Le Sabot Post-Moderne

"Extremist," is the pejorative-of-choice spat by socialists to tar squishy moderates who dare challenge the dogma of the left.

Trouble is, socialists run out of vocabulary resources when it comes to any threatened resurgence of a political religious right. They foam at the mouth and reach, as they have recently, for one of the last drops in their rhetorical bucket and scream, "Fascist!"

How comical. To them, the epitome of ‘far-right extremism’ was Hitler - who was in fact one of them, an avowed atheistic socialist. Hence, their last, worst-word-of-choice to hurl at reviled leadership on the right is, "Hitler! In their view, Bush merits the moniker.

But, their political spectrum of choice is deeply flawed. The political world isn’t balanced by leftist-heavyweight Marx and the false right-heavyweight Hitler. Nor is the ‘spectrum’ lateral, with a balancing ‘center.’ It is vertical, with God at the top, and Satan at the bottom.

No, this isn’t bringing religion into politics, it is acknowledging that politics is not the invention of secular mankind. It is an Institution of God, who gave the world His Law, His Ordinances and His Earthly Example of what human government should look like. The American Founders talked about, and attempted to follow that example. But, in a short time the church went to sleep, failing to remember the teachings of founding church leaders such as Samuel Langdon.

Trouble is, today within the ‘church’ - God’s examples, contained in the greatest political textbook known to mankind, are lost on the political aspirations of those such as Falwell - who place themselves at the bottom of the vertical political spectrum, as the desire for wealth and power trump Biblical verity.

For those interested - the entire text of the most excellent two volume set of, Political Sermons of the American Founding Era by Ellis Sandoz, is available on the net HERE.

I’ve owned a copy since the first publication, and frequently spend time re-reading them. There is no more excellent refutation to the myth that Christians were not involved in founding thinking than plunking down these volumes in front of the ignorant .

Ron C-

I'm so glad to have you on the blog, man. :)

It's funny you should mention that sermon series. When the Duchess and I were dating, years and years ago, we used to read from that together. Some exciting romance, huh?

Dear DS - I need some prudent advice. I diiiiiiiislike Falwell, but Liberty U. has a new law school which has as its Dean a Mr. Green who seems to be a thorough-going neocalvinist ... or at least the kind of evangelical who reads much and carefully, including in his case Calvin, Groen, Kuyper and Dooyeweerd. Do I (a) ignore the law school, (b) boost the law school, or (c) dis the law school ... or are there other options?

"Some exciting romance, huh?"

8^) - it may sound dull to some, but a meeting of the minds and spirit has to occur for love to begin to flourish. You are a lucky man... and apparently wise too.

One thing I learned from the Good Book was that love is an act of volition - the will. It isn’t something you 'fall in' - it is a deliberate choice based on many things - not the least of which is God’s command that we love one another, our wives, and yes - even our enemies. It's a command to act - not an 'if you feel' proposition.

A mans love is unconditional determined action - taken even when the object of our love isn’t very lovable, which can often be the case in any marriage or other relationship. So, once we shoulder that fact - that it takes effort at times, that it is an act of will, and that it is what God tells us is the right thing to do - we begin to find out that love is what we make of it. We can feed and grow it, or we can let it wither and die. Buy some flowers tomorrow. It's the right thing to do. Tell her she is beautiful, when she looks a mess. Deliberate love works wonders.

It is interesting to note too, that only husbands are given the task of willful love. Wives are not given that duty - their task is different. But, that’s the subject for another post.

Ron-

Have you ever read Doug Wilson's "Reforming Marriage"? It's a good Biblical, Calvinist view of the marriage relationship. . . He makes many points which are sympatico with yours. You might like it. :)

And your right about the meeting of the minds. . . My wife and I knew each other almost entirely through correspondence, because we met about a month before I entered the military, and we kept a long-distance relationship going for 4 years. And this was before email! Ours was almost exclusively a "meeting of the minds".

"a long-distance relationship... for 4 years"

Perfect! 8^)

Almost no better way exists to start a relationship. The old ways of long-term courting (often involving chaperonage) encouraged long-term exploration of the mind and soul while almost completely marginalizing the physical. Unfortunately, priorities today are nearly the exact opposite - a practice that leads to virtually certain failure to attain life-long connubial oneness.

Funny, I thought that Calvinism died off with the Puritans.

As for the Evangelical movement, I do hope that it manages to deal with demagogues like Falwell.

FH-

Really? That's wild. . . At the time of the American Revolution, about 85% of the American people were of Reformed stock. They stayed extremely prevalent throughout the 19th Century. Dispensationalism is today the dominant theological strain, and the founders of Dispensationalism almost all called themselves Calvinists.

In the States, the Evangelical Recrudescence of the 1950's was led in large part by Reformed Christians.

Calvinism has gotten even more popular in the past two decades, reaching beyond its traditional boundaries into almost every Protestant denomination. The Southern Baptists, the largest Protestant denomination, have a huge Calvinist component, and 2 out of 6 of their largets seminaries are run by Calvinists. Al Mohler, a Calvinist, is considered a very possible future leader of the SBC.

Institutionally, Calvinism is growing like crazy. In the past ten years alone, 14 new seminaries have opened. Covenant has gone from being a 200-person seminary to having over 2,000, making it one of the largest in the country. Along with this has come lots of church planting, campus groups, conferences, magazines, etc. It's exploding.

Worldwide, the Reformed tradition has about 70 million adherents. For example, 2/3rds of Korean Christians are Presbyterian. I don't have stats, but at one point there were like 500 Korean missionaries in Russia alone. It's the fastest growing church in Japan, and is spreading quickly in places as diverse as Nigeria and Peru.

Calvinists do especially well in Muslim countries. I think this is partly because of our belief in predestination, which while differing heavily from Islamic fatalism, does give them an easir transition. The other reason is the heavy, heavy emphasis on grace that is foundational to Reformed theology. After the rigors of Islam, the preaching of grace must sound especially sweet. Those have been major themes in my discussions with my Iranian friends here.

Anyway, that's just a quick thumbnail of where things stand today in the Calvinist world. :-)