INTERLUDE ON SHERLOCK HOLMES

INTERLUDE BLOG ON SHERLOCK HOLMES

I know I have been promising to finish the blog on American Evangelicalism and the Economy, and I will have a second installment up tonight or tomorrow, but this has been an unusually active weekend for Tina and me on the movie theater front, and the second film we saw was Sherlock Holmes. I want to share a few thoughts on that.

Someone said about Augustine that he was like a guy who had spent too much time reading and rereading too few books. (That is not my comment on Augustine, by the way.) One might have made a similar comment about my reading practices when I was a teenager. Though I did read hundreds of books from age 13 to 18 (actually, probably between 1,200-1,500 altogether in those five years--my dad was always complaining that I read too much), I was also guilty of reading some books over and over again. Among my favorites were Tolkien's four volumes (which I read four or five times in that period, and I have now read 25 times), Asimov's Foundation Trilogy (which I think I read three times in those five years), Cooper's The Pathfinder ( a couple of times), Zane Grey's Riders of the Purple Sage (three or four times), and Arthur Conan Doyle's The Complete Sherlock Holmes (three or four times at that time and several times since). There were several other science fiction books that I read more than once, but the books above were the biggest impact on me during those mid-teen years. I also read the Bible through several times during my years 17-18.

When you read the same texts over and over again, you create your own mental image of what that world is like, how the subjects speak, how to pronounce the names (especially a challenge with Tolkien), and the actual look of the location of the events (the old west) or even of the building where these events occurred (i.e., 221 B Baker Street). So, when one of these stories is finally presented in film, you can have a tendency to hate the film because it gives a different mental image of how that "world" looks than the one you have envisaged. That was a barrier to me when the Lord of the Rings films appeared a few years ago, though I was pleasantly surprised at how much of it was similar to my own imagined understanding, though I did not like the departures from the script (Tolkien's) that happened repeatedly in those films.

With Sherlock Holmes and the new film starring Robert Downey, Jr. the situation was different. There have been previous attempts to capture Holmes, dating back to "The Hound of the Baskervilles," in 1939 (what a magic year for film), starring Basil Rathbone as Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Watson--still one of my favorite films. There have been several other, not very notable, attempts in recent decades to capture the Holmes essence. For me, the only one who really "got" Holmes was Rathbone. Even now, when I read "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches," or "Silver Blaze," for instance, I can see in my mind's eye Basil Rathbone, curved pipe held in right hand, deep in thought in his big shabby chair there in London. He and Bruce collaborated on fourteen SH films in fourteen years.

I expected to be disappointed by Downey, Jr. I have never liked him very much as an actor. I am not even sure I know why. I just thought him to be unremarkable. (I have not see Iron Man yet, though I am planning to very soon.) I was surprised. I really liked him as Holmes. Let me go through the downs first and then the ups.

The story plays fast and loose with the person of Holmes created by Conan Doyle. Though he fancied himself something of a boxer, he is not an "Extreme Fighter" in Conan Doyle's novellas and short stories. But he is here. Several times in the film he is engaged in serious fisticuffs that would have made Steven Seagall or Mel Gibson proud. At first the Victorian hackles on my neck rose and I wanted to say to my wife, "Let's get out of here--this is not Holmes." But I didn't, and I will tell you why in a minute. Then there is Irene Adler. She figures heavily into the film, and figures as someone with whom Holmes had apparently had a liason in a hotel. Hmm, Adler is in the stories, but she is a character in only one of the short stories ("A Scandal in Bohemia"), and there is absolutely no hint of anything romantic between Holmes and Adler. Doyle's portrait of Holmes is of a rather stuffy Victorian bachelor when it comes to anything resembling romance. He admired Adler, but only her mind. I think that even if she had remained in London and been featured in other stories, that their relationship would have been, specifically, Platonic. Plato believed the philosopher-kings (or queens!) would have no need for or interest in romance and marriage, hence the term, "Platonic relationship." If anything, Holmes would have qualified for philosopher-king in a different political world.

These are the two most egregious departures from the "historical Holmes" (if you can have a "historical" figure who was fictional). So, what of it? My response? No Big Deal! New looks at older figures almost always have to go through some kind of metamorphosis. That is especially true if you want to make any money on the art. I don't think that most twenty-first century Americans would be interested in a film that recaptures the essence of Holmes himself. We live in a time when detectives get in fist fights--all the time. We live in a time when crime-fighters have a woman on their arm--a beautiful woman. If anyone is going to sell Sherlock Holmes at the box-office today, it would have to be something like this new Holmes. I did not say that I like it; I merely acknowledged that this is the nature of the case. So, no big deal! I like the movie, and I am about as fussy a curmudgeon as you will find on the Holmes image.

OK. Now to the positive. I really liked the film, and I really, really liked Robert Downey, Jr. He is better as a middle-aged Londoner than as anything else I have ever seen him play. He really has captured the essence of Holmes more than anyone, with perhaps the exception of Rathbone. And that is good, since it appears there will be a sequel. He captures the heart of the Holmes, who sometimes uses drugs when he does not have a case to work on, whose habits are less than tidy (the film may have overplayed this element), but who strikes to the heart of any situation with his incredible attention to detail and his decisive intellect. Downey, Jr. nailed that! He also captures Holmes's wit. Sherlock Holmes was often a funny guy! At least, he appreciated humor. He was not slapstick, but he was humorous in a very British way. This new Holmes does that even better than Rathbone did.

Other strengths? Dr. Watson! I have to say that I love Nigel Bruce the actor, but I always thought that he only portrayed one side of the Dr. Watson in the stories--as the foil for Holmes's intellect. I felt he was too bumbling and dim-witted. Watson in the stories usually does not grasp the situation as Holmes does, but he had been a doctor in the British Army in Afghanistan, and he is sharper than the image depicted by Nigel Bruce. But Jude Law gets it! He is great. Also, the sets, the photography, the directing were all magical.

I want to see this one again. With all the caveats I throw in to the mix above, it is still one of the best nights at the theater we've had in a while.

Chad Owen Brand

INTERLUDE BLOG ON AVATAR

AVATAR

This is an interlude in my series on "Economics in the Church since Smith," but it is timely and so I decided to break up my series to offer my comments on the film, Avatar. I don't have a lot to say that others have not said, but maybe one or two new comments.

First, let me say that I enjoyed the film very much. It was entertaining, it was a generally good story, a little predictable, perhaps, and even more so for those who have followed Cameron over the years (and who has not?). Most of the characters were compelling, though not all of them, and the film kept me interested the whole way through. So, I enjoyed the film, and I feel the need to say that first, because next I am going to offer some criticism.

The movie was clearly political, far more political than Cameron's earlier films. Not only is that clear from the film itself, but Cameron himself has said so on more than one occasion. It is anti-human, or at least, anti-most humans. The little bit at the end that says, in effect, the Navi decided to allow a few aliens to remain on their planet is a punctuation to that. But the film is filled with anti-most-humans sentiment throughout. Of course, what it is against is about as interesting and surprising as the fact that the Canadian-born producer will make money on this venture. It is anti-military, anti-non-green, anti-American (at least Bush and Reagan's America), and anti-Custer.

And I have to say, that is fine with me. Film makers have the freedom to promote whatever agenda they might have in their films, and we, the movie-going public, can buy it or not--literally or figuratively. The problem with the film for me was that the people Cameron likes are portrayed in a sensitive, sympathetic, and realistic manner, but the ones he does not like in the film are, generally, not portrayed in this manner. Colonel Quaritch is the best example. Cameron clearly wants us to hate him, and we do. All of us hate him. But that is just the problem. No one is that monochromatic. I lined up and waited for two hours the night Star Wars debuted. We hated Darth Vader, but we sensed that there was another part of his story that we did not yet know about. So, we could hate him, but in a way kind of "bracket" that hate. No one can bracket their hate toward the Colonel. He's just a bad guy. The same is true, but to a lesser degree of Parker Selfridge, the "head" of the project. Sully, Neytiri, and Dr. Grace, on the other hand, are complex individuals with mixed emotions, conflicting commitments, and polychromatic personalities. I think Cameron could have done a better job depicting the Colonel and Parker. But maybe he could not bring himself to believe that such persons really are more subtle than he thinks they are. Maybe Cameron should live in the real world for awhile and have lunch with some real military people and even play cards with a few Republicans.

Some have noted that this film is similar to Dances with Wolves. I see the similarity, but I don't care about that. If someone came up with a completely new genre it would probably be a bad film. Someone once said there are only 17 Country and Western songs out there, and that the really creative person is the one who finds a way to repeat one of those songs in a new and fresh way. I agree with that.

Oh, and by the way, the ending leaves everything wide open for a sequel. What? A sequel to a James Cameron film? No one would ever expect that!

I liked the film. I will probably watch it again. But I am not going to drink the KoolAid.

Chad Owen Brand

ECONOMIC FREEDOM AND THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC

ECONOMIC FREEDOM AND THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC:
WHERE WE WERE, WHERE WE ARE
AND WHERE WE ARE GOING

The rapid-fire proposal of new economic policies by the current administration in Washington has left many of us breathless. Cap and Trade, bailouts, health-care reform, climate change legislation are all programs that have the potential of severely altering what America has stood for in matters related to the economy. Though never officially Laissez-faire in policy, America has generally followed a more free-trade, lower federal taxes, and less redistribution of wealth approach than has been the case in many European countries and, of course, in the communist bloc when it existed. That has been where we have stood, though not unanimously so. But, as the proverb states, we need to see where we have been in order to see where we ought to be going. This is the first of a multi-part essay on America and economics. Obviously this is not intended to be thorough, though it is a sample of a larger project that I have been working on that is now nearing completion. This first installment will show where free trade, lower government philosophy about economics comes from, and how antebellum nineteenth century Christian thinkers reacted to it and to America’s rapid rise to being and industrial powerhouse. The second part will look at what brought us from there to the Great Depression, and the third part will track our history from that signal event to where we are today.

The story begins, in a sense, not in Philadelphia, but in Glasgow. Adam Smith was a Scotsman, a moral philosopher and educator, and in 1776 he published what would be his most famous book, The Wealth of Nations. It would take a separate essay even to introduce Smith adequately, but in a few sentences we can at least trace the key elements of his book, and what he was trying to accomplish with it. Smith was convinced that the mercantile system of economics that prevailed in his day was outmoded and destructive of wealth. It was based on the belief that real wealth was to be found in hard coin or bullion, gold and silver, and that the more of this that a nation owned, the wealthier it was. In order to maintain that level of wealth, therefore, governments micro-managed their economies, putting heavy restrictions on imports and on buying anything from other nations that would decrease their stockpile of “wealth.” Governments also managed the economy in many other ways in terms of productivity, prices, and distribution.

Smith opposed all of this. He began with a new definition of “wealth.” For him, wealth is the productivity of a nation, and that has little if anything to do with how much gold bullion a king might have in his cellar. Since wealth was productivity, he encouraged that governments ought to remove all restrictions to productivity, and that entrepreneurs ought to restructure their business models around three ideas: free trade, the division of labor, and the development of new technologies.

It was in America, the nation founded the same year as Smith’s volume on the wealth of nations, where his ideas would first be tested and tried, though England was close behind, and Germany not far behind England. In order for Smith’s project to be undertaken in full measure, several freedoms were needed. First, political freedom was a necessity. Some kind of republicanism or democratic republicanism was a basic requirement. Through the Middle Ages the authorities, whether kings, barons, or other types of unelected political powers, often saw fit to confiscate the property of those under their jurisdiction. Then again, in various sorts of ways the governments at various levels controlled prices, production, and distribution. It was against this “mercantilist” system of political economy that Smith had dedicated his efforts. It would be only in a political economy that eschewed mercantilism that could witness whether or not Smith’s theories might be workable. The American form of government as it crystallized in the Constitution offered that very kind of political freedom since most government officials in the federal system would be elected in some form by qualified holders of political franchise, and since, for a variety of reasons, the early American economy was virtually free from government intrusion.

Second, freedom of press is crucial to a capitalistic political economy. This is the case since the press needs to be free to disseminate information about the nature of the exchange of goods and services and about the ethical status of various industries. It must also be free to report on any alleged government intrusion into the economy. There must be no coercion from the state over the press, and there must be freedom for one form of the press to monitor whether other forms of the press are being manipulated by business interests for their own purposes.

Third, freedom of markets is fundamental to this system. That is almost by definition basic to Smith’s approach to economics. What we need to note here is that the American government early on played little role in manipulating markets, in interfering with production, and, for the most part, in overly taxing products for consumption by the populace. The free market means small government regulation of trade, low tariffs on goods imported, low taxes on sale of goods, and not preferring one industry or one company over against others. Though there was considerable disagreement on such matters as the national bank and on whether the federal government had any right at all to tax goods and services, the early American experiment was closely aligned with Smith’s ideology on this particular issue of markets.

Because America was a place where there was little regulation of the economy, Smith’s ideas seemed to bear themselves out, in some cases even long before his book appeared. New England was financed early on by joint stock corporations, especially the Massachusetts Bay Company and the Plymouth Bay Company. The men who founded these companies back in England were known as “adventurers.” That seems an odd name for men who never left home, but it was a term etymologically related to our modern term “venture capitalist.” These men went out on a limb and invested their own money in a “venture” which might not have met with success with the expectation that they would realize a profit. The venture was relatively free from government regulation, and the profit would, hopefully, be relatively free from government monitoring since it was obtained outside the normal network of government oversight. The New World of British colonization in the Western Hemisphere would seem to offer a pragmatic testing ground for ideas like those represented in Smith’s philosophy.

Specific intellectual responses to Smith in America were mixed. This was to be true in the general intellectual world and in the world of Christian intellectuals. In America the two “worlds” were not widely separated until later in the nineteenth century. In this way, America was different from Europe and even England, where the Enlightenment had created two intellectual communities, one of them broadly Christian, and the other decidedly non-Christian, and even anti-Christian. In America, the intellectual world of the early nineteenth century was still, generally, a Christian intellectual world. Stewart Davenport (Friends of the Unrighteous Mammon, University of Chicago Press, 2008) has identified three responses to the new “political economy” ideology developed by Smith and carried on by the French Physiocrats and Smith’s other disciples: the clerical economists, who were supporters of Smith’s approach; the contrarians, who opposed it; and the pastoral moralists, who adapted it to their own moral ideology. All three groups were represented by avowedly Christian thinkers, each of whom claimed that his theory was completely consistent with biblical ethics and the teachings of Jesus. Just how did each group make its case?

The “clerical economists” were supportive of America’s rapid rise to commercial success and were further sanguine about Smith’s overall approach to political economy. They supported free trade, the division of labor, and the rapid evolution of industrialized technology. They held these views in spite of the so-called, “Adam Smith problem,” which was that Smith’s theory was not in any sense compatible with biblical or otherwise altruistic ethics. These individuals were well-known Christian leaders, mostly educators, who did not believe that Smith’s approach to political economy was anti-Christian or necessarily injurious to the spiritual life of those who were being affected by it in the marketplace.

One of the most outspoken supporters of Smith was Baptist minister and professor of moral philosophy, Francis Wayland. At the heart of Wayland’s own moral theory lay a commitment to Scottish Common-Sense Realism. This was a worldview articulated by, among others, Thomas Reid and Dugald Stewart. Reid and Stewart were convinced that God had established the world according to certain natural moral laws and that humans were endowed by God with the ability to discover what those laws were. Wayland and the other political economists contended that Smith’s approach was intuitive, that it was pragmatically advantageous, and that its utility was being proven in the material success of the American experiment. So, for Wayland, the proof lay in a mix of natural theological intuitions, utilitarianism, and American millenarianism. As a college president and professor, he also wished to extend the scope of these ideas to the point of changing the college curriculum to include more practical discipline.

On the other side of the debate lay a group known to historians as the “contrarians.” Chief among them were Presbyterian layman and industrialist Stephen Colwell and sometimes-minister and educator Orestes Brownson. Colwell married into wealth and spent most of his adult life managing his father-in-law’s iron foundries. But he traveled widely in Europe and there witnessed what he thought to be the natural result of political economy—a starving working class made of the many and an opulent ownership class made up of the very few. He believed the same thing was happening in the United States of America in the 1830s and 40s. He laid the blame for all of this on the explicit self-centeredness of Smith’s approach. Tell people that satisfying their own interests and their own needs is entirely appropriate, and they will do just that, and the devil take the rest. “It may be worth inquiring whether the principles upon which free trade is urged will not go far in their ultimate conclusions to dissolve the whole fabric of human society,” he wrote. He opposed free trade, the division of labor, and the development of industrial technology. All of it, he was convinced, was evil and could not be reformed.

Orestes Brownson concurred with Colwell, at least in the early years of his writing. Brownson loathed economic inequality during the period before 1840. He especially was angry at anyone who argued that God approved of such inequality in the name of progress and civilization. He contended that the gospel itself was against any sense of inequality. The clerical economists had argued that class distinction is not important, and that it may lie even in the providence of God. Brownson replied that social and economic inequality was created by men, and that such inequalities must now be reversed in the name of progress, even if that meant an assault on private property. He was not opposed to private property per se, but he was against any kind of hereditary property. He was not, then, a communist, but did call for the state to reform all laws related to wealth inheritance. The basis for his views was primarily religious in nature—he believed the Bible was against the call to financial success.

The clerical economists, then, supported America’s rapid rise to industrial leadership and wealth and the philosophy that supported and informed that rise. The contrarians were opposed to such industrialization and wanted the US government to intervene. There was also a third group, identified by Davenport as the “pastoral moralists,” a group less-well identified ideologically, but people who recognized the danger inherent in industrialization, free trade, and the division of labor, but who were not philosophically opposed to it. Among them was William Arnot, who warned, “Among the elements of the nation’s greatness lie the seeds of sure decay. The very abundance of our material resources, and the very excess of our mercantile enterprise, seem to be forcing into earlier maturity the vices that will lay our glory in the dust.” These pastoral moralists were ministers first, and so found themselves from time to time having to warn their people, pastorally, of the danger that lay in the accumulation of wealth. These men, including Presbyterian pastor Henry Boardman, Unitarian Andrew Peabody, and Congregationalist Joseph Emerson, were not ideologically opposed to capitalism, but were concerned about what capitalism might become in the hands of entrepreneurs.

Three responses to the rise of industrialization and to the philosophy that underlay it—the philosophy of Adam Smith. All three responses from antebellum American Christian leaders, some educators, some captains of industry, some pastors. What none of them suspected was that there was lurking in the shadows a much more strident voice, one that was not buttressed by quotes from the Bible, but one that would sound a clarion call against Smith’s project. We will take that up in the next installment.


Chad Owen Brand

Of Scarecrows and Tin Men: GCR and the Economic Health of the SBC and the Country

OF SCARECROWS AND TIN MEN
THE GCR AND THE ECONOMIC HEALTH OF THE SBC AND THE COUNTRY

L. Frank Baum published The Wizard of Oz in 1900. Though it is now generally seen as one of the quintessential children’s stories, it was originally intended also as a political satire on the Presidential election of 1896. The campaign was waged against the backdrop of the economic panic of 1893 that was almost as severe as the Great Depression. In the story the Tin Man represents the factory workers, forced to work so many hours to make a living that their grueling labor caused then to lose their hearts. The Scarecrow was the late-century farmer, duped by robber barons to get out of debt by making more silver coinage, thus devaluing the money through inflation, but, what did they know? They hadn’t got a brain. At least, so goes the interpretation. All of this was taking place on a stage set right before a new century dawned—a century of hope for the country, perhaps even for the world.

On April 16, 2009, President Daniel Akin of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary preached a message entitled “Axioms of Great Commission Resurgence.” It was in some sense a response to many concerns that had been voiced for several years throughout the SBC for more conversions and more baptisms both on the mission field and here at home. It was in another sense a clarion call for Southern Baptists to lift up their chins, to raise their heads, to clench their teeth and march forward in mission thrust as they had done in 1919 with the Seventy-Five Million Campaign. The response to Akin’s challenge from key SBC pastors and most of the entity heads was immediate and passionate. They saw this as a moment when we as Southern Baptists could once again say, “Let’s Roll.” And make it happen.

To make something like this happen, to see it through, takes more than a sermon and conference or two. It takes a strategy that takes into full account the strengths and weaknesses of our institutions, the real condition of our churches, and the strength of our resolve. It also must consider the obstacles before us, obstacles of many kinds. One of those obstacles is the economic condition of our denomination and of our country.

All one has to do is to look at the receipts of the International Mission Board in last year’s Lottie Moon Offering. The goal was $170 Million. The actual gifts totaled $141 Million. That constitutes a $29 Million shortfall. The impact is real, it is significant, and it represents a potential retreat on the part of Southern Baptists in the area of missions. This would be unprecedented in the last century. It would also be a serious blow to our sense of call as an evangelical denomination still committed to sharing the genuine gospel with genuinely lost people who need to hear it more than anything else in their lives.

There have been significant efforts on the part of many churches and SBC entities to soften the blow of this shortfall by taking special Lottie Moon offerings in August, special one-time offerings to send to the IMB by individual churches, entities, and other similar efforts. All of those are commendable, and those who have criticized these efforts (and many, especially on the left wing of the SBC, have been critical) have done so out of an agenda that is mainly bent on bashing the Southern Baptist Convention. Still, the traditional strategy of the IMB getting about half of its budget through the CP and about the other half from Lottie Moon is the formula which has worked for decades and is still likely the right strategy for the future. So, what will happen if 2009 witnesses a similar shortfall? The impact could be devastating.

One of the components of the GCR is Article IX, which calls for the SBC to consider what might be a “More Effective Convention Structure.” One of the key statements in the GCR document says this: “At the midpoint of the 20th century the Southern Baptist Convention was a convention characterized by impressive institutions, innovative programs, and strong loyalty from the churches. But the convention has too often failed to adapt its structure and programs to the changing culture. We are frequently aiming at a culture that went out of existence years ago, failing to understand how mid-20th century methods and strategies are not working in the 21st century.” There may be reasons why we ought to reconsider the structure of the SBC, at least in part for economic reasons. We do not have unlimited resources. (There is, in fact, no such thing as unlimited resources in the human, worldly economy.)

Churches have constantly to ask themselves, “Are we using the best possible methods to carry out our calling to reach our community with the gospel?” What is true of churches ought also to be true of the SBC. We cannot simply assume that, because of what we believed in 1845, or 1891, or 1919, or 1925 to be the best methodology for carrying out our mandate, that such a methodology will be perennially right for us into perpetuity. It is always good to reevaluate methodology. Not message. That IS perennial. So, we should trust the Task Force to be good stewards of their mandate, and to give due consideration to their recommendations at the right time.

The economic challenges before us are real. Cap and Tax. The Bailouts. Health Care Reform. If all of these were pushed to the limits that some in Congress would like to see happen, there is little doubt that we as Americans would be more and more impoverished in the years and decades ahead. Already the printing of currency to stave off the economic crisis has seriously devalued the dollar and created an impending new crisis. Has anyone in Washington ever taken Economics 101? Has anyone in Washington any sense of historical perspective about what Germany went through in the 1920s? I wonder. The challenges of the future could be far more profound than we anticipate even now.

On the other hand, the IMB difficulties, severe as they are, could be easily solved. The shortfall was $29 Million. There are about 8 Million Southern Baptists who attend church at least once a month. Do the math. That is less than 4 dollars per person. If we can’t get Southern Baptists to pony up an additional 4 bucks a person for our mission offering every Christmas, then the problem is not the economy.

L. Frank Baum seemed dubious about the prospects of the future, but at least he could entertain the children. Let us hope we can do far more than that. There is much at stake.


Chad Owen Brand

Calvin for Profit

In a brand new book, Calvin and Commerce: The Transforming Power of Calvinism in Market Economies, by David Hall and Matthew Burton, readers are treated to a smorgasbord of theological, political, and economic wisdom that, if heeded, could transform the nature of the debate taking place in our political arena right now. The book is filled with great research into the political and economic implications of the Reformation, especially the Genevan version, but in this blog I am only going to touch on a very few of the items that are worthy of comment.

The authors make a case that the reforms enacted under Calvin's leadership in Geneva were nothing short of astounding in impact. Largely because of Calvin's consistent teaching on obedience to God, thrift, Sabbath keeping, generosity, hard work, and making use of God's created order as good steards of the gifts of God, the city's productivity sky-rocketed in short shrift. When Calvin came to Geneva in 1536 there were fifty merchants, three printers, and few if any nobles. By the late 1550s Geneva was home to 180 merchants, 113 printers and publishers, and at least seventy aristocratic refugees who claimed nobility (page 27). This was the result of two primary forces--Calvin's teachings and the attractiveness of the city to refugees and others looking for a place to go in fleeing religious persecution.

Those are fascinating statistics. In fact, they are more facinating to me than they were even to the authors of the book, who do not make much comment on the numbers. Here is what I mean. During times of dislocation and demographic movement, it is not common for commerce to thrive. This is especially in the case in static societies, such as Reformation Europe, where people did not typically move far from their birthplace. But think about this even in a more modern context, late nineteenth century European migrations to the United States. Anyone even vaguely familiar with the large influx of "European Trash" (as they were often called at the time) into New York City, Chicago, Detroit and other large northeastern cities knows what the impact was: slum neighborhoods, massive unemployment, crime (Mafioso and others), alcoholism, and social unrest. This went on for decades in some places. But not so Geneva. Why? The major reason is that the city was being reformed under godly teachers, and that the theology of work, whcih is heavily based on a theology of creation, fall, and redemption, caused a rising economy, not a falling economy to develop.

The authors of the book have reasons why this sort of thing would work at all. They write, "Views about wealth flow from theology or ultimate values. The thesis of our claim is that financial and business concerns are not separate from but an extension of theological (in this case Christian) beliefs" (page xvii). What a thought! Financial and business concerns are an extension of theological values. Anyone who has studied the history of economics (even in a cursory way) knows this to be true. Adam Smith argued for free markets, private property, private ownership of the means of production, low governmental taxation, inheritance rights, and freedom of all to engage in whatever commerce they desired, religious liberty. The result--the most productive and wealthiest nation in the history of the world, the United States. Karl Marx argued for abolition of private property, a heavy graduated income tax, the abolition of inheritance, centralization of credit in the hands of the government, the abolition of religion. The result--The Soviet Union, Cuba, and North Korea.

Ideas have impacts. Anyone who would like a better understanding of the impact of Reformation thought on economics and the potential for "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" ought to take a read on this new book. There is an old saw about Capitalism. "Capitalism is the worst sort of economic system around; except for all the rest." I believe that! In a day when our government is edging its way toward the Marxist pathway, we need to wake up and smell the Genevan coffee. Let's don't go there!

Chad Brand

Eschatology forum

To listen to the forum on end times that Professors Ware, Schreiner, and Brand held earlier this week, just go here:

http://www.boycecollege.com/

Heart to Heart

I have been preaching through the Sermon on the Mount, and one thing we have discovered is that Jesus laid down some very high expectations for his disciples in that message. "Except your righteousness exceeds that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven." "He who is angry with his brother may be in danger of hell fire." "Do not judge others." "Do not worry about anything." "Do unto others what you would have them do unto you." Those paraphrases of just a few of the expectations of Jesus point out how high and daunting is this expectation of discipleship. Moses' words from his mountain are not any more difficult than Jesus' words from his mountain. So, what do we do with that? What's a Christian to do?

In the Old Testament there are two passages which I had never juxtaposed until the last twenty-four hours, and I think that what we learn from these two texts might point us to a way to deal with Jesus' expectations.

In Jeremiah 17:9 we find the prophet making a very harsh indictment of the Jerusalemites of his day. "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, who can know it?" The Weeping Prophet makes this statement as a part of his lengthy indictment of the people of Judah in his day. They were idolaters, they had no desire to keep God's law or honor his covenant, and so, as Jeremiah warns them, God is going to send a fire storm of judgment on them. There is a sense of course in which all humans have deceit in their hearts, and this verse of Scripture is rightly used by systematic theologians (like me!) to point out that all persons have sin in their lives. It is also important to note, though, that the statement has special force here in the historical context of Israel's idolatry and rebellion. It is true of Israel in general, at this time, that the people's hearts were marked by deceit and desperate wickedness and not much else.

Contrast that statement with 1 Samuel 16:7. "But the Lord said to Samuel, 'Do not look at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.'" The context here, of course, is Samuel's search for a replacement for Saul, and God has led him to the house of Jesse in Bethlehem. Gazing on Eliab, eldest son of Jesse, Samuel believed he had found the man, due to the boy's doughty stature, but the Lord, of course, would choose David because the Lord looks at the heart.

Now, how do we understand the contrast here, and what might this tell those of us who have the task of discipleship before us? David was no less of a man born into this world with a nature of sin than the Jerusalemites of Jeremiah's day. David himself admits this when he writes, "Behold I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin my mother conceived me" (Psalm 51:5). In addition, David was a man who would commit sins both large and less large. He would become an adulterer and he would conspire to murder. In addition to that, there are texts that hint that some of his warring was not exactly pleasing to God (he was a "man of bloodshed"). In contrast to Genesis 2:24 David would take many wives, and when those wives bore to him children, he had a difficult time raising some of them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. When Amnon raped his half-sister, David did not exact the penalty prescribed by the law. And when Absalom exacted retribution by killing Amnon, neither did David deal with his son in the manner given by Moses. There seems plenty here to make us wonder, "how is the heart of David any different from the heart of Jeremiah's enemies?"

The answer is, that David's heart was greatly different. First, his heart turned toward God early and stayed toward God all his days. For all his failures, David did not want to be a spiritual failure. He wanted to love and serve God. That comes out over and over again in his Psalms. "O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!" "I will give thanks to the Lord with all my heart, I will tell of all your wonders." "Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for him." "Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer." Sinner though he was, David all of his life wanted to know God. He was never content with the nature of his spiritual experience of God, and more than anything, he wanted to know God.

Second, when confronted with his sin, David always took the blame for his own sin and repented. Contrast David with his predecessor, Saul. When Saul was confronted with his failure to do the will of God in 1 Samuel 15, he blamed his soldiers for taking the plunder, and then went on to say that he had disobeyed God for God's own good, in order to make sacrifice to the Lord. Samuel's response was that God desired obedience rather than sacrifice. Saul only admitted doing wrong after Samuel told him that God was taking the kingdom from him. By contrast, when David was confronted by Nathan the prophet after the sins against Bathsheba and Uriah, when Nathan pointed the long, bony prophet's finger at David and pronounced, "Thou art the man" (some passages only work in the KJV), David confessed his sin and repented before God. Further David would write a Psalm of repentance (Psalm 51), akin to Augustine's Confessions (a bishop admitting publicly to the sins of his younger years) so that all would know of his repenting. And he would also pen these words: "O Lord, you have searched me and known me, you know when I sit down and rise up, you understand my thoughts from afar. . . . Search me, O God, and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts. And see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." Saul would never have composed those last lines, but the man who committed grave sins still wanted more than anything else to serve and know the Lord. Though a sinner, and even a terrible sinner, David's heart was different from the hearts of those in Jerusalem who would fall to Nebuchadnezzar.

So, what about the Sermon on the Mount and its demands on us? What about Christian discipleship in general? Well, in the New Testament we find exactly the same kind of teaching about the heart that we observe in these two Old Testament texts. In Matthew 15:19-20 our Lord said that out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness and slanders. And John, in his first epistle states "We shall know by this that we are of the truth, and shall assure our heart before him, in whatever our heart condemns us; for God is greater than our heart, and knows all things. Beloved if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God" (1 John 3:19-21). The heart can be filled with evil, or, on the other hand, it can be the dwelling place of God (Eph. 3:17).

The Bible lays out for us the demands of discipleship, and it lays them out with great clarity and specificity. "If any man will come after me let him deny himself, take up the cross and follow me." There is no excuse for half-hearted spirituality. There are only two gates, one of which is wide and easy, and the other of which is narrow and hard. The Lord is clear--pick the narrow and hard way. And pick it will all your heart!

As Jesus said those words in Matthew 5-7 he knew that no one who ever lived would live up to those demands perfectly throughout an entire lifetime. The only one who would do it would be he himself. Most of us have broken every one of the demands in the Sermon on the Mount at some point in our sinful existence. We have all stared at a woman to lust at some point. We have all wanted retaliation against a wrong on some occasions. We have all had anxiety over food and raiment at various times. We have judged others unfairly. We have sometimes done unto others what they have done to us--and that was not pleasant! Like David, we have had hearts for God, but sometimes hands for the devil. So, how do we cope with this?

Like David, we must be people who never stop seeking the Lord. Early and late, during youth and dotage, we must be people who are constantly composing new psalms, even if only in our own private prayers. We must tell God that we love him, over and over, even in the midst of our weaknesses, failures, and spiritual inadequacies. Even in the midst of our sins. We must be people who desire not only to do good works, but to do them for the Father, consciously presenting them to him. "Here, Father, I taught this class, I made this hospital visit, I gave this food, but I gave it so that you would be pleased with me, Father. I don't care if anyone else noticed, but I did it for you." This is what it means to be a person after God's own heart. This is why David danced before the Lord when he brought the ark into Jerusalem. Some misunderstood and despised him for it, but he did not care--he did not do it for them. And neither do we carry out our ministries for them, but for the Father.

Like David, we must be people who never stop confessing our sins. When we confess our sins, we are saying, "Lord, there is still that in my heart that is not pleasing to you. I find in myself the very thing Jeremiah spoke of, and I hate it. Take it from me." The reason that David's heart was a heart that God was pleased with was that he saw the defilement in his heart and sought to have it exorcized; the Jerusalemites in Jeremiah's day thought that their hearts were perfectly fine. Like Saul, they thought they were, basically, OK. The one who thinks his heart is pure is defiled; the one who sees defilement in his own heart is one who, as Jesus said in the Beatitudes, is "pure in heart." If you follow the progression in the Beatitudes, you don't get to purity of heart, though, till you first admit your poverty of spirit, and then mourn for your sins. The Sauls and the Jerusalemites of this world will not do that. The Davids of this world do it all the time.

What does this mean for us, when you boil it all down? Seek God every day. Realize that you cannot be an occasional Christian. When you sin, go to God and pour out your heart of confession. Realize that every moment of every day is lived in the company of a heavenly Father who wants nothing more than to bless those who hunger and thirst for him.

Let's live like that! Is there any other way to live?