Bully’s Blog

or Breaking Free from the Personality Cult

Bojidar Marinov writes:

The personality cult, the One Great Leader Who Leads the Masses has never been a Conservative value. It certainly has never been a Christian value. The very idea of Conservatism—and especially the American type Christian Conservatism—has always been suspicious toward a system where one person focuses the hopes and the expectations of the movement and leads them according to his will or goals. Christianity has always been firm that there is only one legitimate Leader—Jesus Christ—and He leads through His Holy Spirit. All human leaders are by default imperfect, fallible, and all of them need to be under close scrutiny and healthy criticism by the very people they lead into battle.

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An oldy but a goody from Gary DeMar:

Israel’s End-Times Gamble

“If you’re gonna play the game, boy, ya gotta learn to play it right. You got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em, Know when to walk away and know when to run.”

Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler” has sold millions of copies since its 1978 release and spawned five made-for-TV movies. But the song’s appeal is in its no-nonsense philosophy. When there is no way to win, it’s time to walk away from the game. The game is over for Israel. Let me explain. In Tim LaHaye’s pre-tribulational rapture novel The Remnant the Jews are in for a hellacious future. Two-thirds of the Jews living in Israel will be slaughtered. LaHaye is not alone in holding this noxious position.

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or Timeless Truth is a Tree

“Let his days be few, and let another take his office.” Psalm 109:8

The imprecatory Psalms seem to contradict the instruction of Christ to love our enemies. Ben Myers recently noted a campaign to pray for President Obama, to pray Psalm 109:8, that is:

Apparently some Southern Baptist pastors have been using Psalm 109:8 as a prayer for Obama’s death: “May his days be few; may another take his place of leadership. May his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.” This even inspired a line of creepy bumper stickers and T-shirts that read “Pray for Obama.”

 One of these pastors says: “You’re going to tell me that I’m supposed to pray for the socialist devil, murderer, infanticide, who wants to see young children, and he wants to see babies killed through abortion and partial-birth abortion and all these different things. Nope. I’m not gonna pray for his good. I’m going to pray that he dies and goes to hell.”

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or The Fool on the Hill

During the 2008 election campaign, I remember being chastised for suggesting that a  McCain/Palin administration was the best choice off a “bad-or-worse” menu. As Doug Wilson put it, it was a choice between heading for the cliff at 5mph or 100mph.

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“Biblical concern for the poor and the oppressed is manifested through the actions of the church, not through the state. Liberalism, however, has always insisted that statist action, not ecclesiastical action, is the remedy, thus aligning itself with the Beast against the Bride. This is no small matter.” 

— James B. Jordan, “The Moral Majority: An Anabaptist Critique” (a review of Robert E. Webber’s The Moral Majority: Right or Wrong?) in Christianity & Civilization #1: The Failure of American Baptist Culture. [PDF]

I saw in my dream, that the Interpreter took Christian by the hand again, and led him into a very dark room, where there sat a man in an iron cage. Now the man seemed very sad. He sat with his eyes looking down to the ground, and his hands folded together, and he sighed as if his heart would break.

Then said Christian, “Who is this?”

“Talk with him and see,” said the Interpreter.

“What used you to be?” asked Christian.

“I was once a flourishing professor, both in my own eyes, and also in the eyes of others,” answered the man. “I was on my way, as I thought, to the Celestial City and I was confident that I would get there.”

“But what did you do to bring yourself to this condition?” Christian asked.

“I failed to keep watch,” the man replied. “I followed the pleasures of this world, which promised me all manner of delights. But they proved to be an empty bubble. And now I am shut up in this iron cage—a man of despair who can’t get out.”

No further explanations were given. No one said who put him there. But the Interpreter whispered to Christian:

“Bear well in mind what you have seen.” [1]

.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

Another thought related to the ideas in Behind Closed Doors.

The whole aim of the construction process, whether in sex, foetal development, education, business, art, music, family or state government, is the ultimate revelation of a mature glory. We are given the opportunity to create, and that involves certain God-given freedoms. If the freedoms are abused, what we construct for ourselves is a cage. Lust is a cage. A dysfunctional family or state is a cage. Enforced egalitarian socio-economics is a cage. Undisciplined children are a cage.

Jesus laid down His life for this world, and the freedoms of western culture have been a direct outcome. In its final stages, we have rebelliously inverted each of these freedoms (including the economic ones) and turned both our Christian protection (including our God-given wealth) and Christian mandate into a cage. Ancient Israel did the same. Why does this inversion process seem such a logical path for fallen human nature?

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Solomon Snubs Ally with Trashy Gift

When I was in sales, I was taught that it takes twelve times as much energy to gain a new client as it does to keep an existing one by letting them know they are not taken for granted. Same goes in geopolitics.

James Jordan writes:

One way to understand the relevance of Egypt [during Solomon's reign] is to contrast Egypt with Tyre. Hiram, king of Tyre, had been a loyal ally of David. He loved David. He clearly was a converted man. When Solomon came to the throne, Hiram could not do enough for him. He volunteered to help build the Temple, because Israel’s God was his God also (1 Kings 5). He showered Solomon with gifts (1 Kings 9:11, 14). If there was any nation Solomon should have allied with, it was Tyre.

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Witness or Worship?

“…the political task of Christians is to be the church rather than to transform the world”–Stanley Hauerwas, Resident Aliens.

This presents a false dichotomy. When Gideon and David were faithful, God went ahead of them and defeated their enemies. Would it be fair to assume that Hauerwas is just saying that political activism is getting the cart before the horse? If so, then I agree with him. When the church is faithful, the blessings of God transform the world around her.

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An excellent post by Peter Leithart offers some balance for those tempted to swallow the entire anti-American propaganda hook, line and sinker.

Empires Of Trust

Thomas Madden offers a contrarian analysis of American and Roman empire in his recent book, Empires of Trust. Most empires in history, he says, “have sought to build their power in whatever way they can, making war on their neighbors when it seems advantageous and continuing to do so until stopped. They are trusted only to use power for their own benefit and to treat those they conquer as, well, conquered.”

Many believe that the Romans were the same. Not Madden.

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Evil Empire?

More and more today we hear that America has an empire, is an imperialistic nation, and therefore is increasingly evil. In my line of work I hear this all the time from liberal and neo-evangelical theologians. Empires are by definition evil. This is often linked up with the notion that violence is always evil…

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