Isn't it time for them to sojourn out of here?

The Democratic Party's defense of the SCHIP bill would be ironic in light of their radical defense of all forms of abortion, except that it's completely unintentional, and thus nothing more than an addendum to the volumes of ideological blunders we've come expect from our friends in blue. Of course, Jim Wallis is upset, but then again Mr. Wallis makes the late Jerry Falwell look like a paragon of theological interpretation and rationalism.

Revolution

I am in a couple of courses that are outside the modern Europeanists field, and they've been productively challenging some of the tacit assumptions that modernists and early modernists make about their fields. In fact I've already heard medievalists claiming that they had the foundations of empirical science, capitalism, rationalism, and a whole host of "modern" concepts back in their period. To the degree that I've studied a handful of topics I am inclined to agree. In fact it might be wise to suggest that in the history of humanity, there has been but one revolution.

The real threat of the [Social] Democrats' policies is not so much the policies in themselves. They are so bogus that they are bound to fail. Then, after infecting a yet larger portion of the population with entitlementitis, their plans will fail and the people will want better programs and more programs. More politicians will make more hubristic guarantees which will then fail. By then, Americans will be ready for anything, but they will most likely look to a single individual who can pull the country out of the downward spiral. The Roman Republic. The French Directory. The German Weimar Reichstag.

If the Democrats win, I predict the creation of a leader cult (before the leader arrives, mind you) by 2040. Care to make a wager?

Handouts

A few years back I worked for an independent grocer who made the point of treating his customers with the utmost respect. I usually worked in backstock or on the register, but on rare occasions I would bag groceries and carry them out. If the customer had several bags we would offer to help them to their car.

One afternoon I asked an older woman if she would like a hand out with her groceries. She thought I used "handout" to mean some financial assistance in purchasing her goods. She became rather irritated and it took a manager to explain the communication breakdown.

I used to think she was crazy, but reflecting on it, I think people like her are disturbingly rare.

A Rusty Aluminum Age

The letters of Paul are letters to people with serious problems: disunity (1 Corinthians), sexual distortion (2 Corinthians), heresy and doctrinal confusion (Galatians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians), social confusion (Ephesians), racial misunderstanding and doctrinal intolerance (Romans), to name a few.

Some passages are almost embarrassing in their admission of glaring faults in the lives of Christians. I shudder to think that someday someone might discover some letter of mine written to friends containing descriptions similar to the disunity and depravity of the Corinthian church, or the tensions that rocked Timothy's struggling congregation.

Numerous scholars have (rightly) spoken of the 'golden age' of the first-century church as a myth. Instead, we would do better to see it as a rusty aluminum age, like a pile of discarded bicycles sitting in the rain, with various parts removed.

Thus, here is Pauline theology in a nutshell: humans need God's grace.

Pensées

9. I was discussing the Reformation briefly with a professor, who suggested that one way to understand that moment was as the triumph of plain speech over analogy. Generally, this is a true statement, but it can be misleading. In doing away with some of the excess analogies of the Catholic church, reformers hoped to highlight the central analogy of Scripture to which all other ideas must submit. That analogy is that God, throughout history, has been restoring humanity to personal fellowship with himself. Christ sealed this in his atonement, and it is applied to believers through the workings and intercession of the Holy Spirit. We understand this because of the Church, over which Christ reigns as the true head of the church. To suggest that a man is the head of the Church is to take a step in the wrong direction. If we're going to return to the usefulness of analogy in understanding Christianity, it's got to start there.

Pensées

8. You've got to hand it to the emergent church. They've managed to hook people in with the idea that they're "emerging" from the ruins of modernist Christianity, when instead they're staying in those exact same ruins. This isn't surprising, because it's exactly what postmodernism did to modernism in general. Consider:

It is ironic that postmodernists, who distinguish themselves by a refusal of high theory and grand narrative, have to jimmy modernity into an epochal straightjacket in order to claim to have moved beyond it.

- Frederick Cooper, Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History, 19.

What the emergent church has performed is the illusion of a major shift; in reality they've changed the packaging of the message, but hardly any of the meaningful content. Where the modern church aesthetic consisted of corportate colors, straight lines and right angles, and sports arena-style sanctuaries, the postmodern church aesthetic consists of hip, alternative colors, crooked lines and varied angles, and meeting areas that resemble your local coffee shop. But the differences end at the aesthetic level. You'll still find the quasi-worship that dumbs the mind and numbs the heart; you'll still hear sermons that will claim to fix some aspect of your life but really won't, and you'll still find the same disregard for covenant, baptism, and Eucharist as in modernist churches. My friend Steven sent me a video in which a pastor and a member figured they should do communion, and wondered what that might look like.

The emergent church is right about the need to embrace postmodernism, but they get the point wrong. N.T. Wright hits the nail on the head when he says that a grasp of postmodernism is needed to cleanse the church of corrupting modern influences. The point of such baptisms is neither to continue being baptised or return to uncleanliness, but to embrace and dwell in union with Christ. That is the real way to get out of this mess.

Pensées - Legalism and Rules of the Camp

7. Many people seem to have the idea that camp rules are legalistic, particularly for camp counselors and other staff members. All sorts of behaviors and dress styles are prohibited, and behaviors must be assumed on entering camp grounds. These rules are generally much more stringent than the rules outside the camp, and so they seem to be legalistic. Whatever legalism might be as defined by Scripture I'm not for certain, but I think the common use of the term means an overemphasis on the law that approaches the notion of salvation by personal works. The people who accuse others of legalism have at the center of their statement a love for the gospel. Yet this gospel is only a fairy tale unless it spurs us on to good deeds towards other human beings, and so in defending the gospel against legalism some people forget that Paul mentions the heart's response with good works to the Gospel. Yes, Paul does mention works and grace in the same literary breath. I think camp rules can be strict, and yet be focused on encouraging loving, Gospel-centered relationships. This might be pietism, but I don't think I would use the L-bomb.

Market musings

I was celebrating my grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary with a stint in Vancouver, Canada, and a cruise of the Alaskan coastline.

As I am prone to do when in cities, I walked around downtown Vancouver every night I was there. I was astonished at how many homeless people lived there. Every time I turned a corner it seemed like I saw a couple more homeless people. I have been to NYC and Chicago and I noticed homeless people there, but nothing nearly on the scale of this phenomenon in British Columbia. Austin has a significant homeless population as well, but even our numbers were dwarfed. Some cities become havens for homeless people, who move from city to city, exploring the various agencies that will feed and clothe them. Then I found a clue:



If you can't make it out, the title on the door reads "The Ministry of Employment and Economic Assistance." Vancouver seems just as interested in Orwellian terms as is our own government, with our own latest hits including the PATRIOT Act and the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. I also thought the anteroom looked like something out of Kafka's parable, Vor dem Gesetz.

It would be a mistake to assume that I oppose the results of government assistance organizations. I do question, however, that assumption that the government is doing the best job of helping homeless people out, and if in fact it is not hurting job opportunities for individuals. These sorts of bureaucratic organizations are stopgaps at best, and there are only so many stopgaps that a government can afford (even when it's taxing its taxpayers through the eyes).

Lew Rockwell wrote a nice article about the first month of liberty, a thirty-day transition to a free market economy. Check it out here.

I am gearing up for graduate courses which start Wednesday. I won't be taking any Modern European courses, but I have purchased a few books on the Weimar Republic at a professor's recommendation. We all know that this welfare state crumbled under the weight of the oppressive Treaty of Versailles; but it should be interesting to explore some of the other economic areas as well. I just bought von Mises' Human Action, Socialism, and The Anti-Capitalist Mentality, so it should be nice to read them in conjunction.

I might be more active on the blog as school gets going and the gears get turning; frankly I'm suprised I managed to post after a 10 day vacation . . . from vacation. I'm taking a course on Demonology and Witchcraft (seriously, and I just started reading the Harry Potter series), so hopefully you'll pick up some musings on that as well.

The Human Side of Austrian Economics

Jim Fedako has a great post Forgotten at the Door on the Mises blog. He does a great job explaining the importance of recognizing individuals the way Austrian economists and libertarians do. For all the statist's talk about helping people, he is only helping one imagined group and hurting everyone else. As Ron Paul explains, we need not be concerned with women's rights, gay rights, or minority rights. There should only be individual rights for real individuals, not collective rights for imagined groups.

In addition to writing for Mises.org, Jim Fedako has an excellent blog of his own, Anti-Positivist. I have taken the liberty of adding it to the links list.