Bible Believing Church

 

I used to cringe at this statement.  Let me explain, before coming to why I write “used to.”  It is a statement used by some Protestant churches, and, to my knowledge, only Protestant churches.  I would cringe because I took it as a slight against those churches that also embrace tradition (as if even the lowest of low protestant churches don’t hold to some tradition).  In other words: we believe the Bible, and only the Bible.  Sola Scriptura.

I didn’t like it.  Even the churches that embrace tradition (Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, etc.) are “Bible believing.”  They are just Bible believing plus some other things.  But this was my frame of reference: the self-proclaimed Bible believing churches aren’t like those Catholic and Orthodox churches.

Now, what I am about to write – and that this is revelatory to me – is truly…stunning.  It turns out that a better way to understand the phrase – whether it is meant by all who use it or not – is not in the frame of contrasting against “Bible believing plus.”  Instead, to contrast against “Bible believing minus.”

The big “minus,” which is the obvious point for my being stunned, is on all points regarding embracing every woke concept.  We believe the Bible except what is says about a man and a woman, about marriage, about sexual relations, etc.  We believe the Bible except for the idea that God was purposeful in Creation.

Now, that many Protestant churches believe in the Bible “minus” has been obvious to me.  Yet I didn’t see this phrase “Bible believing” as an indictment of these.

Why now?  Why am I writing this now?  Here again, I have known for quite some time that not everyone who uses the words “Christian” or “God” or “sin” or “saved” mean the same thing as others or mean what it is the Bible teaches on these subjects.  For much of my life, I was just such a “Christian” – a Christian as long as Bible believing minus was acceptable.

This is what hit me like a two-by-four across the skull: being faced with this reality personally, intimately, and directly by people who use such words yet mean something else entirely…well, now I understand what “Bible believing” means in its best sense.

It is in contrast to such Christians: The Bible “minus” Christians.  Subtracting what God says from the definition of “Christian,” “God,” “sin,” and “saved.” 

It is a god, and a Christianity made in their own image.

Conclusion

Matthew 7: 21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven

Lloyd-Jones described these words as “…in many ways the most solemn and solemnizing words ever uttered in this world… How often, I wonder, have we considered them, or heard a sermon on them?”

As I noted at the time: The warning is one of avoiding self-deception and self-delusion.  It isn’t a warning simply of and for our teachers, but for ourselves.  It is emphasizing that nothing avails but true righteousness and true holiness.

This true righteousness and true holiness doesn’t come by picking and choosing what we want from the Bible.  God doesn’t change; His commandments do not change either. 

Treating the Symptom, not the Cause

 

What a brouhaha about H-1B visas within the MAGA movement.  I think prompted by a post from Vivek:

The reason top tech companies often hire foreign-born & first-generation engineers over “native” Americans isn’t because of an innate American IQ deficit (a lazy & wrong explanation). A key part of it comes down to the c-word: culture. Tough questions demand tough answers & if we’re really serious about fixing the problem, we have to confront the TRUTH:

Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer). That doesn’t start in college, it starts YOUNG.

There is more to it, but you get the idea.

Now, the culture he and Elon and the tech wizards that have joined MAGA (do they really care about what working class Americans care about) is the culture of STEM, and I agree fully that this is an important culture for an industrialized, division of labor economy.

Of course, it isn’t the most important cultural element.  I have written about this probably more than any other subject at this blog.  Call it a Christian culture that lives by the natural law ethic and legislates based on natural rights.  With such a culture as the foundation, excellence in STEM and every other field is secured.

I don’t intend to turn this post into a complete review of natural law and natural rights.  Suffice it to say, a natural law ethic places happiness as the highest value – happiness, or beatitudo, better understood as fulfillment through other-regarding action.  Call it love, and see the Golden Rule for a shorthand description of this: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Natural rights are different: these are the rights an individual has based on his humanity: a right to his life and to his justly acquired property.  Laws should be based on this and only this, what is described as the non-aggression principle.  I have in the past greatly simplified what this means: don’t hit first, don’t take my stuff.  Do either, and there ought to be a law against it.

So, that’s enough about the culture that actually matters if Vivek and Elon and these other wizards of Silicon Valley want capable employees.  In other words, Vivek is right – the issue isn’t an innate IQ deficit.  Yes, east Asians present a higher IQ, but it isn’t as if Americans of Western European descent lack in any measure of intelligence.

Vivek is dealing with a symptom: attributing the lack of Americans capable in STEM due to some cultural deficit in Americans.  But this isn’t the cause.  The underlying cause is the disdain for this Christian culture of natural law ethics and natural rights law.

This disdain has brought us to celebrate the idea that 2 + 2 = 4 is a social construct, that race or gender are more important factors in higher education than academic capability, that race or gender are more important factors than performance in hiring practices.

This disdain has brought us to develop entire university degrees in the most useless and inane fields, leading many who would be far better off learning a trade to instead fall into $100,000 or more of four-year debt only to work at Starbucks.

This disdain has even brought the STEM fields to ignore reality and focus on trivialities or worse.

Conclusion

Vivek and Elon want to work on the symptom, but this won’t fix any problem that matters to Americans.  Work on the cause (don’t even insert the idea of natural law into it): make education meaningful again.  This can be done simply enough: turn off the US government spigot that funds higher education stupidity in curriculums and today’s version of diversity in admissions.

Our Contemporary Tower of Babel

 

I decided to do some lighter reading – novels, books where I would not be so focused on disciplined study and the like.  So I picked up The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

Yeah, I know.  Not the lightest reading.  But the reasons why behind choosing this book will be made clear at my other blog in a few weeks – basically, this novel was recommended as a good novel for a Christian man to read.

I don’t know how often I will post something from this book, but some quotes will be too good to pass up.  To begin:

In the majority of instances human beings, even the evil-doers among them, are far more naïve and straightforward than we suppose.  And that includes ourselves.

This seems to suggest that we need not find some complex plot, or deep organizational momentum behind many of the actions we see around us.  People go in the direction that they go, because that is what they want to do.

They are “far more naïve and straightforward than we suppose.”  How might this be understood?  Well, since the novel was recommended by a Christian for Christians, I will go to the Bible:

Ephesians 6: 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

During the reaction to covid, there were emerging countless articles on this idea that there had to be a spirit – an evil spirit – behind the actions of many of the government and political leaders everywhere around the world.  They all acted in concert, in a manner that was clear at the time – and even more so today – that was purposefully designed to crush humanity.

All of humanity was under siege.  From Ephesians 2: 2 “… according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience.”

Were they naïve?  Perhaps many who were driving humanity into darkness were not aware of the spiritual hosts of wickedness which they were serving.  Can someone always know when he or she is in the grip of an evil spirit?  As they are sons of disobedience, they just do what they do because that’s what they want to do.

As to straightforward?  This seems clear – there was an objective to crush mankind.  They did not mess around, no games or trickery.  Like bulls in a China shop.

But, note the quote from Dostoyevsky, the end: “And that includes ourselves.”  We all live driven by a spirit.  The question to ask ourselves: What is the spirit that drives us?  Pray it is this one:

Romans 8: 14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.

Returning to the book, Alyosha (the third son) answered just the question of which spirit drives him:

No sooner, having given the matter some serious thought, had he been struck by the conviction that God and immortality existed, than he immediately said to himself: ‘I want to live for immortality, and I will accept no half-way compromise.’

Are we that driven?  Am I that driven?  No half-way compromise?  We know what is said about lukewarm Christians:

Revelation 3: 15 “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. 16 So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth.

Matthew 5: 13 “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.

There is no such thing as a half-way Christian.  You are either all in – 100% – or you are out. 

Alyosha was struck by just this point:

One Way DOGE Might Work

 

I have previously considered this DOGE – department of government efficiency – to be led by Elon and Vivek.  My conclusion:

Even if Trump [because I am still not sure he will be inaugurated] and Musk get in, nothing like this will happen.  Can you even comprehend the weight of those who suck on the government teat?  Everyone who is anyone will fight against every action to reduce the spending.  Banks, the military-industrial-complex, heck, even Trump’s best supporters will fight this (“keep your government hands off of my Medicare”).

At most, Musk and his buddies will make some aspects of government more efficient – Blackwater will fix the DOD, Palantir will fix the CIA and FBI, etc.  You get the idea.    

I want none of that.

I have thought about one way it could work, but first a slight detour for a clue, from several days ago when the eleventh million government shutdown was threatening civilization:

With a Friday deadline to fund the government looming and Republican lawmakers at loggerheads over House Speaker Mike Johnson’s proposed stopgap spending bill, the conservative House Freedom Caucus is touting a plan to slash federal spending that conveniently leaves the bloated Pentagon budget untouched.

This is the one way DOGE might stand a chance to be implemented.  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist (none at NASA, plenty at SpaceX) to know that the spending trajectory for the United States is unsustainable.  Now, I am not saying next year or in ten years.  But, thinking long term, it just isn’t.  Tack on the exponential growth of Social Security and Medicare…you get the idea. 

DOGE can work if the DOD and the spook agencies want it to work.  And they will want it to work if they want to continue their fun and games; others in government will want it to work because the only thing backing the US Dollar is aircraft carriers and the stationary carrier in the Middle East.

Now, all government agencies have this desire for continued survival.  But Joe Biden, for all the incoherent things he said over the last four years, got one thing right – and I will paraphrase greatly: who has the F-15s?

It isn’t the Department of Agriculture or the Department of the Interior or the Department of Education.  It sure isn’t grandma and grandpa waiting for a return on all the money they put into the system for forty years.

If the DOD and spook agencies see that the only way they continue over the next fifty years is for all other aspects of government spending to be drastically reduced, well, that’s just what will happen.

Conclusion

Now, I am not sure such rationality exists in any department of this $7 trillion monstrosity.  But not everyone in the military and spook hierarchy is stupid. 

And they have all the meaningful guns.