatians 1 that he says of anyone teaching a contrary position, "Let him be accursed"; he doesn't feel the need to do so in 1 Corinthians 7.

#4. What support from Church history do you offer for your argument that only aberrant teaching which negatively impacts salvation rightfully deserves the label of heresy?

I draw on the wisdom of Christians of all ages, but as a Protestant, I don't feel the need for support from church history (and yes, the small "c" is intentional).

Turning to Dr. Hutchens' first comment, he wrote,

I have been thinking and writing on this subject for years now, and it was clear to me early on that the "anthropological heresy" of egalitarianism necessitated alterations in trinitarian doctrine—that one could not misconstrue the relation between the sexes created in the divine image without also attacking its theological root in the doctrine of God.

It's clear to me that he's wrong.  That is of course an utterly unfounded assertion; but then, so is yours, since the following actually doesn't qualify as support:

If one will examine the current literature on the subject, he will see that now, indeed, that is just the place where the debate has moved.

Correlation does not equal causation, as anyone who shares my long-suffering fate as a Seattle Mariners fan can tell you; if it did, the expensive free agents currently mucking up our rotation would have pitched much better for us.  It seems to me this says more about the way that complementarians have argued this issue since George W. Knight III's book (since if you frame an argument in a given set of terms long enough, people will tend to fall into responding to you in those terms) than it does about the actual logical necessity of such arguments.

As for subordinationism, it seems to me that it depends what is meant by the term.  Clearly, any position that holds that the Son and the Spirit are ontologically subordinate, are lesser in being than the Father, is heretical; just as clearly, there is logical subordination, as the Son is begotten and the Spirit proceeds (with some dispute as to from whom).  As well, Christ repeatedly asserts his functional subordination to the Father during his time on earth.  Thus we have two poles marking off the range of positions that can be called biblical; between those poles, there have been various positions held throughout church history, some of which have been labeled or have claimed the label "subordinationism."

It's important to note that there has not been one fixed position on this point throughout church history.  Dr. Hutchens, in complaining that "Egalitarian theologians are now insisting that the doctrine of the Church is, and always has been, that there is perfect equality in the Trinity, not just in regard to the divine essence, but the relations between the persons," is disingenuously implying that this position was invented for the sole and sneaky purpose of finding a way to counter those virtuous complementarians' arguments.  This simply isn't true.  On my read, this is the position held by Athanasius and laid out in the Athanasian Creed, for starters.  For a more recent example, take Louis Berkhof, who might be considered the exemplary theologian of the last century of the Dutch Reformed tradition in America.  In his 1938 Systematic Theology (reprinted by Eerdmans in a single volume with his 1932 Introductory Volume to Systematic Theology), the ascription "to the Father [of] a certain pre-eminence over the other persons, in order, dignity, and power" is referenced as an "erroneous construction" associated with the Arminians.  Need it be said that Dr. Berkhof, writing in 1938 as a professor at an institution which isn't exactly friendly to egalitarian thinking 70 years later, wasn't arguing on behalf of the feminist agenda?

The irony of Dr. Hutchens' argument here is that he labels egalitarians as people who "like Arius, [have] attacked Christian doctrine at its root"—on what grounds?  On the grounds that they have taken the same position on the relationships within the Trinity as Athanasius.  After all, it was Arius who was defending the subordinationist side in that argument, though of course he took it well beyond mere subordinationism; and it was Athanasius who held the position that the assertion of relational inequality among the persons of the Trinity must ultimately lead to Arianism.

In any event, one may argue for an eternal relational hierarchy among the persons of the Trinity and appeal both to the Church Fathers and (more fundamentally) to Scripture in support of this position; one may also argue for eternal relational equality among the persons of the Trinity (marked of course by functional subordination—as for instance the subordination of the Son to the Father during his time on earth) and appeal both to the Church Fathers and (more fundamentally) to Scripture in support of this position.  Both positions, it seems to me, are at least defensible.  One of them is of course wrong, but I have yet to hear a convincing argument that either one destroys our doctrine of God and thus "attacks Christian doctrine at its root."

And even if I did—and I'm willing to listen—I don't buy the argument that this applies to the disagreement between gender complementarians and gender egalitarians.  (Note:  I'm not using the term "gender" here because I believe it's a social construct, but rather because I agree with C. S. Lewis that it is in fact the fundamental reality of which biological sex is the physical expression.)  I know Dr. Knight argues the connection between a belief in a relational hierarchy in the Trinity and a complementarian view of gender roles, and I know he's not the only one, but I just don't find it convincing, either as an interpretation of Scripture or as a claimed logical necessity.  I think the root of this is a misconstrued and overdetermined interpretation of Genesis 1:27 and what it means to be created in the image of God—an interpretation which is tone-deaf to what that phrase actually meant in the ancient world as opposed to what we can define it to mean.

At this point, given the length of this post already and the fact that I inadvertently hit "publish" not too long ago, I'm publishing it as the first part of my response.  The comments of other folks in that thread will be addressed in a follow-on post.

Thought on the survival of denominations

(Programming note:  I have a post in the works to follow up my recent post on heresy, since I got a spurt of comments on that post a few days ago which are simply too big to address in the comment thread; I hope to have that up in the next few days, life permitting.)

Toby Brown, the Classical Presbyterian, posted this past Tuesday arguing the thesis that "denominations as we now know them must die."  His arguments for this thesis run as follows:

1. Human beings are so sold out to worldly sin-patterns that any human attempt to construct Institutions That Last Forever are always doomed to fail by someday inevitably becoming disease-ridden dens of slack and vice.

2. Building up bank accounts for the purpose of endowing the aforementioned Instititions That Last Forever likewise inevitably leads to Bigger Barn Syndrome (Lk 12:13-31) and this also is the death of creativity and kills radical reliance upon the sovereignty of God in these institutions.

3. There is no possible way to insure that all members of the organization will be actually regenerate, so that any rules put in place to guard against future erosions of the teachings of Jesus in the organization will one day fail.

4. Point 3 then gurantees that one day these Institutions That Last Forever (ITLFs) will become so engrossed in themselves that they one day will oppress those that seek to be faithful to the teachings of Jesus.

5. In the final stage of institutional calcification, these ITLFs will become ends unto themselves and like the imagined Borg of Star Trek fame, all who labor within the ITLFs will exist solely to service the institution. That's a fate worse than death to anyone who calls Jesus their Lord.

I would further posit that any examination of history (even with the most superficial means, like History Channel and Discovery) will prove my point. The mainline denominations are well on the road to actually doing more harm in the world than good, as they jettison Biblical teachings for the quest of endless self-preservation.

The interesting thing is that I agree with each of the arguments that Toby offers, but disagree with his conclusion.  This is probably a matter of our differing backgrounds and experiences, but I don't believe that the death of these institutions is necessary, though I agree that it's certainly one possible outcome of the process he lays out.  I believe this process is reversible, and that revitalization is possible, though it does not happen without committed effort.

I believe that for a couple reasons.  The first is that I've seen that happen in my home denomination, the Reformed Church in America.  Over a decade ago now, under what I believe was the conviction of the Holy Spirit, the leadership led the RCA to re-envision itself, to see the denomination as nothing more than a support structure for the local church—and to do so in order that our congregations might be fruitful in carrying out the mission of Christ in the world.  To that end, the denomination adopted this mission statement:

The Reformed Church in America is a fellowship of congregations called by God and empowered by the Holy Spirit to be the very presence of Jesus Christ in the world.

Our shared task is to equip congregations for ministry—a thousand churches in a million ways doing one thing—following Christ in mission, in a lost and broken world so loved by God.

OUR VISION

Imagine . . .

Laity and pastors unleashed, hungry for ministry; congregations mission-minded and inviting, authentic and healing, growing and multiplying, alert to the opportunities around them.

Imagine . . .

Classes and synods as communities of nurture and vision—accountable, responsible, sustained by prayer, alive to the Spirit.

Imagine . . .

A denomination, locally oriented, globally connected, that prays in many languages and beholds the face of Christ in every face; a denomination renewed and renewing, raising up leaders, always directing its resources toward the front lines of ministry.

Imagine . . .

Hurts being healed, the lost being found, the hungry being fed, peace healing brokenness, hope replacing despair, lives transformed by the love of Jesus Christ.

Imagine . . .

The Reformed Church in America, engaging the world.

LIVING OUT THE VISION

This vision will be lived out . . .

By congregations focused for ministry—creative, confident, healing, and radically attentive to the world outside its doors.

By consistories selected more for ministry than management, attuned to the Spirit, eager and equipped to serve.

By ministers of Word and sacrament open to dream, prepared to lead, willing to risk.

By classes that are empowering and proactive, living in communion, each accountable to all, and all to Christ.

By synods and staff that funnel resources to the local church, and keep us connected to the larger church.

By all the people of the RCA, a network of relationships, a fellowship that celebrates its gifts and confesses its failures, and where the ministries of all are valued and cherished.

To live out this vision by consistories, classes, synods and staff, our decision-making will be transformed by a pervasive climate of worship, discernment, and biblical reflection. We will no longer do business as usual, nor our usual business.

Now, if this were treated as window dressing, it wouldn't mean anything—but it hasn't been; there has been a concerted effort to bring this statement to life in the work of the RCA.  The denomination is far from perfect, but on the whole, I believe, it's doing a pretty good job of realizing the promise of this statement.

This has been supported by the revitalization and renewal that we've seen at our seminary in Holland, MI, Western Theological Seminary.  When the Rev. Dr. Tim Brown joined the faculty there, he started telling anyone who would listen that that renewal, though historically unprecedented, was going to happen . . . and amazingly, due in part to his leadership and recruitment, it did.

Second, the presbytery to which I belonged in Colorado, the Presbytery of Denver, came to a point some years ago (well before my time there) when it took a long, hard look at itself, recognized it was doing more harm than good, and decided to change.  Again, a large part of that change was realizing that the presbytery existed to support its churches, not the other way around, and so they restructured, decentralizing as much as possible, to support that realization.  I still have significant issues with the theology of a lot of the folks there, but the institution of the presbytery is honestly a good thing.

None of this is to deny that a number of our big denominations have serious problems; from a gospel point of view, I completely agree with Toby that some of them are doing far more harm than good.  It is simply to deny that there's no hope for them.  In Christ, there's always hope.  Which is a good thing, because there's really nothing out there to replace denominations with; they serve a critically important purpose.  The denomination is like the bark of a tree, a dead thing that protects and gives form to the living, growing thing underneath, without which that living thing would soon die.  Yes, individual trees are in bad shape, and some will no doubt fall; yes, there are trees where the bark only serves to protect and enable parasites, much like all the red trees I came to know in the Rockies.  That said, to argue from that fact to the conclusion that we should give up on bark altogether is, I think, to go too far.

Further commentary on shakedown artist Barack Obama

As I noted last week, the Obama administration believes it's the civic duty of some Chrysler investors to lose more money than they should by law and contract so that the unions, who are major investors in the Obama administration, can lose less; when said investors balked at the idea, the president threatened to turn the awesome power of his tame PR flacks (aka the White House press corps, an arm of our "independent media") loose on them to destroy them.  Megan McArdle summarized the situation this way:

I see a lot of liberal blogs crowing that Obama's really taking it to the hedge funds who are holding out on the Chrysler bankruptcy. Hedge fund managers, you see, have a civic duty to lose large amounts of other people's money in order to ensure that the UAW makes as few sacrifices as possible in a bankruptcy.

Predictably, I got a couple liberal commenters popping up saying, in essence, "What's bad about this?"  Well, let's start off with McArdle again:

Which brings us to the real question, which is, when did it become the government's job to intervene in the bankruptcy process to move junior creditors who belong to favored political constituencies to the front of the line? Leave aside the moral point that these people lent money under a given set of rules, and now the government wants to intervene in our extremely well-functioning (and generous) bankruptcy regime solely in order to save a favored Democratic interest group.

No, leave that aside for the nonce, and let's pretend that the most important thing in the world, far more interesting than stupid concepts like the rule of law, is saving unions. What do you think this is going to do to the supply of credit for industries with powerful unions? My liberal readers who ardently desire a return to the days of potent private unions should ask themselves what might happen to the labor movement in this country if any shop that unionizes suddenly has to pay through the nose for credit. Ask yourself, indeed, what this might do to Chrysler, since this is unlikely to be the last time in the life of the firm that they need credit. Though it may well be the last time they get it, on anything other than usurious terms.

Bill Roberts points out an interesting follow-up from one of her commenters:

Government interference, or arbitrary enforcement of the rule of law is a hallmark of bankruptcies in banana republics, and France. When lenders have confidence that the government will enforce bankruptcy laws (ie the rules of the game) will be consistently upheld, they will lend more freely. When lenders fear their contractual rights will be summarily ignored, they will demand equity-like rates of interest, thus stifling economic activity. Credit is a sacred trust.

The point here is not which party is more "deserving" of more or less of a shrunken pie, lazy unions or heartless hedge funds. Lots of folks fundamentally believe the government should do whatever the hell it wants (eg upend absolute priority in bankruptcy) to effect the "greater good", as defined by a self-designated minority of people. But all government policies have a cost, and those same folks like to pretend that those costs don't exist. When the Government flouts the rule of law to fit its preferred special interest groups, that has a real cost.

But then, this isn't the only area in which we've seen banana-republic behavior from this administration starting off . . . I'm hoping this isn't going to become a theme.  (And if anyone thinks the government's intervention into the Chrysler bankruptcy is anything other than a payoff to the unions, McArdle also does a nice job of debunking that idea.)  For now, though, it has people in the financial market worried, and the backlash is already showing up.  John Derbyshire of National Review Online passes this one along from "a friend in the hedge fund biz" (HT:  Bill Roberts again):

Hey John—Would you like a sound bite from one of those evil hedge fund guys for Colmes' show tonight? How's this: "As a professional investor I'd have to be out of my skull to partner with this government on anything."

This administration has made it quite clear that they can't be relied upon to honor contracts or legal precedents and if I can't know what the rules are before the game starts then I'm not going to play. Hedge funds aren't like the banks . . . we haven't failed. We aren't beholden to the taxpayer to make our way. We have contractual and fiduciary obligation which we will honor. People pay us to make them money not to meet a political goal. So Obama had better think long and hard before he tries to bully us like he did the banks, or try to tell us that "he's the only thing between us and the pitchforks."

Also, Geithner and Obama have been saying that they plan on balancing the budget once the crisis is past. The press may believe that twaddle about how he'll do it by "making things more efficient," but we in the hedge fund industry aren't so stupid. We've looked at the numbers and know what he's planning to do. I know dozens of people who are already putting the legal structures in place to move their companies and themselves offshore and away from the grip of the tax man. These are some of the smartest most dynamic people in the world and they'll have no trouble staying ahead of the [dumb] kids . . . over at the IRS.

So unless Obama wants to run out of "other people's money" a lot sooner than he expected, he had better keep some people around to pay the bills. And if he keeps demonizing the productive and saying that it's their responsibility to let him spend their money on the unproductive, then we'll all be gone. I'll be working my 14 hour days in Bahrain or Singapore, and Obama can go suck eggs. He needs the productive classes a lot more than the productive classes need him.

The problem here for the kind of approach President Obama is using in this situation is that he really does need the people with the money to cooperate for his plan (or any plan) to work, and strong-arming them into cooperation will only work for a very limited time in a very limited way.  The concern this raises among potential investors is succinctly expressed by Thomas Lauria:

The President is trying to abrogate contractual rights; if he will attack that contractual right, what right will he not attack?

I've often thought that the great problem with leftist economic theories is that they implicitly assume that people's behavior doesn't change as the incentives change—that reactions remain static, and thus that, for instance, increasing taxes on the rich will mean that the rich will pay more taxes.  This is a problem because the assumption is wildly false; thus, above a certain level, increasing taxes on the rich actually decreases the amount of taxes they pay, because their behavior shifts in ways designed to produce precisely that result.  Wealth protection (through tax avoidance) trumps wealth creation, economic productivity drops accordingly, and the economy suffers, hitting those who aren't rich enough to make that choice—such as, for instance, the members of the UAW.  The same sort of thing will happen if the investment class decides that the government can't be trusted to honor contracts if it doesn't like their outcome:  they simply won't sign contracts they don't trust, leaving those who need investors to go whistle for them.

As such, the approach the president is employing here is a lot like the approach he employed in dealing with the Somali pirates last month:  good short-term tactics that will breed distrust and prove counterproductive, perhaps severely so, once his opponents wise up to what he's likely to do.

Further exacerbating the situation is the fact that Chrysler won't be paying back the $8 billion the feds have given them, and the government won't be getting stock in return for its "investment," either.

Instead, the wreckage of Chrysler will be divided up among Fiat, Chrysler's unions, and Chrysler's debtholders. Which means that the taxpayers' $8 billion was just a gift to these three consitituencies.

We don't know about you, but we can think of a few dozen charities that we'd rather have given that $8 billion to than Chrysler's debtholders, Chrysler's unions, and Fiat.

Is the White House going to explain this one, or are we just supposed to ignore it?

On the bright side, at least Barack Obama is making his payments to the labor movement for the nice big white house they helped to buy him . . .

Presidential transparency, brought to you by Coppertone

I posted a bit on this a couple weeks ago, but given how the “most transparent administration ever" keeps smearing sunblock all over its transparency, further comment seems merited.  Michelle Malkin has a good post up today on the subject, which is particularly notable for this trenchant observation:

From Day One, President Obama has demonstrated a rather self-serving selectivity when it comes to transparency. . . .  

Openness in government is fine if it hurts America’s reputation, but not if it harms Obama’s.

She adds, “hostility to transparency is a running thread through Obama’s cabinet,” citing serious issues with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, Attorney General Eric Holder, and Deputy Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ron Sims, as well as David Axelrod.  The problem, however, starts at the top, with the president’s willingness to go back on his word whenever it suits him:

President Obama set the tone, breaking his transparency pledge with the very first bill he signed into law. On January 29, the White House announced that Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act had been posted online for review. One problem: Obama had already signed it—in violation of his “sunlight before signing” pledge to post legislation for public comment on the White House website five days before he sealed any deal.

Obama broke the pledge again with the mad rush to pass his trillion-dollar, pork-stuffed stimulus package full of earmarks he denied existed. Jim Harper of the Cato Institute reported in April 2009: “Of the eleven bills President Obama has signed, only six have been posted on Whitehouse.gov. None have been posted for a full five days after presentment from Congress . . .”

Mitt Romney, the Beltway GOP, and the meaning of Evansville

(Note: this was originally posted at Conservatives4Palin.)

I didn't blog about it much, but at the beginning of the last presidential campaign, I was intending to vote for Mitt Romney. I wasn't a huge fan, but my primary concern was finding someone who could beat Rudy Giuliani, the one person in the race I simply could not support; on that score, Gov. Romney seemed like the best option. He was the most conservative of the plausible candidates, and had proven himself to be an effective executive in a number of positions. His record in Massachusetts doesn't look as good now as it did before I really understood the situation with RomneyCare, but even given that fiasco, the man's a capable administrator with the guts to make tough decisions. I still think he would have made a better president than John McCain, though Sen. McCain made a better losing nominee since he brought Sarah Palin on the national stage.

That said, since Gov. Romney began his run for the nomination, the only thing he's done that hasn't lowered my opinion of him was to suspend his campaign; at every other point, the more I've seen of him, the less I've thought of him. His recent attempts to diminish Gov. Palin, both directly and by proxy, only compound that; I understand why he's doing it, but this is one case where to understand most definitely is not to forgive. The fact that he's denigrating someone who simply doesn't deserve it is certainly no more acceptable because he's doing it out of raw ambition, after all.

Gov. Romney's comments aren't only ignoble, however, they're also revealingly clueless. I'm not certain whether he really believes what he's saying or merely considers it to be a plausible line of attack, but either way, it seems clear that he does not in fact understand Gov. Palin's influence, which means that he doesn't understand the reasons for her influence—and in this, I believe he's representative of the GOP Beltway types who now consider him the rightful heir (or at least a rightful aspirant) to the party's mantle.

They don't like her because she's not one of them, and they fail to understand that that's why she's influential: that she isn't one of them is the whole point. She's one of us, a politician who remains of and for the ordinary barbarians of this country, and at this point, any effort—any effort, no matter what else it has going for it—to elevate another Beltway insider as the GOP's standard bearer is doomed to failure.

All of this, of course, has been said before, here and elsewhere; but there's a particular aspect to it which I believe is highlighted in a bitterly ironic way by Mitt Romney, of all people, dissing Gov. Palin as just another pretty face. I don't mean the fact that Gov. Romney himself consciously tried to use his looks to his advantage, and thus was far more deserving of his own jab than Gov. Palin, though the irony there is sharp enough; but there's something more significant in play here as well, something which is thrown into sharp relief by Gov. Palin's trip last month to Evansville, IN.

The key thing to understand about that visit is something the executive director of Vandenburgh County RTL said, which Joseph Russo used in his headline: "[Palin] walks the walk and talks the talk. She could . . . be doing other things, but she chose to do this."

To know just how much that means, you need to know something about the pro-life movement: it has been the beneficiary, from many on the Right, of much talk and very little walk. It's a grassroots movement outside the elite culture, outside the halls of power, that is primarily used rather than supported by those who have influence. I can't think how many strong pro-life people I know who looked back at the Bush 43 administration last year and said, in essence, yeah, he gave us Roberts and Alito, but what else did he do for us? Was it worth what we did for him? And the thing is, George W. Bush was no worse in that respect than any other leading conservative politician—he was, in fact, completely typical.

And he wasn't only typical of politicians, either. I know a pastor who served for many years as the senior pastor of a large, influential Southern Baptist church in one of the cities of the Deep South—a good man, a godly man, and one well familiar with the corridors of power and the wielders of influence in the Southern Baptist Convention. We were talking one time about the whole issue of abortion, and he made a statement that absolutely floored me: he declared that over his whole career, he had never known a Southern Baptist pastor who risked anything for the pro-life movement.

Now, consider that. The SBC is known throughout the country as a conservative Christian denomination, it's known everywhere for its support of the conservative social agenda, and if you asked a random selection of non-Southern Baptists what they knew about it, I'd bet most of them would mention its opposition to abortion somewhere in there—and yet, according to him, that has all just been words. When the rubber meets the road, effectively, he said, Southern Baptist pastors have been unwilling to walk the talk, unwilling to lay their reputations, the reputations of their congregations, their positions, or anything else on the line to back up what they said they believed. And in that, I don't say this to bash the SBC, because in my experience, they too are typical.

The point here, let me reiterate, is not to criticize George W. Bush, or my colleagues in the Southern Baptist Church—or me, for that matter; in all honesty, I have to admit that there have been times that I too have ducked away from the issue of abortion instead of taking a stand. I speak here with the rueful honesty of a regretful and repentant sinner; I know I'm no one to cast the first stone. My point, rather, is this: when you see someone willing to put their political capital where their mouth is, willing to lay something on the line and risk something real for the sake of a cause in which they claim to believe, pay attention. Pay attention, because here you have found someone who actually believes something, and does so strongly enough to live it out when it matters.

This, to come at last to the promise of my title, is the meaning of Evansville—and make no mistake, it's a meaning that the organizers of those events understand perfectly. They have no doubt seen plenty of Republican types show up for the photo op and then be long gone when it mattered; for Gov. Palin to come and speak, especially at a time when she (and everyone else who was paying attention) had to know she was going to get hammered by the ankle-biters back in Alaska—to make an effort that actually cost her something in order to support a cause she believes in—clearly meant the world to them. That she refused the offer of a fundraiser as part of the deal (which I suspect she would have seen as cheapening her visit, and quite frankly would have cheapened it) only made her visit all the more meaningful.

The thing is, those folks in Vandenburgh County were absolutely right to feel that way, and to see Gov. Palin that way, because with that trip she did something that politicians rarely do: she gave of herself for the sake of others. She showed by her actions that her political positions aren't just political positions, they're things that she believes deeply enough and strongly enough that she's willing to spend her own political capital and put herself on the line for their sake, and for the sake of the people involved. She showed that she was willing to make that effort and take the criticism and the sniping from the peanut gallery for the sake of people trying to save the lives of unborn children in southern Indiana, and for the sake of Down Syndrome children like her own youngest son. She showed that what she believes isn't a matter of political convenience, nor is it subject to renegotiation for the sake of political advantage, because it's rooted in who she is and what she cares about and what drives her to do what she does.

And in that, she separated herself—decisively—from Mitt Romney, the GOP establishment as a whole (though not all its members; it was also heartening to see Michael Steele there, and one may hope that this is a sign of things to come), the conservative chattering classes, and many of the party's presidential hopefuls. And in that, she showed clearly the roots of her influence, and the reason why that influence will not wane unless she decides to lay it aside. To borrow a line from Abraham Lincoln on U. S. Grant which others have borrowed recently, we've decided that we can't spare this woman—she fights. If the Beltway GOP wants to win our support, let them stop trying to tear her down, and go and do likewise.

Jack Kemp, RIP

It's not typical for a politician's death to get coverage on ESPN—but then, Jack Kemp wasn't exactly your typical politician.  To be sure, he wasn't the only high-profile athlete to go into politics—the U.S. Senate has even seen two Hall of Famers among its members in recent decades, Bill Bradley and Jim Bunning, though both are marginal inductees, and the House of Representatives currently has former NFL QB (and first-round bust) Heath Shuler serving from North Carolina—but successful athletes who become major political figures are rare, and Kemp was both.  He had a rough ride establishing himself in the pros, but when the AFL came along he seized the opportunity with both hands, quarterbacking Buffalo to four playoff appearances and two league championships (and losing another with San Diego in 1961) and making seven AFL All-Star teams.

He then parlayed his fame in Buffalo into nine terms in the House from upstate New York, during which time he established himself as one of this country's most intelligent, articulate, and vocal exponents of conservative political principles.  I'm sure I'm far from the only one who thinks that the GOP and the nation both would be a lot better off had Kemp won his 1988 bid for the Republican presidential nomination rather than losing to the name recognition of George H. W. Bush, the incumbent VP.  Still, he continued to contribute as President Bush 41's HUD secretary, then served as Bob Dole's VP nominee in 1996, bringing energy and conservative enthusiasm to the GOP ticket much as Sarah Palin would for Sen. Dole's fellow war veteran and centrist Republican John McCain twelve years later.

As a childhood fan of Kemp's Bills and a neighbor of his in Maryland who writes extensively on both politics and football, Gregg Easterbrook is uniquely positioned to write about Jack Kemp, and his eulogy on ESPN.com is well worth reading because it captures a sense of the broad sweep of the man's life.  As he notes, and as David Goldman (aka Spengler) points out in his piece on the First Things website, without Kemp it would be hard to imagine the Reagan Revolution happening the way it did.

Former vice-presidential candidate, congressman, and Housing secretary, he was the most improbable and the most important hero of the Reagan Revolution after the Gipper himself. Without Jack’s true-believer’s passion for tax cuts as a remedy for the stagflation of the 1970s, Reagan would not have staked his presidency on an untested and controversial theory. His death should remind us how lucky we were to have leaders like Reagan and Kemp, and a political system that allowed improbable leaders—an ex-actor and a retired quarterback—to appear at providential moments.

It was impossible to be cynical in Jack’s vicinity. He radiated sincerity and optimism. Corny as it sounds, Jack was the real thing, an all-American true believer in this country and in the capacity of its people to overcome any obstacle once given the chance. . . .

What attracted Jack Kemp to supply-side economics was the promise of advancement for ordinary people. . . . He passionately believed in individual opportunity and free markets, and he needed an argument to take to the union rank-and-file who made up the bulk of his district’s voters. Supply-side economics, the premise that tax cuts and corresponding regulatory reform would unleash the creative energies of Americans, persuaded him, and he became its great missionary.

A genuinely independent thinker, Kemp was that rarest of all birds:  an unpredictable politician.  Easterbrook captures this when he writes,

Kemp was keenly concerned with the plight of the poor. The libertarian side of his personality viewed tolerance as crucial. Kemp often broke with other Reagan supporters on women's and minority issues, respect for labor and an end of discrimination against homosexuality; and though a devout Christian himself—prayer circles are a regular event at his home—he was disgusted by all forms of religion-based bias. His signature issue became Enterprise Zones. Kemp was dismayed by the decline of mostly minority inner cities, and hardly just Buffalo. He felt excessive regulations and legal liability discouraged businesses from investing in urban areas where jobs were needed, while in effect encouraging business to develop unplowed land that ought to be preserved. . . .

When Bush was elected to the White House, he named Kemp Secretary of HUD, a position from which he implemented Enterprise Zone ideas. HUD is an agency that traditionally has not interested conservatives much, because it deals with issues of the impoverished, such as public housing. Kemp dove into HUD's subject matter with zeal, and over time was proven correct, as the Enterprise Zone was a factor—hardly the only factor, of course—in the spectacular American urban comeback that began in the 1990s. . . .

Beneath the surface of Kemp's political heterodoxy was a lifelong love of argument over ideas. Kemp clung to many causes viewed as idiosyncratic, such as a return to the gold standard, and advanced "supply side" economic ideas that were in some ways more radical than anything coming from the left. He spent far more time with writers and intellectuals than do most nationally known politicians, and he got more excited about books than about polls. While many politicians want to shake hands with intellectuals at photo ops, Kemp wanted to argue, sometimes well into the night. . . . Unlike so many politicians, who leave behind little but backroom deals and self-congratulation, Kemp's legacy is one of ideas. As of last autumn, Kemp was still banging out newspaper columns in support of John McCain and in opposition to taxes. Unlike so many political figures who only preach family values, Kemp was married for more than 50 years to his college sweetheart, Joanne Main. . . .

Kemp had read some of my books—he seemed to have read at least parts of every book—and took me aside a few times to talk public policy. It was pleasant, and I wish it had lasted longer. I couldn't convince Kemp that Obama is not a socialist; to win an argument with him, you would have needed to bring along an army. But I also don't think he really meant to insult the new president. I think he admired the new president quite a bit. He just liked to provoke political arguments and see where they led. For him, they led to a great life well lived.

Easterbrook ends with a testimony to Kemp's character; Goldman echoes the theme.

Jack was a leader who loved his country and put it before personal gain. When he left office he had the equity in his house and not much else. But he had four children, including two sons who played professional football, and seventeen grandchildren. . . .

A devout Christian, Jack made far more of a difference than an ex-quarterback with a physical education degree from Occidental College had a right to. He earned our gratitude not only for what he accomplished, but for what he proved about the character of the United States.

A good man, a godly man, a politician who brought his country great benefit—and a mighty fine quarterback to boot:  Jack Kemp was a great American, and this nation is poorer for his death.  Requiescat in pace.

1000

This is my 1000th post.  I haven't noted previous milestones, but 1000 is just such a resonant round number, I couldn't let it pass unremarked.  Considering that from October 2003 through December 2006 I only posted 30 times, no one would have been likely to predict I'd hit this one (not that anyone would have cared enough to consider the question); 2007 was a busier year, but even then I only put up 65 posts.  In January of last year, though, I was inspired to take blogging seriously as a discipline, and that changed things; in the 16 months from my first post that year until now, I've put up 905 pieces, or about 56 per month.  Of course, a lot of those have been minor—video posts, song lyrics, quotes—but there's been a fair bit of serious material, too; this blog is still small potatoes as these things go (actually, fingerlings would be more to the point), but there are folks who read on some kind of regular basis, too, and I appreciate all of you.

I was ruminating a bit the other day over some of the hits and misses I've had, and my mind got stuck a little on my 2006 post on Barack Obama, in which I praised his speech on religion in the public square.  That was the point at which he really stuck in my mind as a likely presidential candidate, though I didn't think he'd be ready for the office in 2008 (and 100 days into his administration, I still don't).  In retrospect, I think I gave him more credit for that speech than he had coming, but if I heard more what I wanted to hear than what he was actually committed to, I don't blame myself too much for that, since he has a gift for eliciting that sort of response.  Given how many pro-life evangelicals managed to convince themselves that he deserved their support, I think I did a pretty decent job of staying objective; I suspect the biggest fallout for the pro-life cause from the Obama presidency will be the number of evangelicals who, when they really face the cognitive dissonance between their convictions and their vote, sacrifice the former to justify the latter to themselves and others, and end up coming out in support of abortion.  I hope there won't be too many, but I don't think they'll be isolated cases, either.

Anyway, I'm enjoying the ride, and whether it does anyone else any good or not, I think this blog is helping me grow as a thinker and writer, and I even think it's helped my preaching; and I do hope it provides some benefit to those of you who are regular visitors, and to the various folks who drop by for one thing and another.  Onward and upward.

Barack Obama, union enforcer

Mariner fans once dubbed Seattle Times beat writer Bob Finnegan "Pocket Lint" because he was so deep in ownership's pocket—his pieces were, dependably, dutiful recitations of whatever the company line happened to be—and now I'm starting to think the nickname may need to be revived for Barack Obama.  We knew the labor movement had him in its pocket, but the whole business with Chrysler is beyond anything I would have expected.  President Obama and his administration essentially took a crowbar and attempted to kneecap a group of Chrysler investors in an effort to win better terms for the United Auto Workers than the UAW will be able to get in bankruptcy proceedings now that the automaker has filed for Chapter 11.  As the ever-invaluable Beldar lays it out,

What the Obama Administration has been trying to do, however, has been to cajole or—it's now becoming more clear—threaten people who carefully bargained for less risk, and who thereby had to settle for lower rewards all along, into voluntarily forfeiting the protections they bought and paid for in the event of the underlying business' insolvency. Primarily through Chrysler's pension and retiree health-care obligations, the UAW is a creditor of Chrysler, but one whose position is less favored by the bankruptcy laws than the investors (debt holders) represented by companies like Oppenheimer Funds or Perella Weinburg. Unlike the UAW, their clients negotiated, bought, and paid for the rights not to have to have to make the same "sacrifices" that equity holders or general unsecured creditors would be compelled to make under the bankruptcy laws. But Obama insists—on pain of presidential demonization and worse—that these so-called "corporate renegades" (who've been guilty of nothing other than greater prudence) make those sacrifices anyway, and that they do so specifically in order to benefit the UAW!

This goes beyond populism or pro-unionism. Barack Obama is engaged in an assault on not just the entire system of business in the free world, but on the American rule of law upon which it is founded.

And the crowbar in question?  The White House press corps, as the lawyer for one of those investors told a talk-radio host in Detroit:

One of my clients was directly threatened by the White House and in essence compelled to withdraw its opposition to the deal under the threat that the full force of the White House Press Corps would destroy its reputation if it continued to fight.

Not that we really needed any further evidence that the MSM is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party machine, but that's still telling.  The White House, of course, is denying the story; as for the response from the aforementioned reporters?  Aside from Jake Tapper, crickets.

The bottom line here, in Beldar's words, is that

the Obama administration is engaged in a colossal abuse of power whose magnitude far exceeds a mere subversion of the White House press corps. Barack Obama has become Guido, the thug who everyone knows has not only a nasty habit but a nasty taste for breaking kneecaps. And the beneficiary of his shakedowns are the United Auto Workers.

Regardless of your position on Chrysler, unions, or any of the other parties involved in this mess, that sort of thing isn't good for anybody for very long.  The rules need to be the same for everyone, and the same at every point in the process.  When the government starts bending them to try to manipulate results—when the process is compromised for the sake of someone's agenda—the system will adjust in a way that will only hurt our economy, and especially those who are most vulnerable.

The thing is, these folks invested a lot of money in an effort to help Chrysler rebound—yes, in the hopes that they would profit off that rebound; our economy doesn't run on altruism—and they did so knowing what the rules were if their efforts succeeded and what they were if Chrysler went down anyway.  Let them and others like them get the idea that the government is willing and able to do whatever is necessary to change those rules after the fact in order to skew the results to its liking, and the next time a big company is looking for help (General Motors, anyone?  The New York Times?), the money won't be there.

Investors are willing to take the normal risks of business, because those risks are predictable, and they're taken into account in the terms of the contract.  If they perceive a significant risk of ex post facto government intervention on behalf of other parties—risks which are neither predictable nor quantifiable—they'll sit on their hands, rather than take the chance that the next kneecap the Obama administration aims at will be theirs; and GM, or whichever company totters next, will go down.

For those frightened by the Mexican flu outbreak

here are some words of wisdom that should allay your concern.  This comes from my uncle, a longtime specialist in infectious diseases who's seen a lot of things come and go over the years; he knows what he's talking about.

To family, friends and others:

Because of the widespread disinformation being perpetrated by the MSM, I feel obliged to share with my family and friends an accurate perception of the current H1N1 influenza outbreak. As many of you know, I am an acknowledged infectious disease specialist. What many do not know is that I have served as a subject-matter expert to both CDC and WHO over the years, and have an accurate assessment of their politics and capabilities. Therefore, I can presume to offer some opinions on this problem.

Seriously, it is somewhat of a problem, but mainly in perception. The MSM has blown it all out of proportion, showing street scenes of people wearing masks, etc, etc. This morning the Today show was all a-gog about "the first US death", which wasn't. It was a Mexican kid who was a few yards over the border in Brownsville, and got taken to Houston (where he exposed dozens of other people). But it was a Mexican case, not a US case.

All the US cases have been mild. The NYC outbreak is directly traceable to Mexico; a bunch of seniors had just returned from spring break in Mexico. The fact that the strain in NYC came from Mexico, but the cases are not so severe suggests that it is the Mexican health care system (or lack of same) that is contributing to the high fatality rates there (CDC acknowledged the same idea late today). It's possible that the deaths are due to bacterial superinfection, similar to what happened in 1918. There is some suggestion that "cytokine storm" might be responsible, but, if that is so, why are Mexican immune systems reacting differently that US immune systems?

The acting head of CDC said on TV today that there is no vaccine against H1N1 influenza, which is only partially true. There have been many mixes of flu vaccine over the years which have contained H1N1 strains, just not this PARTICULAR one. Anyone who has had the flu vaccine regularly over the years should have at least partial protection, which might explain the difference between the US and Mexico.

The CDC on-line recommendations are reasonable and non-panicky. Its the media that is the problem. AND whoever the idiot was at WHO who pushed the "global pandemic" panic button. This is nowhere near a pandemic. It probably won't ever turn into a pandemic. I think the folks at WHO are covering their sixes because of the SARS outbreak a few years ago (which wasn't a pandemic, either, just a global episode.)

Apparently the bloggers are running wild, too. Some are saying this is a Chinese or Russian biowarfare plot (patent BS!). Others are saying it is a Federal scheme, and to avoid getting the vaccine at all costs (again, BS, but related to the 1970s swine flu immunization fiasco.)

What to do? Don't panic. Obama has it all under control. His brilliant suggestion today that if a school has one case of swine flu, they shut down for the week is real stupidity. By the time a case is DOCUMENTED as H1N1, the exposure will have already been done. What he should do is close the border with Mexico for a week. The Cubans, and others, have already shut down all flights to and from Mexico.

A modicum of caution; avoiding crowds and enclosed, crowded places when possible; eating well and keeping a sense of proportion are the best means of prevention.

"This, too, shall pass". We survived the 1918 pandemic; we survived SARS; we will survive this episode.

William O. Harrison, MD, FACP, FACPM, FIDSA
CAPT(MC)USN(ret)

Money and writing

Sir, no man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.

—Samuel Johnson

Always pleasant to be labeled a blockhead by a genius.  Still, fortunately for me, there are many other writers who disagree with Dr. Johnson.  There are also many who note, essentially, that if Dr. Johnson were correct, no one but a blockhead would ever write.  Fortunately for all of us, this doesn't prove to be the case . . .

“Heresy” is a big word

That was one of Mark Driscoll's observations during his message at GCNC last week: “heresy” is a big word, a loaded word, that should only be used carefully, when necessary.  That's not to say that we should never use it—sometimes it's necessary, when people are claiming the name of Jesus to teach things that are significantly at odds with the gospel—but we must be very sure of our ground before we use that word, and equally sure of the spirit in which we use it.  That must never be an accusation hurled in anger, but must only be spoken gently, in a gracious spirit of loving correction.

S. M. Hutchens addresses this in an editorial in the latest issue of Touchstone called “The War on Error: The Business of Confronting Heresy”; it is in general a careful and thoughtful piece that takes note both of the need to name heresy for what it is and of the dangers in doing so overaggressively.

If an accusation is made, it must be made clearly, forcefully, and memorably, so that it is understood by those one is trying to protect from false doctrine: “This is untrue; it is heresy; avoid these people who teach it.”

This must be done judiciously and in the line of duty. If I have any quarrel with certain fathers, it is not that they identified false teaching for what it was, but that they sometimes did it so frequently that it may have become difficult to hear. There is besides a certain pathological temperament that enjoys hunting down and denouncing error and subjecting those who commit it to terror and humiliation that hardens them against truth. The heresy-hunting inquisitor is not a divine office, whereas pastor and teacher are. To the former mentality, exposing error is not a painful task cast in one’s path by the duties of office, but a form of pleasure—a dungeoner’s pleasure of which no good man would be proud.

However, I think there's a point, named in the editorial, where Hutchens himself goes over the line.  Heretical doctrine is not merely doctrine which is in error, but doctrine which is in error on the core matters of the Christian faith, in such a way that the doctrine fundamentally threatens the integrity of the gospel message; it's a significant departure from what C. S. Lewis called “mere Christianity,” nothing else, and nothing less.  Only those things which lead people away from the very means of salvation, then, deserve this label.  As such, I cannot agree when Hutchens writes,

These considerations have weighed heavily on me because of my concern with egalitarianism, which I have identified as a heresy. Although the identification was not difficult from a theological point of view—and our opponents are now in many places returning the compliment, accusing us of subordinationism: but surely one of us is heretical—its publication was very difficult indeed.

This is not just a matter of my being an egalitarian, though I will confess that being labeled a heretic is mildly irritating; it's a matter of Hutchens using a word that's far too big for the subject.  Is egalitarianism wrong?  Perhaps, though I don't believe so; we can debate it.  But when he says “surely one of us is heretical,” he puts that out of possibility:  he says that those with whom he disagrees are not merely wrong, but grievously wrong, to such an extent that it threatens our salvation—and thus that if he were in fact wrong, the same would be true of him.

This is where I think Hutchens is seriously wrong.  I don't see any support for his conclusion, and I don't believe he can support it; scripturally, there is clearly an argument for his complementarian position, but not for the case that that position is essential for salvation.  Indeed, at this point it seems to me that he's guilty of what Ray Ortlund dubbed “Galatian sociology”:  he's added belief in something extrinsic to the gospel to belief in Jesus.  He may well be correct that belief in Jesus ought to lead to his position on male/female roles and relations, but that in and of itself is not enough to justify his conclusion that any other position is heretical.

If anything, in asserting that one must believe in Jesus and in complementarianism, he's made himself vulnerable to a charge of heresy on the grounds that he has made salvation dependent not on Jesus but on right doctrine.  This is what the late Stan Grenz (if I recall correctly) called “the evangelical heresy,” that of putting our faith not in Jesus but in our creeds.  This is not to say that creeds don't matter and right doctrine doesn't matter, because the truth of what we believe matters immensely; but it is to say that it's even more important to put the locus of salvation in the right place, not in the truth of what we believe, but in the truth of the one in whom we believe—or perhaps we might say, in the Truth in whom we believe.  The truth of our beliefs is important, because where we get things wrong, it obscures and distorts our understanding of the one in whom we put our faith—but it's still he and he alone who saves us, not the correctness of our understanding of him.

As such, I believe Hutchens has shown himself guilty of a grave error in pronouncing gender egalitarians guilty of heresy, because he has elevated a particular belief about how God wants us to order our lives to a position of equality with belief in God himself; this is, I believe, a displacement of the proper centrality of the gospel of Jesus Christ for salvation, and that is a serious matter indeed.  I hesitate to declare that his error rises to the level of imperiling his eternal soul; as I said at the beginning, heresy is a very big word indeed, and I don't consider that I have the right to make that judgment.  But I think that Hutchens would do very well to reconsider, if not his complementarian view of gender, at least the theological absolutism with which he holds that position, and whether he's really in line with the gospel of Jesus Christ to declare all countervailing positions not merely wrong but fully heretical.  That way, it seems to me, lies nothing good.

The Obama administration and the criminalization of dissent

I wrote a piece early last October laying out my thoughts as to what the Obama administration would look like, and what his presidency would bring.  At some point, I intend to do a full-scale review of that post, evaluating what I got right and what I got wrong, but at this point I think I can call the shot on three connected predictions I made:  that Barack Obama's talk of bipartisanship would be just empty words belied by a highly partisan administration, that Nancy Pelosi would run rampant, and (most worrisome), this:

I believe the approach we've seen from the Obama campaign to dissent and criticism will be repeated in the policies and responses of an Obama-led Executive Branch; given the clear willingness of his campaign to suppress freedom of speech to prevent criticism of their candidate, I believe we'll see the same willingness from his administration and his chief congressional allies. This will mean a surge in the kind of the strongarm political tactics that we've already seen entirely too often this year. . . .

The Obama campaign's efforts to shout down Stanley Kurtz and David Freddoso (in an effort to intimidate Chicago radio station WGN into canceling their appearances on Milt Rosenberg's show) ought to be disturbing to anyone who cares about free speech. Of even greater concern should be the Obama "truth squads" in Missouri, where the campaign enlisted allies in public office to threaten prosecution of any TV station that runs any ads about Sen. Obama that the campaign deems untrue. Not only is this approach outrageously biased (one side's allowed to lie, but the other isn't?), it gets into some very grey areas about interpretation and intent, and thus raises some real concerns as to the approach an Obama Department of Justice might take to the First Amendment.

This kind of approach, like Joe Biden's suggestion that an Obama/Biden administration might prosecute the Bush administration, is nothing more nor less than the use (or threat of use) of political power to punish one's opponents, intimidate critics, and silence dissenters; it's the sort of thing we're used to seeing in Zimbabwe, not here—and as the case of Zimbabwe shows, there's nothing, not even money, that can corrupt a democracy faster, or more severely. I've argued before that one of the great problems with our politics in this day and age is that we absolutize our own perspectives—we assume that our own perspectives and presuppositions are the only legitimate ones, and that those who disagree with us can't possibly be doing so sincerely, but must be acting out of motives that are selfish or otherwise wrong. The criminalization of politics, which we're starting to see urged by the Obama campaign, is a more extreme version of that problem, because it argues that those motives are not only wrong, but are in fact criminal in nature. The chilling effect of that sort of approach should be deeply worrisome not just to conservatives, but also to true liberals.

Unfortunately, it appears that many leftist Democrats aren't true liberals, because President Obama has now invited just such prosecutions, and they don't appear to be worried at all; to its credit, the Boston Globe did call out Janet Napolitano and the Department of Homeland Security for the egregious report that pretty much labeled all conservatives as potential terrorist threats, but an awful lot of Democrats seem to be just fine with it.  Indeed, many who were First Amendment absolutists who loved to wax lyrical about the importance of dissent back when there was a Republican in the White House now seem to think anyone who dares argue with the Anointed One should be drug out into the street and shot.

To repeat:  the willingness of those in power to deal with opposition by criminalizing policy differences—to use brute force as a tool for gaining and maintaining political power—is one of the things that makes places like Zimbabwe the basket cases that they are.  We cannot afford to allow such an approach to corrupt our system.  But even if concern for what's best for the nation doesn't restrain the Obama administration from such banana-republic tactics, enlightened self-interest should, as Matt Lewis memorably illustrated (HT:  Joshua Livestro):

There has been a lot of debate on the potential prosecution of Bush Administration officials who offered legal opinions supporting waterboarding—with some even calling for investigations of high-ranking officials like Dick Cheney. However, one thing that hasn't been given the attention it deserves is the precedent it would set if we were to criminalize national security decisions. Hence, I've finally decided to test out the time machine I've been building in my basement—and you would be surprised what sort of things grew out of the current debacle.

For instance, the following Associated Press story was filed on April 23, 2013, and if it sounds Orwellian, well, it is:

OBAMA ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS TO FACE PROSECUTION

WASHINGTON—The Justice Department announced today that charges could be filed against numerous Obama Administration officials as a result of last year's terror attack in Los Angeles. In announcing the indictments, Attorney General John Cornyn said that top officials showed "gross and purposeful negligence" by releasing perpetrators of the attacks from the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and demanding that interrogation tactics be softened against chief planner Mehmet al-Meshugeneh, who had already revealed that a major attack was being planned against a major U.S. sporting event.

"By purposefully disregarding crucial intelligence, and in releasing known participants in the plot into Saudi custody, numerous government officials took action which made the Staples Center bombing possible," Cornyn said. He went on to note that "numerous individuals in the Departments of Defense, Justice, and Homeland Security knowingly pursued policies which would endanger the lives of Americans. They placed their political priorities above the safety of the citizens of this country, and thousands of innocent people died as a result. These people must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."

At the White House, Press Secretary Adam Brickley said that President Sarah Palin stands firmly behind the decision. "It's not as if we relish the thought of prosecuting members of the previous administration," Brickley said, "but, at this point, there is a clearly established precedent—set in place by the Obama Administration themselves—which says that government officials must be held accountable if they contributed in any way to major breaches of the law. In this case, the individuals under investigation do appear to have purposefully allowed these terrorists to continue their actions—prioritizing international public opinion over the lives of the American people. So, while this may be a politically charged issue, there is a real need to prosecute."

In the end, the sort of tactics the Obama administration has now begun to employ are ineffective at silencing dissent (as the case of Zimbabwe, along with many other nations, shows)—all they really do is raise the stakes enormously.  If you're willing to start prosecuting your predecessors, you're going to get the same treatment from your successors unless you can manage to do one of two things:  a) overthrow the Constitution so that you can become President-for-Life, or b) never make a significant mistake.  Taken all in all, I'd say the first is likelier, and neither exactly probable.

All of which is to say that Barack Obama and his senior staff and advisors would do well to remember, and live by, an ancient piece of wisdom:

"So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets."

—Matthew 7:12 (ESV)