Mondays with Mencken: Sunday Laws pt 2

The wowsers of the Lord’s Day Alliance, of course, are fond of denying that it is theological passion which animates them.  Their wiskinski, the chemically pure Dr. W. W. Davis, has often given out interviews saying that they long only to preserve the poor workingman’s weekly day of rest, and have no desire to drag him to the mourner’s bench.  But that assurance is too thin to deceive anyone, and the wowsers themselves always forget it when they come to close quarters.  The moment Dr. Davis and his brethren got into court, they began arguing, through their learned counsel, that “Christianity” was part of the Common Law of Maryland, and at once it became as plain as day that this “Christianity” they talked of was their own brand and no other, and that what they were trying to do was ram it down the throats of the rest of us, Christian and heathen alike.

Judge O’Dunne disposed of this effort without much ceremony.  He denied categorically that Christianity, whether their kind or any other, was a part of the Common Law.  And he pointed out very sensibly that making it so would put an outrageous and intolerable power into the hands of any sect which managed, whether by persuasion or by intimidation, to get control of the Legislature.  The instant such control became effective the successful sect would constitute, to all intents and purposes, a State church, and the religious liberty guaranteed to every citizen by both the State and Federal Constitutions would become a hollow mockery, signifying nothing. 

The truth is that the Sunday laws, under the American scheme of things, are simple police statutes, and having nothing to do, legally speaking, with religion as such.  They may properly protect a religious man in the practice of whatever devotions he thinks seemly, but that is as far as they may go.  Fundamentally, their nature is to be determined by considerations of expediency, decorum and the public welfare, and by none other.  It is as outrageous to employ them to force an unwilling man to engage in purely devotional practices, even by mere avoidance, as it would be to use them to force some other man to suspend the practices which he believes to be proper.

Your Weekly Machen Fix: The Creeds and Doctrinal Advance Pt 2

Published in God Transcendent , 1949. 

The first prerequisite, then, for any advance in Christian doctrine is that those who would engage in it should believe in the full truthfulness of the Bible and should endeavor to make their doctrine simply a presentation of what the Bible teaches.

There are other principles also that must be observed if there is to be real doctrinal advance.  For one thing, all real doctrinal advance proceeds in the direction of greater precision and fullness of doctrinal statement.  Just run over in your minds again the history of the great creeds of the church.  How meager was the so-called Apostles’ Creed, first formulated in the second century!  How far more precise and full were the creeds of the great early councils, beginning with the Nicene creed in A.D. 325!  How much more precise and how vastly richer still were the Reformation creeds and especially our Westminster Confession of Faith!

This increasing precision and this increasing richness of doctrinal statement were arrived at particularly by way of refutation of errors as they successively arose.  At first the church’s convictions about some point of doctrine were implicit rather than explicit.  They were not carefully defined.  They were assumed rather than expressly stated.  Then some new teaching arose.  The church reflected on the matter, comparing the new teaching with the Bible.  It found the new teaching to be contrary to the Bible.  As over against the new teaching, it set forth precisely what the true Biblical teaching on the point is.  So a great doctrine was clearly stated in some great Christian creed. 

That method of doctrinal advance is, of course, in accord with the fundamental laws of the mind.  You cannot set forth clearly what a thing is without placing it in contrast with what it is not.  All definition proceeds by way of exclusion.  How utterly shallow, then, is the notion that the church ought to make its teaching positive and not negative – the notion that controversy should be avoided and truth should be maintained without attack upon error!  The simple fact is that truth cannot possibly be maintained in any such way.  Truth can be maintained only when it is sharply differentiated from error.  It is not wonder, then, that the great creeds of the church, as also the great revivals of religion in the church, were born in theological controversy.  The increasing richness and increasing precision of Christian doctrine were brought about very largely by the necessity of excluding one alien element after another from the teaching of the church.

In recent years the church has often entered upon an exactly opposite course of procedure.  It has constructed what purport to be doctrinal statements, but these supposed doctrinal statements are constructed for a purpose which is just the opposite of the purpose that governed the formation of the great historic creeds.

The Big Kahuna on Evangelism

The Big Kahuna is a movie about marketing reps trying to land a wealthy client known as the Big Kahuna.  Larry (Kevin Spacey) and Phil (Danny DeVito) send their young protege, Bob (Peter Facinelli), to pitch their product to the Kahuna.  Instead of doing his job, Bob thinks it is more important to steer the conversation to religious matters.  WARNING: Expletive at 45 seconds.

Bob’s problem is not that he wants to share Christ; it’s that he is disingenuous when he does so.  He pretends that he cares for the Kahuna as a person, but really he is marketing Jesus.  Bob is also failing in his vocation, as he should be doing his job instead of talking religion.  

If we really care about people, we will want to converse with them as people who have value because they are made in the image of God, not just as marks to be had for our soul-winning campaign.  If we are purposefully evangelizing, we should be honest with people and let them know what we are doing, instead of back-dooring them with the gospel.

Great News, Eh!

My good friend and WSC grad Brian Cochran has received and accepted a call to become the pastor of the Grace Reformed Church in Regina, Saskatchewan.  In January, he will be examined in Classis Western Canada of the United Reformed Churches.  Lord willing, he, Julie, and Evan, will then move up to Regina, where I hear that the average high temperature in January is 12.  Brian is extremely gifted and, no doubt, has many fruitful years of ministry ahead of him.

Mondays with Mencken: On Sunday Laws 1

Originally Published in 1932.

Twice during the past week of so we have been entertained by amusing and instructive spectacles in the field of moral endeavor.  First a small but impudent band of professional wowsers here in Baltimore, doing business under the name of the Lord’s Day Alliance, spent three solid days in court trying to prevent the people of the town from deciding what sort of Sunday laws they want.  And then a larger and even more impudent band of professional wowsers in Washington, doing business under the name of the Anti-Saloon League, put up a furious battle in Congress to prevent the people of the United States from deciding whether we shall go on with the Prohibition obscenity or return to common sense and common decency.

The conclusion that flows irresistibly from both cases is one to which I have often called attention in this place.  It is, in brief, that wowsers care absolutely nothing for the rights of their opponents, and are implacable foes of every sort of free and orderly government.  Believing, as they do, that they know vastly more about moral science than the rest of us and are immensely more virtuous personally, they are willing to go to any length to enforce their ideas and practices upon the whole body of the people.  If a law is passed that seems to stand in the way, then damn that law and those who made it.  If it is the Bill of Rights, then to hell with the Bill of Rights. 

In other words, God has appointed them to run us, no matter how loudly we may yell.  They alone know what is right and what is wrong.  They are superior to the Legislature, to the courts and to the people.  The so-called religion which inspires and inflames them, though it may seem only rubbish to the majority of intelligent persons, is the only true kind, and anyone who ventures to flout the least of its mandates is a criminal, and ought to be in jail.  Thus the members of the Legislature were criminals for passing the Sunday enabling act, the members of the City Council were criminals for submitting the ordinance to the people, O’Dunne, J., though he is a baptized man and a practicing Christian, was a kind of criminal for deciding that these transactions were lawful and proper, and the rest of us will be criminals doubly damned when we go to the polls in May and vote to restore the common liberties of the free citizens of Maryland.

Your Weekly Machen Fix: The Creeds and Doctrinal Advance

Published in God Transcendent, 1949.

Last Sunday afternoon, in the first of our talks of this winter, I spoke to you in a summary sort of way about the progress od Christian doctrine in the church.  I showed how the church advanced from the very meagre statement which is commonly called the Apostles’ Creed, on through the great early ecumenical creeds, setting forth the doctrines of the Trinity and the Person of Christ, and through Augustine, with his presentation of the doctrine of sin and divine grace, to the Reformation and to Calvin.  I showed how that type of doctrine which follows on the path in which Calvin moved is called the Reformed Faith.

The Reformed Faith has found expression in a number of great creeds which all exhibit the same general type.  One of these creeds is the Heidelberg Catechism.  That is the official doctrinal standard of certain American churches whose members came originally from the continent of Europe.  These churches are called “Reformed” churches.  Another of the great creeds setting forth the Reformed Faith is the one that consists of the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms.  They are the official doctrinal standards of certain American churches whose members originally came chiefly from Scotland and Ireland.  These are called “Presbyterian” churches.  It is these doctrinal standards to which I have frequently referred in these little talks that I have been giving on Sunday afternoons during the past two winters.

Perhaps one question was in the minds of some of you as I reviewed the progress of Christian doctrine last Sunday afternoon.  Why should the progress be thought to have been brought to a close in the seventeenth century, when the Wesminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms were produced?  Why should there not be still further doctrinal advance?  If the church advanced in doctrine up to the time of the Westminster Standards, why should it now not proceed still further on its onward march?

Well, there is no essential reason why it should not do so.  However before it attempts to do so, it is very important for it to understand precisely what Christian doctrine is.  It should understand very clearly that Christian doctrine is just a setting forth of what the Bible teaches.  At the foundation of Christian doctrine is the acceptance of the full truthfulness of the Bible as the Word of God.

That is often forgotten by those who today undertake to write confessional statements.  Let us give expression to our Chrisitan experience, they say, in forms better suited to the times in which we are living than are the older creeds of the church.  So they sit down and concoct various forms of words, which they represent as being on a plane with the great creeds of Christendom.

When they do that, they are simply forgetting what the creeds of Christendom are.  The creeds of Christendom are not expressions of Christian experience.  They are summary statements of what God has told us in His Word.  Far from the subject-matter of the creeds being derived from Christian experience, it is Christian experience which is based upon the truth contained in the creeds; and the truth contained in the creeds is derived form the Bible, which is the Word of God.  Groups of people that undertake to write a creed without believing in the full truthfulness of the Bible, and without taking the subject-matter of their creed from that inspired Word of God, are not at all taking an additional step on the pathway on which the great Christian creeds moved; rather, they are moving in an exactly opposite direction.  What they are doing has nothing whatever to do with that grand progress of Chrsitian doctrine of which I spoke last Sunday.  Far from continuing the advance of Christian doctrine they are starting something entirely different, and that something different, we may add, is doomed to failure from the start.

Good Will Hunting on Law & Gospel

One of my favorite movies is Good Will Hunting.  In one of the pivotal scenes in the movie Matt Damon’s character is repeatedly reminded by Robin Williams’ character that the abuse he suffered from his foster parent is not his fault.  I have not included the clip because the language is very graphic.  It is available on YouTube if you are interested.

Here is my paraphrase:

Sean: It’s not your fault.

Will: I know.

Sean: It’s not your fault.

Will: Yeah, I know.

Sean: It’s not your fault.

Will: I KNOW!

Sean: It’s not your fault.

Will: Don’t mess with me Sean!  Not you!

Sean:It’s not your fault.

Will:  [Breaks down.  They embrace.]

Every day we must adopt the strategy of Sean in reminding ourselves that the Law is not the Gospel.  Human beings were created to live in obedience to God’s commands in every detail.  We do not need someone to explain to us the concept of Law.  It is innate within us.  Unfortunately, due to Adam’s sin, we can no longer keep the Law because every aspect of our being is now corrupted by sin.

The Gospel is a different matter.  It is foreign to us.  We need to have the Gospel preached into us every day, multiple times a day.  If we do not, inevitably we revert back to our created condition of law-keeper, thinking that our obedience will make us right with God.  “If I could only do a little more, maybe then God will smile on me,” we tell ourselves. 

We must constantly be reminded of the Gospel, especially the fact that the Law is not the Gospel.  No amount of good works can make us right with God.  We need the work of another.  Christ kept the Law perfectly on behalf of sinners who are not able.  He imputes the righteousness that he earned to the account of those who believe, so that when the Father looks on them, He only sees the righteousness of Christ, not our inadequate attempts at keeping the Law ourselves.  We can now rest in the finished work of Christ.

Be like Sean and remind yourself that the Law is not the Gospel. 

The Law is not the Gospel. 

The Law is not the Gospel. 

The Law is not the Gospel. 

The Law is not the Gospel

The Law is not the Gospel.

The Law is not the Gospel….

Mondays with Mencken: Vox Populi, Vox Dei

Originally Published in 1923.

The voice of the Lord God Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, as reflected by the people of the United States and their self-imposed laws and regulations, severally by municipalities and states (including Kansas) or collectively by the union:

1.  God is against cigarettes.

2.  God is against playing cards.

3.  God is against advertisements of Scotch whiskey.

4.  God is against Scotch whiskey.

5.  God is against playing billiards.

6.  God is against playing pool.

7.  God is against moving pictures showing a man kissing a woman for longer than ten seconds.

8.  God is against “Septermber Morn.” [A German song from 1915]

9.  God is against “The Girl with the Whooping Cough.” [Unidentified Reference]

10.  God is against Eugene V. Debs.

11.  God is against Little Egypt.

12.  God is against playing baseball on Sunday.

13.  God is against carrying a pocket flask.

14.  God is against dancing after eleven P.M.

15.  God is against dancing after twelve P.M.

16.  God is against dancing after one A.M.

17.  God is against dancing at all.

18.  God is against secret societies.

19.  God is against German opera.

20.  God is public speaking by a member of the I.W.W.

21.  God is against Boccaccio, Balzac, Fielding and Anatole France.

22.  God is against bare knees.

23.  God is against allowing children to appear on the stage.

24.  God is against the female leg.

25.  God is against congregating on street corners.

26.  God is against letting poor men sleep on the benches in public parks.

27.  God is against birth control.

28.  God is against speaking in public on birth control.

29.  God is against sending birth control literature through the mail.

31.  God is against the minority at all times.

32.  God is gainst all illiterates save those who are American born.

33.  God is against a trade alliance of proficient business men against inferiors.

37.  God believes that if the United States didn’t look after South America, South America would go to the dogs.

38.  God is against Socialists, but loves all Republicans and Democrats.

39.  God is against hoochie-coochie dancing.

40.  God is against walking on the grass in public parks. 

41.  God is against prize-fighting.

42.  God doesn’t believe in betting on the races.

Your Weekly Machen Fix: Faith and Works

From What is Faith? published in 1925.

The Modernist return to mediaevalism in the interpretation of Galatians is no isolated thing, but is only one aspect of a misinterpretation of the whole Bible; in particular it is closely akin to a misinterpretation of a great sentence in one of the other Epistles of Paul.  The sentence to which we refer is found in II Corinthians iii. 6: “The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life.”

That sentence is perhaps the most frequently misused utterance in the whole Bible.  It has indeed in this respect much competition: many phrases in the New Testament are being used today to mean almost their exact opposite, as for example, when the words, “God in Christ” and the like, are made to be an expression of the vague pantheism so popular just now, or as when the entire gospel of redemption is regarded as a mere symbol of an optimistic view of man against which that doctrine was in reality a stupendous protest, or as when the doctrien of the incarnation is represented as indicating the essential oneness of God and man!  One is reminded constantly at the present time of the way in which the Gnostics of the second century used Biblical texts to support their thoroughly un-Biblical systems.  The historical method of study, in America at least, is very generally being abandoned; and the New Testament writers are being made to say almost anything that twentieth-century readers could have wished them to say.

This abandonment of scientific historical method in exegesis, which is merely one manifestation of the intellectual decadence of our day, appears at countless points in contemporary religious literature; but at no point does it appear with greater clearness than in connection with the great utterance in II Corinthians to which we have referred.  The words: “The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life,” are constantly interpreted to mean that we are perfectly justified in taking the law of God with a grain of salt; they are held to indicate that Paul was no “literalist,” but a “Liberal,” who believed that the Old Testament was not true in detail and the Old Testament law was not valid in detail, but that all God requires is that we should extract the few great principles which the Bible teaches and not insist upon the rest.  In short, the words are held to involve a contrast between the letter of the law and “the spirit of the law”; they are held to mean that literalism is deadly, while attention to great principles keeps a man intellectually and spiritually alive.

Thus has one of the greaters utterances in the New Testament been reduced to comparative triviality – a triviality with a kernel of truth in it, to be sure, but triviality all the same.  The triviality, indeed, is merely relative; no doubt it is important to observe that attention to the general sense of a book or a law is far better than such a reading of details as that the context in which the details are found is ignored.  But all that is quite foreign to the meaning of the Apostle in this passage, and is, though quite true and quite important in its place, trivial in comparison with the tremendous thing that Paul is here endeavoring to say. 

What Paul is really doing here is not contrasting the letter of the law with the spirit of the law, but contrasting the law of God with the Spirit of God.  When he says, “The letter killeth,” he is making no contemptuous reference to a pedantic literalism which shrivels the soul; but he is setting forth the terrible majesty of God’s law.  The letter, the “thing written,” in the law of God, says Paul, pronounces a dread sentence of death upon the transgressor; but the Holy Spirit of God, as distinguished from the law, gives life.

Bow Wow Worship

Covenant Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles has started a pet service  (HT Brian Blake).  Attendees bring their pets and worship together as part of the human-canine covenant community.  This brings a whole new meaning to Dog-ma.