"He Descended to the Dead" - A Review

For many Christians, the three ecumenical creeds define the kernel of orthodox belief. The first time I encountered the Apostle’s Creed was one of my first Sundays at the Naval Academy. When we read that the clause, “He descended into hell,” caught my attention. Given the number of other things that were wrong with the service (it was being run by a very progressive chaplain of some semi-orthodox variety), that was the thing that led me to stop going to chapel.

Looking back, I don’t regret not sitting through the milk toast services in the chapel (though the organist later became a friend and, as it turns out, is a phenomenal human being), but that clause should not have been the radical point of theological departure that it became for me.

First, it appears that “he descended to the dead” is a better text and translation than “he descended into hell.” Second, it turns out that the Apostle’s Creed is extremely helpful at centering (though not exclusively defining) orthodoxy. Third, Christ’s descent to the dead is much more important that I supposed as an 18-year-old fundamentalist Baptist.

Over the years of seminary education, broader reading, and interaction with other Christian traditions, I came to see the value of the Apostle’s Creed. Michael Bird’s excellent volume, What Christians Ought to Believe, uses the Apostle’s Creed as a backbone for basic Christian instruction, which has been helpful in discipling my children.

I still didn’t really have a firm grasp on the descent clause until I read Matthew Emerson’s book, “He Descended to the Dead”: An Evangelical Theology of Holy Saturday. In one fairly concise volume, Emerson has laid out most of the major arguments and presents a convincing case that not only should Evangelical Christians accept the descent clause, but that our theologies will be deficient if we do not.

The book is divided into three unequal parts. In Part One, Emerson makes the case for the descent clause. He engages with the major arguments over the proper wording (he moves us a way from Christ descending to hell) and affirms that this is a clause that has central importance to the Christian faith. The Apostle’s Creed is an extra-biblical text, but it is a faithful summary of what Scripture teaches, so Emerson carefully combs through the Bible to show that Christ ministering to the spirits in the lower reaches of the earth is, in fact, his descent to the dead. This does not involve the “harrowing of hell,” which some theologians have argued as support for universal salvation, but it does point to Christ’s Spirit descending to the place of the righteous dead while his body lay in the grave. For pastors and amateur theologians trying to place the descent clause in the Christian tradition, this is the essential reading.

Part Two is much longer, very thorough, and systematic. In six chapters Emerson discusses the importance of the descent clause to classic Trinitarian theology, the doctrine of creation, salvation, ecclesiology, eschatology, and Christological anthropology. This is an important section, which demonstrates how deeply important the theological concept is to a thick orthodoxy. This is also a very thorough section, so casual readers may find it helpful to read more quickly. The book concludes in Part Three, where Emerson meditates on some of the practical applications of the Christian life in a single chapter.

The first three chapters are worth the price of the book and are accessible to reasonably informed lay people. The six chapters of Part Two are more technical and denser, but worthwhile for those aspiring to grow in their theological understanding. The last chapter is a helpful meditation to bring things home.

This is the work of several years for Emerson. He carefully researched what has been a fairly hotly debated theological idea, which has fallen out of favor among many Evangelicals. This is a paradigm-shifting book that, because of the care in the research, covers most of the debates of any size and honestly represents the various perspectives on the passage. “He Descended to the Dead” is a masterpiece of contemporary theology. It well warranted the award from The Gospel Coalition for Academic Theology Book of the Year in 2019.

This is a volume that is likely to get less attention than it deserves because it tackles a topic that is far from the center of most people’s contemporary concerns about theological debates. And yet, it is a good example of theological retrieval, so it provides an example of how theology ought to be done as we read through the centuries of Christian thinkers. An excellent book that I highly recommend. This should shape the course of the debate on the descent clause for the next generation of Evangelicals.

"He Descended to the Dead": An Evangelical Theology of Holy Saturday

By Emerson, Matthew Y.

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NOTE: The publisher provided me a copy of this volume gratis with no expectation of a positive review.

The Art of the Impossible - Speeches by Vaclav Havel

Looking back, the fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe came suddenly and, in many cases, was completed with relatively little bloodshed. One example of this is the so-called Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, which led to playwright and dissident, Vaclav Havel, being elected president in a bloodless rebellion.

In a 1997 book, The Art of the Impossible, we are provided the texts—translated into English—of a number of Havel’s speeches from his time as president of Czechoslovakia and, a few years later, the Czech Republic. As historical artifacts, these speeches are somewhat interesting. However, as expressions of a political philosophy, the speeches are engaging and thought provoking.

After decades of resisting Soviet occupation and communist rule, Havel had the responsibility to help his country peacefully transition to a democratic, free-market political economy. The risk of this transition leading to political violence against the former oppressors is always real. Simultaneously, the temptation for the new ruling class to become just like the old ruling class was strong.

The speeches in this volume are arranged chronologically, so they have a variety of topics. There is a clear trajectory in them that shows the ways Havel’s nation was changing and the landscape of Europe was shifting to accept the former Soviet-bloc countries. Each of the chapters, however, seems surprisingly frank and open.

For example, the first speech was given on New Year’s Day in 1990, shortly after communism had been overthrown and Havel named president. He notes early in his speech, “Our country is not flourishing.” But this was not simply due to the political turmoil, but a profound misdirection of society, because,

“The enormous creative and spiritual potential of our nations is not being used sensibly. Entire branches of industry are producing goods that are of no interest to anyone, while we are lacking the things we need. A state that calls itself a workers’ state humiliates and exploits its workers. . . . We have contaminated the soil, rivers, and forests bequeathed to us by our ancestors, and today we have the most polluted environment in Europe.”

Havel could say this, of course, because he was looking at the abusive legacy of four decades of communist tyranny. However, the quick pivot toward arguing that he is going to make everything great again doesn’t come. Instead Havel emphasizes the difficulty that lies ahead and how much it was going to take to become a healthy nation.

One of the major themes in this work is responsibility. In contrast to contemporary political discourse in the United States, which typically focuses on rights. On the left, the concern is positive rights: the right to have other people work to provide something for me. On the right, the concern is typically negative rights: the right to own weapons, live faithfully, and keep a larger percentage of wealth. In a state of precarious need, Havel draws people’s attention to their duties to each other and to society in a powerful way.

Among the more interesting speeches is his speech on “The Anatomy of Hate,” given in 1990, only a few months after the fall of communism. As a man who had suffered so greatly in prison, it must have been difficult not to hate his oppressors, but Havel explains the pieces of hate in a way that makes it clear why its pull is so strong and why he resisted it. This chapter alone is worth the price of the book.

Collections of thought like this are helpful for those in generations who have not witnessed the destructive power of communism, because Havel provides examples and testimonies of how oppressive that form of socialism is and, after having experienced the “benefits” of full socialism for decades, how eager the population was to get a market economy. There is a moral difference between socialism and a market economy, and the second is preferred by people who have experienced the first.

At the same time, Havel is clear that freedom cannot exist without responsibility. This responsibility, Havel argues, is rooted in the human understanding of the existence of a transcendent power beyond our immediate understanding. Though Havel explicitly denies being aligned with any particular religion, he recognizes the common recognition within humanity that there is something that made all things, holds all things together, and is moving history toward something. In a manner similar to Solzhenitsyn’s Harvard Commencement Address, Havel calls for respiritualizing politics and daily life; the acknowledgement of something greater helps reduce the absolutizing abuses of ideology.

These speeches are surprisingly fresh and insightful, given some of them are three decades old. The landscape of world politics, particularly politics in Europe, have changed significantly, but many of the challenges Havel recognized are still evident and, indeed, still need to be dealt with.

The Art of the Impossible: Politics as Morality in Practice

By Vaclav Havel

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The Madness of Crowds - A Review

I was on a major university campus recently and was struck first by the affluence that surrounded me. Beyond the significant tuition payments and nice dorm buildings, there were very few “beater” cars on display. Most of the vehicles looked fairly new—something radically different than the way college kids used to drive. The university is huge, so it is really a city within a city, and both of those cities are affluent. There was a rarefied air of wealth and sophistication.

More significantly there were posters, fliers, and bumper stickers that declared opposition to “colonization,” support of various identities, and a host of other positions that reside somewhere on the left-wing of global politics.

To be clear, racism remains a significant issue in our world and must be combated. There are still misogynists and cads who use their power to abuse and undermine women. There are bullies that pick on anyone who doesn’t fit in with certain norms and attempt to demonize them.

At the same time, there are significant points where the movements that are calling for “justice” along different lines of gender, race, and identity seem to make their arguments on indefensible and sometimes self-contradictory grounds. Though they profess to be concerned about others wielding power,they seem to be altogether too prepared to swing their own billy clubs, often figuratively and sometimes literally, in the name of their preferred positions. This extra-judicial enforcement of their ideas and positions seems to undermine the nature of justice as it has been understood in most civilizations of which we have record.

Douglas Murray’s book, The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity, takes a closer look at the various neo-Marxist movements to examine their foundations and abuses. Murray stands on what would be described the “conservative” side of many of these debates, since he indicates a belief in truth that should be pursued apart from one’s self-interest. At the same time, Murray is himself an openly gay atheist. This means that he certainly does not agree with many social conservatives on issues like the redefinition of marriage, the morality of same-sex erotic relationships, and the existence of God. This makes his critique of the various identity movements intriguing and, perhaps, more powerful.

Summary

As a gay man, Murray begins with a critique of the portion of that portion of the left’s culture war. While he is openly in support of recent inventions like the Obergefell decision that arbitrarily redefined marriage, he is careful to note that within the last decade, there were multiple gay-rights organizations, including the Stonewall organization, that opposed gay marriage. A big portion of his argument here is that, although he thinks the changes are largely good, it might be more reasonable to expect people who hold to millennia-old positions on sexual morality to take a while to come around to an affirmation of a newly invented concept.

In the second content chapter, Murray examines the current presentation of the feminist movement. His point in this chapter is that the movement is largely contradictory and puts everyone in a nearly impossible situation. There are obvious statistically significant differences between men and women in general, but to note those things publicly is, for some, a high crime. Attempts to undermine bias have created processes that necessarily bias organizations and culture in ways that tend to cut the feed from under those they are intended to help. In addition, the identity-oriented science arguments of feminism (e.g., there are no fundamental differences between men and women based on genetics) come into direct opposition with the theories favored by many in the various gay movements (e.g., there are fundamental differences between heterosexuals and homosexuals based on genetics), which creates issues. The issue becomes more epistemological than political at some point.

The third content chapter wrestles with the racial justice movement, which in its best aspects has led to awareness of systemic wrongs and worked to correct them. On the other hand, the same movement has also sought to make race (one of) the most important aspects of a human’s essence and thus made it more possible for systemic bias to continue or grow. In some cases, the result has been a new systemic bias against a different set of minorities, as has been evidenced by Harvard’s discrimination against Asians in admissions. This also puts people in weird spots, so that whites have to self-deprecate to speak against racism or be perceived as colonizers. The struggle in many cases seems to be more about power than truth.

The final content chapter discusses the transgender movement. Murray expresses sympathy with individuals who legitimately struggle with a sense of discomfort with their bodies and believe they would be more satisfied presenting as the opposite sex. At the same time, he notes that the movement for trans-rights has short-circuited the processes that might guard someone from making irreversible, life-altering decisions without considering that there might be another possible cause or solution. He discusses multiple examples where people who express minimal discomfort with their sex are quickly stepped down the road toward chemical and surgical transition, without a thorough vetting. Again, there are epistemological questions about the nature of truth and whether even asking questions (“Is your feeling true and lasting?”) is perceived as harmful.

Between each of these chapters is an interlude that explores some of the underlying causes and further consequences of this rapid epistemological shift. Murray discusses the Marxist foundations of the movement, which serves to continually enhance human discomfort by undermining power structures. He notes the impact of tech, with rapid communication, the inability to have a private conversation, and the work of Google’s search manipulations to present an alternate reality. Finally, he includes a section on one of the worst aspects of these movements, which is that there is no place or possibility of forgiveness. Statements that were uncontroversial a decade ago can now be used to destroy people who are deemed undesirable. Context matters little, as long as the right things are opposed violently and openly.

Analysis and Conclusion

Murray’s book is helpful in many ways. He points to the unsustainability of much of what passes for the social justice movement. The quest for destruction of power necessarily creates an oppressive power that will likely be as bad or worse a master.

The danger of Murray’s book is that his examples of gross abuses of various identity movements to pursue hatred and destruction of the innocent may lead some to believe that we need only resist those movements. That is most likely to occur among those who don’t actually read the book, or do so only cursorily. Murray takes concerns for the persecution of gay and trans individuals seriously, but notes that the movements that claim to support them are destroying the possibility of their being accepted or the society that will be able to accept them. In attempting to shift the Overton window, these groups may rip the house off its foundations, leaving us all cold and miserable in the winter storms.

The value of this book is that it looks beyond the gross abuses of violence and power by the various identity movements to interrogate the intellectual basis and question the logical conclusions. The result is an exposé that is illuminating, even if readers do not agree with all of Murray’s conclusions. There are a few points where Murray seems to drift a bit into outrage porn, but on the whole, he takes a fairly balanced view and calmly makes his arguments. This book, of course, is likely to be panned as violent oppression by many within the various justice movements simply because it questions some of the foundations and outcomes of their movement. However, it would benefit many on the left and the right to read the book and consider their own positions.

The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity

By Murray, Douglas

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NOTE: I received a gratis copy of this volume with no expectation of a positive review.

The Green New Deal - A Review

The Green New Deal (GND) will either take off or get crushed by this most recent economic crisis. On the one hand, proponents of the GND argue they can provide everyone with everything they need (and a pony) while making everything greener, safer, and happier. On the other hand, we are doing a pretty solid dryrun of the Green New Deal and most people aren’t having much fun.

Jeremy Rifkin’s book, The Green New Deal: Why the Fossil Fuel Civilization Will Collapse by 2028, and the Bold Economic Plan to Save Life on Earth, takes a swing at making a case that a centrally planned (if not centrally controlled) economy can make things better in every respect—better jobs, more money, better ecology, etc. This has been his focus for decades now.

According to his website, Rifkin serves as an advisor to leaders in the EU on their movement toward a green economy. He also lays claim to “advising the leadership of the Peoples Republic of China on the build out and scale up of the Internet Plus Industrial Revolution infrastructure to usher in a sustainable low-carbon economy.”

Of those two significant claims to authority, the second one helps shape my concerns about his proposed policy and show why the GND may not be the good deal that its proponents support.

One of Rifkin’s major claims is that fossil fuels are on the wane and that our current economic structure, which includes a significant amount of formal and informal infrastructure based on the assumptions of a certain mode of power, will be obsolete in roughly a decade. He argues that renewable energies like solar and wind will replace the bulk of coal and natural gas generation. He also argues that regulation and obsolescence will help push the internal combustion engine far to the margins for transportation.

(On a side note, one of the major Green New Deal advocates, Alexadria Ocasio-Cortez recently celebrated the economic harms done to the oil industry by the current pandemic in a tweet. She subsequently deleted the tweet and modified it to make it sound like her joy was less effusive about other people’s pain, but whatever her intent is or was, it is clear that she and other GND advocates see the current economic crisis as an opportunity to push their plans on the world.)

Inasmuch as Rifkin sees a rise in the prevalence of solar and wind generation, I think he is correct. Those technologies are quickly becoming economical. Even without the tax subsidy provided by the federal government, I would have probably installed the solar panels on my roof. Solar, in particular, is an energy source that has many more advantages than disadvantages. Wind, too, is very clean, though there are issues with migratory bird deaths, disruption of bird nesting areas, and aesthetic concerns for people who live near them. There are more kinks to work out for wind, but there is a great deal of promise, too.

The present problem is that displacing the baseload generation of traditional power plants requires a rapid development and deployment of hydrogen storage technologies (or another storage method) to be effective. In a May 2019 article on hydrogen storage notes that, “Hydrogen may be stored at elevated density in various ways but few of these have reached commercial maturity for large scale applications.” Rifkin’s promise of an all renewable future relies on that technology maturing and being put into largescale use in just a few years. I find that unlikely.

A better answer to a shift toward hydrogen storage might be an increase in nuclear power generation, which has small scale options that are nearing approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the US that promise a significant reduction in risk and construction costs. The latter of which is the most significant issue with nuclear, though perceived risk is often the greater issue in the mind of the public.

Beyond what I view as excessive optimism is a much more insidious element of the Green New Deal in Rifkin’s model, which is that it requires submission to an increase in personal surveillance and loss of control by individuals and families.

One of the more significant demands in Alexadria Ocasio-Cortez’s grandiose GND proposals was to “retrofit every building in America.” To most people, that sounds like a promise to put in more insulation, add some weather-stripping, and maybe add a programmable thermostat. However, Rifkin gives some context to what that retrofit would include.

Rifkin is a big fan of the Internet of Things. A lot of Americans are, in fact, though the wisdom of that remains to be seen. The Internet of Things (IoT) is when people’s home appliances, home security systems, traffic lights, etc., are all connected to the internet. This is advertised as a boon because it allows you to check on your babysitter when they are alone with your child, monitor for porch pirates stealing your Amazon packages, validate whether or not you have another gallon of milk in your home, and remotely control your thermostat or garage door while you are on vacation. For Rifkin, by putting homes and civil architecture on the IoT, algorithms and the really smart people that develop them can gain efficiency. It also means that control of your privacy and your home is transferred to the entities that control the internet.

The GND infrastructure Rifkin is arguing for is one of heightened public surveillance. He outlines a failed public-private partnership in Ottawa. “The plan is to build out Canada’s first smart, digitally connected urban neighborhood, replete with state-of-the-art sensors across a seamless Internet of Things neural system. Ubiquitous sensors will provide surveillance, collecting data on activity taking place in the homes, the shops, and the streets, with the goal of helping speed efficiencies and conveniences in commerce, social life, and governance.” (38) The plan eventually fell through because people got nervous about Google’s participation. Rifkin remains very positive about the idea—in fact it is the soul of his proposal—as long as the government retains control.

There is a willfully blind aspect to Rifkin’s proposals. As he states, he is deeply involved in China’s rapidly expanding surveillance state. The ongoing human rights violations of the Chinese Communist Party against their people has been widely reported and is largely facilitated by the technological infrastructure that Rifkin is proposing. His overwhelmingly positive attitude toward China, which continues to be one of the worst polluting nations on the planet, is mysterious and naïve. This is no tu quoque argument, because Rifkin repeatedly cites China as a prime example of a nation that gets his vision.

Rifkin makes it readily apparent he is all for controlling the flow of information. He writes, “The dark side of the internet will require vigilant regulatory oversight at the local, state, and national levels. . .” (22) In context, he’s obviously concerned with controlling hackers, as the remainder of the sentence goes on about building in redundancy into the smart grid to minimize digital disruptions. It is also entirely clear from the paragraphs surrounding this brief snippet that Rifkin’s model of regulation includes more than digital redundancy and includes significant intrusion into the use of the internet. All of this intrusion for a “conceivable” chance to “increase aggregate energy efficiency to as high as 60 percent over the next twenty years.” (23) And, of course, he states that we must shift to this new remotely monitored infrastructure “because the only other alternative is to remain trapped in a dying, carbon-based Second Industrial Revolution economy.” (23)

All of this surveillance makes it possible Naomi Klein’s vision of controlling individual economic choices, in her book, On Fire, where she argues:

“Most fundamentally, any credible Green New Deal needs a concrete plan for ensuring that the salaries from all the good green jobs it creates aren’t immediately poured into high-consumer lifestyles that inadvertently end up increasing emissions––a scenario where everyone has a good job and lots of disposable income and it all gets spent on throwaway crap from China destined for the landfill.” (284)

When you are monitoring people’s activities in their homes, on the roads, in the sidewalks, and everywhere they do to maximize their commercial lives, then it is possible to ensure they don’t slip up and order an extra shirt online.

That others aren’t cringing at the proposals embedded in the Green New Deal shows that they have either gone round the bend, presuming a beneficent ruling class in government and in corporations, or they haven’t read the published literature. As for me, I want a greener future, too, but the vision outlined by advocates of the Green New Deal make it clear that our hope for the days to come lies in radically different places.

The Green New Deal: Why the Fossil Fuel Civilization Will Collapse by 2028, and the Bold Economic Plan to Save Life on Earth

By Rifkin, Jeremy

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NOTE: I received a gratis copy of this volume from the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.

On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal - A Review

In February 2019, a member of the U. S. House of Representatives released a bold new plan to take over the U. S. economy in the name of “climate justice.” Modeled after, and of greater scope than, FDR’s New Deal plan, the proposal was called “The Green New Deal.”

The proposal obviously caused a big stir, not least because the first released edition of the FAQs for the proposal including information about the difficulty of eliminating “farting cows.” After the online mockery of some of those more drastic proposals ramped up, the claim was made that this was an early draft and not the final version. An edited version with more professional prose was later released, but thankfully, the original version was not memory holed (not yet anyway).

The elimination of farting cows is funny, but more concerning is the call by to “retrofit every building in America,” among other things. This shows the sheer scope of the economic control desired by proponents of the so-called Green New Deal: They want the ability to remodel your home, modify your church, and rebuild your business after their own desire.

This sounds alarmist. To a degree it is, but the actual claims of proponents of the so-called Green New Deal make it clear than nothing but a total transformation of every aspect of the economy and social life in our country will satisfy them. Naomi Klein, an activist who has written journalistically in favor of socialism and the environment, released a book in late 2019, which both supports the Green New Deal program and illuminates the level of control desired.

Klein’s Case

On Fire claims to present The Burning Case for a Green New Deal according to the subtitle. Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of this book is that it fails to make a case. For those readers who are deeply concerned about environment and the impact of global warming, but also curious as to why granting total control of the economy to socialists would be beneficial, will find that this book under-delivers on its basic claims.

To be fair, this volume is a collection of slightly revised opinion pieces (some were published as journalism) and political speeches that Klein has previously published in other outlets since 2010. There is little cogency in the argument, and, truthfully, little more than assertion throughout. This is a book that is more likely to galvanize the will of the already convinced than it is to convince anyone to jump on the bandwagon. For a book that claims to make a case for a sweeping and potentially devastating economic revolution (if historic examples of socialism are any indication), there is very little research and very few arguments made. A topic this important deserves better work.

Klein is a rabid proponent of socialism, as evidenced by her earlier published works. This book does not advance significantly from her published arguments in This Changes Everything.

What is clearer in On Fire is that Klein and other proponents of the so-called Green New Deal are not merely shooting for economic control, but for a total ideological overhaul of the world’s societies. She laments the divisions in the world that have prevented the hegemony of climate activists and argues that “a Green New Deal could instill a sense of collective, higher purpose.” (26) This plan requires less journalism and more activism on the part of the media (243–44).

But, more insidiously, it requires all streams of communication to become focused on presenting this controlled narrative: Just as in the New Deal era when “Playwrights, photographers, muralists, and novelists were all part of telling the story of what was possible. For the Green New Deal to succeed, we, too, will need the skills and expertise of many different kinds of storytellers: Artists, psychologists, faith leaders, historians, and more.” (271)

This might seem less difficult, if Klein did not also actively support the intimation by revisionist Roman Catholic, Sean McDonough in his suggestion that, “Scripture is ever evolving, and should be interpreted in historical context. If Genesis needs a prequel, that’s not such a big deal. Indeed, I get the distinct sense that he’d be happy to be part of the drafting committee.” (145)

Any societal narrative must be widely repeated if there is to be coherence. Many of the failures in American society to date have been exacerbated by a lost common narrative. However, it seems a bit insidious to simultaneously propose control of the economy from the top and working to control the messaging. History shows that such a central focus on ideology is damaging to the willing and unwilling subjects of those who have gained such total control. What Klein describes is forceful propaganda designed to choke out opposition.

Although this sounds like an exaggeration, it is fairly clear the book is not making an argument in good faith. This is base-energizing propaganda designed to demonize any opposition to their control. In reflecting on Trump’s victory in the 2016 election, Klein notes,

“Never, ever underestimate the power of hate. Never underestimate the power of direct appeals to power over “the other”––the migrant, the Muslim, black people, women. Especially during times of economic hardship. Because when large numbers of white men find themselves frightened and insecure, and those men were raised in a social system built on elevating their humanity over all these others’, a lot of them get mad. And there is nothing wrong in itself with being mad––there’s a lot to be mad about.” (191)

This sort of “us vs. them” argument is written throughout the book. Often this is in the explicitly in the language of intersectionality, which in its more invidious forms privileges certain theories over others simply because of the personal characteristics of the individual or group that seems to support the theory.

At one point, Klein quips, “To change everything, it takes everyone.” (202) But clearly, Klein doesn’t include anyone who has even minimal disagreement with her in any area. If the goal were to improve the quality of the environment, there might be aspects of the Green New Deal to discuss, but this is a call for granting total control to an ideologically driven group who see their theories as a moral imperative.

Klein makes this clear, she notes, “Winning is a moral imperative. The stakes are too high, and time is too short, to settle for anything less.” (242) Of course, winning involves implementing the plan of imposing the Green New Deal through legislation. Klein writes,

“The plan is pretty straightforward: elect a strong supporter of the Green New Deal in the Democratic primaries; take the White House, the House, and the Senate in 2020; and start rolling out on day one of the new administration (the way FDR did with the original New Deal in his famous ‘first 100 days,’ when the newly elected president pushed fifteen major bills through Congress.)” (31)

All we need is single party control of the entire government to ensure that what promises to be a reasonable, balanced legislation through. Actually, Klein notes that understanding the implications of proposed policy is not a significant point of concern. She argues, “we don’t need to figure out every detail before we begin. . . What matters is that we begin the process right away.” (39) Do something, even if you don’t know who it is going to harm or how much.

But this is where the odd contradiction comes in because while arguing for total control of the centralized government and unilaterally imposing sweeping legislation, she also states that we should avoid “highly centralized, top-down transformations.” This is because,

“If we defer to central governments in that way [like wartime mobilizations] in the face of the climate crisis, we should expect highly corrupt measures that further concentrate power and wealth in the hands of a few big players, not to mention systematic attacks on human rights . . .” (36)

She lays these abuses at the feet of capitalism, of course, but what she describes sounds like the effects of single party control in socialist systems like Venezuela and the former Soviet bloc countries. Notably, socialist countries are not well known for their respect of human rights, peaceful transfer of power, or, oddly, for their positive record on the environment.

Klein casually admits to the environmental abuses of historical socialistic implementations:

“But we have to be honest that autocratic industrial socialism has also been a disaster for the environment, as evidenced most dramatically by the fact that carbon emissions briefly plummeted when the economies of the former Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s. And Venezuela’s petro-populism is a reminder that there is nothing inherently green about self-defined socialism.” (251)

Apparently, the control imposed by environmentally engaged socialists in upending all of society will be much gentler than previous versions of single party, socialist rule.

Of course, that claim doesn’t mesh with Klein’s claim that,

“Most fundamentally, any credible Green New Deal needs a concrete plan for ensuring that the salaries from all the good green jobs it creates aren’t immediately poured into high-consumer lifestyles that inadvertently end up increasing emissions––a scenario where everyone has a good job and lots of disposable income and it all gets spent on throwaway crap from China destined for the landfill.” (284)

I’m trying to find a way that such total control of everyone’s individual economic choices could be managed apart from a strenuous totalitarianism, but I haven’t been able to imagine one.

Conclusion

To be fair to Klein, I’m a fan of the free market in addition to being deeply concerned about the environment. I picked up the book with the expectation of disagreement. I have previously reviewed her book, This Changes Everything, which makes the basic assertion that climate change is bad, therefore socialism is needed. I didn’t like that book, but I’ve softened in my views in some ways, matured in others, and was hopeful that perhaps she had a published a book with a better argument. I remain disappointed.

Though I have become less of a libertarian, Klein has become much more extreme. If anything, though the quality of thought has not changed, the content is more disturbing because Klein presents a direct hostility to those who think differently. In the previous book she merely ignores opposing views; in the present book she is outright nasty, including likening President Trump (of whom I’m no fan) to a “fatberg.” Mildly humorous, but rather atypical in a book by a careful thinker.

This sounds somewhat extreme, but given the unfettered ideology with no clear limits on power, a sense of unassailable moral high-ground, no clearly defined goal (lower global temperature is rather open-ended in my opinion), and a belief that everyone who disagrees is a mortal enemy in a battle over an existential crisis does not lead me to believe Klein and those who advocate for the Green New Deal are prepared, if they ever gain power, to accept losers without retribution.

Klein is correct, “To change everything, it takes everyone.” That leads me to wonder what will happen to those who don’t agree with her proposed changes.

On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal

By Naomi Klein

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NOTE: I received a gratis copy of this volume with no expectation of a positive review.

Resources for Holy Week

It seems that every Easter there are different political and social challenges that threaten to divert our focus from the Holy Week.

In the midst of all of that, Jesus is still Lord of all. That’s a vital truth and one that can be terrifically hard to hold onto.

I’ve put together a list of resources to consider for individuals, families, and local congregations.

Resurrection Letters

A recent favorite in my house is Andrew Peterson’s Resurrection Letters, Volume I and the Prologue. The 14 songs were released on two separate discs in 2018. The Prologue disc has five songs on it that focus the listener on the crucifixion, with songs commemorating Christ’s last words, God’s welcoming Christ as the good and faithful son, and a contemplative song about God resting, referring to Christ’s descent to the dead. Resurrection Letters, Volume has nine songs. The album is Christologically rich as it begins with “His Heart Beats,” an energetic celebration of the Lamb of God waking up. Then it moves through more celebratory music which help the listener remember that Christ lives, that he sustains the world, and that he is coming again to make it all right again.

Leading up to Easter, I recommend putting the Prologue songs on heavy rotation and saving the Volume I songs for Sunday morning and the weeks to follow. Peterson’s hymn, “He is Worthy,” is one of my favorite songs of all time.

The Crucifixion of Jesus

Fernando Ortega remains one of my favorite songwriters and musicians. His somewhat melancholy music is rich, homey, and often contemplative. His 2017 album The Crucifixion of Jesus can well serve as a Maundy Thursday service as his doxological music is interspersed with Scriptural readings to lead the listener through the events of the Christ’s passion leading to his crucifixion.

This is an album that warrants listening with devices put away, sitting on the couch, and focused on the goodness of God to send his son to die in our place. It is Christ honoring and worshipful.

The Final Days of Jesus

For those seeking to put the passion week in its chronological order, The Final Days of Jesus, by Andreas Kostenberger and Justin Taylor is a helpful resource. It is designed to walk through the last days of Christ before crucifixion one day at a time with careful selection of Scripture passages from the ESV and helpful commentary, maps that show the locations of the events in the gospel narrative, and charts that put passages and themes in an easy to understand key. This is an aid to family worship, individual devotion, as it feeds the soul and the mind at the same together.

The Man Born to Be King

Once known as a detective novelist (and a fine one, too), Dorothy Sayers was also a playwright. The BBC commissioned Sayers to write a series of twelve plays that use material from all four gospels to tell the story of the life of Jesus. These plays were somewhat controversial when they were aired in Britain during World War II because Sayers had the apostles and Jesus speaking in the vernacular of her day. Some called it sacrilegious, but the content is theologically solid and Sayer’s largely achieves her goal of helping people understand that Jesus really lived as a human and that his disciples weren’t icons in a painting, but flesh and blood sinners like us.

C. S. Lewis liked The Man Born to Be King so much that he read it every Holy Week between its publication in 1943 and his death in 1963. This is a classic book that is edifying and enriching. It can deepen your love for Christ this year, too.

The Jesus Storybook Bible

For those with younger children, one key resource for teaching them the overarching storyline of Scripture is Sally Lloyd-Jones’ book, The Jesus Storybook Bible. The book is beautifully illustrated so that it will appeal to young children and older children alike. The text is theologically rich, so that this is a resource that will provide an education for the parent or grandparent reading it as much as the children sitting and listening. There is also an that comes with an audio version, which is read by David Suchet (BBC’s Hercule Poirot and Focus on the Family’s Aslan). The narration is well worth the extra few dollars for the CDs. For those willing to spend more, there are animated videos that tell each of the stories, as well. They are well-done and worthwhile.

“He Descended to the Dead”

For those theologically minded individuals willing to do a bit deeper reading in preparation for the celebration of Christ’s resurrection, Matthew Emerson wrote a phenomenal book on the descent clause of the Athanasian and Apostle’s Creed. I am planning a full review of the volume later, but this book is theologically rich, clearly written, and devotionally powerful. The first three chapters help plow through the historical debate about the meaning and authenticity of the descent clause, while the remainder of the book shows why believing that Christ literally descended to the place of the dead (and not just the grave) is important for theology. “He Descended to the Dead” : An Evangelical Theology of Holy Saturday is a book that warrants reading and especially in the weeks leading up to our celebration of Christ’s susbstitutionary death, burial, and resurrection.

Theological Retrieval for Evangelicals - A Review

There have been several recent volumes published by Evangelicals on the use of historical theology within the Evangelical tradition. This comes at a time when there is a non-trivial movement of younger Evangelicals toward more “historically rooted” traditions. Examples such as Kenneth Stewart’s volume, In Search of Ancient Roots, and books like Christopher Hall’s, Living Wisely with the Church Fathers, come to mind.

According to some critics, Protestant theology has roots that reach no further back than 1517. They argue that some aspects of Evangelical theology are an even more recent innovation. This perception has been augmented by the prevalence of recency in contemporary Evangelical theologies.

Significantly contributing to the apparent recency of Evangelical theology are standard works in the field, like Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology, which makes almost no reference to historical theology and required a companion volume by another author to gain a sense of the historical arc of the doctrines Grudem advocates.

The relationship between contemporary Evangelical theology and church history is the strong dependence among evangelicals and the supreme authority of Scripture over historical doctrinal formulations. Given the variegation of theology across history, arriving at a theological method that takes voices of previous ages seriously without ascribing too much authority to them has been difficult.

Gavin Ortlund’s book, Theological Retrieval for Evangelicals: Why We Need Our Past to Have a Future is a helpful book in carving out a theological method that values Scripture supremely, but also listens to the voices of the Christian past.

Summary

The book is divided into two parts. The first part, a manifesto for theological retrieval, has three chapters that advocate for including careful research into historical theology as a path forward for contemporary Christians. Ortlund first asks whether Evangelicals can use Patristic and Medieval theology. Then he argues that we need to engage in theological retrieval through the use of historical theology. Finally, he outlines some of the pros and cons of theological retrieval. This is a balanced perspective that demonstrates there is certainly a wrong way to study and use the early church, but that we cannot afford not to do so if we are to remain faithful to the faith once and for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3).

In part two, Ortlund offers four case studies in theological retrieval. First, he examines the use of theological metaphor in the writings of Boethius, Calvin, and Torrance. This would be an interesting essay in its own right as Ortlund wrestles with the creation/creator distinction, but it makes a solid case study because it reveals how engaging with minds across time can be fruitful. The next case study reaches further back into a discussion of divine simplicity through medieval and patristic theology. In the third case study, Ortlund looks at a balance between models of the atonement. Here he does good work in showing that while substitution is central, necessary, and historically embedded, it does not exclude other ways of understanding Christ’s work on the cross. Here, one of the sharpest debates between theological progressives and orthodox Christians is clarified by reading those who argued about the topic centuries before. The final case study shows some of the practical and devotional benefits of reading theology from deep in Christian history as Ortlund mines wisdom from Gregory the Great on being an effective pastor in a world with many demands.

Analysis and Conclusion

One of the more engaging aspects of this book is the way that Ortlund utilizes the ideas of both C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien to frame some of his discussions. Those familiar with the work of those two Inklings will quickly recognize how deeply embedded in the historic Christian faith they both were. As they exemplified the Christian mind through their writings, they were both drawing extensively on a wide range of patristic and medieval sources. In Theological Retrieval for Evangelicals, Ortlund shows how their imaginative portrayals of deep, historical theological truths can enrich our Christian experience. This is by no means the central thrust of the book, but it is a sub-plot that enriches the volume significantly and gives it a pastoral bent.

For those Evangelicals engaged in theological discourse, this volume provides a solid starting place for faithfully retrieving the doctrinal truths discussed in earlier ages. It does so without losing the unique gospel-focus and bibliocentricity of Evangelical theology.

This book should be included in courses on theological method. It can be a resource for pastors seeking to deepen their faith and help young Evangelicals looking for rootedness to mine the riches of the Christian faith.

This book alone does not answer the challenge of recency that many Roman Catholics and high church Protestants levy against Baptists and other free church Christians, but it does provide a way for a conversation to begin through research, preaching, and teaching that will result in a robust, organic response to those challenges.

Theological Retrieval for Evangelicals: Why We Need Our Past to Have a Future

By Gavin Ortlund

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Civilized to Death - A Review

It’s rare that I read a book that is exceptionally bad. Normally the publication process weeds out the truly bad books, but the editors failed the author in this case. Civilized to Death: The Price of Progress is a book that should have never made it to press.

Christopher Ryan has followed up on a best-selling book, Sex at Dawn, with a book about the maladies of modern life. Civilized to Death looked like an interesting one based on the blurb and even I disagreed with the conclusions, this promised to be an engaging read. It should have been a red flag when the dust jacket blurbs were drawn from praise for the previous book and none of them from sources with significant credentials in the area of interest.

Civilized to Death is a train wreck. There is no question that Ryan can put together a sentence, but it isn’t immediately apparent that he understands the fundamentals of logic, argumentation, or research.

I have to confess that, though I read roughly a hundred books a year and try to carefully read the books that I review, I stopped reading carefully and moved more quickly through the last hundred pages of this book because it wasn’t worth the time to read it carefully. Ryan didn’t write or think carefully, so I returned the favor.

Ryan’s basic thesis is that everything you know about culture and civilization is wrong. He rejects the “Narrative of Perpetual Progress” and if you saw what he had seen, you would, too.

As far as that goes, I do not disagree. There is little doubt that in our over-industrialized, hyper-sexualized, logically backward, and consumeristically driven culture we have lost sight of the good life. One need only look at the rise of lifestyle-based diseases and the general loss of meaning in culture to see that. Ryan lays those ills at the feet of civilization.

Ryan’s remedy for civilization is to pursue aspects of the life of a hunter-gatherer. In truth, he doesn’t get to the point of any meaningful recommendations until the second to last page of the book, and that solution is so brief that I will quote it in full, lest I misrepresent it:

“What is we tragically bring hunter-gatherer thinking into our modern live by, for example, replacing top-down corporate structures with peer progressive networks and horizontally organized collectives and building an infrastructure of nonpolluting locally generated energy? If Homo sapiens sapiens were to divert spending on weapons, redirecting resources into a global guaranteed basic income that incentivizes not having children, thus reducing global population intelligently and without coercion, we would be taking steps toward [a meaningful solution]. Once we start down this road, every step would lead us closer to a future that recognizes, celebrates, honors, and replicates the origins and nature of our species. This is, as far as I can see, the only road home.”

This conclusion is air dropped out of nowhere. The book simply doesn’t build up to it. It’s as if he got to the end of the allotted word count, decided he needed to land the book and wrote a conclusion. The book is a great example of a non-sequitur.

More significant than the abrupt and ill-supported ending is the means by which Ryan supports his argument. As I was reading along in the first few chapters, I started to recognize that Ryan was glossing over counter arguments and cherry-picking data. About a page later, he writes, “Some readers will accuse me of romantic nostalgia and cherry-picking evidence. That is understandable. . . . Any argument concerning human nature will be a picked-cherry pie.”

Fair enough, I suppose. I have biases against some of his views, yet I do recognize that research cannot be comprehensive. But he goes on to immediately assert, “I’ve included copious references and recommendations for further reading in the endnotes to keep the text from getting too bogged down.”

Now, my interest was piqued, so I began to peruse the “copious references” in the endnotes. There are 18 pages of endnotes, which might sound like a lot, but when compared to the 16 pages of index that pad the book, it begins to wane in significance. Then consider that Ryan is trying to upend everyone’s understanding of civilization. Compare this to Mark Moffett’s book, The Human Swarm, which is also a sweeping volume, which has 38 pages of much more concise notes in a smaller print and makes much less radical claims.

But there is more than volume to the value of notes, so I went on in my investigation. Many of Ryan’s notes are to blogs and websites. They give evidence that a search engine supplanted real research and understanding, because they tell the reader where quotes are drawn from. Also absent are citations of anyone who disagrees with Ryan. In one chapter, Ryan criticizes Steven Pinker’s take on Western Civilization, but he only cites an online article by someone who was reviewing and interacting with Pinker. There is no evidence that Ryan ever picked up Pinker’s work to read it or understand it. Far from being “copious” the notes are limited and basic and they demonstrate that Ryan is an entertainer not a thinker.

It then becomes quickly apparent there are no real opponents to Ryan’s sweeping theory. He quotes thinkers in the same argument who disagree with each other radically as supporting the same point, which always supports his position. He classifies F. A. Hayek as a “conservative economist” despite Hayek writing an essay explaining why he is not a conservative in quite strong terms. He criticizes and dismisses the work of psychologist Viktor Frankl, but shows that he has no knowledge of the man’s actual arguments. To call this book sophomoric is an insult to sophomores.

I came to the book expecting to find common ground with Ryan, but couldn’t get past the effluviant mess that was intended to pass for deep thinking.

The book is, quite simply bad. My hope is this is the worst book I read this year. It would be an excellent tool for use in an undergraduate logic course to provide examples of bad reasoning for students to analyze.

Civilized to Death: The Price of Progress

By Christopher Ryan

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NOTE: I received a gratis copy of this volume from the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.

The Human Swarm - A Review

As Western Civilization seems to be fraying rapidly, the nature and origins of human societies seems significant. Why do societies arise? Why do they hold together? What makes them fall apart? These are big questions whose answers help explain human history and the world around us.

Mark Moffett explores these giant-sized questions in his recent book, The Human Swarm: How Our Societies Arise, Thrive, and Fall.

According to his biography, Moffett is something of a misfit. He dropped out of high school but managed to get a PhD from Harvard. His degree was in biology, but he has done more journalism than anything else. He was a student of E. O. Wilson, who is an intriguing figure himself, and likely has a million stories to share.

The book is long and expansive in scope. As such, it has more of a theme than a thesis. Moffett doesn’t grind away at a particular point as he does show the general direction that his research has pointed. This may sound like a criticism, but it is a strength in this case, because to force analogies of insects and animals onto humanity tends to result in critical failures. And yet, Moffett makes the case that we can learn something from the way societies form among non-human creatures. He does not rely on zoological observations alone, though, but also draws on research from anthropology of various human societies at various levels of organization and structure.

There are nine sections in this large volume. Section I begins by discussing how individual creatures are recognized as part of a group (e.g., enemy vs. friend). Section II explores anonymous societies, noting some significant similarities between ants and humans in our ability to socialize with those whom we don’t know as individuals. The third section dives into anthropology, looking at hunter-gatherer societies in human history. Section IV continues in anthropology (with zoological analogies) by considering how cultural markers can tie anonymous individuals together.

In the fifth section, Moffett digs into the human psyche, specifically evaluating how types, family relations, and other associations can aid creatures in existing in societies. Section VI evaluates whether conflict is a given, ultimately concluding that it is likely inevitable at some level. The seventh section traces the rise and fall of various societies, making an implicit argument that decline is inevitable and not entirely bad. More significantly, this section shows how societies morph over time. In Section VIII Moffett outlines how tribes turn into nations and, eventually, fracture. Then, finally, in Section IX, Moffett asks hard questions about ethnic and racial differences, whether societies are even necessary, noting that societies will always be a collection of people with differences.

The conclusion Moffett offers is that societies are generally good things, but they are also notably temporary things. Understanding their nature and proclivity toward fracture can be helpful as we wrestle the fracturing of our own society.

The Human Swarm is an engaging book. Well-written and copiously research. I am an expert in none of the disciplines that Moffett is drawing from, so I cannot critique whether he gets the nuances of various theories from a diverse range of fields correct. However, based on a review of the extensive end-notes in this volume, Moffett appears to have done his research faithfully and well. Not only does this work reflect copious research, but he thoughtfully engages with contrary theories, admitting disagreement where appropriate, in his notes. This is a book that bears the marks of being well-thought through, despite being an expansive volume that is wrestling with an interdisciplinary question.

A strength of this volume is that it avoids the naturalistic fallacy. There are times, especially when reading the distilled versions of scientific research, that firm conclusions are drawn in error. A scientist publishes research on aggression in Chimpanzees and either a popular interpreter or, sometimes, the scientist herself will draw straight-line conclusions to human behavior. Moffett recognizes the danger of this fallacy and avoids it. There are analogies between human societies and those of animals, they can provide some clues as to how societies form and creatures behave, but we cannot derive firm ethical conclusions from them.

Another significant strength of The Human Swarm is that Moffett does not romanticize any stage of human existence. The hunter-gatherer is recognized as a human with joy and suffering, interacting with the world as it was and in a particular context. There is neither the myth of a noble savage nor of the hapless primitive. We can learn about human behaviors by considering similarities and differences in typical behaviors in varied contexts.

One of the more helpful aspects of this volume is that it helps put contemporary politics in perspective. There are those who view America’s rise or fall (as categorized by the other party getting control) as dependent upon the next election. Though Moffett doesn’t talk about American politics at all, the framing of the constitution and disintegration of human societies within millennia helps put our current battles in perspective. The United States has been an imperfect union, better on balance than many other nations, but its rise or fall will not determine the final course of human events. In the meanwhile, Moffett provides some ideas about what makes societies cohere, which can help thinkers understand how cooperation and neighborliness can be cultivated.

This is one of those books that warrants being read, simply because of how well it is put together. There will be no reader who does not find points of agreement and disagreement with Moffett, but the final product is thoughtful and thought-provoking. For example, Moffett recognizes the goodness of a plurality of human cultures, but he also identifies the problem when immigrants within a larger society refuse to meaningfully integrate. On the other hand, he also notes that attempts to integrate excessively also have negative societal impacts. There is a tension that is necessary whenever societies mingle that cannot be resolved by the extreme proposals of either political pole.

There are careful considerations of how humans form their identities woven through this book. Contemporary scholars writing about human interactions would do well to read The Human Swarm alongside other, more theological, reflections.

Perhaps the factor that will most likely reduce the use of this volume is the sheer length. This is a comprehensive book, reaching back into basic animal behavior to finally arrive at signs and contributors to human society. It takes some patience to get to the end. This is an engaging book, overall, but there are points that a careful reader can easily lose sight of the final destination.

The Human Swarm: How Our Societies Arise, Thrive, and Fall

By Mark W. Moffett

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NOTE: I received a gratis copy of this volume from the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.

Christian Worldview - A Review

It is a rare thing for me to immediately re-read a book like a kid racing from the rollercoaster exit to the queue for its entrance. The recent translation of Herman Bavinck’s Christian Worldview made me do just that.

This is a book that I read quickly the first time to get the sense and begin to prepare a review, but I was so surprised and delighted by both how well the argument is constructed and how significant it is for our time that I went back through the short volume again, more slowly, with my pen in hand, marking deliberately and often as I went.

Bavinck was the successor to Abraham Kuyper as professor of systematic theology at the Free University of Amsterdam. Kuyper has been the better known name in some evangelical circles, but recent translation of Bavinck’s four volume dogmatics and, last year, of the first volume of his Reformed Ethics has increased Bavinck’s popularity.

Any popularity is well-deserved.

Christian Worldview is a masterpiece. The argumentation is precise, the language is beautiful, and the explanator power of this concise volume is invaluable. Many thanks to the translation team and to Crossway for ensuring this volume was made widely available in English.

A portion of the volume was originally presented as a lecture, which may explain its eloquence. This is a translation of a revised version of the earlier presentation, as well, which may have rounded off rough patches. However it came to be, it is excellent.

After the usual frontmatter by the translators and a brief introduction by the author, the book moves into three chapters. The first deals with the relationship between epistemology and reality, the second moves onto existence and change, and the third tends toward the ethical outcome of a Christian worldview.

Bavinck is mainly arguing against the scientific naturalism of the day. One of the common responses of even the faithful in his day was to separate the sacred and secular, since the laws of nature were deemed independent of the supernatural. In one sense, the entire project is an effort to show the unity of all knowledge and being in creation under one Creator. Along the way, Bavinck shows how failing to understand the transcendent nature of God and the value of the classic trascendentals—truth, beauty, and goodness—leads to human misery.

The whole book is a reach treatise explaining that Christianity is not merely one possible explanation for the way things are, nor is it merely the best. Christianity is the only possible comprehensive explanation for reality. Christianity does not contain a message of salvation, it is salvation. That is, to be (properly speaking) Christian is to be at peace with the Creator. All other worldviews lead to distress and eventual destruction.

Bavinck is effective at combatting many of the ills of his time without being combative. Although he does directly address some philosophies, the main focus of this short volume is to present a positive picture of Christianity. Negative examples are provided largely to show a contrast or to indicate where the lines of demarcation are.

One intriguing aspect of this book, which was first published in 1904 and revised in 1913, is that Bavinck effectively describes where the last century has taken us. He looks along the trajectory of modernity and calls most of the shots correctly. Certainly, he does not describe landing on the moon or iPhones, but he does note that naturalism puts society on a fast track to tyranny, because the autonomous moral self must exist within a society that is governed. When objective moral norms are rejected, the only options left are the tyranny of a majority through democracy or of the few through socialism, but the governance must be by force. There can be no grounds for cooperation and cohesion apart from an objective reality, in this case Christian theism, so governance must be by force.

From paragraph to paragraph, page to page, and chapter to chapter, I found substance, beauty, and wisdom. Even for those who disagree with some aspects of Reformed theology, this volume would be a beneficial resource. This is a book that will bear repeated readings and likely improve every time.

Christian Worldview

By Herman Bavinck

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