When Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the seed royal.

-          2 Kings 11:1

As of this writing in early September 2020, Americans find themselves faced with another presidential election in just two short months.  As is the American custom, much ink has been spilled over the past year concerning the November election.  In reality, the spilling of ink began much earlier.  With so much election commentary out there, surely, it would seem, there’s nothing more this author could add to the mix that hasn’t already been discussed thousands of times and by people much better qualified.

But this would be a mistake.

There is one topic, and a significant one to be sure, that, on the one hand, is a prominent feature of the 2020 presidential election but, on the other hand, has received hardly any commentary at all. 

Joe Biden’s March 15th promise, and the fulfillment of that promise, to choose a woman running mate. 

On second thought, my statement that little commentary has been directed to Biden’s promise to choose a female running mate needs refinement.  For there has been quite a lot of commentary on this topic.  Before Biden made his choice, there was endless speculation about who she would be.  Would it be Michelle Obama?  Stacey Abrams?  Someone else?  Before the riots in Minneapolis earlier this year, many speculated that Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar was under consideration.  Others thought it might be Elizabeth Warren. 

Since Biden made the announcement that he had selected Kamala Harris, there has been no end to the discussion about his pick.  Democrats and liberal commentators have, predictably, praised her selection.  Republicans along with the conservative media have, predictably, criticized her for her policies.

So it’s not correct to say there has been no commentary on Biden’s promise to choose a woman for his running mate. 

But the problem is not that there has been no commentary on Biden’s running mate. 

The problem is that the commentary, liberal and conservative, Democrat and Republican, has missed the mark.  Martin Luther talked about an idea he called the Schriftprinzip, German for writing principle.  According to Luther, the Schriftprinzip was the notion that, “nothing except the divine words are to be the first principles for Christians; all human words are conclusions drawn from them and must be brought back to them and approved by them.”  

The correct focus of the commentary on Joe Biden’s promise to pick a woman for his running mate is not who she is.  Neither is it her supposed qualifications for office, nor it is her voting record, nor is it her public policy stances.  The proper question to be asked, both for Christians and non-Christians, is whether it is appropriate to have a woman vice presidential candidate at all?

The short answer to this question, the answer we get if we use, not common sense, not feminist philosophy, not secular conservative thought, but the Schriftprinzip is, no, it is not.    

Taking this a step further, it is unchristian for a woman to hold any public office.  It is unchristian for a woman to vote. 

In this feminist day and age, this is not an easy or popular stance to take.  In fact, a more unpopular stance would be hard to imagine.  Secular liberal feminists obviously hate the thought at anyone saying there are pursuits inappropriate for women.  The very idea that a woman, just because she is a woman, is unqualified for a task strikes at the very heart of feminism, which sees men and women as fully interchangeable.  Secular conservatives, always trailing their liberal counterparts by twenty of thirty years, are in no position to object to a woman vice president or president.  Based on current conservative thinking, it’s just obvious that women are as qualified as men for public office.  It’s simply a matter of finding the right woman, one of conservative principles.

It’s doubtful that conservative Evangelicals are much better.  Several years ago, Paul Elliott reported that he attempted to sound out Evangelical opinion on the question “Would it be Biblical to elect a woman as President of the United States?”  When he took the position that it was, “foreign to God’s ordained authority structure for a woman to rule a nation,” he reports that he was met with a firestorm of pure emotional rejection. 

Secular liberals, secular conservatives and Evangelicals all agree, there’s nothing amiss with having a woman govern a nation.  It’s just a matter of finding a qualified woman.  Anyone who thinks otherwise is a very bad person, one whose views are beyond the pale of polite, acceptable discussion, one who deserves to be cast into the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.      

Certainly, modern feminism accounts for much of the hostility to anyone who opposes women holding pubic office.  But it appears there is something else at work.

John Knox, who in 1558 penned the ultimate refutation of women in politics, “The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women” – the Trinity Foundation published an edition of Knox’s masterwork in 1984 under the title “The Place of Women” -  noted in the introduction to his essay the sinful reticence of the clergy to speak out against the government of women. 

Knox suggested three reasons for the silence of those who ought to have known better.  First, they might be suspected of sedition.  Second, opposition to female government could well prove dangerous to the author, publisher and readers.  And third, even if they did speak out and hazard persecution, no one would pay them heed.

Knox dismissed these arguments by saying that if they were true, then the prophets themselves were very fools, for they did not cease to admonish Israel despite charges of treason, dangers to themselves, or mocking from those who heard them.  Likewise, continued Knox, if these objections were true, then Jesus Christ harmed his apostles by charging them to preach his teachings throughout the world.

The watchmen, charged Knox, were failing to do their job.

Knox’s charge was right about the Christian men of his day.  And the same can be said of Christian men in our time.  We are failing in our calling as watchmen. 

Why do Christians today not speak out against the monstrous regiment of women – “regiment” in Knox’s usage means “government” - as they ought?  Perhaps it has less to do with 20th and 21st century feminism and more to do with their lack of understanding of what the Bible teaches, their failure to realize that the Bible has a monopoly on truth such that all statements of all men must be brought back to it and approved by it, and a lack of courage born of disbelief in the promises of God.     

(to be continued)

[Continued from Pt. 3]

While it cannot be said that Paul the apostle was a non-expert in theology, it is plain to see that the church at Corinth was saturated with theological non-experts. Yet Paul does not shy away from teaching the Corinthians, and every subsequent Christian who would read his epistles, to logically scrutinize the heretical claim made by some professing Christians that “the dead are not raised.” He does this via demonstration by first reminding the Corinthians that anyone who professes faith in Christ necessarily believes that at least one dead man has been raised to life by God, viz. Jesus Christ. He writes –

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.1

The Corinthians professed faith in the Gospel Paul and the others preached. The content of that Gospel explicitly states that the Lord Jesus Christ died, was buried, rose from the dead on the third day, and appeared to over five hundred witnesses. To believe the Gospel is to believe that one has already been raised from the dead, namely Christ. Paul, therefore, asks the Corinthians –

…if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?2

The apostle places the proclamation of Christ as raised from the dead alongside the proclamation that “there is no resurrection of the dead,” drawing our attention to the fact that the resurrection of Christ disproves the universal negative proposition “There is no resurrection of the dead.” As he goes on to explain –

…if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.3

If there is an exception to the universal proposition, then the universal proposition is not true. Christ has been raised from the dead; therefore, the heretics’ proclamation is demonstrably false.

This would be enough for Paul to make his point, but he continues to draw out the logical consequences of the heretics’ belief that “there is no resurrection of the dead.” He writes –

And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.

We can translate Paul’s argument from its conversational form into the following –

If “there is no resurrection of the dead,”
then Christ was not raised from the dead.
If Christ was not raised from the dead,
then the Gospel is false.
If the Gospel is false,
then those who believe it are still in their sins.
If believers in the Gospel are still in their sins,
then their faith is in vain.
If faith in the Gospel is in vain,
then preaching the Gospel is in vain.

But Christ has been raised from the dead.
Therefore, none of the above consequences follow.

Note how significant a single proposition is in relation to the entirety of the Christian system. The heretics’ proclamation leads to the destruction of the Christian faith. Inversely, the Christian’s single instance of a resurrection in the Gospel proclamation decimates the heretics’ false proclamation.

Concluding Remarks

As we conclude this series, let us take note of some important truths. Firstly, individual propositions are not insignificant parts of the Christian faith which we can take or leave as we see fit. Every proposition has logical consequences for which we are held accountable. Secondly, therefore, we see from Scripture that if we assent to a proposition, we implicitly assent to what that proposition necessarily implies. Sadly, today there are many who identify this action as “uncharitable,” without realizing what that belief itself implies. In a word, the end result of such thinking is utter blasphemy, as is demonstrable from the following argument –

Anyone who attributes their opponent’s implied beliefs to them is acting uncharitably.
To act uncharitably is to act sinfully.
Therefore, anyone who attributes their opponent’s implied beliefs to them is acting sinfully.
Now, anyone who attributes their opponent’s implied beliefs to them is acting sinfully.
And God attributes his opponent’s implied beliefs to them.
Therefore, God is acting sinfully.

It is true that God alone is omniscient and, therefore, is infallible in any of his declarations that x implies y. However, it is equally true that the blind man of John 9 was not omniscient and yet followed the same pattern of logical scrutiny and subsequent moral criticism practiced by God the Son.

Our contemporary socio-political climate is one in which logic has fallen upon hard times, but that does not mean it is inefficient, or that it is inappropriate for every Christian’s use – whether in apologetic battle or personal meditation of the Word of God and its authoritative statements about the whole of life. We are not experts in every area of life, but we do not need to be in order to address the issues of our day. If we have a basic grasp of the elementary principles of logic, then we are capable of answering others when they ask us “What do you think?”

1 1st Cor 15:1-11.

2 1st Cor 15:12.

3 1st Cor 15:13.

[Continued from Pt. 2]

Respecting the use of logical analysis by Christ’s non-expert disciples, firstly let us consider the man born blind whom Christ heals in John 9. After being healed by Christ, the man – who was likely illiterate – logically scrutinized the Pharisees’ accusation that Christ was a sinner and demonstrated the irrationality and immorality of the Pharisees.

The passage in question is John 9:24-34, which states –

So for the second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, “Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.” He answered, “Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” And they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” The man answered, “Why, this is an amazing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” They answered him, “You were born in utter sin, and would you teach us?” And they cast him out.

Many people have mistakenly treated the blind man’s assertion – “One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see” – as an example of how a Christian can simply fall back on his experience of being converted by the Lord if he, the believer, cannot answer a question raised about Christ, the Gospel, and the Christian faith. However, that is not supported by the text itself. To get a clear picture of what is happening we need to look at the passage in some detail.

Firstly, note that the blind man is responding to a claim made by the Pharisees about the Lord Jesus Christ. They exclaim –

“We know that this man is a sinner.”

The blind man responds by stating what he knows to be true about Christ –

“Whether he is a sinner I do not know.”

What is communicated by the blind man is that he did not personally know Christ apart from the healing he performed. This is evident when we look at the next portion of the narrative, John 9:35-38 –

Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered, “And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and is he who is speaking to you.” He said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him.

The blind man did not know Jesus personally up until this point, but he did know that Christ was not a sinner. We see this during his exchange the Pharisees in John 9:26-28, wherein the blind man and Pharisees imply that the blind man is a disciple of Christ. Upon asking the Pharisees if they were curious about Jesus’ healing miracle because they also wanted to become Christ’s disciples, they declare –

“You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.”

Although the blind man does not point this out to them explicitly, let us note that the Pharisees here are contradicting themselves. They begin their interrogation with the claim that they know Christ is a sinner; however, here they claim that they do not know where he is from. This idiom expresses their ignorance of Christ’s person and works.1 If they were ignorant of Christ’s person and works, then they could not make a claim about him and his works either way. However, if they could speak negatively about the person and works of Christ, then this demonstrates that they were not ignorant of his person and works. They could not both know that Christ is a sinner and not know where he comes from, and this is precisely the point the blind man goes on to make.

The blind man takes the assertions of the Pharisees about their simultaneous ignorance and knowledge of the person and works of Christ, drawing out the logical consequence of their self-contradiction. He begins by stating –

“You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes.”

The blind man refers back to his knowledge: He was once blind, but now he sees. He then makes reference to the knowledge he and the Pharisees share. He states –

“We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him.”

What he and his opponents know is that God does not hear sinners, but only hears those who do his will and worship him. Therefore, the blind man concludes his speech saying –

“If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”

The blind man did not know Jesus personally, but he knew the following –

If Jesus were not from God, then he could not heal the blind man.
However, Jesus did heal the blind man.
Therefore, Jesus was from God.

A similar hypothetical deduction from assumed premises occurs in the writing of the apostle Paul in his great chapter on the resurrection of the dead, to which we will turn in our last part of this series.

[Continued in Pt. 4]

1 Matthew Poole explains –

Indeed they did know whence he was as to his human nature, for they often made that the cause of their stumbling at him; that he was of Galilee, that his father was a carpenter, and his mother called Mary: but they knew of no Divine mission or authority that he had: this they might have known also, for he did those things which no man ever did, nor could be effected by any thing less than a Divine power; but their eyes were blinded, and their hearts were judicially hardened; they studied to shut out the light by which they should have seen, and would not know whence he was.

Likewise, John Gill comments –

They imagined they knew the country from whence he came, which they supposed to be Galilee, and the place where he was born, which they concluded was Nazareth; though in both they were in the wrong; and they knew his parents, Joseph and Mary, and his brethren and sisters; but as to his divine filiation, they knew nothing of it; nor would they own his mission, commission, and credentials to be from heaven; and pretended they had no reason to conclude they were.

Calvin, similarly, explains that –

When they say so [viz. that they do not know where Christ “comes from”], they refer not to his country or the place of his birth, but to the prophetical office. For they allege that they have no knowledge of his calling, so as to receive him as having proceeded from God.

[Continued from Pt. 1]

It was the experts during the Lord Jesus’ earthly ministry who were wrong about the most important subjects in Scripture. Jesus frequently demonstrated this by logically scrutinizing their claims. For instance, in Matthew 12 Jesus, addressing the Pharisees’ claim that he cast out demons by the power of the devil, made the following argument –

“Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand. And if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? And if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.”1

Firstly, note that Christ logically scrutinized the claim that “it is only by Beelzebub, the prince of demons, that [he] casts out demons.”2 He drew out what is implicit to their assertion, namely that that there is a kingdom of demons of which the devil is the prince.

Secondly, note that Christ argued from the general to the particular as regards the nature of the kingdom of demons. Specifically, the Lord Jesus stated that every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste (i.e. is utterly defeated/reduced to ruins by its opponents 3). The word “every” is universal, which means that what Christ asserted applies to all kingdoms, including the kingdom of demons. Thus, if the kingdom of demons is divided against itself, it will be laid waste/utterly defeated/reduced to ruins by its opponents comprising the kingdom of heaven/the kingdom of God.

Thirdly, note what Jesus asked his opponents –

“...if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand?”

The kingdom of demons does not want to be laid waste. Why then would it oppose itself and seal its own doom? If there is a war between the two kingdoms, and kingdoms that want to obtain victory over their opposition operate as a united front, then this applies to the kingdom of demons as well. Consequently, if the kingdom of demons desires to obtain victory over the kingdom of God it will not be divided against itself.

Fourthly, Christ emphasized his point by asking –

“…if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out?”

If the Pharisees believed that their sons cast out demons by the power of God, this implies that they agreed with Christ regarding whether or not a kingdom seeking to obtain victory over its opposition would be internally divided. Thus, Jesus went on to state –

“Therefore they will be your judges.”

Christ, essentially, argued that if the Pharisees believed their sons cast out demons by the power of God, then they agreed that the kingdom of demons is a unified front against the kingdom of God. But if the kingdom of demons is a unified front against the kingdom of God, then it cannot be the case that Jesus cast out demons by the power of the devil. If the Pharisees claimed their sons cast out demons by the power of God, then they tacitly admitted their blasphemous claim about Christ was ipso facto false. Jesus refuted their claim, reducing it to absurdity, but also demonstrated the utter hypocrisy of the Pharisees.

Lastly, Christ drew out the logical consequence of what the Pharisees tacitly admitted to when they claimed their sons cast out demons by the power of God. He stated –

“…if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.”

The assertion here follows the Lord Jesus’ emphasis on the implied unity of a kingdom as it attacks an opposing kingdom. If the nature of kingdoms in general is to seek victory over their opposition by presenting a unified front against them, then it follows that the kingdom of God does the same. Whoever opposes the kingdom of demons, therefore, is on the side of the kingdom of God. Moreover, note the significance of Christ’s assertion –

“…if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons…”

If it is not an evil spirit, namely the devil himself, who is empowering Christ to cast out demons, then it can only be the Holy Spirit who empowers him to do so.

The response given by Christ not only addresses the blasphemous foolishness of his enemies, it also implicitly teaches that the Holy Spirit is a divine person. Whereas the Pharisees said that Christ’s actions demonstrated he had an unclean spirit,4 he stated that his actions demonstrated that through him the kingdom of God had come upon his enemies. Christ is not possessed by an unclean/unholy, intelligent, volitional, and morally deviant agent who can indwell humans and cause them5 to sin – viz. an unclean spirit; rather, he is filled with, and guided by, the clean/holy, intelligent, volitional, and morally pure agent who can indwell humans and cause them to live righteously – viz. the Holy Spirit.

Christ could have given an elaborate Scriptural argument demonstrating why the claim of his opponents was false. Instead, he took their claim and drew out its logical consequences. And his disciples followed suit.

[Continued in Pt. 3]

1 Matt 12:25-28. (emphasis added)

2 Matt 12:24. (emphasis added)

3 This idiom is used repeatedly in Scripture this way. See Num 21:30, Jud 6:5, 2nd Kings 1:17, Ps 79:6-7, etc.

4 See Mark 3:30.

5 While we are all ultimately responsible for our sin, Christ teaches that men can be caused to sin, by which he means they can be urged and encouraged to sin by wicked men, in Matt 18:5-7.

Anyone vaguely familiar with the life of Christ knows that he did not shy away from asking his listeners questions. These questions played a pedagogical function, causing his listeners to reflect on what he had been teaching them. For instance, when he wanted to get his listeners to reflect on God’s care for his sheep, the Lord asked them –

“What do you think?”1

And when he wanted to get his listeners to reflect on who it is that does or not does do the will of God, the Lord Christ asked them –

“What do you think?”2

When he wanted Peter to reflect on what taxing Christ and his disciples implied, Jesus asked him –

“What do you think, Simon?”3

Jesus, knowing the Pharisees’ position on the identity of the Messiah as being merely the son of David, got his listeners to think about what the Scriptures explicitly and implicitly teach about the Son of David by asking them –

“What do you say about the Christ? Whose son is he?”4

And upon receiving their answer, went on to ask –

“How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord…?5

“If David calls him Lord, how is he his son?”6

Unlike many people today, Christ encouraged men to think for themselves about what they were being told, as well as about the implications of their words. Although he is to be trusted immediately, without question, Christ nevertheless encouraged men to think about his teaching, to mull it over, and to think about whether or not they were willing to follow him. For instance, in the Gospel of Luke we read –

Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.7

Note that thinking is directly tied to not merely decisions respecting the here and now, but to eternity as well. We find Christ doing something similar in John 6, where after he declared that only those who eat his flesh and drink his blood have life in them, asked the disgruntled disciples –

“Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?”8

Christ was getting the disciples to reflect on the nature of their relationship to him. He was getting them to think about the most important information they would ever receive, and to do so without the aid of the experts of their time – viz. the Pharisees.

In the next part of this article series, we will delve into the Scriptures respecting this matter.

[Continued in Pt. 2]

1 Matt 18:12.

2 Matt 21:28.

3 Matt 17:25.

4 Matt 22:41.

5 Matt 22:43.

6 Matt 22:45.

7 Luke 14:25-33. (emphasis added)

8 John 6:61b-62.

“Just Trust the Experts!”

One of the more troubling observable trends in online discussions today is a growing dereliction of duty with respect to critical thinking. It usually takes the form of a fallacious appeal to authority. During the present “pandemic,”1 social media is rife with fallacious reasoning of this kind, where voices of dissent are ridiculed for being “Facebook Doctors,” “Facebook Lawyers,” or “Internet Experts.”2 Along with this derisive name calling, there are typically calls for the dissenter to “trust the experts” or “let the experts do their job.” Belittling any criticism of, for instance, the actions of authorities during a wave of riots, or the claims of medical experts during a “pandemic,” superficially removes the belittler’s responsibility to love God with all of one’s mind, and love his neighbor as himself.

The problem with the appeal to authority being made is that in many cases, though admittedly not all, the criticism of the authorities in question have to do with the rational coherence of a particular idea, set of ideas, report, or series of reports. Such criticisms do not require one to be an expert on the subject being covered, seeing as in these instances the critics are deriving their data from the experts themselves. Instead, they require one to have an elementary grasp of the laws of logic, a love for the truth, and a detestation of what is false.

Logical lethargy is not a neutral practice, but is sin. As Psalm 1:1-2 declares –

Blessed is the man

who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,

nor stands in the way of sinners,

nor sits in the seat of scoffers;

but his delight is in the law of the Lord,

and on his law he meditates day and night.

The Holy Spirit tells us that the righteous man’s meditation is on God’s Word day and night, thereby implying that there is no time of the day, and no activity during that time, that is to be devoid of thinking, consideration, meditation, rumination, and examination rooted in the Word of God. Consequently, the increasingly popular retort to critics of the experts is not only immoral, but irrational. In this article, we will look at some reasons as to why this is so.

Self-Referential Absurdity

To begin with, if one can only speak about x if he is an expert on it, then this applies to his expertise rule (ER, hereafter) as well. In order for one to speak about the ER, he must be an expert on who qualifies to speak about the ER. If he is not an expert on the ER, then he cannot speak about the ER. If he is not an expert on the ER are we to simply take his word for it that the ER is a legitimate rule we must follow when discussing any subject? By declaring the legitimacy of the ER, and not being an expert himself, he would be violating the ER.

However, if one can only speak about x if he is an expert on x, this is an implicit knowledge claim about the nature of x (viz. x is of such a nature that speaking about it requires expertise). This, in turn, implies that one has to be an expert on x before he can tell others that only experts can speak on that matter. If he is not an expert on x, then he cannot speak about x.

Moreover, if one has to be an expert before he can speak about x, but the process of learning necessarily involves one speaking about x before one is an expert (e.g. forming hypotheses about x, debating former and present hypotheses about x, etc), then he could not ever become an expert on x. In fact, no one could.

If we assume the ER to be true, therefore, we have to draw the conclusion that we cannot ever convey that knowledge to others without being experts ourselves, which is, however, an impossibility. The absurdity of the ER should be plain to see here.

Category Confusion & A Fallacious Appeal to Authority

Assuming that the ER is not fraught with logical difficulties, however, there is yet another problem the belittler faces. If the critic’s argument takes for granted the expertise of the proponents of x, but finds that conclusions about x are not logically justifiable, or that statements about x are self-contradictory, then what is at issue is not the data itself but the logical coherence of the claims being made about x or x’s data. To belittle the critic for not being familiar with all the available data, when he is not making an argument against the reliability of the data presented as, and confirmed by the experts to be, “fact,” is to commit a category error by treating the critic’s argument as one being made against the factuality of the experts’ data. If the critic assumes that what is asserted about x in terms of relevant data is true, but criticizes the experts for their logical incoherence, then what must be challenged is not the critic’s knowledge regarding x but his claim that the experts’ claims are not logically coherent (i.e. they are self-contradictory) or logically justified (i.e. they have been argued for invalidly).

As mentioned at the onset of this article, moreover, the appeal to an expert in this particular case is a fallacious appeal to an expert. The reason for this is that the argument made by the critic does not depend upon his familiarity with the relevant data as a whole, but instead depends upon his familiarity with the elementary principles of sound reasoning. If the critic is wrong, in other words, he must be shown to be wrong with respect to his logical analysis. The question of his expertise in the field of x is completely irrelevant to his argument.

Theological Problems

As we bring this article to a close, we need to draw the reader’s attention to the biggest problem with the ER, namely that it results in a denial of God’s sovereignty and omniscience. That this is the case is clear when we consider that logic is, as Gordon H. Clark puts it, the way that God thinks. The laws of logic are not human constructs; they are eternal truths that stand in judgment over all of our reasoning. Thus, if an expert’s reasoning is exempt from logical scrutiny, then that expert’s reasoning is literally not subject to the rule of God, for the laws of logic are divinely revealed truths that authoritatively judge the thoughts of men as either true or false.3 This necessarily implies the blasphemous idea that there exists a class of persons over whom God cannot exercise epistemic, sovereign rulership – namely, the experts whose findings are, apparently, not subject to logical scrutiny. Put concisely –

If experts are not subject to logical scrutiny, then they are not subject to the Sovereign rule of God. But if the Sovereign rule of God does not extend to a person or group of persons, then it is not Sovereign. Thus, if the experts are not subject to logical scrutiny, this implies that God is not Sovereign.

What is more, the idea that the experts are not subject to logical scrutiny further implies that there is a class of propositions which is excluded from the judgment of the laws of logic. This is a problem because the laws of logic are formally universal in scope; they are universal knowledge claims. But if the laws of logic are formally universal in scope, but are not so materially, then they are false. And if they are false, then God, who has revealed them, is not omniscient. More concisely –

The laws of logic are divinely revealed formally universal knowledge claims. But if there is a class of propositions which cannot be judged by the laws of logic, then that class of propositions is not covered by the laws of logic. This implies that while the laws of logic are formally universal in scope, they are not materially universal in scope; and this renders them false. And if they are divinely revealed universal knowledge claims that are not truly universal, and this renders them false, then God, who revealed them to men, is not omniscient.

The problems here should be evident to the regenerate man or woman. God is Sovereign. He is Omniscient. Thus, any belief that implies he is not is false, and a demonic assault on his character. Now the belief that experts are exempt from logical analysis is one that implies that God is neither Sovereign nor Omniscient; therefore, it must be rejected as false by all Christians.

Concluding Remarks

It is neither prudent, nor loving toward one’s neighbor, nor reverent toward God to abandon logical analysis because one is not an expert on x, whatever x may be. If the experts who are speaking on x are contradicting themselves, or using fallacious arguments to draw conclusions about x, then it is your responsibility, Christian, to acknowledge they are uttering falsehoods. You don’t need to be a scholar to point out that a person is contradicting himself or arguing fallaciously. You are made in the image of God, and you have the mind of Christ. Hear what the experts have to say, grant them the benefit of a doubt when they talk about the data they’ve collected. However, if they contradict themselves, if they use fallacious argumentation to prove a point, or if they claim to be beyond the jurisdiction of logical scrutiny (which is impossible), you have a responsibility to reject their claims on that basis.

Soli Deo Gloria.

1 See Berrien, Hank. “Following Death Percentage Decline, CDC Says We’re On ‘Epidemic Threshold’,” The Daily Wire, July 7, 2020, https://www.dailywire.com/news/amid-percentage-of-deaths-having-declined-cdc-admits-coronavirus-on-verge-of-non-epidemic-status?.

2 For example, see Moe, Kristen. “COVID-19 Conspiracy Theorists Are Victims Of The Dunning-Kruger Effect,” Scary Mommy, April 24, 2020, https://www.scarymommy.com/dunning-kruger-effect/.

3 This is true respecting not merely the content of one’s thoughts (i.e. whether or not a particular proposition is true or false), but the structure of one’s reasoning as well, given that the presentation of an argument in favor of x could be reduced to the proposition – “It is the case that my argument leads to conclusion y about x.” For more on this see, Diaz, Hiram R. “The Truth Value of Valid and Invalid Inferences?,” Involuted Speculations, May 5, 2014, https://involutedgenealogies.wordpress.com/2014/05/05/the-truth-value-of-valid-and-invalid-inferences/.

Ransomware: [This] is a type of malicious software, or malware, that prevents you from accessing your computer files, systems, or networks and demands you pay a ransom for their return. Ransomware attacks can cause costly disruptions to operations and the loss of critical information and data.1

IRL: An acronym for the phrase “In real life”

I had my first experience with ransomware years ago when I managed to download a corrupted file that locked my computer up, making it impossible to use. While I didn’t know enough to avoid downloading that corrupt file, I did know that I’d be a fool to believe that paying a ransom would actually result in my computer becoming usable again. Why would I trust a person who was willing to forcefully and stealthily disrupt my life for the sake of lining his pockets? Why would I trust a covetous scammer to change his ways once I gave in to his demand for money? The problem is that with my refusal to pay the scammer, I had to completely start over. My only option was to erase my hard drive and install a new operating system on it. This meant that I had to be willing to let maybe a hundred or so documents cease to exist.

So I bit the bullet.

I wiped the hard drive, installed a more secure operating system, and began all over, reminding myself of God’s Sovereignty over all things. And today, I know better. I have a better understanding of where and how ransomware is installed on computers. I have a better understanding of how I can avoid having my life, digital though it be, locked down by a scammer whose main goal is to exercise power over me via the mechanisms of fear and extortion.

Maybe this is why from the onset of COVID-19’s popularization by the media, I didn’t trust what I was being told. The hustle, the con, the scam was too familiar. We were being told that if we did not walk in lock step2 with unconstitutional, authoritarian demands that our everyday lives would remain inaccessible to us and our loved ones.3 If we ever wanted to “get back to normal,” they claimed, we had to practice the ineffective ritual of social distancing,4 refrain from even the most common forms of physical contact with other people,5 isolate ourselves from our pets who might otherwise provide us with companionship and a small dose of dopamine to help keep us from getting depressed while in isolation,6 cover our faces with masks that are, well, useless,7 and be vaccinated by the billionaire son of a eugenicist, a man who also happens to be obsessed with population control.8

We were being told that our lives were being held ransom until we made the payment demanded of us – absolute compliance with unscientific and, in some cases harmful,9 rituals that deny us of our God given freedoms. And up to the present moment, there are many people who are still playing along in this “theatre of the absurd” who have no intention of breaking the fourth wall. They believe that their lives will return to normal if they simply comply, comply, comply. But are they right?

Will we be liberated when we renounce our liberties?

No. Contrary to the opinion of the inadvertently(?) Orwellian dystopians among us, freedom is not slavery. The coronapocalypse will not end if we pay the ransom. Like the hacker who had no intention of restoring my files to me had I paid him the ransom he demanded, con men in the government and the media will only use our compliance to continue to exploit us.

We need to remove the OS, as it were, that made it possible for this ransomware IRL – namely, the media’s mythical portrayal of COVID-19 as the cause of the end of the world – to ever become a means of violating our basic human liberties. We need to “not be conformed to this world, but...transformed by the renewal of [our] mind[s].”10 If the world is selling us panic, then probe the foundations of that panic. Do those foundations exhibit rational coherence? Can those foundations be deduced, even in principle, from the teaching of Scripture? If the answer to those two questions is no, then is there any grounding for the panic?

Starting over is not easy, but it’s necessary.

1 “Scams and Safety,” Federal Bureau of Investigations, https://www.fbi.gov/scams-and-safety/common-scams-and-crimes/ransomware, Accessed July 1st, 2020.

2 See “Scenarios for the Future of Technology and International Development,” Rockefeller Foundation (May, 2010), pp.18-25. Downloadable here – https://thewatchtowers.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Rockefeller-Foundation.pdf.

3 See Villasanta, Arthur. “Coronavirus: US May Never Get Back To 'Normal', Dr. Fauci Warns,” International Business Times, April 6, 2020, https://www.ibtimes.com/coronavirus-us-may-never-get-back-normal-dr-fauci-warns-2953810.

4 See Wood, Patrick. “The Miserable Pseudo-Science Behind Face Masks, Social Distancing And Contact Tracing,” Technocracy News & Trends, June 1, 2020, https://technocracy.news/the-miserable-pseudo-science-behind-face-masks-social-distancing-and-contact-tracing/?fbclid=IwAR1zA4mMFdRmbSpoNwsQQAB9W8D4UcIMoipiZkm7Ol_MSnCA9F_et_wDFtg.

5 See Calicchio, Dom. “Fauci on US after coronavirus: No shaking hands ‘ever again,’” FOX News, April 9,, 2020. https://www.foxnews.com/health/fauci-on-us-after-coronavirus-no-shaking-hands-ever-again.

6 See “If you have pets,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Updated June 28, 2020. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/pets.html.

7 See Brosseau, Lisa M., Sietsema, Margaret. “COMMENTARY: Masks-for-all for COVID-19 not based on sound data,” Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, April 1, 2020, https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/04/commentary-masks-all-covid-19-not-based-sound-data.

8 See Corbett, James. “Who is Bill Gates?,” The Corbett Report, May 1, 2020, https://www.corbettreport.com/gates/.

9 See Blaylock, Russell. “Blaylock: Face Masks Pose Serious Risks To The Healthy,” Technocracy News & Trends, May 11, 2020, https://technocracy.news/blaylock-face-masks-pose-serious-risks-to-the-healthy/.

10 Rom 12:2.

In his book A Genealogy of Morals, philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche makes a distinction between what he calls noble morality and slave morality. Morality, he argues, began with superior men marking out traits and abilities that were not common to all but only the smaller class of kings, warriors, artists, musicians. Inferior men, however, were mentally and physically incapable of what the nobles were capable of doing. Consequently, they resented their superiors and sought revenge against them. They enacted revenge by inverting good and evil, thereby condemning all that they were incapable of being and doing as evil. As Nietzsche explains –

The slave-revolt in morality begins by resentment itself becoming creative and giving birth to values — the resentment of such beings, as real reaction, the reaction of deeds, is impossible to, and as nothing but an imaginary vengeance will serve to indemnify. Whereas, on the one hand, all noble morality takes its rise from a triumphant Yea-saying to one's self, slave-morality will, on the other hand, from the very beginning, say No to something “exterior,” “different,” “not-self;” this No being its creative deed. This re-version of the value-positing eye — this necessary glance outwards instead of backwards upon itself —is part of resentment. Slave-morality, in order to arise, needs, in the first place, an opposite and outer world; it needs, physiologically speaking, external irritants, in order to act at all; — its action is, throughout, reaction.1

[…]

...let people ask themselves, from the standpoint of resentment morality as to who is “evil?” Answering in all severity: just the “good” one of the opposite morality, even the noble man, the powerful and the ruling one, —but reversely colored, reversely interpreted, reversely looked at through the venom-eye of resentment.2

Ironically, however, Dave Robinson notes it is also the case that –

…Nietzsche has often been adopted as the great-grandfather of…recent postmodern beliefs. Indeed, many postmodernist philosophers, like Derrida and Foucault, have written essays that forcefully make this claim.3

This is ironic because it is precisely the work of Derrida and Foucault that serves as the philosophical foundation for critical race theory, a theoretical framework that, essentially, inverts Nietzsche’s theory of morality. Rather than being “supermen” of a “higher” and “nobler spirit” than what Nietzsche kindly referred to as “the nonbred human being[s], the mishmash human being[s], the chandala [i.e. “untouchables”],”4 Nietzsche’s children have dedicated themselves to condemning the ideas and behaviors of privileged and non-oppressed social groups. They have sought to obtain power by the very means Nietzsche identifies as decadent and vile – condemning the ideas and actions of those in power precisely because one is incapable of producing them.

Foucault’s Emblem: Sympathy for the “Oppressed”

As Foucault scholar Johanna Oksala explains, “Foucault began from a relentless hatred of bourgeois society and culture and with a spontaneous sympathy for marginal groups such as the mad, homosexuals, and prisoners.”5 Hence Gary Gutting, in part, characterizes Michel Foucault as

…fiercely independent and committed from the beginning to his own and others’ freedom. His hatred of oppression flared out in the midst of the most complex and erudite discussions. He saw even his most esoteric intellectual work as contributing to a ‘toolbox’ for those opposing various tyrannies. And he had the effect he desired: he was a hero of the anti-psychiatry movement, of prison reform, of gay liberation…6

This sympathy for “the oppressed” in the history of Western Civilization also extended into flesh and blood political activism for a period of time in his life, further distancing himself from his philosophical forefather Nietzsche. For as Guy Eglat informs us –

Nietzsche’s attack on the idea of equality and its political manifestations in democratic ideology was relentless. Throughout his corpus, Nietzsche can be found attacking, again and again, the notion of “human dignity,” the idea that all human beings enjoy equal rights (“a symptom of a disease”), and the basic idea and value of the moral equality of all.7

How, then, could Foucault – a radical defender of what Nietzsche despised (viz. the unwashed masses) – be inspired by Nietzsche? Eglat argues that Foucault was influenced by the critical methodologies created and employed by Nietzsche throughout his writing.

Foucault was greatly taken by Nietzsche’s emphasis on the historical nature of human existence and on how central notions of how we think about and relate to ourselves and others—notions such as sanity and madness, sexuality, normality and abnormality—are constructed by various social institutions at different times and under different conditions. He was also arguably influenced by Nietzsche’s emphasis on power as a central explanatory concept by means of which we can conceptualize the working of the various institutional elements that in any given historical context produce the practices and theories that shape our self-understandings (though Nietzsche was more focused on the psychology, rather than the sociology, of power).8

Thus, Foucault abstracted these ways of reading and analyzing ideas from Nietzsche, while rejecting the German philosopher’s anti-democratic, anti-equality, anti-advocacy-on-behalf-of-the-weak ideas.

Derrida’s Departure

Derrida was not an activist, but he shares in common with Foucault the same desire to, at the very least, problematize the distinction between a number of binary concepts employed freely and repeatedly in Nietzsche’s writing. Nietzsche’s corpus is rife with binary oppositions that form the basis of his thinking. In his earliest major publication, The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche argued that all of life is a struggle between two primal forces – the Dionysian and the Apollonian. The Dionysian was irrational, disordered, chaotic, sensuous, earthly; the Apollonian was rational, ordered, harmonious, intellectual, cerebral. Similarly, in his book A Genealogy of Morals, as has been mentioned above, Nietzsche argued that moral thinking occurs between two irreconcilable personality types – the master and the slave, or the nobleman and the plebeian. These distinctions, we must note, were not divorced from their concrete political forms.

As Paul Patton explains, Derrida thought “that philosophy is by nature a form of political activity.”9 Yet he did not begin writing about politics explicitly until much later in his career as an academic. Patton writes –

Derrida’s overtly political philosophy developed alongside his involvement in the campaign against apartheid, his defence of imprisoned intellectuals and writers and his increasingly forceful public positions on issues such as the treatment of illegal immigrants, the politics of reconciliation, the death penalty, terrorism and the behaviour of rogue states. He developed detailed analyses of ethico-political concepts such as hospitality, forgiveness, friendship, justice, democracy, equality and sovereignty. He collaborated with his former critic Jürgen Habermas in defence of a certain idea of Europe. He affirmed his support for Enlightenment ideal of equality and the rule of law, as well as for changes to the international political system aimed at diminishing the power of state sovereignty in favour of a more cosmopolitan global order.10

Thus, while indebted to Nietzsche and his progeny (in particular, the Nazi philosopher Martin Heidegger11), Derrida nonetheless did not follow “the Madman’s”12 thinking in its entirety. Rather, he departed from his predecessor in search of a radical form of democracy of the kind that Nietzsche utterly despised.13

Resentful Offspring are, Nonetheless, Offspring

It seems to be that like the prodigal son, the postmodernists took their father’s inheritance, ran off with it, and wasted it on riotous philosophizing. They wound up in the same pen as the utilitarian hedonists feeding on the “pig philosophy” of democracy and liberalism, and subsequently inspiring the radicalism of the critical race theorists, social justice warriors, and neo-Marxists now advocating for the deconstruction of the very social concepts that Nietzsche sought to valorize, viz. individualism, freedom, responsibility, meritocracy, and so on. Have they, then, lost all connection to their father?

In a word, no. Their surface level concerns are, of course, diametrically opposed to one another. This much is obvious. However, their underlying presupposition is the same. Irrespective of the postmodernists’ attempts to rid themselves of anything vaguely resembling the Logos of God, an omnipotent and omnipresent and omniscient and transcendent mind responsible for the unity of all creation and its history, they nevertheless consistently wound up affirming with Nietzsche that all human relations are reducible to inter- and intra-human relations of power. For these children of the madman, what drives the history of the universe is not a divinely orchestrated concatenation of interrelated events that will culminate in the glorification of the Triune God as he exerts his perfect and just rule over all that he has made, but an indefatigable “will to power” that has only one goal in mind – its own perpetuation.

Is it any wonder we are seeing these offspring doing all that they can — from irrationally arguing their case to setting buildings ablaze and toppling national monuments — to exercise, and thereby obtain even more, power?

Were Nietzsche around to see the antics of his resentful children, he would likely chastise them for trying to exercise power over their superiors via an inversion of all that Nietzsche thought was noble, good, and superior. His resentful offspring have made a cottage industry of identifying themselves as oppressed for the sake of obtaining socio-economic-political power. But Nietzsche could not honestly deny that they are, in many ways, his spitting image

---

1 A Genealogy of Morals, Trans. William A. Hausemann (New York: Macmillan, 1897), 35.

2 ibid., 40.

3 Nietzsche and Postmodern Philosophy (Cambridge: Icon Books, 1999), 34.

4 Twilight of the Idols, Trans. Richard Polt (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1997), 40.

5 “Michel Foucault,” Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Apr. 02, 2003, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/foucault/, Accessed June 15, 2020.

6 Foucault: A Very Short Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 2.

7 “Why Friedrich Nietzsche Is the Darling of the Far Left and the Far Right,” Tablet Magazine, May 07, 2017, https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/nietzsche-left-right, Accessed June 15, 2020.

8 ibid.

9 “Derrida, Politics and Democracy to Come,” in Philosophy Compass 2/6 (2007), 766.

10 ibid. (emphasis added)

11 See Faye, Emmanuel. “Nazi Foundations in Heidegger’s Work,” in South Central Review Volume 23, Number 1 (Spring: 2006), 55-66.

12 This was Nietzsche’s description of himself.

13 As Daniel W. Conway explains in his book Nietzsche and the Political:

Nietzsche is no champion of democracy, but he believes that demotic interests are best served in hierarchical political regimes devoted to the breeding and production of exemplary human beings. All members of a thriving community are, and should be, elevated by the “immoral” exploits of its highest exemplars. While this elevation is least visible (and least appreciated) within the demotic stratum of a hierarchical society, he nevertheless insists, like J.S.Mill, that some attenuated benefits of perfectionism trickle down to everyone.

– Nietzsche & the Political (New York: Routledge, 1997), 36.

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By Right of Conquest: Or, With Cortez in Mexico is the first book I just finished reading by the prolific Victorian author and war correspondent, George Alfred Henty. Not only has it become my favorite novel, it also catapulted Henty towards the top of my favorite authors. It’s disappointing that Henty is not as popular today as he should be, especially amongst Christians, though some homeschooling circles and publishers have caught on to his amazing, vast body of work. For those not familiar with him, a historical novel by Lew Wallace (who shares a similar background with Henty) that resembles Henty’s style happens to be “the most influential Christian book written in the nineteenth century,” Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, similar to Henty’s Beric the Briton: A Story of the Roman Invasion and For the Temple: A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem—except that Henty authored over 120 of them, spanning multiple continents, times, cultures, societies, and places, from the shimmering sands and conquests of ancient Egypt; to Rome during the Punic Wars with Hannibal, as well as the time of Christ and fall of Jerusalem; to the Middle Ages with barbarians, knights and crusaders; to the times of Reformation and Renaissance with Protestants (including the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of the Huguenots), explorers, and conquistadors; to wars of religion, rebellion, restoration, and succession; to the French Revolution and American wars of independence and slavery; and to the countless exploits of the British empire throughout the world!

In By Right of Conquest, Henty brilliantly weaves fictional English characters with proto-Protestant sympathies to Wycliffe into the colliding worlds of the Aztecs and of Hernán Cortés and the Catholic Spaniards. He does so in a believable and historically accurate manner, requiring no suspension of disbelief: “Indeed, a writer of fiction would scarcely have dared to invent so improbable a story” (Preface). This story has it all—adventure, survival, success, failure, controversy, true religion, false religion, conquest, treachery, deception, intrigue, espionage, love, hate, honor, bravery, courage, war. Henty’s storytelling is so immersive that it thrusts the reader right into the situations that the characters encounter, challenging him to think—What would you do? Would you conceal your religious conviction for the one triune God to avoid becoming a human sacrifice, or do you allow the Aztecs to think you’re a god, and consequently offer human sacrifices on your behalf? Do you join the Aztecs in buffeting the abusive foreign invaders, or the ambitious Spanish conquistadors against all odds to overpower the despotic Aztec nation, in hopes of one day sailing back home?

Henty also presents lively discussions about the Papacy’s megalomaniacal claim to owning undiscovered territories:

"I do not say nay to that," Roger assented; "but I do not see why Spain and Portugal should claim all the Indies, East and West, and keep all others from going there."

"But the pope has given the Indies to them," Dorothy said.

"I don't see that they were the pope's to give," Roger replied. "That might do for the king, and his minister Wolsey, and the bishops; but when in time all the people have read, as we do, Master Wycliffe's Bible, they will come to see that there is no warrant for the authority the pope claims; and then we may, perhaps, take our share of these new discoveries."

"Hush, Roger! You should not speak so loud about the Bible. You know that though there are many who read it, it is not a thing to be spoken of openly; and that it would bring us all into sore trouble, were anyone to hear us speak so freely as you have done. There has been burning of Lollards, and they say that Wolsey is determined to root out all the followers of Wycliffe."

It is an ingenious way of presenting fact in fiction from a Protestant perspective, for, as historian William Prescott recounts,

It should be remembered that religious infidelity, at this period, and till a much later, was regarded—no matter whether founded on ignorance or education, whether hereditary or acquired, heretical or pagan—as a sin to be punished with fire and fagot in this world, and eternal suffering in the next. This doctrine, monstrous as it is, was the creed of the Romish, in other words, of the Christian Church,—the basis of the Inquisition, and of those other species of religious persecutions which have stained the annals, at some time or other, of nearly every nation in Christendom.[216] Under this code, the territory of the heathen, wherever found, was regarded as a sort of religious waif, which, in default of a legal proprietor, was claimed and taken possession of by the Holy See, and as such was freely given away by the head of the Church, to any temporal potentate whom he pleased, that would assume the burden of conquest.[217] Thus, [pope] Alexander the Sixth generously granted a large portion of the Western hemisphere to the Spaniards, and of the Eastern to the Portuguese. These lofty pretensions of the successors of the humble fisherman of Galilee, far from being nominal, were acknowledged and appealed to as conclusive in controversies between nations.[218] (History of the Conquest of Mexico, Vol. 2, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/59820/59820-h/59820-h.htm#FNanchor_215_215)

Henty moreover mentions a great temple that a monarch of Tezcuco had erected to the “Unknown God”:

Thus Tezcuco became the center of the education, science, and art of Anahuac, and was at this time the head of the three allied kingdoms. Nezahualcoyotl greatly encouraged agriculture, as well as all the productive arts. The royal palace and the edifices of the nobles were magnificent buildings, and were upon an enormous scale, the Spaniards acknowledging that they surpassed any buildings in their own country.

Not satisfied with receiving the reports of his numerous officers, the monarch went frequently in disguise among his people, listening to their complaints, and severely punishing wrongdoers. Being filled with deep religious feeling, he openly confessed his faith in a God far greater than the idols of wood and stone worshiped by his subjects, and built a great temple which he dedicated to the Unknown God.

……..

“I believe,” Roger said, “that your Majesty's grandfather erected a temple here to the Unknown God. It is the Unknown God—unknown to you, but known to us—that the white peoples across the sea worship. He is a good and gentle and loving God, and would abhor sacrifices of blood.”

In many ways, this parallels the account of the altar dedicated to the “unknown god” which Paul the Apostle had addressed to the “men of Athens” on the Areopagus in Acts 17:

So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. (vv. 22ff., ESV)

This made me wonder: Did Henty embellish the story of the unknown god as a literary device, or is it historically authentic? According to William Prescott, the historian that Henty primarily drew from, the truth really is stranger than fiction:

It would be incredible that a man of the enlarged mind and endowments of Nezahualcoyotl should acquiesce in the sordid superstitions of his countrymen, and still more in the sanguinary rites borrowed by them from the Aztecs. In truth, his humane temper shrunk from these cruel ceremonies, and he strenuously endeavored to recall his people to the more pure and simple worship of the ancient Toltecs. A circumstance produced a temporary change in his conduct.

He had been married some years to the wife he had so unrighteously obtained, but was not blessed with issue. The priests represented that it was owing to his neglect of the gods of his country, and that his only remedy was to propitiate them by human sacrifice. The king reluctantly consented, and the altars once more smoked with the blood of slaughtered captives. But it was all in vain; and he indignantly exclaimed, “These idols of wood and stone can neither hear nor feel; much less could they make the heavens, and the earth, and man, the lord of it. These must be the work of the all-powerful, unknown God, Creator of the universe, on whom alone I must rely for consolation and support.”[325]

He then withdrew to his rural palace of Tezcotzinco, where he remained forty days, fasting and praying at stated hours, and offering up no other sacrifice than the sweet incense of copal, and aromatic herbs and gums. At the expiration of this time, he is said to have been comforted by a vision assuring him of the success of his petition. At all events, such proved to be the fact; and this was followed by the cheering intelligence of the triumph of his arms in a quarter where he had lately experienced some humiliating reverses.[326]

Greatly strengthened in his former religious convictions, he now openly professed his faith, and was more earnest to wean his subjects from their degrading superstitions and to substitute nobler and more spiritual conceptions of the Deity. He built a temple in the usual pyramidal form, and on the summit a tower nine stories high, to represent the nine heavens; a tenth was surmounted by a roof painted black, and profusely gilded with stars, on the outside, and incrusted with metals and precious stones within. He dedicated this to “the unknown God, the Cause of causes”[327] It seems probable, from the emblem on the tower, as well as from the complexion of his verses, as we shall see, that he mingled with his reverence for the Supreme the astral worship which existed among the Toltecs.[328] Various musical instruments were placed on the top of the tower, and the sound of them, accompanied by the ringing of a sonorous metal struck by a mallet, summoned the worshippers to prayers, at regular seasons.[329] No image was allowed in the edifice, as unsuited to the “invisible God;” and the people were expressly prohibited from profaning the altars with blood, or any other sacrifices than that of the perfume of flowers and sweet-scented gums. (History of the Conquest of Mexico, Vol. 1, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/59755/59755-h/59755-h.htm#page_208)

Reading Henty therefore is a great way to learn history; but more than that, it’s a great way to learn Christian virtue—especially manliness—exemplified and applied in virtually every society and circumstance. His stories are a fine remedy for the lack of manhood that plagues modern society.

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Because Henty’s novels are in the public domain, most of them are freely available in ebook and audio formats. I started listening to the LibriVox version of By Right of Conquest, but it became difficult to follow along due to the narrator’s insipid voice. About halfway through I switched to Jim Hodges’ narration, which was more animated and better overall, but didn’t like his pronunciations of Mexican and Aztec names and places (the LibriVox pronunciations were better). An additional frustration was that Hodges made Cortez’s voice sound like a wimpy English butler rather than a bold and daring Spanish conquistador; something like Antonio Banderas would seem more appropriate. And yet, even with these annoyances, the story was nevertheless captivating to the finis.

And while Henty’s novels are enthralling, it may be difficult for younger children to follow along with 300- to 400-page tomes. Heirloom Audio, however, revised and condensed a handful of Henty’s historical adventures into roughly two-hour theatrical audio presentations that are wildly entertaining for younger audiences. They are nice introductions, like elaborate trailers or commercials, to the unabridged novels, which are still far superior. (See reviews of Beric the Briton, Under Drake’s Flag, In the Reign of Terror.)

Henty’s stories both delight and instruct readers in history and manly virtue, and make excellent additions to any library, history study, homeschool curriculum, and personal enrichment. Tolle, lege!

In Matthew 24, the disciples of God ask him –

“...what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”1

Christ then details the events which will signal his second advent, and states that

“Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”2

The Gospel will be proclaimed as a testimony to all nations, but before this there will be a great time of tribulation. The situation will be dire. It will be so dire, in fact, that the love of many will grow cold. Christians will not fall away from Christ, for he promises that no man – and that includes ourselves – can pluck us out of his omnipotent hand.3 However, Christians can grow cold. Consider John Gill’s commentary on this passage –

And because iniquity shall abound... Meaning, either the malice and wickedness of outrageous persecutors, which should greatly increase; or the treachery and hatred of the apostates; or the errors and heresies of false teachers; or the wickedness that prevailed in the lives and conversations of some, that were called Christians: for each of these seem to be hinted at in the context, and may be all included, as making up the abounding iniquity here spoken of; the consequence of which would be,

the love of many shall wax cold. This would be the case of many, but not of all; for in the midst of this abounding iniquity, there were some, the ardour of whose love to Christ, to his Gospel, and to the saints, did not abate: but then there were many, whose zeal for Christ, through the violence of persecution, was greatly damped; and through the treachery of false brethren, were shy of the saints themselves, not knowing who to trust; and through the principles of the false teachers, the power of godliness, and the vital heat of religion, were almost lost; and through a love of the world, and of carnal ease and pleasure, love to the saints was grown very chill, and greatly left; as the instances of Demas, and those that forsook the Apostle Paul, at his first answer before Nero, show. This might be true of such, who were real believers in Christ; who might fall under great decays, through the prevalence of iniquity; since it does not say their love shall be lost, but wax cold.4

Just prior to the Lord Jesus’ return, things will get so bad that some Christians will grow cold in their love, losing their zeal for evangelism, as well as their desire for fellowship with the saints. Yet this causal relationship between the increase of wickedness and a decrease in love is not unique to the time period just before our Lord returns to judge the quick and the dead. Rather, it is a constant reality we often forget about, at least until time unfolds and we are face to face with it again.

Today, we are facing riots in every major city, where the smoke of burning police vehicles and historical landmarks rushes to blind us to the coronapoclypse myth’s decaying corpse. Cacophonous sloganeering deafens us to the sound of our economy collapsing, pastors caving to the wicked whims of Caesar, and “men” of God capitulating to the demands of the gender-fluid. The world and the flesh and the devil unremittingly call us to lay down our powerful spiritual weapons5 and pick up the carnal weapons they’ve forged against the true Triune God – scientism, critical race theory, statism, nihilism, hedonism, moralism. Indeed, as David declares –

On every side the wicked prowl,

as vileness is exalted among the children of man.6

We are being directed at every turn to be spiritually quarantined, lest we become infected with unbelief and suffer despair, hopelessness, and embitterment.

But if we do not come into contact with these things, how will we build immunity against them? How will we develop spiritual antibodies if we cave and abdicate our calling in Christ?

Counterintuitively, it is precisely these spiritual attacks on us that God uses to conform us more and more to the image of his beloved Son. James 1:2-4 states as much, declaring –

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Not only this, but these attacks also serve to humble us and draw attention away from us, while simultaneously underscoring the truth of the Gospel and the power of God. As Paul declares in 2nd Cor 4:7-18 –

…we have this treasure [viz. The Gospel of reconciliation] in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you.

Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, “I believed, and so I spoke,” we also believe, and so we also speak, knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence. For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

What is, on the one hand, distressing and painful to see and hear, is yet, on the other hand, the very means whereby we grow in Christ and become better equipped to face future trials that may be even worse. Therefore,

...let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.7

We will reap a harvest of confidence in our Lord’s Sovereign direction of all that ever has happened, is happening, and will happen. And we will be further equipped to love our brothers and sisters in Christ who will experience what we have already experienced and, by the grace of our God, have overcome.

Press on, brethren.

Press on.

Soli Deo Gloria.

1 Matt 24:3b.

2 vv.9-14.

3 cf. John 10:27-30.

4 Emphasis added.

5 cf. Eph 6:10-18 & 2nd Cor 10:3-6.

6 Ps 12:8.

7 Gal 6:9.

The so-called corona virus (CV) pandemic has taken the world by storm.  Like many people, this author had never so much as heard the term “corona virus” until about three or four months ago.  But writing now in early May 2020, it seems as if it’s been with us forever. 

One of the barriers to thinking clearly about the CV pandemic and resulting lock down of the economy was the remarkable speed at which it all occurred.  It seemed that one day all was well, and the next that governors across the country were ordering their citizens to “shelter in place.”  It was almost as if the entire nation were sucker punched at once.  One day we were going about our business, working our jobs as we always had, and the next we were working from home or not working at all.  Who could ever have imagined such a thing as recently as the beginning of this year? 

The official narrative is that the virus is an unexpected event, originating in China.  Despite the Chinese leadership’s heroic efforts to contain it, the virus managed to spread throughout all the world.  Here in the US, Anthony Fauci is officially hailed as a hero and governors who locked down their states are thought to have taken bold action to save the nation from an even higher death count than has been reported.  They are heroes.  And the more severely they locked down their states, the more heroic they are.    

Although the rapidity at which the crisis emerged and my unfamiliarity with pandemics made analysis difficult at first, the whole CV pandemic always seemed more than a bit suspect to me.  And the longer it has gone on and the more information that has come out, the more my original suspicions have been confirmed.  Below are thirteen reason why I doubt CV narrative.

1.      Quarantining the healthy: The foolish and unbiblical policy of quarantining the healthy makes it obvious that our policymakers either do not know what they are talking about or have evil intentions.  The Bible does permit governments to quarantine the sick.  This can be seen in Leviticus chapter 13 where we read about the detailed process the priests used to determine if a man had leprosy.  It was only after the priest had declared him leprous that an individual was put outside the camp.  But there was no provision in the Mosaic law to lock up healthy people in their dwellings to prevent the spread of leprosy.  Israel as a nation was never locked down.  Applying quarantines only to the sick is an extension of the biblical view of criminal justice.  The Bible’s approach to criminal justice is one of crime punishment, not crime prevention.  In the Bible, a man was punished only after going through due process and being found guilty. There was no bureaucracy in place to punish the innocent with onerous regulations aimed at preventing crime.  Quarantining the healthy is a form of punishing the innocent and it needs to stop. 

2.      The remarkable attack on religious liberty:  It was just three weeks ago that Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear threatened Christians who attended Easter services in Kentucky with having their license plates recorded by local officials and put in quarantine (house arrest) for fourteen days.  Never has this author seen such an arrogant and sinful stance by an American governor toward Christians whose only “offense” was to obey the Biblical injunction to gather on the first day of the week to worship.    

3.      Soviet-style censorship of free speech:  In addition to the free exercise of religion, the US Constitution guarantees the right of free speech.  Yet the major social media companies have taken it upon themselves to censor content that contradicts the official narrative.  For example, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki stated in a recent CNN interview that “Anything that goes against WHO recommendations [on the CV] would be a violation of our policy and so remove is another really important part of our policy.” Likewise, Facebook says that in light of WHO’s declaring COVID-19 a global public health emergency, it will be, “taking aggressive steps to stop misinformation and harmful content from spreading.” Some will say that this is not a violation of free speech, since these YouTube and Facebook are private companies.  But the line between social media companies and the government is blurry.  For example, law professor Jonathan Turley wrote a post earlier this year titled “The Death of Free Speech: Zuckerberg Asks Governments For Instructions On ‘What Discourse Should Be Allowed.” The Atlantic published an article by Harvard Law School professor Jack Goldsmith and University of Arizona law professor Andrew Keane Woods that the Hill described as calling for Chinese style censorship of the internet. 

4.      The destruction of economic liberty:  Government officials in the United States have forced businesses to close and put, so far, about 30 million people out of work.  This is the largest spike in unemployment in the history of our nation.  Yet the people that have been responsible for making and implementing and enforcing these policies have themselves remained conspicuously employed.  Anthony Fauci has not lost his job.  Neither has Deborah Birx or any of the dozens of governors who have locked down their states.  These actions have created extreme economic hardship for a significant part of the population, while those who are the cause of the suffering are insulated from the repercussions of their actions. 

5.      Destruction of personal liberty:  It’s shocking just how much many of the CV pandemic peddlers seem to love totalitarianism.   See, for example, Tucker Carlson’s report on Peter Walker, a former employee of the McKinsey consulting firm in China.  One clip shows Carlson raising concerns about China’s oppression of its citizens and Peter Walker responding by saying, “look at the results.”  Extraordinary.  An American business leader responding to China’s oppression of its own citizens by saying, “look at the results.”  Who would have thought we’d ever hear such a thing? The Atlantic ran a story at the end of March saying “Get Used to It:  This Lockdown Won’t Be the Last,” telling Americans that they have a future of multiple lock downs to look forward to.  All for our own good, of course. 

6.      Money printing by the Federal Reserve:  In response to the economic shut down, the Federal Reserve (the Fed) has engaged in a surge of money printing the likes of which have never been seen before.  According to this chart from the St. Louis Fed, the Fed’s balance sheet has increased by about $2.4 trillion just since February 19.  When we say that the Fed’s balance sheet has increased by $2.4 trillion, this is just a polite way of saying that the Fed has created $2.4 trillion out of nothing in the space of a little over two months.  To put that in perspective, it took the Fed about a century to create $3 trillion dollars.  That they’ve managed to do nearly that in just over two months without anyone saying much about it is remarkable to say the least.  And don’t for a minute thing the Fed’s done.  According to the very mainstream Marketwatch, the Fed could grow its balance sheet to $10 trillion by early 2021.  This unprecedented increase in the supply of money coupled with an unprecedented decrease in economic output will result in more dollars chasing fewer goods, implying unprecedented consumer price inflation.  Put in Biblical terms, this is theft.  And not only theft, but theft on a scale that is hard to comprehend.  Yet we’re told by elite propaganda outlets such as the New York Times that the expanding debt, which is made possible by the Fed’s expanding its balance sheet, is a good thing.   In truth, such policies by the Fed are both sinful and destructive of our nation.  That massive debt expansion and money printing are sold to the American people by their leaders as positively necessary for dealing the CV pandemic is good reason to suspect the entire narrative is bogus.

7.      The strange involvement of Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infections Diseases with the Wuhan Institute of Virology:  According to the New York Post, Dr. Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infection Diseases (NIAID) gave $7.4 million to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the lab from which the CV supposedly was released.  The New York Post article dated 4/20/2020 goes on to state that the National Institute of Health, which oversees NIAID, just shut off funding to the lab the prior week.  The financial connection between Fauci’s NIAID and the Wuhan lab is, to say the least, interesting.  Perhaps more information is forthcoming on this issue.

8.      Anthony Fauci’s Jesuit connections:  It’s remarkable how often one finds Jesuits, or men trained by the Jesuits, at the center of important events.  Jay Powell, the current Chairman of the Federal Reserve, went to law school at Jesuit Georgetown University.  Recently appointed Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh attended high school at Georgetown Preparatory School, a Jesuit boys college prep school. As of the summer of 2018, Kavanaugh was a volunteer tutor and served on the board of Washington Jesuit Academy.  This bring us to Dr. Anthony Fauci.  As Berean Beacon reports, Anthony Fauci attended Jesuit schools from Our Lady of Guadalupe Grammar School in Brooklyn all the way up through his undergraduate degree from College of the Holy Cross.  Says Berean Beacon, “Today, Dr. Anthony Fauci, is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a position he has held since 1984.  This Jesuit trained deep state operative has been intimately involved in public affairs and policy for the past six presidential administrations.  And now the world stands at the precipice of forced vaccination at the hands of a conglomerate of church, state and science so falsely called.”  

9.      Bill Gates: The more one learns about Bill Gates, the more suspect he becomes.  The Microsoft billionaire has inserted himself in the response to the pandemic to a degree that is truly remarkable and, therefore, his actions require scrutiny.  What do we find when we look into Gates?  He’s a vaccine nut.  As a recent article by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Children’s Health Defense website tells us, “Vaccines, for Bill Gates, are a strategic philanthropy that feed his many vaccine-related businesses (including Microsoft’s ambition to control a global vaccination ID enterprise) and give him dictatorial control of global health policy.  This has prompted some people to say that Bill Gates wants to microchip you, which various fact checking websites have had a field day refuting.  But not so fast. As this report from Target Liberty tells us, Bill Gates doesn’t want to microchip you, he just wants to give you a digital tattoo to prove you’ve had all your shots.  Well, that makes me feel so much better! 

10.  Quarantining the Healthy:  The Bible teaches that there is a place for quarantining individuals who have dangerous diseases.  But if you read what the Scriptures say about quarantining, it is all about isolating the sick, not locking down the healthy.  Yet we’re told by all right-thinking people that to be safe, we must lock healthy individuals in their homes.  This inversion of the Biblical principles of quarantining is prima facie evidence that those who are running the response to CV are at best confused in their thinking.  Another possibility is that they are actively malevolent and intend to use the CV pandemic to attack Americans’ civil rights. 

11.  Worldwide, synchronized media hype:  It’s been fascinating to see the worldwide media hype surrounding the CV pandemic.  Commenting on this phenomenon during a recent interview on the Ron Paul Liberty Report, Denis Rancourt made the point that this hype appeared to be “coordinated.”   He went on to say, “I believe that there is a network that does influence the main editors of the main papers in the great number of countries and then that sets the scene so the word is given out when they want something like this [the CV hype] to just flood the mainstream media.”    

12.  Empty hospitals:  We were told that hospitals across the country would be swamped beyond capacity, but that seems not to have been the case.  In fact, far from being at overcapacity, many hospitals are laying off doctors and nurses due to lack of business.  The Washington Post, for example, reported on April 9, 2020 that “Cash-starved hospitals and doctor groups cut staff amid pandemic.”  That certainly isn’t what we were led to believe would be happening.  Military.com reports that a Seattle field hospital set up in that city closed after three days during which it saw not one single patient.  Reuters ran a story on May 1 with the headline “Little-used Navy hospital ship Comfort leaves New York after treating COVID-19 patients.” Of course, pubic officials never will admit that they were wrong. Their strategy will be to say that it was their lock down and enforcement of social distancing that accounted for the much lower than anticipated incidence of COVID-19.  But their attacks on liberty and the destructive spending by Congress and money printing by the Fed, all which evils were necessitated by the lock down, strongly suggest that their approach was not the correct one.  

13.  Suspect attribution of cause of death:  The Guardian ran a story on April 15 with the headline “New York City coronavirus death toll jumps past 10,000 in revised count.”  As it turns out, the NYC added 3,778 people to the death toll who weren’t tested but were presumed to have died of the disease.  That seems more like guesswork than anything else.  Just last week, Project Veritas ran a story saying that funeral directors in NYC were indicating that COVID-19 death statistics were being padded by falsely attributing cause of death the COVID-19.

What shall we make of all this?  It seems to me that there are two main possibilities.  First, our leaders – by leaders I’m referring not only to political leaders but to thought and business leaders as well – are simply confused.  They really do think that cracking down on free speech, locking healthy people in their homes, forcibly closing business, putting tens of millions of people out of work and having the Fed print oceans of bogus money really is the best way to deal with the CV.  Second, they know the whole lock down social distancing thing is absurd and are simply doing this as a way of conditioning people to even more stringent lock downs and social controls in the future, perhaps culminating in some sort of world government dystopian tyranny of the sort one reads about in the book of Revelation. In my opinion, the latter is a more likely scenario than the former.

This is not to say that all politicians, business leaders, journalists and academics who support the lock downs are aware of some great master plan.  But the remarkable amount of worldwide coordination going on suggests that there is some organizing agent behind the scenes.  It is possible that I could be wrong about this.  It is my opinion.  You may have a different view. Perhaps additional study will make things clearer.  But whether the lock downs and attacks on personal liberty and economic freedom just happen to have the appearance of coordination, or whether there is, in fact, a conspiracy to take away our liberties and our property, it is imperative for Christians to stand up and speak out, rebuking from the Word of God those who would encroach on our Constitution and our freedom. 

It may sound strange to some to think that the Bible can be used to fight for freedom.  But in truth, it is the Bible and the Bible alone, the sword of the Spirit as Paul calls it, that is our only sure weapon in in our fight against tyranny.            

“But we will certainly do whatever has gone out of our own mouth, to burn incense to the queen of heaven and pour out drink offerings to her, as we have done, we and our fathers, our kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem.  For then we had plenty of food, were well-off, and saw no trouble.”

-          Jeremiah 44:17

In his book Logic, Gordon Clark noted a number of informal logical fallacies.  On page 17, he mentioned, among others, a fallacy called in Latin post hoc ergo propter hoc, or as we would say it in English, “after this, therefore because of this.” This logical error, hereafter the post hoc fallacy, involves asserting that, because event B took place after event A, that A is what caused B. 

Now it’s true that there can be a cause and effect relationship between an earlier event and a late event.  In Jeremiah 44, the prophet, speaking for God, states, “You have seen all the calamity that I have brought on Jerusalem…because of their wickedness which they have committed to provoke Me to anger.”  God makes it entirely clear in this passage that the prior disobedience of the people of Judah was the cause of his bringing judgment on Jerusalem.  We don’t have to guess at why the Babylonians leveled Jerusalem and burned the temple in 586 BC, God tells us explicitly both the cause and the effect. 

Later in chapter 44, we get the reaction from the people to whom Jeremiah was prophesying.  As it turned out, they didn’t much care for his sermon. Part of their response to Jeremiah was a classic case of post hoc fallacy.  See if you can spot it.

But we will certainly do whatever has gone out of our own mouth, to burn incense to the queen of heaven and pour out drink offerings to her, as we have done, we and our fathers, our kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem.  For then we had plenty of food, were well-off, and saw no trouble. But since we stopped burning incense to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offering to her, we have lacked everything and have been consumed by the sword and by famine (Jeremiah 44:17-18).

Did I say, see if you can spot it?  Reading this passage further, it seems to me that there are two post hoc fallacies to be found.  In the first place, the people argue that their burning incense and pouring out drink offerings were the cause of their prosperity when they were in the land, when, in fact, it was God’s grace that provided for them.  Second, they attributed their current state of exile to their worshipping the queen of heaven, when, in fact, the cause of their exile was God’s punishing them for their disobedience.  

I bring up the preceding Biblical example of post hoc fallacy to introduce the main point of this post, which is to refute the linkage, put forward by mainstream financial reporters, the outbreak of the Corona virus in China is reason for the recent stock market sell off and spike in the price of gold. 

Stocks Down, Gold Up – Obviously, It’s Coronavirus!

A quick look at two headlines from Friday on CNBC will give you a good sense of just how hard the mainstream financial media is pushing the coronavirus-as-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it meme.

In the first place, CNBC wants you to believe that Friday’s, and the week’s, stock selloff was due to coronavirus.  “Dow drops more than 200 points, posts losing week as coronavirus fears resurface,” was how they put it.  Similar headlines could be found earlier in the week as well.  Now some may argue, “the headline doesn’t explicitly say, “Coronavirus causes 200-point drop in the stock market. It merely says that stocks went down as coronavirus fears went up.”  Technically, that’s true.  CNBC doesn’t make an explicit causal link between coronavirus and stocks going down.  But the intent, in my opinion, of headlines of this sort is to plant the seed in the reader’s mind that there is a cause and effect relationship at work.  Just read through the article to see what I mean.

On the same day as the headline above, CNBC ran another headline, this one reading, “Gold surges 1.5% on growing coronavirus concerns.”  Not only does coronavirus have the ability to drive down stocks, but it can cause gold to spike as well. 

In both cases, sinking stock and rising gold, CNBC is asking its readers to accept coronavirus as the cause.    First came coronavirus, then stocks went down and gold went up.  Post hoc, ergo propter hoc.

Now, am I saying that coronavirus could have no effect on stocks or gold?  After all, it appears that the illness has caused significant economic disruption in the world’s second largest economy.  Could not such a disruption cause stocks to go down and at the same time cause gold – gold is considered a “risk off” asset, one that does well when “risk on” assets such as stocks are doing poorly – to go up? Yes, it could.   

But while coronavirus could cause stocks to go down and gold to go up, it is not, in my view, the primary reason for these events.

To illustrate what I mean, consider that case of an overly indebted man who has a personal financial crisis due to an unexpected car repair bill.  The man has been living beyond his means for years, but has successfully shuffled his debts around, staying just one step ahead of bankruptcy.  Now ask yourself, was the unexpected car repair the reason this fellow suddenly found himself in financial dire straits, or was it the years of profligate living?  I would argue that it was the years of profligacy that were the real cause.  The unexpected car repair bill was just the thing the happened to expose the underlying problem, one that had been building for a long time before his car suddenly had mechanical problems.

In like fashion, the West’s financial system has been deteriorating for years, while at the same time stocks are hitting record highs and safety assets such as gold and silver are, comparatively speaking, performing very poorly.  In the opinion of this author, this is an artificial situation.  Stocks, in fact, should be much lower, while gold and silver should be much higher.  A better explanation for the current stock market troubles and breakout in the gold price is required. 

 It’s the Fed! It’s the Fed! It’s the Fed!

I mentioned above that the current valuation of the stock market is artificial, that is to say, it is not based on market forces.  Stocks aren’t the only asset in a bubble, either.  At the same time, we have a stock market bubble, we also have a bond market bubble and a housing bubble.  There are so many assets in bubble territory – by bubble, I simply mean the assets in question are overvalued - that some financial observers are calling it the “everything bubble.” 

In the late 90’s we had the tech bubble.  Any stocks with .com in their name immediately shot up to stratospheric valuations, only to come crashing down in 2000.  In the 00’s, we had the housing bubble, when real estate zoomed up in value, only to tank in 2008 during the financial crisis.  In fact, the 2008 crisis was closely related to the popping of the housing bubble.     Now we have the everything bubble, with stocks, bonds and real estate all at record valuations. 

So how is it possible to have so many markets in bubble territory?  The root cause of the everything bubble is the same as that of the .com and housing bubbles – it’s the Fed. 

Ever since the 2008 crises, the Fed, together with the Plunge Protection Team (PPT) and the Exchange Stabilization Fund (ESF), has used its enormous power and influence, not only to prop up favored markets, but to suppress those out of favor.  It has done this through money printing – quantitative easing, or QE – market manipulation – some of the Fed’s manipulations are overt, such as cutting interest rates, while some of them are covert and speculative; for example, a recent headline in ZeroHedge reported that then Fed Chairman Janet Yellen said in 2017 that the Fed “might be able to help the U.S. economy in a future downturn if it could buy stocks and corporate bonds”; what are the odds this is already going on in secret? -  and good old fashioned propaganda. 

So what’s the problem with market rigging?  There are several, one of the most pernicious of which is this:  Once you start rigging, you can’t stop.  Market rigging, you see, is a lot like telling a lie.  Just as you can’t tell only one lie, so too you can’t just rig one market.  Rather, you have to rig all markets. 

If you want to create the (false) perception that the economy is doing great, you have to push up stocks and housing.  The most effective way to push up stocks and housing is to artificially support the bond market.  The Fed, by purchasing bonds through QE, artificially raises the price of bonds, which has the effect of artificially lowering bond yields.  When bond yields are held down, this pushes cash into the stock market where it can find a better return than it can in the bond market.  Lowering bond yields also lowers the interest rate of home loans, making it easier for people to borrow more money to buy a house.  More money flowing into the housing market means higher housing prices. 

At the bottom of all this is Fed money printing.  If the Fed did not have the ability to create money out of nothing and then to use that newly created (counterfeited) money to purchase US Treasuries (and quite possibly other assets), stocks, bonds and real estate would all be much lower.

But as was mentioned above, once the Fed started on its program of market manipulation – the Fed’s market manipulation began in earnest with the 2008 crisis, but it had been going on for at least 20 years before that – it found it could not stop. 

Market rigging, you see, is a bit like having the proverbial tiger by the tail - Once you grab it, you can’t let go or you get eaten.  Likewise, once the Fed started rigging markets, it found it couldn’t stop.    

This is not for lack of trying.  Beginning in December 2015, the Fed started to inch up interest rates up from 0%.  This program went on through December 2018, at which point the markets crashed.  This prompted Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin to convene an emergency meeting of the PPT  on December 24, 2018.  Remarkably, when markets reopened the day after Christmas, the Dow shot up a record 1,100 points.  But if you think this was the PPT’s doing, you’re a conspiracy theorist. 

Almost immediately after the December 2018 market crash, Fed Chairman Jay Powell announced the reversal of the Fed’s policy of raising interest rates as well as an end to its Quantitative Tightening (QT) program of selling long dated US Treasuries.

Today the Fed once again is in full QE mode and, very likely, will be lowering interest rates in March.

As Proverbs tells us, “Treasures of wickedness profit nothing,” and, “Wealth gained by dishonesty will be diminished.”  In like fashion, while all the Fed’s machinations so far have been successful at propping up stocks and housing, these artificially inflated markets are very unstable and susceptible to crashing.  All it takes is for some unexpected event, a virus outbreak for example, to undo them. 

It’s not the cornovirus that’s the cause of our current bout of financial instability, it’s the Fed.

 Gold and Silver Suppressed

As mentioned above there are any number of financial assets that are now in bubble territory.  But two that decidedly are not are gold and especially silver. This is not an accident.  Just as the powers-that-shouldn’t be artificially inflate the value of favored assets, so too do they suppress the value of assets they don’t like, precious metals.  Gregory Mannarino, a trader and YouTuber whose work I follow, refers to these monetary metals as being in an “inverse bubble.”  That is to say, he believes their value is being artificially held down, and by the same people who seek to artificially inflate stocks, bonds and real estate. 

But just as artificially inflated bubbles in stocks, bonds and real estate are unstable, so too are inverse bubbles in gold and silver. 

Rather than seeing gold going up due to coronavirus, a more likely explanation is that the rise in gold is due to Fed money printing.  Gold started a major bull run as priced in US dollars around the end of May 2019, long before anyone had even heard of coronavirus.  Not only was this in response to the Fed’s actions to that point, but many observers think the smart money anticipated the Fed’s bailout of the banks via its program of supporting the Repo Market, which began in September and  is still ongoing.  

So Why Are They Pushing the Coronavirus Meme? 

If it’s true what I’ve said, that the problems in the stock market and the rise in gold are due, not to the coronavirus, but to the activities of the Fed, why is the media pushing the coronavirus meme? 

The answer:  The mainstream media’s main job is not to inform you, but to misinform you.

You see, fellow deplorables, we’re not supposed to know the secrets of the high priests at the Fed.  They are our betters.  They are our masters.  Our job, like ordinary Roman Catholics before the Reformation, is to accept what our masters at the Fed and in the media say, with implicit faith.  That is to say, our job is to take what they tell us at face value and never, ever ask uncomfortable questions. 

The masters of the universe have an unspoken rule: Whenever there’s an economic problem, a fall guy is needed.  The Fed must never be blamed.

Back in the 70’s there was a terrible bout of inflation that was the result of President Nixon pulling the plug on the Bretton Woods accord in 1971.  Even as a young boy, I remember hearing all the excuses for rising prices.  It was the oil sheiks of OPEC.  It was frost in the orange groves in Florida.  It was droughts, hurricanes and hailstorms. 

Anything but the truth, Fed money printing.

Think about that famous scene in the Wizard of Oz, where Toto goes and pulls back the curtain hiding the “Wizard” in his control booth.  “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain,” bellows the Wizard, trying desperately to keep Dorothy and friends from discovering that the Wizards was no Wizard at all, but just a man with a lot of special effects at hand.

That’s exactly the way we’re treated. 

And it doesn’t matter what your political persuasion is, either.

You could be the bluest of blue Bernie Bros who hangs on every word Rachel Maddow speaks.  Watch her program for years if you will.  Listen to all of Bernie’s stump speeches several times over.  You’ll hear them talk about income and wealth inequality, but you’ll never once hear them pin it on the real culprit, the Fed.

You could be the reddest of red staters, owning multiple MAGA hats and never missing a minute of Sean Hannity.  Yet you’ll never once hear him talk about the role the Fed plays in creating price inflation and how its policies have caused stagnant wages and reduced living standards for the very people Donald Trump claims to represent, ordinary working Americans.    

Even if you’re a middle of the roader and stick to mainstream network news, it’s the same sorry state of affairs.  Watch the evening news for decades on end if you will, but you’ll never learn a thing about how the Fed creates money from nothing and hands it out to its friends and how you pay for it.

These omissions are not by accident.  They are by design. 

The powers that shouldn’t be are quite happy that people are ignorant of the games the Fed plays and they want to make sure people stay that way.

Flooding the airwaves with false explanations of financial market activity is how they keep people in the dark. 

It’s not the coronavirus.  It’s the money printing.

It’s the Fed.     

It’s the Fed.

It’s the Fed.

All the days wherein the plague shall be in him he shall be defiled; he is unclean:  he shall dwell alone; without the camp shall his habitation be.

-          Leviticus 13:46

"We haven't faced an enemy like we are facing today in 102 years - we are at war. In the time of war, we must make sacrifices, and I thank all of our Ohio citizens for what they are doing and what they aren't doing. You are making a huge difference, and this difference will save lives," said Governor DeWine. "Right now, we are in a crucial time in this battle. What we do now will slow this invader so that our healthcare system will have time to treat those who have contracted COVID-19 and also have time to treat those who have other medical problems. Time is of the essence." Thus reads the announcement on the Ohio.gov website where the state’s Stay At Home Order is also listed. 

Clearly, Governor DeWine takes the coronavirus [the Ohio.gov website calls it COVID-19] outbreak very seriously.  Note the repeated use of military terminology in the quote above.  We are told that “We haven’t faced an enemy like we are facing today in 102 years” [apparently, this is a reference to the 1918 outbreak of the Spanish Flu]…“we are at war”…“In time of war”…”we are in a crucial time in this battle”…”What we do now will slow this invader.”

With all this military terminology, one wonders when the Governor plans to institute a draft.  Then on second thought, in a way, he already has.  As the website notes, beginning March 23, 2020 at 11:59 p.m. Ohioans are under a Stay At Home Order.  This order is effective until 11:59 p.m. on April 6, 2020 “unless the order is rescinded or modified.”  This order applies to everyone, and as of this writing on March 29, no recension or modification of this order has been announced.  So in a way, all Ohioans already have been drafted into the Governor’s war. 

One question that seems not to have been asked in the wake of Governor DeWine’s announcement is, on what authority does he give this order?  Reading through the order, one finds that it contains provisions that shutter a not insignificant portion of the businesses within the state.  What is the legal basis for the Governor’s order?

One possible answer is that Ohio has adopted some form of “Medical Martial Law” legislation that was propagated in the wake of the Swine Flu pandemic in 2009.  Researcher James Corbett produced a video back in 2009 related to the Swine Flu pandemic which he titled Medical Martial Law and which dealt with the legislative response that followed the outbreak of that pandemic.  In his video, Corbett states that something called “The Model State Emergency Health Powers Act” was drafted by the Center for Law and the Public’s Health at Georgetown University (Jesuits) and Johns Hopkins University.  According to the website of The Centers for Law & the Public’s Health, the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act (MSEHPA) “grants public health powers to state and local public health authorities to ensure a strong, effective, and timely planning, prevention, and response mechanisms to public health emergencies (including bioterrorism) while also respecting individual rights.” 

The website boasts that forty-four states have adopted MSEHPA in whole or in part, but, curiously, Ohio is not listed among them.  Neither was I able to find anything on other websites linking MSEHPA to Ohio.  That being the case, this model legislation, as dangerous as it is, apparently is not the basis for the Governor’s actions.

According to the language in the Order itself, the basis for the Order is R.C. [Revised Code] 3701.13 which allows the Director of the Ohio Department of Health to “make special orders…for preventing the spread of contagious or infectious diseases.”  

That said, although he doesn’t come out and say it directly, Governor DeWine and Dr. Amy Acton (Ohio’s Director of Health) seem eager for the public to see the Stay At Home Order as some form of Medical Martial Law.  This can be seen from the Governor’s own words, laden as they are with military terminology.        

Are Quarantines Biblical?

As Christians, we must always ask ourselves “What do the Scriptures say?” when thinking through the circumstances we come across in our lives.  This includes the words and actions of civil magistrates.  In this case, let us start by asking this question, are quarantines biblical? 

The short answer to this question is, yes, they are.  We know this from the Law of Moses which details procedures for placing in quarantine those diagnosed with certain illnesses or those who have become ceremonially unclean for some reason.  There are many such passages in the Old Testament Law.  Here is one example:

And the LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron saying, “When a man has on the skin of his body a swelling, a scab, or a bright spot, and it becomes on the skin of his body like a leprous sore, then he shall be brought to Aaron the priest or to one of his sons the priests. The priest shall examine the sore on the skin of the body; and if the hair on the sore has turned white, and the sore appears to be deeper than the skin of his body, it is a leprous sore. Then the priest shall examine him, and pronounce him unclean. But if the bright spot is white on the skin of his body, and does not appear to be deeper than the skin, and its hair has not turned white, then the priest shall isolate the one who has the sore seven days. And the priest shall examine him on the seventh day; and indeed if the sore appears to be as it was, and the sore has not spread on the skin, then the priest shall isolate him another seven days. Then the priest shall examine him again on the seventh day; and indeed if the sore has faded, and the sore has not spread on the skin, then the priest shall pronounce him clean; it is only a scab, and he shall wash his clothes and be clean. But if the scab should at all spread over the skin, after he has been seen by the priest for his cleansing, he shall be seen by the priest again. And if the priest sees that the scab has indeed spread on the skin, then the priest shall pronounce him unclean. It is leprosy” (Leviticus 13:1-8).

Individuals who were unclean were pronounced unclean by the priest and were required to dwell outside the camp.

“Now the leper on whom the sore is, his clothes shall be torn and his head bare; and he shall cover his mustache, and cry, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ He shall be unclean.  All the days he has the sore he shall be unclean.  He is unclean, and he shall dwell alone; his dwelling shall be outside the camp” (Leviticus 13:45-46).

It’s worth noting that Jesus himself gave implied support to the Levitical quarantine laws in the account of his healing the ten lepers in Samaria.  Luke tells us in 17:11-19 that, upon being implored by ten lepers to heal them, Jesus told them to go and show themselves to the priests, which was in accordance with the laws concerning leprosy set forth in Leviticus chapter 13. 

There are other examples of quarantines in Scripture, but the citations above are enough to show that quarantines themselves are not in conflict with the Bible’s teachings.

Is Ohio’s Stay At Home Order Biblical?

Although we have shown that quarantines have Biblical support, this does not necessarily mean that all quarantines meet the standards of Scripture.  So let’s ask another question, is Ohio’s stay at home order biblical? 

In the opinion of this author, the answer is no.  Not because quarantines themselves are wrong, but because Ohio’s Stay At Home Order, which is a type of quarantine, applies too broadly.  In an attempt to slow the spread of coronavirus, the Governor and Health Director have drafted an order that applies to all individuals regardless of whether they exhibit symptoms of coronavirus or have even been tested for the disease. 

One way of illustrating my point is to look at the Bible’s view of criminal justice.  Ask yourself this question, is the Bible’s stance on criminal justice one of crime punishment or crime prevention?  The correct answer is crime punishment. Although I do not have the reference handy, this point was brought up in a lecture by John Robbins, and my remarks on the Bible’s view of criminal justice are drawn from his comments. 

According to Robbins, the Bible focuses on crime punishment.  In the Law of Moses there are many clear statements concerning the civil law.  There were commandments on what people were to do and not to do as well as civil punishments for those who violated the law.  Worth noting, although all violations of the Law of God were sinful, not all were crimes. Put another way, some sins were also crimes.  The way you can tell the difference is whether there are civil penalties – e.g. restitution in the case of theft, death in cases of murder - attached to them.  Those violations of the law that did not have civil penalties, while sinful, were not crimes. 

But while there were laws set forth for the punishment of crimes in ancient Israel, there was no bureaucratic regulatory body set up to punish the innocent by burdening them with regulations designed to prevent crime.  For example, murder was prohibited in the Ten Commandments but there was no government Sword Control Administration that, in the name of preventing murder, required people to register their swords with the government or prevented people from owning them.

If a man was accused or murder, the Law provided for due process for the accused.  If found guilty, the law also provided for the punishment of the guilty individual.  That was all. 

Israel’s quarantine laws were similar.  To be quarantined, one first had to show himself to a priest for examination.  The Law laid out in great detail the process the priest was to go through, and it was only after all the steps in the process had been followed that a man could be declared unclean and quarantined outside the camp.  There were no general quarantines announced in the name of preventing disease.  Only those who were determined to be infected after the priest had followed due process were quarantined.       

The Dangers of Ignoring Due Process

Due process is a bulwark against arbitrary government.  Going back to the Biblical laws concerning leprosy.  Suppose for a moment that the priestly examination process did not exist or was circumvented.  One can easily see how the leprosy statue could become a political weapon.  All one would have to do to have his enemy put outside the camp would be to accuse him of having leprosy, present him to a priest that was a little shady or on the take, and have him declared unclean.

In like fashion, there are those who today are greatly concerned, this author among them, that giving governments the power to shut down private businesses and essentially put people under house arrest who have never received due process to show that they are ill or are carriers of a communicable disease represents a step toward tyranny.  

Now some may argue that the Governor has no intention of being a tyrant and has only the best motives.  Even so, there is a problem.  Going back to the Biblical example of identifying lepers, even if someone accused his neighbor of having leprosy, not having hated him in times past, and even if the priests were honest and not greedy for a bribe, lack of due process in examining possible lepers would almost certainly result in people being put outside the camp who did not deserve to be so treated.  This would represent a gross injustice to them and possible financial and social ruin for the rest of the family as well. 

Although I do not have estimates of how many people have been put out of work or owners who have had their businesses restricted or closed by the Governor’s Order, the number must be significant.  According to the order,

All places of public amusement, whether   indoors or outdoors, including, but not limited to, locations with amusement rides, carnivals, amusement parks, water parks, aquariums, zoos, museums, arcades, fairs, children's play centers, playgrounds, funplexes, theme parks, bowling alleys, movie and other theaters, concert and music halls, and country clubs or social clubs shall be closed.

Even businesses that are allowed to remain open have had restrictions placed on them.  For example, I had to pay a visit to my local computer store.  Upon arrival, I found on the door of the establishment that the store was prohibited from allowing more than thirty customers in the store at once.  This meant that the store had to pay associates to organize incoming customers in a way that would comply with this order rather than going about their normal duties.  Most likely, the store’s sales are being negatively impacted.  Further, customers were forced to bear the cost of waiting in line and of delays in completing their purchases. 

Now you may argue that this is a minor inconvenience, but multiply this statewide and the cost of complying with this new regulation is probably not small.     

Not Just an Ohio Problem

I have written in some detail about Medical Martial Law as it has been applied in the State of Ohio, because it’s where I live.  Many other states have similar or even more restrictive laws concerning the coronavirus outbreak. 

Just this weekend, President Donald Trump let it be known that he was thinking about imposing a quarantine on the states of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.  Politico reports that the measure would have been “an enforceable quarantine.” While it’s not clear what is meant by “enforceable quarantine,” it appears to mean severely restricting movement in and out of these states.  New York Governor Andrew Cuomo seemed to take it that way, asserting that the idea amounted to a “declaration of war on states.”

Outside the U.S. things aren’t any better.  Several countries in Europe have been locked down as has been Australia.

Closing Thoughts

The focus of this post has been to discuss one aspect of the governmental response to coronavirus that has received little attention from pundits, namely, it is an attempt to answer the question, what do the Scriptures say about quarantines? 

In the opinion of this author, there is a strong case to be made from the Bible that quarantines are permitted.  But this is not to say that all quarantines meet with biblical guidelines.  As the biblical approach to criminal justice is one of crime punishment, not crime prevention, so too the biblical standard for quarantine is disease “punishment” not disease prevention.   As one does not regulate society to prevent crime, thus punishing the innocent, so too one does not quarantine everyone, including the healthy, to prevent the spread of disease.  Just as in biblical criminal justice, punishment is meted out only after due process is given to the accused, so too the biblical approach to quarantine is to isolate only those individuals who have been found to carry the disease.  If it is unjust to punish the innocent along with the guilty, so too is it unjust to quarantine the healthy along with the sick.  Yet governments to a large degree have opted to do just this, quarantine the healthy along with the sick.  This is unjust.

And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.  For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.

• John 3:19-20

The words from John at the top of this post are readily recognized by Christians as coming from Jesus’ dialogue with Nicodemus, the Pharisee who came to inquire of him one night.  The immediate application of Jesus’ words is, of course, to himself as the light who came into the world and was rejected of men, for they loved evil and feared lest their deeds should be exposed.

But while Christ said these words in the context of explaining his person and purpose for coming in the flesh to Nicodemus, his comments have a wider application.  They are a specific case of a broader principle we see in Scripture, that of the Christian principle of openness and honesty.  Those who love the truth do what they do in the open.  They let their light shine before men that others may see their goods works and glorify their Father in heaven.  On the other hand, those who practice evil, those who have something to hide, they do their work in the dark, fearing to be seen by men.

One application of the principle of openness and light is the Christian idea of government as a servant of the people, not as their master.  When the disciples argued about who was the greatest, Jesus explained the Christian concept of leadership, which was radically different from the model the world offered.  Christ explained that the rulers of the Gentiles “exercised lordship” (lorded it over) them, but such was not to be the case among his followers.  Following Jesus example, those who would be first in the Kingdom of Heaven were to be servants of all.

With Jesus words in mind, it should come as no surprise that one of the side effects of the 16th century Reformation was a significant change for the better in civil government.  Writing in Christ and Civilization, John Robbins noted,

The revolution first accomplished in the churches could not be confined to them, but quickly spread to civil governments.  Not only was there a reduction in the power of churches in Protestant societies, but a reduction in the size and scope of civil government as well.  For example, Steven Ozment reports that “when the Reformation was consolidated in Rostock in 1534, it brought not only an end to the privileges of the clergy but also a government agreement to reduce its own number by about one-third,” and to submit to a detailed annual accounting (122).  Karl Holl, Professor of Church History at the University of Berlin (1906-1926), wrote, “…it was the Reformation that first set a rigid limit to the absolute power of the State.”

Now let those words sink in for just a moment.  If you’re like me and long to see the seemingly impossible, a return to limited, honest government, what took place at Rostock in 1534, the reduction of civil government by a third and its agreeing to submit to an annual accounting, appears as something not far from a miracle.

But just as the Christian Reformation brought about a “rigid limit to the absolute power of the State” in the 16th century, so too has the abandonment of Reformation doctrine in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries led to the recrudescence of big, unaccountable government.

The current presidential election cycle in the U.S. has produced no end to the calls for bigger government.  Indeed, on the Democratic side the candidates have spent months fighting it out to determine who can give away more public loot the fastest.  For the first time in my lifetime, among progressive Democrats there have been open calls for socialism.

The Republicans talk a better game on this point.  President Trump, for example, publicly stated that American would never be a socialist country to loud applause.  Very well, let us hope he is right.  But since that speech, the president has added another branch to the military and praised a major infrastructure bill in his latest State of the Union address just a few weeks ago.  Indeed, at the end of January Politico reported that “The federal deficit under President Donald Trump will top $1 trillion this year” and project an average deficit of $1.3 trillion over the next ten years.  In the opinion of this writer, the actual deficits likely will be much larger.

And while government – federal, state and local - keeps getting larger and larger and more and more intrudes into our lives, regardless of whether the Republicans or the Democrats are in power, it also is becoming steadily more secretive.

While not the only example of secret government, the Federal Reserve could certainly be put forth as Exhibit A in this regard. Technically not part of the federal government – although chartered by the Federal Reserve Act, it is privately owned - the Fed, America’s central bank, has been shrouded in darkness even before it was officially voted into existence on Christmas Eve, 1913.  In the first chapter of The Creature from Jeykyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve, author G. Edward Griffin describes the 1910 secret meeting on Jekyll Island, Georgia, where powerful senators and financiers met to draw up plans for the Federal Reserve.  It was, in Griffin’s words, “a classic conspiracy.”

Over the years, the Fed has jealously maintained it secretive nature.  One writer captured the mysterious nature of it quite well in the title of his book on the Fed, Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country.

Over the years various attempts have been made to open the Fed’s books and reveal the temple’s secrets, but to date they have come up short.  The last time Congress tried to pass a bill to increase Congressional scrutiny of the Fed, then Fed Chairman Janet Yellen wrote a three page letter to then Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi complaining that the proposal would “severely impair the Federal Reserve’s ability to carry out its mandate to foster maximum employment and stable prices.”  Nothing ever came of that bill.

When overnight repo rates suddenly spiked from around 2% to 10%, the Fed immediately swung into action to tamp rates back down.  This intervention, which was originally supposed to last a few days or a few weeks at most, is still going on nearly five months later.

One odd thing about it:  There has never been a clear, official explanation concerning the reason the overnight rates spiked as they did.

Back in October 2019, presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren wrote a letter to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin asking “why they [the Fed’s nightly bailouts of the repo market] were necessary.”  The letter made the news cycle for a day or two, then disappeared into the ether.  It seems that the powers-that-be sat Warren down and explained to her how things are, that one does not tug on Superman’s cape, even, and perhaps especially, a presidential candidate.

The Fed, it’s still shrouded in secrecy after all these years.

Just to be clear, this is not an endorsement of Elizabeth Warren’s presidential candidacy, but she was not wrong to ask for an explanation of the Fed’s actions.  Curiously, though, she went to the Secretary of the Treasury with her question, not to Jerome Powell, Chairman of the Fed.  The reason for her choice of action is unclear to this author.

To date, there still has been no adequate, official explanation why the Fed is bailing out the repo market in increasingly large amounts each night.  The official word is, move along folks, nothing to see here.

This has left truth seeking financial analysts to speculate about just what’s on fire to cause the spike in overnight lending rates an the now five months old bailout. One common suspect is Deutsche Bank (DB), the largest bank in Europe, which has been on fire for a number of years and almost certainly should have collapsed by now.  That it is still standing is evidence that DB is secretly being bailed out.  Given the Fed’s actions in 2008, it is not at all unreasonable to suspect that its bailout of the repo market is in some way related to keeping DB alive.

A Better Way

As was mentioned earlier in this post, Jesus’ words comparing the world’s approach to government – “the rulers of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them” – to the Christian approach to government, those who seek to lead are to serve, has a much wider application than just he church.

At the time of the Reformation, we began to see this put into action, as both the size and scope of government were reduced, and governments were subjected to an annual accounting.

But in the decadent 20th and 21st centuries, we have witnessed a reversal of the gains made during the 16th century.  Governments have grown ever larger, and governors have come to see themselves, not as the servants of the people, but as a privileged class to whom ordinary people must give obeisance.

In many nations throughout the West there is an increasing sense that government of the people, by the people and for the people - these words, by the way, known to most Americans as part of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, were not original with Lincoln, he was quoting John Wycliff who in 1384 wrote in the prologue of this translation of the Bible, “The Bible is for the Government of the People, by the People, and for the People -  has become a forgotten concept.

There is good reason for people to believe this.

But if Western nations are ever to recover some semblance of their lost liberties, that change will not come through the political process.  It will have to come through the pulpit.

Jesus said, “Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.” Jesus’ primary reference here was spiritual freedom, but it is not a stretch to see in his statement political and economic implications as well.

It was the Reformation’s teaching of Justification by Faith Alone that first brought spiritual, and later, political and economic freedom to the nations it touched.  And it is the disappearance of Reformation doctrine in those same nations that has led to their increasing slide into political authoritarianism.

Quite possibly the most egregious example of the enslavement of once free nations in Europe and North America is the erection of a system of secretive central banking in those same nations over the past century or so.

Ron Paul tells us that we need to audit and then end the Fed.  To this I can only say amen.

But for that to happen, the American people have a lot of repenting to do.

19 You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe-and shudder!

This is one of the most misunderstood verses in the Bible and the confusion which surrounds it is so pervasive that it is difficult to fully express the magnitude of its impact on the church. It is frequently cited to argue that belief, defined as knowledge with assent or understanding with assent, in the gospel is not enough to save, but that one must also have trust or commitment. This is inferred from the simple fact that the demons believe and perish. 

To illustrate this view let’s consider the writings of William Webster in his book The Church Of Rome at the Bar of History. 

For faith to be truly biblical, it must involve more than just the assent of the mind to objective truth about God, Christ, and salvation… Faith is foundational to true Christianity and it involves knowledge, assent, trust, and commitment. 

...the Epistle of James warns us against a faith which is empty and vain; that is one that acknowledges the objective facts of God, Christ, and salvation to be true but negates or neglects the other essential element of trust and commitment. The demons believe in that sense, but they perish (James 2:19). Intellectual assent alone is empty, James argues.[i]

Webster argues that according to James, intellectual assent is empty and vain. It is not enough to acknowledge the objective facts of God, Christ, and Salvation to be true because we must also have the additional and “essential elements of trust and commitment.” He then refers to James 2:19 and concludes that the demons believe in that sense but they perish. Likewise R.C. Sproul stated 

“According to James, even if I am aware of the work of Jesus, convinced intellectually that Jesus is the Son of God, that he died on the cross for my sins, and that he rose from the dead, I would at that point qualify to be a demon.”[ii]

Webster’s and Spoul’s understanding of this verse is partly influenced by the Latin threefold definition of faith, which is noticia (knowledge), assensus (assent), and fiducia (trust). The vast majority of English speaking Reformed theologians use the threefold definition of faith. The third element fiducia is most commonly translated as trust, but it has also variously been translated as commitment, obedience, repentance, resting, transformation, etc. This understanding of faith is deeply rooted in the Reformed tradition, but it has also been vigorously put forth by the proponents of Lordship Salvation in an effort to combat the antinomianism of the free grace movement. The view that one can be saved by belief alone, defined as knowledge and assent or understanding with assent, is often denigrated as easy-believism, and we are told that mere intellectual assent is insufficient to save. Doug Barnes argues that “salvation is by faith alone in Christ alone, but ‘faith alone’ is not ‘belief alone,’” and therefore he concludes that “belief alone is not enough.”[iii] 

None of these men have understood James’ point, and their use of the Latin definition of faith has led them to eisegete a wrong view into this text. Unfortunately this has resulted in multiple problems which can be challenging to sift through. Therefore we will deal with this in three parts. First we will address the improper use of the Latin definition. Then we will show the invalid conclusions of the views already expressed and we will walk out their logical implication. Finally, we will explain what James actually meant. 

The Latin Definition

This Latin definition of faith as noticia (knowledge or understanding), assensus (assent) and fiducia (trust) may seem appropriate for several reasons. First, from a cursory reading, it would appear that James says that belief alone is not enough to save. Obviously the demons know and assent to the truth but they perish. Secondly, it is right to advocate for a personal trust in Christ. One cannot be saved unless they trust in Jesus. So what’s the problem then? Why would we disagree with what Sproul, Webster, and Barnes said?

Their arguments rest on the notion that belief is different from faith because it lacks trust. They therefore define belief as noticia (knowledge or understanding) with assensus (assent) and they define faith as noticia (knowledge or understanding), assensus (assent) and fiducia (trust or commitment). The problem is that the Bible was not written in Latin. The New Testament was written in Greek and both of the words faith and belief are translated from the same Greek word pistis. This is why Luke Miner has pointed out that “these are not two different concepts in Greek but one (“faith” and “belief” are just alternate translations of the Greek word πιστiς). That these are interchangeable concepts is suggested by the fact that Bible translations will commonly use ‘faith’ in place of ‘belief’ or ‘have faith’ in place of ‘believe.’”[iv]

If the words faith and belief are translated from the same Greek word throughout the New Testament then there is no Biblical precedent for defining them differently when we arrive at James 2:19. This means that faith and belief are both defined as understanding with assent. This is what Gordon Clark argued for in his definition of faith. In What Is Saving Faith? he explained that “Faith, by definition, is assent to understood propositions. Not all cases of assent, even assent to Biblical propositions, are saving faith, but all saving faith is assent to one or more Biblical propositions.”[v] 

This of course leaves a lingering question: What about the third essential element of fiducia (trust)? How can we say that we are saved by faith alone if it is defined only as noticia (knowledge or understanding) and assensus (assent)? Didn’t we already admit that fiducia (trust) was necessary for salvation? It appears contradictory to say that one must have trust to be saved and that we are saved by faith or belief alone which are defined only as understanding with assent. John Robbins however explained that “Belief, that is to say, faith (there is only one word in the New Testament for belief, pistis) and trust are the same; they are synonyms. If you believe what a person says, you trust him. If you trust a person, you believe what he says. If you have faith in him, you believe what he says and trust his words.”[vi] In other words, trust is synonymous with belief and this is why it is wrong to suggest that one can believe and not trust. To argue that we need trust in addition to belief is simply redundant. This is why Clark argued that adding fiducia to faith is a tautology:

The crux of the difficulty with the popular analysis of faith into noticia (understanding), assensus (assent), and fiducia (trust), is that fiducia comes from the same root as fides (faith). Hence this popular analysis reduces to the obviously absurd definition that faith consists of understanding, assent, and faith. Something better than this tautology must be found.[vii]

Fiducia (trust) is frequently put forth as an extra “psychological” element that many Protestants add to faith which Clark and Robbins tirelessly refuted as confused, meaningless, and redundant. To conclude from this verse that belief is more than understanding with assent and therefore trust is necessary in addition to belief is logically invalid. This will lead us into the next section as we expose the invalid conclusion and their logical implications. 

The Invalid Inference 

Notice that neither Sproul nor Webster actually quote James; but rather simply refer to this verse and then make an inference. They have inferred that belief in the gospel is insufficient to save because James says, “Even the demons believe and tremble!” Therefore something else is required. One must not only understand and assent, but also trust in the gospel in order to be saved. As we have already shown, this is confused, meaningless, redundant and unbiblical, but now we will show that it is logically invalid as well. 

The reason their inferences are invalid and wrong is because James says nothing about demons acknowledging the “objective facts of God, Christ, and salvation to be true” as Webster stated. Nor does he say anything about the demons believing that Jesus "died on the cross for [their] sins, and that he rose from the dead” as Sproul stated. One could argue that they are putting their own words into James' mouth. Here again is what James actually says: "You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe-and shudder!" 

As Dr. John Robbins pointed out, “James mentions only belief in one God - monotheism. Since belief in one God is belief in one true proposition, James says, ‘You do well.’ But monotheism is not saving belief because it is not about Jesus Christ and his work.”[viii] Dr. Gordon Clark also corrected this wrong inference: “[The] argument here is that since the devils assent and true believers also assent, something other than assent is needed for saving faith. This is a logical blunder. The text says the devils believe in monotheism.”[ix]

This of course is invalid because James says nothing about demons believing the gospel. But James does say however that they do believe. If then, one hopes to establish on the basis of this verse that the difference between those who are saved and those who are not saved rests in the necessary element of trust in addition to belief, then we are faced with three logically invalid conclusions. To show this, let’s accept, for the sake of argument that the demons are lost because they believe but do not trust, and therefore in order to be saved we must not only believe, but we must also trust.  This logical blunder, which results from inferring something that isn’t there in the text, leads to three invalid conclusions. 1) Intellectual assent is different from trust. 2) Belief alone in the gospel is insufficient to save. 3) The demonic faith, or belief, lacks trust. 

Assent and Trust

Immediately after citing James 2:19 in which lost demons are said to believe, Webster concludes “Intellectual assent alone is empty.” Clark however, pointed out that, “It is illogical to conclude that belief is not assent just because belief in monotheism does not save.”[x] James nowhere distinguishes the type of faith or belief between Christians and lost demons but rather the difference is the propositions which are believed. The proposition that the demons are said to believe is that there is one God, and it is clear from the fact that they tremble that they trust in the truthfulness of this proposition. When the demons encountered Jesus they “cried out, ‘What have you to do with us, O Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?’" (Matthew 8:29) The demons cried out and asked if he was there to torment them because they believed or trusted that he could torment them. They do not trust him for salvation because it is not offered to them but they do trust that he can torment them. Therefore one cannot logically infer that the demons mentioned by James lack trust in the truthfulness of the proposition they are said to believe. This is why John Robbins pointed out that “to use the words believe and trust interchangeably is good English and sound theology because they are synonyms.”[xi]

Belief Alone is Insufficient

Let’s first remember the words of Doug Barnes when he asserted “faith alone is not belief alone” and then concluded that “Belief alone is not enough.” After giving Mr. Barnes a much needed rebuke for poor scholarship John Robbins offered a very simple and sound refutation of his conclusion:

It follows, does it not, that when Christ said, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life,” that he was misleading Nicodemus? And when the Apostle Paul said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved” he was misleading the jailer? One might quote scores of similar verses, but these two will do to show how far Barnes is from Christian soteriology. According to the Scriptures, belief of the Gospel, and only belief of the Gospel, saves.[xii]

The Scriptural refutations of Barnes’ position are enough to settle the matter but let’s provide the logical refutation for good measure. This view that belief is not enough would logically imply that some who believe the gospel are not saved, to which Robbins responded: “If faith consists of three elements – knowledge, assent (or belief), and trust – and if a person does not have faith unless all three elements are present, then unregenerate persons may understand and believe-assent to–the truth. In fact, those who advocate the three-element view insist that unregenerate persons may understand and believe the truth – their prime example of such persons is demons. But if unregenerate persons may believe the truth, then the natural man can indeed receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are not foolishness unto him, contrary to 1 Corinthians 2 and dozens of other verses. Belief – and the whole of salvation – is not a gift of God. Natural men can do their own believing, thank you very much. The three-element view of faith leads straight to a contradiction – faithless believers – and therefore must be false.”[xiii]

Demonic Belief Lacks Trust 

The views espoused by Webster, Sproul, and Barnes would logically imply that if demons had trust then they too would be saved. To conclude that belief, understanding and assenting to the propositions of the gospel, is not enough to save, from the fact that this does not save the demons, and that a third element of trust is required, logically implies that if the demons had this third element of trust, then they too would be saved. But that simply is not the case and therefore the whole argument falls apart. The reason the demons are not saved is because they have no savior. It is not because they don’t have the right kind of faith. It is invalid to deduce from this verse that belief (assenting to understood propositions) in the gospel is insufficient to save because James says nothing about demons believing the gospel. We have to remember that it is a basic rule of logical deduction that the content in the conclusion must be derived from one or more of the premises. Since verse 19 makes no mention of the demons assenting to understood propositions of the gospel we cannot logically deduce that understanding with assent to the propositions of the gospel is insufficient to save. 

All of these conclusions are logically absurd. Therefore, the difference cannot be in a belief that is distinct from faith or trust. There are multiple reasons to reject this understanding of James 2:19, which is influenced by the imposition of a Latin definition and suggests that belief alone is insufficient to save. 

1. The Bible was not written in Latin and the words faith and belief are both translated from the same Greek word pistis. There is therefore no Biblical precedent for defining them differently when we arrive at James 2:19.

2. Belief and faith are synonymous with trust and it is therefore wrong to suggest that one can believe and not trust.

3. Fiducia comes from the same root as fides (faith). Hence this popular analysis reduces to the obviously absurd definition that faith consists of understanding, assent, and faith. This is a tautology. 

4. It is an invalid inference to conclude that belief in the gospel is not sufficient to save because James says the demons believe in monotheism. 

5. This leads to an absurd contradiction that some who believe the Gospel will perish.

6. To argue that understanding and assent are not enough to save because it doesn’t save the demons, and that one needs the extra element of trust, logically implies that if the demons had this then they too would be saved.

What James Actually Meant 

Why then does James bring up their belief that God is one and reference the demons? We have to remember the context of the passage and the broader context of the letter of James. This letter was written by James, the brother of Jesus (Matt. 13:55) and leader of the Jerusalem church (Acts 15). It was written around A.D. 40–45 to Jewish Christians living outside Palestine. James is speaking to Jewish converts and the immediate context of this passage shows that he is addressing a specific type of hypocrisy - religious hypocrisy. 

Both Paul and James confront different issues with members from the same congregation of Jewish converts in Jerusalem. In the book of Galatians Paul confronts the Judaizes over the issue of legalism and he identifies them as the circumcision party that came from James in Gal 2:12. This was the same group that he and Barnabas contended with over the gospel in Acts 15, and it is the same group he anathematized in Galatians 1:6-9. James, however, is confronting the issue of antinomianism with members from the same congregation in Jerusalem. At first this may seem odd because we tend to think of legalism and antinomianism as antithetical to one another. But they are not so much antithetical to each other as they are antithetical to the gospel. Apart from the light of the gospel, legalism will produce antinomianism and vice versa. 

This is because the natural man who rejects the gospel must attempt to establish his own righteousness by the law, and therefore become a legalist. But because he is unable to keep the law, and yet is self-righteous, he is an antinomian. This is why Jesus refers to the legalists who profess their good works to him at the last judgement as “workers of lawlessness” (Matthew 7:21-23). 

The antinomianism James now confronts is made manifest by a form of religious hypocrisy amongst the members of this Jewish congregation. Therefore he references The Shema when he acknowledges, “You believe that God is one.” 

The Shema was the most important prayer in Israel and it served as the centerpiece of the morning and evening Jewish prayer services. “The first verse encapsulates the monotheistic essence of Judaism: ‘Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God, the LORD is one’ (Hebrew: שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יְהוָה אֶחָֽד׃), found in Deuteronomy 6:4. Observant Jews consider The Shema to be the most important part of the prayer service in Judaism.”[xiv] These Jewish converts would have immediately recognized James’ reference and they would have understood his point. 

He was not saying that belief alone, understanding with assent, in the gospel is not enough to save, as some modern English speaking Christians tend to think. Instead, he was confronting their religious hypocrisy, and the sting of comparing their piety to that of the demons would have been understood as a clear indictment against them. It could even be said that the demons had a more proper response than these hypocrites because at least they trembled. 

This is the key to understanding James’ point in this verse. Religious hypocrites that are in the visible church will tend to believe some measure of truth revealed in scripture. They therefore have a form of religious piety but not a transformed life, because in spite of the fact that they believe certain propositions to be true they do not believe the gospel. There is a type of religious faith which does not produce works because it is not a faith gifted by God and regeneration has not taken place. The difference however is not in the type of faith or belief, but in the propositions believed. 

Sean Gerety draws out further valuable insight from the demons' trembling that helps us to understand the nature of religious hypocrisy in the visible church. Not only can false converts or religious hypocrites believe true propositions revealed in scripture, but they can also experience heartfelt passion or emotion from these beliefs. Gerety writes, 

Another overlooked aspect of James is not only what the demons believe (God is one), but their reaction in response to this belief (trembling). James is teaching us that not only is belief in God and monotheism not enough to make someone a Christian, but the sincerity and “heartfelt” nature of that belief also isn’t something which saves a person — nor should we be fooled by such displays. Of course, this would put most Televangelists out of business. You might say James is providing an interesting refutation of the Kierkegaardian idea of “infinite passion” and the idea that it is the “passion” or conviction one brings to the objects of their beliefs that saves and not the propositions believed.[xv]

Gerety’s insight is extremely valuable in helping us to understand the nature and deception of false converts. Many people are deceived into thinking they are genuine believers precisely because they believe some measure of truth and they often display heartfelt emotions. Unfortunately this insight is lost on most theologians today because they have not taken the time to understand James. What’s worse is that they have insisted on perpetuating false notions of faith, and eisegete their wrong views into the text. This, no doubt, has plagued the church with much confusion. 

[i] Webster, William, The Church of Rome at the Bar of History, by William Webster, Banner of Truth Trust, 1996, pp. 133–134.

[ii] Robbins, John W. “R. C. Sproul on Saving Faith.” Trinity Foundation, 2007, trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=238.

[iii] Barnes, Doug. “Gordon Clark and Sandemanianism.” Banner of Truth USA, 10 Jan. 2005, banneroftruth.org/us/resources/articles/2005/gordon-clark-and-sandemanianism/ 

[iv] Miner, Luke. “What Is It to Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ?” Trinity Foundation. Accessed February 14, 2020. http://trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=330.

[v] Gordon H. Clark, What Is Saving Faith? (Unicoi, TN: The Trinity Foundation, 2004), p. 88, http://www.trinitylectures.org/what-is-saving-faith-p-60.html. Emphasis ours. This book combines Faith and Saving Faith and The Johannine Logos into one volume.

[vi] Robbins, John W. “R. C. Sproul on Saving Faith.” Trinity Foundation, 2007, trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=238.

[vii] Gordon H. Clark, "Saving Faith", The Trinity Review (Dec 1979), http://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=10

[viii] Robbins, John W. “R. C. Sproul on Saving Faith.” Trinity Foundation, 2007, trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=238.

[ix]  Gordon H. Clark, What Is Saving Faith? (Unicoi, TN: The Trinity Foundation, 2004), p. 152

[x]  Clark, What Is Saving Faith?, p. 153.

[xi]  Robbins, John W. “R. C. Sproul on Saving Faith.” Trinity Foundation, 2007, trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=238.

[xii] Barnes, Doug. “Gordon Clark and Sandemanianism.” Banner of Truth USA, 10 Jan. 2005, banneroftruth.org/us/resources/articles/2005/gordon-clark-and-sandemanianism/.

[xiii] Robbins, John. “The Church.” Trinity Foundation. Accessed February 14, 2020. http://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=83

[xiv]  “Shema Yisrael.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, January 20, 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shema_Yisrael.

[xv] Gerety, Sean. “Demonic Theology.” God's Hammer, May 1, 2009. https://godshammer.wordpress.com/2007/09/17/demonic-theology/?fbclid=IwAR1otzI0WaDJqDqv9Ue_uuSIQaB_NvL8h57NSLOC73ymG5zcy7YbeuGBlX8.

“There’s a historic battle going on now across the West, in Europe, America and elsewhere. It is globalism against populism.  And you may loath populism, but I tell you a funny thing, it’s becoming very popular.”

• Nigel Farage

As of January 31, 2020, Great Britain is no longer part of the European Union (EU).  Britain’s success in parting ways with the EU, what is commonly called Brexit, short for British Exit from the EU, is the culmination of nearly 30 years of work by Britons opposed to the Maastricht Treaty, which the was signed by the U.K.’s conservative government in 1992, making Great Britain part of the EU.

In June 2016, a referendum was held asking voters whether they wanted to remain in the EU or leave.  Despite a great deal of opposition from the establishment, the vote went 52% in favor of Brexit, with 48% electing to remain in the EU.

Although interests dedicated to keeping Britain in the EU worked hard to subvert Brexit, the resounding victory of the conservatives under the leadership of Boris Johnson on December 12, 2019, effectively guaranteed the success of Brexit.

In this post, I don’t intend to get into the weeds of the political process that brought about Brexit.  Neither do I intend to write much about the principle figures who supported Brexit or opposed it.  My aim here is to step back and to view Brexit in its larger historical context, that of conflict between the Protestant Westphalian World Order and the New World Order globalism of the Roman Catholic Church-State (RCCS).

Though very little attention has been paid to the religious aspect of Brexit by mainstream journalism, and though it may seem strange to some to speak of any relationship between the 16th century Protestant Reformation and the 21st century Brexit, this author holds that, not only is there a relationship between the Reformation and Brexit, but that the relationship is a close one.  Indeed, it is not an overstatement to put the relationship in these terms:  No Protestant Reformation, no Brexit.  It’s that simple.

Globalism:  Protestants Oppose, Catholics Embrace            

On January 12, 2017, the Washington Post ran an article titled “Catholics like the European Union more than Protestants do. This is why,” in which political scientists Brent Nelsen and James Guth note the split between Protestants and Roman Catholic over the EU and explain the reasons for this phenomenon.

After commenting that there’s a great deal of skepticism about the role of religion in European politics, Brent Nelsen observed,

But in 2001, we started looking at Eurobarometer data, and it’s very clear that Catholics, controlling for all other factors, favor the E.U. more than do Protestants.  These attitudes were forged in the Reformation, with the development of two different approaches to governance in Europe. Catholics see Europe as a single cultural whole that ought to be governed in some coordinated way. Protestants, on the other hand, have seen the nation state as a bulwark against Catholic hegemony, and they have been very reluctant to give it up, even as religion has become less important.

This is an excellent summary of the very distinct views of international relations held by Protestants and Romanists.  Later in the article, Nelsen expands on this idea,

Catholicism has always been a universal religion.  It was the successor to the Roman Empire, and in Catholic theology and ideology, there’s always been an emphasis on the unity of Christendom. Even today, even though the pope doesn’t claim secular authority, there’s still supranational governance within the Roman Catholic Church. So Catholics have always been very comfortable, even if subconsciously, with the notion of supranational governance.

After the Reformation, Protestants, on the other hand, attempted to carve out areas of religious liberty and caught on to the notion of the nation state. They didn’t invent the concept — it was invented by both sides as they came out of the religious wars of the 17th century — but the Protestants saw the nation state as very important for guaranteeing their liberty. For people in the Nordic states and the United Kingdom, the continent was the source of instability and of hegemony, and that’s part of why they developed a strong commitment to the nation and to national sovereignty — this was really the main vehicle for defense against, first, expanding Catholic control in the 16th and 17th centuries, and then, later on, Napoleon and Hitler.

We can summarize Nelsen’s comments thus: The Roman Catholic Church-State, as successor to the Roman Empire, believes in globalism, in empire building and in a top-down structure of world government, whereas Protestants view these ideas as tyrannical and see the nation-state as a bulwark against them and as a guarantor of personal liberty.

What Saith the Scriptures?

So who’s right in this conflict?  Are Romanists calling for world government – it’s remarkable to this author that, despite the many, open, and aggressive calls for world government by popes and other high officials of the Roman Catholic Church-State, so little note is made of Rome’s push for globalism;  this is true both among members of the mainstream media and the independent, alternate media; it’s as if reporters and pundits all have veils over their hearts when writing about Rome – in the right, or are Protestants who view the nation state as a bulwark against tyranny?

Very obviously, the Protestants have it right.  So where are the Scriptural proofs?  While this author does not claim to exhaust in this brief post all the Bible has to say in support of independent nation states and in opposition to globalist tyranny, it is possible to hit the highlights.

Empires are Monuments to Sinful Man’s Pride  

The Tower of Babel is one early example of man’s sinful attempt to build a world empire as a monument to his own pride.  After the flood, the Lord commanded Noah and his sons, much in the same way as he had Adam, to “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.”  But Noah’s descendants did not obey, preferring instead to stay in one place and to erect a monument to their own pride.  As Genesis 11 recounts, the Lord responded and put an end to their enterprise.  He confused their language and “scattered them [the people] over the face of all the earth.”

In his address on Mars Hill, the Apostle Paul sheds further light on God’s reason for doing what he did to Babel.  According to Paul, confusing their language and scattering them across the face of the earth appears to have been an act of God’s mercy.  Paul explains, “And He has made form one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him” (Acts 17:26-27).

Now “nations” (Greek ethnos) here has a different, though related, meaning to the modern term “nation state.”  Nations, in Paul’s usage, were what we today would call “people groups.”  That is, a nation was a collection of individuals sharing a common ancestry, language and culture.  A nation state, as we use that term today, although not identical to the what Paul meant by “nations”, is a closely related idea.  A nation state, as it’s come to be understood, is the political expression of a particular people group.

To prove this, simply think about the nation states of the modern world.  They have, historically, represented people with a common ancestry, language and culture.  This is not to says that there can be no distinctions among people within a nation state.  But, practically speaking, it appears that there are limits to how much diversity can exist within a nation state before that nation state itself ceases to exist.

If it’s true that God approves of nations in the people groups sense of the term, and it is, it also appears that he likewise approves of the political expression of people groups, what we have come to call the nation state.  This can be seen in the radical reorganization of international relations that occurred in the century following the Protestant Reformation.

The Westphalian World Order  

The Thirty Years’ War and the Treaty of Westphalia that settled it, are among the most important, most positive, and yet among the most forgotten by-products of the Reformation.

So forgotten are the Thirty Year’s War and the Treaty of Westphalia, that probably a large percentage of the American people has never even heard of them, let alone could tell you anything about them.  But if you explain the ideas of the Treaty of Westphalia to them, not only will people generally agree with them, but they likely will say that it’s just common sense.

The Thirty Year’s War took place from 1618-1648 and was a battle between the Catholic and Protestant states of the Holy Roman Empire.  Despite the guarantee of religious freedom within the Holy Roman Empire as a result of the Peace of Augsburg, Emperor Ferdinand II attempted to force citizens of the empire to follow Roman Catholic teaching. The Protestants refused to go along, and the long war, the first pan-European war, one that resulted in more than 8 million casualties, followed.  In short, the good guys won, the papal forces were defeated, and the world has never been the same since.

In a nutshell, the Westphalian World Order is the principle of Mind Your Own Business (MYOB) applied to individual countries.  It may surprise many people, but MYOB is a Christian principle.  For example, in 2 Thessalonians, Paul writes, “For we hear that there are some who walk among you in a disorderly manner, not working at all, but are busybodies.  Now those who are such we command and exhort through our Lord Jesus Christ that they work in quietness and eat their own bread” (2 Thes. 11-12).

Just as there are people who sinfully want to mind everyone else’s business, so too are there national leaders that sinfully want to mind everyone else’s business.  Such was the case of Rome in the pre-Reformation period.  During the Thirty Years’ War, Rome and her proxies were fighting to continue their long-held traditions of murder, theft and extortion, but received, as it were, a mortal wound from the Protestants.

But Rome, though substantially weakened, never gave up her globalist ambitions.  Today, Rome is an institution recovering from that mortal wound.

The European Union as the Fourth Reich

Students of the Second World War are doubtless familiar with the term The Third Reich (German, Die Dritte Reich), which is what the Nazis called Germany under Hitler’s regime.  The German word “Reich” can be translated as “empire, kingdom, or realm.”

Now calling Nazi Germany the Third Reich implies that there was a First and Second Reich.  So what were these?  In his book Mystery, Babylon The Great I.A.

Sadler identified the Holy Roman Empire as the First Reich (111) and the unified Germany from 1870 – 1918 as the Second Reich (214-216).  The Third Reich was, of course, Nazi Germany which lasted from 1933-1945.

Sadler draws a number of parallels between the Hitler’s Third Reich and the EU, which he calls the Fourth Reich.  To wit,

• The EU’s attempt to create “a collectivist European State, with a single economy and currency are remarkably similar to the Nazi plan in 1942 of a united Europe under the control of Germany,

• The fall of communism in eastern Europe brought about a unified Germany and the eastward expansion of the EU and NATO. A unified Germany has become the dominant force in central Europe, “revealing a disturbing parallel with the growth of the Third Reich” (264).

• Czechoslovakia was split in two with the Czech Republic becoming aligned closely with Germany, mirroring Germany’s occupation of the Sudetenland in 1938,

• “Austria then joined the European Union mirroring the Anschluss with Germany in 1938” (264).

Sadler concludes, “Today, through the Maastricht Treaty, national independence has been virtually abolished in favour of a European superstate, bearing an uncanny resemblance to Hitler’s Third Reich.”-

Reichs Under the Control of Rome

Though separated by time – the Holy Roman Empire got its start in the 9th century under Charlemagne – the four Reichs have this in common, they were/are all collectivist empires heavily influenced, indeed one could argue, under the control of, the Roman Catholic Church-State.

• The Holy Roman Emperor was crowned by the pope.

• Sadler notes that during the years of the Second Reich, “the Vatican progressively aligned itself with Germany, ensuring the balance of policies shifted away from those of Protestant Prussia towards that of a pro-Romanist German Empire, which forged an alliance with the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Austria-Hungary had long been a bastion of the Jesuits and the Church of Rome in Central and Eastern Europe” (214).

• The Third Reich famously signed a concordat with Rome. For details, see Hitler’s Pope, The Secret History of Pius XII by Robert Cornwell.

• The Fourth Reich, the EU, has been widely supported by the Roman Catholic Church-State. Indeed, the EU got its start with the Treaty of Rome in 1957, and the popes of Rome have consistently supported the EU.

Many have argued, and this author is in agreement with them, that the EU, properly understood is really the reincarnation of the Holy Roman Empire.  As Sadler notes, the full name of the First Reich was “Sacrum Romanum Imperium Nationis Germanicae”, The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation (111).  Although there were many non-German nations that were part of the Holy Roman Empire, the core of the Empire’s economic and political power was Germany, and the Emperor was crowned by the pope.

[caption id="attachment_5345" align="alignnone" width="718"] Pope Francis and German Chancellor Angela Merkel shake hands on the occasion of their private audience, at the Vatican, Saturday, June 17, 2017. (L'Osservatore Romano/Pool Photo via AP)[/caption]

In like fashion, the core of the EU’s economic and political power is Germany, and the current Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, though nominally Lutheran, is a close ally of the Holy See.

Brexit in Context, A Protestant Victory

With all this history in mind, Brexit can be seen in a new light.  In the opinion of this author, one could argue that Brexit really ought to be seen as the culmination of a sort of second Thirty Years’ War.  Worth noting, is that it took nearly the same amount of time for Nigel Farage and others to bring about Brexit – 27 years – as it did for the Allies to defeat the Catholic forces of the Holy Roman Empire.

In support of this, the idea that Brexit can be seen as a sort of second Thirty Years’ War, let us return to the Washington Post article referenced above.   In response to the question, “Did religion play a part in the Brexit vote?” author James Guth responded,

Yes. If you look at the 2014 European Parliamentary Election Study, in the run-up to the Brexit vote, it’s clear that in the United Kingdom, Catholics were supportive of the E.U., as were minority religions — Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists — whereas Evangelical Protestants were the most critical of the E.U. And a lot of the surveys that were done just before and after the Brexit vote, even though they weren’t very good at identifying different religious groups, found pretty consistently that the more Protestant you were, the more critical you were of the E.U. That may have made the difference: If those Protestants had voted the way the average citizen of the United Kingdom had, Brexit wouldn’t have passed (emphasis added).

When asked, “Is Catholic support for the E.U. a result of explicit church guidance? Or is it simply an implicit cultural value?” James Guth had this very interesting response,

It’s both. The Catholic Church has explicitly supported European integration since World War II. Every pope since the end of World War II has been very supportive of the E.U. In 2014, Pope Francis gave a talk at the European Parliament about the need for the E.U. to rediscover its vision. Catholics are getting cues from the top, even if they’re subtle ones.

It’s the same story with Protestants. In the United Kingdom, you have Evangelical pastors who, on the Sunday before the Brexit referendum, were talking about how leaving the E.U. was the better Christian choice. I was at a conference in Oxford a couple of years ago, and on Sunday, I attended an Evangelical Anglican congregation. The greeter who met us at the door asked me what I was there for, and I explained that I was giving a paper on religion and European identity. He said, “Well, I think you’ve come to the wrong place. We don’t have any Europeans in this congregation.” People are getting cues like this all the time, from the clergy, from others in the congregation. It’s a pervasive cultural force, even if it’s becoming weaker (emphasis added).

Given the history of Roman Catholic attempts to reestablish its hegemony in Europe through support of the EU, and beyond through various globalist initiatives, the Brexiteers successful campaign to pull Britain out of the EU must be seen as a resounding win, not only for Great Britain, but also for all men everywhere who oppose tyranny and love liberty.

Closing Thoughts

“The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those who exercise authority over them are called ‘benefactors,’” said Jesus to his disciples, who were disputing among themselves about who was the greatest.  Jesus reminded his disciples that it was the unbelieving pagan rulers who oppressed the people while seeking the praise of men.  Jesus went on to tell them, “But not so among you,” and continued by teaching them the principle of servant-leadership.  It is from this that we get the Christian idea of government as servant.

The application of Christ’s words to our present topic is easy to see.  The secular rulers and popes of our day act with the same high-handed disregard for personal liberty as the ancient emperors and rulers Jesus used in his example.  They pretend to be for the people, but their policies are actually destructive of the best interests of the very people they claim to represent.  Nevertheless, they wish to be seen as benefactors and love to be lauded as such.  This haughty spirit can be seen in the popes of Rome by their support for the EU and in the bureaucratic minions who carry out the EU’s marching orders.

In the opinion of this author, the original vote for Brexit in 2016, the election of Donald Trump that same year, the resounding victory of the Tories and Boris Johnson in 2019, and now the successful completion of Brexit should be seen as God’s grace to the people of Great Britain and the United States.  This is not to suggest that everything about Brexit, Boris Johnson and Donald Trump is perfect and above reproach.

But warts and all, what the people of the Great Britain and the United States actually received, is so far superior compared to what they might have received, and perhaps even deserved to receive, that this author cannot help but see God’s gracious and providential hand at work.

In America, we dodged a real bullet in 2016, coming close to electing globalist Hillary Clinton.  Had she become president, she and her globalist advisors would have quickly gone about the business of importing millions more welfare migrants and creating a permanent socialist, Democratic electoral majority.  It would have been the end of America as we know it.

Had the Brexit vote gone the other way in 2016, had the Labour Party and Jerremy Corbyn carried the election in December 2019, Britain likewise would have been in a very different, and much worse, position.

This author tends to be rather pessimistic by nature, always waiting around for the next disaster.  One could even argue that’s justified given the rapid downgrade in society so evident all around.

But all the bad news should not blind Christians to God’s grace, in their own lives and in broader society.  God is still very much in charge, and always has been.  There is not one thing in all of history that takes place but that he has brought it about both for his own glory and for the good of his own people, who were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world.

The bottom line is this, Antichrist took a good beating from Brexit, and in that Christians can rejoice.

Let us take encouragement from this win, trusting in God to grant us wisdom and strength day by day.

Q. 62.  What is the visible church?

A. The visible church is a society made up of all such as in all ages and places of the world do profess the true religion, and of their children.

            - Westminster Larger Catechism

Last week it was announced that the U.S. State Department had adopted a new rule governing the issuance of category B nonimmigrant visas.  The rule, which took effect on Friday, Jan. 24, is aimed at reducing birth tourism.  Birth tourism is the practice of expectant mothers traveling to the United States to give birth on U.S. soil for the purpose of acquiring American citizenship for their children.

For those of us who have advocated for reform of America’s disastrous immigration laws in a way that protects the legitimate interest of American citizens, this was a welcomed, if limited, victory.  It is a welcomed victory in that, in the words of the State Department document outlining the ruling, “This rule will help prevent operators in the birth tourism industry from profiting off treating U.S. citizenship as a commodity, sometimes through potentially criminal acts…”  It is a limited victory in that it leaves open the larger, more important question, of birthright citizenship.  Specifically, the question of to whom birthright citizenship properly applies.

In the opinion of this author, birthright citizenship properly applies only to children born to parents, either both, or at least one of them, possessing American citizenship.  The notion that a child can rightfully acquire American citizenship by virtue of being born on American soil, regardless of the citizenship status of the parents, is foreign both to the Bible and, in the view of this author, to the Constitution.  

Why the Rule Change?

The Public Notice from the Department of State lays out the reasoning behind the rule change, citing concerns about national security and criminal activity associated with the birth tourism industry (Public Notice, page 1)– yes, to the surprise of many Americans there is such a thing as the birth tourism industry.  Further down in the Notice, one finds other good reasons to end the practice of birth tourism.  For example, many times the birth tourists stick American taxpayers with their hospital bills, and this despite their having large sums of money available to pay for the medical procedures.  The notice also cites the defrauding of “property owners when leasing the apartments and houses used in their birth tourism schemes” (Notice, 11).

But for all the problems caused by birth tourism, there was no language that formally prohibited this activity in the regulations that covered visa issuance.

What has Changed? 

Category B nonimmigrant visas historically have been used by individuals engaged in birth tourism.  Such visas are issued by the U.S. to allow foreigners to travel to the United States for the purpose of pleasure, defined or the purpose of visa issuance as, “legitimate activities of a recreational character, including tourism, amusement, visits with friends or relatives, rest, medical treatment, and activities of a fraternal, social, or services nature” (Notice, 2).

The State Department has updated their rules to include language stating, “that the term pleasure…does not include travel for the primary purpose of obtaining United States citizenship for a child by giving birth in the United States” (Notice, 2-3).

In addition to explicitly prohibiting visa issuance for the primary purpose of giving birth in the United States, the new language governing nonimmigrant B visas requires that someone coming to the U.S. for medical treatment, “has the means and intent to pay for the medical treatment and all incidental expenses, including transportation and living expenses” (Notice, 3). 

The White House Statement    

NPR reports that White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham issued a statement calling birth tourism a burden on hospital resources.  She added, “It [the State Department rule change] will also defend American taxpayers from having their hard-earned dollars siphoned away to finance the direct and downstream costs associated with birth tourism.” 

NPR goes on to note that birthright citizenship – birthright citizenship as currently practiced in the U.S. allows that any child (with a few exceptions) born on U.S. soil is deemed an American citizen, regardless of the citizenship of the parents – became an issue in 2015, with then candidate Donald Trump calling for the elimination of it.  Trump also revived talk about birthright citizenship just prior to the 2018 mid-term elections and apparently is now bringing back this issue ahead of the 2020 election.

This observer long has been frustrated by the White House’s inaction on reforming birthright citizenship and cautiously sees the State Department’s rule change as perhaps signaling more aggressive action to come on this issue.

Other Views on the Rule Change

As you may expect, not everyone is happy about these new rules.  According to a report by ABC, Shilpa Phadke, a vice president at the Center for American Progress – a liberal policy think-tank – denounced the change.  “This rule is yet another attempt by the administration to control women’s bodies, driven by racist and misogynist assumptions about women born outside the United States.”

This is a strange charge, as this rule change has nothing whatsoever to do with race, neither is it “misogynistic.”  Rather, the rule has everything to do with preventing the abuse of American citizenship, what the State Department Notice correctly called turning American citizenship into a commodity which serves as a source of profit for those engaged in potentially criminal acts. 

As serious as America’s immigration problem is, Phadke’s reaction points to another problem that may be even more serious: the near total inability of liberal and progressive public intellectuals to talk about matters of public policy in terms other than the shrillest language possible.  It’s not enough for Phadke to disagree with the State Department’s rule change and explain the reasons for her disagreement, but as a good cultural Marxist she feels obligated to impugn the character of those who support the rule change by calling them, in effect, a deplorable basket of racists and sexists.  It’s as if no other explanation for the rule change is possible or needed.  It’s as if Phadke and others of her ilk think all they need to do is shriek “racism!” every time they don’t agree with a given policy and their intellectual work is done. 

Progressive intellectuals of Phadke’s ilk not only contribute nothing positive to public discourse, but actually do significant damage to the country.   Their constant shrieking of “racism, sexism and homophobia” have so poisoned the well of public discourse, that it is nearly impossible for American’s to so much as have a civil discussion about important matters of public policy, let alone propose solutions that address the serious problems facing our nation. 

A Biblical View of Birthright Citizenship    

Birth tourism and the current misinterpretation of birthright citizenship by Constitutional lawyers are closely related, but distinct issues.  The current understanding of birthright citizenship holds that any child (with a few exceptions) born on American soil is deemed an Americana citizen, regardless of the citizenship status of the parents. 

It is this misinterpretation of birthright citizenship that has opened the door for birth tourism and all the abuses of American citizenship entailed by it.

One way of helping think through the issue of birthright citizenship is to look at it in the context of what the Bible has to say about government more broadly.

Bible scholars acknowledge three types of government:  family, church and civil.  Each of them has its distinct sphere of authority.  Parents have the power of the rod.  The church has the power of the keys.  And civil government, it has the power of the sword.  Although the three types of government have different areas of authority and their own means of enforcing their rules, there are some common threads connecting them.

One thread is that men are given the authority to rule in all three.  The father is the head of the family.  Church officers are men only.  And despite the feminism that in recent times has come to dominate the thinking even of Christians who should know better, authority in civil government is also reserved for men.

But patriarchy is not the only thing the three forms of government have in common.  The method of how one becomes subject to the authority of a particular government is also similar.  To put this in more familiar language, let us ask this question:  How does one become a family member?  The most common method is by being born into it.  That is to say, one becomes a family member and subject to the jurisdiction of it by natural birth. 

There is another way one can become a family member, adoption.  In this case the parents agree to take in the child of another and treat him as if he were their own child. 

Inclusion in the visible church works in the same way as the family.  Children of at least one believing parent are considered to be part of the visible church in the same manner as natural children of parents are considered part of the family.  Of course, birth to believing parents is not the only way one can become a member of the visible church.  A credible profession of faith allows believing adults to receive baptism and inclusion in the visible church as well. 

The same principle that obtains in the case of family and church government also applies to civil government.  How does one become a citizen of a nation?  By birth or by oath of citizenship.  For example, I have my American citizenship by virtue of being born to two parents, both of whom are themselves American citizens.  It is also possible for those subject to the jurisdiction of other nations to become Americans by taking an oath of allegiance to the Constitution of the United States. 

Notice that in reference to family and church government, there is no Biblical provision for granting inclusion to a child simply by virtue of where he was born.  Think about it.  What if a woman, for some reason, gave birth on your property?  Would her child, simply by that fact, be considered a member of your family?  Of course not.

Let’s consider another scenario.  Suppose an unbelieving woman were for some reason to give birth on the ground of a church.  Would you say her child should receive baptism and be considered a member of the visible church?  Certainly not!  To do that would be to contradict the Westminster Larger Catechism and the teaching of the Scriptures.  For an infant to receive baptism and be considered a member of the visible church, he must have either both, or at least one, believing parent. 

In like fashion, there is no Biblical provision for the children of a non-citizens to be deemed citizens simply because they happened to be born on American soil.  Such children properly are considered citizens of the nation where their parents have their citizenship. 

A proper, Biblical understanding of birthright citizenship, that it applies only to children having at least one citizen parent, is the ultimate and only permanent solution to the problem of birth tourism.

Secular Arguments for and against Birthright Citizenship Reform

In the July 18, 2018 Washington Post, an editorial by former Trump administration official Michael Anton was published titled “Citizenship shouldn’t be a birthright.” Anton looked closely at the language of those who framed the 14th Amendment – the 14th Amendment is cited as the basis for birthright citizenship for all – and concluded, “The notion that simply being born within the geographical limits of the United States automatically confers U.S. citizenship is an absurdity – historically, constitutionally, philosophically and practically.”  Anton is spot on here.

As you probably expect, critics didn’t take long to pounce on Anton’s argument.  And as you probably guessed, they accused him of, wait for it…racism!  Typical of the attacks on Anton is an editorial, also in the Washington Post, published just a few days after Anton’s titled “Michael Anton and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Racist Argument on Birthright Citizenship.” According to author Daniel Drezner, a law professor at Tufts University, if you oppose granting American citizenship to the child of a Mexican mother who sneaks across the border and gives birth at taxpayer expense, or deny citizenship to the child of a Chinese or Russian or Nigerian mother who lied about her intentions for coming to the United States, you’re a racist, plain and simple.  Actually, since the Russians are white Europeans, the fact that birthright citizenship reform applies to them as well creates a bit of a problem for folks who argue, as Drezner and Phadke do, that racism is at the heart of birthright citizenship reform.  But then, contemporary progressives never let logic get in the way of a good opportunity to virtue signal. 

In a follow up piece to his WaPo editorial titled “Birthright Citizenship:  A Response To My Critics,” Anton observed,

I  expected the reaction to a recent op-ed I published calling for the end of birthright citizenship to be cantankerous. I even expected it to be hysterical—from the Left. I did not expect self-described “conservatives” to be just as hysterical as the Left, and to use precisely the same terms. “Nativist.” “Xenophobe.” “Bigot.” “Racist.” “White nationalist.” “White supremacist.”

Here, Anton describes the phenomenon, long noted by some conservatives, that a good number of well-known conservative lights, when push comes to shove, actually sound more like political liberals than conservatives. 

Conservatism as Antichristianity

Why is this?  Why do conservative stalwarts often sound just like the liberals they ostensibly oppose?  The answer is that both liberalism and conservatism are anti-Christian in their basic philosophic assumptions.  This was John Robbins’ argument in his Trinity Review “Conservatism, An Autopsy.”  Robbins wrote,

Conservatism as a political movement displays as much variety of thought as liberalism. Yet both liberalism and conservatism are united in their Antichristianity. Both are “tolerant,” but neither will tolerate Christianity. It is a mistake to think that conservatives and conservatism, as opposed to liberals and liberalism, are neutral on the issue of Christianity. There is and can be no neutrality. The conservatives seem to recognize this, but unfortunately the Christians do not. Many Christians still believe that politics is an endeavor that can be pursued shoulder-to-shoulder with conservatives. They believe that there is common ground upon which both Christians and conservatives can stand and build-or rebuild-a free society.

Given conservatism’s anti-Christian philosophical assumptions, it is unsurprising that conservative writers would side with the liberals they supposedly oppose.  Conservatives, like liberals, deny that the Bible is a textbook for political philosophy and instead think that one can oppose liberalism by appealing to natural law or to tradition or to Roman Catholic thought.

The Roman Church-State on Birthright Citizenship

As you may expect, officials of the Roman Catholic Church-State (RCCS) have at various times made known their opposition to the Biblical doctrine of birthright citizenship.  One example of this is a piece posted on the United States Conference of Catholic Bishop’s (USCCB) website titled “The Catholic Church’s Position on Birthright Citizenship.”  Guess what?  The bishops think the current system is great just the way it is, and any attempt to change it would be very, very bad. 

After the usual boilerplate lies about addressing the “legitimate concerns surrounding immigration law enforcement” – despite its claims, the RCCS could not care less about immigration law enforcement actions that promote the well-being of Americans – the bishops get down to business.  They start with the lie that reforming birthright citizenship to exclude the children of foreign nationals “would render innocent children stateless.”

For example, Article 30 of the Mexican Constitution specifically states that children born to Mexican parents in a foreign country are still considered Mexican citizens.  Since the about a third of Anchor Babies – children born in the US to non-citizen parents – are born to Mexican mothers, this provision in the Mexican Constitution seriously undermines Rome’s argument that by reforming its birthright citizenship laws, the US will leave children stateless. 

Closing Thoughts

With all the bad news on the political and economic fronts, to hear that the State Department has taken a concrete step to make birth tourism harder was a welcome breath of fresh air. 

In the opinion of this author, reforming American birthright citizenship law along Biblical lines is the single most important step the federal government can take to address America’s immigration problem.  Ending birthright citizenship for children born in the US to non-citizens is more important then building the wall, reducing refugee numbers, or even removing people in the country on temporary protected status who have been here for twenty years.  Not that those other things are unimportant.  But they do not rise to the level of properly defining how a one becomes an American citizen. 

As with all matters of right and wrong, political or otherwise, the ultimate standard against which all ideas must be measured is the Word of God, the 66 books of the Bible.  Since it is impossible to derive the birthright citizenship for the children of non-citizens from Scripture, Christians can be confident that calling for reform of our current birthright citizenship laws to eliminate granting citizenship to the children of non-citizens not only is not wrong but is, in reality, a positive good. 

Too often, public debates about immigration consider only what is good for immigrants and ignore completely the question of what is good for American citizens.  Birthright citizenship as is currently practiced in the Untied States represents a gross abuse of the American people and turns that which should be highly valued, American citizenship, into a cheap commodity that easily can be acquired by barely disguised fraud. 

The State Department’s move to make it harder to commit birthright citizenship fraud is a welcome move and a big win for immigration sanity, but more remains to be done.

It’s time for a change.  It’s time to reform American birthright citizenship laws.    

§ I. Introduction

In her article for Christianity Today titled My Train Wreck Conversion, Dr. Rosaria Butterfield reflects on her past as “a professor of English and women's studies, on the track to becoming a tenured radical.”1 She describes herself as one who “cared about morality, justice, and compassion,”2 and being “fervent for the worldviews of Freud, Hegel, Marx, and Darwin...strove to stand with the disempowered.”3 This description of herself is important because it portrays her as an opponent of the postmodernism and feminism from which she was converted.4 However, a critical analysis of Butterfield’s latest book The Gospel Comes With a House Key: Practicing Radically Ordinary Hospitality in Our Post-Christian World reveals that this is not the case.

Because the book is a series of non-academic reflective essays, it is easy to miss Butterfield’s dependence on and employment of postmodern and feminist concepts, a reality which has seemingly left many readers with the impression that her understanding of hospitality is derived from Scripture. Therefore, it is the aim of this essay to bring Butterfield’s philosophical roots and fruit into full view, revealing how they inform her doctrine of hospitality, how they subtly subvert Christian orthodoxy, and why Christians should steer clear of her writings.5

This will be accomplished by first briefly reviewing Jacques Derrida’s concept of true hospitality/pure hospitality, and demonstrating how it stands in contradiction to the Christian concept of hospitality. From this initial step, we will move on to compare Butterfield’s concept of hospitality to that of Derrida, and highlight some ways in which Butterfield’s doctrine deviates from the Christian doctrine of hospitality. Following this, we will draw attention to four postmodern concepts which are embedded in The Gospel Comes With a House Key’s essays. These concepts are –

1. Labeling/Categorizing as “Violence” Against the Other
2. The Other/Stranger as Absolute Other/God
3. Fluid Subjectivities
4. The Feminist-Theological Ethic of Hospitality

We will conclude by giving a brief summary of the postmodern philosophical roots of Butterfield’s doctrine of hospitality, recapitulating how those roots subvert Christian orthodoxy, and admonishing Christians to steer clear of her writings.

§ II. Deconstruction is Hospitality: Derrida’s Concept of Hospitality

From the onset, it should be noted that “hospitality” is a concept that has been widely discussed in postmodernist literature. One of the more influential postmodernist philosophers to discuss the concept is the father of deconstruction, Jacques Derrida. The concept is inextricable from his entire corpus of writings, and it is characterized by Derrida as a concrete instance of deconstruction. As he puts it –

Hospitality is the deconstruction of the at-home; deconstruction is hospitality to the other.6

This is because, according to Derrida, pure hospitality entails no economy of exchange between guest and host, and it does not set fixed boundaries on the identities of guest and host.

Mark W. Westmoreland expounds on this, writing –

The master of the home, the host, must welcome in a foreigner, a stranger, a guest, without any qualifications, including having never been given an invitation. […] In order to offer unconditional hospitality, the master must not allow for any debt or exchange to take place within the home. No invitation, or any other condition, can ever be a part of absolute hospitality. Hospitality, as absolute, is bound by no laws or limitations. The host freely shares her home with the new arrival without asking questions. She neither asks for the arrival’s name, nor does she seek any pact with the guest. Such a pact would instigate the placing of the guest under the law. The law of absolute hospitality does not involve an invitation, nor does it involve an interrogation of the guest upon entering.7

As Jason Foster explains,

Pure hospitality for Derrida means the complete foregoing of all judging, analyzing, and classifying other people that he believes are hallmarks of “actual hospitality”. Derrida believes we must forego all “violence” that tries to conform anyone into our own image through the setting of behavioral conditions on our extension of hospitality, or by slotting people into our own predetermined categories. An attitude of pure hospitality embraces an utter unconditionality and readiness to give everything we have for any and every other person. Put simply, to place limits or conditions on our extension and practice of hospitality is to commit an act of violence through exclusion and coercive conformity.8

Derrida’s concept of pure hospitality is recognized by him to be an ideal that will ever elude human interactions due to our finitude, resulting as it inevitably does in an aporia.9 Westmoreland writes –

Before the arrival of the guest, the master, or host, of the house was in control. […] It would be assumed that the host secures the house in order to “keep the outside out” and holds authority over those who may enter the home as guests. Derrida writes that hospitality cannot be “without sovereignty of oneself over one’s home, but since there is also no hospitality without finitude, sovereignty can only be exercised by filtering...and doing violence.” Limits and conditions are set in place to secure the [host] as master of the house. As such, these conditions betray the law of absolute hospitality.10

Nevertheless, as Richard Kearney and Kascha Semonovitch rightly note, “it is difficult to not read Derrida as suggesting that absolute hospitality might well serve as a regulatory ideal, unachievable but desirable.”11 For instance, Derrida writes –

Let us say yes to who or what turns up, before any determination, before any anticipation, before any identification, whether or not it has to do with a foreigner, an immigrant, an invited guest, or an unexpected visitor, whether or not the new arrival is the citizen of another country, a human, animal, or divine creature, a living or dead thing, male or female.12

The ideal form of hospitality toward which actual hospitality should strive, then, is one which is free of all binary oppositions.13

§ III. Derridean Hospitality vs. Christian Hospitality: A True Binary Opposition

According to Derrida pure hospitality, i.e. the ideal form of hospitality, results in

...an antinomy, an insoluble antinomy, a non-dialectizable antinomy between, on the one hand, The law of unlimited hospitality (to give the new arrival all of one’s home and oneself, to give him or her one’s own, our own, without asking a name, or compensation, or the fulfilment of even the smallest condition), and on the other hand, the laws (in the plural), those rights and duties that are always conditioned and conditional, as they are defined by the Greco-Roman tradition and even the Judeo-Christian one...14

In light of these supposed “insoluble antinomies,” between “pure” hospitality and conditional hospitality, it becomes clear that Derrida’s doctrine of hospitality stands in contradiction to the Christian doctrine of hospitality. For as Foster correctly notes, Derrida’s failure to

…take seriously the current eschatological situation of boundaries that God has established during this period of redemptive history…necessitates a rather bizarre interpretation of Genesis and Revelation. In Derrida's approach, the hospitable reception of the serpent by Adam and Eve in Genesis 3 must be viewed as an act of great hospitality that should be applauded, while the prohibition to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in Genesis 2 must now be seen as a great act of inhospitality by God that violently insisted on Adam and Eve's conformity. On the other hand, the violent destruction of the serpent by God in Revelation 20 that is the triumphal source of the Christian's eschatological hope must now be viewed as inhospitably brutal and should be condemned. When Satan stands poised to eat the newborn child of promise in Revelation 12:4, the snatching up of the child by God and taking him to heaven as an act of divine protection instead must now be seen as an act of inhospitable deprivation toward Satan.15

These conclusions not only “contradict[..] the Johannine witness completely,”16 but the whole of God’s revelation. Derridean pure hospitality inverts the Christian faith in its entirety. This is, largely, due to its rejection of transcendence in general, and, in particular, its rejection of a transcendent rule or set of rules that universally and absolutely determines the limits of all being and thinking and action.

As Westmoreland explains, Christian hospitality is conditional. He writes –

Conditional hospitality concerns itself with rights, duties, obligations, etc. It has a lineage tracing back to the GrecoRoman world, through the Judeo-Christian tradition...It has been regulated.

[…]

...hospitality has been reciprocal, engaged in an economy of exchange, even an economy of violence...In other words, an exchange takes place between the host and the guest. In offering hospitality, in welcoming the other, the host imposes certain conditions upon the guest. First, the host questions and identifies the foreigner. “What is your name? Where are you from? What do you want? Yes, you may stay here a few nights.” Secondly, the host sets restrictions. “As my guest, you must agree to act within the limitations I establish. Just don’t eat all my food or make a mess.”17

M.T. LaFosse, summarizing Arterbury’s findings, further elaborates on the conditional nature of Christian hospitality. LaFosse –

Far from being synonymous with “table fellowship,” hospitality involved a series of dynamic elements, with some variation over time and culture. In broad terms, hospitality involved the host or traveling guest formally approaching the other. The host led the guest (who may be a god or angel in disguise) home, and offered provisions (water to wash, a meal, lodging) and protection. A relationship of reciprocity and permanence was often forged.18

Foster’s account of the reciprocal exchange which took place between guest and host in Christian hospitality, is helpful here. Foster explains that

...the ultimate reception of a stranger occurred in three stages. First, the stranger was tested in order to determine if they would subscribe to the norms of the community and not threaten its purity. Second, the stranger takes on the role of a guest of the host. The roles of guest and host were culturally well defined, with requirements concerning duties and manners being placed on both, including reciprocity. Third, the stranger leaves the company of his host either as a friend or an enemy.19

The Christian doctrine and practice of hospitality, thus, stands in marked contrast to “the contemporary Western idea of hospitality as casual and mostly non-binding,”20 a view which has the postmodern ideal of “pure hospitality” as its goal, and which seems to be, at least to a significant degree, shared by Rosaria Butterfield in her book The Gospel Comes with a House Key.

§ IV. Butterfield’s Postmodern Roots

1. Labeling/Categorizing as “Violence” Against the Other

The Gospel Comes With a House Key (hereafter, TGH) opens with the claim that

...those who [practice radical ordinary hospitality] see strangers as neighbors and neighbors as family of God. They recoil at reducing a person to a category or a label. They know they are like meth addicts and sex-trade workers. They take their own sin seriously—including the sin of selfishness and pride.21

Rather than merely preaching at lost people, hospitality involves personal investment in strangers with the hope of “rendering [them] neighbors and neighbors family of God.”22 Investment of this kind stands in contradiction to what she calls “sneaky evangelistic raids into [unbelievers’] sinful lives,”23 raids which seemingly treat one’s neighbor as “a caricature of an alien worldview.”24 “Radically ordinary hospitality,” she states, “values the time it takes to invest in relationships, to build bridges, to repent of sins of the past, to reconcile.”25 Butterfield expands on this, writing –

Engaging in radically ordinary hospitality means we provide the time necessary to build strong relationships with people who think differently than we do as well as build strong relationships from within the family of God. It means we know that only hypocrites and cowards let their words be stronger than their relationships, making sneaky raids into culture on social media or behaving like moralizing social prigs in the neighborhood.26

For Butterfield, true hospitality, which involves becoming personally invested in those to whom we evangelize, stands in contradiction to “counterfeit hospitality” which “separates host and guest in ways that allow no blending of the two roles.”27 As she explains, “counterfeit hospitality creates false divisions and false binaries: noble givers or needy receivers. Or hired givers and privileged receivers.28

Like Derrida, Butterfield believes that central to hospitality is the rejection of labels, categories, and “false” binary oppositions which will limit or constrain our practice of hospitality toward our guests. And like Derrida, Butterfield views such limiting/constraining (based on reductive categorization/labeling) as an act of violence. Butterfield writes –

Our lack of genuine hospitality to our neighbors—all of them, including neighbors in the LGBTQ community—explains why counterfeit hospitality seems attractive. Our lack of Christian hospitality is a violent form of neglect for their souls.29

This “genuine hospitality,” it should be remembered, is one in which guests are not “reduced” to categories or labels, in which our hospitality is not constrained or limited by our consideration of the place guests occupy in a particular category.

By engaging in labeling, categorizing, and determining our behavior on the basis of labeling and categorizing, we are, according to Butterfield, committing an act of violence. In a word, she believes that “exclusion of people for arbitrary reasons—not church discipline–related ones (an important exception I discuss in chapter 6)—is violent and hostile.”30 Butterfield is not merely talking about the exclusion of Christians, however, but includes under the category of hospitality the act of “[making] room for a family displaced by a flood or a worldwide refugee crisis.”31 She elaborates on this elsewhere, writing –

It is deadly to ignore biblical teaching about serving the stranger—deadly to the people who desperately need help and deadly to anyone who claims Christ as King. Membership in the kingdom of God is intimately linked to the practice of hospitality in this life. Hospitality is the ground zero of the Christian life, biblically speaking. A more crucial question for the Bible-believing Christian is this: Is it safe to fail to get involved?

Jesus says, “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me” (Matt. 25:35–36). When we feel entitled to God’s grace, either because of our family history or our decision making, we can never get to the core sentiment behind Jesus’s words. What would it take to see Jesus as he portrays himself here? To see ourselves? Is our lack of care for the refugee and the stranger an innocent lack of opportunity, or is it a form of willful violence?32

This effectively identifies any non-ecclesial act of disciplinary exclusion, seemingly toward any stranger, as an act of violence. For Butterfield, “Christian hospitality [i.e. true hospitality, as opposed to counterfeit hospitality] violates the usual boundary maintenance enacted by table fellowship.”33

Readers unfamiliar with postmodernist literature may not be aware of the fact within postmodern thought the term violence, as Iddo Landau explains, “is used by many postmodernists to refer to a wide array of phenomena.”34 Included within this “wide array of phenomena,” “Derrida argues that there is…the violence of the difference, of classification, and of the system of appellation [i.e. taxonomization].”35 For Derrida, differentiation, classification, and taxonomization are acts of violen__ce. Derrida’s thinking in this regard is shared by virtually all other postmodernists. Postmodernists, James R. Dawes writes, believe that –

The act of naming is a matter of forcibly imposing a sign upon a person or object with which it has only the most arbitrary of relationships. Names produce an Other, establish hierarchies, enable surveillance, and institute violent binaries: Naming is a strategy that one deploys in power relations. The violence cuts through at all levels, from the practically political (“They are savages,” “You are queer”) to the ontological (one critic writes of “the irreducibility of violence in any mark”).36

For postmodernists and Butterfield, hospitality deconstructs “violent” labels, categories, false binaries, and divisions, by “violat[ing] the usual boundary maintenance enacted by table fellowship.”37

1. The Other/Stranger as Absolute Other/God

Butterfield’s idea of hospitality includes the belief that we can “see Jesus in those in need.”38 This broad characterization of those in whom we can see Christ is, in part, based on her interpretation of Matt 25:35-36. Seeing Jesus in others is “risky,” she argues, warning that, on the one hand, “when we fail to see Jesus in others, we cheapen the power of the image of God to shine over the darkness of the world,”39 and, on the other hand, that “when we always see him in others, we fail to discern that we live in a fallen world, one in which Satan knows where we live.”40 While Butterfield differentiates between seeing Jesus and Satan in the stranger/guest, she nevertheless says that we can see Jesus in others, which is to say those in need, indiscriminately considered. Butterfield does not differentiate between believers who are in need and unregenerate persons who are in need. Rather, for Butterfield, Jesus can be seen in the other/one in need/guest/stranger, indiscriminately considered.

Scripture, however, clearly teaches that only those who are being sanctified by the Spirit of God are those in whom we can “see Jesus.” This is because the children of God, alone, are being made in the image and likeness of the Son. Paul writes –

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.41

Paul’s words here are very clear. It is solely those who have been raised with Christ who can put on the new man which is being renewed according to the image of the Son. The image of Jesus is that into which Christians are being formed via the Holy Spirit’s work of sanctification.42 According to Scripture, the image of the Son of God is the goal of sanctification, which will only be complete upon our glorification. As the apostle elsewhere writes –

...we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.43

Paul does not identify every person in need as potentially one in whom we can “see Jesus.” Rather, Paul explicitly teaches us that it is only the elect of God in whom we may see the image and likeness of Christ. The apostle clearly explains that the image of Jesus consists in holiness and righteousness, and it stands in contradiction to the “old self” which bears the moral/spiritual image of Satan and all who are in him.44

Butterfield, therefore, is correct to note that we are all the imago dei, and that as Christians we ought to recognize this and treat others accordingly with due respect and dignity.45 However, her belief that we can see Jesus in others – including the lost – is wrong. It is a belief that has more in common with the postmodern ethical theorizing of French Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, a seminal influence on Jacques Derrida’s own ethical and religious theorizing. Manuel Cruz explains that for Levinas,

In the face of the Other, one is confronted with a dialectical oscillation between the revelation of its infinite transcendence and its finitude: “This gaze that supplicates and demands, that can supplicate only because it demands, deprived of everything because entitled to everything . . . To recognize the Other is to recognize a hunger. To recognize the Other is to give. But it is to give to the master, to the lord, to him whom one approaches as “You” in a dimension of height” .... Let us note the paradox: recognizing the other as vulnerable and deprived, as finite, depends on first recognizing the eminence and excess of its lordship as the infinite. The ethical significance of finitude depends on the prior significance of the infinite. There is a provocative intimation that the person I encounter on the street—subject to hunger, poverty, and murder—arrays itself with all the transcendent stature of a god, in essence signifying this vulnerable human in some way divine.46

Every person, Levinas believes, is one through whom we have an ethical counter with a third person beyond – namely, God. This is pertinent to note because although Levinas primarily reflects upon and discusses writings within the Continental philosophical tradition, as well as various Old Testament passages, he sometimes sets his attention on the New Testament.

Of particular significance here is Levinas’ interest in Matthew 25:31-46, a pericope of Scripture which he claims exemplifies his ethical theory. As Kajornpat Tangyin explains,

When Levinas mentions the teaching in...Matthew 25, he reminds us [that] the way we treat the other is the way we treat God. The infinite [i.e. God] is revealed through the other...Ethical relation, for him, begins with the response to the other’s material needs. To feed the hungry, clothe the naked, give drink to the thirsty, give shelter to the shelterless, are my responsibilities.47

Levinas believes this particular section of the New Testament reflects his own ethical belief that every individual, regardless of his relation to God religiously/spiritually, shows God to us. He explains –

The teaching in [the Gospels], and the representation of human beings in them, appeared always familiar to me. As a result, I was led to Matthew 25, where the people are astonished to hear that they have abandoned and persecuted God. They eventually find out that while they were sending the poor away, they were actually sending God himself away.48

On Levinas’ view, Jesus is teaching that when the poor – indiscriminately considered – are “sent away” and “persecuted” it is actually Christ who is being sent away and persecuted.49 As he explains elsewhere, in Matthew 25:31-46 “the relation to God is presented...as a relation to another [human] person.”50

What is absent from Levinas’ treatment of the passage, as well as from Butterfield’s use of the passage, is the Lord Jesus’ explicit identification of the recipients of mercy as “brothers.” Christ unambiguously declares – ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’51 These “brothers,” let us remember, are not the poor indiscriminately considered but only Christians. We know this because Christ states that “whoever does the will of [his] Father in heaven is [his] brother,”52 including not only the eleven disciples53 but every Christian,

For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why [Christ] is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying,

“I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise.”54

The brothers of Christ, “the least of these,” then, are those toward whom the Holy Spirit commands us to show hospitality. New Testament passages dealing with hospitality, moreover, have to do with Christian behavior toward other brothers. >

Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.55

Let a widow be enrolled if she is not less than sixty years of age, having been the wife of one husband, and having a reputation for good works: if she has brought up children, has shown hospitality, has washed the feet of the saints, [cf. John 13:12-20] has cared for the afflicted, and has devoted herself to every good work.56

Let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body.57

The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. Above all, keep loving one another [within the body of Christ] earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. Show hospitality to one another [within the body of Christ] without grumbling. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace...58

Contrary to the kind of thinking espoused by Levinas and Butterfield, it is only in Christians who are strangers, imprisoned, hungry, thirsty, and naked that we see Christ.

1. Fluid Subjectivities

We began our exploration of Butterfield’s postmodern ideas with a comparison of her concept of hospitality to Derrida’s concept of pure hospitality. We then moved on to consider the similarities between Butterfield’s belief that Jesus can potentially be seen in any other human being – regenerate or unregenerate – and Levinas’ belief that every other stranger/needy human is, in fact, Christ, i.e. God, himself, specifically drawing attention to the similarities between Butterfield and Levinas’ misinterpretation of Matt 25:31-46. We now will focus our review on Butterfield’s implied concept of fluid subjectivity. Given that TGH is not dealing primarily with subjectivity, we will draw on some of her earlier work to demonstrate TGH’s implicit concept of fluid subjectivity.

First, however, we must disambiguate the term subjectivity. The popular use of the word “subjectivity” is defined as “the quality, state, or nature of being subjective,”59 wherein the term subjective is to be understood as signifying something that is, or is capable of being or having been, “modified or affected by personal views, experience, or background.”60 The term subjectivity within academic contexts, however, is a technical term whose meaning is only partly resonant with popular use. As Marina F. Bykova explains –

Originally, [subjectivity] was used to designate all that refers to a subject’s psychological-physical integrity represented by its mind, which determines the unique mentality, psychological state, and reactions of the subject. In this use, subjectivity meant the consciousness of one’s real self (self-consciousness), where the real self is what unites the disparate elements.61

Central to the modernist conception of subjectivity is the assumption of integrity, unity, and autonomy. With the advent of postmodernism, however, this changed. Postmodern philosophers deconstructed the concepts of unity, integrity, and autonomy, and consequently proclaimed “the death of the subject,”62 which in turn “necessitated the development of new approaches to the classical and modern concepts of subject and subjectivity.”63 Subjects are fluid, not fixed; identities have permeable boundaries, not uncrossable borders.

In TGH, the idea of fluid subjectivity appears as an assumed reality. For instance, Butterfield makes the claim that “in radically ordinary hospitality, host and guest are interchangeable,”64 as they are “permeable roles.”65 This is significant, for in the same section of her book she goes on to state that “those who don’t yet know the Lord are summoned for food and fellowship.”66 Whereas the Scriptures state unambiguously that “if we [Christians] walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another,”67 and that this is due to our already having fellowship “with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ,”68 Butterfield states that unbelievers are to be summoned for fellowship, implying that they are capable of engaging in Christian fellowship. This concept of hospitality not only stands in contradiction to what is taught in Scripture, it also suggests that those outside of Christ may move by degrees to being in Christ, and not by an instantaneous and radical break from being children of darkness to being children of light.

This is further suggested by Butterfield’s opening lines, wherein she states that “those who live [out radical hospitality] see strangers as neighbors and neighbors as family of God.”69 Logically, her words imply that strangers, indiscriminately considered, are to be engaged with as family of God.70 This flatly contradicts the Scriptures, wherein the Holy Spirit says –

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said,

“I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.”71

Butterfield elsewhere explains that hospitality renders strangers into neighbors and neighbors into family of God.72 However, this does not eliminate the problem mentioned above, for this rendering is a movement from one identity (non-Christian) to another (Christian) that is brought about through “radical ordinary hospitality,” in which boundaries between guest and host are permeable, and the hosts (i.e. Christians) and guests (i.e. non-Christians) engage in “fellowship,” an engagement which would effectively erase, or trivialize, the distinction between those who are in fellowship with God and with his Son (i.e. Christians) and those who are not (i.e. non-Christians).

A person’s identity is, it seems, fluid, moving along a continuum that begins outside the covenant family of God and ends in the covenant family of God, with each of these respective social spheres having permeable boundaries. What makes this more troubling is that in her earlier work Butterfield explicitly states that “all acts of self-representation exist on a continuum, and a continuum allows for fluidity and overlap.”73 This universal “all” logically includes one’s self-representation as a Christian. Indeed, Butterfield explicitly states that “if you stand in the risen Christ alone, your self-representation is Christian.”74 This, therefore, necessarily implies that if one’s self-representation is “on a continuum” that “allows for fluidity and overlap,” then one’s self-representation as a Christian is likewise one with permeable boundaries separating believer from unbeliever, child of God from child of wrath, righteous from unrighteous, living from dead.

Yet in what appears to contradict her belief that all acts of self-representation exist on a continuum, she writes –

...the Bible’s categories for self-representation are binaries: you are either saved or you are lost. If you are saved, you are saved for God’s glory and his righteousness. He made the categories, and you don’t get to blur the boundaries.75

These seemingly contradictory words are followed by Butterfield once again repeating that –

Self-representation76 travels on a continuum, as words can describe or identify a sense of deep and abiding persistency (situated on the continua of self-representation and identity), and assert an allegiance (situated in community).77

How these are to be reconciled is unclear.78 However, what is clear is that when “true” hospitality is viewed as a place where host and guest are permeable, in which the host is a Christian and the guest is a non-Christian, the lines between the Bible’s categories are blurred.

Significantly, moreover, Butterfield explains her movement from being heterosexual to being homosexual in just this way. She writes –

I...preferred the company of women. In my late twenties, enhanced by feminist philosophy and LGBT political advocacy, my homosocial preference morphed into homosexuality. That shift was subtle, not startling. My lesbian identity and my love for my LGBT community developed in sync with my lesbian sexual practice. Life finally came together for me and made sense.79

Butterfield’s movement from heterosexuality to homosexuality, in other words, happened by degrees as she was influenced by feminist philosophy and LGBT advocacy, worked within the LGBT community, and engaged in lesbian sexual activity. What is clearly portrayed is a movement from the outside (heterosexuality) to the inside (homosexuality), which is facilitated by a third both/and factor (homosociality) which allows for participation in a community’s practices (LGBT political advocacy and lesbian sexual practice).

Her description of her movement into the LGBT community is eerily reminiscent of her description of her movement into the community of God’s people. Between heterosexuality and homosexuality, binarily opposed sexual identities, Buttefield sets before us a bridge – homosociality – which is neither heterosexual nor homosexual. This idea of a both/and bridge between binaries is present throughout TGH. In the book, Butterfield gives emphasis to the imago dei as the both/and common factor between insiders (i.e. Christians) and outsiders (i.e. unbelievers) facilitating conversion from the latter to the former, and allowing for outsiders to actively engage in insider practices (e.g. psalm singing, discussing Scripture, etc).

Butterfield’s continuum thinking in these later works is, moreover, reflective of her pre-Christian academic work. In The Politics of Survivorship: Incest, Women’s Literature, and Feminist Theory Butterfield presents the same idea of transitioning from outside to inside by means of a common both/and factor, a bridge, facilitating the transition by allowing for interaction between the binary pair. Explaining why she chose to engage with novels in her book, she writes –

If novels can…be seen as a site of historical agency, then we can see how they serve to bridge the binaries that divide our social order: inside/outside, public/private, false/true. That is, novels are always already on both sides of the binary pair.80

Thus, in the context of The Politics of Survivorship it is the novel serves as a bridge between binaries dividing the social order. Like the postmodernists she learned from, Butterfield presents subjectivity as fluid, moving along a continuum, and facilitated by a third both/and factor that sits on both sides of a given binary pair.

1. The Feminist-Theological Ethic of Hospitality

The traces of Derridean hospitality, Levinasian theo-anthropological ethics, and postmodern fluid subjectivity are present in TGH. It may be difficult to see how they can simultaneously co-exist in any book, let alone within a putatively Christian book, until one recalls that postmodern philosophy encourages blurring, mixing, and even “holding in dialectical tension”81 ideas that are utterly opposed to one another. Rather than converting to Derridean Deconstructionism or Levinasian Meta-ontologism, the postmodern thinker creates a bricolage of concepts, a mosaic of ideas that transgress lines of demarcation drawn between disciplines (e.g. literature and philosophy), and between philosophers (e.g. Jacques Derrida and Alain Badiou).

This is true of postmodernists in general, but also of feminism in particular. Maurice Hamington notes that in the field of ethics feminist philosophers, in part following Derrida and Levinas, have begun to argue that “hospitality is a glaring moral imperative because of the escalation of world violence, global disparities in quality-of-life issues, international alliances, globalization, and widespread migration.”82 Hamington further explains that –

...Emmanuel Levinas (1969) and Jacques Derrida (2001) have offered rich explorations of hospitality, the significance of which has not been exhausted by contemporary commentators.

[…]

Although Derrida and Levinas have revitalized philosophical interest in hospitality, feminist ethicists have advanced alternatives to traditional moral theory that...can coalesce and contribute to a robust understanding of hospitality—that is, identity, inclusiveness, reciprocity, forgiveness, and embodiment.

At a minimum, feminist hospitality drives at a nonhierarchical understanding of hospitality that mitigates the expression of power differential, while seeking greater connection and understanding for the mutual benefit of both host and guest.

[…]

[This form of] hospitality...is embedded in a positive human ontology that pursues evocative exchanges to foster better understanding. In this manner, feminist hospitality explores the antimony between disruption and connection: The guest and host disrupt each other’s lives sufficiently to allow for meaningful exchanges that foster interpersonal connections of understanding. To this end...feminist hospitality reflects a performative extension of care ethics that seeks to knit together and strengthen social bonds through psychic and material sharing.83

Hamington is not alone in proposing this kind of feminist hospitality, finding like-minded contemporaries in feminist theology.

Kate Ward asserts that “by far the most in-depth and interesting recent work on the virtue of hospitality comes from authors with implicit or explicit feminist commitments.”84 This is revealing, given that there are many points of agreement – some even using nearly identical descriptions – between these feminist theologians and Butterfield. For instance, Butterfield, who believes that for most people “hospitality conjures up a scene of a _Victorian tea..._and...paisley-patterned teacups,”85 echoes “feminist authors [who] universally denounce visions of hospitality as ‘cozy’ and ‘sentimental,’ what Letty Russell associates with ‘tea and crumpets’...and ‘terminal niceness.’”86 Additionally, Butterfield declares that “radically ordinary Christian hospitality does not happen in La La Land,”87 echoing the sentiment of feminist theologian “Elizabeth Newman [who] blasts ‘Disney World hospitality’ which paints God’s realm as a magic kingdom of ease, free from challenge.”88 Butterfield’s assertion that “[hospitality]...forces us to deal with diversity and difference of opinion,”89 moreover, is nearly identical to feminist theologians’ claims that “since hospitality by definition is practiced across boundaries of difference, it forces host and guest to acknowledge and embrace their own differences rather than attempting to erase them.”90

Butterfield’s doctrine of hospitality, moreover, puts emphasis on accepting guests just as they are, reflecting yet another aspect of the contemporary feminist-theological doctrine of hospitality. As Ward explains, feminist theologians argue that “hospitality…insists on encountering the other as she is, in her particularity, resisting any easy erasure of deeply felt distinctions of identity.”91 This come-as-you-are principle was a crucial factor in Butterfield’s relationship with Ken and Floy Smith, the Christian couple through whom she became introduced to Christianity, and who are presented throughout TGH as exemplary models of Christian hospitality. Butterfield writes –

Ken and Floy Smith treaded carefully with me. Early in our friendship, Ken made the distinction between acceptance and approval. He said that he accepted me just as I was but that he did not approve.92

For Butterfield and contemporary feminist theologians, accepting the other just as she is can be a risky endeavor, but that does not justify creating protective “walls” around our homes. When facing the risks involved with engaging in radical hospitality, Butterfield states that –

One option is to build the walls higher, declare more vociferously that our homes are our castles, and, since the world is going to hell in a handbasket, we best get inside, thank God for the moat, and draw up the bridge. Doing so practices war on this world but not the kind of spiritual warfare that drives out darkness and brings in the kindness of the gospel. Strategic wall building serves only to condemn the world and the people in it.93

This sentiment is identical in essence to that which is expressed by feminist theologians. For instance, Ward quotes Jessica Wrobleski who argues that

‘The legitimate need for safety can become so exaggerated that it builds walls of suspicion and hostility in place of limits of hospitality [...] While a measure of security is necessary for the creation of safe and friendly spaces, making the need for security absolute can also become idolatrous.’ 94

The idolatry she mentions is related to personal possessions because hospitality comes “at the cost of [possible] danger and plunder from others.”95 And this, too, echoes Butterfield’s doctrine of hospitality in which concerns over one’s personal possessions that sets up “walls” or limits to the practice of hospitality are thought to be related to idolatry. Butterfield writes –

...Christians who have too much are the ones prohibited from practicing hospitality. They have so many cluttered idols that they can give nothing at all. For this reason, it is often the well-heeled and rich who are known for their lack of hospitality, and the meager and even poor who are known for their plentiful hospitality.96

Butterfield, moreover, true hospitality entails the interchangeability of guest and host roles. She writes –

In radically ordinary hospitality, host and guest are interchangeable.

[…]

Radically ordinary hospitality means that hosts are not embarrassed to receive help, and guests know that their help is needed.97

This view is identical in substance to that of contemporary feminist theologians. Ward –

Feminist theologians insist that hospitality can describe an exchange that brings benefit to those on each side. As Wrobleski writes, ‘the best experiences of hospitality are often those in which guests take on some of the roles of hosts and hosts also experience the presence of their guests as refreshment and gift’...Russell concurs: ‘Hospitality is a two-way street of mutual ministry where we often exchange roles and learn the most from those whom we considered ‘different’ or “other.”’98

Butterfield and the feminist theologians believe that hospitality deconstructs the rigid binary of guest and host, treating the roles as permeable, fluid, interchangeable.

§ IV.^a Conclusions

In conclusion, let us review the ways in which Christian hospitality and Butterfieldian hospitality are at odds with one another, a reality which results in the subversion of Christian orthodoxy, and then conclude with an admonition to Christians to steer clear of Butterfield’s writings. For instance, we note that whereas Christian hospitality maintains a strict distinction between host and guest, Butterfieldian hospitality maintains that the roles of guest and host are permeable and, therefore, aims to deconstruct the binary opposition of host and guest, thereby rendering them interchangeable. Moreover, we also note that whereas Christian hospitality is evaluative, involving the fixed roles of guest and host, and can lead to either (a.)the guest revealing himself to be an enemy, or (b.)the guest revealing himself to be a friend,99 Butterfield’s doctrine of hospitality is not evaluative but rehabilitative and transformative. Additionally, Scripture clearly and repeatedly identifies the subjects of hospitality as Christians, whereas Butterfieldian hospitality views all strangers indiscriminately as the subjects of hospitality.

We must also add that Butterfieldian hospitality seemingly flows from the assumption that subjectivity is fluid, whereas Christian hospitality does not. Thus, the former seems to allow for a social transition from outsider (i.e. non-Christian) to insider (i.e. Christian) by a gradual progression facilitated by a common third factor (i.e. the imago dei), whereas the latter clearly articulates that becoming a Christian is not a gradual process but a radical and immediate transformation accomplished by the Spirit of God.

Likewise, Butterfieldian hospitality indiscriminately assumes all people – saved or unsaved – have the potential to reflect the image of Christ, a view based in part on her misinterpretation of Matt 25:36-41. However, Christian hospitality strictly maintains that bearing the image of Christ is the end goal of sanctification and, consequently, glorification. This means that it is not the stranger or guest indiscriminately considered who can show us Jesus, but only Christian strangers or guests.

Finally, whereas Christian hospitality is derived from a proper exegesis of the Scriptures, Butterfieldian hospitality is derived from postmodernism, feminism, and feminist theology. Butterfield not only gives us the linguistic and conceptual data we need to draw that conclusion, she explicitly states –

Hospitality renders our houses hospitals [i.e. places of rehabilitation] and incubators [i.e. places of growth/transformation]. When I was in a lesbian community, this is how we thought of our homes. I learned a lot in that community about how to shore up a distinctive culture within and to live as a despised but hospitable and compassionate outsider in a transparent and visible way. I learned how to create a habitus that reflected my values to a world that despised me.

I learned to face my fears and feed my enemies.

[...]

This idea—that our houses are hospitals and incubators—was something I learned in my lesbian community in New York in the 1990s….we set out to be the best neighbors on the block. We gathered in our people close and daily, and we said to each other, “This house, this habitus, is a hospital and an incubator. We help each other heal, and we help ideas take root.”100

Butterfieldian hospitality is the fruit of a postmodern feminist-theological worldview that stands opposed to Christianity on the issues mentioned throughout the course of this essay.

§ IV.^b Admonitions

While The Gospel Comes With a House Key is not devoid of explicit statements of orthodox Christian belief, those expressions of orthodoxy are not the source material from which Butterfield has derived her doctrine of hospitality. Resultantly, her writing is a mixture of postmodern-feminist-theological language and concepts, on the one hand, and Reformed Presbyterian theology, on the other hand. This, at best, is due to inconsistent thinking and terminological imprecision. At worst, Butterfield’s writing is purposefully presenting a mixture of contradictory ideas for the sake of indirectly teaching readers to disregard or undermine the Scriptures’ teaching on hospitality, trading it for another version of hospitality that justifies the social justice “Gospel” by identifying social justice activity as part and parcel of the “ground zero” of the Christian life, namely radically ordinary hospitality.

That the latter seems to be the case is based, in part, on the most charitable reading one can have of a book written by a thinker whose knowledge of postmodern and feminist philosophy prior to her conversion was anything but deficient, asystematic, or unclear. The Politics of Survivorship, as well as her various academic articles and book reviews,101 demonstrate how proficiently, systematically, and clearly Butterfield is capable of writing and reading. This casts a dark shadow over TGH, for in it she presents contradictory data (orthodox and unorthodox beliefs, postmodern and reformed beliefs, and so forth), purposefully misinterprets Scripture to support her doctrine of hospitality, and promotes various social justice causes that have rightly been called into question by many sound reformed thinkers concerned with the infiltration of critical race theorists into otherwise theologically sound, Reformed, Calvinistic churches and institutions of higher learning.

Abuse of Scripture

Above, we have examined Butterfield’s misappropriation of Matthew 25:31-46 in her presentation of how Christians are failing to show hospitality to the stranger during the so-called refugee crisis. Here we must also draw attention to her eisegetical reading of Luke 24:13-17. Concerning Jesus’ interaction with the disciples on the road to Emmaus, Butterfield writes –

This passage in Luke spills over with grace and care. Jesus models here what the future of our daily, ordinary, radical hospitality is all about.

First, Jesus does not come with an apologetics lesson. He comes with a question. And then he listens compassionately as the two share pain, disappointment, abandonment, betrayal. The pain in their heart is extreme, so much so that they must stop walking to compose themselves. And they don’t just stop—they stand still. The drama in the narrative halts with this reality: “And they stood still, looking sad.”

They are going somewhere, but they don’t know why. They lose their vision. A question derails them.

That happens to a lot of people.>>Jesus does not hurry them. He does not jolly them. He doesn’t fear their pain or even their wrong-minded notions of who the Christ should be or is.

[…]

The men tell their side of the story… [and] Jesus, after hearing their side of the story, speaks words of grace, words that tell the whole story, words that expose the goodness of both law and grace.

[…]

Jesus tells his fellow travelers that nothing has happened apart from what the Old Testament prophesied: the sufferings of the Christ are the appointed path to glory. The Old Testament had prepared them to hear this, but the cross itself became a stumbling block. Severity. Humiliation. They knew their Scriptures, but seeing them in the backdrop of the cross was too much to bear. Because it is too much to bear. And that is why Jesus takes their hands—and ours—and walks with us. Grace does not make the hard thing go away; grace illumines the hard thing with eternal meaning and purpose.102

Butterfield’s sentimental eisegesis of this narrative fails to deal with Jesus’ stern rebuke of the disciples. Luke records the following taking place within that very narrative –

And [Jesus] said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.103

Christ’s identification of these disciples as foolish and slow of heart to believe is not a compliment. Rather, it is a stern rebuke to these individuals who should have known better but, because of their unbelief, were disillusioned, sad.

Absent from the text is the idea that the disciples had to compose themselves due to the overwhelming nature of their grief. Absent from the text is the idea that these disciples knew their Scriptures, but were too emotionally overwhelmed to properly understand them in light of the crucifixion of Jesus. Absent from the text is the idea that Jesus took the hands of these disciples into his own because he knew their emotions were overwhelmed in light of the crucifixion. These are all read into the text in order to support Butterfield’s doctrine of hospitality, as if Christ engaged in that same practice which identifies as Christian hospitality. The problem, however, is that the text neither explicitly nor implicitly teaches those things. Butterfield reads her ideas into this text in order to claim that Christ himself exemplified the doctrine she is promoting, but he did no such thing.

Social Justice

Adding to her misinterpretation of Scripture, we also can find the promotion of social justice activism under the guise of “radically ordinary hospitality” in TGH. For instance, Butterfield states that because the Gospel is “cosmological and holistic” 104

When a church identifies a sin pattern of its people (such as pornography), it also has a responsibility to protect the victims created by that sin. Repentance calls for nothing short of this. 105

The reasoning put forward by Butterfield here is extremely problematic. For if the sin pattern of a church is replaced with, for instance, the sin pattern of “white privilege” or “class privilege,” then it follows that if the church is to truly repent, then it must protect the victims of “white privilege” and/or “class privilege.”

This inference is likely sound given that Butterfield herself believes she benefits from “class and racial privilege,”106 and argues that

...Christians are coconspirators [in the evils perpetuated by the “post-Christian” world in which we live]....Our cold and hard hearts; our failure to love the stranger; our selfishness with our money, our time, and our home; and our privileged back turned against widows, orphans, prisoners, and refugees mean we are guilty in the face of God of withholding love and Christian witness.107

And when reflecting on how she addresses women in the LGBT community, showing “respect” to them by describing their relationships according to their own standards, she writes –

I ponder: Have I made myself safe to share the real hardships of your day-to-day living, or am I still so burdened by the hidden privileges of Christian acceptability that I can’t even see the daggers in my hands? Am I safe? If not, then why not?108

“Christian privilege” is a the conceptual fruit of critical theory, as are racial, class, and heterosexual privilege – and Butterfield embraces all of them as legitimate.109 Thus, while Butterfield contrasts “the social gospel” with “radical ordinary Christian hospitality,” she still embraces the critical theory ensconced social justice concepts that she claims to have left behind years ago. Even more problematically, she believes that it is the Christian’s moral duty to socially engage as if these critical theory ideas are legitimate. As she states in the opening of her book –

Those who live out radically ordinary hospitality [i.e. obedient Christians, as she elsewhere explains] see their homes not as theirs at all but as God’s gift to use for the furtherance of his kingdom. They open doors; they seek out the underprivileged.110

If the church is to address sin patterns like racial, class, heterosexual, and Christian privilege, then the church is, by Butterfield’s reasoning, is to engage in social justice (as defined by critical theorists and critical race theorists).

Butterfield’s doctrine of hospitality is neither biblical nor innocuous. Rather, it subtly introduces a means whereby biblically constituted orthodox walls around the church may be slowly broken down under the guise of showing hospitality. There are contemporary theologians who, in fact, have used this feminist-theological doctrine of hospitality to promote religious inclusivism. While it may seem to be that Butterfield has important insights into LGBTQ+ issues, she is rehashing postmodernist feminist and feminist-theological concepts, none of which is compatible with Christianity. We admonish Christians, therefore, to not look to her books for guidance in how Christians are to share the Gospel with our neighbors, homosexual or heterosexual. Scripture is sufficient to address the matter, and it does. It is not radical ordinary hospitality that is the power of God unto salvation, but the Gospel alone.

1 February 7, 2013, https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2013/january-february/my-train-wreck-conversion.html, Accessed December 30, 2019.

2 ibid.

3 ibid.

4 Butterfield explains that her conversion to Christianity marked her as a turncoat and traitor among her intellectual peers.

5 In the course of this essay, we will show that the postmodern ideas embedded in The Gospel Comes With a House Key are present throughout her writings, including her preconversion academic writing.

6 Acts of Religion, Ed. Gil Anidjar (New York: Routledge, 2002), 364.

7 “Interruptions: Derrida and Hospitality,” in Kritike Vol. 2 No. 1 (June, 2008), 4. (emphasis added)

8 “Hospitality: The Apostle John, Jacques Derrida, and Us,” Third Millennium Ministries, Accessed Jan 13, 2020, https://thirdmill.org/articles/jas_foster/jas_foster.hospitality.html.(emphasis added)

9 i.e. an irresolvable internal contradiction or logical disjunction in a text, argument, or theory.

10 Interruptions, 5. (emphasis added)

11 Phenomenologies of the Stranger: Between Hostility and Hospitality, ed. Richard Kearney and Kascha Semonovitch (New York: Fordham University Press, 2011),12.

12 Of Hospitality: Anne Dufourmantelle I__nvites Jacques Derrida to R__espond, Trans. Rachel Bowlby (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), 77.

13 i.e. diametrically opposed pairs (e.g. good/evil, life/death, divine/demonic)

14 Of Hospitality, 77. (emphasis added)

15 Hospitality: The Apostle John, Jacques Derrida, and Us.

16 ibid.

17 Interruptions, 1-2. (emphasis added)

18 “Entertaining Angels: Early Christian Hospitality in its Mediterranean Setting,” Review of Entertaining Angels: Early Christian Hospitality in its Mediterranean Setting, in Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology Vol. 62 (January: 2008), 102. (emphasis added)

19 Hospitality: The Apostle John, Jacques Derrida, and Us.

20 ibid.

21 TGH, (emphasis added)

22 ibid.

23 ibid.

24 ibid.

25 ibid. (emphasis added)

26 ibid. (emphasis added)

27 ibid. (emphasis added)

28 ibid. (emphasis added)

29 ibid. (emphasis added)

30 ibid. (emphasis added)

31 ibid. (emphasis added)

32 ibid. (emphasis added)

33 ibid. (emphasis added)

34 “Violence and Postmodernism: A Conceptual Analysis,” in Reason Papers 32 (Fall: 2010), 67.

35 ibid. (emphasis added)

36 “Language, Violence, and Human Rights Law,” in Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities, Vol. 11, Iss. 2 [1999], 215-216.

37 TGH.

38 ibid.

39 ibid. (emphasis added)

40 ibid. (emphasis added)

41 Col 3:1-11. (emphasis added)

42 See Eph 4:20-24.

43 Rom 8:28-30. (emphasis added)

44 cf. John 8:42-44; Gen 3:1 , Rev 12:9, & Matt 3:7, 12:34, 22:33, & 1st John 3:7-10.

45 See James 3:6b-10.

46 “Beyond Atheism and Atheology: The Divine Humanism of Emmanuel Levinas,” in Religions 10:131 (2019), 3. (emphasis added)

47 “Reading Levinas on Ethical Responsibility,” in Responsibility and Commitment: Eighteen Essays in Honor of Gerhold K. Becker, ed. Tze-wan Kwan (Edition Gorz: 2008), 156.

48 Is It Righteous to Be? Interviews with Emmanuel Levinas, ed. Jill Robbins (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001), 255. (emphasis added)

49 ibid., 52.

50 ibid., 171. (emphasis added)

51 Matt 25:40.

52 Matt 12:50.

53 cf. Matt 28:10 & 16.

54 Heb 2:11-12. (emphasis added)

55 Rom 12:13. (emphasis added)

56 1st Tim 5:9-10. (emphasis added)

57 Heb 13:1-3. (emphasis added)

58 1st Pet 4:7-10. (emphasis added)

59 Merriam-Webster, s.v. “Subjectivity,” Accessed Jan 20, 2020, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/subjectivity.

60 Merriam-Webster, s.v. “Subjective,” Accessed Jan 20, 2020, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/subjective.

61 “On the Problem of Subjectivity,” in Russian Studies in Philosophy, vol. 56, no. 1, 2018, 1-2.

62 For a helpful introduction to this topic, see Hearfield, James. “Postmodernism and the Death of the Subject,” Marxists.org, https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/en/heartfield-james.htm.

63 ibid., 4.

64TGH.

65 ibid.

66 ibid. (emphasis added)

67 1st John 1:7. (emphasis added)

68 1st John 1:3.

69 TGH. (emphasis added)

70 The law of transitivity states – If A is B, and B is C, then A is C. Thus, Butterfield’s opening line could be restated, according to the law of transitivity, as follows:

1. If strangers (indiscriminately considered) are to be engaged with as neighbors

2. and neighbors (indiscriminately considered) are to be engaged with as family of God,

3. then strangers (indiscriminately considered) are to be engaged with as family of God.

71 2nd Cor 6:14-18. (emphasis added)

72 Butterfield writes:

My prayer is that you would see that practicing daily, ordinary, radical hospitality toward the end of rendering strangers neighbors and neighbors family of God is the missing link.

[...]

This gospel call that renders strangers into neighbors into family of God is all pretty straight up when you read the Bible, especially the book of Acts. And it requires both hosts and guests. We must participate as both hosts and guests—not just one or the other—as giving and receiving are good and sacred and connect people and communities in important ways.

[...]

All these lists lead to this moment, when strangers are rendered brothers and sisters in Christ, heads bowed; when the Holy Spirit drives, Jesus speaks, and we receive.

[...]

TGH. (emphasis added)

73 Openness Unhindered: Further Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert. (emphasis added)

74 ibid. (emphasis added)

75 ibid. (emphasis added)

76 The absence of quantification or specification here implies universality. Butterfield is not speaking of one kind of self-representation over and against Christian self-representation, in other words, but of self-representation in general/universally.

77 Openness Unhindered, ibid. (emphasis added)

78 One possible solution to this contradiction can be found in Butterfield’s preconversion article titled “Feminism, Essentialism, and Historical Context,” in Women’s Studies Vol.25 (1995). There she writes –

My position...is that essentialism and constructionism, as theoretical positions that determine ways of reading, are not mutually exclusive, but inseparable and interdependent; they are complicated versions of each other. Although the doctrinaire anti-essentialist would necessarily resist this assertion out-of-hand, what we see when filtering the essentialist-constructionist binarism through a psychoanalytic/poststructural frame is that essence (essentialism) is to counter-essence (constructionism) as transference is to counter-transference.

...Thus, essentialism is only negatively charged when it operates as a critical return of the repressed.

[96-97, emphasis added]

In other words, for Butterfield fixity and fluidity as regards subjectivity are not mutually exclusive. Rather, they are interdependent, complicated versions of each other. If Butterfield still maintains this view, then her contradicting beliefs may be capable of harmonization.

79 ibid. (emphasis added)

80 The Politics of Survivorship: Incest, Women’s Literature, and Feminist Theory, (New York: New York University Press, 1996)4. (emphasis added)

81 i.e. contradiction.

82 “Toward a Theory of Feminist Hospitality,” in Feminist Formations, Vol. 22 No. 1 (Spring), 22-23. (emphasis added)

83 ibid. (emphasis added)

84 “Jesuit and Feminist Hospitality: Pope Francis’ Virtue Response to Inequality,” in Religions 8, 71 (2017), 4. (emphasis added)

85 TGH.

86 Jesuit and Feminist Hospitality, 4.

87 TGH. (emphasis added)

88 Jesuit and Feminist Hospitality, 4. (emphasis added)

89 TGH.

90 Jesuit and Feminist Hospitality, 5. (emphasis added)

91 Jesuit and Feminist Hospitality, 5. (emphasis added)

92 TGH. (emphasis added)

93 TGH. (emphasis added)

94 Jesuit and Feminist Hospitality, 6. (emphasis added) Butterfield similarly identifies concern for personal and national safety as possibly “obdurate sin.” She writes –

Who should take responsibility for this global humanitarian crisis? Is it safe to get involved?

[...] It is deadly to ignore biblical teaching about serving the stranger—deadly to the people who desperately need help and deadly to anyone who claims Christ as King….A more crucial question for the Bible-believing Christian is this: Is it safe to fail to get involved?

[…]

Is our lack of care for the refugee and the stranger an innocent lack of opportunity, or is it a form of willful violence? Is it a reasonable act of self-preservation, or is it obdurate sin?

TGH. (emphasis added)

95 Jesuit and Feminist Hospitality, 6. (emphasis added)

96 TGH. (emphasis added)

97 TGH. (emphasis added)

98 7. (emphasis added)

99 See our foregoing discussion of ancient Mediterranean practices of hospitality, which Christians practiced, above. Additionally, see Igor Lorencin’s insightful analysis of 3rd John’s comments on the practice of hospitality titled “Hospitality as a Ritual Liminal-Stage Relationship with Transformative Power: Social Dynamics of Hospitality and Patronage in the Third Epistle of John,” in Biblical Theology Bulletin Vol. 490 No. 3 (2018), 146–155. In particular, Lorencin explains –

...Normally people are treated according to their status, but with hospitality a guest’s status is not important, since in the liminal stage he is in transition to obtaining a new status as household friend.

What rights does the guest have? He is supposed to be served—the host is his servant who provides for the needs of his guest. The guest is like a king in a hospitality situation—he receives services, the best seating places, the best food and drink, as well as the best accommodation in the house. Regular social order is set aside, and the host is now a servant. Refusing the offered services would offend the host and indicate that the services were not good enough. Thus, there were certain rules of hospitality, and both parties were supposed to stay within the boundaries of their roles during a single hospitality event…

[Hospitality as Ritual, 149.]

100 TGH. (emphasis added)

101 For example, see Champagne, Rosaria M. “Women's History and Housekeeping: Memory, Representation and Reinscription,” in Women’s Studies Vol. 20 (1992), 321-329; “The Other Women’s Movement,” in The Women’s Review of Books Vol. 16 No. 3 (December: 1998),, 28-29; “Passionate Experience,” in The Women's Review of Books Vol. 13, No. 3 (December: 1995), 14-15; “Other Women: The Writing of Class, Race and Gender, 1832-1898” [Review], in Nineteenth-Century Contexts Vol. 15 No.1 (1991), 88-93; and “Getting Smart: Feminist Research and Pedagogy With/in the Postmodern” [Review], in NWSA Journal Vol. 3, No. 3 (Autumn: 1991), 477-479.

102 TGH. (emphasis added)

103 Luke 24:25-27.

104 This phrasing is significant in light of the fact of Butterfield’s positive association with, and varied media contributions to, Desiring God, The Gospel Coalition, and The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. These organizations/ministries all promote social justice as articulated by proponents of critical theory and its various offspring (e.g. critical race theory), and seem to also connect it with a “cosmological and holistic” “gospel.” See, for instance, Graves, Rayshawn. “Nothing Less Than Justice,” Desiring God, August 29, 2016, https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/nothing-less-than-justice; Wax, Trevin. “Sheep & Goats 3: Human Need,” The Gospel Coalition, February 11, 2008, https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/trevin-wax/sheep-goats-3; and Hough, Casey B. “What Sheep and Goats Teach Us About the Sanctity of Life: Matthew 25 and the Least of These,” Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, January 29, 2020, https://erlc.com/resource-library/articles/what-sheep-and-goats-teach-us-about-the-sanctity-of-life.

105 TGH. (emphasis added)

106ibid.

107 ibid. (emphasis added)

108 ibid. (emphasis added)

109 We have above mentioned racial and class privilege, but can add more examples here. For instance, when speaking about “Lisa”’s difficult time in medical school, Butterfield writes –

During medical school [Lisa] struggled with sleep deprivation and imposter identity, as she was daily surrounded by people in her medical program who came with social privilege. [emphasis added]

Similarly, when speaking about why some professing Christians become progressive in regards to homosexuality Butterfield writes –

They [i.e. progressive “Christians”] wish to be an ally. They desire to stand in the gap for their friends. They want their friends to have the same rights and privileges as they do. [emphasis added]

110 TGH. (emphasis added)

“The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those who exercise authority over them are called ‘benefactors.’ “

-          Luke 22:25

In the event you have a life to live and don’t have hours of free time every day to monitor the latest big plans the master-of-the-universe-types have for the rest of us serfs, peasants, and minions, you may be surprised to hear that the great high holy week of globalism has arrived.  It’s Davos time!

What’s that you say?  You’ve never heard of Davos? Well, you just don’t know what you’re missing.  Davos is a town in Switzerland that once a year plays host to the World Economic Forum (WEF), the exclusive annual January gathering of the world’s great and good where they discuss weighty and important topics that you and I can’t understand and make big plans for how to impose their vision of the future on us. 

The Corporate Line

I admit, I haven’t paid much attention to the run up to this year’s gathering.  What tipped me off this time around, though, was all the climate change hype that kept showing up on CNBC, a financial channel I follow regularly.

For example, one recent headline on CNBC read “Capitalism ‘will fundamentally be in jeopardy’ if business does not act on climate change, Mircosoft CEO Satya Nadella says.”      

This is a new take on climate change.  Generally, what you hear from the mainstream media (MSM) is that it’s capitalism itself that is causing climate change and that it needs to be ended in favor of the sort of Green New Deal Marxist claptrap one hears from the likes various American politicians whose names I won’t mention in this space. 

But here’s a businessman - the CEO of Microsoft no less! – announcing to the world that climate change is an existential threat to capitalism.  Adapt or die, seems to be is message.

The article begins by announcing, “The science is clear that environmental sustainability must factor in a corporation’s growth plans, or the capitalist and economic system the U.S. enjoys ‘will fundamentally be in jeopardy.’ “  Now the piece doesn’t say exactly what “science” is “clear” to the point that it requires the radical re-evaluation of the purpose of a corporation as is proposed in this article, but one supposes Nadella is referring to the report put out by the WEF just in time for the group’s 2020 meeting this week in Davos.

It probably doesn’t come as a surprise to you, but about halfway into the article one comes across the obligatory “Orange Man Bad” reference.  You see, unlike righteous CEO’s such as Nadella who care about the environment, Orange Man, “has tapped the brakes on a number of the country’s climate initiatives, such as pulling the U.S. out of the multilateral 2017 Paris Agreement.”

After plowing through a lot of corporate-speak virtue signaling, about “sustainability” and Microsoft’s new “Climate Innovation Fund” we read,   

Microsoft’s CFO Amy Hood, appearing alongside Nadella later in the interview, said the eco-friendly program along with the company’s $750 million commitment to affordable housing in Seattle, Washington “are good returns on investments.”

Reflecting on this statement, author Tyler Clifford notes, “She stopped short of projecting what the return on investment in these initiatives would be, but explained that it will be measured and the company will hold itself accountable.” 

So the Microsoft CFO won’t offer a projection of the return on investment of these “eco-friendly” programs?  Remarkable.  Her silence on this subject should be a big clue.  Not only will the “eco-friendly” initiatives not be profitable, they almost certainly will destroy shareholder value. 

Now one can feel a certain amount of sympathy for Nadella.  He’s the high-profile CEO of a hugely successful company.  As such, he’s expected to talk the talk and walk the walk of the master of the universe types whose good graces he must court.  My guess, he probably doesn’t believe all the sustainability nonsense he talks about.  It’s just the cost of doing business.

The Davos Globalist Line and Antichrist

While Nadella’s comments aren’t openly globalist, another article on CNBC let the globalism behind the WEF report out of the bag.   

WEF has said it aims to assist governments and international institutions in tracking progress toward the Paris Agreement and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

The Paris Agreement was the destructive treaty, from which President Trump wisely pulled the US.

The UN Sustainable Development Goals, known more formally as The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, is a formula for international socialism and world government, which unsurprisingly has been openly praised by globalist Pope Francis.

Writing in his 2015 encyclical Laudato Si, On Care for Our Common Home, the current occupant of the Office of Antichrist, Pope Francis, openly called for world government as the cure for the so-called environmental crisis.  Worth noting Pope Francis did so by quoting his predecessor Benedict XVI, who himself referenced his predecessor Pope John XXIII (the Vatican II pope).  Wrote Francis,

Given this situation, it is essential to devise stronger and more efficiently organized international institutions, with functionaries who are appointed fairly by agreement among national governments, and empowered to impose sanctions. As Benedict XVI has affirmed in continuity with the social teaching of the Church: “To manage the global economy; to revive economies hit by the crisis; to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result; to bring about integral and timely disarmament, food security and peace; to guarantee the protection of the environment and to regulate migration: for all this, there is urgent need of a true world political authority, as my predecessor Blessed John XXIII indicated some years ago”.

So Popes Benedict and Francis agree, there is a need, in fact an urgent need, for “a true world political authority.” Even the secular globalists at Davos aren’t quite that open about their plans to rule the world.  But the Antichrist popes of Rome not only say it, but they nearly shout it from the rooftops.  As Jesus said of the Pharisees, “Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.”

It’s doubtful that the masters-of-the-universe at Davos or the UN or in the Vatican really believe the stated goals of the Paris Agreement, the UN’s Sustainable Development goals or the flowery nonsense about “our Sister, Mother Earth” found in Laudato Si.  More likely, they do believe in the unstated goals of these programs:  unlimited power over humanity.

John Robbins on the Ecologers   

As far back as 1972, John Robbins clearly identified the power lust that lurked behind the environmentalists’ mask.  “The ecologers,” he wrote, “do not wish to have dominion over the Earth and subdue it:  They wish to have dominion over men and subdue them” (“Ecology:  The Abolition of Man,” in Freedom and Capitalism, page 561). 

Closing Thoughts

In Genesis 1, God commanded man to, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”  Some theologians call this gift of dominion the cultural mandate. 

Because of the commandment, Christianity has a radically different view of man’s relationship to the Earth than medieval mystic religions such as Roman Catholicism or modern secular movements such as environmentalism.  Christians hold that the Earth is not divine, it is God’s creation, made by him but separate from him.  Man is not part of nature, but rather has dominion over it.  Further, not only is it not wrong for man to increase in number and to exercise dominion over the Earth, but it is positively sinful form him not to do so.  For to refuse to multiply and to exercise dominion is to go against the express command of God himself, which is the very definition of sin.

The globalists and environmentalists of the 21st century – be they secularists like the Davos crowd, or religious like the Pope – stand all this on its head.  Man no longer has dominion over the Earth.  In their scheme of things, it is the Earth that has dominion over man.  Man must serve the goddess Mother Earth and they, her priests, will prescribe the appropriate sacrifices for us.

As did the rulers of the Gentiles in Jesus day, our globalist taskmasters aim to “exercise lordship” over us, all the while positing themselves as our “benefactors,” who are saving us from the ravages of the climate crisis.

But their program is not about benefiting mankind.  It's a subtle attack on freedom, capitalism and Christianity. 

Let the Lord's people hear his Word, let them stand upon it, and let them reject the globalist's wicked counsel.

Once again, I find myself looking back at the year past and peering forward at the one to come.   As is no doubt the case with many, this is for me a bittersweet annual experience.  By God’s grace, I can say that I have been partially successful in redeeming the time.  But a little honest reflection convicts me that I could have, and should have, done better. 

Sin, it would seem, is ever present with me, tainting even my best works. 

But thanks be to God, for it is not my own works that justify me.  Rather, I am acceptable to God “only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to [me], and received by faith [belief] alone.” 

Truly, the grace of God is amazing toward sinners! It’s as if God were to say to us wretched rebels, “All your guilt, all your hopelessness, all your fear of death and of righteous judgment and of eternal punishment, these things I have taken away in my Son.  Only believe in him and be saved from the wrath to come.”

Now that in itself is the best offer any of us will ever hear. Maybe you’ve had the opportunity to avail yourself of some year end bargain hunting.  Certainly, there are some good deals to be had out there.  And it’s a good feeling to find something you’re shopping for at a discount.  But the best deal you and I could ever find at a store pales in comparison to the extraordinary offer the eternal God of the universe has made in his Son Jesus Christ. 

But it gets better. 

You see, when a sinner believes the Gospel of Jesus Christ – the Gospel is the good news of what Christ has done to save his people – there’s more to it than just forgiveness of sins, as if that weren’t enough. 

No, it gets better.  You see, the Lord not only justifies and fully saves his people through belief in his Son alone, but he says to them, “That whole business about wrath and death and damnation, I’ve already taken care of that for you in my Son, in whom you have believed.  Don’t worry about it anymore.  As the army of Egypt was drowned in the Red Sea no more to threaten my people Israel forever, because you have trusted in my Son, so too has the handwriting of the law which was against you been blotted out.

But for all that, you’re still a man of unclean lips, and you dwell among a people of unclean lips.  I have much to teach you.  I bid you, come and study my Word and be sanctified.  What is more, I want you to go and stand and speak to a dying world.  Proclaim to it my Word and be Christ to your neighbor.  And you know what?  Because I am a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in goodness and truth, a God who loves his children, I’ll even reward you for your efforts, feeble and sinful though they be.”        

“Seriously?,” I’m tempted to respond in my flesh. 

“Yes, seriously,” says the Lord. 

How great is that!  Not only are Christians saved from eternal punishment and promised heaven itself just by believing God, they have before them the opportunity, not only to continue to learn from Christ himself, but the honor of working for the King, who will even reward them just for doing his bidding. 

Thinking about all that makes it easy to understand why John Newton wrote “Amazing Grace.” 

So, why is it I write this blog?  Look no further than what I said above.  The Lord God has been gracious to me in Christ Jesus far above and beyond anything that I have any right to claim.  He has called me forth and saved me through belief in the truth.  Further, he has continued to teach me and given me work to do. 

Not that my work saves me.  My salvation is in Christ alone.  It was a done deal the day I put my faith in Jesus Christ. 

But just because good works don’t save, doesn’t mean that good works have no place in the life of a Christian.  In fact, as Paul tells us in Ephesians, Christians are created in Christ for the very purpose of doing good works: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”

“So,” you may be saying to yourself, “that’s all very well and good, but what has all this to do with a 2019 Year in Review post?”

The answer is everything.

You see, were it not for the Lord’s grace to this sinner, I never would have known about salvation in Christ alone.  I never would have had the opportunity to read and learn from extraordinary Christian teachers such as Gordon Clark and John Robbins, and I never would have been moved to write this blog.

In 2008, the Trinity Foundation had just published my book Imagining a Vain Thing, a book dealing with the controversy that effectively destroyed Knox Seminary. 

It was for me both an exciting time and a sad time.  It was exciting to see the book in print, my first published writing and a project that had been a year-and-a-half in the making.  It was a sad time, as John Robbins, who had helped me a great deal with the writing of Imagining a Vain Thing, had gone to be with the Lord just a few weeks before the book came out.   

I had enjoyed writing the book and didn’t want that to be the end of road for me as a writer.  More importantly, I felt a real responsibility to continue to take all I had learned from Clark and Robbins and, as I was able, to continue to keep ideas before the public.  But more than just repeating what they had taught, I wanted to develop and apply their ideas as circumstances called for it.  The Scripturalist enterprise – Scripturalism is the name John Robbins gave to Clark’s philosophy, which held that the Bible, and the Bible alone, has a systematic monopoly on truth – had only just begun under the leadership of Clark and Robbins.  But John Robbins’ passing had left big shoes to fill.

In late 2008, there were very few writers who even knew what Scripturalism was, let alone who were favorable to it, let alone who were actively writing.  At the time, the only Scripturalist blog that I was aware of was Sean Gerety’s excellent God’s Hammer, so starting a Scripturalist blog of my own seemed like a good way to do my part to further the work.

On March 22, 2009 I published my first post on my new blog Lux Lucet.  The title of that post was Diverse weight and measures.  That post was a critique of the Federal Reserve’s then revolutionary program of Quantitative Easing (QE), which was just a fancy sounding term for money printing.  QE was simply a new twist on the age-old practice of monetary debasement, a technique governments the world over have used to cover their profligate spending by stealthily stealing purchasing power from their peoples’ money.  

This means that in March 2019, Lux Lucet turned 10 years old.  Unbelievable!   

When I got into blogging back in 2009, blogs were still a fairly new thing, I had very little idea what I was doing, and hoped that somewhere, somehow, someone might actually read what I had written. 

As it turns out, they did.

Mind you, not very many.  But a few people did read that post and the few other posts I wrote that year.  The total number of hits on my blog for 2009?  A whopping 547. 

But there was another blogging milestone I celebrated in November 2019:  The fifth anniversary of writing at least once a week.

For the first five years I wrote Lux Lucet, I was an occasional poster.  Sometimes I’d post a few articles a month, sometimes I’d go months without posting.  It was in November 2014 that I prayed to God to grant me the strength to blog at least once a week. 

Sixty-one months later, I can tell you that God has answered that prayer in the affirmative.  In all that time, not a week has gone by that I have not posted at least one article. 

To put these two accomplishments in some perspective, consider that, at least according to this article, “the average blog is dead after a mere 100 days.”

With that in mind, to have sustained a blog for over 10 years now, and to have regularly posted for over 5 years, is very satisfying on a personal level.

I don’t say this to boast in my own abilities as a writer, or to say, “look at all the great stuff I’ve accomplished with hard work and determination.”

God forbid that I should boast in anything but the cross of Christ!

The reason I mention this at all is to encourage you.  As a writer, as a Christian, I’m nothing special.  The truth be known, I’m some guy with a single semester of Seminary training to my credit.  If the Lord can take this sinner and grant him the grace and strength to write a Christian blog for over 10 years, he can and will give you the strength to do the work to which he has called you, whatever that may be. 

Perhaps the Lord is calling you to write a blog, start a podcast or a YouTube channel in 2020.  God knows, we need Christians of sound mind to speak the truth on the internet.  If you’ve never done anything of this sort and would like a help getting started, just let me know.  I’ll be happy to share what I can with you.

Perhaps the Lord has something else in mind for you in the coming year.  Maybe you even know what that is, but for some reason, instead of being an Isaiah and saying “here I am, send me,” you’ve played the Jonah and fled from the face of the Lord. 

How did that work out for Jonah?

If that’s you, then you need to repent and get to work.

On the other hand, maybe you’re a Christian at a loss as to what the Lord is calling you to do.  For what it’s worth, I’ve been there too.  In fact, I still have questions about what God wants me to do concerning this or that situation. 

If that describes you, then you need to be in the Word and in prayer.  Earnestly seek God’s face, asking him to grant you knowledge of his Word and wisdom to apply it to your life.  Ask him direction about how he wants you to serve him now and in the coming year. 

He is faithful and he will answer.

In closing, I would like to thank the Father, Son and Holy Ghost for the grace and strength to complete another year of blogging.  It has been both a calling and a joy to serve as a writer.

Secondly, I’d like to thank you, the reader, for your support and encouragement over the past 12 months.  It has been my prayer that my writing has served to edify and encourage you, and I look forward to serving you in 2020.

Thirdly, I would be remiss if I did not thank Mr. John Bradshaw for the great help he has been to me throughout the year.  If my posts are a little more polished with fewer typos than in years past, this has been the result of his efforts.    

Now may the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God grant to you and to your family grace and peace, both now and in the year to come. 

Amen.