jeffreymark

DISPARAGING HISTORY

I majored in history. I love it more now than ever, because history provides memory. What miserable gutter migh we wake up in if we fail to zealously embrace the past as a road map to the future. Our forefathers majored not only in religion and philosophy, but history as well. They grasped the intricacies that created and destroyed both the Greek and Roman empires. They studied the long sordid history of evil atrocities hurled upon mankind by evil players. These founders were no dummies. And, now for our elitist universities to disparage America's founders as if they comparatively had no sense is intellectual suicide.

Once again the master of political cartoons, Michael Ramirez, profoundly demonstrates that a picture paints a thousand words (of truth in this case). (click on picture) 

THE STORM OF WAR

A legion of WWII history books exist in the world. Certainly no historical topic has received any more scrutinous attention than the "good war." So, why should one more work on the matter interest us at all? We certainly instinctively know about Hitler's maniacal effort at genocide. A few scholars recall der Fuhrer privately disparaging the 1936 black American gold medalist Jesse Owens, believing that the "colored American runner's jungle ancestry" gave them an unfair advantage and should not be allowed to compete. But, do we know much about the fact that Hitler's intense racial prejudices literally cost him the war? 

This is the underlying motif that often implicitly burrows through the pages of Andrew Roberts new compelling book The Storm of War: A New History of WWII. Dr. Roberts earned his PhD. in history at Cambridge University. He writes for the WSJ and other notable publications.  In 2011, NBC commissioned him to commentate on the Royal Wedding of Prince William to Kate Middleton. His vitae is quite impressive.

Dr. Roberts pens his work through British eyes. Yet, his assessment of the American character during the war sees with both European perception and factual reality. Indeed, Roberts savvys American policy while thinking like a Brit. 

Dr. Roberts chronicles the war with silky prose that flows like multiple tributaries emptying into one big river called WWII. Each source of the single river constitutes a compelling study of its own. His vast knowledge of the numbers; men, machines, and Holocaust victims, will leave the reader walking away with enough food for thought to keep him busy for the rest of the day.

Go here and listen to Andrew Roberts talk about a few of his themes including Hitler's ideological prejudices as his downfall.

IS THIS THE END? THE BIBLE AND THE MIDDLE EAST(OR ANOTHER EMBARRASSING CHICKEN LITTLE) III

What We Bring To The Table Of Interpretation

In previous articles we noted that Bible interpretation requires more than mere “spiritual” impressions. Often our impressions become simply an extension of our wishful thinking. I want the end to come now, therefore, I believe God “laid on my heart the fact that the wars in the Middle East signal the end.” “God even led me to some scriptures to substantiate this fact.” Our impressions make us feel good. It gives us chill bumps to know that Jesus may come tomorrow. When Jesus speaks to me, however, I don’t get chill bumps. I grow obstinate and bow up because he usually ask me to come out of my box, into the unknown, and do the sacrificial thing. Human nature balks at sacrifice. This feel good mentality reflects our post modern society which in essence, places feelings above reason. Self centeredness directs us toward our feelings and steers us away from a patient kind of rationality that whispers, “Wait on the Lord.” So, we need to understand how our disposition enters into our Bible interpretation.

Each of us comes to the table with a “world view.” Our world view tells us why things are the way they are. A uniformity exists among each Christian’s individual world view. Christians believe in a sinful fallen world. That’s how they interpret evil events. They also believe that Jesus came to redeem and save the fallen. Those who respond positively in faith to his sacrificial love and unmerited grace, find salvation. The Bible authors saw life through their own Middle Eastern world view. The New Testament writers lived in a world dominated by Rome, taxes, and a Greek pantheon. They suffered intense opposition to their new found faith. Many faced gruesome deaths. God speaks through our world view. That’s the beauty of his love. He enters our lives playing by his rules on our turf. When we sit down at the interpreter’s table it’s difficult to play with foreign rules on our field. Yet, we must recognize the situation and ask God to adjust our thinking.

Furthermore, within our world view we each possess premises. Christians part company at this point. The word “premise” literally means “to send before.” A premise or presupposition is what you believe about the Bible, the end times, and so forth before you ever study the matter on your own. Life’s experiences, our families, and our teachers shape our premises. For instance, a person can hear a great sermon on the end and let that message predetermine his understanding of the Bible. I read Hal Lindsay’s book The Late Great Planet Earth in 1975. I then saw the movie narrated by Orson Wells. No one had a more convincing voice than Orson Wells. He drove people to suicide with his 1938 radio broadcast of The War Of The Worlds. Lindsay keyed his dates concerning the end on Jesus’ words from Matthew 24 when he declared, “This generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place.” (NRSV) Lindsay, a dispensationalist, (more on this later) also keyed in on Israel’s becoming a nation in 1948. He reasoned that a generation by Hebrew standards was 40 years. Any second grade math student can put the numbers together and find Lindsay’s proposed date for the end-1988. Well, 1988 came and went. In the mean time, Hal Lindsay said he miscalculated. So, he did some more math and came up with approximate dates (Book sales were down at this point) ranging from 1990 to whenever. In his book he determined that one tests the validity of a prophet by the out come of his prophecy. If a prophet prophesies and his words come true he is legitimate. On the other hand, if his words do not come to pass he is a false prophet. Lindsay failed his own litmus test. In 1975 I formed my premise about Bible prophecy from Hal Lindsay’s work. The logician of time disproved my premise. Peter held the ancient Hebrew premise that all Gentiles were unclean. Meanwhile, Cornelius, a captain in the Roman army, inquired into the Jewish faith. Jews called him a God fearer. He needed help with his inquiry. God tagged Peter for the job. Before Peter took the assignment, God gave him a vision that shot his premise down. (Story found in Acts Chapter 10)

Sound Bible interpretation requires that we ask God to help us lay all premises aside. We must look at the text as if we never heard anything about it before. Our task is simply to represent the Bible text, not our own feelings, convictions, and judgments.

Some may conclude, “What you propose can only happen through trained scholarship. Why, uneducated people have read and interpreted the Bible for centuries.” To be sure, I recognize this objection. The authority of the Protestant faith begins not with scholars, or bishops, as in Roman Catholicism, but with the Bible itself. The New Testament authors, however, addressed friends, and those acquainted with their world. They didn’t need a rocket scientist to interpret for them. As generations speed by, words lose their meaning. Pastors today recognize this problem and should help their parishioners learn to interpret for themselves. That’s why I write this series and that’s why I will continue in the next few weeks to offer principles and guidelines for interpreting the Bible.

JOEL OSTEEN A NEW TWIST ON AN OLD THEME

Populism permeates the American character. Following the initial years of our founding we developed into a populist nation. We follow the latest fad, the loudest mouth, and the prettiest face into the promised land. Even our so called "Christianity" repeatedly succumbs to cultural transformation, where the Biblical Jesus gets whitewashed with the American prosperity Jesus. 

Enter Joel Osteen-21st century firebrand for America's Christ. Osteen zealously preaches the America prosperity gospel. And, like most populist we measure his soul saving worthiness by the $$$. Big money means big man of God. How can we little people argue with this? We can't. But, articulate theologians can. Greg Garrett, professor of English at Baylor University challenges Osteen's heterodoxy through an open letter to the highly popular icon. In essence Garrett suggests:

 But I'm not just upset about the bad theology of a God who works like an ATM, I'm also upset about the way that you and others preaching "your best life now" have defined that life almost exclusively in the terms our secular society suggests for success. Instead of making Christianity a counter-cultural religion pushing back against society's mania for wealth and acquisitions and individualism, you've allowed faith to be co-opted by the powers and principalities.

This focus on money and temporal things is also bad theology—and perhaps even more pernicious, because it gives religious sanction for people to buy into the most un-Christian aspects of our culture. Jesus didn't preach wealth, possessions, or prestige; his teachings, and his life, suggested the precise opposite. In fact, this person most faithful, most in tune with God's will, lived in poverty and died in pain, so why on earth should we imagine that God will give us what we want when we have only a fraction of Jesus' faith?

No. It doesn't compute. As the late comic Sam Kinison—himself once a charismatic pastor—might say if he were still around (and don't watch this if you're easily offended), if Jesus were to show up at the door of Lakewood Church, I think you'd have reason to be very, very nervous, Mr. Osteen.

 

AMERICA'S HISTORICAL AMNESIA

Newt Gingrich once observed that Americans possess very little historical knowledge. Imagine losing your own memory. When we lose a sense of our history's significance we lose our collective memory. Jonathan Adler offers a humorous, yet telling post concerning Sarah Palin's recent kerfuffle over her accuracy concerning Paul Revere's famous ride.

At a stop in Boston during her bus tour Sarah Palin made a somewhat incoherent reference to Paul Revere’s famous ride.

He who warned, uh, the British that they weren’t going to be taking away our arms uh by ringing those bells and making sure as he’s riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be secure and we were going to be free and we were going to be armed.

The blogosphere pounced. As Aaron Worthing documents, Palin’s critics came out in force, lambasting and ridiculing the former governor’s suggestion that Paul Revere “warned . . . the British.” How could a former governor and vice presidential candidate be so stupid?!?

The only problem is that Paul Revere did warn the British. As William Jacobson reminds us, Revere did more than alert the colonists to the Redcoats’ approach with his famous ride.  Upon encountering British soldiers, he warned them they would be met with armed resistance.   I have no idea whether this is what Palin meant.  I’m not inclined to believe she’s an expert on the history of American Independence, and her garbled remarks certainly imply things that are not true —  e.g. Revere did not fire shots and rings bells to warn the British.  But where Palin’s incoherence leaves us guessing whether she knew what she was talking about, there is no question that her critics made blanket statements that were just plain wrong (e.g. “Paul Revere did not warn the British about anything”).  As the “Party like it’s 1773″ episode demonstrated, however ignorant Palin may be, she’s hardly more ignorant of American history than many of her critics.

 

REJECTING HISTORY REJECTING MEMORY

A former UPI reporter reminds us of why we must study history. 

It became clear to me that by separating yourself from history, and especially the history of the church and Christianity, you become woefully shallow. And if you become woefully shallow, all sorts of things can happen, with the demise of the Protestant church in Germany as one example. Other examples are the "German Christian" heresy in World War II [when certain biblical critics rejected everything in Scripture they deemed too Jewish], and the incredible homosexual and feminist heresies that now abound. If you don't have something to relate things to, you are certainly at a loss.

Rejecting history means we reject our memory. Imagine yourself minus a memory. Yet, our school systems place history on the back burner and determine the subject a non essential. Look at the teachers who get stuck with the burdensome task of delivering mindless, seemingly useless facts to the little urchins. My history teachers were always coaches who needed something to do before they went to their real job. 

WILLIAM BARRET TRAVIS' DEFINING MOMENT

While fighting for independence from Mexico in the 1830's Texans (or Texians) suffered a major yet, defining setback at the Alamo. Approximately 250 rag tag volunteers under the command of Lt. William Barret Travis held off Santa Anna's Mexican army for 12 days. Santa Anna's army numbered in the thousands. On the thirteenth day 1800 Mexican assault troops sieged the Alamo and showed no quarter.  Today the Alamo stands as Texas' number one sacred shrine, and symbolizes the eternal chivalrous Texan disposition. 

Furthermore, on this day in 1836 Travis wrote his immortal letter to Texans and Americans all over the world. His letter emphatically reminds us of a day when character embodied bravery. Here is a copy of Travis' letter:

Commandancy of the Alamo Bexar, Feby. 24th, 1836

To the People of Texas & all Americans in the World-- Fellow Citizens and Compatriots--

I am besieged by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna--I have sustained a continual Bombardment & cannonade for 24 hours & have not lost a man--The enemy has demanded a surrender at discretion, otherwise the garrison are to be put to the sword, if the fort is taken--I have answered the demand with a cannon shot, & our flag still waves proudly from the walls--I shall never surrender or retreat. Then, I call on you in the name of Liberty, of patriotism & everything dear to the American character, to come to our aid with all despatch--The enemy is receiving reinforcements daily & will no doubt increase to three or four thousand in four or five days. If this call is neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible & die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor & that of his country--Victory or Death.

William Barret Travis Lt. Col. comdt.

A RELIGIOUS HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

Today's history rewrites from pseudo intellectuals ignores the seminal role Christianity played in both our founding and the American Revolution. Clergymen in particular influenced the culture of the day. A legion of ministers, many of whom were tarred and feathered, supported the crown at the time.

Historian Thomas Kidd provides what appears to be a more traditional look at the role Christianity played on both deists, secularists, and religious people alike during the revolution. I provided below a host of commentaries concerning this inviting book.

Booklist

Kidd directs his magnifying glass on a rare slice of the American Revolution: its religious aspects. The organization of the work is more topical than chronological, giving a chapter’s worth of attention to matters of racial equality, slavery, revivalism, chaplains, the Constitution, and the 1800 election of Jefferson as president. If there are common threads running throughout, they are the questions: How was the Revolution influenced by religion, and how was religion affected by the Revolution? Kidd is quite adept at providing answers while explaining the complicated connections between religion, politics, freedom, and patriotism that make up the Revolutionary period. After reading this, some may wonder why religion is so shortchanged in other Revolutionary treatments. In his epilogue, the author also has something to say about the notion of a Christian America, a topic that is particularly relevant today. --Wade Osburn

Review

Rodney Stark, author of God’s Battalions: The Case for the Crusades
“A truly ‘revolutionary’ book, in all the right ways.”

George Marsden, author of Jonathan Edwards: A Life
“Thomas Kidd does an excellent job of providing a readable and notably comprehensive account of the varied roles that the religion played in the era of the American Revolution.”

Wilfred M. McClay, SunTrust Chair of Excellence in Humanities, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

“With this lively, crisply written, broadly researched, and unfailingly thoughtful study, Thomas Kidd illuminates the central importance of the religious ideas and sentiments undergirding the American Revolution and the early nation. Kidd explains why Americans, despite their remarkable religious and philosophical diversity, were able to unite effectively around broadly shared tenets of ‘civil spirituality,’ which included a shared commitment to the sacred ideals of religious liberty—tenets and ideals that still profoundly inform and influence the conduct of American life today.”

 

Mark Noll, author of America’s God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln
“This deeply researched, clearly organized, and well written book illuminates a complex and often controversial history. The Revolutionary and Constitutional periods were neither ‘Christian’ nor ‘godless’ as these terms are used in modern polemics. Instead, patriots and leaders of the early United States united to support disestablishment and common principles about the need for virtue to insure republican freedoms, despite holding different personal beliefs. Thomas Kidd is a remarkably sure-footed guide through this treacherous historical terrain.”

Harry S. Stout, Jonathan Edwards Professor of American Religious History at Yale University

“At last, a history of religion and the American Revolution that addresses the revolutionary war in substantial detail. Thomas Kidd brilliantly examines the role of religion in the Revolution, and explores the intersection of religion and the Republic, neither of which can be fully understood without reference to the other. Kidd demonstrates in persuasive detail how the idea of religious liberty informed the meaning of the Republic at its deepest level.”

 

Peter A. Lillback, President of The Providence Forum and author of George Washington’s Sacred Fire

“Thomas Kidd offers an important critique of the mainstream interpretations of the American Revolution. God of Liberty reveals the central role that the Christian faith played in the revolutionary era. The surprising partnership of devout believers and deistic doubters to secure America’s victory makes for fascinating reading.”

 

Kirkus
“[A]n important contribution to American religious history.”

 

Library Journal
“Kidd argues that religion was inextricably linked to the American Revolutionary movement, his book will prove of interest both to readers in American Colonial religion and Colonial history, with his inclusion of unfamiliar sources extending the appeal…”

 

Christian Century
“With impressive command of the primary sources and deft historical analysis, Kidd has produced an indispensable survey of religious life during the Revolutionary era… all the more remarkable for its breadth…  One of the many virtues of this book is that Kidd is a careful and judicious historian… he points out—correctly—the errors of both present-day secularists on the left, who insist that the founders barred religious voices from political discourse, and the church-state separation deniers on the right.  The lesson of American history is that although church and state are institutionally separate, morality and freedom are seldom at odds and that, in fact, they are mutually reinforcing.”

 

Washington Times

“Thought-provoking, meticulously researched… a salutary reminder of the role religious belief played in the founding of our country. It is all the more valuable because that story clearly is in danger of being expunged from the historical record or even twisted into an example of the political hypocrisy of a time when God was often invoked but allegedly ignored.”

 

Booklist
“Kidd directs his magnifying glass on a rare slice of the American Revolution: its religious aspects. . . . After reading this, some may wonder why religion is so shortchanged in other Revolutionary treatments.”

 

 

CALIFORNIA PRESCIENCE

An old saying, cliche by now, suggests,"As California goes so goes the rest of the nation." I can't swear to it, but I suspect Rodeo Drive influences our national character more deeply than Madison Avenue. Sadly California, with all its beauty and mysticism, possesses a dark side. Sacrificial pioneers have morphed into self serving squatters. Paradise discovered has now given way to paradise lost. Stanford University man of letters Victor Davis Hanson offers a solution for a restoration of this once celebrated land:

...how would we return to sanity in California, a state as naturally beautiful and endowed and developed by our ancestors as it has been sucked dry by our parasitic generation? The medicine would be harder than the malady, and I just cannot see it happening, as much as I love the state, admire many of its citizens, and see glimmers of hope in the most unlikely places every day.

After all, in no particular order, we would have to close the borders; adopt English immersion in our schools; give up on the salad bowl and return to the melting pot; assimilate, intermarry, and integrate legal immigrants; curb entitlements and use the money to fix infrastructure like roads, bridges, airports, trains, etc.; build 4-5 new damns to store water in wet years; update the canal system; return to old policies barring public employee unions; redo pension contracts; cut about 50,000 from the public employee roles; lower income taxes from 10% to 5% to attract businesses back; cut sales taxes to 7%; curb regulations to allow firms to stay; override court orders now curbing cost-saving options in our prisons by systematic legislation; start creating material wealth from our forests; tap more oil, timber, natural gas, and minerals that we have in abundance; deliver water to the farmland we have; build 3-4 nuclear power plants on the coast; adopt a traditional curriculum in our schools; insist on merit pay for teachers; abolish tenure; encourage not oppose more charter schools, vouchers, and home schooling; give tax breaks to private trade and business schools; reinstitute admission requirements and selectivity at the state university system; take unregistered cars off the road; make UC professors teach a class or two more each year; abolish all racial quotas and preferences in reality rather than in name; build a new all weather east-west state freeway  over the Sierra; and on and on.

In other words, we would have to seance someone born around 1900 and just ask them to float back for a day, walk around, and give us some advice.

Thinking in a theological context, those familiar with history and in particular, theological history, ought not be too shocked at such an observation. Who ever promised Americans a pass when it came to moral decay? Even the most sophisticated, developed civilizations such as ancient Babylon, eventually met with the inconceivable.  The prophet Moses once opined to a young upstart nation: 

25 After you have had children and grandchildren and have lived in the land a long time—if you then become corrupt and make any kind of idol, doing evil in the eyes of the LORD your God and provoking him to anger, 26 I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you this day that you will quickly perish from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You will not live there long but will certainly be destroyed. 27 The LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and only a few of you will survive among the nations to which the LORD will drive you. 28 There you will worship man-made gods of wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or eat or smell. 29 But if from there you seek the LORD your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul. 30 When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you, then in later days you will return to the LORD your God and obey him. 31 For the LORD your God is a merciful God; he will not abandon or destroy you or forget the covenant with your forefathers, which he confirmed to them by oath. (Duet.4:25-31)

Two salient implications spring forth from these verses and their context. First of all, Moses offers a theology of history. Prior to this stern warning he reminds the Hebrew people of God's great provisions while they wandered in the desert. He exhorts them to teach these historical lessons to their children. Not bad advice in anyone's book. We would do well to give an ear to Moses' warning. Yet, today's fashionable progressive mindset permeates our most noble institutions including free thinking Universities. This mindset, which disparages our exceptional historical narrative has now taken hold as the new national ethos. The contemporary narrative reads, Americans pillaged and plundered their way into empire status. Now we must level the international playing field. We forget, however, that our unique Christian character with its emphasis upon self sacrifice, raised the ante. We became great because we were good. America derived its ethos from Moses' ethical commands to his people. Amidst this glorious success story the human condition remains Dicksonian. Intellectually it is the best of times. Morally, it will always be the most suspect of times. Notice I say suspect, because temporary solutions exist in moral decay. Victor Davis Hanson inferentially offers in his solution to California's disaster a sort of coming to one's self. 

A second implication emerges from the first. We currently live with historical amnesia. Because we disparage our history based on past sins such as slavery, we throw the baby out with the bathwater. Now we see history through dark glasses if indeed we see it all. I suggest the latter is the norm. Surveys suggest our children know nothing about George Washington or Winston Churchill. The only thing they know about Thomas Jefferson is his supposed liaisons with slaves and his inability to keep his finances in check. 

I like Dr. Hanson's fantasy solution. (judging by the tone of his article he writes with tongue-in cheek) And, I must admit, the upward way looks a bit steep right now. I think not only must we kick the scoundrels out of office, but we must also take Moses' advice and make the family our primary educational institute. My children posses a working knowledge of our great history because I often celebrated America's kingly past during  family get togethers. In today's family hostile environment such advice might be a "tall order" as we say in Texas.

Oh, and I like this concluding piece of wisdom from VDH as well:

PS. I don’t vote Democratic any more much, if at all, but haven’t gotten around to changing my registration to Independent. But this June I will at least once more vote in the Democratic primary, largely for Mickey Kaus, whose online campaign seems to be reminding us just how absurd Barbara Boxer has become. He has good sense about unions and amnesty and state spending (my late mother, an appellate judge, used to speak highly of state Supreme Court Justice Kaus, a Democratic moderate, who, I think, was his father). In general, I have listened to all three senatorial Republican candidates and they are all good. Note — Barbara Boxer is a particularly unfortunate sort of politician, combining arrogance (remember her much publicized slapdown of a general and African-American businessman) with a loud sort of ignorance. (A diversity note: Three of the most powerful women in the world that have a lot to do with running the U.S. are multimillionaire, doctrinaire liberals, who at one time lived within about 50 miles of each other in San Francisco — Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein, and Barbara Boxer.)

  

AMERICANS STILL LOVE THEIR SUV'S

This article from The American demonstrates the disconnect between liberals and Joe Six-pack American:

Yes, Mr. President, “Anybody can buy a truck.” And they do. President Obama’s last minute (and futile) campaign slam at Massachusetts’s new U.S. Senator, Scott Brown—trying to belittle the fact that he drove his GMC pickup truck up and down the state on the way to an upset victory—is another poignant example of how out of touch with mainstream America the “educated classes” can be. Indeed, at last week’s North American International Auto Show in Detroit, amid all the buzz about the vehicles government and greenies believe Americans should buy—think electric, small, tiny, little, abstemious—there were some interesting reminders about what many Americans do buy. Trucks. Specifically, pickup trucks and truck-based SUVs. Struggling General Motors let it be known that as part of its effort to shake off the dust and rubble of its collapse into bankruptcy and pay back the billions it owes taxpayers, it will invest a reported $1 billion to refresh and update its full-size Chevrolet and GMC pickup trucks. Why? Because they make money—lots of money.

But, of course those who live in ivory towers such as Karl Marx, Frederick Nietzsche, and many others know what's best for the rest. Never mind that their so called intellectual enlightenment lead to the Stalinist slaughters and Nazi killing machine.