"According to Andrew Bacevich’s new book, America’s War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History, the NO BLOOD FOR OIL people were correct — and thirty years too late. Unlike many journalists and historians who see the wars in the Middle East as a series of isolated conflicts that happen to have taken place in a single region over several decades, Bacevich, a career Army officer turned military historian and foreign policy critic, sees a sustained military campaign that began with Jimmy Carter and continues today. “From the end of World War II to 1980, virtually no American soldiers were killed in action while serving in [the Greater Middle East],” Bacevich writes. “Since 1990, virtually no American soldiers have been killed in action anywhere except the Greater Middle East.” In attempting to explain why and how this happened, he describes the US’s current situation in the Greater Middle East as the product of many errors of many kinds: strategic and tactical blunders, fashionable military theories that did not live up to their billing, failures to appreciate the political limits of what military force can accomplish, and missed opportunities to restrain a military apparatus that expands the scope of its mission whenever possible."
- From Richard Beck in N+1 magazine
This is an astonishing fact from Richard Beck's study. He certainly highlights what I feel needs to be seriously addressed in our next Presidential cycle: foreign policy. Beck argues strongly that are presence is largely because of our concern to protect our national interest in oil. The greater point being that at least as far back as John Hay saying promoting an "open door" policy of encouraging an open international economic system, backed when necessary by force of arms, which has morphed into assuring the safety and dominance of American capital. However one might take that, his book seems well worth the read and certainly is the essay by Beck as the situation in this part of the world and our policy concerning it is very important. Beck points to Christopher Layne in his book The Peace of Illusions (2006) and his rubric as a way forward.
Soli Deo gloria,
The Reader
Thursday, September 15, 2016
Tuesday, April 26, 2016
When Did the Church Begin? - D.A. Carson
Esteemed NT Scholar D.A. Carson answers this question in an article for Themelios that I found here, and I have reproduced it below:
When Did the Church Begin? This question is not uncommon, especially among theological students. Sometimes people ask it because they have been exposed to dispensational teaching. In that case, the answer one gives becomes a kind of litmus test to a nest of other questions that dispensationalists pose. People from a dispensational heritage emphasize discontinuity between the covenants, and therefore commonly argue that the church begins at Pentecost; people from a covenant-theology heritage emphasize the continuity of the covenant of grace, think in terms of fulfillment of what was promised, and therefore argue that the “assembly” of the people of God is one, and that therefore it is a mistake to argue that the church begins at Pentecost. Others ask the question in our title because for them the answer is a way of distinguishing between Reformed Presbyterians and Reformed Baptists. Still others ask the question without a theological agenda, but for no other reason than that it deserves to be asked precisely because the answer seems ambiguous in the biblical texts.
It may be helpful to organize the relevant material in several steps.
(1) As for the terminology, although “church” is commonly a NT expression, both the word and the idea surface in the OT too. For example, a not atypical passage pictures God instructing Moses, “Assemble the people before me to hear my words so that they may learn to revere me as long as they live in the land and may teach them to their children” (Deut 4:10): the verb is קהל in Hebrew and ἐκκλησιάζειν (cognate with ἐκκλησία, “church” or “assembly”) in the Septuagint. Not less important is the fact that NT writers can refer to the OT people of God as the “church”: Stephen speaks of the gathered Israelites in the wilderness as “the assembly [ἐκκλησία] in the wilderness” (Acts 7:38). The writer to the Hebrews uses OT language to depict Jesus saying that he will sing praise to God: “in the assembly [ἐκκλησία] I will sing your praise” (2:12, citing Ps 22:22). When Christians gather together, the language the writer to the Hebrews uses to describe their assembly bursts with fulfilled typological references to the OT: the writer tells them, “[Y]ou have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church [ἐκκλησία] of the firstborn ... to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel” (12:22–24). The reference to Abel inevitably reminds the reader that Christians are “surrounded by ... a great cloud of witnesses” (12:1)—namely, the faithful heroes from Abel through Enoch, Abraham, Sarah, Gideon, David, and all the rest of the OT figures (ch. 11). One cannot help but see some kind of profound continuity in the people of God.
(2) The issue is broader than merely terminological. When Jesus declares, in a thoroughly Jewish context, that he will build his church (ἐκκλησία, Matt 16:18), what he has in mind, according to this Gospel, includes Gentiles too (28:18–20). His instructions on how to exercise church [ἐκκλησία] discipline (18:15–20) show how he is willing to blur distinctions we tend to make: the local church (which must be in view in ch. 18) is the outcropping of the entire church (ch. 16), and clearly includes both Jews and Gentiles. They constitute Messiah’s assembly, Messiah’s church. Nowhere is the one-ness of Messiah’s people, Messiah’s church, more powerfully worked out than in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. Jewish believers and Gentile believers have been made “one” by Jesus, who is our peace (Eph 2:14). At one time the Gentiles were alienated from God, “excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise” (2:12), but now the two groups constitute “one new humanity” (2:15). Gentiles are “no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household” (2:19). This is the church (ἐκκλησία) that Christ loved and for which he died (5:25). One recalls that in the olive tree metaphor (Romans 11), there is but one vine, with branches being broken off from that vine or grafted onto it.
(3) So what do the two camps—those who think the church began at Pentecost, and those who think the church stretches back in time and ultimately includes all of God’s elect—make of such exegetical phenomena? Transparently, different interpretive choices are tied up with each position. The former will observe uses of ἐκκλησία in the LXX, or in the NT referring to the OT people of God, and insist that these are not technical uses of the term: these are references to various “assemblies” but not to the NT “church.” Those NT passages that speak of the oneness of God’s people (e.g., Ephesians) surely establish the difference between that people and the OT assembly, precisely because the OT assembly/church was made up only of Israelites. And thus this first group maintains its position. The latter group will observe the same data and insist that it cannot be wrong to think of the OT assembly of the people of God as the ἐκκλησία when the biblical writers are happy to use that language. To maintain a distinction between “assembly” and “church” when the Greek uses just one word for both is surely no ground for maintaining that the church began at Pentecost, for the church of God is the assembly of God, and it began in OT times. The bringing together of Jews and Gentiles in one olive tree (Romans 11), in one new humanity (Ephesians), does not mean that the post-Pentecost church is a new body, but that it is the same but expanded body.
(4) I have simplified the arguments, of course. The former group has a diversity of stances within its basic position, but is sometimes in danger of dividing what God has put together, not adequately perceiving the oneness, the wholeness, of God’s redemptive purposes. The latter group also has a diversity of stances within its basic position, but is sometimes in danger of overlooking the “new” things associated with the ἐκκλησία from Pentecost on: new creation, new work of the Holy Spirit, new birth, new age, new covenant, and so on.
(5) It begins to appear, then, that both sides of this debate focus attention on slightly different things. If the focus is on the oneness and continuity of the redeemed people of God, all of them secured by the Lord Jesus, surely Scripture demands that we affirm pretty strongly the side of the covenant theologian. The assembly (church) of the firstborn in Hebrews 12 seems to include saints from both covenants, including those alive now, who are “gathered” around the throne of the living God. Add the kind of linguistic evidence I have just briefly surveyed, and the case is pretty strong. Nevertheless, some versions of the Reformed construction may be in danger of flattening out the Bible’s storyline in such a way there is nothing new in the new covenant except increased information. Under this reading, for example, new birth controls conversion in the days of Abraham as much as in the days of John or Paul, the work of the Holy Spirit is entirely the same under the Mosaic covenant as under the new covenant (even though it is very difficult to read John 14–16 in that way), and many NT writers affirm that with the coming, death, resurrection, ascension and ascension of the Son of God we have entered a new age. All sides acknowledge, of course, that it is rather difficult to nail down precisely what the “newness” consists in, but it is surely a mistake to argue that there is nothing new that is connected with the new covenant—or (as I’ve indicated) to argue that the only thing that is new is more information now that we live this side of the cross and resurrection of Jesus, but certainly not new experience. At the very least one must say there is a kind of ratcheting up of various expressions and experiences. For example, expressions such as “I will be their God and they will be my people” are tied under the Mosaic covenant to God’s self-disclosure in the tabernacle, are tied under the new covenant to the mediating work of Christ, and are tied under the final vision of Scripture to the perfections of the new heaven and the new earth.
In short, if one is focusing on God’s one redemptive plan, his one ultimate, saving sacrifice, his one assembly before the throne, his one covenant of grace (though there are some problems with that expression), and his one final purpose for the redeemed, the Reformed heritage, in my view, has it right. The church begins when the first human sinner is redeemed and joined with another redeemed human sinner—indeed, in the mind of God the church begins as far back as the death of the Lamb “who was slain from the creation of the world” (Rev 13:8). If one is focusing on the “new” (ratcheted up?) things connected with the people of God under the new covenant, I can understand why one looks for a term that applies to them and does not apply to OT saints. The problem, of course, is that a claim like “The church begins at Pentecost” might be uttered within the framework of the kind of nuances I’ve just outlined, but it might be heard to be saying far more things that rightly scandalize Reformed believers; conversely, a claim like “The church is the sum of God’s people under both the old covenant and the new” is perfectly defensible along the lines I’ve outlined here, but it might be heard to be claiming a flattening out of covenantal distinctions that ought to be preserved somehow.
(6) Another element to the debate needs to be acknowledged. Presbyterians have an additional reason for preserving the terminology, in this respect, of covenant theology: they hold that, under both the Mosaic covenant and under the new covenant, the locus of the covenant community, the church, is not to be tightly identified with the locus of the elect. (The folk in Moscow, Idaho, prove to be the exception: they would like to do more to obliterate the distinction!) In other words, the structure of their ecclesiology (ἐκκλησία-ology) provides some pressure to emphasize continuity. By contrast, Reformed Baptists think that under the terms of the new covenant, the locus of the covenant community, the church, is ideally to be identified with the locus of the elect—and this is different from the way things work under the old covenant. This difference of opinion is of course tied to their respective understandings of circumcision/baptism. Presbyterians argue that both circumcision and baptism mark entrance into the covenant community, without saying anything decisive about entrance into the empirical community of the redeemed/elect. Reformed Baptists claim that both circumcision and baptism mark entrance into the covenant community, but that under the terms of the new covenant entrance into the new covenant community also marks entrance into the empirical community of the elect/redeemed: the new covenant is in this respect different from the Mosaic covenant, and that is part, at least, of what makes it “new.” This tying together of the redeemed and the covenant community is admittedly different from the way things work under the old covenant. So at this juncture their ecclesiology exercises a subtle pressure toward a measure of discontinuity.
(7) In any case, some parallels can be drawn between two formally similar questions, viz., “When did the church begin?” and “When did the messianic kingdom dawn?” This is not the place to tease out the answers to the latter question in any detail. Yet students of Scripture often point out that in one sense the kingdom dawned when he ascended to his Father’s right hand where he must reign until he has vanquished the last enemy. Yet the passion narratives make much of Jesus reigning from the cross (esp. Matthew and John). Still earlier, the kingdom is dawning in Jesus’s public ministry, even his worth through his disciples, so much so that he sees Satan fall from heaven (Luke 10). In fact, Jesus is born king of the Jews (Matthew 2). Even though there are more texts that tie Jesus’s kingly reign to his resurrection and ascension, the range of options as to when the messianic kingdom dawned is actually a good thing, an evocative thing, laced with imagination-stirring complexity. Similarly, the question as to when the church began can be answered with some pretty straightforward exegeses of particular texts—but then, when one has taken a deep breath and looked around again, one finds layers of God-given and imagination-stirring subtlety that demands slightly different answers in different contexts.
I found this enriching not only as an answer to the question provided, which is common enough in my field, but as a model answer.
Soli Deo gloria,
The Reader
When Did the Church Begin? This question is not uncommon, especially among theological students. Sometimes people ask it because they have been exposed to dispensational teaching. In that case, the answer one gives becomes a kind of litmus test to a nest of other questions that dispensationalists pose. People from a dispensational heritage emphasize discontinuity between the covenants, and therefore commonly argue that the church begins at Pentecost; people from a covenant-theology heritage emphasize the continuity of the covenant of grace, think in terms of fulfillment of what was promised, and therefore argue that the “assembly” of the people of God is one, and that therefore it is a mistake to argue that the church begins at Pentecost. Others ask the question in our title because for them the answer is a way of distinguishing between Reformed Presbyterians and Reformed Baptists. Still others ask the question without a theological agenda, but for no other reason than that it deserves to be asked precisely because the answer seems ambiguous in the biblical texts.
It may be helpful to organize the relevant material in several steps.
(1) As for the terminology, although “church” is commonly a NT expression, both the word and the idea surface in the OT too. For example, a not atypical passage pictures God instructing Moses, “Assemble the people before me to hear my words so that they may learn to revere me as long as they live in the land and may teach them to their children” (Deut 4:10): the verb is קהל in Hebrew and ἐκκλησιάζειν (cognate with ἐκκλησία, “church” or “assembly”) in the Septuagint. Not less important is the fact that NT writers can refer to the OT people of God as the “church”: Stephen speaks of the gathered Israelites in the wilderness as “the assembly [ἐκκλησία] in the wilderness” (Acts 7:38). The writer to the Hebrews uses OT language to depict Jesus saying that he will sing praise to God: “in the assembly [ἐκκλησία] I will sing your praise” (2:12, citing Ps 22:22). When Christians gather together, the language the writer to the Hebrews uses to describe their assembly bursts with fulfilled typological references to the OT: the writer tells them, “[Y]ou have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church [ἐκκλησία] of the firstborn ... to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel” (12:22–24). The reference to Abel inevitably reminds the reader that Christians are “surrounded by ... a great cloud of witnesses” (12:1)—namely, the faithful heroes from Abel through Enoch, Abraham, Sarah, Gideon, David, and all the rest of the OT figures (ch. 11). One cannot help but see some kind of profound continuity in the people of God.
(2) The issue is broader than merely terminological. When Jesus declares, in a thoroughly Jewish context, that he will build his church (ἐκκλησία, Matt 16:18), what he has in mind, according to this Gospel, includes Gentiles too (28:18–20). His instructions on how to exercise church [ἐκκλησία] discipline (18:15–20) show how he is willing to blur distinctions we tend to make: the local church (which must be in view in ch. 18) is the outcropping of the entire church (ch. 16), and clearly includes both Jews and Gentiles. They constitute Messiah’s assembly, Messiah’s church. Nowhere is the one-ness of Messiah’s people, Messiah’s church, more powerfully worked out than in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. Jewish believers and Gentile believers have been made “one” by Jesus, who is our peace (Eph 2:14). At one time the Gentiles were alienated from God, “excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise” (2:12), but now the two groups constitute “one new humanity” (2:15). Gentiles are “no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household” (2:19). This is the church (ἐκκλησία) that Christ loved and for which he died (5:25). One recalls that in the olive tree metaphor (Romans 11), there is but one vine, with branches being broken off from that vine or grafted onto it.
(3) So what do the two camps—those who think the church began at Pentecost, and those who think the church stretches back in time and ultimately includes all of God’s elect—make of such exegetical phenomena? Transparently, different interpretive choices are tied up with each position. The former will observe uses of ἐκκλησία in the LXX, or in the NT referring to the OT people of God, and insist that these are not technical uses of the term: these are references to various “assemblies” but not to the NT “church.” Those NT passages that speak of the oneness of God’s people (e.g., Ephesians) surely establish the difference between that people and the OT assembly, precisely because the OT assembly/church was made up only of Israelites. And thus this first group maintains its position. The latter group will observe the same data and insist that it cannot be wrong to think of the OT assembly of the people of God as the ἐκκλησία when the biblical writers are happy to use that language. To maintain a distinction between “assembly” and “church” when the Greek uses just one word for both is surely no ground for maintaining that the church began at Pentecost, for the church of God is the assembly of God, and it began in OT times. The bringing together of Jews and Gentiles in one olive tree (Romans 11), in one new humanity (Ephesians), does not mean that the post-Pentecost church is a new body, but that it is the same but expanded body.
(4) I have simplified the arguments, of course. The former group has a diversity of stances within its basic position, but is sometimes in danger of dividing what God has put together, not adequately perceiving the oneness, the wholeness, of God’s redemptive purposes. The latter group also has a diversity of stances within its basic position, but is sometimes in danger of overlooking the “new” things associated with the ἐκκλησία from Pentecost on: new creation, new work of the Holy Spirit, new birth, new age, new covenant, and so on.
(5) It begins to appear, then, that both sides of this debate focus attention on slightly different things. If the focus is on the oneness and continuity of the redeemed people of God, all of them secured by the Lord Jesus, surely Scripture demands that we affirm pretty strongly the side of the covenant theologian. The assembly (church) of the firstborn in Hebrews 12 seems to include saints from both covenants, including those alive now, who are “gathered” around the throne of the living God. Add the kind of linguistic evidence I have just briefly surveyed, and the case is pretty strong. Nevertheless, some versions of the Reformed construction may be in danger of flattening out the Bible’s storyline in such a way there is nothing new in the new covenant except increased information. Under this reading, for example, new birth controls conversion in the days of Abraham as much as in the days of John or Paul, the work of the Holy Spirit is entirely the same under the Mosaic covenant as under the new covenant (even though it is very difficult to read John 14–16 in that way), and many NT writers affirm that with the coming, death, resurrection, ascension and ascension of the Son of God we have entered a new age. All sides acknowledge, of course, that it is rather difficult to nail down precisely what the “newness” consists in, but it is surely a mistake to argue that there is nothing new that is connected with the new covenant—or (as I’ve indicated) to argue that the only thing that is new is more information now that we live this side of the cross and resurrection of Jesus, but certainly not new experience. At the very least one must say there is a kind of ratcheting up of various expressions and experiences. For example, expressions such as “I will be their God and they will be my people” are tied under the Mosaic covenant to God’s self-disclosure in the tabernacle, are tied under the new covenant to the mediating work of Christ, and are tied under the final vision of Scripture to the perfections of the new heaven and the new earth.
In short, if one is focusing on God’s one redemptive plan, his one ultimate, saving sacrifice, his one assembly before the throne, his one covenant of grace (though there are some problems with that expression), and his one final purpose for the redeemed, the Reformed heritage, in my view, has it right. The church begins when the first human sinner is redeemed and joined with another redeemed human sinner—indeed, in the mind of God the church begins as far back as the death of the Lamb “who was slain from the creation of the world” (Rev 13:8). If one is focusing on the “new” (ratcheted up?) things connected with the people of God under the new covenant, I can understand why one looks for a term that applies to them and does not apply to OT saints. The problem, of course, is that a claim like “The church begins at Pentecost” might be uttered within the framework of the kind of nuances I’ve just outlined, but it might be heard to be saying far more things that rightly scandalize Reformed believers; conversely, a claim like “The church is the sum of God’s people under both the old covenant and the new” is perfectly defensible along the lines I’ve outlined here, but it might be heard to be claiming a flattening out of covenantal distinctions that ought to be preserved somehow.
(6) Another element to the debate needs to be acknowledged. Presbyterians have an additional reason for preserving the terminology, in this respect, of covenant theology: they hold that, under both the Mosaic covenant and under the new covenant, the locus of the covenant community, the church, is not to be tightly identified with the locus of the elect. (The folk in Moscow, Idaho, prove to be the exception: they would like to do more to obliterate the distinction!) In other words, the structure of their ecclesiology (ἐκκλησία-ology) provides some pressure to emphasize continuity. By contrast, Reformed Baptists think that under the terms of the new covenant, the locus of the covenant community, the church, is ideally to be identified with the locus of the elect—and this is different from the way things work under the old covenant. This difference of opinion is of course tied to their respective understandings of circumcision/baptism. Presbyterians argue that both circumcision and baptism mark entrance into the covenant community, without saying anything decisive about entrance into the empirical community of the redeemed/elect. Reformed Baptists claim that both circumcision and baptism mark entrance into the covenant community, but that under the terms of the new covenant entrance into the new covenant community also marks entrance into the empirical community of the elect/redeemed: the new covenant is in this respect different from the Mosaic covenant, and that is part, at least, of what makes it “new.” This tying together of the redeemed and the covenant community is admittedly different from the way things work under the old covenant. So at this juncture their ecclesiology exercises a subtle pressure toward a measure of discontinuity.
(7) In any case, some parallels can be drawn between two formally similar questions, viz., “When did the church begin?” and “When did the messianic kingdom dawn?” This is not the place to tease out the answers to the latter question in any detail. Yet students of Scripture often point out that in one sense the kingdom dawned when he ascended to his Father’s right hand where he must reign until he has vanquished the last enemy. Yet the passion narratives make much of Jesus reigning from the cross (esp. Matthew and John). Still earlier, the kingdom is dawning in Jesus’s public ministry, even his worth through his disciples, so much so that he sees Satan fall from heaven (Luke 10). In fact, Jesus is born king of the Jews (Matthew 2). Even though there are more texts that tie Jesus’s kingly reign to his resurrection and ascension, the range of options as to when the messianic kingdom dawned is actually a good thing, an evocative thing, laced with imagination-stirring complexity. Similarly, the question as to when the church began can be answered with some pretty straightforward exegeses of particular texts—but then, when one has taken a deep breath and looked around again, one finds layers of God-given and imagination-stirring subtlety that demands slightly different answers in different contexts.
I found this enriching not only as an answer to the question provided, which is common enough in my field, but as a model answer.
Soli Deo gloria,
The Reader
Wednesday, March 23, 2016
Quotes from the Dhammapada and a Quick Reaction
I read through the Dhammapada (a translation by Acharya Buddharakkhita), which is one of the best known and most widely esteemed religious texts in the world and the sacred scriptures of Theravada Buddhism.
Here are some quotes I found particularly interesting:
From the introduction: "To his followers, the Buddha is neither a god, a divine incarnation, or a prophet bearing a message of divine revelation, but a human being who by his own striving and intelligence has reached the highest spiritual attainment of which man is capable--perfect wisdom, full enlightenment, complete purification of mind. His function in relation to humanity is that of a teacher--a world teacher who, out of compassion, points out to others the way to Nibbana (Sanskrit: Nirvana), final release from suffering. His teaching, known as the Dhamma, offers a body of instructions explaining the true nature of existence and showing the path that leads to liberation."
From the introduction: "Always shining in the splendor of his wisdom, the Buddha by his very being confirms the Buddhist faith in human perfectibility consummates the Dhammapada's picture of man perfected, the Arahat."
From the introduction: "In contrast to the Bible, which opens with an account of God's creation of the world, the Dhammapada begins with an unequivocal assertion that mind is the forerunner of all that we are, the maker of our character, the creator of our destiny."
From the introduction: "If this is done repeatedly [contemplation for application], with patience and perseverance, it is certain that the Dhammapada will confer upon his life a new meaning and sense of purpose. Infusing him with hope and inspiration, gradually it will lead him to discover a freedom and happiness far greater than anything the world can offer."
1:11 - "Those who mistake the unessential to be essential and the essential to be unessential, dwelling in wrong thoughts, never arrive at the essential."
1:18 - "The doer of good delights here and hereafter; he delights in both the worlds. The thought, 'Good have I done,' delights him, and he delights even more when gone to realms of bliss."
2:25 - "By effort and heedfulness, discipline and self-mastery; let the wise one make for himself an island which no flood can overwhelm."
3:36 - "Let the discerning man guard the mind, so difficult to detect and extremely subtle, seizing whatever it desires. A guarded mind brings happiness."
3:42 - "Whatever harm an enemy may do to an enemy, or a hater to a hater, an ill-directed mind inflicts on oneself a greater harm."
4:51 - "Like a beautiful flower full of color but without fragrance, even so, fruitless are the fair words of one who does not practice them."
5:75 - "One is the quest for worldly gain, and quite another is the path to Nibbana. Clearly understanding this, let not the monk, the disciple of the Buddha, be carried away by worldly acclaim, but develop detachment instead."
6:76 - "Should one find a man who points out faults and who reproves, let him follow such a wise and sagacious person as one would a guide to hidden treasure. It is always better, and never worse, to cultivate such an association."
8:115 - "Better it is to live one day seeing the Supreme Truth than to live a hundred years without ever seeing the Supreme Truth"
9:122 - "Think not lightly of good, saying, 'It will not come to me.' Drop by drop is the water pot filled. Likewise, the wise man, gathering it little by little, fills himself with good."
11:154 - "O house-builder, you are seen! You will not build this house again. For your rafters are broken and your ridgepole shattered. My mind has reached the Unconditioned; I have attained the destruction of craving." - these verses are the Buddha's "Song of Victory," his first utterance after his Enlightenment The house is individualized existence in samsara, the house-builder craving, the rafters the passions and the ridge-pole ignorance.
13:178 - "Better than sole sovereignty over the earth, better than going to heaven, better even than lordship over all the world is the supramundane Fruition of Stream Entrance."
14:183 - "To avoid all evil, to cultivate good, and to cleanse one's mind - this is the teaching of the Buddhas."
15:202 - "There is no fire like lust and no crime like hatred. There is no ill like the aggregates (of existence) and no bliss higher than the peace (of Nibbana)."
16:211 - "Therefore hold nothing dear, for separation from the dear is painful. There are no bonds for those who have nothing beloved or unloved."
17:228 - "There never was, there never will be, nor is there now, a person who is wholly blamed or wholly praised."
18:251 - "There is no fire like lust; there is no grip like hatred; there is no net like delusion; there is no river like craving."
20:273 - "Of all the paths the Eightfold Path is the best; of all the truths the Four Noble Truths are the best; of all things passionlessness is the best: of men the Seeing One (the Buddha) is the best."
24: 348 - "Let go of the past, let go of the future, let go of the present, and cross over to the farther shore of existence. With mind wholly liberated, you shall come no more to birth and death."
26:405 - "He who has renounced violence towards all living beings, weak or strong, who neither kills nor causes others to kill - him do I call a holy man."
26:418 - "He who, having cast off likes and dislikes, has become tranquil, is rid of the substrata of existence and like a hero has conquered all the worlds - him do I call a holy man."
I naturally contrast this teaching with that of Christianity. I find that Buddha really latches on well to the human sin condition with its roots in desires and gives a great analysis of how this effects all of life. However, the Bible teaches that the cause of our unsatisfactory existence (from our sinful cravings) is because of the Fall of Adam and Eve and the solution is Jesus Christ. Passions were originally "good" and they were lived out perfectly in Jesus and in the new heaven and new earth passions and life will be as it was meant to be. I find that Buddhist teaching on getting to the heart of an issue, your own body and the world as your obstacles, an 'eternal' (so to speak) focus, and receiving good for good has a lot of overlap with Christian ideas.
The Buddha works from a view of reality wherein there is reincarnation and one must achieve aloofness and enlightenment by their own strength in response to the human condition. The Christian view teaches where desire comes from and its proper function and how one day this situation of unsatisfactoriness we find ourselves in will be put to an end by God. We were designed to be in perfect bliss and satisfaction with our Creator and all creation. The Bible teaches that only one man overcame the sin condition and we are invited to overcome it by faith in Him, because on our own we will never be able to do so. We are invited to entrust ourselves to Jesus Christ, the truly perfect one (fully God and fully man) who truly conquered the passions and lived them purely and so was a perfect substitute for mankind on the cross, so that we can be redeemed from sin and participate in this promised righteousness partially now and fully in the life to come.
There is a lot more that could be said and has been said by more learned men than I; however, these are just some mused thoughts after looking a lot more into Buddhist thought and teaching.
Soli Deo gloria,
The Reader
Here are some quotes I found particularly interesting:
From the introduction: "To his followers, the Buddha is neither a god, a divine incarnation, or a prophet bearing a message of divine revelation, but a human being who by his own striving and intelligence has reached the highest spiritual attainment of which man is capable--perfect wisdom, full enlightenment, complete purification of mind. His function in relation to humanity is that of a teacher--a world teacher who, out of compassion, points out to others the way to Nibbana (Sanskrit: Nirvana), final release from suffering. His teaching, known as the Dhamma, offers a body of instructions explaining the true nature of existence and showing the path that leads to liberation."
From the introduction: "Always shining in the splendor of his wisdom, the Buddha by his very being confirms the Buddhist faith in human perfectibility consummates the Dhammapada's picture of man perfected, the Arahat."
From the introduction: "In contrast to the Bible, which opens with an account of God's creation of the world, the Dhammapada begins with an unequivocal assertion that mind is the forerunner of all that we are, the maker of our character, the creator of our destiny."
From the introduction: "If this is done repeatedly [contemplation for application], with patience and perseverance, it is certain that the Dhammapada will confer upon his life a new meaning and sense of purpose. Infusing him with hope and inspiration, gradually it will lead him to discover a freedom and happiness far greater than anything the world can offer."
1:11 - "Those who mistake the unessential to be essential and the essential to be unessential, dwelling in wrong thoughts, never arrive at the essential."
1:18 - "The doer of good delights here and hereafter; he delights in both the worlds. The thought, 'Good have I done,' delights him, and he delights even more when gone to realms of bliss."
2:25 - "By effort and heedfulness, discipline and self-mastery; let the wise one make for himself an island which no flood can overwhelm."
3:36 - "Let the discerning man guard the mind, so difficult to detect and extremely subtle, seizing whatever it desires. A guarded mind brings happiness."
3:42 - "Whatever harm an enemy may do to an enemy, or a hater to a hater, an ill-directed mind inflicts on oneself a greater harm."
4:51 - "Like a beautiful flower full of color but without fragrance, even so, fruitless are the fair words of one who does not practice them."
5:75 - "One is the quest for worldly gain, and quite another is the path to Nibbana. Clearly understanding this, let not the monk, the disciple of the Buddha, be carried away by worldly acclaim, but develop detachment instead."
6:76 - "Should one find a man who points out faults and who reproves, let him follow such a wise and sagacious person as one would a guide to hidden treasure. It is always better, and never worse, to cultivate such an association."
8:115 - "Better it is to live one day seeing the Supreme Truth than to live a hundred years without ever seeing the Supreme Truth"
9:122 - "Think not lightly of good, saying, 'It will not come to me.' Drop by drop is the water pot filled. Likewise, the wise man, gathering it little by little, fills himself with good."
11:154 - "O house-builder, you are seen! You will not build this house again. For your rafters are broken and your ridgepole shattered. My mind has reached the Unconditioned; I have attained the destruction of craving." - these verses are the Buddha's "Song of Victory," his first utterance after his Enlightenment The house is individualized existence in samsara, the house-builder craving, the rafters the passions and the ridge-pole ignorance.
13:178 - "Better than sole sovereignty over the earth, better than going to heaven, better even than lordship over all the world is the supramundane Fruition of Stream Entrance."
14:183 - "To avoid all evil, to cultivate good, and to cleanse one's mind - this is the teaching of the Buddhas."
15:202 - "There is no fire like lust and no crime like hatred. There is no ill like the aggregates (of existence) and no bliss higher than the peace (of Nibbana)."
16:211 - "Therefore hold nothing dear, for separation from the dear is painful. There are no bonds for those who have nothing beloved or unloved."
17:228 - "There never was, there never will be, nor is there now, a person who is wholly blamed or wholly praised."
18:251 - "There is no fire like lust; there is no grip like hatred; there is no net like delusion; there is no river like craving."
20:273 - "Of all the paths the Eightfold Path is the best; of all the truths the Four Noble Truths are the best; of all things passionlessness is the best: of men the Seeing One (the Buddha) is the best."
24: 348 - "Let go of the past, let go of the future, let go of the present, and cross over to the farther shore of existence. With mind wholly liberated, you shall come no more to birth and death."
26:405 - "He who has renounced violence towards all living beings, weak or strong, who neither kills nor causes others to kill - him do I call a holy man."
26:418 - "He who, having cast off likes and dislikes, has become tranquil, is rid of the substrata of existence and like a hero has conquered all the worlds - him do I call a holy man."
I naturally contrast this teaching with that of Christianity. I find that Buddha really latches on well to the human sin condition with its roots in desires and gives a great analysis of how this effects all of life. However, the Bible teaches that the cause of our unsatisfactory existence (from our sinful cravings) is because of the Fall of Adam and Eve and the solution is Jesus Christ. Passions were originally "good" and they were lived out perfectly in Jesus and in the new heaven and new earth passions and life will be as it was meant to be. I find that Buddhist teaching on getting to the heart of an issue, your own body and the world as your obstacles, an 'eternal' (so to speak) focus, and receiving good for good has a lot of overlap with Christian ideas.
The Buddha works from a view of reality wherein there is reincarnation and one must achieve aloofness and enlightenment by their own strength in response to the human condition. The Christian view teaches where desire comes from and its proper function and how one day this situation of unsatisfactoriness we find ourselves in will be put to an end by God. We were designed to be in perfect bliss and satisfaction with our Creator and all creation. The Bible teaches that only one man overcame the sin condition and we are invited to overcome it by faith in Him, because on our own we will never be able to do so. We are invited to entrust ourselves to Jesus Christ, the truly perfect one (fully God and fully man) who truly conquered the passions and lived them purely and so was a perfect substitute for mankind on the cross, so that we can be redeemed from sin and participate in this promised righteousness partially now and fully in the life to come.
There is a lot more that could be said and has been said by more learned men than I; however, these are just some mused thoughts after looking a lot more into Buddhist thought and teaching.
Soli Deo gloria,
The Reader
Tuesday, March 22, 2016
Prose that Sings from Criswell
This is a re-post of a Trevin Wax article:
Watch how Criswell communicates the cosmic significance of the crucifixion:
So Jesus bowed His head on the cross and cried, “It is finished!”
The drops of blood that poured out from the cross to the dust of the ground whispered to the grass, saying, “It is finished!”
The grass whispered to the herbs, “It is finished!”
The herbs whispered to the trees, “It is finished!”
The trees whispered to the birds in the branches, “It is finished!”
The birds spiraling upwards to the clouds cried, “It is finished!”
The clouds spoke to the stars in the sky, “It is finished!”
The stars in the sky cried to the angels in heaven, “It is finished!”
Soli Deo gloria,
The Reader
Watch how Criswell communicates the cosmic significance of the crucifixion:
So Jesus bowed His head on the cross and cried, “It is finished!”
The drops of blood that poured out from the cross to the dust of the ground whispered to the grass, saying, “It is finished!”
The grass whispered to the herbs, “It is finished!”
The herbs whispered to the trees, “It is finished!”
The trees whispered to the birds in the branches, “It is finished!”
The birds spiraling upwards to the clouds cried, “It is finished!”
The clouds spoke to the stars in the sky, “It is finished!”
The stars in the sky cried to the angels in heaven, “It is finished!”
The angels in glory went up and down the streets of the heavenly city echoing this glad refrain, “It is finished!”Notice the way Criswell shows how sin leads to the curse of death:
The crucifixion of our Lord was God’s redemption for the sin of the world.
If one sins against a friend, something dies within him.Now watch how vividly Criswell paints the crucifixion scene. He puts the listener in the place of all the main characters and then drives home the theological truths of the cross by addressing the congregation personally:
If one sins against a partner, something will die between them.
If one sins against his home, something will die in it.
If one sins against himself, something will die in him.
When one sins against God, something dies between him and the Lord.
When sin is added to anything – to any gift, any virtue, any achievement – it will spell grief and misery and death.
A gun plus sin will produce violence and murder.
Success plus sin will produce egotism, pride, and overbearing ostentation.
Money plus sin will produce greed, bribery, and blackmail.
Love plus sin turns to lust.
A home plus sin will produce an atmosphere like hell.
Alcohol plus sin – a car plus sin – any gift of God plus sin is damned to misery and perdition. God said, “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” There is a curse in sin.
And here’s my all-time favorite section from a Criswell sermon. It is one of the most poetic portrayals of the gravity of Christ’s death ever delivered from a pulpit:What do you see when you look at the cross?The curious passersby, who sat down and watched Him there, saw a scene in which to idle away a weary hour.
The Roman soldiers looked and they saw garments to be coveted and a robe for which to gamble.
The priests looked and they saw an enemy to be destroyed.
One malefactor looked and saw another criminal, like himself, being crucified.Pilate’s quaternion of soldiers looked and were commissioned with three deaths to be ascertained. Two of the three certainly expired with the breaking of their bones by heavy mallets, and the other was declared certainly dead with a spear, opening His heart and His side.
The other thief looked and saw hope for heaven: “Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.”
The centurion looked and said: “Surely this man was the Son of God.”
The ruler of the Passover feast looked and saw a polluted body that had to be removed before the Sabbath Day drew on.
John looked and saw a fountain of blood and water for atonement and the cleansing of our sins.When you look upon the cross, what do you see? When Jesus stands before you, upon His brow the crown of thorns, mocked, rejected, scourged, bleeding, dying, what do you feel? Surely, surely we are conscience-stricken, for His suffering is a revelation of the judgment of God upon the sin of our own hearts. It is our sins that placed upon His brow the crown of thorns. It is our sins that laid upon His back the cruel and heavy stripes. It is our sins that nailed Him to the tree. Surely it is our sins that we see in the sufferings of His cross, in His tears, in His sorrows, in His wounds, and in His death.
Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus looked and saw a precious body to be lovingly laid away.
God the Father looked and saw the sacrifice of His only-begotten Son.
When you look at the cross, what do you see? Do you see the love of God for a lost humanity? He died in our stead. It is by the love of God for us that we are delivered from so terrible a penalty.
When you look upon the cross, what do you see? Do you see our victory over sin and death and the grave? Through the torn veil of His flesh, we have our entrance into heaven.
When you look upon the cross, do you hear God’s call to the human heart? Do you not feel God’s entreaty to your own soul?
He was raised between the heaven and the earth, as though both rejected Him, despised by men and refused by God.The centurion assigned the task of executing Him makes his official report to the Roman procurator, “He is dead.”
And as though abuse were not vile enough, they covered Him with spittle.
And as though spittle were not contemptuous enough, they plucked out His beard.
And as though plucking out His beard was not brutal enough, they drove in great nails.
And as though the nails did not pierce deeply enough, He was crowned with thorns.
And as though the thorns were not agonizing enough, He was pierced through with a Roman spear.
It was earth’s saddest hour, and it was humanity’s deepest, darkest day.
At three o’clock in the afternoon it was all over. The Lord of life bowed His head and the light of the world flickered out.
Tread softly around the cross, for Jesus is dead. Repeat the refrain in hushed and softened tones: the Lord of life is dead.
The lips that spoke forth Lazarus from the grave are now stilled in the silence of death, and the head that was anointed by Mary of Bethany is bowed with its crown of thorns.
The eyes that wept over Jerusalem are glazed in death, and the hands that blessed little children are nailed to a tree.
And the feet that walked on the waters of blue Galilee are fastened to a cross, and the heart that went out in compassionate love and sympathy for the poor and the lost of the world is now broken; He is dead.
The infuriated mob that cried for His crucifixion gradually disperses; He is dead.
And the passersby who stop just to see Him go on their way; He is dead.
The Pharisees, rubbing their hands in self-congratulation, go back to the city; He is dead.
And the Sadducees, breathing sighs of relief, return to their coffers in the temple; He is dead.
And the four, the quaternion of soldiers sent to dispatch the victims, seeing the Man on the center cross was certainly dead, brake not His bones, but pierce Him through with a spear; He is dead.
And Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus of the Sanhedrin go personally to Pontius Pilate and beg of the Roman governor His body, because He is dead.Wherever His disciples met, in an upper room, or on a lonely road, or behind closed doors, or in hiding places, the same refrain is sadly heard, “He is dead. He is in a tomb; they have sealed the grave and set a guard; He is dead.”
Mary His mother and the women with her are bowed in sobs and in tears; He is dead.
And the eleven apostles, like frightened sheep, crawl into eleven shadows to hide from the pointing finger of Jerusalem and they cry, “He is dead!”
It would be almost impossible for us to enter into the depths of despair that gripped their hearts.
Simon Peter, the rock, is a rock no longer.
And James and John, the sons of Boanerges, are sons of thunder no longer.
And Simon the Zealot is a zealot no longer.
He is dead, and the hope of the world has perished with Him.
Then, then, then…
Soli Deo gloria,
The Reader
Post-Capitalism?
I read an intellectual piece in a magazine I am starting to look at more these days called n+1. The piece can be found here.
The author gives quick references to various capitalistic theories and offers some reflections. The biggest questions being where is the capitalistic cycle of replacing worker with machine and so the taking of worker's control; the elites benefiting from the creative uses of debt; and the trend to political socialism taking us in the future?
I thought some of the following quotes were interesting:
All this[open source code, info capitalism], Mason imagines, offers a way out—as long as some (nearly impossible) political conditions are achieved. “Once firms are forbidden to set monopoly prices,” he suggests as a first step, “and a universal basic income is available . . . the market is actually the transmitter of the ‘zero marginal cost’ effect, which manifests as falling labor time across society.” In other words, he imagines antimonopoly laws becoming robust (in the absence of a populist movement), so that companies like Google lose their hegemony and networked indignados can take over production (in the absence of a labor movement), using Amazon-like tools of tracking to calculate societal needs, and produce everything for free (in the absence of anyone desiring to make money). All the problems of the world dissolve in a warm open-source bath! Capitalism loses on the playing fields of Valve Software.
But the potential for this sort of mass liberation of everything isn’t a guarantee that it will ever take place: to refute the theory of a tendency toward “zero marginal costs,” one only need provide a single instance of its opposite. And Mason in fact provides several: to wit, Google, Facebook, and Apple, which have a near monopoly on search, social networking, and music. Even a company that begins from open-source models—GitHub—finds ways to make its operations profitable.
The familiar cycle—workers continue to go into debt to make up for weak income; this debt is turned into lucrative financial instruments by downtown wizards; these instruments collapse when their basis is revealed to be valueless; eventually new instruments are founded on new kinds of debt—continually reasserts itself.
The vision of the accelerationists breaks with an idea that has been with the left for generations: that work itself would be liberated and redeemed under socialism. Free time would become more abundant, but work, too, would become more joyous. Craftsmanship would alternate with leisure. The tribune of this idea has always been William Morris, who wrote that “art is man’s expression of his joy in labour.”
Automation isn’t a neutral, inevitable part of capitalism. It comes about through the desire to break formal and informal systems of workers’ control—including unions—and replace them with managerially controlled and minutely surveilled systems of piecework. An entire political and legal infrastructure has been built up to make these so-called tendencies seem like the natural progression of capitalism, rather than the effects of fights—sometimes simple, sometimes violent—to deprive people of whatever sense of control they have over their work.
All in all, I think a good question from the article was "what is the social vision appropriate for a jobless future?" I don't feel in any way adequate to face these kind of economic questions but find it interesting to think about them and the desire to learn more.
Soli Deo gloria,
The Reader
The author gives quick references to various capitalistic theories and offers some reflections. The biggest questions being where is the capitalistic cycle of replacing worker with machine and so the taking of worker's control; the elites benefiting from the creative uses of debt; and the trend to political socialism taking us in the future?
I thought some of the following quotes were interesting:
All this[open source code, info capitalism], Mason imagines, offers a way out—as long as some (nearly impossible) political conditions are achieved. “Once firms are forbidden to set monopoly prices,” he suggests as a first step, “and a universal basic income is available . . . the market is actually the transmitter of the ‘zero marginal cost’ effect, which manifests as falling labor time across society.” In other words, he imagines antimonopoly laws becoming robust (in the absence of a populist movement), so that companies like Google lose their hegemony and networked indignados can take over production (in the absence of a labor movement), using Amazon-like tools of tracking to calculate societal needs, and produce everything for free (in the absence of anyone desiring to make money). All the problems of the world dissolve in a warm open-source bath! Capitalism loses on the playing fields of Valve Software.
But the potential for this sort of mass liberation of everything isn’t a guarantee that it will ever take place: to refute the theory of a tendency toward “zero marginal costs,” one only need provide a single instance of its opposite. And Mason in fact provides several: to wit, Google, Facebook, and Apple, which have a near monopoly on search, social networking, and music. Even a company that begins from open-source models—GitHub—finds ways to make its operations profitable.
The familiar cycle—workers continue to go into debt to make up for weak income; this debt is turned into lucrative financial instruments by downtown wizards; these instruments collapse when their basis is revealed to be valueless; eventually new instruments are founded on new kinds of debt—continually reasserts itself.
The vision of the accelerationists breaks with an idea that has been with the left for generations: that work itself would be liberated and redeemed under socialism. Free time would become more abundant, but work, too, would become more joyous. Craftsmanship would alternate with leisure. The tribune of this idea has always been William Morris, who wrote that “art is man’s expression of his joy in labour.”
Automation isn’t a neutral, inevitable part of capitalism. It comes about through the desire to break formal and informal systems of workers’ control—including unions—and replace them with managerially controlled and minutely surveilled systems of piecework. An entire political and legal infrastructure has been built up to make these so-called tendencies seem like the natural progression of capitalism, rather than the effects of fights—sometimes simple, sometimes violent—to deprive people of whatever sense of control they have over their work.
All in all, I think a good question from the article was "what is the social vision appropriate for a jobless future?" I don't feel in any way adequate to face these kind of economic questions but find it interesting to think about them and the desire to learn more.
Soli Deo gloria,
The Reader
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