While James Bratt writes about being sick of “every square inch” rhetoric, Greg Thornbury (friend of Eric Metaxas and Tim Keller and all hip New York evangelicals) is proving Bratt’s point.
First, from the very biographer of Kuyper himself:
Here’s my beef. In announcing that any work can be God’s work, we run the risk of saying that any work is God’s work. That whatever we want to do, we may do and put a God stamp on it. Wherever, however, with whomever, with all the standard rewards in that field. You don’t need Kuyper to crown the main chance with piety; all sorts of Christians in every tradition have been at it for centuries. Plus the inference is a whole lot short of what Kuyper said, and what the Gospel teaches. So if we’re going to intone “every square inch,” let’s have some riders attached.
Mind you, Bratt is not dismissing Kuyper’s objections to dualism (more on that to come), but he does worry that neo-Calvinism has become simply a pious sounding rationale for doing whatever a Christian wants to do:
“There’s not a square inch in the whole domain of human existence over which Christ, who is Lord over all, does not exclaim, ‘Mine’!” This has become Kuyper’s most famous statement, at least in North America. So popular that most people don’t get the quotation right, sometimes not even close. But the sentiment’s attractive, and the line’s becoming something of a mantra among culturally engaged evangelicals. I worry lest it join other phrases on what I call the evango-babble list. Like haveyouacceptedtheLordJesusChristasyourownpersonalsavior. Like juswanna: Lordwe/IjuswannathankyouhereLordforyour/my/ourfillintheblankitude. Everysquareinch—Kuyper doesn’t deserve that fate.
And then we have Greg Thornbury, the new president of King’s College (NYC) who in this interview claims in that every-square-inch-way Friedrich Hayek and free markets for Christ:
Jerry: I watched your convocation address and found it fascinating, and I watched your orientation address to the incoming students as well. You had a great little section under the heading, “I want to go to there,” on Friedrich Hayek and on how you as a Christian philosopher think about a guy like Friedrich Hayek. Can you kind of give us a little bit of that now?
Dr. Thornbury: Sure. The point that I was making to our student body – and this actually ties into what we just came from, about “how do we be relevant to the culture of our time?” – I was describing (again, to talk about a post-world [war] environment), a situation in which you have young men and women who had served in the armed forces and in supporting capacities to that great conflict. Those who looked in the face of totalitarianism and fascism and a century of holocaust and said, “What are the ideas that keep people free?” The point that I was making was that Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom was a bestseller. It was pulp nonfiction. They were selling it at supermarkets in the middle of the war; it went through fifteen pressings in the UK. In other words, it answered a fundamental question: what is going to get you through the blitzkrieg? What do you want to have in your hands when you come out of the underground by dawn’s early light? What’s going to steel you in courage to think that, “We’re going to get through this!” It is this notion that after this is over we are going to be able to reboot society on the basis of liberty, and consecrated self-direction, and the kinds of things that lift people out of the bog of collectivist notions that led, certainly, Germany and Italy to the most gruesome and bloody century ever known to man. I see my role as the president of The King’s College as re-enchanting a new generation with those animating ideals that once made Western civilization great in general, and American society distinctive in particular.
Jerry: Should a Christian be a Hayekian? Do you see overlap there?
Dr. Thornbury: I definitely see overlap for this reason: I think that when you study the texts of particularly the New Testament, although it has its origins in the Mosaic Law, I think what you see there is the seedbed of freedom of conscience. You see democratic religion in the pages of the New Testament. So whereas some people in Acts chapter 5 see some kind of nascent socialism, actually what you’re seeing is free people electing to gather together in solidarity around key principles and ideals and goals, and the people who joined in that were people like Lydia. There was a mercantile aspect to the early Christian movement. When I read Hayek and I see his argument for the link between private property and freedom, I see a direct line going all the way back to those pages of the New Testament, because what the Apostle Paul and others were representing was an alternative to totalitarianism. When you look at the Apostle John – and whatever else you think the Book of Revelation says about the future—what it definitely was, was the greatest political protest letter ever penned in the history of the world, because he was saying, “The state has no business telling us how we should govern our own life together.” And when I say “society” or “culture”, here’s how I’m defining that, Jerry: I take a nineteenth century definition by Johann Herder, who many recognize as the founding father of modern sociology. He said, “Culture is the lifeblood of a civilization. It’s the flow of moral energy that keeps a society intact.” So, when I see Hayek talking about making sure that we stay free of tyranny, I see the entailments of that going all the way back to the emperor and Domitian and the Apostle John.
Have neo-Calvinists and their evangelical progeny made it impossible for Protestants to enter a world where a Christian like Tertullian would ask with a straight face, “what has Jerusalem to do with Athens,” and answer not much? With all the effort to turn every piece of the cosmos into a reality with redemptive significance, the transformers appear to think a separation between the world and the faith is somehow foreign to Christianity. But such a thought was entirely plausible to the first Christians who were highly aware that the world was different from Christianity.
Old Life 
Scott Clark has a new interview with David Van Drunen about DVD’s new book, “The Law and the Bible”.
http://heidelblog.net/2013/10/office-hours-the-law-and-the-bible/
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If these guys are really going to be hip shouldn’t they get with the metric system and start to refer to “every square centimeter”? As Thornbury would say, this language is more likely to lead to “preferred outcomes” in ministering to city dwellers.
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Didn’t click on the interview, does the last name of Jerry happen to be Springer?
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Eric Metaxas @ericmetaxas 11 Oct
If this @Forbes interview w/@theKingsCollege President @Greg_Thornbury doesn’t astonish you, pls see me after class. http://www.forbes.com/sites/jerrybowyer/2013/10/10/the-book-of-revelation-is-hayekian/ …
Gregory Thornbury @greg_thornbury 11 Oct
@ericmetaxas @Forbes Thanks, Eric! My idea for the interview: as Bonnie Raitt once sang, “Let’s give ’em something to talk about.” Ha!
Mission afreakingcomplished.
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No doubt getting interviewed (very lovingly) by Forbes was just the sort of thing the college trustees were hoping for when they hired Greggles. Those Manhattan and Wall Street square inches are the awesomest.
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A number of years ago (5-10) a friend and colleague was working with me on the transformation of the academic curriculum. He once initiated this: one benefit of a transformational view is that it already has Tertullian’s view built into it.
It’s interesting how Gene Veith, when reshaping Niebuhr, completely avoids the subject, trying to bring it under “Christ above culture,” assuming that transformation was a top-down position.
Darryl, like a Lutheran, also errs by thinking that a hatred for sin is not inherent in “Christ the transformer of culture.”
Guys, stop reading with your emotions. Please read Niebuhr: trash him if you like, but interact with what transformationalists really think, not what you wish they think.
This whole blog is misguided.
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From some canned press release on Thornbury being named president of King’s College:
“This is historic Christianity’s last and best shot to lead from the center of culture with Christ at the center,” said Thornbury, who recently authored the book, “Recovering Classic Evangelicalism: Applying the Wisdom and Vision of Carl F. H. Henry.”
Whew! Glad historic Christianity finally has a shot from the center of culture. Forget Athens and Jerusalem. Palestine is to Rome as Jackson, Tennessee is to New York. Everyone knows Palestine is soooo first-century Sahara of the Bozart!
“His contemporary Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, compared Thornbury to an 18th-century theologian, tweeting that he “is Jonathan Edwards meets Rolling Stone magazine.”
Gag. Elmer Gantry meets Reader’s Digest at best. Watching these Southern Baptists rub each other’s shoulders and tussle each other’s hair as they slouch toward the Gomorrah of cultural relevance is amusing. A little like cheering for Hasidic Jews who discover ham is relevant and therefore they will be eating chicken cordon bleu early and often from now on. Thornbury may carry Hayek and the Bible to the top of the Empire State Building faster than the King Kong toted Fae Wray, but at least people felt sorry, rather than embarrassed, for the ape. The ape didn’t want to be there.
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“And when I say “society” or “culture”, here’s how I’m defining that, Jerry: I take a nineteenth century definition by Johann Herder, who many recognize as the founding father of modern sociology. He said, “Culture is the lifeblood of a civilization. It’s the flow of moral energy that keeps a society intact.”
Yeah. Didn’t Bismark and his nasty political progeny look to Herder for a definition of culture as well? Right up until about 1945 I think?
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Pandolfo Petrucci in the1490s in Siena… his pastime in the summer months was to roll blocks of stone from the top of Monte Amiata, without caring what or whom they hit.
Distant inspiration for the anti-2K posters on here
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One of us reads without emotions, and the others are wrong, which of course shows that they read with their emotions.
Niebuhr’s theology sounds anti-utopian but there is nothing Christian about simply acknowledging that evil exists, or even about agreeing that we too are sinners. The “spirit of Niebuhr” presiding
over the Obama’s Nobel speech rationalizing war is the unrealistic assumption that the only way to overcome evil is with evil.
The implication is those who won’t resist in kind fail to see the evil. Thus we are patronized— if only you would understand what I do about human depravity, then you too would agree to be an agent of “secular” violence, knowing that this violence only works for the present time and is not ultimate.
Niebuhr’s ideology of power cannot do justice to the history of Christians who have attempted to obey the commands of Romans 12 and 13. “Repay no one evil for evil. Never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, Vengeance is Mine. Do not be overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good.”
Niebuhr did not think this command was “realistic”. 1. He did not believe in the literal second coming of Christ, and therefore he could not afford to wait for the wrath of God. 2. Niebuhr did not believe in a literal incarnation, and therefore he did not take seriously Jesus the human who has come come and lived in this evil age. Though Niebuhr wrote some condescending remarks about the “impossible ideal”, Niebuhr dismissed the Lord Jesus as any kind of example for Christians.
I Peter 2:20-21 gives us the proper Christian response to evil. “But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you would follow in his steps”.
3. Niebuhr did not believe in a literal resurrection, and without that faith, it can seem senseless to die rather than to kill. Why be marginal and utopian, when the violence of the powerful center can be used for good? 4. Niebuhr did not believe in regeneration by the power of the Holy Spirit, and therefore he rejected supernatural conversions? So why not pay our respects to the way Jesus did it, and then move on to what anybody would do? If they were wise enough to see that evil is evil!
I do not deny that God predestines and uses evil against evil, but to act as an agent of evil is to lack all humility and modesty. Calling war “secular” and not holy does not make war legitimate for those who use the drones to kill in the name of non-idealism. A culture sustained by killing is not the only kind of culture for which Christians can hope, because there is more than one culture, and the culture of Christ does not depend on the culture of Truman and LBJ and Kissinger and Cheney,
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Kent,
Petrucci sounds more fun than either Bratt or Thornbury. No brainer if given the choice between summer with him or summer reading Hayek and Herder.
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I’ve always had a theoretical sympathy for your Radical Two Kingdoms theology, Darryl, at least on the ideal level. That’s what brought me to your transom in the first place. However, even if we are not of this world but merely in it, the world knocks on our door.
Spong is one of yours
http://spectator.org/archives/2013/10/14/bishop-spongs-unintended-conse
at least more than the Vatican is. That you expend the lion’s share of your time and energy d-bagging on the Papists rather than your fellow Reformationists is a more the tribute that theological vice pays to virtue.
Even J. Gresham Machen confessed as much, as you know:
Permit me to urge you to man up, Brother Darryl. Your avowed archenemies, those who have left your church for Roman Catholicism, treat you with kindness, respect, and patience in the belief that someday your good sense–and your hardness of head and heart–will get the better of you. They do not return your slaps with more slaps.
Meanwhile, those of the Spong “liberal theology” would and will destroy you–and your scholarly career–if you get too loud and in their way. And that’s the facts here.
If your ministry is to be a good shepherd, DG, to go retrieve the Reformation’s lost sheep, then do that. At this point–by your own account or at least Machen’s–“Protestantism’s” sheep are all over the countryside, far more lost than the Papists, who at least are easy to find all huddled together in their joint confusion.
Otherwise–and I think this is the real you, having read your protestations for years now–you argue as a “reformer,” that is a reformer of the Roman Catholic Church, which is how the original Reformers saw themselves.
I do follow your musings, doings, and links. Your followers got seriously kicked to the curb in their attempt to
http://www.creedcodecult.com/a-once-for-all-perpetual-offering/
debate your former co-religionist Jason Stellman. You made a wise choice to stay away and let your pseudonymous surrogates serve as cannon fodder. Nobody is the wiser. Especially not them.
Well played. That is, well not played, as they say in cricket. ;-P
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I’ve always had a theoretical sympathy for your Radical Two Kingdoms theology, Darryl, at least on the ideal level. That’s what brought me to your transom in the first place. However, even if we are not of this world but merely in it, the world knocks on our door.
Spong is one of yours
http://spectator.org/archives/2013/10/14/bishop-spongs-unintended-conse
at least more than the Vatican is. That you expend the lion’s share of your time and energy d-bagging on the Papists rather than your fellow Reformationists is a more the tribute that theological vice pays to virtue.
Even J. Gresham Machen confessed as much, as you know:
“Far more serious still is the division between the Church of Rome and evangelical Protestantism in all its forms. Yet how great is the common heritage which unites the Roman Catholic Church, with its maintenance of the authority of Holy Scripture and with its acceptance of the great early creeds, to devout Protestants today!
We would not indeed obscure the difference which divides us from Rome. The gulf is indeed profound. But profound as it is, it seems almost trifling compared to the abyss which stands between us and many ministers of our own Church. The Church of Rome may represent a perversion of the Christian religion; but naturalistic liberalism is not Christianity at all.”
Permit me to urge you to man up, Brother Darryl. Your avowed archenemies, those who have left your church for Roman Catholicism, treat you with kindness, respect, and patience in the belief that someday your good sense–and your hardness of head and heart–will get the better of you. They do not return your slaps with more slaps.
Meanwhile, those of the Spong “liberal theology” would and will destroy you–and your scholarly career–if you get too loud and in their way. And that’s the facts here.
If your ministry is to be a good shepherd, DG, to go retrieve the Reformation’s lost sheep, then do that. At this point–by your own account or at least Machen’s–”Protestantism’s” sheep are all over the countryside, far more lost than the Papists, who at least are easy to find all huddled together in their joint confusion.
Otherwise–and I think this is the real you, having read your protestations for years now–you argue as a “reformer,” that is a reformer of the Roman Catholic Church, which is how the original Reformers saw themselves.
I do follow your musings, doings, and links. Your followers got seriously kicked to the curb in their attempt to debate your former co-religionist Jason Stellman on the Eucharist and the early church recently*. You made a wise choice to stay away, and let your pseudonymous surrogates serve as cannon fodder. Nobody is the wiser. Especially not them.
Well played. That is, well not played, as they say in cricket. ;-P
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*http://www.creedcodecult.com/a-once-for-all-perpetual-offering/
Old Life blog regulars covered themselves in something, although it didn’t smell like glory.
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TVD, you ever read Calvin’s “tone” towards Rome? “Here, then, let these asses prick up their ears.” (Inst. 3.4.6.).
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WJW wrote: Thornbury may carry Hayek and the Bible to the top of the Empire State Building faster than the King Kong toted Fae Wray, but at least people felt sorry, rather than embarrassed, for the ape. The ape didn’t want to be there.
Me: More please. Best thing I read on the interwebs today! Can’t stop laughing – and agreeing.
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@McMark: nailed it.
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Oh boy.
Jason didn’t get the message about the word/concept fallacy from Big Brother Bryan and The Veronian Disciple thinks he hit it out of the park.
Hey, Wally. Betcha didn’t know that the word “sacrifice” is not only found in the Old and New Testament, but also in the early church fathers and the Roman Catholic catechisms. Waddya think about that?
Dunno Beaver. Lemme get back to you after dinner. I can hear Mother calling.
In the spirit of Paul Harvey, at least part of the rest of the story is Mr. Divide And Dismiss hisself has already done worked his magick on the Book of Romans, the prologue of Chapt. 2 obviously superseding the entire rest of the book, if not that Christ in the gospels and the Book of James entirely negate Paul’s missive to the Eternal City (which somehow manages to leave out any mention of the First Pope).
Yup and before that, over at the Green Hobbit we watched both Bryan and Jase divide and put asunder 2Tim.3:16 from 3:17 and knock themselves silly patting themselves on the back for refuting the prot doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture.
And then there was Bryan’s pitiful
abortiveattempt to merely prove the negative; that the ECF’s didn’t deny the infallibility and supremacy of little papa. As if that’s enough to hang a philospher’s beanie copter cap on no prob.Likewise the complete absence of any attempt at all to refute the ECF’s on the doctrine of Scripture as most recently laid out in DT King & Webster’s 3 volumes and the only doctrine according to Wm. Cunningham that the early church got right.
But we’re supposed to be worried and upset, if not ashamed Jase has got all the answers.
Don’t thinks so.
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Phil, why not interact with what 2kers think? I don’t think transformers don’t believe in sin. But they do revise what holiness is. Is your friend in the school teaching Shakespeare? Is Shakespeare holy or profane? Does the Bard need to be redeemed?
You haven’t thought this through.
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Tom, I’m in your head.
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Don’t you know young Tom
You never can win
Use your mentality
Wake up, wake up to reality….
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Tom Van Dyke- Yours was a charitable post and I commend you on the wisdom suggested. Unfortunately, that wisdom falls on deaf ears. If someone wanted to contain “liberal theology” and believed the following:
-Held to a Lutheran 2k theory (note: in antithesis to the Reformed strain) and a servile submittance to the Prince
-A Platonic reading of Scripture and a bitter antipathy towards any mixing of Christ and culture
-Most creepy, an inclination to haul out ones junior NSA badge and check which of the Volk have affiliations with the enemies of the State
Then, it seems to follow, that someone holding those views would be inclined toward the institution of a , as a means to constrain those “liberal elements” who resist the State and ensure the “spirituality of the Church.
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Cool, Gas-X and Tom are frenemies. Paging Dr. Sowers.
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So now I have to read Spong and Niebuhr to understand people that give themselves away in about 10 seconds?
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Glenn, this is what politics does to you — turns you into a vote counter. Disregard arguments.
BTW, of what church did you say you were a member? I don’t see any reference to Christianity at your Patriot sites.
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Darryl- If I were to attend one of your talks would I need to bring my signed NAPARC membership card?
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Nate Paschall
Posted October 14, 2013 at 10:58 pm | Permalink
TVD, you ever read Calvin’s “tone” towards Rome? “Here, then, let these asses prick up their ears.” (Inst. 3.4.6.).
I know your Confessions called the Pope the antichrist but you took it out. Sissies.
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D. G. Hart
Posted October 15, 2013 at 6:26 am | Permalink
Tom, I’m in your head.
Always, Darryl. I’ve invested a lot of study in you and the warrior children. You’re infinitely more clever and interesting than say, the Baylys.
And if I follow Mr. Igasx correctly, yes, that’s sort of at the core of my fascination with the R2Kers, when good men do nothing in the name of God, or at least of theological purity.
Especially fascinating is the case of one Peter Leithart, whom they put on theological trial. His ecclesiastical prosecutor Jason Spellman became a Roman Catholic, and he now consumes a lot of Darryl’s thought and time. [Talk about being in someone’s head, Darryl!]
And Leithart is currently under fire for his defense of Constantine, who represents all that is Romish and contrary to the true faith. So it’s doubly entertaining knowing all the players, although I wish the great minds of orthodox Presbyterianism would take on Leithart’s theses rather than put him personally in their ecclesiastical docket. The Calvinist Inquisition, as it were.
Plus ca change…
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But, TVD, HC 80 calls the mass an accursed idolatry. And like Mr. Han said, doing nothing and being still are two very different sings. I get that you want to malign those who turn the other cheek or do not resist an evil man as giving tacit approval (you modernist, you), but have you considered that Jesus is caught up in your self-righteous dragnet?
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“And if a man rape your wife, offer him your daughter as well?” Mr. Zrim, that’s the Gospel According to Barney or St. Bastard or something.
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Zrim
Posted October 15, 2013 at 5:50 pm | Permalink
But, TVD, HC 80 calls the mass an accursed idolatry.
Cool. I guess you could have mentioned that in support of your fellow warrior children here
*http://www.creedcodecult.com/a-once-for-all-perpetual-offering/
but I’m not sure it helps your case, Mr. Z. And why you save all your energy for the papists while “liberal theology” has run away with the Presbyterian church
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/presbyterian-vote-allows-homosexual-clergy-eliminates-chastity-standard/
is the real revelation here. Think about it. If “Protestantism” needs a wall to push against, Rome’s all you have left. Viewed in that light, Darryl’s obsession with it [and Jason and the Callers] is understandable, even reasonable.
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Glenn, no. Just don’t wear your Tea Party t-shirt.
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TVD, no, it’s cloak and tunic. Stop hyperventilating. But old school Prots know that the Reformation was and continues to be a battle on two fronts. If you were as close a reader of OLTS as you think you are, you’d see that principle applied.
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TVD and igasx,
Don’t take us too far afield here. No need to get DGH on Mark Levin’s radar. Hillsdale’s got their mojo working. Let’s return to Thornbury’s claims:
Thornbury: “I think that when you study the texts of particularly the New Testament, although it has its origins in the Mosaic Law, I think what you see there is the seedbed of freedom of conscience.”
Me: Huh? Christ made the world safe for liberalism? Seriously?
Thornbury: “There was a mercantile aspect to the early Christian movement.”
Me: Was this imputed or infused?
Thornbury: “what the Apostle Paul and others were representing was an alternative to totalitarianism”
Me: Churchill, Roosevelt, and Paul? The unwritten history of Yalta?
Thornbury: “when I see Hayek talking about making sure that we stay free of tyranny, I see the entailments of that going all the way back to the emperor and Domitian and the Apostle John.”
Me: When I see evangelical light-weights funding this type of garbage in the vain hope they might exude a whiff of relevancy I’m a bit sympathetic with Domitian.
So how now shall we then live gentlemen? Is this the best the worldview theologians have to offer? You think the seasoned Keller can stomach sharing Manhattan real estate with the rookie Thornbury? They are both on the same team, right? Please, for the love of all that is good, please tell me at what point you world and life view types might blush at the grasping for the hind tit of intellect and influence.
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wjw, if they reach and obtain the aft tit, are they any more admirable?
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DGH,
No. More agile perhaps. But, no.
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wjw- The implications of Darryl appearing on Levin’s radar is the same as Darryl’s broad sweeping generalizations.
What’s good for the goose…
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igasx,
Talk to me about Thornbury. You on board with Hayek and redemptive history? You snark above about servility to the prince. So what about this libertarian reading of the NT? Servility much? What’s good for the gander . . .
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Well put Phil! What a breath of fresh air!
Keep pressing on!
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Calling any and all worldview devotes:
The president of King’s College is one of you! He sees a “link” between the economic teaching of the Viennese Nietzsche inspired agnostic Hayek and the New Testament! After you google Hayek please tell me how this is remotely Christian? Please help.
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Say now, the worldview folks can’t be divided can they? I thought a Christian worldview was comprehensive. Keller, Baylys, Van der Sloot, Kuyper, Thornbury, Bratt, Linus Van Pelt, Jordan, Wilson, Jean Claude Van Damme, Mohler, Piper, Van Halen, etc. etc. They might disagree about doctrine but when it comes to a Christian worldview I thought everyone was simpatico. Secularists bad Austrian economics good.
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wjw- An attempt to discuss Thornbury on this blog would be no different than trying to have a rational conversation on Levin’s show. Why bother?
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wjw, the right answer.
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wjw, you may have missed it. I am banning all responses to Doug, though he is free to rant.
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Glenn, you can do better than that. Make a specific case for Thornbury’s point. If you’re not embarrassed by Thornbury, help him out.
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Glenn, regarding broad sweeping generalizations, you mean to tell me that w-w analysis is not broad, sweeping, or general? The thing that gets 2kers in trouble is that we happen to notice specifics that don’t add up to the claims about the cosmos.
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igasx,
Forbe’s is not World. Thornbury is representing. Don’t you think worldview advocates should be cheering? Worldview critics won’t make Forbes anytime soon. This is cultural transformation before our very eyes and nobody seems excited about the Gospel, Hayek, and Herder. I’m baffled.
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wjw, stop asking tough questions. w-w is for inspiration, not analysis.
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wjw- you proved my point. Which is no different than what Levin does with Obama and the Democrats and Chris Matthews (and Darryl) do with Ted Cruz and the Republicans.
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igasx,
Help me out. What’s your point? Don’t play Thrasymachus at the BBQ.
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wjw, he’s still a rookie, he’ll get the drift of what is happening here shortly… 😀
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Na, I prefer the maieutic. Which is why I always guard my drink against the hemlock mickey.
Speaking of, let’s suppose that Hayek’s theories are an example of good natural law. What should we say about Hayak and to Thornbury?
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in some places, nature itself teaches the males to wear skirts (kilts)
but hayek means two kingdoms—- spiritual socialism for the elect in the kingdom of those God loves, but straight up dog-eat-dog capitalism in the kingdom where the generic god of general grace has more grace for some than for others, ie, those who somehow acquired the capital to create jobs for the poor
but remember, it’s not zero-sum, the one percent make it possible for even us to receive more grace than we would otherwise, also don’t forget all those who killed to make capitalism possible
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Mark- what’s dog eat dog?
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Mark- is it really spiritual socialism? Do all Christians all receive exactly the same spiritual gifts?
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igasx,
Well, considering Thornbury wrote Recovering Classic Evangelicalism: Applying the Wisdom and Vision of Carl F. H. Henry, and considering Carl F. H. Henry wrote “Natural Law and Nihilistic Culture” for First Things way back in 1995, I would say Thornbury should know better or should at least get his heroes of the faith straight.
ihttp://www.firstthings.com/article/2008/08/004-natural-law-and-a-nihilistic-culture-28
By the way, since when did Worldview theology need secular natural law economic theories to make sense of the NT? Looks to me like the antithesis mobile stalled out on Wall Street.
Thornbury: “When I read Hayek and I see his argument for the link between private property and freedom, I see a direct line going all the way back to those pages of the New Testament.”
Me: A link to Locke, maybe. Ricardo, possibly. Smith, certainly. But Jesus Christ and the Apostles! Wow. Every thought captive indeed my friend.
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wjw- if we follow your regression what’s to say we won’t get there?
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Glenn, I believe the ball is still in your courts. So what should we say about Hayek to Thornbury? You’re acting like Boehner — rope-a-dope. Why not show your Tea Party bona fides?
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wjw, but going back to Christ and the apostles is cosmic.
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igasx,
By all means follow. I can’t wait to see the connections.
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wjw- If i were to attempt such an exercise would I be restricted to the platonic method? No mixing of the temporal and eternal?
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Any effort that is honest and getting somewhere would be top 3 so far this year from the peanut gallery.
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Glenn, are you sure you’re not Mark Van Der Molen?
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I find it funny, when “conservative” Protestants find truth in the political philosophies of the Godless Hayek and Rand.
At least, liberation theologians can claim that Marx was both Jewish and Lutheran!
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Isn’t this the old canard that, really, Jesus was ‘merican? Sorry Canadiens, but ,If so, maybe the Mormons got a leg up on us all. They’re pretty white and pretty industrious and pretty good citizens too. Course I always liked the Jack mormons, but that’s just me.
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Darryl, I would like to read about your experience at L’Abri.
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Glenn, not sure what Schaeffer has to do with this except that he got to me before Machen. When I was in residence at L’Abri, FAS was gearing up to mentor the Religious Right (fall, 1976). I still recall his saying that the contest between Carter and Ford was akin to the struggle between darkness and light. Even then, that did not sound quite right. Of course, FAS was echoing the neo-Calvinist w-w of anti-thesis, which Thornbury uses to demonize Keynesians and sacralize free marketers. But then came Machen at Harvard Divinity School who said the church’s mission was not political but spiritual. That was a relief.
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Zrim
Posted October 15, 2013 at 8:29 pm | Permalink
TVD, no, it’s cloak and tunic. Stop hyperventilating. But old school Prots know that the Reformation was and continues to be a battle on two fronts. If you were as close a reader of OLTS as you think you are, you’d see that principle applied.
Plus ca change, Mr. Z, plus ca change.
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TVD, you say that as if it’s some sort of problem. But after the stuff about tunic and cloaks, Jesus goes on to say without stuttering: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”
And then Paul: “For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you. And I believe it in part, for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized.”
So dissension and divisions don’t seem to be the inherent evils you suggest. In fact, they are quite necessary.
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Franky Jr now glories in free-will and the Eastern Orthodox Church, having rejected the gospel of grace. He’s also now trendy enough to see the logic of “The Christian Manifesto”.
“In my father’s book he called for the overthrow of the US government unless non-violent ways were found to overturn Roe v Wade. He compared America to Nazi Germany. Note the ominous rhetorical shadow Dad’s book cast over a future that produced the climate of hate that eventually spawned the murder of abortion providers such as Dr. George Tiller in Wichita in 2009 and the threat of destroying
America’s credit in an effort to literally defund the USA.
Here’s a bit from Manifesto on how the government was “taking away” our country named by Dad as “this total humanistic way of thinking”: “Simply put, the Declaration of Independence states that the people, if they find that their basic rights are being systematically attacked by the state, have a duty to try and change that government, and if they cannot do so, to abolish it.”
Then this: “There does come a time when even physical force, is appropriate. .. . A true Christian in Hitler’s Germany and in the occupied countries should have defied the counterfeit state. This brings us to a current issue that is crucial for the future of the church in the United States, the issue of abortion. . . . It is time we consciously realize that when any office commands what is contrary to God’s law it abrogates its authority. And our loyalty to the God who gave this law then requires that we make the appropriate response in that situation.”
Dad’s followers were told that America was like Hitler’s Germany–because of the forcing of
“Humanism” on the population–and thus intrinsically evil; and that whatever would have been the “appropriate response” to stop Hitler was now needed here….
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Hey Mark- Did you see Scott Clark’s blogpost today titled: “The irony of the coming dark age”
Has Clark gone Schaefferian on us?
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D.G. – I still recall his saying that the contest between Carter and Ford was akin to the struggle between darkness and light. Even then, that did not sound quite right.
Erik – Hilarious
Re. Dr. Traveling Thornburys: I’m just jazzed that there is a (Christian) college president out there who is not a knee-jerk liberal on economics.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwqhdRs4jyA
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Today I’m a step closer to moving to the van down by the river. Des Moines TV news ran a story (egged on by a crazy mom) about our small town drivers ed teacher “touching” a student (he moved her hand on the steering wheel) and commenting on her “body type” (he told her to move the seat up because she’s short). The reporter just showed up at a school board meeting where the mom made her complaint, cameras blazing. I gave the station an earful.
There is absolutely no escaping idiots. I’m looking forward to the privacy of my casket being lowered into the earth.
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The story. Hide the women & children.
http://www.kcci.com/page/search/htv-des/news/central-iowa/parents-concerned-after-teacher-accused-of-acting-inappropriately/-/9357080/22436980/-/jivdsez/-/index.html
My daughter says the students are all flipping out, wanting to defend the teacher.
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While I’m rolling, I just heard on NBC news that the Shutdown has “cost us” $24 billion (or some other number someone made up). So we’ve borrowed less money from the Chinese the last few weeks to pay our Federal workers and somehow our economy is worse off? I don’t understand. I mean no disrespect to Federal workers. Most of them are just trying to make an honest living.
If operating government makes our nation wealthy, why don’t we all just quit our private sector jobs and go to work for the government?
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” demonize Keynesians and sacralize free marketers”
In that the first pretty much by definition trashes the 8th commandment, while the latter may or may not abuse it, the latter gets the nod.
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MMcC
Yeah Frankie really is off his meds (whatever Bobby thinks), but have you ever read the Old Right John Flynn’s As We Go Marching comparing Mussolini, Hitler and Roosevelt on how fascism came to America? He’s not the only one. There are others. And yup, I tink F. is a romanist.
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the word “cynic” comes from the word “dog”
cynics seem to have no conscience, living like dogs
amoral capitalists are cynical—that’s why we have thursday night nfl
Even better than John Flynn is Bill Kaufman (and other folks at Front Porch Republic)
check out his Bye Bye American Empire
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Zrim
Posted October 16, 2013 at 4:52 pm | Permalink
TVD, you say that as if it’s some sort of problem. But after the stuff about tunic and cloaks, Jesus goes on to say without stuttering: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”
And then Paul: “For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you. And I believe it in part, for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized.”
So dissension and divisions don’t seem to be the inherent evils you suggest. In fact, they are quite necessary.
Yes, Mr. Z, that’s you warrior children’s story and you’re sticking to it. Although as we see, Calvin and Melanchthon, two of the major founders of “Protestantism,” had their own reservations.
Further, perhaps it was not they to whom Paul was referring as “those who are genuine among you,” nor that schism is the answer even if they were*.
Just a thought. As always, thx for your courteous reply.
_______________________
http://www.gty.org/resources/articles/a253
&c.
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TVD, schism is indeed a grave matter:
Belgic Confession, Article 28: The Obligations of Church Members
We believe that since this holy assembly and congregation is the gathering of those who are saved and there is no salvation apart from it, no one ought to withdraw from it, content to be by himself, regardless of his status or condition.
But all people are obliged to join and unite with it, keeping the unity of the church by submitting to its instruction and discipline, by bending their necks under the yoke of Jesus Christ, and by serving to build up one another, according to the gifts God has given them as members of each other in the same body.
And to preserve this unity more effectively, it is the duty of all believers, according to God’s Word, to separate themselves from those who do not belong to the church, in order to join this assembly wherever God has established it, even if civil authorities and royal decrees forbid and death and physical punishment result.
And so, all who withdraw from the church or do not join it act contrary to God’s ordinance.
But for a Protestant you sure do go to the mat for Rome.
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Mr. Z, thx as always for your thoughtful reply. I could spend years litigating every twist and turn of Belgic 28 and I’m not even Belgian.
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TVD, but I think you waffle just fine.
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Zrim, nice one. I take my virtual hat off to you.
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Belgian. Waffle. I get it. That’s the wittiest thing I’ve seen on this blog this year. Keep ’em comin’, Z!
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Come on, Tom. Don’t get all syrupy.
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TVD, only if you say please-with-sugar-on-top. But aren’t you supposed to put smarty pants answers in the form of a question?
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I’ve gotten used to you warrior children by now. It’s like the Bearded Spock Universe. Like Kirk, I just play along.
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Philip Larson – A number of years ago (5-10) a friend and colleague was working with me on the transformation of the academic curriculum. He once initiated this: one benefit of a transformational view is that it already has Tertullian’s view built into it.
It’s interesting how Gene Veith, when reshaping Niebuhr, completely avoids the subject, trying to bring it under “Christ above culture,” assuming that transformation was a top-down position.
Darryl, like a Lutheran, also errs by thinking that a hatred for sin is not inherent in “Christ the transformer of culture.”
Guys, stop reading with your emotions. Please read Niebuhr: trash him if you like, but interact with what transformationalists really think, not what you wish they think.
This whole blog is misguided.
Erik – You should buy a Curves franchise. You would have those flabby, middle-aged women looking like bodybuilders in no time. Is nothing beyond your transforming?
Substitute “Philip Larson” for “Obama” and sing after me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGK8ZFKZZUk
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WJW – From some canned press release on Thornbury being named president of King’s College:
“This is historic Christianity’s last and best shot to lead from the center of culture with Christ at the center,” said Thornbury, who recently authored the book, “Recovering Classic Evangelicalism: Applying the Wisdom and Vision of Carl F. H. Henry.”
Whew! Glad historic Christianity finally has a shot from the center of culture. Forget Athens and Jerusalem. Palestine is to Rome as Jackson, Tennessee is to New York. Everyone knows Palestine is soooo first-century Sahara of the Bozart!
“His contemporary Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, compared Thornbury to an 18th-century theologian, tweeting that he “is Jonathan Edwards meets Rolling Stone magazine.”
Erik – I’ve found that one of the number one traits of irrelevance is proclaiming one’s own relevance. Same thing with hipness.
I once went to a Doug Wilson conference on the topic of the family. It was quite interesting. Probably the best thing he said was, “Once the nerd comes to the party, the party’s over”. Indeed.
The best way for Christians to be relevant to the culture is to disregard the culture. That’s really the definition of timelessness and true Christianity is timeless.
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Greg Thornbury – Not cool, but trying really hard.
Donald Fagen – Really cool, but not trying at all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cjlfc2Cymg0
Fagen’s memoir, “Eminent Hipsters” is scheduled to arrive in my mailbox on Friday. I can’t wait.
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I read the review of Fea’s book. The stack must be pretty high if you are just getting around to reviewing a book from 2011 now. The review was good, but you (and Fea, apparently) left out the part of how the Revolution was a Presbyterian revolt led by the Founding Fathers, all devout Presbyterians, nursed on the teet of Beza and Calvinist Resistance Theory…
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Erik Charter
Posted October 24, 2013 at 9:24 am | Permalink
I read the review of Fea’s book. The stack must be pretty high if you are just getting around to reviewing a book from 2011 now. The review was good, but you (and Fea, apparently) left out the part of how the Revolution was a Presbyterian revolt led by the Founding Fathers, all devout Presbyterians, nursed on the teet of Beza and Calvinist Resistance Theory…
Fea’s next book is on Presbyterians and the revolution. I’m confident he’s now up to speed.
http://americancreation.blogspot.com/2013/06/mark-david-hall-responds-to-dghart.html
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