There is something seriously wrong with America's judiciary when Scalia and Thomas can take the position they did in this case. Mrs. Mix and I are in essential agreement in this area . . . except I would like to add that the solution to problems like this is to give the word of God final say in all lawmaking and jurisprudence. Mrs. Mix comes close to admitting as much when she says, "Well, the Constitution may not forbid it -- a pretty dubious point in itself -- but the Word of God does." Precisely. And when our nation humbly acknowledges the Lordship of the Triune God and the ultimate authority of His Law-Word, He will shine His face upon us once again.
And by the way, just in case there is any doubt to the contrary, although it would be wonderful to have Supreme Court justices who did not say things like ". . . my faith and my religious beliefs do not play a role in judging -- when it comes to judging, I look to the law books and always have; I don't look to the Bible or any other religious source" (John Roberts, in his confirmation hearings), the way to arrive at the point where our nation acknowledges the Lordship of the Triune God and the ultimate authority of His Law-Word is not to focus on appointing conservative Christian judges who will try to force such a perspective down the throats of a majority of Americans who are hostile to such a view. (Such an approach would likely result in a humiliation at least as bad as this, if not worse.) Rather, the core of our approach must be to see that the word of God is preached in all its fullness from the pulpits of our churches, worship God in purity, and live concomitantly from Monday through Saturday with what we say, hear and do in church on Sunday. That is the approach that will transform the culture and restore righteous judgment to our courts.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
A Prevailing Winds post I'd like to see
Acknowledgment that this is an excellent, bang-up Doug Wilson sermon (PDF summary here) on the importance of works of mercy, one sermon (but hardly the only sermon) that gives an indication of how Rev. Wilson and Christ Church have been misrepresented by Keely Emerine-Mix in the past.
One can always argue over matters of relative emphasis, but over the years there has been enough attention to the importance of works of mercy at Christ Church that Mrs. Mix's failure to properly acknowledge that attention, when considered together with her endless Wilson-bashing, must be seen as a serious oversight on her part.
I'm pretty sure that eventually (after several weeks) all sermons get cycled out of easy online access from the Christ Church website, so I have taken the liberty of backing them up here. (Without permission.)
One can always argue over matters of relative emphasis, but over the years there has been enough attention to the importance of works of mercy at Christ Church that Mrs. Mix's failure to properly acknowledge that attention, when considered together with her endless Wilson-bashing, must be seen as a serious oversight on her part.
I'm pretty sure that eventually (after several weeks) all sermons get cycled out of easy online access from the Christ Church website, so I have taken the liberty of backing them up here. (Without permission.)
Burying the hatchet . . . in Doug Wilson's skull
But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes . . . Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him. (1 John)
For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another . . . Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are . . . wrath, strife, seditions, heresies . . . But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not be . . . provoking one another. (Galatians 5)
It must be freely admitted that Doug Wilson has his faults and has made his mistakes. It is impossible for anyone to pastor a church without sinning, and the more successful a Christian minister is, the more his failings are going to be in the spotlight. But as Christians we must strive for balance and fairness in our judgments of others. It is a fact, our Lord Himself told us, that the more faithful we are to Him, the more we will be persecuted and reviled by this rebellious world and those Christians (so-called) who have made their peace with it. Any Christian looking at the opposition aligned against Doug Wilson needs to ask himself how much of it is because of his faithfulness to Christ, and how much of it is because of his failure to faithfully follow Christ. It is my contention that any honest appraisal of Doug Wilson and his visible walk as a Christian has to conclude that he is motivated by a genuine love for Christ, profound faith in the Bible and a desire to live a life as fully in tune with the commandments of Scripture and the leading of the Holy Spirit as possible. Now if that is the case, how could it possibly be that Doug Wilson is hated primarily for failing to faithfully follow Christ?
In her 2006 dialog with Doug Wilson, Keely Emerine-Mix kicked things off with a statement emphasizing that both she and Doug Wilson claim Jesus as Lord and Savior; both have a high view of scripture (believing that the Bible is the Word of God) and believe that Christ shall one day return to judge the living and the dead, that it is important that the gospel be shared and that there be a faithful Christian witness in the community. This emphasis is extremely significant because it affirms that she and Doug Wilson are brother and sister in Christ: if Keely Emerine-Mix is in a relationship with Jesus, and Doug Wilson is in a relationship with Jesus, then through Jesus the two of them are members of the same family -- the same body.
And yet Mrs. Mix’s attacks on Doug Wilson over the years have often been characterized by a superciliousness and lack of charity that is, to put it mildly, inappropriate for one Christian to manifest toward Christian brethren, especially one who is a minister of the gospel.
It is clear that Mrs. Mix and Rev. Wilson are adherents of very different flavors of the Christian faith. He is very clearly Reformed, following in the tradition of Calvin and Augustine; together with those two men he would of course say that he is trying to be faithful to Paul's writings, and to the rest of Scripture. I'm not sure what kind of a theological label would be appropriate to apply to Mrs. Mix (her exact coordinates in the "space" of Christian theology are hard to determine from her online writings) but that she does not look favorably on Calvin is abundantly clear. However -- especially if we fancy ourselves to be champions of tolerance -- we must strive for catholicity in our dealings with Christians from other traditions. Actually, Doug Wilson deserves a great deal of praise for his role in helping to build up the most catholic of any Reformed denomination since the Reformation. Whilst most of the Reformed world has been characterized by a tendency to splinter and cut off fellowship over different views of the Sacraments, church government, etc., the CREC seems to be pioneering a new direction toward building bridges among different Reformed groups.
Now all tolerance has its limits; if Doug Wilson is to be attacked because of such things as his refusal to recognize the legitimacy of homosexual behavior (for example), it must be recognized that in holding to such positions he is being faithful both to historic Christianity and to the received scriptural texts that are taken as authoritative by Christians, and any criticisms directed toward Doug Wilson for such positions must necessarily be taken as implied criticisms of the entire tradition of historical Christianity in which Doug Wilson stands, and even of the scriptural texts upon which the edifice of Christianity is built.
I agree with one of the basic premises of Doug Wilson, which might be expressed as "Love means never having to say you're sorry . . . for anything in the Bible."
So at any rate, after calling Doug Wilson her brother in Christ, it wasn't long before Mrs. Mix let her contempt for him slip through several times during the course of the dialog. Listening to it, I found myself thinking maybe Mrs. Mix should cut affluent white evangelicals some of the same slack she would for homos.
Around the 100-minute mark, listening to Mrs. Mix talk out of both sides of her mouth for two minutes was amazing. Talk about being disingenuous! If she really thinks that someone is not a worse Christian for taking the more conservative view concerning (homo)sexual sin, then where is her beef with Rev. Wilson's position?
Around the 120-minute mark, Mrs. Mix declared that Rev. Wilson is perhaps worse than a racist because he is so comfortable with being white, male, affluent, academically prestigious, etc., that he doesn't care one whit how he's perceived.
It was like a page lifted from Ron Sider's Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger: all that was missing was the plaintive strain of a violin as she pushed all the "guilt buttons." It's too bad that David Chilton is not around to write a new edition of Productive Christians in an Age of Guilt Manipulators -- he could have gotten a lot of material from Mrs. Mix.
Doug Wilson, worse than racist because he's comfortable being white. Presumably he's worse than sexist because he's comfortable being male, worse than envious because he's comfortable being affluent, and worse than having an intellectual inferiority complex because he's comfortable being academically prestigious. If only he cared more about how he's perceived, he wouldn't be so doggone contented with what God has given him in this life.
And presumably Mrs. Mix is not comfortable with being white?
Around the 138-minute mark, Mrs. Mix claims that in
Around the 146-minute mark. Mrs. Mix says gifts are not given on the basis of gender. Oh really? Every man has "family jewels" that were given to him on the basis of his gender, and those determine very clearly what he is and is not capable of doing. If he is to receive any children, it will only be through his wife because only she, on account of her gender, has the gift of child-bearing. I think that pretty well disproves Keely's claim that gifts are unrelated to a person's gender. How many women are operating at the highest echelon of mathematics? Maybe -- maybe -- one. How many women were among the ranks of even second-tier composers of classical music? None. We could mention Barbara Strozzi, Clara Schumann, or Lili and Nadia Boulanger, but even they do not cut the mustard. These things are not explainable solely in terms of "discrimination." It obviously has a hard-wired gender aspect. Mars needs Venus as Venus, and Venus needs Mars as Mars. These functional differences are part of God's created diversity. Let's celebrate the differences!
One serious stumbling block for Mrs. Mix is Doug Wilson's affirmation of the legitimacy of imprecatory prayer, but there is simply too much of it in the New Testament for her to dismiss it as unbiblical: Mark 11:13-21, Galatians 1:8-9, Acts 13:10-11 (cf Deut. 28:28-29, and note that Paul "was filled with the Holy Ghost" when he did this, and note also the principle of lex talonis here), Acts 8:20-22, Revelation 6:10 (cf Rev. 16:5-6, 18:20,24, 19:1-2), and Revelation 15:3.
"Thy kingdom come" is necessarily a call for God to come in judgment of all the earth. Eternal salvation for God's people necessarily involves the eternal separation of God's people from God's enemies, and also a separation of God's people from our own besetting sins. That's why judgment begins from the house of God. And since we are aware of that fact, rather than simply praying to God that He might give "champagne to our real friends and real pain to our sham friends," we pray that God would examine us and purge us of dross at every level from the individual to the global. We pray that God would separate the wheat from the tares, the fruit from the chaff, and the wood/hay/stubble from the gold/silver/jewels, so that ultimately, only universal joyous acknowledgment of Christ's Lordship would remain. In that sense, the imprecatory prayer is one part of a continuous, seamlessly integrated prayer life, and it cannot be eliminated without damaging everything else.
For more on the above see see Dr. John N. Day's dissertation published in Bibliotheca Sacra 159 (April-June 2002), "The Imprecatory Psalms and Christian Ethics" (PDF).
Since that debate took place in 2006, I can't see that much has changed. Without putting too fine a point on it, Doug Wilson is continually portrayed by Mrs. Mix as essentially a purveyor of hate. Following her treatment of Rev. Wilson is sort of like watching the Monty Python "Spam" skit, but with the word "hate" substituted for the word "spam." Without bothering to wade through her communications elsewhere on the Internet, Here are a few nuggets from her blog --
Wilson and his merry men have offered
Wilson, et al, are the objects of scorn because Wilson, et al, behave badly in the public square, and any other community, not just a community of "washed up hippies," would learn to despise a man who delights in offering it a stiff middle finger. How I wish he'd just offer them the Gospel of Christ, with service and humility.
. . . the racist, pro-South, anti-government, patriarchal thread of Christendom has been woven into too much of
I don't believe that
The "serrated edge"
While I don't see a lot of love for his congregation gushing out of
I only care about what Doug Wilson says because I care about the Gospel -- deeply -- and I grieve at how he's butchered it.
. . . [Wilson's] bullying and buffoonery are a poor, poor substitute for love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, mercy, and self control. That, plus a love for the truth and a concern for souls, defines the response of a sober, wise, pastoral man or woman of God . . . exactly what Doug Wilson [isn’t].
Yet another example of government regulations hindering medical progress
The title of this video bashes "big pharma" for dragging its feet on bringing "DCA," a potentially very important and inexpensive anti-cancer drug, to market. The accusation against big pharma is true, but it is only half the truth. The video makes clear that the more ultimate cause of their reluctance to promote this drug is the huge cost of government-required drug testing -- said to run to $100 million -- on a compound that cannot be patented.
A simple solution to problems like this -- similarly orphaned drugs (either naturally-occurring compounds or compounds that have been around too long to be patentable) are by no means rare -- would be to eliminate the morass of government regulations that put a huge hurdle in front of anyone who would bring a new treatment to market. Why not give potential users of such treatments the freedom to make informed decisions about whether to test new treatments on themselves? In this case, people with advanced cancer -- people who feel that they have nothing to lose anyway -- could be allowed to serve as guinea pigs. It would not even be necessary to do double blind clinical tests where some people are given the drugs and some people are given placebos. Rather, as anecdotal evidence accumulated the overall picture of the drug's actual efficacy and safety would emerge soon enough.
We can see from this example how government regulations ostensibly put in place to protect consumers of medicines and health care services often have the unintended consequence of protecting big pharma from competition. If it costs $100 million and many years to bring a new treatment to market, the government has rigged the rules of the game so that ONLY big pharma can play. Meanwhile, sick people suffer because orphaned drugs never reach them, and the treatments that do reach them cost much more than they might have if the morass of government red tape had not existed.
It is a well-known fact that huge corporations HATE more than anything the morass of regulations that government bureaucracies establish. You can hear their constant, terrified refrain --
Oh please, please! Don't throw us into that briar patch! Anything but the briar patch!
Remember, today's huge corporations were born and raised in the briar patch of complex, expensive, onerous government regulations. They are the only ones with the resources necessary to navigate there and thus a great deal of potential competition is effectively eliminated. Government regulatory bureaucracies tend to create monopolistic situations that are contrary to consumers' interests.
In fact, the revolving door between government and industry is such that serious conflicts of interests and "unholy alliances" between the "regulators" and the "regulated" are endemic. That's just another reason why I don't trust State-based solutions to just about anything. Murray Rothbard was right to describe the State as a bandit gang writ large.
A simple solution to problems like this -- similarly orphaned drugs (either naturally-occurring compounds or compounds that have been around too long to be patentable) are by no means rare -- would be to eliminate the morass of government regulations that put a huge hurdle in front of anyone who would bring a new treatment to market. Why not give potential users of such treatments the freedom to make informed decisions about whether to test new treatments on themselves? In this case, people with advanced cancer -- people who feel that they have nothing to lose anyway -- could be allowed to serve as guinea pigs. It would not even be necessary to do double blind clinical tests where some people are given the drugs and some people are given placebos. Rather, as anecdotal evidence accumulated the overall picture of the drug's actual efficacy and safety would emerge soon enough.
We can see from this example how government regulations ostensibly put in place to protect consumers of medicines and health care services often have the unintended consequence of protecting big pharma from competition. If it costs $100 million and many years to bring a new treatment to market, the government has rigged the rules of the game so that ONLY big pharma can play. Meanwhile, sick people suffer because orphaned drugs never reach them, and the treatments that do reach them cost much more than they might have if the morass of government red tape had not existed.
It is a well-known fact that huge corporations HATE more than anything the morass of regulations that government bureaucracies establish. You can hear their constant, terrified refrain --
Oh please, please! Don't throw us into that briar patch! Anything but the briar patch!
Remember, today's huge corporations were born and raised in the briar patch of complex, expensive, onerous government regulations. They are the only ones with the resources necessary to navigate there and thus a great deal of potential competition is effectively eliminated. Government regulatory bureaucracies tend to create monopolistic situations that are contrary to consumers' interests.
In fact, the revolving door between government and industry is such that serious conflicts of interests and "unholy alliances" between the "regulators" and the "regulated" are endemic. That's just another reason why I don't trust State-based solutions to just about anything. Murray Rothbard was right to describe the State as a bandit gang writ large.
Our problem is not lack of knowledge, but pride
In "What Poverty Is and Isn't" Keely Emerine-Mix says,
We don't know what we need to know, and Who we need to know, to be saved from our sin and be reconciled to a Holy God. Without the proclamation and reception of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we are left with a knowledge gap as wide as the chasm between us and God. There's a Way, but it's not known to those who need it.
We could agree with that if what she had in mind is the biblical concept of knowing as a covenantal, personal act, but that does not seem to be what she has in view. Rather, she seems to be seeing it as a lack of information -- although maybe the sense that I am looking for can be said to be implicit in the use of the expression "proclamation and reception of the Gospel," because it is persons who proclaim the Gospel, and faithful reception of the Gospel is not possible without the personal work of God's Holy Spirit.
If a genuine lack of information was the issue, there would be no culpability. In that sense, the problem is not an information gap. In fact, if the problem was just a lack of information it would be our Creator's fault for having failed to provide the necessary information. But God says "they are without excuse" precisely because they actively sought to suppress the knowledge of the truth. The real problem is ethical rebellion arising out of pride and ingratitude.
We exist in contact with God at all times. We are confronted by God's reality in every fiber of our being. But we suppress the truth in unrighteousness. We reject the Good News of the forgiveness of sin because we are too proud to admit that we are sinners worthy of eternal damnation and in need of God's charity.
It would be a gross oversimplification if we were to suggest that every individual who is poor is poor because he sinned, and that every individual who is well off is well off because of his obedience. However, there is a very real sense in which we can say such things about an entire culture. However, even in that case we need to hedge our statements with the realization that both wealth and poverty can be inherited. America's overall prosperity in recent years has been largely due to the faithfulness of earlier generations of Christians rather than to any faithfulness on our part. Our progeny will inherit a much poorer world on account of our generation's widespread ethical rebellion. (Deut. 5:9-10)
One of the worst things that can befall a person is to be estranged from God while enjoying continual prosperity and good health. This is, sadly, the condition that many Americans are in today -- estranged from God and yet experiencing a long, healthy, easy life concluding in a relatively "easy" (minimized pain) death -- followed by eternal damnation. On the other hand, if the difficulties of living in material poverty happen to turn peoples' hearts toward God, it can be truly said that their poverty was used by God to be a source of blessing to them. But be that as it may, poverty, for all its many manifestations, is at bottom primarily a spiritual problem. Jesus came that we sinners might have life, and that we might have it more abundantly. When our hearts are in a right relationship with God, in principle we have become heirs of inestimable wealth, and eventually our outward circumstances can be expected to be transformed to reflect that.
We don't know what we need to know, and Who we need to know, to be saved from our sin and be reconciled to a Holy God. Without the proclamation and reception of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we are left with a knowledge gap as wide as the chasm between us and God. There's a Way, but it's not known to those who need it.
We could agree with that if what she had in mind is the biblical concept of knowing as a covenantal, personal act, but that does not seem to be what she has in view. Rather, she seems to be seeing it as a lack of information -- although maybe the sense that I am looking for can be said to be implicit in the use of the expression "proclamation and reception of the Gospel," because it is persons who proclaim the Gospel, and faithful reception of the Gospel is not possible without the personal work of God's Holy Spirit.
If a genuine lack of information was the issue, there would be no culpability. In that sense, the problem is not an information gap. In fact, if the problem was just a lack of information it would be our Creator's fault for having failed to provide the necessary information. But God says "they are without excuse" precisely because they actively sought to suppress the knowledge of the truth. The real problem is ethical rebellion arising out of pride and ingratitude.
We exist in contact with God at all times. We are confronted by God's reality in every fiber of our being. But we suppress the truth in unrighteousness. We reject the Good News of the forgiveness of sin because we are too proud to admit that we are sinners worthy of eternal damnation and in need of God's charity.
It would be a gross oversimplification if we were to suggest that every individual who is poor is poor because he sinned, and that every individual who is well off is well off because of his obedience. However, there is a very real sense in which we can say such things about an entire culture. However, even in that case we need to hedge our statements with the realization that both wealth and poverty can be inherited. America's overall prosperity in recent years has been largely due to the faithfulness of earlier generations of Christians rather than to any faithfulness on our part. Our progeny will inherit a much poorer world on account of our generation's widespread ethical rebellion. (Deut. 5:9-10)
One of the worst things that can befall a person is to be estranged from God while enjoying continual prosperity and good health. This is, sadly, the condition that many Americans are in today -- estranged from God and yet experiencing a long, healthy, easy life concluding in a relatively "easy" (minimized pain) death -- followed by eternal damnation. On the other hand, if the difficulties of living in material poverty happen to turn peoples' hearts toward God, it can be truly said that their poverty was used by God to be a source of blessing to them. But be that as it may, poverty, for all its many manifestations, is at bottom primarily a spiritual problem. Jesus came that we sinners might have life, and that we might have it more abundantly. When our hearts are in a right relationship with God, in principle we have become heirs of inestimable wealth, and eventually our outward circumstances can be expected to be transformed to reflect that.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
The very quintessence of government "welfare"
If you want to understand the very quintessence of government welfare, you need to see the following three-part series of videos. The content is, frankly, deeply disturbing. It is the stuff of nightmares. Tragically, it is also the stuff of reality for thousands of children each year in the USA, with similar nightmares being played out in other "civilized" countries around the world.
Innocence Destroyed - Part 1 - WARNING: Graphic Content
Innocence Destroyed - Part 2 - WARNING: Graphic Content
Innocence Destroyed - Part 3 - WARNING: Graphic Content
Here we have the tyranny of good intentions in perhaps the most horrifying form imaginable. It is symptomatic and symbolic of all that is wrong with government welfare. There is no "good deed" that the government cannot manage to completely screw up and transform into a vehicle for the perpetration of great evil. Despite the best of intentions that people might have, everything from education to health care and all other forms of welfare provide a great stage for the government to prove, day in and day out, that "a righteous man regardeth the life of his beast: but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel." The solution to this institutionalized cruelty is not "reform." The solution is to get the government out of areas where it has never had any legitimate role to begin with, and to put those functions back where they belong, with the church and the family. We must stop seeking salvation from the false god of the State and start seeking salvation from the one true living God. At the very least, if that is part of the lesson that people bring away from watching these videos, then the deaths of the children will not have been in vain.
Most if not all of the various welfare services ostensibly currently provided by the government are essential to the proper function of society, but in the nature of the case they can only fail when those functions are taken over by the State. The proper place for all of them is not under the authority of the State, but rather under the institutions of Family and Church. We must pray to God for help in restoring each of these institutions to their proper place in society. Until we do that, we are continuing to fail not only children like the ones in these videos, but all the people in our society who are in need of help.
See also:
Hitler Is Alive and Well in the Western World
Innocence Destroyed - Part 1 - WARNING: Graphic Content
Innocence Destroyed - Part 2 - WARNING: Graphic Content
Innocence Destroyed - Part 3 - WARNING: Graphic Content
Here we have the tyranny of good intentions in perhaps the most horrifying form imaginable. It is symptomatic and symbolic of all that is wrong with government welfare. There is no "good deed" that the government cannot manage to completely screw up and transform into a vehicle for the perpetration of great evil. Despite the best of intentions that people might have, everything from education to health care and all other forms of welfare provide a great stage for the government to prove, day in and day out, that "a righteous man regardeth the life of his beast: but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel." The solution to this institutionalized cruelty is not "reform." The solution is to get the government out of areas where it has never had any legitimate role to begin with, and to put those functions back where they belong, with the church and the family. We must stop seeking salvation from the false god of the State and start seeking salvation from the one true living God. At the very least, if that is part of the lesson that people bring away from watching these videos, then the deaths of the children will not have been in vain.
Most if not all of the various welfare services ostensibly currently provided by the government are essential to the proper function of society, but in the nature of the case they can only fail when those functions are taken over by the State. The proper place for all of them is not under the authority of the State, but rather under the institutions of Family and Church. We must pray to God for help in restoring each of these institutions to their proper place in society. Until we do that, we are continuing to fail not only children like the ones in these videos, but all the people in our society who are in need of help.
See also:
Hitler Is Alive and Well in the Western World
(HT: Chris W., Don H.)
Shattered Lives: 100 Victims of KeelyCare
Read about it here.
To find out why it's called "KeelyCare," see her post here.
Why is the profit motive evil in the area of health care? Why don't we allow complete unregulated freedom in the health care industry, so that anyone could offer their goods and services freely to anyone else? Free competition would ensure the best possible health care solution for each person's needs and circumstances, just as free competition in the personal computer industry is good for consumers of personal computers. Health care providers would not cease to be liable for malpractice, just as a building contractor who screws up can be sued. (Some people might also opt for arbitration as an alternative to litigation, but in any case there would be avenues to the redressing of legitimate grievances even without the ridiculous over-regulation of the health care industry that we see today.)
If you want to ensure that something becomes expensive and in short supply, regulate it heavily.
It is telling that Mrs. Mix asserts,
It's appropriate to use Romans 13 as a primer . . . if God's instrument on this earth for doing corporate good is human government, then Christians really ought to expect that "doing good" for poor people is a duty properly discharged by the State. Not ONLY by the State, but primarily by the State as the means through which social welfare is protected on a grand societal scale out of reach for individuals and the Church.
Yikes. I'm having trouble deciding whether I want to file that statement under Hegelianism or Christianity. Not only is that quite a contortion of Romans 13:4, she seems to have overlooked the fact that verse 8-10 says quite plainly:
Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
Love is in the nature of the case uncoerced except as a duty of conscience within individuals and groups owed to God Himself. Taxes that are used for welfare (including but hardly limited to health care) are taken by armed force -- the power of the sword. By no stretch of any consistent reasoning or biblical hermeneutic can "welfare" by civil government be equated with or considered a form of charity.
But Mrs. Mix DOES want to tell us that this is indeed charity. She writes of "Jesus' people [complaining bitterly] when asked to contribute through taxation for the benefit of the poor" (emphasis mine). Gee, when those IRS agents crashed through the door with their battering ram, dressed like a SWAT team with guns drawn and with large snarling dogs straining at their leashes, I never imagined that they were simply coming to ask if I wanted to contribute to a worthy cause.
The commands of Matthew 25:31-40 are NOT fulfilled by government welfare. Those commands can only be fulfilled by direct, personal involvement with people in need. (Some delegation of tasks might be legitimate in this context -- even churches have deacons -- but the personal and volitional aspects and personal accountability must always be present, and those features are decidedly absent from government welfare.) Of course Mrs. Mix does not think that the State is to be the exclusive agency of social welfare, but she does clearly see it as the primary instrument on earth through which God works to provide welfare. This all the more amazing when one considers Mrs. Mix's clear hostility to the idea of a State officially confessing the Christian faith. Somehow she expects that in order to be in conformity with God's will, the State must provide massive government welfare programs but simultaneously must NOT be confessionally Christian. (As that would be getting into the dreaded Theonomy.)
When you read above-linked post by Mrs. Mix, it is quite clear that she wants the government to be kinda, sorta Christian. And yet she does not want it to be confessionally Christian: that would be evil. Go figure.
The irony, of course, is that when the most powerful institution on earth is kinda, sorta Christian, but is adamantly NOT confessionally Christian, it is in fact a rival religion. It is idolatrous.
If you give someone a sandwich while failing to give him the gospel, that is not charity. There is no charity in that. But this is exactly what government welfare does. Even Bush's "faith-based initiative" fiasco expressly enjoined recipients of funding from proselytizing or sharing the gospel! How any Christian can support approaches to welfare that are antagonistic to true biblical charity is beyond me.
We don't need to concern ourselves with whether the government has good intentions or evil intentions when it engages in government "welfare" activities. Regardless of what the intentions might be, the long-term outcome of such activities is always evil. Regardless of whether they are intended or unintended, the consequences are just as real, and just as pernicious.
To find out why it's called "KeelyCare," see her post here.
Why is the profit motive evil in the area of health care? Why don't we allow complete unregulated freedom in the health care industry, so that anyone could offer their goods and services freely to anyone else? Free competition would ensure the best possible health care solution for each person's needs and circumstances, just as free competition in the personal computer industry is good for consumers of personal computers. Health care providers would not cease to be liable for malpractice, just as a building contractor who screws up can be sued. (Some people might also opt for arbitration as an alternative to litigation, but in any case there would be avenues to the redressing of legitimate grievances even without the ridiculous over-regulation of the health care industry that we see today.)
If you want to ensure that something becomes expensive and in short supply, regulate it heavily.
It is telling that Mrs. Mix asserts,
It's appropriate to use Romans 13 as a primer . . . if God's instrument on this earth for doing corporate good is human government, then Christians really ought to expect that "doing good" for poor people is a duty properly discharged by the State. Not ONLY by the State, but primarily by the State as the means through which social welfare is protected on a grand societal scale out of reach for individuals and the Church.
Yikes. I'm having trouble deciding whether I want to file that statement under Hegelianism or Christianity. Not only is that quite a contortion of Romans 13:4, she seems to have overlooked the fact that verse 8-10 says quite plainly:
Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
Love is in the nature of the case uncoerced except as a duty of conscience within individuals and groups owed to God Himself. Taxes that are used for welfare (including but hardly limited to health care) are taken by armed force -- the power of the sword. By no stretch of any consistent reasoning or biblical hermeneutic can "welfare" by civil government be equated with or considered a form of charity.
But Mrs. Mix DOES want to tell us that this is indeed charity. She writes of "Jesus' people [complaining bitterly] when asked to contribute through taxation for the benefit of the poor" (emphasis mine). Gee, when those IRS agents crashed through the door with their battering ram, dressed like a SWAT team with guns drawn and with large snarling dogs straining at their leashes, I never imagined that they were simply coming to ask if I wanted to contribute to a worthy cause.
The commands of Matthew 25:31-40 are NOT fulfilled by government welfare. Those commands can only be fulfilled by direct, personal involvement with people in need. (Some delegation of tasks might be legitimate in this context -- even churches have deacons -- but the personal and volitional aspects and personal accountability must always be present, and those features are decidedly absent from government welfare.) Of course Mrs. Mix does not think that the State is to be the exclusive agency of social welfare, but she does clearly see it as the primary instrument on earth through which God works to provide welfare. This all the more amazing when one considers Mrs. Mix's clear hostility to the idea of a State officially confessing the Christian faith. Somehow she expects that in order to be in conformity with God's will, the State must provide massive government welfare programs but simultaneously must NOT be confessionally Christian. (As that would be getting into the dreaded Theonomy.)
When you read above-linked post by Mrs. Mix, it is quite clear that she wants the government to be kinda, sorta Christian. And yet she does not want it to be confessionally Christian: that would be evil. Go figure.
The irony, of course, is that when the most powerful institution on earth is kinda, sorta Christian, but is adamantly NOT confessionally Christian, it is in fact a rival religion. It is idolatrous.
If you give someone a sandwich while failing to give him the gospel, that is not charity. There is no charity in that. But this is exactly what government welfare does. Even Bush's "faith-based initiative" fiasco expressly enjoined recipients of funding from proselytizing or sharing the gospel! How any Christian can support approaches to welfare that are antagonistic to true biblical charity is beyond me.
We don't need to concern ourselves with whether the government has good intentions or evil intentions when it engages in government "welfare" activities. Regardless of what the intentions might be, the long-term outcome of such activities is always evil. Regardless of whether they are intended or unintended, the consequences are just as real, and just as pernicious.
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