Books I've Been Reading or Re-reading

Short biography of Jonathan Edwards

At the Alfred the Great Society I recently published a short biography of Jonathan Edwards. To read it, click on the following link:

Jonathan Edwards: God's Melancholy Saint

CO2: Elixir of Life

by Terrell Clemmons

Elixir of Life?

Yes, 'Elixir of Life."  Elixir of Life is the label two scientists apply to carbon dioxide. Despite the fact that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has declared it a dangerous air pollutant, the son and father team of Dr. Craig D. Idso and Dr. Sherwood B. Idso, in their book, The Many Benefits of Atmospheric CO2 Enrichment, unabashedly say just the opposite:

"Atmospheric carbon dioxide is the elixir of life. It is the primary raw material out of which plants construct their tissues, which in turn are the materials out of which animals construct theirs. This knowledge is so well established, in fact, that we humans - and all the rest of the biosphere - are described in the most basic of terms as carbon-based lifeforms."

Indeed. "Not only are increasing concentrations of atmospheric CO2 not dangerous to human, animal, or plant health," writes Jay Lehr, science director of The Heartland Institute, in his review of the book, "they actually benefit earth’s many life forms, counteracting the deleterious effects of real air pollutants."

"The foundation of our philosophy is humility."

The words of John Calvin serve as a helpful antidote to one of the perennial temptations that Calvinists fall into, namely intellectual pride. In his Institutes 2.2.11 Calvin wrote

A saying of Chrysostom's has always pleased me very much, that the foundation of our philosophy is humility. But that of Augustine pleases me even more: 'When a certain rhetorician was asked what was the chief rule in eloquence, he replied, 'Delivery'; what was the second rule, 'Delivery'; what was the third rule, 'Delivery'; so if you ask me concerning the precepts of the Christian religion, first, second, third and always I would answer, 'Humility.'"

____________


Read my columns at the Charles Colson Center

Read my writings at Alfred the Great Society

To join my mailing list, send a blank email to robin (at sign) atgsociety.com with “Blog Me” in the subject heading.

Click Here to friend-request me on Facebook and get news feeds every time new articles are added to this blog.

“I'm from the government and I’m here to help”

Former America President, Ronald Reagan, once remarked that the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”
 
Reagan understood an important principle: as soon a government becomes benevolent, the totalitarian temptation is sure to be lurking near.
 
Obama, on the other hand, appears to have taken Reagan’s terrifying phrase as a template rather than a warning. The latest example of the President’s “I’m-here-to-help” enthusiasm occurred on 23 March, 2010 when he signed into law a bill requiring every individual to have or buy health insurance coverage.

Keep reading...

Gender Articles

Last month when Salvo magazine hired me to write a blog post a day for their Signs of the Times blog (it was too time-consuming so I decided not to do it again this month), I posted a number of articles on a pet peeve of mine, namely, people who are opposed to gender distinctions. Here are links to the posts about this:

• Gender Neutralizers Attack Pregnancy
  
• Michael Coren on Gender Neutral Children
  
• Too Feminine?
  
• Schools Encourage Cross-dressing and Gender Confusion
  
• Chuck Colson on the Politics of Gender
  
• Gender-free Toy Stores and Schools
  
• Gender Benders  Is My Sexual Identity an Accident Just Waiting to Happen?
  
• Gender Discrimination is Sometimes Good
  
•  "voluntary elimination of gender in the human species"
  
•  Sasha of the Secret Gender
  
•  Militant Gender Neutralizers
  
• Gender Switchers Enforce Older Stereotypes
  
• Post-Genderism Video

Third installment in Gnosticism series

Those who have been following my ongoing series on Gnosticism and Evangelicalism will be pleased to know that the third installment in this series has now been published at the Chuck Colson Center. Titled 'Raised a Spiritual Body', I have continued the discussion of bodily resurrection, interacting with certain Gnostic tendencies that are prevalent in the contemporary church. This article gives particular attention to St. Paul's discussion of resurrection in chapter 15 of his letter to the Corinthians. This is good timing, not simply because it is still the Easter season, but because these reflections dampen the sorrow we feel at the passing of Chuck Colson.

Following is a link to the article, as well as a link to the two preceding articles in the series:

• Raised a Spiritual Body: Gnosticism and Evangelicalism (3)
• Resurrection and the Sanctification of Matter: Gnosticism & Evangelicalism (2) 
• Salvation as Escape from the Body: Gnosticism and Evangelicalism (1)

Further Reading

Eight Gnostic Myths You May Have Imbibed

Jonathan Edwards: God’s Melancholy Saint

On the night of 29th October 1727, the people of New England lay fast asleep. At 10:40 pm, the colonists were wakened by a terrific series of noises. The clamour built in volume until it sounded like canon fire was tearing the heavens apart.

 

While these dreadful clamours were heard overhead, the ground beneath began to shake so violently that people dashed out into the streets fearful that their houses would collapse on them. Standing outside in their night clothes, men and women found they could not keep their balance. Even when the earthquake subsided, there were continuous recurrences that kept the people in a state of terror throughout the night.

 

The event was immediately interpreted in apocalyptic terms. Even before the sun rose, folk were seeking out their ministers and making supplications to God.

  

18th century New Englanders had good reason to want to make things right with their Maker. Though only a hundred years had elapsed since the Pilgrim Fathers established their settlement in Plymouth, New England faith was but a shadow of its previous lustre. Historian Frank Lambert noted that many of the ministers “saw men and women attending worship services, but they witnessed little practice of genuine piety. They feared that, for many, faith had been reduced to an intellectual acceptance of certain propositions rather than a life-changing conversion experience.”

 

The Puritan minister, Cotton Mather (1663 – 1728), had seen the handwriting on the wall when he cited the old Latin saying, “Religion brought forth Prosperity, and the daughter destroyed the mother.”

 

Jonathan Edwards

The town of Northampton Massachusetts was like many others on the morning of 30th October. Though townsfolk were concerned about the broken walls and chimneys that lay about them, they were even more concerned with the question, “what shall I do to be saved?” Their pastor, the great theologian and revivalist Solomon Stoddard (1643-1729), was always ready with the answer, and pointed people towards a personal experience of Christ.

 

During nearly half a century of ministry in the town, Solomon had been involved in four other periods of revival. The fifth and final revival, triggered by the earthquake, was witnessed by his grandson, Jonathan Edwards, who was then assisting his maternal grandfather in the ministry. Two years later Solomon would pass away, leaving Jonathan to fill his place.

Keep reading...

From 'hatchet man' to Christian Apologist

On April 21^st , an eighty-year-old Charles Colson passed from this life.

Alongside C.S. Lewis and Francis Schaeffer, Colson will go down to history as one of the foremost apologists of the 20^th century.

The author of more than 30 books, he pursued a relentless schedule of traveling and speaking.

His Prison Fellowship Ministries helped to reach millions of prisoners with the gospel and to bring prison reform to the United States.

Keep reading...

May Day, East and West

by Terrell Clemmons

As far back as ancient Rome, May 1^st – May Day – has been celebrated as a spring festival in the northern hemisphere. But in the nineteenth century, that changed. Ironically, though the change began in America, America eventually rejected it. In other parts of the world, however, the shift in May Day emphasis gave way to radical upheavals of whole societies with generational consequences.  

Seeds of Revolution
It began in America. In the 1800s, unhappy workers in the industrializing US began to agitate for a shorter workday – eight hours, to be exact. And it was the eight-hour movement which directly gave birth to a revolutionalized May Day. Not long after the Civil War put an end to real slavery, the National Labor Union adopted the language of slavery to advance its cause. At its founding convention in August, 1966, the following resolution was passed:

The first and great necessity of the present, to free labor of this country from capitalist slavery, is the passing of a law by which 8 hours shall be the normal working day in all states in the American union. We are resolved to put forth all our strength until this glorious result is attained.

Righteousness

Someone once told me (he later changed his mind) that although Christians have a legal or judicial (“imputed”) righteousness through the work of Christ, it is false that Christ gives believers any practical, actual, ontological righteousness until we have our new bodies.

Logically, these two concepts need not be mutually exclusive. But let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that my friend was right and that there is no practical, actual and ontological righteousness that we receive from Christ until we have our new bodies.

Notice what immediately follows. If 100% of our righteousness is a judicial transfer to our account from the righteousness of Christ, then logically how can that righteousness grow over time through sanctification? That answer is that it can’t since a righteousness that is purely judicial is already a fixed amount credited to our account. Yet the Bible does seem to talk about righteousness as something we can grow in.

The Greater Hoax

"Can You Save the Earth?"

by Terrell Clemmons, guest blogger

Are you enjoying Creation this Earth Week?

The first nationwide Earth Day was held on April 22^nd, 1970, on the 100^th anniversary of the birth of Vladimir Lenin, the founding father of the Soviet Union. Some say the date is only coincidental. Some say it’s isn’t.

I don’t know. But I do know this: Behind the 'Save the Earth' movement runs a forceful undercurrent of hostility to God that is consistent with his state atheism. Take a look at these snippets of media coverage on James Inhofe’s new book, The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future:

• Inhofe: God Says Global Warming Is A Hoax from ThinkProgress
• James Inhofe Says the Bible Refutes Climate Change from Right Wing Watch
• Inhofe refutes climate science with scripture from Rachel Maddow

That last one, from Rachel Maddow’s personal blog on the MSNBC website, is especially telling, considering Maddow interviewed Inhofe and said she read the whole book. Presumably she invited him onto her show to discuss it, but she appeared wholly uninterested in the substance of it or the science supporting it. In fact she looked rather peeved when he went into it, but that could be because he blew her out of the water when it came to discussing the science. Click here to see the interview.

Resurrection and the Gospel of Thomas

Earlier in the year I wrote an article for the Colson Center titled 'Salvation as Escape from the Body', introducing the subject of Gnosticism and pointing to some ways that the Gnostic tincture has influenced evangelicalism.

I have now written a squeal to that, which focuses on the Gnostic book The Gospel of Thomas and explores the differences between this text and the canonical gospels on the subject of resurrection. To read my article, click on the link below:

'Resurrection and the Sanctification of Matter'

From Tolerance to Intolerance

In a blog post I wrote for Salvo last month, I discussed the evolution of the notion of tolerance. I briefly charted the twisted course whereby tolerance has morphed to something that at one time would have been called intolerance. To read my article, click on the following link:

Tolerance: An Evolving Notion