Are you one of those people who think America is about to collapse?

If so, let me tell you the sign you need to see to indicate the end is near.

There are many commentators who tell us that the USA is no longer a great nation, that financial irresponsibility has driven the value of the dollar down, inflation is rampant, and only the right presidential candidate will solve the problem.

If you’re like me, you’ve heard these challenging commentaries and predictions for many years. The present financial issues with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are an indicator, they say, that the end is nigh.

There are, of course, some parallels with the Roman Empire. It, too, collapsed from within. Excessive taxation, debased currency, and a social welfare system gone astray.

But there is one particular aspect of the fall of Rome that is not present in the USA or any other western nation –at least, not yet, anyway. It is this.

The Roman government became so oppressive that the nearby alternatives, in comparison, were a much better deal.

So here’s the challenge. If you could leave the USA, or you could invite another nation’s government to come in and manage, where would you go or who would you select?

Are there any countries more productive than America that offer the same benefits?

Are there any nations around the world with a better taxation system?

Is there any foreigner you — if you’re an American citizen — would invite in to manage the nation? Margaret Thatcher might be an option, but probably a bit too late. There are no follow ups to Ronald Regan. That might leave Ron Paul as the only valid candidate, but there is insufficient support for his election.

William Carroll Bark, in his book Origins of the Medieval World, makes references to Salvian’s analysis of Rome in the fifth century. Bark says:

“Salvian was quite aware that the Romans, even when faced by a foreign enemy, instead of standing shoulder to shoulder, were betraying one another — unlike the barbarians who respected the bonds of tribal membership and the rule of the king, and lived together in amity” (p. 57)

If there are lessons from the Roman collapse, it is this: the collapse does not happen until the people welcome an alternative with open arms.

I don’t think the USA is at that place — and probably still a long way from it.

Unfortunately, there does not seem to be another nation on earth that is not headed in the same direction as the USA, so a foreign solution is not an alternative.

That leaves an internal solution. But it will require a church with character, conviction, commitment, and a faith in the whole Word of God to fix the problems everywhere. Because that is what replaced the broken Roman Empire.

Click Here For Part 2.

The Medieval period in Europe, for all its faults, was a system of low taxes, local self-government, and a period of economic expansion.

This is in contrast to the Roman Empire which it replaced. it is also in stark contrast to those non-European nations that had not embraced Christianity.

We, however, no longer live in the medieval world. Instead, we live at the end of a period that has seen the rise of the nation-state that has effectively replaced localized self-government.

This change to the medieval world could only take place when three steps were completed:

1. The kings/rulers got control of the courts.
2. The kings/rulers got control of taxes (and money)
3. People were willing to abandon loyalty to family and church in favor of the state.

These were the steps necessary to create the modern nation-state. These were the essential steps for people to lose their freedom, their independence, and become a part of the nation. According to Joseph Strayer, in his book, On the Medieval Origins of the Modern State, this process started in the fourteenth century and, in principle, was in place within a century or two.

Thus, it is right to use the term sovereignty when discussing the position of the nations in which we live. They see themselves under no higher authority than themselves. They believe that they alone determine the limits of their jurisdiction, even though they might set up a framework of multiple houses of congress or parliament and a supreme law court to maintain some semblance of limitation on what they do.

If these are the steps that created the modern nation state which sees itself as a law unto itself, then it is easy to see what must be done to abolish the statism of the various nations of the world.

1. Take control of justice away from the nation-state.
2. Remove taxation and monetary control from the political order.
3. Reinstate loyalty to family and church over and above loyalty to the state.

There are some signs that this battle is the one that has been emerging for the past quarter century or more. The Christian school and home school movement is an attempt to limit the political order and reassert priority of the family and the church.

That leaves justice and finance. Still a long way to go.

Have a great week.

Click Here For Part 1.

The victors write the history books, it is claimed.

Yet history is being rewritten in our own age by a new breed of scholars who are telling us a different story about the “Dark Ages.” In this case, it is not only a different story, it is a better story.

With the rise of the Enlightenment and its rampant anti-Christianity came a view of the past called the “Dark Ages”. It referred to the period after the collapse of the Roman Empire, and covered the next few hundred years; for some people, the “Dark Ages” remained until the humanistic Renaissance appeared. Why? Enlightenment thought was so critical of Christianity it could not face the facts. The facts being that the Bible and Christianity were the cultural reference points that replaced pagan Rome.

Imagine this. You are the last Roman Emperor. Your area of jurisdiction is dissipating in front of you. You have insufficient money to wage war, even defensive war. The tax demands you have inherited have created such hostility among the citizens, they don’t care any longer. Anything is better than this.

Among this mess was a veritable army of Christian monks and citizens who had answers. In fact, your predecessor, Constantine, not only permitted Christianity to exist, but helped established the local priests and monks as a surrogate source of justice. The Roman courts were too expensive for justice, whereas the local church was not only a cheap alternative, it had some better answers to the problems of life. So magnificent was the result of their Christian answers, that one historian noted: “[T]he early Middle Ages represented the age par excellence of ‘applied Christianity’.” (Peter Brown, The Rise of Western Christendom, 2nd ed., Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2003, p. 25, emphasis in original).

This is a fascinating observation, for it identifies that the Dark Ages culture was the result of applied Christianity. A culture that was noticeably Christian was the outcome. Success.

But what of the failure of our own age? We have difficulty seeing a neighbor converted let alone the street, the town, the state, or the nation.

Is there something to learn if we recover and understand an earlier methodology? Almost everything we hold of value in our culture that we call Christian, came out of this period after the collapse of Rome. Charlemagne and Alfred the Great were two of the prominent outcomes of the evangelistic efforts that took place in the 6th, 7th, and 8th centuries.

What was that message of early Christianity? According to Brown,

The problem was not to create a new message nor to contest the old ones, but to make sure that a message whose alloy had already been tried and found true in the days of the Fathers of the Church, should sink ever deeper into the hearts of individuals and of the Christian people of entire Churches (p. 26).

This is a fascinating observation. It goes against many things you might think are needed to change the culture. Some want a redefinition of the faith; others want a return to the Reformation, the age of Luther and Calvin. Others are trying Seeker Friendly and any other form of “get comfortable with Jesus” program that might bring people into the church, and from there . . . .? Many people don’t know where the next step should be.

And therein lies the problem with contemporary Christianity. But since this “Dark Ages” example is the supreme example of success of major, lasting, cultural change in the past 2,000 years, maybe it’s time to take notice of the past and see if there are lessons to learn and apply today.

As I said earlier in this e-zine, imagine you’re the last Caesar — or in modern times, the last President or Prime Minister — of a failing humanism. What will follow you? There will be no more political solutions to apply, since the money has run out and the will of the people has gone elsewhere.

Brown paints this picture of the past.

For kings and aristocrats had been, in many ways, the principal victims of the general “abatement” of the age. The ending of the relentless system of taxation which had characterized the later Roman empire considerably weakened their ability to extract wealth on a regular basis from their inferiors. No longer policed and bullied every year to pay taxes, the peasantry slipped quietly out of the control of their landlords. Rents fell as taxes vanished. It has been cogently argued, indeed, that in many regions of Europe the Dark Ages were a golden age for the peasantry. Less of their agrarian surplus was taken from them than at any other time in the history of Europe from the foundation of the Roman empire to the end of the ancien régime (p. 31).

This is the “Dark Ages”, a 1,400-year remarkable testimony to the power of the Gospel in a different age. If this is the “Dark Ages” then they cannot return too soon. We need another “Dark Ages” like the first one, only let’s see if it can be taken further.

If it was a “golden age” for the peasants, then it was also a “golden age” for “applied Christianity”. The ancient Church would not recognize the contemporary churches. Contemporary liturgy is weak; its theology is narrow; and there is no forum for producing resolutions to different opinions.

If Brown’s history is correct, you could make a good start with the application of the creeds of early Christendom, a return to a liturgical framework that regularly reminds everyone of sin, our need for the Savior, and God’s Law as the moral framework for the new society.

What’s holding you back?

God bless you as you serve the King.

Returning to Australia for my son’s wedding, it did not take long to be reminded of many of the issues that dropped out of sight while living in America.

At the top of the list is the Australian concept of socialism. Socialism is the idea that the government takes control of all resources within the nation and allocates them in some fashion. Frederick Hayek drew the distinction between communism and socialism when he observed that in communism, the government owns everything and allocates according to government plan. Under socialism, ownership remains in the hands of individuals, but the government determines the allocation of the privately-held resources. The Australian government pretends it is neither socialistic nor communistic. But as Ludwig von Mises argued so clearly, the middle-of-the-road policy is the road to full socialism. You cannot control part of the economy without controlling all of it.

The key issue here is one of ownership and the meaning of the idea of ownership. “Thou shalt not steal” establishes the right of private ownership, ownership being the right of dispossession. This is the key. If you cannot dispose the things you own in the manner in which you would like, you don’t own the thing. Whoever controls the dispossession is the real owner, even though there may be official papers giving title to the individual.

In the modern world, it is taxation, perhaps more than anything else, that determines the biblical framework of ownership. The government not only takes for itself the right to tax, but it also allocates to itself the right to determine how much tax it might be entitled to. This is important because it raises the question of property ownership in money. It doesn’t exist any more. But it did exist at one time, when the Bible provided the prevailing philosophy.

If the command “Thou shalt not steal” is to have any significance, ownership of all property needs to be reestablished. So too is a related problem: being the recipient of stolen goods. In a narrow sense, both these activities are held to be wrong for certain goods. But not for money. That needs to change.

Herein is the key component of a society committed to private ownership. It is the idea that stealing is taking whatever God says you are not entitled to.

You are not entitled to your neighbor’s house.

You are not entitled to your neighbor’s automobile.

You are not entitled to your neighbor’s wife.

And if you are elected to public office, you are still not entitled to these things.

Neither, therefore, are you entitled to your neighbor’s money. It is his. If you have the power to tax, it is only as far as God says you may do it, and after that it is theft.

We are still waiting for Christians to determine, from the Bible, what taxes the county, state, or national governments might be entitled to. Once you go past that amount, it is stealing. And expecting a handout from that money makes you a receiver of stolen goods.

What caught my attention in Australia was not only that the nation is facing an election called to help the ruling Labor Power remain in office, but it is the pressure of the church to get access to other people’s money via the government taxing mechanism. A brochure encouraging Australians to vote for the party that will keep the taxpayers’ money flowing to Christian activities was put in my hands at church on a Sunday morning.

The Federal government in Australia has been funding Chaplaincy work in public schools. There’s little evidence that this chaplaincy work is expanding the number of Christians or making any change in the way people in Australia view property rights. But it is an activity “for Christ”. . . .

Until you ask the question: Is this Chaplaincy work funded by stolen money? If the answer is yes, then there is not a strong expectation that God will in any way bless the work for His kingdom. If He did, everyone would soon realize that breaking God’s law in some form is the way to expand His kingdom.

This is nuts!

Someone reminded me that they pay taxes, and getting “their” money back from the government was legitimate. I agree. But the problem is “their” money was spent a long time ago, and now they are asking the government to not give them “their” money, in the sense that the government is returning the money they took from this individual.

What this person is demanding is “equivalent value.” In other words, if the government has already spent “their” money, then the government can just take some money from someone else and give that money to this individual. The person did not get “his” money back; he got another person’s money.

Thus, in order to get “equivalent value” Christian schools in Australia take government funding. Even one Christian home school organization has given in to government funding. “It’s for a good cause.”

If the government, however, has taken money it is not entitled to – that is, it is stealing – just so you can get back the equivalent value of the money you had taken from you, doesn’t that make you the recipient of stolen money?

That’s a little complex. It requires the ability to think through a number of steps and determine in each case what the Scriptures would have you do.

But this kind of thinking in Australia has virtually disappeared among Christians in Australia. That’s why the country has a short term future under the rules of “socialism”, and no long term plan for living under the Torah of the Triune God of Scripture.

There is a tendency by many to think of Christian culture in terms of things: movies, art, music, business, money, economy, property rights, and so forth.

In the past, however, when Christianity did influence the culture, it had an advantage. The key elements of Christianity were constantly a reminder to the people, not just through the implementation of music, art, literature, and law, but through a series of events that spread throughout the calendar year.

I’m referring to the Christian calendar. This created what Robert Webber calls “Christian-year spirituality”. According to Webber,

Through Christian-year spirituality we are enabled to experience the biblical mandate of conforming to Christ. The Christian year orders our formation with Christ incarnate in his ministry, death, burial, resurrection, and coming again through Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, Easter and Pentecost. In Christian-year spirituality we are spiritually formed by recalling and entering into his great saving events (Ancient-Future Time, p. 22).

I know many of you personally on this e-zine list. I know your religious background, and the journey we share to understand our faith.

So when was the last time you had a Christian-year calendar that recalled the major events of God’s saving work through Christ, and participation in that and his future as King of kings, and Lord of lords?

Many of you were raised, like me, in traditions that had long forgotten the practices of the early and ancient church. As a consequence, we struggle to understand culture in general, and how the early church formed Christendom. They certainly didn’t do it with books like The Purpose-Driven Life. But they did do it with a liturgy, among other things, that we need to comprehend and practice.

Webber asks this question:

“How can the Christian year order our entire lives–our values, worldview, and personal relationships; our struggles with lying, cheating, lust, jealousy, anger, and such; our ambitions and drive for success, material wealth, power, and recognition; our complicity with the hunger, injustice, and pain of the world? (pp. 23-24).

Then provides the answer to his own question.

The Christian year represents the historical unfolding of the life of Christ and his sure return. One may observe that Advent deals with the coming of Christ; Christmas, his birth; Epiphany, his manifestation to the Gentiles; Lent, his journey toward death; the Great Triduum, the last days of Jesus’ earthly life; Easter, the time to celebrate his resurrection; and Pentecost, the time to experience life in the power of the Holy Spirit” (p. 31).

The Christianity community that gave us our Christian culture was one that was disciplined by the Christian year. For many people today, such a liturgy seems too stilted and informal; insufficiently spontaneous to provide evidence of the work of the Holy Spirit.

And therein lies our problem. We cannot fathom our past, and so we fail to influence the present and the future.

Our forefathers did not have this problem, which is why they succeeded where later generations have failed. Their liturgy brought past, present and future to the one place: in front of the heavenly throne, the seat of all power and authority, where all people bow to the King of king, King Jesus.

It appears that if we are really serious about establishing Christian culture we don’t need to wait for the conversion of the heathen. We simply need to to conform our lives to Christ and remind ourselves of him through the symbolic rituals that have allowed the historic church to influence the world in a way that we just dream about.

Meanwhile, we fail to see our neighbor converted, let alone the town or city, county, state and nation. What we are doing is failing to obtain the results we desire and think are possible. Now this is our weakness, unless we dare to blame God for our failure.

Maybe its time we changed some things. The Christian-year spirituality and worship of God in Christ seems like a good start.

God bless you.

The Romantic movement, following on the heels of the Enlightenment, brought a revitalized message about love. There’s not enough of it.

And Romantic art of all kinds – poetry, music, painting, etc. – indicates that the lack of love is the significant problem in the world. If only this girl or that man would love me, all my problems would go away. Romanticism in this vein, however, is even more likely to have the three-way love affair, with adultery mixed in the midst of it. There was a reason composer Richard Wagner used Tristan and Isolde as a key part of his operatic works with music designed to undermine Christian culture, for the story is a key representative of Romanticism. Hollywood, in our generation, perpetuates this belief about love.

Enter our churches and you hear the gospel of love. “Honk if you love Jesus” was an old bumper sticker. Music, now the controlling influence in the contemporary church, is the music of the Romantic era. The use of melody and harmony are governed by the rules of the post-Baroque period, and when played on guitar and drums, the rhythm is highlighted and it becomes the dominant aspect of the contemporary worship service.

Now listen to the sermon that follows this kind of music.

Its slick presentation will be filled with words such as “love”, “justification”, “Jesus”, “The Bible”, and much more. Children are taught to sing “Jesus loves Me” and they are instructed to love Jesus. Have an emotional affair with Him, and as adults they sing, “I stand in the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses. . . And He walks with me, and He talks with me.” And so the hymn goes on.

But they are not told what the Biblical definition of love really is. And then you wonder why divorce rates in the church are just as high as outside of it. It’s to be expected, given the same ideas are taught inside and outside the church.

Something is missing, or at the very least given a misplaced emphasis. And that’s the word “sin.” And even when it is used, it is unlikely to be given its Biblical definition: Sin is anomia – lawlessness. In fact, it’s anti-law. Anti- God’s law, that is. (I John 3:4)

Against the modern notion of love and the lack of love, the Word of God on the other hand, emphasizes love as the keeping of the law of God. “For this is the love of God that we keep His Commandments” (1 John 5:3).

This is not the idea of love of the modern world, including the contemporary church. If it were, it would get rid of the humanistic romanticism contained in the music of hymns, past and present, and get back to God’s song book, the Psalms.

The psychology of relationships has replaced the theology of sin, guilt, the need for atonement, the history of creation and redemption, emphasizing God’s Incarnation as the ultimate solution. Man does not need love; he needs forgiveness.

In a sermon recently, it was said that the opposite to love is not hatred, but apathy. There is in this statement, like all heresies, a partial truth.

But the Biblical opposite to love is neither hatred nor apathy. It is sin. Sin is not apathy. It’s outright disobedience to the law of God.

Only when you and I get that message implanted in our heart by God Himself is there likely to be a reversal of the decaying culture in which we find ourselves. Because when this happens, we will begin to deal with the sin in our own lives. And maybe as a result of that, we might be capable of loving God and our neighbor, the necessary condition to changing the culture. But not before.

May God richly bless you as you serve Him in your calling.

In 1980 a book appeared that addressed a problem of mathematics: the quest for certainty. The author, Morris Kline, entitled his book, Mathematics: the Loss of Certainty.

In it he outlines how the philosophy and use of mathematics went beyond its capabilities. Newton, for example, in his science abandoned physical explanation of phenomena, and instead employed mathematical concepts. “Newton’s crowning work presented mankind with a set of only mathematically expressible physical principles. . . . The Newtonian scheme was decisive in convincing the world that nature is mathematically designed and that the true laws of nature are mathematical” (p. 57).

Anyone who thinks that nature can only be explained mathematically soon finds themselves with some unanswered questions. And it is easy to see how this kind of rationalism has contributed to a lack of faith in the world in which we live.

But the problem does not end there. Mathematics is not a unified field of study or knowledge. According to Kline, for example, “creations of the early 19th century, strange geometries and strange algebras, forced mathematicians, reluctantly and grudgingly, to realize that mathematics proper and mathematical laws were not truths. They found, for example, that several differing geometries fit spatial experience equally and well. All could not be truths. Apparently mathematical design was not inherent in nature, or if it was, man’s mathematics was not necessarily the account of that design.” (p. 4).

The Age of Reason and the search for a naturalistic explanation of the world was at a dead end.

This search for certainty is opposed to the biblical notion of faith, and there is no wonder that faith has declined as “natural” mathematical explanations have become the standard. Yet these contemporary explanations are a last-ditch effort by humanists to explain the world in naturalistic terms. This last-ditch effort has been going on for two centuries.

This same quest for certainty, however, is endemic in the Christian community in another context: the search for a certain and fixed Word from God.

This has led, in one area, to the idea that unless there is Divine Preservation of every letter and word in the original manuscripts, then it is not possible for us to have an accurate Word from God in written form, the Bible. This is one of the key arguments of those who propose that the Majority Text (or the related Textus Receptus) is the “right” one for us today, and that it alone carries God’s preservation through the ages.

The arguments they propose for this are curious, since the MT itself is a later compilation of early manuscripts, and does nothing to solve perplexing issues. For example, biblical scholar Kurt Aland has suggested there are fifty-two variants in the Majority Text sources in just two verses: (2 Cor. 1:6-7).

Now how on earth do we determine which one of these variants is correct? It would be reasonable to conclude that some of the variants are spelling related, or perhaps word order, neither of which changes the meaning of the text. But the existence of these variations seriously calls into question the idea that God has providentially preserved the copies in the same way He created the originals.

As for the TR, it was unknown before 1516, and was a result of the work of Erasmus. What happened to God’s preservation for 1515 years?

Such uncertainty in the biblical manuscripts is the reason for textual scholarship, and it is true that this, in turn, rests upon a systematic theology that governs our response to the issues. We are caught in an interesting “circular reasoning” conundrum.

Given this uncertainty in the manuscripts, how strong is your faith? And what is the basis of your faith?

Something to think about.

Click here for Part 2

The first part of commentary raised questions about the biblical manuscripts and the way we view them. We must have, it seems, a “scientific” approach to textual purity in order to be secure that we actually have the Word of God. Yet the more we search for certainty, the more elusive it seems.

Dr. Marvin R. Wilson makes this interesting contrast between Hebrew and our modern thought patterns.

The biblical authors never argue the existence of God; they only assume it. God is not understood philosophically, but functionally. He acts. The Hebrews primarily thought of him pictorially, in terms of personality and activity, not in terms of pure being or in any static sense. That is, to express the divine attribute of love, the Hebrews would normally think in terms of a “loving God” (i.e., a God who loves), rather than “God is love.” Certainly, therefore, the Hebrew mind-set of Bible times would find little or no interest in many of the issues the Church has debated over the centuries. These issues include theoretical arguments for the existence of God, the nature of the Godhead, free will and predestination, the specifics of the life to come, and the precise way in which the divine and human mesh in the inspiration of Scripture.

The Hebrew knew he did not know all the answers. His position was “under the sun” (Eccl. 8:17), so his words were few (5:2). He refused to oversystematize or force harmonization on the enigmas of God’s truth or puzzles of the universe. He realized that no one could straighten what God has made crooked (7:13). All things, therefore, did not need to be fully rational. The Hebrew mind was willing to accept the truths taught on both sizes of the paradox; it recognized that mystery and apparent contradictions are often signs of the divine. Stated succinctly, the Hebrews knew the wisdom of learning to trust in matters that they could not fully understand.

In an attempt to formulate the idea of inspiration to preserve an infallible Bible, Christians may have gone just a little overboard by operating on non-Hebraic assumptions. The influence of Greek thought in our culture is pervasive, and helps explain many of the issues that have driven Christendom underground and almost caused its complete demise.

If you’re really interested in finding out more, read Wilson’s essay, “The Contour of Hebrew Thought.” It should be compulsory reading for all seminary students and serious Christians. You will find it here: The Contour of Hebrew Thought

The Search For Certainty – 3.

In the quest for certainty, some biblical scholars are willing to give up all logic to prove a point.

At the heart of the certainty debate is this issue. It’s syllogistic in form, two premises followed by a conclusion.

Premise 1: God gave his Word through inspired writers who wrote down what God intended for them to write down. These are the original manuscripts of the Bible, of which we have none.

Premise 2: In order for us to have God’s word today, the words in the original manuscripts must be preserved by God so that they still exist.

Conclusion: ?

Do you see the problem? No conclusion is possible for this reason: at least one of the premises is not necessarily true.

Today we have a multitude of manuscripts and fortunately or unfortunately, God appears to have left it to the textual scholars to figure out which ones contains the “original” text.

Or, just possibly, God has preserved His Word on not one single manuscript but all of them combined, and taken together they give us the certain word of God.

There are some people willing to give up logic in order to argue that the majority text and its derivative, the Textus Receptus, used as the basis for the KJV translation, is the “right” one, and this is God’s preserved Word.

But this is logic run amok, for it is not based on logical necessity but just assumed to be the preserved text. Forget that the TR did not exist for 1515 years. Forget that while it may have been based on the Byzantine Text tradition (also known as the Majority Text tradition) it has nearly 2,000 variations with the Byzantine texts.

Then there’s the Magdalen papyrus, which some people claim is the majority text from the first century. Forget that the Magdalen papyrus has only one scholar suggesting its origin in the first century, while all the others give it a much later date. And then there is not clear evidence from the scholars that this papyrus is the wording of the later TR.

There is, unfortunately, absolutely no way you can arrive at the textual answer using the Bible itself. It simply does not tell us which manuscripts we ought to be using, just as it does not tell us which “books” belong in the New Testament.

Herein lies the weakness of our presuppositional apologetic, for this is one area we cannot go to the Bible to find the answer. The best we can do is assume that God has in fact not left us in the dark and that the Bible we have today is the Bible God wants us to have.

The real issue is this one. It is not a question of whether God has preserved His word. It is a question of how has God preserved His word through the ages. The Scriptures themselves do not tell us. So whether we like it or not, we are at the mercy of the textual scholars to provide an answer. And we might need to choose carefully so we do not get led up the many rabbit trails that lead to false conclusions about the KJV, the Majority Text tradition and the Textus Receptus.

Throughout the ages, the Christian church has not been able to determine which are the writings that finally belong in the list of the canon. It took an arbitrary decision of the framers of the Westminster Confession of Faith, and the Belgic Confession before them, to make a decision that had evaded the total Christian church to that point. Different groups have different ideas, which can only serve to confuse.

It is apparent you are left with no alternative but to live by faith, remembering there are limits to your ability to answer some of the questions that lie at the back of life. But you do need to live by faith, trusting that the Bible you are reading today, no matter which version it is, is God’s Word for you today. And that’s about as good as it’s going to get.

This article was written while I was in Nova Scotia and had just returned from having supper with a local family.

This part of the world, Clare County, has several municipalities that are Old French culture and language. The schools in these municipalities hold their classes in the old Acadian language, while the municipalities either side are English. In the seventeenth century, the French living in the valley of Nova Scotia were forcibly relocated by the British. Some found their way to the western shores of Nova Scotia while others were settled in Louisiana. The Cajuns and the Acadians are linked culturally — and share an understandable attitude towards the British. In Nova Scotia, the Acadians have been promised an apology from the monarch of England, but it is yet to arrive.

This caused me to reflect on the turmoil of Europe at the time of their dislocation. The Acadians, French in origin, tried to remain neutral in the struggles between Britain and France. They were not permitted to do this. The result is turmoil and conflict that stretches over centuries, with pain and hurt and memories of families forcibly separated — the men sent one direction, the women and children another — never to be erased.

This is the outcome of the turmoil of Europe at the time and turbulent times of Catholic versus Protestant, French versus English, as each group tried to attain supremacy over the other.

The result is the world we have today. It is anti-Christian — Protestant or Catholic – each country governed by an all-powerful, all controlling secular state that sees no limitations to its authority.

The long struggle for supreme authority, church versus state, was finally won by the secular authorities, and this had been completed in principle by the 17th century. It has taken another three centuries for the results to become evident.

The Acadian culture — Catholic — is struggling to maintain itself in a changing world. Their schools conduct classes in Acadian French, and the people speak this language in their homes. As I was told by my hosts, they even dream in French. But many of them speak English without any hint of a foreign accent. There is little local work, and in the next municipality there are often signs discouraging Acadians from applying for an advertised job. In this changing world, speaking Acadian is a handicap, unless you live in the Acadian communities. It even limits which universities you can attend, since there are few French-speaking universities in Canada.

Here, the local Catholic church is conducting a survey to find out what people might like in a church that will attract them to it. Marketing has finally arrived to the Catholic parish in Clare County.

For all its alleged weaknesses, the church of the first millennium after Christ changed the face of Europe for over a thousand years. But for several hundred years there have been attempts to reverse those events, and the churches — Catholic and Protestant — seem powerless to stop the reversal.

For some, preaching on grace alone, faith alone, and the Bible alone is going to change the world. Yet it has failed to do this in almost 500 years. When will they learn this is apparently not enough?

Something is missing, and until we find out and get it back in place, no amount of pulpit thumping on these important themes is going to change anything. By themselves, they are powerless.

So what is missing? Send me your answer to share with others on this list.

Until next, week, God bless you in your endeavors to serve Him.