A couple of recent posts elsewhere have me thinking back to my childhood as a student at a private, fundamentalist Christian school in New Jersey. Stuff Fundies Like just finished “Back to School Week,” ranging from kindergarten to college. I particularly liked this bit, from the post on high school: By the time a young fundamentalist has reached high school the focus of their spiritual instruction has narrowed down to two basic points. 1) Not having sex with anybody and... Read more
“Blessed are those who pretend to be persecuted, for they shall reap truckloads of cash and live like Hollywood stars.” No, that’s not from the Bible. It’s my paraphrase of Bob Smietana’s scrupulous piece of investigative journalism for The Tennessean: “Christian crusaders cash in: Sekulow’s family, firm collect millions.” Jay Sekulow is the head of the American Center for Law and Justice. The legal charity was founded in 1990 by televangelist and former Republican presidential candidate Pat Robertson to be... Read more
Tribulation Force, pp. 406-407 More than 18 months after the Rapture, it finally occurs to the authors that the final countdown of history might also have financial and economic implications: Rayford was going to be out of town until the day before he and Chloe and the new buyers were to close on the house. He smiled at the idea of buyers securing a 30-year mortgage. Someone was going to lose on that deal. Well, sort of. If this is... Read more
. Job seekers: Let us know where you are and what you’re looking for. Everybody: Skim through and see if you know something, or know someone, or know someone who knows someone, who might help out one of our job seekers. My latest thing is hitting all the local chamber of commerce sites, making lists of area businesses, then hitting their websites for any postings. But then, of course, I’m unemployed, so obviously whatever I’m doing isn’t working and you... Read more
It is, admittedly, a bit odd for me as a Baptist to be such a fan of a papal encyclical. But my enthusiasm for Laborem Exercens is in spite of, not because of, its claim to ecclesiastical authority. I admire it because it presents a thoughtful and principled argument based on and distilled from non-sectarian reasoning. Look again at the moral reasoning John Paul II employs there in his discussion of the priority of labor: We must emphasize and give... Read more
We must first of all recall a principle that has always been taught by the Church: the principle of the priority of labor over capital. This principle directly concerns the process of production: in this process labor is always a primary efficient cause, while capital, the whole collection of means of production, remains a mere instrument or instrumental cause. … This gigantic and powerful instrument-the whole collection of means of production that in a sense are considered synonymous with “capital”... Read more
I somehow missed a couple of albums despite both being right up my alley and coming from two of my favorite voices anywhere. Patty Griffin is a brilliant songwriter, capable of crafting a lyric and setting it to a melody that cuts to the heart. She’s written a host of songs that can burrow under your skin by introducing you to fully human characters, then convincing you to love them as much as Griffin seems to — from “Sweet Lorraine”... Read more
Ecclesiastes 9:11-12 Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favour to the skilful; but time and chance happen to them all. For no one can anticipate the time of disaster. Like fish taken in a cruel net, and like birds caught in a snare, so mortals are snared at a time of calamity, when it suddenly... Read more
Or, in the language Joe Carter used in First Things, this book title is a disreputable, “meaningless neologism” that is “never used outside liberal blogs and websites.” As I discussed in the previous few posts, my main history with the dominionists has been with the ultra-Calvinists of the “theonomist” or “reconstructionist” branches of dominion theology. It’s only been in the past few years that I’ve learned more about the Pentecostal branch of C. Peter Wagner’s New Apostolic Reformation. Before that,... Read more
While still not a mainstream ideology, dominion theology did claim one notable convert back in the 1980s. Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition, host of The 700 Club, and sometime Republican candidate for president, embraced the term for many years, becoming among the first of many influential Pentecostal leaders to begin adapting the theonomists’ dominion theology to fit into their non-Calvinist, charismatic form of spirituality. Robertson eventually backed away from using the language of “dominion” to describe his own... Read more
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