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We Really Don't Need to Make a Religion Out of Science
This from the “godfather of global warming”, among other things:
Lovelock blasted greens for treating global warming like a religion.
“It just so happens that the green religion is now taking over from the Christian religion,” Lovelock observed. “I don’t think people have noticed that, but it’s got all the sort of terms that religions use … The greens use guilt. That just shows how religious greens are. You can’t win people round by saying they are guilty for putting (carbon dioxide) in the air.”
I’ve written about this before on evolution, and it applies here too. The powers that be are going to have to answer a serious question: is this science or a religion you’re setting forth for us to believe? Lovelock, like me, is seeing more and more of the latter, and this other remark of his bears repeating:
Finally, about claims “the science is settled” on global warming: “One thing that being a scientist has taught me is that you can never be certain about anything. You never know the truth. You can only approach it and hope to get a bit nearer to it each time. You iterate towards the truth. You don’t know it.”
That’s the way it is with science. As I noted in my master’s thesis, “This work fits the mould as outlined by Pascal above: it takes the work that has been done before, advances it a step while realizing that there are many more steps before “perfection” is achieved.”
There’s one important difference between the Christianity that Lovelock thinks is being displaced (in the West maybe, not overall) and the environmental religion. Christianity offers a free, unmerited way of relieving guilt by taking away the sin that causes it. The only quick way out of the guilt of environmentalism is mass suicide, otherwise as long as we live and breathe we’re part of the problem and must be guilty.
There is, therefore, now no condemnation for those who are in union with Christ Jesus; For through your union with Christ Jesus, the Law of the life- giving Spirit has set you free from the Law of Sin and Death. What Law could not do, in so far as our earthly nature weakened its action, God did, by sending his own Son, with a nature resembling our sinful nature, to atone for sin. He condemned sin in that earthly nature, So that the requirements of the Law might be satisfied in us who live now in obedience, not to our earthly nature, but to the Spirit. (Romans 8:1-4)
Guess which one I like better?
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Maybe the NAE Will Ruin Us After All
Things aren’t going to plan in the vanguard against liberalism:
It gets worse. In 2010, the NAE adopted a resolution seeking “common ground” and “fresh national dialogue” on the subject of reducing the number of abortions in the United States. Cizik’s successor, Galen Carey, said at the time that partnering with notorious pro-abortion groups like Planned Parenthood was a possibility. It would seem logical to conclude that the alliance between the NAE and the Campaign is an outgrowth of the 2010 resolution.
A few weeks back I posted Did the NAE Really Ruin the Church of God? In that I discussed the impact (or lack of it) of the Church of God joining the National Association of Evangelicals. Some people in our denomination contend that joining the NAE turned our pacifist, free-form Pentecostal church into an authoritarian structure, something I don’t think can be justified by a careful examination of history.
What’s going on here, however, is all too familiar to someone who’s spent much of his life in and around the Anglican/Episcopal world. It’s the same mentality we saw in the Episcopal and other Main Line churches starting in the 1960’s and proceeding to the present: if we do not “engage the culture” by at least meeting it halfway (and that journey usually takes us further than that) we’ll become irrelevant. Well, if there’s any lesson of the last half century of Episcopal history, it’s that doing this guarantees irrelevancy, because the message you proclaim (such as it is) is no different from the secularists you’re trying to ape. So why bother with a church under these conditions?
Evangelicals these days are especially vulnerable to this kind of attack because they’re inveterate populists. Their aim is to get the Word out to as many people as possible, and this requires adaptability and casting a wide net to as large of a group of people as possible. When adaptability becomes accommodation, as we’re seeing with the NAE, that cast net is getting snagged on a bottom littered with the wreckage of others who have tried the same thing.
It seems that it is time for NAE members to seriously reconsider their affiliation to this organisation, which has apparently outlived its usefulness.
P.S. Note to Anglicans: it’s this kind of thing which led me to oppose the Anglican Covenant. I think that such a centralised structure is too easy of a conduit for rot at the top to spread down. I’m inclined to believe that’s something that Rowan Williams knew going in; it’s interesting that TEC never caught on to that angle.
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The Important Difference Between Inexcusable and Unforgivable
I recently read a Father’s Day article from a man well-known in men’s ministry circles, who described the importance of forgiving his father for certain things, as his father had to do with his father, and so on. One of the commenters launched into a bitter diatribe about his nasty Broward County divorce, about how his wife and the court system had treated him shamefully, and how he could not bring himself to forgive either.
As a South Floridian, dragging Broward County into the mix got my attention. My wife and I have been married for many years; however, I have been involved with several nasty, drawn-out divorces of family members and business associates. The Bible states that God hates divorce (Malachi 2:16) and after what I’ve experienced I can see why. To throw a typically South Floridian mix of studied apathy, heartless aggression and huffy moralism into the mix can have an searingly painful result.
But unforgivable? As a Christian, unforgiveness is not an option, for reasons such as this:
For, if you forgive others their offences, your heavenly Father will forgive you also; But, if you do not forgive others their offences, not even your Father will forgive your offences. (Matthew 6:14-15)
It amazes me that members of our ostentatiously secular press always ask people who have been wronged whether they have forgiven those who have harmed them or their family. It’s a form of Christless Christianity, which we see in abundance these days. We also see feelings like the Broward County man expressed, and given the trend in our society towards secularism we should expect this. But that doesn’t change what Our Lord expects out of us.
But how do we deal with heinous acts without looking like we’re just blowing them off? One key is to understand that, although there is nothing that is right to be unforgivable, there are many things which are flatly inexcusable. Paul certainly understands this concept:
For ever since the creation of the universe God’s invisible attributes-his everlasting power and divinity-are to be seen and studied in his works, so that men have no excuse; Because, although they learned to know God, yet they did not offer him as God either praise or thanksgiving. Their speculations about him proved futile, and their undiscerning minds were darkened. (Romans 1:20-21)
As humans, we are going to make mistakes. But also as humans we are supposed to learn not to. When we do things that we should know better about, and get caught, we usually offer one or more excuses to try to justify ourselves. But in the end ignorance only reaches so far: there comes a point where we pass beyond excuse and into the realm of accountability in this life.
But being without excuse doesn’t men we are without forgiveness. That’s because forgiveness, unlike excusing, is an act of grace, that unmerited favour that we receive from the work of Jesus Christ on the Cross. He, in turn, expects us to pass that unmerited favour of forgiveness to others, which he why he tied his forgiveness of us to our forgiveness of others. But that doesn’t mean that we have to either excuse, condone or emulate what is going on around us or to us.
And brings me back to our unforgiving fellow in Broward County. There are many things in same county–and the neighbours to the north and south–which are inexcusable, which is why it’s the land “where the animals are tame and the people run wild”. It’s not easy to forgive things and people on the one hand and recognise that they are wrong and without excuse on the other. But failure to do so not only makes our eternity miserable but ruins the time between now and then.
So the next time you’re ready to blurt out that something or someone is unforgivable, stop and think: do you really want to say or think that? Or would it be better to say that many today, like in Paul’s day, are simply inexcusable?
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The Tithe in Old Palestine
I recently came across a fascinating book entitled The Handbook of Palestine by H.C. Luke and E. Keith-Roach. Produced in 1922 by the British Mandate government which had just taken control of the country after a long Ottoman Turkish rule, it’s a fascinating snapshot of the Holy Land beginning its transition to the State of Israel and the other claimants of the land. I plan to reproduce some of the more interesting parts of the book on a sporadic basis.
This post takes a look at the tithe, a subject of long-running interest on this blog. It’s interesting that the tithe, originally a Hebrew institution, was taken over so readily by the Muslims; such will come as a shock to many Christians, who regard the tithe as a Christian institution. It’s also interesting how the British administration became involved so quickly in the collection of taxes for Muslim religious endowments.
Moslem religious endowments (waqfs), that is, property appropriated or dedicated (by a document called a waqfiah) to charitable uses and the service of God…
The chief source of revenue of Moslem endowments is the tithe. Tithe was dedicated as waqf by the Sultans or, with their permission, by feudal chiefs, from the earliest times of the Islamic conquests. It forms 55 per cent, of the revenue of the Moslem religious endowments in Palestine, and the waqf tithe is approximately 12.75 per cent.of the total tithe revenue of the country. The revenue department collects the waqf share of the dedicated tithes, handing over the proceeds to the Supreme Moslem Council. For the financial year ended 31st March, 1921, the collections on behalf of Moslem endowments amounted to LE.27,649 ; and for the financial year 1921-22 have considerably exceeded this sum owing to the restitution of the Khasqi Sultan Waqf by the Government to the Waqf authorities. This famous waqf, which was founded by the mother of Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent in 1547, was seized by Ibrahim Pasha when he occupied Palestine and Syria in 1831 (see Part I., § 6) and was retained by the Ottoman Government when it resumed control of the country in 1841. The return of its revenue, which amounts to c. LE. 10,400 per annum, to the objects of dedication has demonstrated the impartiality of the present Administration, and has favourably influenced Moslem opinion throughout Palestine.
One of the oldest Mulhaqa waqfs in Palestine is the Tamimi waqf at Hebron. This waqf, it is claimed, was dedicated to the Tamimi family by the Prophet Mohammed himself. Another important (tithe) waqf, also connected with Hebron, is one attached to the Mosque of Abraham mentioned above. Its average annual revenue amounts to LE. 15,000.
A little later the tithe is explained in more detail:
The system of tithe dates from earliest times. Originally one-tenth of the crop was taken in kind. Ottoman legislation, through financial necessity, has increased this rate to one-eighth or 12 1/2%, viz. 1 1/2% by Decree of 1302 (1886) and 1% by Decree of 13 13 (1897). Tithes were farmed out to contractors at the time of the British Occupation, and were often a source of abuse and imposition upon the peasantry.
Since the Occupation the system of tithing has been continued, but the contractor has been eliminated, and direct assessment and collection of tithes inaugurated. The tithe of one-eighth, formerly taken in kind, is now collected in money, and assessed in kilogrammes. The list of prices is fixed and a statement of assessment is posted in each village. Appeals against the redemption price are heard by a special committee, whose decision is final. Such appeals must be lodged within ten days from the publication of the redemption price.
Redemption prices are fixed by the Department of Revenue after consultation with Governors, who, in turn, obtain the opinions of local councils, mukhtars, notables,
big farmers, etc., fixing the redemption price slightly below the local market price.Comparison of Redemption Prices :
1919 P.T. 1920 P.T. 1921 P.T. Wheat per kilo 2.2 2.25 1.4 Barley 1.2 1.3 0.7 Durra 1.2 1.2 0.75 Simsin 4.8 5 3.2 Oranges per case 12 10 14 Olive oil per kilo 12 9 7 The collection of the redemption price is not made from each individual cultivator, but from the mukhtar, who undertakes to collect the entire amount due from his village against a rebate of 2% of the amount collected. The amount may be settled in three monthly and equal instalments. Arrears due after this period are subject to 9% interest.
Tithe is taken on cereals, fruits and vegetables. The produce of mulk lands, which are of the freehold category, is exempted when enclosed to the extent of less than one donum. Other mulk lands in the vicinity of towns also enjoy immunity from tithe, but they are subject to a higher rate for land tax, i.e. 10 per mille, with additions amounting to 56% of the original tax.
Seasonal variations in crops necessitate two separate annual assessments, the first, during the months of April, May and June, known as the ” Winter Tithe,” and the second, during July and August, known as the ” Summer Tithe.” Separate estimations are carried out on fruits and vegetables.
An estimating commission is composed of two Government representatives, a clerk and a village elder, the two former being salaried officials of the Government. Control is exercised by special control commissions, which are again further controlled by officials of the District Administration.
The estimation of crops is carried out in some instances by assessing the standing crops ; in others, crops are assessed on the thrashing floor, the choice of either method being left to the Governors’ discretion. The assessment for tithe amounted in 1919 to £E. 273,000, in 1920 to £E. 488,600, and in 1921 to £E. 292,000.
The above figures include tithes which are assigned to Moslem religious endowments (awqaf).
The Government continues to carry out the provisions of the Ottoman Tithe Laws of 1889 and 1891, which in so far as the theory of tithing is concerned are adequate. Vineyards planted with American stock are exempted from tithes for a period of ten years from the date of planting (Public Notice of the 25th September, 1920).
Cotton is exempted from the payment of tithe for a period of two years (Public Notice of the 15th February, 1921). Lands which are leased by or through the Department of Agriculture for crop experimentation are immune from the payment of tithe.
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Chicago: The City of Big Shoulders Slumps
Things are not pretty in the Windy City these days:
But despite the chorus of praise, it’s becoming evident that the city took a serious turn for the worse during the first decade of the new century. The gleaming towers, swank restaurants, and smart shops remain, but Chicago is experiencing a steep decline quite different from that of many other large cities. It is a deeply troubled place, one increasingly falling behind its large urban brethren and presenting a host of challenges for new mayor Rahm Emanuel.
As a descendant of people who helped to make Chicago into this country’s “Second City” I find this very sad. The further I went back into both my family business’ 108 years in Chicago (1852-1960) and our time yachting and shipbuilding on Lake Michigan the more I came to understand how Chicago got where it was and some sense how it declined after that.
It’s easy to forget it now, but Chicago, from its beginnings through the Civil War and the Great Fire until about World War I was this country’s premier boom town. It grew to become at one point in the 1890’s one of the world’s largest cities; the 1892 Columbian Exposition was one of the nineteenth century’s signature world’s fairs. Going through the maps and photos, a vibrant city with suburban style recognisable even today emerges.Right: my great-grandparents’ home in Buena Park, sometime around the turn of the last century.
So how did we get to the morass we have in Illinois in general and Chicago in particular we have today? It’s hard to verbalise it, but somewhere along the way the entrepreneurs who lead the building of the place engendered a great deal of resentment among the various immigrant groups who came to do the work in Chicago. The result has been a running class warfare that has poisoned Chicago and Illinois politics from the Haymarket Riots of 1886 through the rise of both Saul Alinsky in the streets and the various and sundry machines in City Hall which have, as power centralising schemes of both fascistic and socialistic kinds do, ended up producing an opposite result from the egalitarian goal.
Below: my family business’ first recorded advertisement, in 1863. Meeting your customers’ needs is crucial for the success of any business.
The result, of course, is that many businesses, especially small ones which struggle to navigate the Byzantine paths of Illinois law, leave, as we did in 1960. Now Chicago struggles with keeping up not only with places like Houston and Dallas/Ft. Worth (which have preserved Chicago’s early dynamic better than Chicago did) but more “traditional” cities like New York or even a place like Los Angeles, ensconced in a People’s Republic with its own problems.
And that leads me to the general relevance of this situation: it’s no secret that Barack Obama knows the “Chicago style” and uses it. It’s true that spreading this around to the entire country would end flights like ours and the many other businesses and people who have left Chicago for better opportunities, save for outright emigration. But would we have a better country as a result? Chicago’s experience tells us no.
One thing in the City Journal article amused me:
A prominent civic leader suggests that the city should avoid branding itself as part of the Midwest.
Although the reality is that Chicago is the commercial centre of America’s Heartland, Chicagoans traditionally consider themselves as a world apart from the “cornfield” that surrounds them. This suggestion has long roots in Chicago snobbery, but it’s probably not very helpful in bringing the city’s greatness back. Chicago, like any other place on this earth, needs to connect with the world at large in a meaningful way, but it doesn’t need to forget its immediate hinterland either, which still has the potential for greatness, kazoo concerts notwithstanding.
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My Reply to Glendon Hermanus on the Tithe and the Authority of the Church
A few of you will remember my exchange with Russell Earl Kelly on the tithe. Given the way the tithe is generally presented in full-gospel churches, I’m surprised that I haven’t gotten a great deal of blowback on my position.
That has finally come from one Glendon Hermanus from South Africa, who commented on one of my own replies to Kelly. Since Hermanus has taken the trouble to verbalise what many people probably think about this site, I think a thorough reply is in order.
Let’s look at his comment, and begin with this:
Reading through your website, and your reasoning on the subject of tithing, dare I say Mr. Kelly, you have done major damage in subverting the authority of the church, and a God-given principle, the tithe and offerings, to give individual believers breakthrough in their personal lives.
The first problem is that Evangelical churches have subverted their own authority through serial rebellion, as I demonstrate in Authority and Evangelical Churches. As far as the benefits of the tithes and offerings are concerned, I’ve always felt that there are so many preachers that make this their ministry obsession that someone needs to balance this with other considerations such as personal (and ecclesiastical) thrift and a general distrust of the stability of the systems of this world (which addresses the political side of prosperity teaching).
Then we have this:
I doubt that you are Spirit-filled, or that you are a born-again Christian, and am concerned that you have become a spokesman for people who will do anything to wiggle themselves out of obedience to God’s Laws and principles, which God has given to cause the Church to walk in victory and freedom.
If he’s serious about being Biblical on this point, he should at least go to my pastor on this, who is probably sympathetic to his point of view. But then he might have to listen to an account of all the work I have put in on my church’s finance committee to ensure that my church can “walk in victory and freedom”. I want my church and God’s work to succeed: I’m not convinced, however, that a lot of the church’s financial ways (and I’m thinking about its own stewardship of the resources that God has given it) are a way to get it where it needs to go.
That leads me to another point that Pastor Hermanus probably doesn’t want to talk about: stewardship is a two-way street. One the one side God’s people should support God’s work. On the other hand the church is obligated to both manage those resources in a responsible way and be transparent about it to those who give.
I also suspect that he missed the following:
Finally, on a more personal note, I make a lot on the site about growing up in Palm Beach, probably too much. (People do find it interesting, though…) My wife, on the other end, grew up in very serious poverty. But she and her family tithed and gave offerings through the whole dearth of resources. They also backed this up with serious Christian living and very tight management of their substance. The blessings we have today are in no small measure a result of that faithful (and comprehensive) stewardship. (Dr. Kelly might argue that being married to me isn’t much of a blessing, and he’s probably right!) People who have the same experience (and there are many) will find Dr. Kelly’s message very offensive, especially his characterisation of tithing as a “lottery,” which is one reason I satirised it the way I did. The next reaction he gets may exhibit more anger and pain than mine.
He rounds out his comment with this:
Your energies could be better used to bring balance to the subject of giving, by teaching God’s people how to overcome by giving, instead of pages of criticism with no solutions for the individual believer. Teach them what God’s Kingdom is all about. Teach them they are in the world and not of the world.
One of my big objections to prosperity teaching as now taught is that it reduces the Christian life to a transactional process based on finances. That, in my opinion, is worldly. How is it possible that we can pay off a God who owns everything? How can we pay for a salvation that could only be won by a fully divine Saviour on the cross? How can we make money the centre of our Christian walk when we cannot serve it and God at the same time?
As far as “balance” is concerned, that was one of my goals with Kelly. Both Kelly and Hermanus have a shared assumption: that, for something to be practised, it must have explicit Biblical mandate. Kelly rejects the tithe because it doesn’t have the mandate he’s looking for; Hermanus insists that it does. In a sense I answered both with this, from the original post:
Christianity is a total commitment: life, mind, heart, soul and possessions. Most laity have to work for a living; they give a third of their time and a larger portion of their energies into making a living. What they give to their church and to the ministries is a part of them. Dr. Kelly can go back and forth all he wants on whether tithing is what is needed, but given the totality of the Christian commitment, 10% is still low except for the destitute (and I dealt with that in the last post as well.) Dr. Kelly dislikes tithing, but what does he propose for an alternative to support the work of the church? A few pence in the offering? Or no offering at all?
I still believe that the New Testament standard is higher than the tithe and higher than even the offerings that Pastor Hermanus is so fixated on. There are good practical reasons why the church in Apostolic times backed off from the communal system Jerusalem used, but the principle of total commitment remains.
If enunciating that principle then and now is Pastor Hermanus’ idea of “pages of criticism with no solutions for the individual believer” then so be it. My guess, however, is that my fault in his eyes is that I don’t make a strong enough link between the Christian’s need to make a complete life commitment with their finances and the local church’s absolute entitlement to the fruits of that commitment, and that deserves an explanation.
I’ve spent time in a variety of churches over the years. I think the local church is the key place in a believer’s life. And I don’t believe in supporting or being part of a church whose teachings are unBiblical. I probably should have said it before on this blog but I’ll say it now: a church that isn’t worth tithing to probably isn’t worth belonging to.
But the large variety of churches that one is presented with in the Evangelical world, for better or worse, changes the dynamic from an authority/obligation one to a fellowship/trust earning one. Evangelical churches are set up to compete one with another; they need to earn the trust and respect of their flocks and not simply expect them to perform. (Actually, any church needs to earn the respect of its flock and not simply demand it, but I digress). And, of course, there is the issue of parachurch ministries, which drives many pastors batty. But many of these are doing ministry that local churches and denominations, for one reason or another, cannot or will not do.
I believe that a local church which is faithful to the Gospel and is a good steward of what it receives will never lack for resources to do the work that Jesus has sent us to do.
Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
Positive Infinity 