BIBLE ARCHEOLOGY: TOP 10 DISCOVERIES IN 2015
DREHER: THE UNIVERSITY AT MCDONALDS GREAT BEING BACK IN THE COUNTRY WHERE I BELONG FOR NOW. All I want to do is read good books, walk in the park nearby and be willing to watch a little football over the next few days with HG. Above is a quick concoction I conjured up this afternoon of canned black-eyed peas, okra, tomatoes and cooked bacon with olive oil and herbs. Will eat it on New Years Day as a Southern tradition for good luck. Anytime I make something like this, it's always better the second day. Great with homemade cornbread and Tabasco sauce.
Below, Blackie welcomes me back from Houston by bonding with me as he wallows on my down vest and paisley scarf. I'm not a cat person, but have to admit I've grown to love these cats that rule the roost where I'm staying.
I WISH TO OFFER a rejoinder to John Piper’s assertion that Christians should not carry concealed weapons. In a recent post at Desiring God,
Piper wrote: “Exhorting the lambs to carry concealed weapons with which
to shoot the wolves does not advance the counter-cultural,
self-sacrificing, soul-saving cause of Christ.” His post takes direct aim at Jerry Falwell Jr, who recently urged students
at Liberty University to procure their concealed-carry permits and
“teach [terrorists] a lesson if they ever show up here.” I don’t know
Jerry Falwell, and I’m sure we wouldn’t agree on everything. But here’s
how he explained the context behind his statement:
As the president of this university
community of nearly 15,000 students and 7,000 faculty and staff, I take
very seriously my responsibility to keep you safe in an increasingly
dangerous world. That’s why in 2011 I asked our Board of Trustees to
consider a concealed carry policy. It wasn’t because of Islamic
terrorism, it was because what happened (just) up the road at Virginia
Tech. More than 30 innocent students and faculty were murdered viciously
and none of them had the ability to protect themselves. The day that
happened, I thought we needed to do something different here at Liberty…
[We have] 950 here now with concealed carry permits, and after I made
those remarks on Friday we had 240 sign up for a course tomorrow night.
I find this eminently reasonable. Here’s a Christian leader,
responsible for the safety of thousands of people, urging responsible
citizens to act within their legal rights to obtain gun permits
in light of a tragic instance of campus violence. Piper sees this as
out of step with the New Testament. I see it as profoundly in line with
the Christian responsibility to love our neighbors as ourselves. If an
active shooter showed up on campus with intent to harm, the loving thing
to do would be to take him out before he killed dozens of people. There’s certainly room for freedom of conscience on this issue.
Christians will have differing convictions on the use of lethal force.
But the case Piper makes against lethal force is a weak one, and its
weaknesses need to be highlighted in order to move the conversation
forward. In an age of terrorism where churches and schools are soft
targets, Christians need to think more critically about this important
matter. Piper offers nine considerations in support of his thesis. I will advance three critiques
that reveal some weaknesses and inadequacies I perceive in Piper’s
viewpoint. And I hope to offer all of them in a tone that conveys the
eminent respect and esteem I have for Dr. Piper.
1) Piper fails to substantiate his assertion that Romans 13 does not apply to private citizens in a democracy.
Piper writes:
[Any] claim that in a democracy the
citizens are the government, and therefore may assume the role of the
sword-bearing ruler in Romans 13, is elevating political extrapolation
over biblical revelation. When Paul says, “The ruler does not bear the
sword in vain” (Romans 13:4), he does not mean that Christian citizens
should all carry swords so the enemy doesn’t get any bright ideas.
What does Paul mean, then? Certainly he doesn’t mean that
Caesar must personally carry a sword and execute all justice by his own
hand. By “the ruler,” we understand Paul to be speaking symbolically of
every civil magistrate, and by “the sword,” we understand him to be
speaking symbolically of all the various forms of justice that the civil
authorities enforce. Therefore, it is not “political extrapolation” to say that
governments may wield fighter jets instead of swords. And neither is it
political extrapolation to say that citizens in a democracy may bear
arms. This is called biblical application. Romans 13 allows citizens to
carry and use weapons as long as their government allows it. Piper draws a distinction between “policemen or soldiers” using
lethal force and “ordinary Christians” using lethal force. But he fails
to reckon with the reality that in the United States, a Christian
citizen who legally uses deadly force to stop an attacker is a legitimate extension of the government’s sword-wielding power.
If God has given the ruler the right to bear the sword… and if the
ruler extends to private citizens that right… then where exactly is the
extrapolation?
2) Piper fails to meaningfully differentiate persecution from acts of terrorism.
Acts of terrorism can be persecution (for
instance, when ISIS militants behead someone for their faith in Christ).
But not every terrorist attack equates to biblical persecution. The
Christian response to persecution is to patiently endure and prayerfully
turn the other cheek (1 Peter 2:19, Matthew 5:44-45). The Christian
response to terrorism is to stop the terrorist from killing human beings
who are made in God’s image. I agree with Piper that Christians should
not carry concealed weapons for the purposes of (in the order of his
arguments) 1. avenging ourselves, 2. retaliating for unjust treatment,
3. handling hostility, 4. advancing the Christian cause by force, 5.
returning evil for evil, or 6. resisting persecution. As a friend of
mine observed, “If you used a gun for any of those reasons, you’d be in
violation of the law anyway.” Piper marshals these arguments in order to build a case about “the
whole tenor and focus and demeanor and heart-attitude of the Christian
life.” He seems to be saying that a Christian demeanor of mercy and
humility and godliness is incommensurate with “a disposition to use
lethal force.” But it seems to me that this argument proves too much. If
it’s impossible to have a Christian demeanor and still be willing to
use lethal force, does this not preclude Christians from being police
officers or serving in the military? Piper leans heavily on the book of 1 Peter, where Christians are urged to endure unjust suffering. But contextually, that persecution was coming from the government itself.
If at some point in the future our government turns with hostility upon
Christians and uses the “power of the sword” against us (as did Nero in
the first century), then certainly we must bear that suffering without
retaliation. Many of our Christian brothers and sisters are doing this
right now throughout the world. But it’s a stretch to say: therefore,
Christians should lay down while a radicalized terrorist shoots innocent
people.
3) Piper makes arbitrary distinctions in his application of texts like Romans 13.
Piper asserts that there is, in the Bible, “no direct dealing with
the situation of using lethal force to save family and friend, except in regards to police and military.”
But can he point to the chapter and verse where the Bible deals with
police and military using lethal force? No. Because there isn’t one. The
assertion that police and military may use lethal force is an application of texts like Romans 13. And
so is the assertion that a private citizen may use lethal force! A
police officer and a private citizen who use lethal force to stop an
attacker are both doing so legally, as an extension of the
state’s authority, and with the expectation that they will have to
answer for their actions. If Piper is OK with a Christian police officer
using lethal force in a case of imminent danger, then he should also be
OK with Christian students at Liberty University doing the same. Throughout his article, Piper draws lines between police and military
using lethal force and private citizens using lethal force. But this
distinction is not present in the biblical text. It is a distinction in application. And it is, I assert, an arbitrary one. Piper’s primary concern is with the spirit of Jerry
Falwell Jr’s remarks – specifically, with the statement, “Let’s teach
[terrorists] a lesson if they ever show up here.” I agree that that
specific statement is unnecessarily provocative. And I think Dr. Piper
could have written a very thoughtful blog post taking issue with it.
Unfortunately, he has done more than that. He has taken a theological
position against Christians carrying concealed weapons. And I find that
theological position, as argued by Piper, to have some significant
weaknesses. On December 9, 2007, an armed attacker with a semiautomatic rifle and
1400 rounds of ammunition began a shooting rampage at New Life Church
in Colorado Springs. He killed two teenagers in the parking lot and then
moved toward the building where about 700 people were gathered. His
murderous advance was stopped by church security team member Jeanne
Assam, who shot him with her concealed handgun. Her quick and decisive
action likely saved dozens of lives. I would not deem Ms. Assam more
Christlike if she had prayerfully set down her weapon and “accepted
unjust mistreatment without retaliation.” And I suspect the students at
Liberty University would not either.
IF YOU DON'T READ ANYTHING ELSE THIS YEAR, READ THIS AND SEE THE SLIPPERY DOWNHILL SLOPE WE'RE ON: The Crisis of Character.
If you only have time for one movie thisthe remainder of this year, see The Big Short. My son and I caught a matinee this afternoon in Houston and thought it was incredibly well done.
No one wants to read or watch anything about credit default swaps as entertainment. These guys have done a brilliant job of taking a complex subject and making it simple and totally fascinating. See it and weep and know, we taxpayers are paying trillions for those Wall Street bailouts. And it's going to happen again. Only next time, it will be worse.
MERRY CHRISTMAS! IT'S BEEN A WONDERFUL WEEK HERE IN HOT, HUMID HOUSTON, though I've come down with a cold and am a bit under the weather. Still we've had the best time---ever. Have posted today's Quiet Walk Devotional (via daily email) which contrasts the baby Jesus in the manger with the view of Jesus on his eternal throne as described in Revelation 4....quite a contrast! Will try to post a few pictures soon and hope your Christmas is peaceful and filled with gratitude. Photo directly below from the children's Christmas eve service at St. Martin's yesterday.
December 25
Revelation 4
John describes an astounding vision of the throne of God in heaven.
INSIGHT
At Christmas our thoughts are on Jesus' birth, focusing on His humanity. By radical contrast, this Christmas Day we see the throne room of heaven and the surroundings which magnify His deity. In the center is a throne - behind which an emerald-colored rainbow arises. Dignitaries dressed in white robes and gold crowns are seated around the throne. The floor of the massive room is like crystal. Unusual looking creatures constantly give verbal praise to God and the dignitaries form a celestial choir, worshiping and praising God. This is the normal abode of God's Son. Yet we usually think of Jesus as a child in Bethlehem, a teacher on a hillside, or the One who bore our sins alone on a cross. Revelation balances that picture with a glimpse of Jesus' majesty and grandeur.
PRAYER
Praise the Lord that He was willing to become what we are - that we may inherit eternal salvation:
Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord, O my soul!
While I live I will praise the Lord;
I will sing praises to my God while I have my being. . . .
Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help,
Whose hope is in the Lord his God . . .
The Lord shall reign forever –
Your God, O Zion, to all generations.
Praise the Lord! (Psalm 146:1-2, 5, 10).
WHEN I WAS GROWING UP, “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” by Charles
Wesley (revised by George Whitfield) was one of my favorite Christmas
songs — but the point of the first line went completely over my head.
Don’t get me wrong, I understood lines like “Peace on earth, and
mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled” and “Light and life to all he
brings, Risen with healing in his wings / Mild he lays his glory by,
Born that man no more may die.” However, there was that lead archaic
imperative that escaped me for years: Hark! (Listen!).
In a 2007 Christianity Today article, Gordon Giles notes,
In the Gospel account, the angels praise God, whereas in
“Hark! the herald angels sing,” they are inaccurately described as
praising Jesus. Furthermore, Luke does not say that the angels “sing,”
and so it may well be that this reinterpretation by Whitfield has
emphasized the popular but unscriptural picture of angels singing the
Gloria.
While Giles is correct, we would do well to listen to and learn from the angels in Luke 2:10.
Their praise and adoration towards God about the birth of Jesus is a
model for what our attitude should be concerning the Christ Jesus. Why?
Angels didn’t need to be reconciled to God, but man does.
He Didn’t Come for the Sins of Angels
When God brought Jesus into heaven at his ascension, says Hebrews 1:6 (with 2:5), he declares (in the words of Deuteronomy 32:43), “Let all God’s angels worship him.”
Angels and humans are different beings. The most notable thing we
have in common is that God created us both, and we were perfect in the
beginning. But the differences are significant:
Angels will not be raised “up with him” and seated “with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 2:6)
Hebrews 2:16
further emphasizes that the coming of Jesus doesn’t help angels. The
writer declares, “Surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps
the offspring of Abraham.” John Calvin explains why this glorious truth
shouldn’t make us proud, but rather humble us,
By this comparison he enhances the benefit and the honor
with which Christ has favored us, by putting on our flesh; for he never
did so much for angels. As then it was necessary that there should be a
remarkable remedy for man’s dreadful ruin, it was the design of the Son
of God that there should be some incomparable pledge of his love towards
us, which angels had not in common with us. That he preferred us to
angels was not owing to our excellency, but to our misery.
There is therefore no reason for us to glory as though we were
superior to angels, except that our heavenly Father has manifested
toward us that ampler mercy which we needed, so that the angels
themselves might from on high behold so great a bounty poured on the
earth. (Commentary on Hebrews, 73–74)
The fact that Christ was “veiled in [human] flesh the Godhead see”
speaks not to our worth, “but to our misery” and God’s great mercy.
Angels sinned and they were immediately condemned and will be judged by
us one day. We sinned and God graciously sends us Jesus so that “God and
sinners [would be] reconciled.”
Peter declares that this gracious act of God in the gospel is so precious that the angels long to look (1 Peter 1:12).
Unfallen angels understand experientially the righteousness and
holiness of God, but they have no experience of what it’s like to have
sinned and been forgiven. If they sin, they’re judged eternally, but God
in the gospel is merciful to mankind. The angels recognize how precious
and significant the gospel is. And instead of responding with envy or
questions, they respond with curiosity and worship.
Listen and Learn
The angels demonstrate a reverence and admiration that we, in our
fallen state, struggle to display and maintain. The gospel is good news
for us, not angels; yet they rejoice and worship as if they were the
ones experiencing this peculiar good of our merciful God. We would do
well to listen and learn.
Christmas is often weighed down with diversions of gift giving,
eggnog, and other festivities. But the fact that Jesus entered the world
is bad news that ends with good news. He had to come because of our
misery and mess, but he came as a merciful Messiah prepared to take on
our sins.
During this final week of Advent (and after), let praise and
adoration for Christ consume your thoughts. Worship the risen Savior,
for “light and life to all he brings.”
Listen to the angels worship and join them in this appropriate adoration.
ANY BOOK WRITTEN ON THE CONSTITUTION WHICH EMERGES FROM CLAREMONT INSTITUTE, I WANT TO READ AND THINK ABOUT. Whether I agree with all of John Tamny's review conclusions or those of author Robert Curry remains to be seen. But this I know: I will read and gnaw on this important book in the cold, dark days of January, especially since I think we live in a time of great uncommon sense and a people in mass societal regression. . There can be no rights for long without responsibilities.
Claremont
Institute board member Robert Curry has written a very interesting history of
how the Declaration of Independence and Constitution came to be, and how they
signaled a 'Big Bang' of the freedom variety.
RealClearMarkets.
IN A 2014 COLUMN FOR USA Today, HBO host Bill Maher asked readers a rather
important question: "How is it that a nation that was never interested in
politics has now made everything political?"
My answer at the time was that Americans had no choice but to be political.
With the federal government having allocated to itself immense powers that were
once the preserve of the cities and states, a non-political electorate had
become a distracted one; hyper-focused on the doings within Washington. Go to
bed early on election night? We can't anymore, and that's too bad.
Worse, in the lead up to Election 2016 Americans will spend enormous
amounts of time reading about politics, more time flattering politicians by
watching them on tv, plus they'll contribute billions to political parties and
candidates with an eye on influencing the future make-up of the ruling class in
Washington. Something's very wrong here. Thankfully there's an excellent new
book out that will remind readers how far we've drifted from the Founding
Fathers' vision for the United States; this drift arguably the source of an
overly-politicized America.
In Common Sense Nation: Unlocking the Forgotten Power of the
American Idea, the Claremont Institute's Robert Curry impressively lays out
the thinking that gave us the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and
Federalist Papers, and in doing so, reminds us how much better off we'd all be
if we had never strayed in the first place. As Victor Davis Hanson puts it in
the book's foreword, Curry believes that the "roots and traditions of the
Founding Fathers should once again become common knowledge to contemporary
Americans." No argument there.
So while Curry's deep knowledge of the Founders' philosophy is made evident
throughout, he's not written a book that will be effective only insofar as the
Nyquil isn't. Curry inspires the reader with his discussion of the American
Idea, but rarely descends into the obscure. As he puts it, Common Sense
Nation "only skims the surface, but it aims to do so in a way that reveals the
depths." Curry has delivered. Readers of his book will understand the staggering
historical importance of what the Founders did.
What needs to be stressed up front is how very fringe or (pardon the
pun) revolutionarywere the Founders. Though history may paint them as staid in
the serious, sober, elder statesmen sense, America's Founders were different. As
Curry describes the creation of the U.S., it was "the most radical attempt to
establish a regime of liberty in the entire history of mankind." These men were
brilliant, but also the opposite of traditional.
Even more fascinating in light of the largely free present, a present that
allows us to say what we want when we want about our elected officials, is what
a rare luxury this happens to be in an historical sense. Indeed, while Curry
corrects the conventional view that says America's founding documents sprung
directly from John Locke, he doesn't diminish the man himself nor his
courage.
Curry quotes Locke as writing that "Absolute monarchy is inconsistent with
Civil Society," and for words like those Locke had to be "smuggled out of
England to safety in Holland." The agents of the King Charles II were in "hot
pursuit" of this unabashed lover of liberty. What's important here is that in
the 17th century, expressing thoughts of freedom "could be fatal." My how things
have changed, and for the better.
In consideration of how bleak and anti-human life used to be, Curry writes
that "the Founding can be thought of as a kind of historical Big Bang." So true.
A world in which a lack of freedom was the norm suddenly embraced the then
foreign concept that for simply being, humans had natural rights. Some of us
perhaps take this for granted now, but wow!
Curry stresses throughout that the American Enlightenment emerged from the
Scottish one. It was rooted in the moral sense, but also common sense. Curry
quotes Scottish philosopher Francis Hutcheson: "our moral sense is an endowment
of our human nature." There's a right and wrong that we quite simply grasp, at
which point common sense is the ability to grasp self-evident truths. The
greatest self-evident truth is that as human beings, we have infinite rights
simply because we exist. These rights were there all along. They're
unalienable.
On the subject of the Constitution, Curry observes about the Founders that
they "understood our rights to be literally infinite in number." Applied to the
Bill of Rights of which the 9th Amendment ("The enumeration in the Constitution,
of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained
by the people.") is a member, Curry makes plain that the all-important 9th "was
intended to ensure that enumerating some rights would not have the effect of
narrowing our understanding of the vast range of our unalienable
rights."
About all of the above there is total agreement, but there are also
questions. This reviewer fully accepts Curry's assertion that the 9th and 10th
("The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor
prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to
the people.") Amendments "make clear the Founders' intent" as applied to our
innumerable rights as individuals, along with the highly limited role of the
federal government in our daily lives. What was the point of revolution unless
this was their intent?
So the question is this: if the 9th is read correctly, shouldn't the
Supreme Court have erased any and all limits erected by cities and states in
regard to gay marriage? In this instance we're talking about individuals doing
something that hurts no one else. Along somewhat similar lines, shouldn't the
Affordable Care Act have been struck down for healthcare mandates limiting our
natural rights to do as we please, not to mention that healthcare is never
enumerated in the Constitution as a federal power?
If powers not delegated to the U.S. automatically revert to the states per
the 10th, what are those powers? It's hard to imagine that the Founders intended
for mob rule in the states, but it's hard to figure out what powers would
revert. Was "Romneycare" legal in Massachusetts based on this question? An
otherwise excellent book could have been even more engaging had Curry addressed
questions like these.
What about the presumed toxic environment in Washington today? To read the
mainstream punditry or watch the television shows which feature those truly
inside Washington, the lack of civility between right and left, liberal and
conservative, Republican and Democrat is a bug, not a feature of the present.
The Founders would probably disagree with this bit of modern non-wisdom. Curry
writes that the Founders "approached their task" of writing the Constitution
with conflict and the gridlock that springs from conflict very much in mind. A
lack of bipartisanship is what ensures limited damage from the incompetents that
invariably migrate to political office.
All of which leads us to the constitutional firewall between church and
state. Here Curry exposes both left and right as a little bit, or a lot wrong.
To members of the religious right who like to say that the Founders were deeply
religious, and as such, not for separation, Curry dismisses this view with ease.
Writing about James Madison, he makes plain that what most animated his own
desire for revolution was keeping government out of religion. Figure the First
Amendment begins with "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion..."
At the same time, Curry writes that "today the First Amendment is being
used to drive religion out of public life. The Founders would consider that
absurd and repellent. The plain meaning of the First Amendment is that there is
not going to be a Church of America," not that there wouldn't be churches for
all manner of faiths. So the left are wrong, but so are the right about the
Founders and religion. It could be argued that precisely because many were deeply
religious, they did not want government to have any role in what they deemed
good.
Curry spends a lot of time distinguishing between Locke's focus on
"property rights" versus the Founders' focus on the "pursuit of happiness."
Property rights are interesting insofar as great thinkers like Hernando de Soto
argue that a lack of defined property ownership in South America has been the
biggest explainer - by far - of South American poverty. But is that
true?
Without dismissing the importance of property rights for even a second,
Curry's explanation of the American Enlightenment and the founding of the U.S.
is very much rooted in moral terms. Per Francis Hutcheson once again "our moral
sense is an endowment of our human nature." We would understand right and wrong
even without laws. Right and wrong includes respect for other people's property.
It's probably the biggest moral virtue of all. Per Matt Kibbe, "don't hurt
people and don't take their stuff." All this raises another basic question: is
the U.S. rich because of its elevation of property rights, or do we have
property rights and wealth because we have morals and common sense
already?
Most interesting from an economic angle was Curry's discussion of Adam
Smith's "vision of a free market and the Founders' vision of a social order and
a system of government befitting a free people..." Like the late Jude Wanniski,
Curry is making the essential point that just as markets are smart for them
comprising the knowledge of everyone, so are political markets smart. The bigger
the country, the more the knowledge? What an interesting topic, particularly if
we bring Switzerland and/or Hong Kong into the analysis. Neither is large, but
oh my, what wise electorates! Can size in nominal terms sometimes weaken broadly
expressed knowledge?
Along similar lines, Curry writes about how "Smith showed that in a free
market rivalry improves economic performance, benefiting everyone." Definitely.
Curry's innovation comes from marrying Madison's vision to Smith's. Madison felt
that rivalry (meaning, a lack of consensus) in politics would "make it less
probable that a majority of the whole will. . . invade the property of other
citizens." This book will have the reader thinking, and talking.
Areas of possible disagreement concern Curry's assertion that "Top-down
systems, economic stagnation, and political repression go together, as history,
from pre-Revolutionary France to today's North Korea, endlessly repeats..." The
latter is no doubt true, concentrated power surely corrupts, but the potential
disagreement has to do with whether the U.S. could ever be anything like North
Korea? It seems our Constitution is aneffect of our morals and our common sense.
That this is true is but one of many reasons libertarians were so skeptical
about the invasion of Iraq. A great founding document and great laws will not
necessarily fix dysfunction. The U.S. Constitution emerged from some great men
in a country of good people. It says here that it's not necessarily
transferrable.
Curry might argue that you can't transfer what you don't understand. That's
maybe true, but what didn't much hit home was his certainty about why the people
perhaps don't get it anymore; that "Progressive" doctrine has turned the
Constitution on its head. Yes it has, but does this speak to the skill of
progressive thinkers (or bad educators?) when it comes to changing the debate,
or do rich nations generally grow flabby? It seems too convenient to blame what
is seemingly obvious. A more intriguing culprit for less robust understanding of
our Constitution is prosperity itself. If it has a negative tradeoff, this is
it. When we're thriving we perhaps forget about what made human flourishing
possible in the first place.
Probably the biggest disagreement (and it's minor) concerns Curry's
observation late in the book that today's Democratic Party "rides roughshod over
the Constitution," whereas the GOP's dismissal of the document is more noble;
perhaps a function of "America's citizens" no longer sharing the "Founders'
vision of liberty." In this case an expert on the Constitution like Curry knows
well that politicians in both major political parties don't much care at all
about it. A non-partisan book didn't need this little bit of partisanship, but
if true about the electorate (it no longer venerating the Constitution), this
arguably speaks to the importance of more immigration, not less. Indeed, who
more than the oppressed would appreciate a document solely meant to protect our
rights to live as we want? Wouldn't the arrival of repressed strivers from parts
of the world without our Constitution help to revive interest in and respect for
it?
Robert Curry has written a great book that will inform those not familiar
with the Constitution, and that will spark discussion among those who do. He
ends Common Sense Nation on an optimistic note about the "bountiful harvest of
progress to be gained" if we rediscover the Constitution. Readers have a book
that will spark this prosperity-inducing process.
HEISMAN WINNER DERRICK HENRY: ALWAYS PUT GOD FIRST. ALWAYS PRAY. HAVE BEEN READING LOUIS MARKOS' TOTALLY ENGROSSING BOOK, ON THE SHOULDERS OF HOBBITS---the Road to Virtue with Tolkien and Lewis. So taken with this important work on these famous classics by Tolkien and Lewis that I'm posting a recent Markos lecture from the C.S. Lewis Summer Institute last year. If you take time to listen, you'll get a wonderful, personal refresher course in the classical, cardinal virtues---courage (or fortitude), self-control (temperance), wisdom (or prudence) and justice plus the three special virtues of faith, hope and love found only in the special revelation of the New Testament. These seven virtues have often been replaced, or lost, by a false sense of 'virtue' so rampant in society today such as egalitarianism, feminism and environmentalism.
Through the iconic works of J. R. R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis we can be reintroduced to classic virtues both good and bad. Professor Markos shows the reader and student how powerful stories and their characters set as teachers and examples of what to be and not to be in real life.
AM JUST BACK FROM 10 DAYS IN SOUTHERN FLORIDA attending a very sick 93-year old relative who died while I was there. He was more-than-ready to go and I was able to get him into Hospice at the last to disconnect all life support at his emphatic, repeated requests. It was a humbling privilege to be with him and to support what he wanted and how he wished to die.
Meanwhile, back in Tennessee, I'm playing catch up. I hate to miss a Sunday post, so I'm putting up one of my favorite psalms below. It's the (far too) busy season which means I'll be here as best I can. Thank you for coming by.
Psalm 128
A song of ascents.
1 Blessed are all who fear the Lord, who walk in obedience to him. 2 You will eat the fruit of your labor; blessings and prosperity will be yours. 3 Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your children will be like olive shoots around your table. 4 Yes, this will be the blessing for the man who fears the Lord.
5 May the Lord bless you from Zion; may you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life. 6 May you live to see your children’s children— peace be on Israel.
The New York Daily News was able to speak
with Farook's father, also named Syed. "He was very religious. He would
go to work, come back, go to pray, come back. He’s Muslim," the dad
said.
The 30-year-old shooter graduated from La Sierra High School
and Cal State Fullerton, and was married with a child. He bought a
house last year in Corona, southwest of San Bernardino in Riverside
County.
Neighbor Maria Gutierrez told the paper, “Maybe two years
ago he became more religious. He grew a beard and started to wear
religious clothing. The long shirt that’s like a dress and the cap on
his head.”
There’s now consensus: Global warming causes terrorism.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders declared it so during a Democratic presidential debate. No more proof was needed, of course, but now President Obama has declared it, too.
Speaking at an international climate change conference in Paris this week, Obama provided “a glimpse of our children’s fate if the climate keeps changing faster than our efforts to address it.” This will include: “Submerged countries. Abandoned cities. Fields that no longer grow. Political disruptions that trigger new conflict, and even more floods of desperate peoples seeking the sanctuary of nations not their own.”
But Prime Minister Enele Sopoaga of the Pacific island nation of Tuvalu went further than America’s community organizer, declaring that “the effects of climate change … we strongly believe is also the cause of radicalism and terrorism.”
Well, we at LifeZette also strongly believe in the power of climate change, which itself may be imaginary but, whatever. As a service to you, the reader, we reveal 10 other horrible things global warming causes in addition to terrorism.
1.Obesity:Many are under the erroneous impression obesity is caused by eating too much and exercising too little. Nope. It’s now established that obesity is caused by global warming.
2.Disco:Disco was one of the worst things to happen to the ’70s. It, too, was caused by global warming. In fact, the two deceased Bee Gees each confirmed this before their deaths.
3.Bernie Sanders: The Democratic presidential candidate is one of the chief opponents of global warming. And yet it is little known that he himself was in fact caused by global warming.
4.The Patriots’ deflated footballs:No, it wasn’t Tom Brady who let the air out of those pigskins. Global warming.
5.Sinead O’Connor:Atmospheric scientists have determined that Sinead O’Connor was also caused by global warming. She may be cooling now.
6.Ishtar:One of the biggest movie flops of all time, the film ‘Ishtar’ is estimated to have lost some $40 million. The cause? Global warming.
7.The Kardashians:One of the worst things to happen to the country since disco, the Kardashians were also caused by global warming
8.Impossible To Open Children’s Toys:You’ve probably wondered why anyone would put unbreakable plastic around your kids new toy. They didn’t. It was global warming.
9.Poodles: These annoying little dogs have were in fact not created by breeders. They were created by global warming.
10.Bill Clinton’s insatiable sex drive:The fact is, as a kid, Bill Clinton was bookish and shy around women. But once global warming really started kicking in during the 1960s, Bill began propositioning every woman in Little Rock.
