2 John’s unique contribution to the canon of Scripture is to illustrate the connection between truth and love. In 1 John, the main connection John demonstrated was that our becoming children of God (regeneration) is the cause of our faith in the truth and our ability to love the brethren. Because we have become the children of God, we now believe the truth about Jesus (1 John 5:1, 4-5) and love our brothers (1 John 3:10).

But in his Second Letter, John doesn’t focus much on regeneration, but only wants us to see that truth and love are not two unrelated virtues, but rather two sides of the very same coin.

This is the message of 2 John: You cannot genuinely love someone except in truth, and you cannot genuinely embrace the truth except in love.

Even the spiritual blessings (grace, mercy, and peace) that we receive from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father’s Son come to us “in truth and love” (v. 3). You cannot separate them; if you try to cling only to one and exclude the other, you end up losing both.

Seeing this connection between truth and love in 2 John is kind of like the point at which Emma discovers that Frank Churchill had, all this time, been secretly engaged to Jane Fairfax–certain unexplained details suddenly make sense (e.g., Jane’s mysterious piano gift), but the discovery also raises new questions (e.g., How could Frank have been so misleadingly friendly with Emma? Are the Frank and Jane actually a better match than Frank and Emma would have been?).

So, we now know why John had spent so much time talking about Truth and Love in 1 John (they were secretly engaged!), but how could these two possibly form a harmonious match? Truth demands nothing less than precise, unbending, uncompromising facts; but Love constantly overlooks flaws, failures, and shortcomings. Should Love transform Truth, or should Truth transform Love?

Each should transform the other.

John first addresses how Love has her way with Truth:

[1:1] The elder to the elect lady and her children, whom I love in truth, and not only I, but also all who know the truth, [2] because of the truth that abides in us and will be with us forever:
[3] Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father’s Son, in truth and love.
[4] I rejoiced greatly to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as we were commanded by the Father. [5] And now I ask you, dear lady—not as though I were writing you a new commandment, but the one we have had from the beginning—that we love one another. [6] And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it. (2 John 1:1-6)

Love demands that Truth never content himself to be cold, hard, and calculating–in short, Truth is forbidden from remaining merely cerebral. Rather, Truth should be given to warmth, affection, and delight in others from the heart.

Accordingly, John writes that he (the “elder”) loves the elect lady and her children (symbolic for a church and the church’s members) in truth. Even more, John says that “all who love the truth” love the elect lady and her children in truth.

Why? Because Truth unites people eternally: “the truth that abides in us and will be with us forever.” The children of God, who have been reborn to faith in the truth that Jesus is the Christ and the Son of God, are not merely members of the same club (but different chapters), nor citizens of the same city (but different suburbs); rather, we are intimately bound to one another because of our common relationship to the truth.

Truth cannot stand alone, but must be joined and moved and prompted by Love.

And therefore, when John sees the lady’s children walking in truth, his heart rejoices in love for his fellow brothers and sisters. Desirous of their continuing in the truth, John gently encourages them to keep walking in the commandment, which is that we love one another.

Love will have her way with Truth, her beloved, forcing him to embrace those genuinely united to him.

This is, of course, the gospel. Truth could not remain aloof as an absolute being, somewhere out there in the universe, content to wait for someone righteous enough to enter his presence; he was compelled by Love to pursue his own no matter what it would cost him. In fact, Love and Truth are the same person, our Lord Jesus Christ. In him, Love and Truth come together gloriously, so that our Savior did not stand apart from us with a take-me-or-depart-from-me attitude; his love for us drove him even to die on a cross in order to bring us into his truth.

But Truth will also have his way with Love. More on that tomorrow.

Related posts:

1. 2 John: In Jesus, Truth Wins Too
2. Because Truth is so much more than just being right
3. 3 John 1:1-4: No Greater Joy

So central was this emphasis on the Messiahship of Jesus that within a few years ‘Christ’ (the Greek for Messiah) had ceased to designate Jesus’s function and had come to be a sort of surname. Now all this was peculiarly offensive to the Jew. It was not easy to think of a carpenter-teacher as the summit of Israel’s development. It was not easy to think of someone so recent as embodying a wisdom greater than that of Moses long ago. It was not easy to believe that an unordained rabbi who often came into conflict with the official exponents of the Torah could be the divinely authenticated teacher of Israel. This was why in his lifetime so few of the religious leaders had any faith in him. But, after his execution, it was not merely difficult, it was preposterous to think of him as Messiah. By definition the Messiah was a deliverer, a conqueror….sinners would be expelled, pride rebuked, and Israel’s glory enhanced. But the political side of the Messiah’s work was primary. So long as God’s Holy Land languished under the domination of a foreign yoke, God himself was affronted every day. Deliverance must include political independence. And this Jesus manifestly failed to bring. His death upon the cross marked him out as a blatant failure, so far as any claim to Messiahship was concerned. So far from conquering, he was conquered. Why follow such a man?

Worse still, this worship of a crucified Messiah was distinctly blasphemous. the Old Testament made it perfectly plain that anyone hanged on a stake was resting under the curse of God. How could God’s Chosen One possibly have been exposed in the place of cursing? We know this constituted an almost insuperable problem to the Jew. Time and again in the Acts, and again in the letters of both Paul and Peter it is referred to: with good reason. Both of them had found the doctrine of a crucified Messiah a tremendous stumbling-block, until they came to understand its depth of meaning. The problem persisted for most Jews….

It would not have been so bad if Christians had contented themselves with asserting that Jesus was the Messiah. But they went much further. The earliest baptismal confession that we can trace is the short assertion that ‘Jesus is Lord’. It must be remembered that ‘Lord’ was the particular name for God in the Old Testament: in the LXX it translates Adonai. There could be no mistake about the matter….Is it any wonder that the Jews thought Christians were preaching a second God? How could they, in their pure monotheism, have any truck with such a blasphemy?

Michael Green, Evangelism in the Early Church, p. 33-35.

Related posts:

1. Confessing This Jesus-Christ-Come-In-Flesh Jesus
2. The Fellowship: With the Church, with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ
3. Psalm 114:1-2: Jesus Christ, the Sanctuary and Dominion of God

The advantages for the Christian mission of having a common language can hardly be overestimated. It did away with the necessity for missionary language schools. Missionaries using it would incur none of the odium that English-speaking missionaries might find in some of the underdeveloped countries; for Greek; the language of a captive people, could not be associated with imperialism. Moreover, it was a sensitive, adaptable language, ideally suited for the propagation of a theological message, because for centuries it had been used to express the reflections of some of the world’s greatest thinkers, and thus had a ready-made philosophical and theological vocabulary. The lack of this specialist vocabulary in Latin led to difficulties some 250 years later, when Latin replaced Greek as the common language of the Western Empire. (p. 18)

Related posts:

1. Ransomed from every language
2. A more Orthodox Christianity?
3. Jesus Christ, Stumbling Block to the Jew

Preface

Although I rarely get that excited about practical ministry books (I’m more of a Bible, theology, and history guy), I want to promote a new book that has influenced my approach to ministry more than any other single book that I can remember: One-to-One Bible Reading: A Simple Guide for Every Christian, by David Helm.

I came across this book at the 2011 Conference of the Gospel Coalition in a workshop about the principles in the book The Trellis and the Vine, by Colin Marshall and Tony Payne. (Audio for the workshop is here.) If you are familiar with The Trellis and the Vine, then you will probably like Helm’s book, which was based on similar principles.

One-to-One Bible Reading opens with a simple question: What would you do in order to share the gospel with someone who knew very little of Jesus, to disciple a younger believer in the faith, and to train a mature Christian for ministry and leadership in the church? You could adopt three different strategies to each of these people (e.g., an outreach event for the unbeliever, a discipleship program for the younger believer, and a special interest class for the mature Christian). But is this best for each of them?

Helm writes:

Now, if any of those plans for growth were the kinds of things that came into your mind, I want you to know that you are not alone. After all, for generations we have been conditioned to think of spiritual growth mainly in terms of an event to go to, a program to register for or a class to take. The church often puts its creative energies into initiating events, programs and classes specially designed to win people to Christ and help them grow in the faith.

And yet, as successful as some of these plans have been, we might still be missing out on something more dynamic–something more straightforward and right for this day and age–that returns gospel growth to the everyday fabric of personal relationship, rather than relying on church-run programs. (p. 8-9)

The “dynamic” means for accomplishing this is breathtakingly simple: one-to-one Bible reading. Helm lays out a vision where everyone in the church pursues the people they know in their very ordinary relationships (from family, work, school, common interests, etc.), asking them to read the Bible with them, one-on-one.

So, you might ask someone who doesn’t know Jesus to read through the Gospel of Mark with you; someone young in the faith to read through 1 John with you; someone moving toward leadership to read through 1 Timothy with you. And then you do just that, talking, praying, and wrestling with questions along the way.

To me, the beauty of this book is that it offers a practical vision for ministry that matches one of my most basic convictions: that all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. I *could* try to come up with something clever for each person I meet whom I want to see grow in the gospel; or, I could trust the Word of God and the Spirit of God to do the heavy lifting.

The latter sounds much better.

This brief book could probably be read in about an hour’s time, especially since much of its 102 pages is taken up with sample study questions, reading calendars (e.g., Mark in 8 weeks), and Bible book suggestions for different circumstances. I do not know the last time that I have read a book with more value-per-page than this one.

The larger vision laid out in the book, looks like this (quoted from The Trellis and the Vine):

Imagine if all Christians, as a normal part of their discipleship, were caught up in a web of regular Bible reading–not only digging into the Word privately, but reading it with their children before bed, with their spouse over breakfast, with a non-Christian colleague at work once a week over lunch, with a new Christian for follow-up once a fortnight for mutual encouragement, and with a mature Christian friend once a month for mutual encouragement.

It would be a chaotic web of personal relationships, prayer and Bible reading–more of a movement than a program–but at another level it would be profoundly simple and within reach of all.

It’s an exciting thought! (p. 12; The Trellis and the Vine, p. 57)

An exciting thought indeed.

Related posts:

1. Christmas Reading List
2. What We Have Been Given
3. Disappointment

This is a model of what Christian exegesis of the Old Testament should be, in my mind. Nothing feels forced, as though he can’t think of something to say, and so he begins talking about something tangentially related in the life of Jesus. On the contrary, everything he writes stems from deep appreciation both of the text of Jonah and the overarching story of God’s mission in the world, as recorded in all the Scriptures.

Cary’s exegesis arises from a theological conviction as to how Christians should be reading the books of the Old Testament:

What’s more, you need to be able to laugh when you enter into situations of unbearable tension, which tend to arise when Gentiles talk about Jews. There is no getting around such talk when Christians read the Bible, especially when the Christians are Gentiles convinced, as I am, that an essential step to finding Christ in the Old Testament is what can be called an “Israelogical” reading of the text, one that sees figures like Jonah representing not only Christ, the church, and Christians, but also Israel and Judah. Indeed, I think we cannot see how Jonah represents Christ, the church, and Christians without seeing how he represents Israel and Judah. If I am right about this, then a good Christian reading of Jonah will necessarily have a great deal to say about the Jews.

The tension that it would help to be able to laugh about stems from the inescapable need of Gentile Christians to read the Scriptures of Israel as if they were our Scriptures too, as if all the good and bad things they had to say about God’s chosen people were also about us. This is rather tactless of us, and if it weren’t for the resurrection of the Messiah of Israel, in whom Gentiles too are justified by believing, we would have no right to read Israel’s story this way. The authorization of such a reading can only be a gift, an utterly gratuitous blessing bestowed on Gentiles by the King of the Jews, in whom we believe. Yet now, because of what he has done, it does belong to our obedience to this good and gracious King that we read Jewish stories as being about us, too. (p. 19)

This conviction about how we should see Christ in the text of Jonah has led Cary to produce a commentary that made the other commentaries I consulted dry and anemic in comparison. Although I would not agree with everything Cary writes (as for example, his belief that this book is not historical, but merely a story), the overall product is marvelously helpful in connecting such a strange story to the good news of Jesus Christ.

I leave you with this meditation from the commentary as I commend you to buy, read, and delight in Christ through the book of Jonah:

Jesus is the sign of Jonah because he is a sign the same way Jonah is a sign. Jonah offered Nineveh no sign but himself. He did no miracles and had little to say, and that little was ironic and enigmatic, like a parable about not knowing what time it is. The mystery, the hidden meaning, is right there on the surface, as if to say: Don’t you know whose word you’re hearing? That’s what time it is, the time when your LORD visits you and speaks to you. And now you want a sign? The Ninevites knew better, and when Jonah came as a sign among them they believed his word and repented.

The sign of Jonah is good news, for the Ninevites did believe, and therefore it must be that we can too. Of course this also leaves us with no excuse for our unbelief. Indeed the great, evil city Nineveh has every right to rise up at the last day and condemn all of us who follow in Peter’s footsteps, but that is only because (and here again is good news, the gospel) a greater than Jonah is indeed among us, and he is stubbornly persistent in being nothing less than the sign of Jonah, given to an unbelieving generation so that we may believe.

Need it be said that we should not be so foolish as to think ourselves worse off than those who first heard Jesus preach? If we are paying attention at all, we will realize it is not easier to believe him just because he is visibly present. We have indeed not been put to the test like that earlier generation, who took his visibly present flesh, hung it on a cross, and then buried it in the heart of the earth. Yet we, more than they, are that evil and adulterous generation of whom Jesus speaks, for like the Ninevites we are those to whom came one who had already been buried three days. Those who first heard Jesus preach did not have that advantage, because he had not yet died.

Jonah is a sign in his own person because he had been as if three days dead, and yet there he is in the heart of Nineveh proclaiming the word of the LORD. So Jesus is to us the sign of Jonah, three days dead yet there he is in the heart of us, present among us in word and sacrament, preaching and mystery, as enigmatic as a parable whose meaning is hidden right on the surface and therefore impossible for an evil and adulterous generation to understand—unless like the Ninevites we believe in him. (p. 80-81)

“And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27).

Related posts:

1. Ezekiel’s Dry Bones and the Christian Doctrine of Bodily Resurrection
2. God’s Stubborn Mission
3. God’s Stubborn Missionary

On the one hand, I think that the early Church fathers could have done a better job connecting the dots; on the other hand, I think that modern exegetes sometimes forget Jesus’ insistence that the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms were written about him (Luke 24:44).

I was thankful, then, to find two stunning expositions on Ezekiel 37 that sees the connection, yet that does the work of connecting the dots. I quote them here for your edification:

[This text] functions as a very important link in a theological chain to which the full biblical hope of resurrection is anchored. At one end is the connection we have already noted between Ezekiel’s vision of God breathing life into the lifeless bodies of Israel’s defunct army and the Genesis tradition of God breathing the breath of life into the human-shaped pile of dust that then became a living human being. God’s renewal of Israel was like a rerun of creation. Or, to put it the other way round, what God was about to do for Israel would be like the first act in the renewal of humanity as a whole. Here again, as in so many ways, the links between Israel and humanity are apparent. Israel had been called in the first place, through Abraham, to be a blessing to all the nations of the earth. Their election and redemption were for the sake of the rest of humanity. Likewise, therefore, just as their sin and punishment mirrored the fallenness of the whole race, so too their restoration would prefigure God’s gracious purpose of redemption for humanity. Resurrection for Israel anticipated resurrection for all.

And at the centre of the chain stands Jesus himself….The most significant echo of Ezekiel 37 [in the life of Jesus] comes in a locked room on the very evening of his resurrection, when, we read, “he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” The Lord of life himself, freshly risen to his feet from where he had lain among the bones of the dead, adopts simultaneously the posture of Ezekiel in summoning the breath of God, and the posture of God himself in commanding the breath of the Spirit to come upon the disciples. (Christopher J. H. Wright, The Message of Ezekiel: A New Heart and a New Spirit [Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2001], 310.)

And here is a biblical commentator from the 19th century:

The true restoration of Israel as the people of the Lord commenced with the founding of the new kingdom of God, the ‘kingdom of heaven,’ through the appearing of Christ upon the earth. But inasmuch as the Jewish nation as such, or in its entirety, did not acknowledge Jesus Christ as the Messiah foretold by the prophets and sent by God, but rejected its Saviour, there burst afresh upon Jerusalem and the Jewish nation the judgment of dispersion among the heathen; whereas the kingdom of God founded by Christ spread over the earth, through the entrance of believers from among the Gentiles. This judgment upon the Jewish people, which is hardened in unbelief, still continues, and will continue until the time when the full number of the Gentiles has entered into the kingdom of God, and Israel as a people shall also be converted to Christ, acknowledge the crucified One as its Saviour, and bow the knee before Him (Rom. xi. 25, 26). Then will ‘all Israel’ be raised up out of its graves, the graves of its political and spiritual death, and brought back into its own land, which will extend as far as the Israel of God inhabits the earth. Then also will the hour come in which all the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and come forth out of their graves to the resurrection (Dan. xii. 2; John v. 25-29); when the Lord shall appear in His glory, and descend from heaven with the trump of God (1 Thess. iv. 13), to call all the dead to life, and through the judgment upon all the nations to perfect His kingdom in glory, and bring the righteous into the Canaan of the new earth, into the heavenly Jerusalem, to the imperishable life of everlasting blessedness. (C. F. Keil, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Ezekiel, trans. James Martin [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1960], 127-28)

And that, brothers and sisters, will preach.

Related posts:

1. Word, Spirit, and Dry Bones
2. Christian exegesis at its best
3. The Provisions of the Prince

Lutherans understand the sacraments as being inherently powerful, provided that the one receiving the sacraments does so in genuine faith.

They hold that the efficacy of the sacraments is due to their own inherent virtue or power; a power independent, on the one hand, of the attendant influences of the Spirit (extrinsecus accidens), and, on the other hand, of the faith of the recipient. Faith, indeed, is necessary to any saving or sanctifying effect, but that is only a subjective condition on which the beneficial operation of the power, inherent in the sacraments is suspended….Luther’s own favourite illustration was drawn from the case of the woman who touched the Saviour’s garment. (Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. III, p. 503)

The woman, of course, believed that if she could just touch Jesus’ garment, she would be healed.  The garment of Jesus was inherently powerful, and she was blessed because she believed that it would heal her.

The Reformed, on the other hand, do not believe that the sacraments have inherent power, grace, or blessing; rather, all the grace offered to us in the sacraments comes through the work of the Holy Spirit, which we receive through faith:

There is, therefore, a strict analogy, according to the Reformed doctrine, between the Word and the sacraments as a means of grace. (1.) Both have in them a certain moral power due to the truth which they bring before the mind. (2.) Neither has in itself any supernatural power to save or to sanctify. (3.) All their supernatural efficiency is due to the cooperation or attending influence of the Holy Spirit. (4.) Both are ordained by God to be the channels or means of the Spirit’s influence, to those who by faith receive them. (Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. III, p. 502)

Hodge does an excellent job of explaining the difference; however, he does not give many reasons to adopt the Reformed view on this point over against the Lutheran view. I am not sure what particularly, aside from theological creativity, would commend the Lutheran view; however, I would be love to hear from someone more knowledgeable about the Lutheran reasons.

I do think that a strong case can be made in favor of the Reformed view. Paul, in 1 Cor. 12:13, writes that, “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body–Jews or Greeks, slaves or free–and all were made to drink of one Spirit.” The Holy Spirit plays an active role in the baptism of believers so that, in our baptism, we are made to drink of him.

Or, consider that, in each of the accounts of Jesus’ own baptism (Matt. 3:16; Mark 1:10; Luke 3:22; John 1:32), the Holy Spirit descends upon Jesus as a dove; moreover, in each of those accounts, John’s baptism is contrasted with Jesus’ ability to baptize in with the Holy Spirit. Relatedly, in Romans 2, Paul explicitly links the supernatural work of circumcision to the work of the Spirit: “But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter” (Romans 2:29).

It seems to me that physical circumcision and water baptism were both intended to point toward (and actually confirm!) the work of the Spirit, which the Scriptures describe as heart circumcision and as baptism with the Spirit. Apart from heart circumcision, physical circumcision means nothing; apart from Holy Spirit baptism, water baptism means nothing.

Related posts:

1. Hodge on Sacraments
2. More light on the Word and Spirit from Berkhof
3. Word, Spirit, and Dry Bones

I have read D. A. Carson’s For the Love of God for years, and he spends two days outlining four options for interpreting this section. (I just found an online blog that posts these passages daily, but here are the direct links to day one and day two.)

Alternately, I have heard someone explain this promise of a rejuvenated Levitical priesthood by the analogy of a father who, at the turn of the 20th century, promises to buy his young son a horse when he is old enough to ride it, but who buys his son a car instead.  Did the father break his promise?  Not really–he kept the spirit of the promise, but gave his son something better.

These are helpful pathways through the material, and I commend them to you.  For what it’s worth, here is another small thought I had as I read this morning in Ezekiel 45, where we read that:

¹⁷It shall be the prince’s duty to furnish the burnt offerings, grain offerings, and drink offerings, at the feasts, the new moons, and the Sabbaths, all the appointed feasts of the house of Israel: he shall provide the sin offerings, grain offerings, burnt offerings, and peace offerings, to make atonement on behalf of the house of Israel.

In this vision of a new temple/priesthood/sacrificial system, the prince gains a new role of furnishing the animals to sacrifice.  Why would this be?  Why not, as always, have the people bring sacrificial animals for themselves?

Perhaps what is happening in Ezekiel is similar to what happens in Zechariah, where the prophet Zechariah has a vision of Joshua the high priest crowned as king:

^6:11“Take from them silver and gold, and make a crown, and set it on the head of Joshua, the son of Jehozadak, the high priest.  ¹²And say to him, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts, “Behold, the man whose name is the Branch: for he shall branch out from his place, and he shall build the temple of the LORD.  ¹³It is he who shall build the temple of the LORD and shall bear royal honor, and shall sit and rule on his throne.  And there shall be a priest on his throne, and the counsel of peace shall be between them both”‘”

Priests were to come from the tribe of Levi, in the line of Aaron.  Kings were to come from the tribe of Judah, in the line of David.  In the prophet Zechariah’s vision, the priest becomes king.

And in the prophet Ezekiel’s vision, the prince supplies the sacrifices for the people.

Maybe the emphasis in these two passages is not so much on the specifics of what is described (e.g., the design of the temple, the choice of a particular priestly line, the duties incumbent upon the prince), but rather on a strange, unresolved blending of roles between priests and princes.  The two kingdoms seem to be perfectly held at arm’s length from one another, and then, all of a sudden, the prophets begin to see them merge into one!

Quietly, the prophets, priests, and kings see the glory of own roles fade into the glory of the One who would bring all three roles perfectly together in himself.

Related posts:

1. Once for All
2. Ezekiel’s Dry Bones and the Christian Doctrine of Bodily Resurrection
3. On the Cohesiveness of the Scriptures

Now, I have HUGE reservations about Ayn Rand’s philosophy, especially since she was so vehemently anti-Christ.  Take, for example, a line in the opening pages of The Fountainhead: “The church was a Gothic monument of shingles painted pigeon blue.  It had stout wooden buttresses supporting nothing” (4, emphasis added).  In a story exalting godless, man-centered architecture, that might be one of the most damning lines in the book.

The problem, though, is that these writers don’t *quite* understand Rand.  They are accusing her of being greedy, when she was, in fact, selfish.  In her philosophy, this is a huge difference.  Greedy means, “Excessively desirous of acquiring or possessing, especially wishing to possess more than what one needs or deserves.”  Selfish means, “Concerned chiefly or only with oneself.”

Where this becomes important is in her belief in “productive achievement as [man's] noblest activity” (quoted in Moore’s article).  It is productive achievement–not money–that is most important to Rand.  Rand absolutely loathed anyone who received more money than they deserved, even as she championed the right to make as much money as possible.

What’s the difference?  In Rand’s utopia (seen mostly clearly in Atlas Shrugged), money was a pure reflection of what a man had produced.  On the other hand, Rand’s novels are filled with rich, greedy antagonists who produce nothing, but nevertheless deceive and manipulate others out of their money.

So, Howard Roark in The Fountainhead refuses architecture contracts where his contractors demand to modify his designs.  John Galt in Atlas Shrugged built a world for the geniuses–the producers–of the world to live together, including some who were (currently) poor, and excluding many who had long been rich.  It is a world where every person produces to the best of their abilities for their own interest, and they trade their products in a purely free market for the products of others.  For Rand, this is selfishness, not greed.

On the other hand, villains and fools like Peter Keating, Ellsworth Toohey, and James Taggart destroy wealth because they don’t produce anything of value–even though all are extremely greedy and wealthy.

For this reason, Ayn Rand cannot really be considered the “goddess of the recession,” because she too would have condemned greedy, manipulative CEOs who made their money through shady deals that had nothing to do with the value of a product–even as she would condemn the hypocritical government that has incentivized, brow-beaten, and all but extorted businesses to make the terrible financial decisions that were the sub-prime mortgage crisis.

Rand would argue that this recession is the result of far too much greed and far too little selfishness (e.g., production in one’s self interest).

That said, Rand’s ethics were abysmal.  She cared nothing for the poor, except in insisting that the poor should have the opportunity to work and produce.  She had a horrific notion of “love” that she generally depicted with rape scenes.  Moreover, I could never quite shake the question of “Why?” as I read her books.  Why would you spend your life honing your craft for your own self-interest if you lost everything at your death?  Some philosophies would see the public good or the bettering of the next generations as important, but for Rand, one’s self-interest is god.  So why do all this?

As I said earlier, I don’t know why Christians are all of the sudden turning their attention against Ayn Rand.  If you are interested in reading a much better and well documented essay, try John Piper’s essay, “The Ethics of Ayn Rand: Appreciation and Critique.”  Piper describes my own sentiments toward Rand’s works well: “To this day, I find her writings paradoxically attractive.”

But in the interest of intellectual honesty, blaming Ayn Rand for the greed that led to the recession is neither fair nor accurate.  As easy of a political target as she might be, we Christians need to be a little more shrewd as serpents, while yet innocent as doves.

Related posts:

1. A properly ordered love of mammon
2. Justifying War
3. On $4 gas

On the one hand, Miller credits the absence of an official state church with the “competition” among the different denominations to gain for themselves their share of the population. On the other hand, Miller argues that the revivals and interdenominational associations for the propagation of Christianity (through supporting missions, printing Bibles, publishing tracts, etc…) led to a unity that transcended that “competition.”

This situation had two major effects. First, some of the suspicion between traditions fell away as members of different denominations began to work with one another toward the total Christianization of America. So, rather than seeing one’s own denomination as the only true believers, Christians began to look differently at their divisions:

From Bangor, Maine, Enoch Pond pleaded that without the associations, our efforts “must be sectional, insulated, feeble, and ineffectual.” Meanwhile, the associations seemed to prosper, providing occasion for much oratory about the glories of co-operation which still haunt the American Protestant imagination. Our Bible societies, declared George Cookman in 1828, are a line of forts along the enemy’s frontiers; our Sabbath schools are military academies for young cadets, our tract societies are shot-houses for the manufacture of ammunition. Our Methodists are cavalry, Presbyterians are infantry, and the Dutch Reformed are heavy artillery. That the associations and churches never quite got themselves arrayed in so beautiful a military formation does not alter the fact that in the effort to combine them a vision of the American community took shape. (48)

The second effect, though, is a general degradation of the unique attributes and contributions of each of these traditions. Miller writes,

For the truth is that while the religious leaders were ostensibly talking about harmony among the churches, they were actually charting the way toward a homogeneous America. (48)

By laboring at a “lowest common denominator” level, both the good and the bad aspects of different traditions disappeared, leaving a generic kind of Christian who pursued a generic kind of Christianity.

The problem with this, according to Mark Noll in his excellent book The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (which I recently finished), is that most of these Christians limited themselves to working toward the conversion of America through revivals — they did not, therefore, give all that much thought or energy toward creating a thoroughly Christian society, where the gospel permeated the pursuit and development of science, politics, philosophy, economics, etc…

Unfortunately, that only left a bunch of Christians without much idea of how to live as Christians — except, of course, that they were supposed to seek to convert more people to Christianity.

Related posts:

1. Letter to the Editor
2. Wisdom Literature
3. Calvinism in China