The Bosque Boys

I eulogized the late Dr. Thomas Torrance in this earlier post. He was a brilliant theologian, a faithful churchman, family man, and folower of Christ. In constructive theology he wrote especially on the nature of God, and on religion and science.

He recently was honored by Presbyterians Pro-Life. This notice also links to Torrance's booklet The Being and Nature of the Unborn Child.

Here is a direct link to Torrance's address. Scroll down to view the unedited version.

This story, from ABC News, reports that one of the preachers under investigation by the Senate Finance Committee is refusing to cooperate. Creflo Dollar (yes, that is correct), has told Senator Grassley to either get a subpoena or refer the matter to the IRS. Other preachers/ministry groups are dragging their feet. At issue is whether these groups are meeting the Federal requirements to maintain their tax-exempt status. Previous post here.

Is this investigation a breach of the Separation of Church and State? Is it an abuse of Federal power? While I am uncomfortable with government investigating religious groups, and understand the possibility of a "chilling effect," it seems to me that the Senate Finance Committee is not overstepping its bounds by conducting this investigation. If a group wants tax-exempt status there are requirements to be met. And just as a non-religious non-profit must follow guidelines on accountability, salaries and perks, etc., so also a religious group.

So long as no Senator either explicitly or implicitly questions doctrines, or any other matter not related to non-profit regulation, I am comfortable with this inquiry.

"It cannot be too often repeated that what destroyed the Family in the modern world was Capitalism." G.K. Chesterton in "Three Foes of the Family" found in the collection of his essays The Well and the Shallows.

To many American evangelicals, or other conservative American Christians, the above quotation may sound strange. This sense of strangeness occurs because by the early 1800s most American evangelicals were embracing capitalism. Earlier Protestants had some initial reservations about capitalism, for example the Puritans insisted that all human relations, including economic, were subject to God's righteous morality, so that prices, for example, should be fair rather than simply what the market would bear. Even over a century after the Puritans, debates were conducted in some Protestant papers during the Panic of 1837 between those who thought Christians should pay living wages and not take advantage of the troubles of others to buy land too cheaply, and those who advocated following the market. Those who embraced the capitalist market economy won in almost all denominations. The changes involved were not limited to economic transactions. By the mid-to-latter 1800s most evangelical churches had begun to act like other parts of the capitalist market economy, seeing people as consumers who needed to be targeted, and tailoring their approaches and product so as to appeal to the largest market segment. Today's mega-churches, the Box Stores of Christianity, are the culmination of this trend: consumers come for the most personal value for the cheapest price. In addition, the Red Scares and the Cold War pushed many American denominations into supporting the American Way of Life against "godless Boshevism" or "atheistic Communism." Capitalism was regarded as an essential part of the American Way. Therefore, any criticism of capitalism, implied or explicit, falls on ears of American Christians like a foreign language.


I have been approaching this quotation at a glacial pace precisely because Chesterton's words will sound strange to many. In the first post, I presented some brief biographical information on G.K. Chesterton. In the second and third posts I tried to introduce Chesterton's economic preference, Distributivism. My hope is that today's post has created an awareness that Christianity has not always and everywhere seen Capitalism as a godly system. Next, G.K.'s Roman Catholicism and economics.

If you have not already done so, I recommend you take a look at the American Chesterton Society website, and also that of Gilbert Magazine.

The Pope met this week with the King of Saudi Arabia. Story here. and here. At his meeting Benedict XVI raised the issue of the lack of rights for the Christians in Saudi Arabia, mostly foreign workers. Good for him.

But what may be good to remember, is that there were Christians in Arabia before Islam. (And Jews.) These were conquered by the followers of Muhammad.

And on a related note, for those who think that Africa is somehow more naturally Islamic than Christian: Egypt and Nubia (Sudan), and north Africa were Christian before Islamic conquests. Some Christian Berber groups held out until the Middle Ages. Christian Ethiopia never submitted.

And for those who think the problems between Christianity and Islam started with the Crusades, I have old news. In addition to the lands above, the Middle East was Christian before the Islamic conquest, as was Iberia. Religion of Peace my infidel *ss.

"It cannot be too often repeated that what destroyed the Family in the modern world was Capitalism." G.K. Chesterton in "Three Foes of the Family" found in the collection of his essays The Well and the Shallows.

I want to continue stalking this quotation. First post. Second post.

Chesterton thought the Industrial Revolution to have been a tragedy for Britain and humanity. He not only objected to the noise, smoke, and ugliness of industrialization, but also to the commercial impulse behind it. He was the foe of Capitalism and of Communism.

Here is a long quote from his essay "Reflections on a Rotten Apple."

In all normal civilisations the trader existed and must exist. But in all normal civilisations the trader was the exception; certainly he was never the rule; and most certainly he was never the ruler. The predominance which he has gained in the modern world is the cause of the disasters of the modern world. The universal habit of humanity has been to produce and consume as part of the same process; largely conducted by the same people in the same place. Sometimes goods were produced and consumed on the same great feudal manor; sometimes even on the same small peasant farm. Sometimes there was a tribute from serfs as yet hardly distinguishable from slaves; sometimes there was a co-operation between free-men which the superficial can hardly distinguish from communism. But none of these many historical methods, whatever their vices or limitations, was strangled in the particular tangle of our own time; because most of the people, for most of the time, were thinking about growing food and then eating it; not entirely about growing food and selling it at the stiffest price to somebody who had nothing to eat. And I for one do not believe there is any way out of the modern tangle, except to increase the proportion of the people who are living according to the ancient simplicity.

To Chesterton, treating the world and the products derived from the world, merely as commodities for trade or sale, alienated society from its God-given human nature. Chesterton's economics was a part of his religious outlook. In the next post, Chesterton's Roman Catholicism.

It cannot be too often repeated that what destroyed the Family in the modern world was Capitalism." G.K. Chesterton in "Three Foes of the Family" found in the collection of his essays The Well and the Shallows.

This statement should be approached by a modern American thinker in the same way one drives to the top of Pike's Peak: gradually in sprirals, ever higher around the mountain. In my first post on this quotation, I gave a brief introduction to Chesterton the man. Today I want to introduce briefly his political/social thought. I'll begin with some quotations from his writings.

First, from the Father Brown story "The Crime of the Communist" Father Brown speaking:

. . . I told you that heresies and false doctrines had become common and conversational; that everybody was used to them; that nobody really noticed them. Did you think I meant Communism when I said that? Why, it was just the other way. You were all as nervous as cats about Communism; and you watched Craken like a wolf. Of course, Communism is a heresy; but it isn't a heresy that you people take for granted. It is Capitalism you take for granted; or rather the vices of Capitalism disguised as a dead Darwinism. Do you recall what you were all saying in the Common Room, about life being only a scramble, and nature demanding the survival of the fittest, and how it doesn't matter whether the poor are paid justly or not? Why that is the heresy that you have grown accustomed to, my friends; and its every bit as much a heresy as Communism. That's the anti-Christian morality or immorality that you take quite naturally. . . . (more below)

» Read More

"It cannot be too often repeated that what destroyed the Family in the modern world was Capitalism." G.K. Chesterton in "Three Foes of the Family" found in the collection of his essays The Well and the Shallows.

Chesterton was much too brilliant a thinker and a writer to dismiss anything he says. I want to do a few posts in reflection on that quotation. But first, some background.

G.K. Chesterton wrote widely and prolifically, amounting to about 100 volumes. I copy this brief biography from this website on Chesterton.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton was born in London, England on the 29th of May, 1874. Though he considered himself a mere "rollicking journalist," he was actually a prolific and gifted writer in virtually every area of literature. A man of strong opinions and enormously talented at defending them, his exuberant personality nevertheless allowed him to maintain warm friendships with people--such as George Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells--with whom he vehemently disagreed.

Chesterton had no difficulty standing up for what he believed. He was one of the few journalists to oppose the Boer War. His 1922 Eugenics and Other Evils attacked what was at that time the most progressive of all ideas, the idea that the human race could and should breed a superior version of itself. In the Nazi experience, history demonstrated the wisdom of his once "reactionary" views.

His poetry runs the gamut from the comic "The Logical Vegetarian" to dark and serious ballads. During the dark days of 1940, when Britain stood virtually alone against the armed might of Nazi Germany, these lines from his 1911 Ballad of the White Horse were often quoted:

I tell you naught for your comfort,
Yea, naught for your desire,
Save that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher.

Though not written for a scholarly audience, his biographies of authors and historical figures like Charles Dickens and St. Francis of Assisi often contain brilliant insights into their subjects. His "Father Brown" mystery stories, written between 1911 and 1936, are still being read and adapted for television.
His politics fitted with his deep distrust of concentrated wealth and power of any sort. Along with his friend Hilaire Belloc and in books like the 1910 What's Wrong with the World he advocated a view called "Distributism" that is best summed up by his expression that every man ought to be allowed to own "three acres and a cow." Though not known as a political thinker, his political influence has circled the world. Some see in him the father of the "small is beautiful" movement and a newspaper article by him is credited with provoking Gandhi to seek a "genuine" nationalism for India. Orthodoxy belongs to yet another area of literature at which Chesterton excelled. A fun-loving and gregarious man, he was nevertheless troubled in his adolescence by thoughts of suicide. In Christianity he found the answers to the dilemmas and paradoxes he saw in life. Other books in that same series include his 1905 Heretics and its sequel Orthodoxy and his 1925 The Everlasting Man.

Chesterton died on the 14th of June, 1936 in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire. During his life he published 69 books and at least another ten have been published after his death. Many of those books are still in print.

Next time, Chesterton's political theory.

This link is to the American Chesterton Society

This is a link to the website of a magazine dedicated to his thought and writings.

When my wife and I were newlyweds in the late '70s, the retired couple in the next trailer invited us over for supper. Most of the evening was spent listening to their sales pitch for past-life regression hypnosis along with stories of their "past lives." They were into some sort of Americanized verzion of some sort of Buddhism. Then the woman said, "That's why I am so against abortion, it breaks the karmic cycle."

From listening to the MSM, one would assume that all pro-life activists were right-wing evangelical and Roman Catholic fanatics. While I suspect that the largest group of anti-abortion Americans fit into that category, it certainly does not cover everyone.

Check out these sites:

Atheist and Agnostic Pro-Life League Homepage

Pro-Life Alliance of Gays and Lesbians

Libertarians for Life

Feminism & Nonviolence Studies

A Buddhist Look at Abortion

Jews for Life

Pagans for Life

Reinhold Niebuhr, one of the more brilliant thinkers born in the U.S., is fashionable again. Story here.

Niebuhr's social thought may be summarized as follows. Human sin permeates all social structures and human actions. While an individual has the capacity for the self-transcendance that leads to repentance, social institutions do not. Therefore social change must involve conflict, pressure, and even the use of force. Pacifism is an irresponsible stance in the world because it ignores the need for justice. We must not, however, think that we are absolutely righteous when working for justice. All human actions are infected with sin; even good actions will be mixed with self-interest and complex motives, not all of them good. We must not, as well, think that we will achieve perfection. At best, human action can achieve approximate justice, not absolute justice. Indeed, the delusion that we can create a perfect world leads to monstrosities as we delude ourselves into believing we are absolutely righteous and our cause is absolutely righteous. With such assumptions we justify doing anything for "the cause."

While often thought of as a social "liberal," Niebuhr was fiercely anti-totalitarian against both Nazism and Communism. Theologically, he was "Neo-Orthodox" rather than "Liberal," because of his stress on a reinterpreted doctrines of "Original Sin" and "Depravity" rather than denying these doctrines.

Niebuhr and his "Christian Realism" inform my social thought.

Once more the Left shows us their definition of "diversity." The new panel empowered by Vermont to evaluate the possiblility of same-sex marriage in civil society has no members espousing traditional marriage. It does however, have a member living in a same-sex union. Story here, from Anglican News via The Institution on Religion and Democracy.