Gotta read this brief post here. (And remember, this applies not just for the scientific world, but for theological journals and Christian scholarship as well).

Came across a great chunk from an Austrian economist today that I had to share; very eye-opening for people who don’t realize how our government is one of the greatest thieves ever known:

If government wishes to see a depression ended as quickly as possible,
and the economy returned to normal prosperity, what course
should it adopt? The first and clearest injunction is: don’t interfere with
the market’s adjustment process. The more the government intervenes
to delay the market’s adjustment, the longer and more grueling the
depression will be, and the more difficult will be the road to complete
recovery. Government hampering aggravates and perpetuates
the depression. Yet, government depression policy has always
(and would have even more today) aggravated the very evils it has
loudly tried to cure. If, in fact, we list logically the various ways
that government could hamper market adjustment, we will find
that we have precisely listed the favorite “anti-depression” arsenal
of government policy. Thus, here are the ways the adjustment
process can be hobbled:
(1) Prevent or delay liquidation. Lend money to shaky businesses,
call on banks to lend further, etc.
(2) Inflate further. Further inflation blocks the necessary fall in
prices, thus delaying adjustment and prolonging depression. Further
credit expansion creates more malinvestments, which, in their
turn, will have to be liquidated in some later depression. A government
“easy money” policy prevents the market’s return to the
necessary higher interest rates.
(3) Keep wage rates up. Artificial maintenance of wage rates in a
depression insures permanent mass unemployment. Furthermore,
in a deflation, when prices are falling, keeping the same rate of money wages means that real wage rates have been pushed higher.
In the face of falling business demand, this greatly aggravates the
unemployment problem.
(4) Keep prices up. Keeping prices above their free-market levels
will create unsalable surpluses, and prevent a return to prosperity.
(5) Stimulate consumption and discourage saving. We have seen
that more saving and less consumption would speed recovery;
more consumption and less saving aggravate the shortage of saved capital
even further. Government can encourage consumption by
“food stamp plans” and relief payments. It can discourage savings
and investment by higher taxes, particularly on the wealthy and
on corporations and estates. As a matter of fact, any increase of
taxes and government spending will discourage saving and investment
and stimulate consumption, since government spending is
all consumption. Some of the private funds would have been saved
and invested; all of the government funds are consumed.15 Any
increase in the relative size of government in the economy, therefore,
shifts the societal consumption–investment ratio in favor of
consumption, and prolongs the depression.
(6) Subsidize unemployment. Any subsidization of unemployment
(via unemployment “insurance,” relief, etc.) will prolong unemployment
indefinitely, and delay the shift of workers to the fields
where jobs are available…

Obviously, since credit expansion necessarily sows the seeds of
later depression, the proper course for the government is to stop
any inflationary credit expansion from getting under way. This is
not a very difficult injunction, for government’s most important
task is to keep itself from generating inflation. For government is an
inherently inflationary institution, and consequently has almost
always triggered, encouraged, and directed the inflationary boom.
Government is inherently inflationary because it has, over the centuries,
acquired control over the monetary system. Having the
power to print money (including the “printing” of bank deposits)
gives it the power to tap a ready source of revenue. Inflation is a
form of taxation, since the government can create new money out
of thin air and use it to bid away resources from private individuals,
who are barred by heavy penalty from similar “counterfeiting.”
Inflation therefore makes a pleasant substitute for taxation for the
government officials and their favored groups, and it is a subtle
substitute which the general public can easily—and can be encouraged
to—overlook. The government can also pin the blame for the
rising prices, which are the inevitable consequence of inflation,
upon the general public or some disliked segments of the public,
e.g., business, speculators, foreigners. Only the unlikely adoption
of sound economic doctrine could lead the public to pin the
responsibility where it belongs: on the government itself. (Murray Rothbard, America’s Great Depression, 19-26)

John’s Frame’s book The Escondido Theology: A Response to Two Kingdom Theology was finally released. Westminster Theological Seminary in Escondido responded with a short post essentially denying the main thrust of the book. But we all know there’s more to come. My prediction is that a book with chapters written by the faculty of the seminary will be written in response to Frame, released before the end of 2012.

The local acquaintance Jamin Eben wrote a good post here (he has a good name, doesn’t he?).

David Wheaton at The Christian Worldview Blog is beginning the gradual critique of Ron Paul’s policy on Israel. Whenever the podcast gets back on air (probably sometime in the next month or so), we’ll finish up our responses to David Jeremiah on Christian Zionism and examine some of the audio material there. God has granted a gracious chunk of time over the past several months so I could read a number of books on the history of Israel, the political situation, etc. I still continue to be amazed at how powerful dispensational thought is in shaping American evangelicalism, and how ignorant of the past we can really be. Some people deny the holocaust, yet others deny the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

I’m currently writing the most crucial chapters to Mishandling the Word of Truth: A Critique of Hyper-Dispensationalism. Also waiting for a third blurb for the back cover of The Portable Presuppositionalist second edition. Very excited about these two publication projects, and I appreciate all who have helped! Pray that they will be filled with edifying truth and will be completed within the year.

After a year teaching the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith at Church, and after studying the Gospel Coalition Confessional Statement, I find myself in a teeter totter between the two as to which, overall, is the best summary of my faith. They’re both wonderful. I end up taking more exceptions with the London Baptist Confession (e.g., the whole thing about the pope being the anti-Christ, the citation of the comma Johanneum in support of the Trinity, the phrase on “recreation” in the paragraph on the Sabbath, etc.), probably because the document is much larger and more particular on certain subjects. So I somewhat lean towards the GCCS. I did have a chance of recently reading revisions to the Confession (1988) proposed by three midwestern Reformed Baptist Churches, which was interesting (especially given the release of Nichols’ work Covenant Theology: A Reformed Baptistic Perspective). Can’t find the revised editions on the web.

First is Grudem’s book Politics According to the Bible. I’ve been going through it lately and wanted to share some brief thoughts. I’ll start with a few obvious criticisms:

(1) Poor editorial work for a generally good book (the recent Politics According to the Bible by Grudem). Did someone say, “spellcheck”?

• The “Untied States” (instead of United States):
• Page 73 … For example, a current issue in the UntiedStates concerns what ra…

• Page 93 … Untied States, the slavery (or “involuntary servitude”) that was allo…

• Page 441 …the document on which the existence of the Untied States is ba…

• The “Second Amednment” (instead of Second Amendment):
• Page 93 …people to keep and bear arms” (Second Amednment)…

(2) Sometimes questionable tone: “There are much fewer merry-go-rounds or teeter-totters or high slides or high swings. Because of the threat of bankrupting lawsuits (and the lack of laws that place commonsense limitations on liability and damages for injuries), everything is padded and “safe,” and children are growing fat and timid and lazy, and they have lost the excitement of that great adventure of testing your courage and strength and balance and endurance against the playground equipment and against everyone else playing on it. Because of our nation’s failure to have some commonsense legal reforms, our children have lost much of their freedom (and health!), and nobody seems to care.” (94-95) Grudem is usually more tactful than this, but I see what he’s saying.

Now for more brief impressions:

• Good general biblical summaries of the Christian worldview.
• Clear applications of Scripture to various aspects of politics and government.
• Informative section on the Supreme Court in the US (esp. for someone younger like me who hasn’t seen it unfold that much).
• Decent section on economics, and rightly points to inflation as a serious problem (but fails to point to the elephant in the room: the Federal Reserve!)
• Very fascinating section on environmentalism, with a lot of surprising statistics about deforestation, global warming, etc.
• Fair critique of Ron Paul’s anti-interventionism, but fails to address the main point: the US is broke, and has absolutely no real power (e.g., paid-for power) to help other nations.
• Grudem’s argument for the Iraq war as a “just war” according to over 5 major criteria was rather poor and simplistic.

Today I celebrate the gift of God having giving a quarter century of life. In some ways, I feel like I’ve already lived a full life, seeing people age, traveling to various continents, publishing works and making various friends, having different jobs and moving from place to place, ending, mending, and beginning relationships with people, employers, fellow Christians, etc. Of course, I know it will only get deeper in richer as time goes on, seeing my own children grow up (Lord willing), seeing family return to the dust, watching projects come to completion, and others failing to rise. In any case, there is so much to be thankful for that it truly overwhelms me. It certainly did as I stared at the stars in the sky tonight in an outdoor hotub overlooking the pines of the Black hills after having a wonderful birthday supper and sharing times with future in- laws. Life is truly a “puff of steam,” and I’m often left baffled in understanding why life at all. And why my life?

We know that a man was born 2,000 years ago, and that He is God in the flesh. His testimony is true, and his life is the very center of all history, and the essence of all purpose. He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He got the ball rolling, and he will bring it to a halt. History began, and history will come to a conclusion. The story is His, and it has the perfect ending. And it will become clear that the epic story of life has a meaning and purpose that far exceeds what we could ever know. But we are given some information until then – a little bit here and there of “rewards” in “heaven” and such. We are told we live not for ourselves, but for, indeed, something much greater that transcends our own consciousness. We must “trust and obey.”

Sigh. How confrontational revelation can be! But how marvelous, stirring the soul and lifting our eyes even further into the sky toward the Maker of all things.

Pray for this website and my life as many things are happening. A new job with a major US corporation, the completion of two book projects, another three essays, getting married, continuing to work on a life-time ministry project that only God can build if He wills, completing master’s thesis while beginning to enter doctoral studies, completing a preaching series on Colossians and a teaching series on the 1689 Confession, various other church issues, and upcoming debate with a leading Eastern Orthodox theologian on infant baptism, and on and on. The flame burns hot and the steam rises, but it’s easy to burn out without proper spiritual discipline and a mind that doesn’t tend to easily conform to the image of Christ. Helpless and anxious we are…without Christ.

(Update: Apparently I  confuse Michael Sudduth with Michael Butler. My apologies!). But anyway, most people these days know Sudduth from his recent book The Reformed Objection to Natural Theology. He’s converted to Hinduism. Read his own testimony here.

Events such as these remind us of a number of things. But three are worth pointing out:  (1) the self-destruction of today’s “Christian philosophy,” (2) the importance of prioritizing theology ahead of philosophy, (3) Eastern religions are alive and well in the West, and can easily have their impact on a variety of Christian circles. I’ll comment mainly on the first two.

What’s sad is not even that Sudduth left Christianity – but that so many Christians held up his approach to studying philosophy in the first place: the truncating of the “love of wisdom” (as the Trinity defines it) into generally impersonal analytic philosophy. Yes, as you’ve heard me assert many times before, “Christian philosophy” and “analytic philosophy done by a Christian” today are almost seen as synonymous, and that’s very unfortunate. From my gatherings of the scene, you’re just not cool if what you want to say about metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics can’t be put into a formula, and if you plan to get a degree in philosophy from a Christian institution, you’ll probably master the principles of logic and rules of inference before demonstrating a working knowledge of what God has said in His Word (ack!). Defining “love” and “wisdom” as God defines it is put on hold, or worse, never really sought after in the first place (and thus raises the good question as to whether theory and speculation is taking precedent over truth and theology in “Christian philosophy,” and if it is, why we call it “Christian philosophy” at all).

Thus, we see realities like: (1) Alvin Plantinga is considered the greatest Christian philosopher alive by many – a  libertarian freewillist Molinist whose primary/most popular work is the establishment that belief in God is properly basic. Big deal? Not if you ask me. But many believe so because Plantinga demonstrated that Christians can put up a challenge to secular philosophies (epistemologies). By challenging unbelievers on their own terms, “Christian philosophers” now have to be taken seriously and enter with confidence into the academic world (or so the argument goes)…(2) Bill Craig (another often considered “the greatest Christian philosopher” alive) can make such comments as “Van Til, for all his insights,was not a philosopher” (see Five Views) and people actually believe him, regardless of the facts. Van Til has written extensively on matters of epistemology etc. and has a PhD in Philosophy from Princeton University, etc. So what Craig and others of today’s “Christian philosophers” really mean is either one or both of the following: (a) Van Til’s work has far too much theology to be considered “philosophy,” or (b) Van Til’s work is not refined, analytical and formulaic enough to be considered “philosophy” (note that there exists efforts to bring Van Til up to speed, such as James Anderson who “has a longstanding concern to bring the Reformed theological tradition into greater dialogue with contemporary analytic philosophy.” RTS faculty bio – Anderson’s efforts aren’t inherently bad of course, I’m just noting them). Both assumptions are false, unless we assume that philosophy cannot be rigorously biblical, or cannot be anything but analytic philosophy. And that demonstrates the trend: analytic philosophy dominates, and our whole worldview may depend on it. As Craig himself said on one particular issue:

Unlike some other writers on the attributes of God, I am convinced that the best tool we have for really understanding what is meant by the affirmation that God is eternal is not poetry or piety, but analytic philosophy…unfortunately, today’s theologians generally have next to no training in philosophy and science and so are ill-equipped to address in a substantive way the complex issues raised by God’s eternity.

The problem, of course, is that while you can master modal logic and analytic philosophy as one evaluates “complex issues,” he remains so detached and aloft from the standard of Scripture and his personal worship of the Triune God that…well, there might not be much to prevent him from leaving Christianity. Hence Oliphint, Van Til Professor of Apologetics at Westminster (in responding to Craig):

Why should we agree with the author that the “best tool we have” for understanding God’s eternity is analytic philosophy? Does that mean, as it surely seems to, that the best tool we have for understanding God is analytic philosophy? If so, that would be quite a shock to the thousands upon thousands of theologians who, because untimely born, never had access to the pearls of wisdom offered by this twentieth-century philosophical oyster. Not only so, but, if true, this means that God’s own revelation of himself is, at best, secondary and, at worst, relatively useless in our pursuit to discover what God is like; analytic philosophy can accomplish that without any need of what God himself has told us about his character.

…It is the task of theology to deal with the most fundamental problems and issues of the universe. Theology’s task is to help us understand who God is, how he relates to us and to the world, what pleases him, who we are, and so on. Those questions, contra many modern-day philosophers, need to be answered within the context first of all of what God has said. (Reasons for Faith, 187-189)

So, yeah, it’s not terribly surprising that a “Christian philosopher” can jump ship and give his life to Lord Krishna, given how disconnected “Christian philosophy” is these days from the very foundations of Christianity: theology. Gabriel Fluhrer observed precisely what we would expect:

I had the privilege of participating in a PhD seminar devoted entirely to the study of Sudduth’s critically acclaimed work The Reformed Objection to Natural Theology. After I finished the book and the course, I concluded that Sudduth was a brilliant philosopher but an exceedingly poor theologian.

But, I really think it’s sad that this is even possible (if it is possible). How could a truly brilliant philosopher be a “poor theologian”? Again, I understand the thrust of what Gabriel is saying, but I think we are giving up too much by allowing philosophy to be somewhat autonomous and disconnected from its very roots: God and His Word. The fact is, there exists no true philosophy apart from true theology, as Bavinck, Van Til and others have asserted through and through. And so, whether we like it or not, there exists no true philosopher apart from a true theologian.

Sudduth, then, is a philosopher who said things that may be true and even helpful for the church to some degree. But I think it’s high time to stop redefining “philosophy” and “Christian philosophy” according to today’s norm, and define it as it should be: the love of wisdom – and that means the love of wisdom as God defines both love and wisdom.

What then, brothers? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up. If any speak in a tongue, let there be only two or at most three, and each in turn, and let someone interpret. But if there is no one to interpret, let each of them keep silent in church and speak to himself and to God. Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said. If a revelation is made to another sitting there, let the first be silent. For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all be encouraged, and the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets. For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. ³⁴ As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church. Or was it from you that the word of God came? Or are you the only ones it has reached? If anyone thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord.  (1 Cor. 14:26-37, ESV)

When women are told to be “silent” and that they “are not permitted to speak,”[1] Paul is obviously not making an absolute blanket statement since, within the same letter, the Apostle plainly acknowledges women praying and prophesying in the church (11:5, 13). As John Frame cleverly puts it, “If [Paul] disapproved of [women] praying and prophesying as such, it would be like saying, ‘If you rob a bank, be sure to wear a coat and tie.’”[2]

But what does verse 34 mean? Many scholars conclude on the basis of the previous context that Paul is talking about weighing prophecies, not just women speaking at church in general.[3] Women were objecting to certain prophecies which was either inappropriate in and of itself, or inappropriate because women were just acting too disruptively in the uses of these exciting gifts of the Spirit.

This interpretation has merit, but it also creates problems. For example, verse 35 (“if they desire to learn”) indicates “that the women did not understand what was being said and that they were asking questions to learn, not that they were passing judgments on what they heard.”[4] Also, would Paul really compress the whole enterprise of “evaluating prophecies” into the single word “speaking”?[5] Would the Corinthians have even known that “speaking” meant “weighing prophecies”–especially since Paul does not avoid explicitly using the terms “weighing” and “testing” prophecies elsewhere (e.g., 1 Thess. 5:20-21; 1 Cor. 14:29)? It seems somewhat unreasonable, as perhaps the position is itself if Paul is mainly addressing tactfulness and maturity.[6]

Ciampa and Rosner provide a different conclusion given the historical background of Hellenistic tradition and women speaking. They reveal that nonevaluative questions asked of prophets, and not merely prophecy and the weighing of prophecy, was “the most common mode of engaging prophets in the Hellenistic world.”[7] Their study is one of the most scholarly and insightful on this subject, so it is worth quoting at length:

Witherington rightly sees that ‘it is very believable that these women assumed that Christian prophets or prophetesses functioned much like the oracle at Delphi, who only prophesied in response to questions, including questions about purely personal matters. Paul argues that Christian prophecy is different. Prophets and prophetesses speak in response to the prompting of the Holy Spirit, without any human priming of the pump.’ Perhaps some women were especially likely to treat their Christian prophets as they would other prophets in their world, by peppering them with questions such as “Will my child be a boy or a girl?” or “Should I employ this slave or that?” They may also be asking questions that are not part of the weighing of the prophecies but are motivated by a desire to understand the content of the prophecies or the way in which the prophetic ministry works.

We should assume that unless there was a clear reference in the Corinthians’ letter to Paul to a particular kind of women’s speech in worship that was creating a problem in the church, the Corinthians would have found Paul’s statement that women are not permitted “to speak in church” just as unclear as modern readers. Although it is stated without qualification, it clearly cannot be understood in any absolute manner.[8]

They go on to demonstrate through primary sources of first and second century literature that it was “considered scandalous for a married woman to carry on a conversation with another woman’s husband,” and that (for Plutarch), “a woman’s personal speech is as much an exposure of herself as nakedness.”[9]

Therefore, they conclude that the “speaking” in 1 Corinthians 14:34 refers to

nonliturgical forms of speech (i.e. they could speak as they participated in the use of gifts and in formal ways, but not in mundane, trivial, or merely ordinary conversation.) Even more likely is the suggestion that what was being prohibited was for women to approach and ask men in the congregation questions about things they were not understanding.[10]

How then is the text applied?

Paul’s suggestion that the women ask their own husbands at home reflects that cultural context where a man could be expected to be better informed/educated than his wife and was understood to be the proper channel of information to the wife. Here, at home contrasts with in the church at the end of the verse, highlighting the private rather than public venue for the questions, in keeping with much ancient Greek thinking about the place of women in society. In modern Western societies neither of those conditions normally hold. In many societies today women are no less prepared to ask appropriate questions than their husbands, and it is considered just as perfectly normal and appropriate for them to participate in public dialogues as it is for men. There is no longer any shame or disgrace associated with such engagement; rather, it would be considered shameful for a woman to be restricted from open participation in public conversations.  The principles underlying Paul’s counsel, that women (and men) not act disgracefully in public, or in ways which reflect a lack of respect for the dignity of their spouses, may well call for a different set of concrete behaviors in our churches than would have been expected in first-century Corinth [e.g., like headcoverings in 1 Cor. 11]…women should show respect for order and for others (especially their husbands) in the worship setting.[11]

Keener has a similar view in his Background Commentary:

Most likely the passage [1 Cor. 14] addresses disruptive questions in an environment where silence was expected of new learners–which most women were. It also addresses a broader social context in which women were expected not to speak much with men to whom they were not related, as a matter of propriety. Paul thus upholds church order and avoids appearances of social impropriety; he also supports learning before speaking. None of these principles prohibit women in very different cultural settings from speaking God’s word.[12]

This interpretation isn’t far off from complementarian perspectives on 1 Timothy 2.   Notice Köstenberger’s summary: “Paul obliges the women to learn in a quiet, low-key way, as opposed to assuming control with unsolicited remarks and arguments.”[13]

In this particular interpretation, it should be noted that Paul is remaining consistent with the instruction he gives in the general context: he is addressing the way that women are speaking in the church, and not providing an absolute, universal statement about any particular practice in general. Paul does not forbid women from prayer/prophesy in 1 Corinthians 14:26-33 (or in chapter 11 for that matter). Rather, he forbids the wrong manner in which these New Covenant believers were praying and prophesying. That’s the reason for the prohibition.

There is a third major view of 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 that deserves attention. Given the variable translation of γυνή (woman/wife), Paul might not have even have been talking about generic women in the first place, but wives instead (similar to those who interpret 1 Tim. 2:12 as being “wife” and “husbands”). This was already alluded to by Ciampa and Rosner:

In Paul’s world (whether in Jewish, Greek, or Roman contexts), an unexplained reference to a woman’s submission would normally be understood to refer to her submission to the authority of her husband. The following verse’s statement that “they should ask their own husbands at home” also brings to mind a behavior inconsistent with this manner of respecting the husband…[14]

Garland combines this view with the previous on weighing prophecies:

The situation that best fits the adjective “shameful” is one in which wives defy convention by publicly embarrassing their husbands through their speaking. In the context, it is likely that Paul imagines a wife joining in the process of weighing what is being said during the congregational scrutiny of prophecy (14:29). They either raise questions or contradict their husbands or other senior male relatives.[15]

After several pages of thorough analysis, Garland concludes in a way similar to Ciampa and Rosner:

I conclude that Paul’s instructions are conditioned by the social realities of his age and a desire to prevent a serious breach in decorum. The negative effect that wives publicly interrupting or contradicting their husbands might have on outsiders (let alone the bruising it would cause to sensitive male egos) could not be far from his mind. Paul may fear that the Christian community would be “mistaken for one of the orgiastic, secret, oriental cults that undermined public order and decency” (Schüssler Fiorenza 1984: 232), in which women exercised more prominent roles.[16]

Any of these three major views (and their combinations) is possible. But what seems clear enough is that Paul is not expecting women “to remain silent at all times,” but “thinking of particular instances where different kinds of participants in the worship meeting should refrain from speaking.”[17]