It is always possible to get a rigorous debate on capitalism versus socialism from business owners. One of my first clients as a consultant in 1996 was a former union leader, now in his own business and beginning to see things were not the way he imagined.
He was the man now cutting the checks. And when he cut checks, he expected to get value for money. He resented paying workers for poor and inefficient performance.
The regular model of business, however, showing the business owner as the “owner” of the business is misleading. It misleads because it fails to address property ownership in its broader context.
If you look at ancient Israel, land was determined for the twelve tribes, then every 50 years, the year of Jubilee returned the land to the original family.
But land is not the only asset of ownership. A person “owns” his labor and the skills he has acquired. People ought to be permitted — and encouraged — to manage their assets in the same way land owners can manage their land.
“[H]istory is to mankind precisely what the experience of living is to an individual — that is to say, a drama to be lived through. We do not write the script, nor do we choose our allotted parts; what is required of us is to speak our lines, make our entrances and our exits, until the curtain falls and our role is for the time being exhausted.”[1]
Australian Christians are up in arms. There are proposals to legislate in favor of same-sex marriage. As an enticement to the vocal minority, the government conducted a “hearing” to allow people, for and against, to present their views. It’s not that elected members of parliament have expressed any desire to shut the door on same-sex marriage. But perhaps they realize there are some votes to be gained with their appearance of “neutrality.”
Neutrality? The Scriptures are quite clear: there is no neutrality. You are either for God or against him. There is no fence to sit on in the middle as if you are a spectator watching a sporting event. You are either in God’s team or you’re out of it.
Many people, even good Christians, presented their case. It went something like this: “Same-sex marriage is bad because it overturns the traditional view of the family.”
Now that’s a great point. But is it a compelling reason why the Australian government should not go ahead with same-sex marriage? Why should the government find this a compelling reason to reject same-sex marriage?
Until you come face to face with what the Bible describes as sin, you cannot construct any solution to this or any other issue. The simple fact is that too many men and women are in revolt against God’s law — his Torah. This is the offense that so many people find with the Holy Scriptures: It confronts them head on with their own desire to be “like God,” determining for themselves what is good and evil.[1]
And since the Australian politicians by and large are of the opinion they they are not in any way accountable to God for their decisions, they are unlikely to legislate correctly. Correctly, of course, being in harmony with the law of God.
The issue in same-sex marriage, then, is not the family. It is not one person’s rights over against another’s. The issue is this: What saith the LORD?
That’s it. Pretty simple. Not too hard to grasp. But people will invent a myriad of excuses why God’s law cannot be the guide to life. St. Paul describes this in Romans chapter 1, as he lays out that rebellion against God takes its form as suppression (holding down) of the truth about God. What greater acknowledgement can you give YHVH, the creator of the universe, than recognize his Lordship and bow before his absolute sovereignty? You already know there cannot be any greater acknowledgement. Nor can there be a lesser one. For to lessen the acknowledgement is simply a way to deny God’s absolute Lordship over his creation.
But this acknowledgement of God is not an intellectual exercise alone, a cognitive recognition of God. That notion falls out of the Greek influence in our culture. In the Bible, it is by your actions that you acknowledge God, not by your talk. Both St. Paul and St. James say words to the effect that you are justified by your works.[2] The Messiah expressed the same idea even more strongly when he said the day will come when he says “Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.”[3]
Lawlessness? Which law could he possibly have in mind, unless it is the law he upheld as recorded in Matthew chapter 5, the Torah of God? But too often you are told today that it is not to the Torah you should turn but to the Messiah himself, as if somehow he is going to contradict what he already ensured will become infallibly enshrined in the words of Scripture. Torah! “Not one jot or tittle” abolished, rejected, or cast aside in a previous “dispensation”.[4]
Both inside and outside Christianity there’s an hostility to the fullness of the Torah. Yet it is the Torah that provides the answers for daily living, righteousness. And Yeshua (Jesus) the Living Word (Torah) not only reminds us of that, but sets the example for that right living. It had something to do with “every word” that proceeds from the mouth of God. For many people, it is not every word but just some of the words. In their higher level of ethical consciousness and possessed by the desire to “be like God,” they have decided which of God’s words might be followed, and which can be passed to the trash-can of history. This is God’s Complaint: Selective Hearing.
It comes down to this. Politicians in Australia and elsewhere are to legislate against same-sex marriage because it is wrong. Sure it redefines the family. But it also redefines the school, the business, the church and everything else that it touches, especially the legislature. The family, school, business church or legislature, however, are not the standard, the criteria, for decision-making. But God’s Word, his Torah, certainly is. “I am the way, the truth and the life,” declared the second person of the Trinity, the Living Torah.
This is the confrontation you see in Scripture when Daniel and his three friends were challenged over the law of God. Submit to Darius for 30 days, and then you can pray to whomever you like. Darius, you see, was a great believer in religious pluralism. It is one of the keys that set the Assyrian empire apart from other empires: their tolerance and acceptance of religious pluralism (provided you pay the taxes, naturally!). You can have religious freedom, Daniel was told. But the only reason you will have it is because you have first acknowledged the supreme authority of Darius to make any legislation he likes.
Translating that into modern Australia, it goes something like this. Turn up at government “hearing”. Present your case. But don’t give them any of the religious mumbo-jumbo about God’s law. All you have to do is acknowledge their magnanimous gesture in providing this opportunity for you to present your “facts,” a sign of their commitment to religious pluralism.
Now St. Paul says facts are not the issue. When he defied the religious pluralism in Athens, he merely confronted them with the expectation that their “unknown” God was in fact quite well known, that he created all things, gives life and breath to all, he is not distant but quite close (too close for the comfort of the Athenians), that he expected everyone to turn from their sins (Paul was a Jewish rabbi, so for him sin was disobedience to the law of the God, the Torah — 1 John 3:4), and that a day of judgement was down the track. Paul didn’t ask for an Athenian hearing on the issue, as if the issue was one of impartiality requiring a vote of the Athenian politicians.
According to St. Paul, there are already enough facts in the universe for Australia’s politicians to acknowledge the sovereign God. But they reject those facts, just as they will reject any facts presented by Christians — or anyone else — about this issue. They will go where their heart is, the center of their being. And the center of their being is not about to recognize the authority of God’s law in the Australian legislature.
“Unless a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God,”[5] said the Messiah, the second person of the Trinity. Without it, people are like a GPS that has not satellite, so they make up their own direction, chart their own course. Like God, but not God, and therefore a complete failure when it comes to providing right actions without God.
There should be more people like Daniel. He did not find it appropriate to petition the king, ask for a public hearing on the issue, or suggest that any such law might have a bad effect on the family. That, he took for granted. So he merely went about his duties to acknowledge the absolute sovereignty of God, threw open the window and prayed so that all might see his rebellion against the king’s decree. Judged guilty in the courts of the king, he was vindicated by the King of kings in the lion’s den.
Sometimes you just have to ask a simple question: which part of “it’s wrong” don’t you understand?
Most Christians are familiar with Acts chapters 10-11 and Peter’s vision. The passage is often cited to indicate an abolition of the dietary laws of the Old Testament. What many people don’t know, however, is the conversation I imagine that went on behind the scene between Peter and God. It went something like this.
G.— “Peter, I need you to go speak with a Roman army officer. His name is Cornelius. He’s a nice guy, I like him, and I need you to minister to him.”
P.— “You are well aware that for a man who is a Jew to have close association with someone who belongs to another people, or to come and visit him, is something that just isn’t done. He’s goyim, and therefore unclean.”
A time passes, and Peter goes onto the rooftop to rest. While there, he has the vision that is so well-known.
During the 1980′s a drink was marketed in Australia, Clayton’s Tonic. It was hailed as a non-alcoholic substitute for alcoholic spirits, poured over ice and usually mixed with dry ginger ale. It was a great drink. It was marketed with a catchy slogan: “The drink you’re having when you’re not having a drink.”
This slogan has some interesting applications. One family decided on family planning and the husband had a vasectomy. A few weeks later his wife conceived, and eventually a new son was born into the family. They named him Clayton: the child you’re having when you’re not having a child.
There are claims that infallibility comes from a Greek rather than a Hebrew notion of time. This Greek view of time has allegedly resulted in a wrong view about eternity, a fallacious acceptance of immutability, an incorrect understanding of omniscience and, naturally, a mistaken idea called infallibility.
But this rejection of the historic idea of infallibility is simply a Clayton’s doctrine of perfection without calling it by that name. It’s the infallibility you’re having when you’re not having infallibility. For in every system of thought there is an explicit or an implicit appeal to infallibility.
In the first part of this Tribute to R.J. Rushdoony I recalled the personal side of my relationship with him and some of the fond memories I have as a result of a 21-year association.
In this portion of the Tribute, I’m going to highlight what I think is Rush’s very significant contribution to Christian thought.
The name R.J. Rushdoony is tied up with two concepts: theonomy and Christian Reconstruction. But for Rushdoony, these two concepts are tied together in a unique manner.
For those of us raised outside of Reformed circles, his call to return to God’s law was somewhat radical. Yet for those raised on Reformed catechisms, Rushdoony’s view was not that unusual in some respects. Both the Heidelberg Catechism and the Westminster Larger Catechism expound the Ten Commandments using what Rushdoony called “case law”. That is, the Ten Commandments were given substance through the many laws given in the Pentateuch (or Torah).
Many of Rushdoony’s followers, then and now, came from outside the Reformed tradition. What is curious, however, is the hostility Rushdoony received from the Reformed community, and I can understand why.
When a Dad Worries His Son, The Father Better Have Some Good Answers
I have four sons and a daughter, the firstborn being Matthew. He’s a thinker. And he’s trying to give his father a hard time over some of my comments. Matt’s worried that I’m putting the Torah as a higher authority than the Person of Jesus Christ as revealed in the gospels. Here’s his question:
“What role does the person of Jesus Christ play in all of this?”
Now Matthew is concerned that his father might be going off in a wrong direction, so he’s checking up on his old man to make sure. He comments further,
” Shouldn’t it be Jesus Christ that we look to as the central revolving point of the Scriptures rather than the Torah?”
Good questions. Here’s my reply:
Continue reading
When objects need to be held together tightly, you need something that helps keep them together firmly. That something could be superglue: a tiny drop can hold an elephant.
Human thought also needs something to hold things together: meaning. You might like to refer to this holding substance as superglue; in this case intellectual superglue that gives meaning to the facts of the universe.
There are two choices when it comes to facts: either they are what God declares them to be, or they are what man declares them to be. It may be possible to postulate that things are what they declare themselves to be. But one of the reasons this idea does not go far is because facts are never brute facts: they are interpreted facts. A brute fact is a fact that has no relation to any other fact. It is completely isolated, and therefore a random fact. Interpreted facts, on the other hand, are facts that have some relationship which helps give them meaning. Thus, the fact itself can be “interpreted.”
Interpreted by whom? They could be interpreted by God as the ultimate interpreter, or they could be interpreted by man as the ultimate interpreter. At this point another question follows logically: is man capable of being the ultimate interpreter of facts to provide meaning to them?
“If not another penny was borrowed starting now, and we started to pay back all that debt at a rate of one dollar per second, it would take over 100,000 years to pay it all off?” – Scott Craig Mooney
Debt and usury are tied together. This is the thesis of Scott Craig Mooney in his original book on the topic, Usury: Destroyer of Nations. Now he’s returned to the fray with a small — but powerful — reminder that we’re in economic trouble. The Fall of the House of Usury
Mr. Mooney is concerned that no one is talking about what is really wrong, and what is really wrong is usury. The reason for the lack of discussion on usury is simple: no one really believes it is a principle to be found in Scripture and practiced today. One of the reasons for this is the apparent “refutation” of usury by John Calvin.
A contents of a letter by John Calvin to Oekolampadius provides us with insight into the great reformer’s view on the topic of usury. It also provides an opportunity to view any biblical arguments that might be found to support the pro-usury position.
Calvin’s position, however, appears somewhat ambiguous. For example, he argues on the one hand that “there is no scriptural passage that totally bans usury.” This is true, but the issue at stake today is not whether there is a general ban on usury, but whether there is any ban at all on the charging of usury. The Old Testament did not place a total ban on usury: it allowed usury to be charged to foreigners.
While he is not prepared to argue against usury on biblical grounds, Calvin nevertheless attempts to put moderation on the charging of interest. He prefers that “usurers were chased from every country.” Hardly an endorsement for usury.
The idea that rent money is “dead” money has been around a long time.
What is not said so often is that interest money is dead money too. This is not realized because people are under the mistaken notion that you can recover interest that you’ve paid, but you cannot recover rent that you’ve paid. It’s a mistaken notion because this is true only in an appreciating market. In other words, you can “recover” interest only if prices rise. And when prices don’t rise, or don’t rise enough, you won’t recover all or some of the interest you’ve paid.
Imagine this: you rent a house for 25 years and pay the rent on time. The landlord pays off his home with your rental money. At the end of 25 years you do not own the house; you merely walk away when you go and leave the asset to its owner.
When you buy a home, however, you might pay double the price over 25 years because of interest. Let’s say a $200,000 home, and after 25 years you’ve paid $400,000. Now if property values were to double over those 25 years, you could sell your home for $400,000 and recover all the interest you’ve paid as well.
But what would happen if you could only sell your home for its original $200,000 purchase price? Why, the interest you paid would be “dead money” – just as dead as if you rented through those 25 years. Why is it dead money? Because you could not “recover” it in the sale price of your home.
Now there’s a view that says property prices never fall. But the history of housing prices tells another story. Even recent history in a city such as Detroit, tells a different story. There, according to recent research undertaken at MSU, housing prices in the lowest 20% of the market, fell to an average of sixty-seven cents. Even the next lowest quintile came in at under $1,000. So if you think housing prices are always going to rise, you might want to rethink your strategy.
Here’s the important observation, however. Once you borrow, you join all borrowers and now you have a vested interest (pun intended) in price increases in the housing market. You don’t want to “lose” money and not recover everything that you’ve paid, including the interest. If you buy today, in 25 years from now, you’ll anticipate selling your home at least at its current price plus interest.
When you rent, however, the exact opposite is true. You retain a strong desire for lower prices. You don’t want prices to rise. A price increase is no advantage to you, for home prices will rise, rents will rise, and you’ll have to pay more for a home irrespective of whether you rent or buy.
Now the housing market is used time and time again by politicians to crank up the economy. Why? Because home-loan lending is one of the major avenues for banks to put into practice what they have been designed to do: expand the money supply through fractional reserve practices. The expanded money supply (in any form) allows prices to rise, if the expansion of goods and services is slower than the expansion of the money. (A little technicality that makes it difficult to determine precisely how much money values are distorted by monetary inflation.)
But, hey, who’s interested in technicalities. So long as we are not out of pocket personally, we’ll tolerate devaluing of the value of money through expansion of the supply of money.
Now you say you’re in favor of “hard” money. You say you want to end inflation and its bad effects, then sell your home at pre-inflation prices. Sell your home at its purchase price, without the interest.
In other words, take a loss. If you’re not ready to do this, you’re not ready for the economy to unwind its years of inflation. If you think interest money should not be dead money, and you want to recover the interest you’ve paid through higher prices, you’re not really serious about ending the charade that allows politicians to “milk” the population through inflation.
And if you’re not ready, willing and able to take the loss, what makes you think you’re neighbor’s willing to be the fall guy and lose money on his house just to stop inflation?
When you understand the “love of money” that is rooted in the heart of man, you will understand why it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God, taking steps to halt the devaluing of money through inflation on the way.
But by some strange coincidence, we don’t seem to think this description given by the Messiah applies to ourselves. It is always other people who have the love of money problem.
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