Miscellaneous Web Resources - May 2009

I'm going to take a break and mention a few sites I follow these days. For most of these, I download mp3's onto my mp3 player and listen while running/driving. However, before I get into a longish list, I'll recommend two recent favorites:

• Is The Culture Shaping Us or Are We Shaping The Culture? - D. A. Carson is one of the best known traditional theologians alive today. This talk was given at a CBMW conference, along with one on 1 Timothy 2.
• What Husbands and Wives Aren't Telling Each Other - This interview of Steve and Annie Chapman is a refreshing change from the typical Biblically-based discussion of marriage.
  

Now, the sites:

• American Family Radio - overtly Christian, AFR covers stories that aren't mentioned elsewhere. Since revamping their programming to emphasize talk, they provide the most comprehensive news/issues coverage from a Christian worldview I know of...unless, your definition of Christianity is more "social gospel" than traditional. The programs include:
  • AFA Report - 1 hr daily; social issues/news of the day; you can usually skip the last 20-30 minutes (i.e., when they go to their first caller)
  • Today's Issues - 2 hrs daily; content varies wildly; I probably don't listen to a program more than once every 2-3 weeks
  • Matt Friedeman Show - 3 hrs daily; I never download this since it is on during drive time; the most balanced Christian talk show I know of (most tend to one of two poles: overtly religious (e.g., Renewing Your Mind (below)) or largely secular/family/political/etc. topics from a Christian worldview (e.g., Focus on the Family, Point of View, etc.)...there's nothing else out there quite like it...
    
  • News - onenewsnow.com has the stories discussed in the AFA Report
    

• AFR also broadcasts some of the best independent Christian worldview programs, including:
  • The Christian Worldview - 2 hr weekly; associated with Summit Ministries (the premier Christian worldview training group); I don't know how to download their audio since it's played via Shockwave (I know there are Internet radio recorders that will do the trick...I'm not talking about one of those).
    
  • CrossExamined - 1 hr weekly; crossexamined.org was founded by Frank Turek ("I Don't Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist") to address the problem that 70-75% of teens leave the church after high school. His list of resources is one of the better lists.
    
  • Richard Land Live - 3 hrs weekly; Richard Land is head of the public policy branch of the Southern Baptist Convention; usually a nice summary of the week's news. Also, see his daily program For Faith and Family; (some occasional overlap between the weekday and weekend programs)
    
  • Point of View - 2 hours daily; founded by Marlin Maddoux, this is the original Christian worldview radio program (it was one the pioneers of satellite broadcasting)
  • Liberty Live - 1 hour daily; Matt Staver (Dean of Liberty University School of Law) discusses legal aspects of current issues
    

• Albert Mohler Program - daily, 1 hour; covers current issues; Mohler is President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and played a central role in moving the Southern Baptist Convention back to a Biblical foundation in the 1990's.
  
• Renewing Your Mind - R. C. Sproul's daily program (30 min.) is for the serious Bible student with an interest in theology and philosophy.
• Shepherd's Conference - Although I believe we are saved completely by grace (not works), I just can't find Calvinism in the Bible. Having said that, the keynote talks at the 2009 conference are exceptionally wise. All traditional Christian groups are struggling to maintain the authority of ALL of Christ's words (Matthew through Revelation; Jn 16:12-15) in a culture that relentlessly preaches superficial "love" and "tolerance". (requires free registration)
  
• Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood - I'll have more to say about these folks later, but they explore one of the basic questions of existence...what does it mean to be male and female?...from a traditional Biblical perspective. Highly recommended...the area of sexuality is where a Biblical worldview clashes most clearly with today's secular/monist worldview.

Ok, that's enough for now...and probably more than you can listen to regularly... :-)

Authority, Not Power

Our world is obsessed with the acquisition and exercise of power. Authority is often seen as not much more than a fig leaf used to provide some justification for using power.

I suppose this has always been true...but, in the Western world, the arc of modernism through hyper/post-modernism, combined with the unmooring of democracy from its origins in the idea that all humans are in God's image and therefore equal in value, has been especially effective in convincing folks that power is mostly accidental, usually arbitrary, and generally oppressive.

To put it another way, there's little if any moral justification (i.e., generally recognized basis in authority) for the possession or exercise of power.

This is the sort of thing that books are written about, so I'll try to throw out a few observations to consider.

• When modernism adopted a naturalistic epistemology (i.e., no knowledge of the metaphysical is possible) it denied that any knowledge of God was possible. A key turning point was Darwin's assertion that accidents could result in apparent design (i.e., distinctive species). As the denial of an overarching authority (God) that provided meaning and purpose worked its way into the social realm, a variety of alternatives were proposed (e.g., nihilism). The brutal results of this trend were seen in the French Revolution and especially in the 20th century (e.g., Hitler, Stalin). And, even though Mao, Pol Pot, and other dictators were not primarily grounded in modernism, they did use a framework created by a Westerner who was part of that shift (Marx). I'm not an expert in any of these areas, but it seems to me that there's much more emphasis on power than authority in these movements, though an appeal to some sort of moral authority is usually made to provide justification for the exercise of power.


• In places in the West where the loss of transcendent authority was not accompanied by revolution (e.g., the U.S.), the same kind of erosion in authority occured. This erosion was seen in the emergence of radical individualism, radical egalitarianism, and relativism, instead of violent revolution. Since there's no transcendent defininition of what's true or right or beautiful, it's up to each individual to create their own definition. And, no one else has any basis to challenge that definition. At the same time, the locus of authority shifted from the church to the state. The state's authority gradually became autonomous, and in democracies, entirely dependent on 50.1% of today's voters (and, increasingly, 5 judges whose sense of justice transcends law). The concept of "blind justice" and the "rule of law" faded along with a belief in transcendent norms...after all, why should I have to get a super-majority to amend the Constitution when it's clear that most "right-thinking" people know that some law is "clearly" unjust and is simply a reflection of an "antiquated" morality (echoes of modernism's notion that scientific and technological progress has a moral analog). The Founder's fears of a "tyranny of the majority" that denies any overarching moral authority seem increasingly justified.


• Postmodernism has thrown some especially combustive fuel on this fire. The assertion that language (and therefore meaning) is fundamentally about the imposition and reinforcement of power structures (a) tends to deny universal knowledge of general revelation (the natural world and morality), and (b) tends to undermine the belief that any propositional knowledge conveyed via language is sure. The fact that these postmodern propositions are captured in and communicated via words would seem to undermine them. But, many folks appear to be less disturbed by that contradiction than by the fact that humans have been unable to arrive at a universally accepted set of moral premises, reasoning, and conclusions.

During the past few years, I've often heard an encouragement to "speak [left-wing] truth to power." Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems that the actions most praised by these encouragers are those that "speak power to Truth."

So....what is a biblical perspective? Again, this is a book-length topic, but here are a few observations:

• We constantly make decisions and take action...i.e., exercise power...for specific purposes. This process almost always includes propositional knowledge of some sort, though it can never be purely propositional since propositional knowledge is silent on ends/purpose/telos.
• In the exercise of power, we are slaves. Romans 5-8 makes it clear that all humans are slaves...either to our own desire to disobey God (sin) or to righteousness (that leads to obedience). Our only choice is who will be our master. Paul argues that the old law is inherently good (since it came from God)...our problem is we constantly rebel against it and can only become slaves to righteousness by God's grace and Christ's sacrifice.
• From Genesis through Revelation, we see an unusual God. He is clearly transcendent in His goodness, love, justice, and authority, but He rarely intervenes in His creation by exercising power. Instead, He constantly entreats His people to submit to his authority. His divine and loving nature is seen in His commands (Psalm 119) that provide moral guidance in a fallen world, but His people constantly spit in His face. His call to submit to authority (in contrast to exercising of power) is seen in the other areas where God has delegated authority to specific roles (e.g., Christ-Spirit, Christ-church, elders-congregation, husband-wife, parent-child, government-citizen).
• From our perspective, this focus on submission to authority often seems unjust and unjustified. After all, isn't authority primarily about ensuring justice? And, shouldn't the focus be on how we should use legitimate authority to right wrongs? This line of reasoning tends to ignore our fallen nature. We are human and therefore imperfect...too harsh, too lenient, corrupt, etc. At the same time, since we are in God's image, we want to see justice done in this life (if not this very day). Satan takes that desire and distorts it by tempting us to "play God" by taking actions that are outside of the authority we have been given, including the exercise of power against those who rebel against God. Such an exercise can only be justified if it clearly involves acting under God's authority...and such instances seem far and few between, with the authorized power being limited to a very small set of actions (e.g., corporeal punishment for young children where rebellion is clearly seen).
• Where we have authority, we should follow God and Christ's example by using power sparingly. God does not force Himself on us, though it is well within his power to do so. The Father and Son lead by loving example...John records numerous statements by Jesus about his submission to the Father and about our obligation as the Son's slaves to obey Him. Just as a final accounting of failure to submit to God's authority awaits Judgement Day, so does a final accounting of failure to submit to legitimate authority.
• Where we are required to exercise power (e.g., punishing children), we must do so. We disobey God when we refuse to fill a role He has given us...just as we disobey Him when we take on a role He has not given us.

Satan constantly tempts us to "be our own god" and (a) exercise power unwisely, and (b) exercise power outside of our scope of authority. The world denies the existence of any transcendent authority and focuses on how humans exercise power.

Christians are called us humbly submit to legitimate authority, and to exercise power with fear and trembling in light of the commands and example of our Master.

He Is Not Silent

Or, may I should title this post "A Final Word on Ontology"... :-)

Much of the focus of the past several hundred years has been on epistemology. As I've noted before, the Bible has relatively little to say about the limits of our intellect. It does, however, constantly stress how much our desires shape what we know. I Corinthians 1-3 and Psalms 119 are two passages I think of in this context.

From this perspective, right knowledge is mostly about right desires.

So, the basic ontology (beingness) of the universe, at least in regards to human decisions and actions (i.e., morality & spirituality), is clear to everyone (Romans 1). In the words of Francis Schaeffer, "He Is There and He Is Not Silent." Christian apologetics has tended to focus on how this is true in the empirical and rational realms (though the moral and spiritual has not been ignored).

However, the knowability of the physical universe via reason and empiricism can be misleading in the sense that there is a wide range of human ability to understand the rational and empirical aspects of the physical universe...few humans will ever have the intellectual capacity of a Newton, Gauss, Einstein, or Hawking.

If we try to apply the rational & empirical knowability of the physical universe in an analogical way to the spiritual and moral arena, we tend to head quickly toward some form of Gnosticism...special knowledge about the spiritual and moral that is available only to a select few.

This perspective is repeatedly denied explicitly and implicitly from Genesis through Revelation.

He Is There. He Is Not Silent. And, I suspect that if He spoke above a whisper, we would be deafened...unable to hear anything else, but still capable of (and perhaps even more predisposed to) rebellion.

Which leads to the next post...Authority, Not Power.