Monthly Archives: October 2013

News

Pastor Matt: five books Christians should read to understand politics and public policy

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I agree with this list by Pastor Matt.

About Pastor Matt:

Hello, my name is Matt and I am a book addict (i.e., well read, sophisticated, sad and lonely here is evidence).  But I want my sickness to help you.  I have been a political junkie since 1992 when I was recruited by my then Congressman to work for him. I then ran several campaigns including helping a businessman win a seat in the U.S. House in 1994.  I spent two years working in the House during the Gingrich years of 1995-1997.  I then attended seminary and law school but have remained a political and public policy junkie.  During this week’s political dust-ups, I read a lot of statements from Christians that qualify as “bumper sticker” logic at best.  So, for those interested, here are five books every Christian leader should read if they want to truly understand politics and public policy.

The list:

  1.  A Patriot’s History of the United States: From Columbus’s Great Discovery to the War on Terror by Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen
  2. The Heritage Guide to the Constitution by Ed Meese, Ed. (Regnery 2005)
  3. Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell (Basic Books 2010)
  4. Politics According to the Bible by Wayne Grudem (Zondervan 2010)
  5. The Poverty of Nations: A Sustainable Solution by Wayne Grudem and Barry Asmus (Crossway 2013)

I think it’s nice to see that pastor Wayne Grudem appears twice in the list. He has a PhD from Cambridge University and is the best theologian who writes books about economic and political issues. (Notice how I left room for Pastor Matt to be the best overall on economics and political issues!)

Here’s the detail on number three:

Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell (Basic Books 2010).  Most Christian leaders (and apparently most Americans) have a poor understanding of economics.  Most seem to believe wealth is fixed (it isn’t), incentives and effectiveness are secondary to fairness (they aren’t), etc. Sowell, a long time professor of economics who has taught at Cornell and UCLA, has penned a long but very reader friendly work that you should take chapter-by-chapter.

On this blog, I feature Thomas Sowell a lot. The good thing about him is that even if you can’t buy his book, you can read lots of his current events stuff for free. In fact, he wrote a great column recently explaining the government shutdown that I think everyone should read. You can also get great sermons on politics and public policy from Wayne Grudem’s “Essentials” class.

News

Catholic chaplains face arrest for performing mass during shutdown

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Todd Starnes of Fox News does a good job of covering the how the secular left infringes on religious liberty in the military.

Check out his latest story. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

The U.S. military has furloughed as many as 50 Catholic chaplains due to the partial suspension of government services, banning them from celebrating weekend Mass. At least one chaplain was told that if he engaged in any ministry activity, he would be subjected to disciplinary action.

“In very practical terms it means Sunday Mass won’t be offered,” Archbishop Timothy Broglio of the Archdiocese for the Military Services told me. “If someone has a baptism scheduled, it won’t be celebrated.”

The Archdiocese for the Military Services tells me the military installations impacted are served by non-active-duty priests who were hired as government contractors. As a result of a shortage of active duty Catholic chaplains, the government hires contract priests.

Broglio said some military bases have forbidden the contract priests from volunteering to celebrate Mass without pay.

“They were told they cannot function because those are contracted services and since there’s no funding they can’t do it – even if they volunteer,” he said.

John Schlageter, general counsel for the archdiocese, said any furloughed priests volunteering their services could face big trouble.

“During the shutdown, it is illegal for them to minister on base and they risk being arrested if they attempt to do so,” he said in a written statement.

A well-placed source told me that a furloughed Air Force chaplain was threatened after he offered to forgo pay. The chaplain was told he could not go on base or enter his chapel offices. He was also barred from engaging in any ministry activity.

The source told me the chaplain was told that if he violated those orders he and his supervisor would be subjected to disciplinary action – with the possibility of being fired.

I don’t think anyone should be surprised that the Democrats are hostile to freedom of religion. They are, after all, socialists. Government is more important than religion, and if they conflict, government wins.

Polemics

Can the worldview of naturalism rationally ground mind, meaning and morality?

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J. Warner Wallace, author of “Cold Case Christianity”, explains why it can’t.

Here’s just one of the three troubles with naturalism:

Morality

If naturalism is true, morality is nothing more than a matter of opinion. All of us, as humans, have simply come to embrace those cultural or personal mores that best promote the survival of the species. There is no transcendent, objective moral truth. Instead, cultures merely embrace the values and moral principles that “work” for them and have resulted in the flourishing of their particular people group. If this is the case, one group of evolved humans has no business trying to tell another evolved group what is truly right or wrong from a moral perspective. After all, each group has successfully arrived at their particular level of development by embracing their own accepted moral standards. Arguments over which moral truths provide for greater human flourishing are simply subjective disagreements; there is no transcendent, objective standard that can adjudicate such disagreements from a naturalistic perspective.

Click the link to read the other two!

I think that the most odd thing about naturalism is that they think that all moral statements are true or false depending on personal preferences. For example, slavery. On naturalism, owning slaves or not owning slaves are both equally moral options, depending on whether most people decide that it’s right in a particular time and place. Some societies in some places and times allow it, and others don’t. And that’s what makes it right or wrong. Naturalism has nothing at all to say about which view is correct, because there is no objective design for humans on naturalism – no way we ought to be. Every view is as good as any other, because there is no one to decide. If Richard Dawkins lived in a time where slavery was accepted, then Richard Dawkins would be perfectly justified, on atheism, with owning slaves. He has no source of objective moral values that can judge slavery as wrong. Right and wrong, for an atheist, is “whatever my colleagues will let me get away with”. Perhaps Dawkins next book will be entitled “The Morality Delusion” – because morality is a delusion on atheism. It’s just cultural conventions and personal preferences.

Anybody can be good when it’s easy. Being good when it’s hard requires that being good is reasonable. Naturalists don’t have that in their worldview. After all if morality is basically like traffic laws and taste in food, then why would you “do the right thing” – comply with arbitrary customs that vary by time and place – when it goes against your self-interest? It makes no sense. It only makes sense to do the right thing when it goes against your self-interest if it is part of your objective design as a human being – if there is a plan for how you ought to be.

When a naturalist says “I’m a good person without God”, you have to understand that they are making that statement as a statement of preference. On their view, there is nothing right or wrong with anything, as a matter of fact. They have determined themselves what counts as good for them, based on the arbitrary conventions of the society they live in and their own personal preferences. And they are in compliance with those conventions and preferences, then they are “good”. That’s what they mean by saying “I’m good” – they mean “I file my tax return every year and I don’t eat broccoli because I don’t like broccoli”. So you can have an atheist defending infanticide or adultery in one breath and then in the next breath claiming that he is a good person because he drives at the speed limit, recycles cans and doesn’t eat veal. The standard of morality is their standard of morality. It’s just made up. And yet they expect you to give them respect for this.

It’s very important to make clear to atheists when you are talking about morality that they believe that there is no objective truth about slavery. Make that clear. They love to tell you how good they are because of this position or that position, but it’s your job to say “the real issue isn’t your personal preference, it’s that you think that a person in a different time and place who practiced slavery could be as justified, morally speaking, as you are now in opposing it”. That’s the point you’ve got to make clear to them. They think that morality is like picking what to have for desert. If the action required by the moral law was difficult or dangerous to them, and their own self-interest, you can bet your bottom dollar that they won’t risk a thing to do the “right” thing. On their view, right and wrong are illusions.