When you get down to summary statements is Piper

This final judgment accords with our works. That is, the fruit of the Holy Spirit in our lives will be brought forward as the evidence and confirmation of true faith and union with Christ. Without that validating transformation, there will be no future salvation.

different from Wright:

...the Holy Spirit gives the power through which that future verdict, when given, will be seen to be in accordance with the life that the believer has then lived.

Some things about the Christianity Today article don't quite sound like Wright though.

But look at the agreement

"Accords" = "in accordance with"

"brought forward as evidence" = "will be seen to be"

"our works" = "life lived"

Why doesn't the Marrow Controversy teach us this:

That the system of doctrine contained in the Westminster Confession is insufficient to defend against legalism, and to do so, you need additional doctrines.

The comments on the last post were actually apropos of my attempted discussion of a sensitive matter here.

Just FYI

Interesting.

Since ordering an American Girl doll for my daughter a few months ago, I've recently noticed a constant barrage of ads on other sites from American Girl Dolls, sites that really wouldn't expect to advertise the dolls.

So I hovered over the ad, saw it was from ad.yeildmanager, and then deleted the cookie. The ads went away.

Guess I should do that more often. First time I've seen the ads track me down like that.

I sometimes ignore wishlists.

Boardgamegeek Wishlist

Can't have too many games about Middle Earth! At least not yet.

From Fantasy Flight Games comes Middle-Earth Quest!

It seems to be set in a "just before the trilogy" environment. I wonder if its all made up or based on some Lost Tales or something. Nothing worse than made-up stuff in fantasy, I say.

Interesting article about the possibility the Obamas living off credit prior to 2005.

Matthew Henry, on I Kings 21 where Ahab repents and God responds in mercy

Favour was shown to this wicked man that God might magnify his goodness (says bishop Sanderson) even to the hazard of his other divine perfections; as if (says he) God would be thought unholy, or untrue, or unjust (though he be none of these), or any thing, rather than unmerciful.

I wonder what Steven Wedgeworth would say to that.

It would be easier for me to be less skeptical of Christian social justice teaching if it didn't contain things that seem contradictory

Christians should never base arguments on what they should be doing based on worldly economic arguments. Do we not have a God that owns the cattle on a thousand hills? That knowledge should free us up to not worry about how immigrants may affect the economy, but allow us instead to worry about how we can fix the issues that have pushed them into their situation, and care for them in the midst of it.

are't those same "issues" inextractably part of "worldly economic arguments"?

More on the Treasury stress tests. Not very positive.

My guess is that Team Obama is hoping to “keep their options open”, one of the classic modes of failure for decision-makers facing difficult choices. Unfortunately time relentlessly closes options. Every decision taken closes options. Every opportunity missed closes options.

The Planet Money podcast today is a must-listen. Adam Davidson interviewed Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. The questions are great; the answers....hmmm.

The producer sets up the interview with a very revealing account of how Geithner's press person kept scribbling furiously during the interview and shoving the talking points under his face. He certainly sounds like he reading canned phrases at certain points.

The topic is a "Stress Test" that Geithner says Treasury is doing on the banks. Davidson keeps asking him what he knows now (not naming names) about insolvency in big banks and Geithner keeps dodging the question talking about how the tests will show, not which banks are bad, but which banks will benefit from the government giving them money to get credit moving again. At one point he calls what the government is doing as providing "comfort".

Very disappointing to me is Geithner's claim that the reason the housing market is bad now ("artificially depressed"!) is because the credit markets are tight. There doesn't seem to be any recognition that the way-too-loose credit markets of the past is what made the housing market inflated. Does he think we can get back to those kind of prices? If not, we still have to deal with underwater homeowners.

Davidson calls the interview a "dance". It certainly isn't "transparent".

The interview is going to make it onto This American Life this weekend. I'll have to check out how it develops into their show then.

Based on my back-of-a-crackerjack-box understanding of Keynsian theory, Government needs to get cash into the hands of those most likely to spend, so that the economy will have higher demand.

It wouldn't be a good idea to give tax breaks to the rich, because they are more likely to save it, rather than spend it and increase aggregate demand.

But doesn't that mean that when we DO bailout Wall Street and banks, IF they spend money on commodes and trips to Vegas and corporate jets that those are the few cases where the wealthy ARE increasing aggregate demand?

Shouldn't we want more corporate jets, so that jet makers have jobs?

I seem to recall Clinton's luxury tax on yacht's decimated the yacht industry and put people out of work until it was reversed.

As a side note, Obama promised before being elected that he would go "line by line" through the budget and eliminate programs that don't work (why he couldn't do any of this work before hand he didn't say.

So if he thinks that's good, why won't he go through the stimulus package and object to things that "don't work"?

John Derbyshire was not enthralled with Elisabeth Alexander's inaugural poem, calling out the line

love with no need to pre-empt grievance

as confused and difficult to interpret. Derb hazards a guess

"To pre-empt" means "to seize upon to the exclusion of others: take for oneself: appropriate" (Webster's Third). So this kind of love, unlike other kinds of love, has no need to seize upon grievance and take it for itself, leaving no part of grievance over for any other love. Which kinds of love do do the thing that this kind has no need to do?

I think she rather intends the opposite.

As in: There are certain kinds of love, probably most "loves," that expect you to put your greivances aside and live together. To "pre-empt grievance" is for love to exclude greivance because love is taking up all emotional resources.

Alexander, to the contrary, wants a love that includes and makes room for her grievances.

Apparently I'm not the only one who interprets it that way, though. For example, Rinku Sen is more sanguine about the idea.

Preempting grievance means that from the beginning, there’s an understanding, spoken or tacit, that we will not speak of any harm, we will not express affront. We must not reproach, complain or resist. This is the kind of love that undergirds abusive marriages and secretive families. It gives birth to miserably tense holidays in which we carry ourselves so rigidly that we can’t eat, laugh or play tag football. This kind of non-love isn’t just a private thing.

So remember: love doesn't bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things.

Love keeps a record of wrongs.

"[The Christian] finds no solid hope in the improvement of earthy conditions, or the molding of human institutions under the influence of the Golden Rule. These things indeed are to be welcomed. They may so palliate the symptoms of sin that there may be time to apply the true remedy; they may serve to produce conditions upon the earth favorable to the propagation of the gospel message; they are even valuable for their own sake. But in themselves their value, to the Christian, is certainly small. A solid building cannot be constructed when all the materials are faulty; a blessed society cannot be formed out of men who are still under the curse of sin. Human institutions are really to be molded, not by Christian principles accepted by the unsaved, but by Christian men; the true transformation of society will come by the influence of those who have themselves been redeemed" - J. Gresham Machen: Christianity and Liberalism

As a side note, the mainstream of reformed thought today seems to have given up on the idea of transforming society.

Create Your Own Sea Kitten at peta.org!

I haven't done a "Who said this" in a while (I haven't blogged in a while either; I think Facebook is inadequately filling my online socializing needs for now.

Here's the quote though:

"In the state of original righteousness, man was bound to seek God...according to the tenor of the covenant of works. His seeking of God consisted in the faith and works of obedience required in that covenant. And there is now no way to seek God but according to the revelation that he has made of himself in the covenant of grace, and the terms of obedience required therein".

So who said it? (no googling...)

I find this hard to believe, and the justification is incredible: The two villages where mothers killed EVERY baby born a boy for ten years

The Papua New Guinea jungle has given up one of its darkest secrets - the systematic slaughter of every male baby born in two villages to prevent future tribal clashes.

By virtually wiping out the 'male stock', tribal women hope they can avoid deadly bow-and-arrow wars between the villages in the future

It is the Daily Mail, so take with a grain of sensationalism.

So I know some people consider Obama a Christian. He says he prays to Jesus. Fine.

Since he was a member of a United Church of Christ denomination church (though he left it: BTW: does anyone know what church he's joined in the meanwhile? Has he attended anywhere while campaigning?) which is theologically liberal, it raises the questions whether his beliefs about Jesus are anywhere near orthodox.

I haven't read the Audacity of Hope, but I came across this quote

When I read the Bible, I do so with the belief that it is not a static text but the Living Word and that I must be continually open to new revelation – whether they come from a lesbian friend or a doctor opposed to abortion.

So clearly, he isn't looking into the Bible itself for revelation, and his views on the Bible's authority are woefully inadequate for actual Christian life.

1. Does he actually believe Jesus rose bodily from the dead?

2. Does he believe Jesus was born of a virgin?

3. Does he believe Jesus is the second person of the trinity?

4. Does he believe that some day Jesus will return to judge the living and the dead?

I raised some of this on my blog months ago, and haven't found any answers in the interim. Is there any answer to these questions?

I've really been enjoying the Planet Money podcast from NPR. It does an excellent job of patiently explaining the financial crisis. The most recent episode (which I listened to on my way to work) included an interview with Mark Cuban (billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks (heh).

Very enlightening/troubling was the site Mark Cuban started with his own funds, an investigative journalism site bailoutsleuth.com which reported on how the very first contract awarded for the bailout by the Treasury Department is heavily redacted, removing what one would think would be pertinent information, like what we, the taxpayers, are paying Bank of New York Mellon Corp for their work on the bailout.

I commend to all the podcast and Cuban's site.

Two interesting quotes from John Owen's commentary on Hebrews (volume 20). The first is the preeminence of Christ, without ignoring the other "instrumental casuses" of salvation (braodly considered, of course)

The Lord Christ alone is the only principal cause of our eternal salvation, and that in every kind. There are many instrumental causes of it in sundry kinds. So is faith; so are the word and all the ordinances of the gospel; they are instrumental, helping, furthering causes of salvation, — but all in subordination unto Christ, who is the principal, and who alone gives use and efficacy unto all others. How he is so, by his oblation and intercession, by his Spirit and grace, in his ruling and teaching, offices and power, is the chief work of the ministry to declare. God hath appointed that in all things he should have the preeminence.

There are both internal and external means of salvation that he hath appointed, whereby he communicates unto us the virtue and benefit of his mediation. These it is our duty to make use of according to his appointment; so that we expect no relief or help from them, but only by them. So much as they have of Christ in them, so much as they convey of Christ unto us, of so much use they are, and no more.

And on the necessity of obedience

Salvation is confined to believers; and those who look for salvation by Christ, must secure it unto themselves by faith and obedience. It is Christ alone who is the cause of our salvation; but he will save none but those that obey him. He came to save sinners, but not such as choose to continue in their sins; though the gospel be full of love, of grace, of mercy, and pardon, yet herein the sentence of it is peremptory and decretory: “He that believeth not shall be damned.”

I was also intrigued to see how Owen included faith in amongst obedience

Hence it is faith in the first place that is intended in this obedience. For it is that which, in order unto our participation of Christ, first “cometh by hearing,” Romans 10:17; and that partly because the object of it, which is the promise, is proposed outwardly unto it in the word, where we hear of it and hear it; and partly because the preaching of the word, which we receive by hearing, is the only ordinary means of ingenerating faith in our souls. Hence to believe is expressed by [greek], “to hear” so as to answer the ends of what is proposed unto us. The ensuing subjecting our souls unto Christ, in the keeping of his commands, is “the obedience of faith.”