Book Write-Up: Health Care (Opposing Viewpoints, 2012)

David Haugen and Susan Musser, ed. Health Care: Opposing Viewpoints. Greenhaven, 2012. See here to purchase the book.

I decided to revisit the Opposing Viewpoints series. I read these when I was a kid. Although my mind was usually already made up when I read those as a child, reading the books gave me a more rounded perspective of the issues. The series includes articles from across the political spectrum on controversial topics.

This particular book is about the health care debate. Published in 2012, it talks a lot about the Affordable Care Act, but it also discusses the universal health care policies of Canada and Great Britain.

Here are some thoughts and observations:

A. The book has the typical saddening and heartbreaking stories about people in the U.S. who have suffered at the hands of the American health care system. Due to its costliness, people delay care until it is too late, they forgo care, or they get stuck with heavy medical bills. That said, conservative contributors highlighted where the American health care system is superior to that of other nations. The American system has a greater abundance of technology and more longevity for people with cancer and diabetes.

B. The introduction succinctly summarized the issue and the different positions on it. One of the causes of medical inflation in the U.S. is that demand exceeds supply. There is a shortage of primary care physicians, as many medical students gravitate towards more lucrative specialist fields. Conservatives have argued that, if there is universal health insurance, that will drive up the demand and thus health care costs, even as the supply remains stagnant. The Affordable Care Act has sought to incentivize primary care physicians, but people question whether the supply is expanding quickly enough, and some even contend that Obamacare has inadvertently driven doctors from the medical field.

C. Joe Flower and Carol L. Owen effectively explain why competition may not work its magic in the health care sector. Essentially, people trust their doctors, and the doctors refer patients to services that the doctors’ institutions themselves provide. The doctors have a financial incentive to overtest and overprescribe, and patients lack enough knowledge of their options to go elsewhere. Deductibles and copays give consumers some power, as consumers use their own money for care, but the costs are so high that many delay or forgo care. Health savings accounts are good, but only for those who make enough money to set them up. That said, the conservative voices do well to raise the argument that the current system suppresses competition and thereby elevates costs. Are medical and health insurance cartels truly necessary? And perhaps, in this age of the Internet, consumers can evaluate their options a lot better.

D. People across the spectrum agree that there are inefficiencies and redundancies in the American health care system. More than one contributor recommended an independent panel that would recommend cheaper and more effective care and treatments. Conservatives, of course, cried that this was rationing. Would not one expect conservatives to support such a measure, though, since it entails removing waste and saving the government money? Their opposition to cutting government funds to Medicare Advantage and Medicare is, likewise, odd, considering their usual criticism of the government doing things for people. At the same time, one conservative contributor makes an astute point when he states that the Obamacare cutbacks on Medicare fail to sustain Medicare or take care of the Medicare deficit, since they simply use that money for Obamacare.

E. Not surprisingly, the book is rather dated. It was published in 2012, and the Supreme Court decisions on the Affordable Care Act had not been decided yet. Advocates of the Affordable Care Act are predicting lower premiums and lower deficits; the lower premiums did not take place, as far as I know. Conservative Michael Tennant’s contribution reminded me of one of my problems with the right during the Obama years. They criticized Michelle Obama for pushing policies to encourage nutrition. “How dare she tell us what to eat?”, they yelled. But something needs to be done in that area, since poor eating results in high health care costs.

F. Michael F. Cannon offers a noteworthy defense of bringing free-market competition into the American health care system. He proposes a tax credit for individual purchase of health insurance. Interestingly, he does not propose raising taxes on health insurance that companies provide, as Republicans during the Bush II years did as a way to pay for the tax credits for individual purchase. Cannon seems to support tax credits for both. He appears also to have faith that enough individuals will purchase insurance to create a sizeable enough pool that spreads out the costs. Cannon, like others in the debate, has problems with the current system, which ties having health insurance to working for a company; what happens if that person is fired?

This is a worthwhile book to read. I knew a lot of the material in it, even though it was not organized in my mind. From the standpoint of a reader, the book is not as satisfying as a full book from one author expressing one position—-one just feels as if one has eaten a meal with such a book—-but it does present an overview of the different perspectives, for those who do not have the time or energy to read entire books devoted to particular viewpoints. The book would have been better had it discussed the positives and negatives of tort reform, but perhaps other books in the series do that.

I checked this book out from the library. My review is honest.

Church Write-Up: Remember Jesus; Heaven

The main text for this morning’s church service was II Timothy 2:1-9:

“Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. 2 And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also. 3 Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. 4 No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier. 5 And if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully. 6 The husbandman that laboureth must be first partaker of the fruits. 7 Consider what I say; and the Lord give thee understanding in all things. 8 Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead according to my gospel: 9 Wherein I suffer trouble, as an evil doer, even unto bonds; but the word of God is not bound.” (KJV)

Here, Paul exhorts Timothy to remember Jesus amidst challenges.

Here are some items:

A. The youth pastor talked about the times when we need to remember Jesus. When people reject us and make fun of us, we can remember that people rejected and made fun of Jesus, too, yet Jesus did not retaliate against them with hatred. When we are annoyed with other people, we can remember that God made them, too, and Jesus loves them.

B. The pastor talked about remembering Jesus amidst challenges. When Paul said “remember,” he did not mean “Oh yeah, I recall that,” but rather bringing oneself to the foot of the cross. Similarly, the Old Testament Israelites and the Jews remembered the Exodus every year at the Passover, in the sense of re-experiencing it through ritual. Paul brings Timothy back to Jesus because, otherwise, his exhortations to persevere would amount to discouraging laws that Timothy cannot live up to.

C. Paul in v 4 states that warriors do not entangle themselves in earthly affairs. The pastor remarked that Roman soldiers were not expected to be involved in politics, even though many of them were. It compromised their loyalty to their commanding officer.

In Sunday school, we wrapped up the class on death.

A. The teacher went into afterlife beliefs of non-Christian religions and so-called “cults.” He covered Hinduism, Buddhism, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Scientology, and Christian Science. He went rather quickly, so I could not keep up with what he was saying in my notetaking. A more detailed handout would have been helpful. I was unclear about how some things hold together. He said, for example, that Scientologists believe in cleansing one’s soul of bad experiences through intense spiritual exercise, yet he also said that they think spiritual advancement simply happens, without hard work.

B. The video that we watched said that we would all be able to recognize each other in heaven. The disciples at the Transfiguration recognized Moses and Elijah, even though Moses and Elijah had been dead for centuries and the disciples had never seen them before. Would we recognize every believer throughout history? The teacher responded that we would.

C. There was some discussion of near-death experiences. The teacher said that his soul left his body a couple times when he was asleep. He saw his sleeping body below him, and he felt lighter. A doctor told about a person who had a near-death experience and said that where he was before returning was filled with intense color.

Book Write-Up: Matthew 1-7, by John MacArthur

John MacArthur. Matthew 1-7. Moody, 1985. See here to purchase the book.

This is the first volume of John MacArthur’s extensive “MacArthur New Testament Commentary” series. It covers Matthew 1-7.

Here are some thoughts and observations:

A. I felt crushed with the weight of God’s law in reading this book. The book largely focuses on the Sermon on the Mount, so that is not surprising. The stark parts include: You should be mourning for your sins and the sins of others and hungering and thirsting for righteousness, even for those precepts that may seem unappealing. You should be broken to do God’s complete will, like a mule. If you do not reconcile with others, people’s worship at church may be better if you do not show up there at all. You cannot merely think good thoughts about people or wish them well but actually need to do concrete good for them. God only accepts worship and good deeds if they proceed from right intentions and motives. You cannot be focused on your own comfort. You cannot just admire these principles but need to do them. Only those on this narrow way will be saved and avoid hell. And none of this should be a burden, for the Holy Spirit will enable you to do it with a smile. But what if someone does not feel as one should, or sense the Holy Spirit providing that assistance and transformation that MacArthur talks about?

B. At times, MacArthur offers a moderate interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount. He humbly acknowledges that he, as well as others, has hated people and thus is guilty before God’s law. He says that, if absolute purity of heart were required for worship, no Christian would qualify. Yet, he interprets purity of heart, not in terms of perfection, but rather as commitment to God, which David had, even though he was morally flawed. He disputes that “turning the other cheek” means letting evil have free reign but interprets that to refer to suffering an insult and public shame rather than retaliating. He does not interpret Matthew 6:19-21 as a prohibition on accumulating and saving money, for he refers to New Testament passages that favor wealth and saving it for one’s children; he even states that material wealth can be a blessing from God. But it is a criticism of selfishness, self-indulgence, and loving corruptible wealth more than spiritual riches. At times, MacArthur backed away from saying that people who disobey the Sermon on the Mount are unsaved: he says they may simply be disobedient Christians, in which case God will discipline them.

C. On some of the issues that MacArthur raises, I wonder how one can obey the commands. Matthew 5:42 exhorts people to give to those who ask of them, and MacArthur interprets that as meeting people’s genuine needs. But there are so many genuine needs out there: does God require people to give to every Go-Fund-Me charity? Matthew 5:40 says that, if someone sues to take your coat, give him your cloak as well. MacArthur interprets that to mean that Christians, if they are sued, should try to make right whatever hurt they did and mollify their adversary to clear up hard feelings. But did the employee at MacArthur’s church who was sued for counseling malpractice do that (even though the suit failed to come to trial)?

D. Some of MacArthur’s stories were ably told but rubbed me the wrong way. He told about a Christian woman who confronted another woman who was getting a divorce. The Christian woman exhorted her that God’s grace can heal any marriage and shared with her Bible verses after the woman getting a divorce said she saw the Bible as the words of men, not God. The Christian woman felt persecuted when the divorcing woman angry lashed out. I tend to sympathize with the divorcing woman. Maybe she did not feel God’s strength helping her to persevere in her marriage. Perhaps she needed a friend to listen to her rather than throwing God’s law at her, as if she had never heard it before.

E. MacArthur was ambivalent on whether Jesus was preaching an imminent eschatology, the idea that the end is near. On the one hand, he said that Jesus was offering Israel the kingdom and the millennial reign would have come soon had Israel repented. John the Baptist indeed would have been the end-time Elijah had Israel accepted him as such (see Matthew 11:14), repenting and being reconciled to God and one another, as opposed to killing John. On the other hand, MacArthur distances himself from seeing the kingdom as imminent. When Jesus proclaims that the kingdom of heaven is at hand (Matthew 4:17), MacArthur interprets that as a spiritual kingdom: God’s personal reign over believers who obey him. Jesus’s miracles are not signs of the breaking in of an impending millennial reign, but rather are foretastes and types of the millennial reign of the future. And MacArthur says that John the Baptist may have expected Jesus to bring eschatological wrath soon (Matthew 3:10-12), but he was wrong about that: it would occur in the far off future; John was correct, however, that Jesus would be the one who would eventually bring it.

F. In some cases, MacArthur was helpful in explaining what a passage might mean in light of the rabbinic teachings of the time. I have long wondered why the Pharisee asked Jesus what the greatest commandment of the law is (Matthew 22:36). Jews are supposed to obey all of the law, so does that not nullify “least” and “greatest,” as if they can break some laws and still be on God’s good side? MacArthur interprets the question in light of the rabbinic teaching that, if the Jews observe only one commandment perfectly, the Messiah will come. According to MacArthur, the Pharisees realized that no one could keep the law perfectly, so they lowered the bar, saying that only outward sins counted as sins, or that Jews could focus on some commandments and not others and still please God. Another helpful discussion was MacArthur’s description of Galilee as a prosperous, cosmopolitan area, with many Gentiles. MacArthur’s discussion of “turn the other cheek” could have been better. He talked as if the Jews tolerated personal vengeance at that time, but I doubt that Jews were allowed to kill someone without legal due process. (I am open to correction on this.)

G. MacArthur's discussion of divorce was a little muddled, yet wrestled with important considerations. On the one hand, MacArthur appears to deny that Deuteronomy 24:1-4 allows the Israelites to get a divorce. Rather, he says that it disapproves of divorce and explains that divorcees become defiled and thus cannot marry each other again. Indeed, MacArthur does well to observe that there is a stigma on divorce in the Torah (see Leviticus 21:7, 14). On the other hand, MacArthur is aware that Jesus acknowledges that Moses permitted the Israelites to divorce due to their hardness of hearts (Matthew 19:8). A related issue that MacArthur engages is the nature of the uncleanness in Deuteronomy 24:1 that motivates the Israelite man to divorce his wife. MacArthur does not think that uncleanness is adultery, for in that case the woman would be put to death and divorce would be unnecessary. Instead, MacArthur proposes that the uncleanness is the woman fooling around with another man, yet not going so far as to have sex with him.  

Overall, MacArthur deserves credit for interpreting the text according to what he believes it means rather than in a manner that makes people feel better. Some Christians treat the Sermon on the Mount as inapplicable to Christians—-as Jesus simply showing how impossible God’s standards are so we see the need for a Savior. But that attitude seems to treat the Sermon dismissively. At the same time, grace and humility should be part of the equation, since people, Christians included, fail to live up to these standards. This book is thorough and heavy. It is mostly homiletical, as MacArthur tells stories and quotes homiletical works (i.e., Bonhoeffer, Puritans, etc.). Yet, MacArthur extensively engages the Greek and provides historical context; he is not very specific in his citations in those cases, however. I plan to read other volumes of this series, but I am not sure when I will do so.

Church Write-Up: Mortal and Venial Sins; Muslims and Souls in the Grave; Unaware Ghosts; No Firm Ground

Here are four items for my Church Write-Up about last Sunday’s church activities. This is an LCMS church.

A. The Sunday School class is about death, and the teacher was going into what various religions believe about the afterlife. He was explaining what Roman Catholics think about mortal sin. What makes a sin mortal? First, it is a grave matter, such as murder and adultery. Second, it is committed deliberately, with full knowledge of wrongdoing; it is not an accident. The teacher said that mortal sin cannot be forgiven, though later he said that some mortal sins can be forgiven, if a Catholic does penance. Venial sins are cleansed in purgatory. Meanwhile, there is limbo for unbaptized babies and people who never heard the Gospel, which includes people in Old Testament times. The teacher highlighted two areas in which Lutherans disagree with Catholics. First, Lutherans do not distinguish between mortal and venial sins. To them, a sin is a sin, and no one sin is worse than another. Second, people in Old Testament times actually heard the Gospel, in some form.

Some of this overlaps with my understanding of Catholic teaching, and some of it does not. This will not be a documented post, since my goal here is to record my reflections. But I will base what I say on my reading of the Catholic catechism and Aquinas years ago. My understanding is that mortal sins can be forgiven, provided that a Christian repents of them before death; otherwise, the Christian goes to hell. Venial sins do not damn a person to hell, but they should be taken seriously because they can harden a Christian to God and possibly become mortal. Venial sins are cleansed in purgatory. The distinction between mortal and venial sins only applies to Christians. As far as non-Christians are concerned, all of their sins are mortal sins and damn them to hell, for they lack divine forgiveness; for them, a sin is a sin. Not all sins are equal, though, for some sins are worse than others, and non-Christians will suffer variously in hell, based on the seriousness of their sin. This can be nuanced, since Vatican II Catholicism has been rather pluralistic or inclusivist about non-Christians going to heaven.

B. The teacher said that Muslims believe that people’s souls remain in the graves until the resurrection at the last day, but that their souls are happy or unhappy in the grave based on their destination: if their destination is heaven, then their souls are happy in the grave, but their souls are unhappy if their destination is hell. Their destination is based on how many good works they have done. Someone asked how this is reconciled with the Islamic view that Muslims who die in battle will have seventy virgins in heaven immediately after death; I thought of something a social studies teacher said years ago: that, according to historical Islam, before a Muslim warrior falls to the ground in battle, his soul goes straight to heaven to be with Allah. Is that (i.e., immediately going to heaven or some realm in the afterlife) the exception rather than the rule?

C. The teacher talked about experiences with ghosts that his family had. Decades ago, his brother died in his forties, and relatives saw the brother after his death. One relative saw the brother walking at a distance, like he used to do when he was doing farm-work. Another saw the brother at a birthday party, as clearly as the alive people who were there. My guess is that these dead souls are unaware that they are dead, which is why they do the activities that they did before they died. They may be caught in somewhat of a time-warp or a time-loop, like a dream; they do not know enough to realize that their living family members are unaware of their presence because they are ghosts. They may not be reconciled to the reality of their death. In shows like Ghost Whisperer, it is when they become reconciled that they go into the light and consciously enter the afterlife. The question would then be whether this can be reconciled with a Christian view of the afterlife, in which souls go to heaven or hell immediately after death.

D. The pastor talked about how we look for some safe place that can tell us that we are doing all right. We may think that we are more righteous than others, or we may be happy that we are not experiencing the suffering that others do. This reminded me of something I heard on the Thinking Fellows podcast, which has LCMS academics. A professor defined total depravity as the human inability to find any safe ground, in himself or herself, that can qualify a person as righteous before God.

Book Write-Up: The Economists’ Hour, by Binyamin Applebaum

Binyamin Applebaum. The Economists’ Hour: False Prophets, Free Markets, and the Fracture of Society. Little, Brown and Company, 2019. See here to purchase the book.


Binyamin Applebaum writes about business and economics for the New York Times. The Economists’ Hour is about the historical influence of economists on U.S. policy. Applebaum primarily focuses on the time between the 1970’s and the 2008 financial crisis.

Among the topics that Applebaum engages are monetarism, deregulation, the role of cost-benefit analysis in federal regulatory policy, supply-side economics, the abrogation of the gold standard, and anti-trust.

Applebaum’s perspective appears to be rather Keynesian. He believes that the government can play a stimulative role in the economy. More than once, he  observes that anti-government economists financially flourished due to government. Applebaum is also skeptical about supply-side economics. You can cut taxes so businesses can buy computers, but how many computers can they possibly need?

There were things that I learned or came to appreciate more deeply from reading this book:

—-Applebaum lucidly presents the pros and cons on the question of whether inflation is caused by an increased money supply.

—-Applebaum clarifies Milton Friedman’s monetarist perspective, which supports limiting the money supply as a way to ameliorate inflation, while rejecting the gold standard.

—-The discussion of cost-benefit analysis in regulatory policy is disturbing, for can one really put a price on a human being’s life? Yet, some cost-benefit analysis may be necessary, for very few things are absolutely safe and lacking in risk to life and health.

—-One might think that monopolies or duopolies lead to higher prices, for, without competition, companies will raise their prices as much as they can. From what Applebaum presents, though, monopolies and duopolies often charge lower prices because with their large size comes greater efficiency in production. Those who favored anti-trust argued on social grounds: that there should be many competing companies so that a few large companies would not have disproportionate wealth and power.

In terms of where Applebaum could have connected the dots a little better than he did, he was somewhat ambiguous about whether the 1970’s sought to combat deregulation or regulation. Airports were afraid that anyone could set up a little airport in his or her backyard, which seems to be a call for greater regulation. Yet, even Ted Kennedy was favoring a rollback on airport regulation, for the sake of airports and consumers. Was regulation or lack of regulation the perceived problem, or was it both?

Another issue on which Applebaum could have connected the dots better was exchange currency. The U.S. in the 1970’s abrogated the gold standard because, quite frankly, the U.S. was running out of gold. The result, for a time, was chaos in international currency. Applebaum perhaps could have given the basics about how currency works: what the gold standard was, why it existed, and how other countries are affected by U.S. currency.

Overall, though, Applebaum effectively connected the dots and painted a picture of how economic policy affected people, businesses, and countries on the ground. The biographical details about the economists and government officials made this book compelling reading.

I temporarily received a complimentary copy of this book through Netgalley. My review is honest.

Church Write-Up: Mark 9-10 and Becoming Like a Child

My church resumed its Wednesday Bible study, after a three month hiatus. It will not meet next week, though, since the pastor will be at a funeral.

The pastor talked about Mark 9-10. He was arguing that the pericopes in those chapters revolve around Jesus’s teaching that people should become like children. The world has its ideas about status, glory, and power, as people compete to be the greatest. The Kingdom of God, however, has different ideas about these things, as it emphasizes such values as love, service, humility, and grace. Jesus was particularly glorified when he was on the cross, for there he demonstrated those values. By publicly welcoming a child, Jesus was teaching a lesson about grace. Children lacked status in that world, which prioritized adults. Jesus was giving status to one who lacked status. Similarly, Jesus gives status to people who do not deserve it, who have nothing in their hands to offer to God.

According to the pastor, the pericopes in Mark 9-10 relate to these themes as follows:

—-At the Transfiguration, Peter is presumptuous in offering to build a booth for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. The disciples also expected Jesus to enter Jerusalem, not humbly, but in his glorified transfigured state. Jesus was teaching that his mission entailed a cross.

—-After coming down from the mountain, the disciples wonder why they were unable to cast out a demon. They were able to cast demons out before, so why not now? Jesus responds that this kind of demon can come out only by prayer. That does not refer to a magical prayer that can cast out a troublesome demon, but rather a humble, dependent attitude of prayer. Humility, not pride in one’s power, is important.

—-The Pharisees confront Jesus about divorce. The Hillelites held that a man could divorce his wife for any reason, and they thought that their divorces were justified under Deuteronomy 24:1-4. Jesus was telling them that the law in Deuteronomy 24:1-4 was made in light of a fallen world, but that God’s standard was actually higher. Jesus was seeking to humble the Pharisees by showing that they fell short of God’s standard and thus needed a Savior. Jesus was also elevating women, who were largely marginalized in that world. Under Deuteronomy 24:1-4, a man could divorce his wife, but a woman could not divorce her husband. Jesus was leveling things.

Book Write-Up: Trinity without Hierarchy

Michael F. Bird and Scott Harrower. Trinity without Hierarchy: Reclaiming Nicene Orthodoxy in Evangelical Theology. Kregel Academic, 2019. See here to purchase the book.

This book attempts to refute the view that God the Son has been eternally subordinate to God the Father, even prior to the incarnation. Such a view is held by evangelical scholars Wayne Grudem and Bruce Ware. This book contains contributions from different scholars. The Christian thinkers who are engaged in this book include church fathers, Thomas Aquinas, Puritan John Owen, Karl Barth, and Wolfhart Pannenberg.

Those who argue against eternal subordinationism contend that such a concept makes God the Son into an inferior being to God the Father. This runs counter to classical orthodox Trinitarianism, which holds that the three persons of the Trinity are one with each other in will and essence, as well as ontologically equal with each other; there is no hierarchy. Eternal subordinationism, by contrast, implies that the Son is different from the Father because the Son has an inherent submissiveness to the Father, which the Father lacks. It also entails that the will of the Son is different from the will of the Father, for the Son obeys the Father rather than naturally doing what the Father wants. While there are passages about the Son obeying the Father or being under the Father’s authority, those relate specifically to Christ in his incarnate state—-his human nature—-not to God the Son prior to the incarnation. Christ indeed humbled himself in obedience to the Father, but he did so after a pre-incarnate state of equality with the Father, making his act of humility all the greater. Hebrews 5:8 affirms that Jesus learned obedience by suffering, implying that he was not in a state of eternal obedience to the Father prior to the incarnation; prior to the incarnation, his will was one with the Father, so there was no need for obedience.

Those who believe in eternal subordinationism seem to acknowledge that God the Father and God the Son are ontologically equal, but they hold that God the Son has eternally submitted to the Father. In the Roman world, sons obeyed their fathers, so, by regarding Jesus as God’s Son, early Christianity was implying that God the Son obeyed God the Father, even prior to the incarnation. Moreover, the Father and the Son, even in orthodox Christian Trinitarianism, are different from each other in that the Father is unbegotten, whereas the Son is begotten by the Father.

Another reviewer criticized this book for focusing more on the Nicene Creed than on Scripture. Indeed, if one were to look at Scripture alone, one might question whether Scripture clearly comes down on one side or the other. The argument against eternal subordinationism from Hebrews 5:8, in my opinion, is a strong biblical argument.

At the same time, some arguments against eternal subordinationism strike me as pedantic. One argument (as I understand it) is that God the Son was not actually obeying the Father in creating the cosmos, for that would make the Son dependent on creation. Not necessarily, for that would be just one more example of the Son obeying the Father, in an eternal subordinationist model. The anti-eternal subordinationist tendency to treat the Father and Son as absolutely the same, without distinctions, also seems pedantic. Can one avoid the Father and the Son being distinct? One is a Father, and the other is a Son. Their roles are different. “But you are speaking about their roles and not their essence: in their essence, they are the same.” But does not their essence lead them to assume the distinct roles that they take? Critics of eternal subordinationism seem to assume this when they say that the Son submitting himself eternally to the Father requires some submissive element in the Son’s essence, making him different from the Father (which, for them, is a no-no). Could there be something in the Son’s essence that makes him the Son, distinct from the Father? But, admittedly, we then run into the brick wall of classical orthodox Trinitarianism, specifically the question of how the three persons of the Trinity are one. Traditionally, they have been held to be one on account of their same essence.

Another issue, with which the historical and current theologians wrestle in this book, concerns when the Son obeyed the Father. Reformed Christians emphasize that God planned the work of redemption before the foundation of the world. In that case, did not the Son decide to obey the Father prior to the incarnation, by agreeing to become incarnate in the future?

Those are my cliff-notes version of the two beliefs and the basis for them, along with my reflections. There are more nuances and technicalities, and this book gets into those. It is not for the theologically faint of heart, but the highlights are fairly salient. The book is effective in conveying the other side in its critique. The book also gets into profound theological questions. Why did the Son become incarnate and not the Father and the Holy Spirit? If the Son is God’s word and wisdom, does that imply that God the Father lacks in himself the ability to speak and wisdom?

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher. My review is honest.

Church Write-Up: God’s Persistent Love; Immediately After Death

Here are some items from church last Sunday:

A. The theme of the service was God’s persistent love. The main text was Luke 15:1-10. The Pharisees are criticizing Jesus for receiving sinners and eating with them, so Jesus tells them the stories of the lost sheep and the lost coin. In those parables, a person searches intently for a lost sheep or a lost coin and rejoices after finding it. Similarly, angels rejoice over one sinner who repents. The pastor commented that Ezekiel 34 may have been in Jesus’s mind. Ezekiel 34 lambastes the shepherds of Israel for neglecting the sheep and for being more concerned about their own luxury. Ezekiel prophesies that God himself will come and be Israel’s shepherd, searching for them and tending to them. Not only was Jesus implying that he was God in his role as shepherd, but Jesus was also criticizing the Pharisees for neglecting the lost sheep who were right in front of them. Instead, they looked down on those who were not as ritually meticulous or spiritual as they were.

The pastor told some stories. First, he knew a couple in high school who broke up and married other people. Those marriages fell apart and they reconnected with each other years later on Facebook. They concluded that they still loved each other and got married. Second, a man the pastor knew in seminary had difficulty adjusting to seminary life, remarking that he felt like he was trapped inside a garbage bag. When a fellow seminarian died, however, the struggling man came face to face with death and found hope in the message about Jesus’s resurrection. Similarly, Jesus’s incarnation, death, and resurrection can open us up to God by reminding us of God’s love. Third, a lady had been so abused and broken by life and people that she felt hurt by anything anyone said to her, seeing it as an insult. The first story was an example of persistent love, and the second and third stories illustrate how we may be deaf to God’s love, yet God still chases us.

The youth pastor showed pictures of trees. They look like ordinary, run-of-the-mill trees, but they mattered to the photographer. Similarly, we may look like average, run-of-the-mill people, but we may become special and beloved to those who get to know us better. God already knows and loves us.

B. The Sunday school class continued its series on death. Specifically, it focused on hell. We saw a video that commented on Jesus’s parable about Lazarus and the rich man (Luke 16:19-31). The rich man did not go to hell because he was rich, and Lazarus did not go to Abraham’s bosom because he was poor. The rich man went to hell because he did not listen to Moses and the prophets and instead pursued his own agenda. Lazarus, however, trusted Moses and the prophets, particularly (according to the video) their prophecy about the coming redeemer. How much of God’s plan Lazarus knew is a good question; indeed, Luke-Acts does present Jesus as the fulfillment of the law and the prophets (Luke 24:44, Acts 28:23, etc.).

The video was trying to refute soul sleep, the idea that people are unconscious until the resurrection at the last day, by appealing to Luke 23:43, in which Jesus tells the thief beside him on the cross, “today you will be with me in paradise.” I was raised on soul sleep, and its response to the Luke 23:43 argument was that Jesus himself was not in paradise on that day, so how could the thief be with him in paradise on that day? Jesus was not in paradise on that day because he was in the grave. Some believers in soul sleep ask how adherents to the Luke 23:43 argument could say that Jesus was in heaven on that day, yet also maintain that Jesus was in hell, preaching to the spirits who were there. Believers in soul sleep said that Luke 23:43 should be re-punctuated: “Truly I tell you today, you shall be with me in paradise.” Jesus was telling the thief on that day, not saying the thief on that very day would be with him in paradise.

The teacher seemed to be trying to get around that objection by saying that heaven is a timeless and eternal realm. Here on earth, things take place sequentially. In heaven, all time—-past, present, and future—-is present to God. That is why Jesus could tell the thief, “Today, you shall be with me in paradise.” The absence of sequence anywhere does not make sense to me.

A lady was sharing that she believes in two heavens. Our souls will go to heaven immediately after our death. When the resurrection occurs in the future, however, we will be reunited with our bodies and go to a second heaven. She raises an interesting point. If the souls of believers are with God immediately after they die (II Corinthians 5:8), why have a resurrection after that? They have already arrived at the highest they can go, right? They are with God. But there is higher one can go, and that entails reunion with one’s body and the stewardship of the new heavens and the new earth.

Book Write-Up: The Transparent Cabal, by Stephen J. Sniegoski

Stephen J. Sniegoski. The Transparent Cabal: The Neoconservative Agenda, War in the Middle East, and the National Interest of Israel. Enigma, 2008. See here to purchase the book.

Stephen J. Sniegoski has a doctorate from the University of Maryland and studied American diplomatic history. My review here will refer to him as “S,” for short.

This book is about the American neoconservative movement. S goes from its founding through its influential role in getting the U.S. into the Iraq War, then he discusses the War’s aftermath. S’s argument is that the neoconservative agenda regarding the Middle East is designed to serve the interests of the state of Israel, as those interests are articulated by the right-wing Likud party there. This agenda supports weakening Arab nations surrounding Israel so that they cannot pose a threat to her. According to S, the neoconservatives supported such an agenda since their beginning as a movement, but 9/11 created an opportunity for this agenda to become the foreign policy of the United States during much of the Presidency of George W. Bush.

Here are some thoughts:

A. Looking broadly at the book itself, it is a standard narration of the events surrounding and including the Iraq War. Like a lot of people, I lived through that, so the sweeping narrative of the book was not particularly new to me. The story is essentially that the U.S. went into Iraq expecting to find weapons of mass destruction after 9/11, bombed the country and found that were no WMDs, and traveled the difficult road of trying to rebuild the country, amidst ethnic division, turmoil, and opposition from Iraqis.

B. That said, there were some things that I learned from this book. First, while neoconservatism is said to believe in spreading democracy in the Middle East, it is not necessarily committed to democracy, per se. Initially, it supported a new government of Iraq that would be led by the traditional, pre-Saddam tribal authorities, who were not democratic. Second, S seems to imply that even the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan was unnecessary, since the Taliban initially appeared cooperative in offering to help the U.S. to bring al-Qaeda to justice. Third, there are neoconservatives who have supported undermining even America’s allies in the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia. The different groups in Saudi Arabia was also interesting, for, as S notes, Shiites hold a significant amount of control over Saudi oil, even though the political establishment is Sunni. Fourth, S argues rigorously against the idea that the U.S. launched the Iraq War to get more oil. Saddam was offering U.S. oil companies opportunities to drill in Iraq, plus oil companies did not want the oil infrastructure of the country to be disrupted or shattered by war.

C. There were also things in the book that I was interested to learn more about, even though I had a rudimentary understanding of them before. For one, S chronicles George W. Bush’s changing views on foreign policy, as he went from rejecting nation-building, while retaining a tough stance, to embracing nation building. In the early days of the Bush II Administration, long before the Iraq War, Condi Rice even explained on news shows why regime change in Iraq would be a mistake at that point. Second, S discusses the coalition that emerged to support the war in Iraq. The neocons wanted to protect Israel, but Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld embraced the Iraq War as a way to showcase the effectiveness of a lean military. Meanwhile, many Americans, frightened after 9/11, supported the Iraq War as a way to keep the U.S. safe. And Christian conservatives embraced the good vs. evil, pro-Israel stance of neoconservative policy. Third, S strategically evaluates moves that the U.S. made; for S, for example, the surge did not actually work, but more stability emerged in Iraq as different ethnic factions became separated from each other.

D. According to S, the Iraq War was a disaster. It stretched America’s military, taking away resources that could have been used to find Osama bin-Laden. Yet, Israel got something that it wanted as a result: disarray among her Arab neighbors. An argument that S did not really engage, as far as I can recall, is that the Iraq War placed Israel even more in peril, since it increased the power of Iran by allowing Iraq to serve as a proxy for Iranian interests.

E. For S, neoconservatism is concerned about the security of Israel. Even its staunch Cold War policy is rooted in that concern, since the U.S.S.R. tended to support Arabs over the Israelis. S acknowledges, though, that there is more to neoconservatism that that. Neoconservatives supported a strong U.S. military intervention in the former Yugoslavia during the Clinton Administration, and neoconservatism also maintains stances on domestic issues, such as welfare.

F. S is sensitive to any charges of anti-Semitism that may be launched against his book. He emphatically denies that he is saying there was a Jewish conspiracy to get the U.S. into Iraq, for he observes that many Jews opposed the Iraq War. Moreover, S does not exactly present the U.S. government as a Zionist Occupied Government (ZOG), for the neoconservatives were long on the margins prior to the Presidency of George W. Bush. Even under Bush II, the traditional national security and intelligence apparatus was critical of the Iraq War, preferring more multilateralism and a focus on stability in the Middle East. The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), long a bogeyman of right-wing conspiracy theorists, also had reservations about the Iraq War.

G. S largely depicts the Likud party in Israel, and neoconservatives, as supporting Israel’s security as a nation, her protection, if you will. At the same time, S argues that Israel in 2006 was acting aggressively rather than defensively in its invasion of Lebanon, for Lebanon had coveted water-supplies.

H. Near the end of the Iraq War, S demonstrates, neoconservatives were calling on the U.S. to take an aggressive stance against Iran, going so far as to bomb the country. That, of course, is an issue that remains relevant today. S probably regards such a move as a mistake. At the same time, he can understand why Israel would be apprehensive about a nuclear-armed Iran. He thinks that Ahmadinejad has been incorrectly understood to say that Israel should be wiped off the map, but S still acknowledges that a powerful Iran could provide more support to the Palestinians, which would trouble Israel. Although S understands this, he seems to scorn the idea that Israel should get everything she wants and have hegemony.

I. S is open to the possibility that neoconservatives believe that their support for Israel is perfectly consistent with America’s well-being. As S observes, the U.S. government since its founding has had people who believe that partisanship towards a certain nation—-Britain or France—-is not only good for its own sake but serves the interests of the United States. S disputes, however, that neoconservative policy is the only way to help the U.S. Could not one argue, after all, that the U.S. would want to be on the Arabs’ good side, with all the oil the Arabs have? This analysis may be a little dated, since the U.S. now has some alternative sources of energy (fracking), but S makes this point in evaluating the historical stance of neoconservatism.

Book Write-Up: The Trinity and Martin Luther, by Christine Helmer

Christine Helmer. The Trinity and Martin Luther: Revised Edition. Lexham, 2017. See here to purchase the book.

Christine Helmer teaches religious studies at Northwestern University. She has a Ph.D. from Yale University.

As the title indicates, this book is about Martin Luther’s view on the Trinity. Helmer attempts to refute previous scholarly ideas about this. These ideas have posited that Luther was a subordinationist, a modalist, a tritheist, or in some way different from medievalists. Helmer, in contrast, proposes that Luther was classically orthodox. Because Luther never actually wrote a treatise about the Trinity, Helmer consults various sources, including hymns, sermons, and Luther’s academic disputations against non-Trinitarians and the view that the Trinity had ecclesiastical but not biblical authority.

There are two aspects to Luther’s understanding of the Trinity that I gleaned from this book. First, Luther maintained that there were serious limitations on the ability of human rationality to understand God, particularly the Trinity. Luther did not dispense entirely with reason, for he utilized it in academic disputations, but he held that what humans know about the Trinity is the result of revelation from God: the Holy Spirit, through the Bible and the preached word, testifies to the Trinity. Helmer contends that, on this point, Luther largely overlapped with medieval thinkers. Second, Luther emphasized the relationships within the Trinity. When God speaks to God’s son in the Book of Psalms, Luther interprets that as the Father speaking to God the Son, who became Jesus Christ. Meanwhile, the Holy Spirit observes. Love exists among the three members of the Trinity. The three members of the Trinity also relate to each other within the economic Trinity, which concerns God’s salvation of human beings. Christ intercedes for believers, who, by being in Christ, are incorporated into the loving fellowship that exists within the Trinity.

To be honest, I cannot say that there was much in this book that piqued my interest. There was an occasional detail that did so, such as Luther’s justification for academic disputation against those who reject the truth, which differs from Christ’s meek treatment of people who wavered in the truth. The book is very abstract, and whatever I did understand in it struck me as rather obvious. I was wondering if my problem was the subject matter, since Trinitarian disputes do strike me as abstract technicalities that people are willing to die over, as if something about God’s character is at stake. But I am reading another book on the Trinity, and I actually enjoy it on account of the intriguing questions that it engages.

My impression is subjective, and others may appreciate the book more. While there was not much chemistry between me and Helmer’s book, I respect that she explored this subject in a fresh way and made a significant contribution to scholarship.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher. My review is honest.

Book Write-Up: The Supremacists, by Phyllis Schlafly

Phyllis Schlafly. The Supremacists: The Tyranny of Judges and How to Stop It. Revised and expanded. Richard Vigilante, 2006. See here to purchase the book. Go here to download individual chapters for free.

Phyllis Schlafly was a conservative activist and a lawyer.

The Supremacists was originally published in 2004. It is a spirited criticism of liberal judicial activism. For conservative critics, judicial activism goes beyond merely interpreting the law according to the original intent of its framers. Instead, liberal activist judges illegitimately legislate their policy preferences from the bench.

Schlafly discusses issues in which she believes this is evident. According to Schlafly, liberal activist judges have banned religion from the public square, redefined marriage to include same-sex unions, followed foreign laws and treaties in making decisions about American policy, allowed eminent domain for economic development without just compensation, overturned anti-pornography laws, mandated radical feminism, handicapped law enforcement, limited legitimate application of the death penalty, invited illegal immigration, changed agreed-upon election rules in mid-game, placed themselves over parents as the arbiters of the best interests of children, and imposed taxes that have not been legislated.

Schlafly does not trace the origins of judicial activism to Marbury vs. Madison (1803), for the judicial review that Chief Justice John Marshall’s implemented there was modest and conservative. Rather, she traces it to the pro-slavery Dred Scott decision, which went beyond applying the law towards establishing a policy on slavery for the nation. Schlafly believes that the Warren Court of the 1960’s amplified judicial activism. She traces this, not to Brown vs. the Board of Education, but to a lesser-known anti-segregation case: Cooper vs. Aaron. Schlafly believes that this decision moved the court further towards making policy, which was unnecessary to overturn segregation.

In the final chapter, Schlafly extensively proposes ways that the power of the judiciary can be checked. She contends that Article III of the Constitution explicitly allows the U.S. Congress to limit the jurisdiction of the courts, and it has exercised that right in the past. Some of her proposals are procedural and common-sense. They are designed, for example, to add more checks and balances to the ability of one life-time appointed federal judge to create a policy for the entire nation. Should one person have all that power?

Here are some thoughts:

A. Schlafly’s training as a lawyer shines in this book. She extensively cites case law and the nuances therein, albeit in a narrative and easy-to-understand manner. She also cites law journals and quotes Supreme Court decisions and dissents. Information about those cases and writings is available on the Internet. I did not fact-check everything that Schlafly said, but I did look up parts of Sex Bias in the the U.S. Code, a 1977 book that Ruth Bader Ginsburg co-authored. In some cases, I thought that Schlafly’s interaction with that text was slightly unfair, but some of what Schlafly said about it was surprisingly and remarkably accurate, in terms of the radical nature of what Ginsburg recommended (i.e., openness to legalized prostitution).

B. Schlafly cites the text of the U.S. Constitution to support her points. Against the view that the Constitution gives felons a right to vote, Schlafly notes that Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment allows limitation of the franchise for those who commit crimes. There is also her observation that Article III gives Congress the authority to limit the courts.

C. Schlafly also delves into U.S. history, as she presents quotes by Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln in favor of a limited judiciary.

D. Schlafly does well to highlight possible liberal inconsistencies. Liberals demand conformity to “precedent” when it comes to Roe vs. Wade, yet liberal judges have made decisions that overturn precedent. Liberal judges consult foreign laws and customs for guidance, but only when that agrees with their point-of-view. They do not follow the anti-abortion and anti-homosexuality practices of Islamic countries, for example.

E. There is one area in which Schlafly is slightly inconsistent. On the one hand, Schlafly argues that courts should make their decisions on a limited case-by-case basis rather than trying to create a comprehensive policy for the entire nation. On the other hand, she criticizes 5-4 decisions of the Supreme Court because they are nebulous about what the law for everyone actually is.

F. During the 2004 election, liberals were criticizing computerized voting, which did not leave a paper trail. In some cases, the computers assigned a vote to the Republican when the voter chose a Democrat. Interestingly, Schlafly was critical of computerized voting and preferred the traditional form that left a paper trail. She states that in the December 2000 Phyllis Schlafly Report. As far as this book is concerned, she criticizes liberals for trying to transition to a computerized system during the election to recall Gray Davis as governor of California.

G. In criticizing government recognition of same-sex marriage, Schlafly says that homosexuals can cohabit without the government affirming same-sex marriage. Yet, she opposes courts striking down anti-sodomy statutes.

H. The effects of court decisions do play a role in Schlafly’s arguments. For Schlafly, society becomes a worse place when people are not allowed to execute monsters, just because they committed their heinous crimes before they turned 18. It is not a good thing for minors to be exposed to pornography at the supermarket. Schlafly does not always convincingly argue, at least in this book, that her worldview is more beneficial to society. Why should it be acceptable to make atheists feel excluded through a formal public acknowledgement of religion? Why can’t a child find positive support in a same-sex family? Who says that parents consistently make the best decisions about what is in their child’s interests?

I. There is a part of me that sympathizes with “liberal activist” judges. There are three reasons for this. First, culture changes, so why should we be bound by the mindset of the eighteenth century? I remember a PBS documentary about the Constitution, in which someone said that the Constitution itself recognizes this reality: the Eighth Amendment, for instance, bans cruel and unusual punishment, but what is “unusual” may change with the times. Why should courts feel bound by what was “unusual” in the eighteenth century? Second, an activist judiciary checks state and local governments from becoming oppressive. Should a state government seriously be allowed to ban contraception for married couples, or to put homosexuals in jail under anti-sodomy laws? There is such a thing as tyranny of the majority. Third, a hyper-literal interpretation of the law can end up making rights meaningless. For example, the Warren Court has been criticized by the right for handicapping law enforcement, but I think that it added teeth to the Bill of Rights’ provisions for the rights of the accused; it made those rights a reality, not something on paper that can be easily circumvented.

J. At the same time, I think that the right makes legitimate critiques of judicial activism. Sure, culture changes, but, if the left cannot effect its agenda through the legislative process, perhaps that indicates that culture has not changed as much as it wants. And what can check the judges? Should they seriously have the final, ultimate say about controversial issues?

I am giving this book five stars, not because I agree with all of it, but because I found it informative.

Church Write-Up: The Banquet Invitation

At church yesterday, the pastor preached about the story of the banquet invitation in Luke 14:12-23.

A master of a house had a banquet and invited people to it, but they all gave him excuses not to come: one of them had to see a field, another had to examine five yoke of oxen that he bought, and another had recently gotten married. The master is irate and invites the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame, and they came. When there was still room at the banquet, the master told his sermon to go out to the highways and compel people to come in.

The pastor talked about how all of us like to keep score. His family did not go to a relative’s wedding, so the relative’s family made sure not to go to the pastor’s wedding. Even though many of us have been invited to parties over the course of our lives, we still remember that time when we were not invited to a party: when we were left out. The pain from the slight is still there.

We assume that, because we like to keep score, God does, too. That is what the law does. The problem is that we fail the test. If God were to grade us according to the law, God would keep track of that time when we lost our temper and blew up at our family, or that time when we passed by a homeless person and thought unkind things.

According to the pastor, from the “keeping score,” legalistic standpoint, the people initially invited to the banquet had valid excuses. One of the men had just gotten married, and Deuteronomy 24:5 exempts a man who had just gotten married from military service for a year.

The master makes an invitation that is based on grace. He extends it to the crippled, the blind, and the lame, people who, according to the pastor, were excluded from the temple. (See here for a post I wrote a while back evaluating if that is true.) The master was inviting people who could not pay him back. God invites us to partake of the riches of God’s grace, even though we do not deserve it. We partake on the basis of the invitation.

Church Write-Up: Luke 14:7-11; Billions and Billions of People

Here are some items from last Sunday’s church service:

A. The pastor preached about Luke 14:7-11. Jesus exhorts his disciples to take the lower seats rather than the places of honor. If they take a place of honor, they may be humiliated after the host tells them to move and make way for someone more important. If they take a lower seat, however, the host may tell them to move up.

The pastor asked if Jesus cares about where people sit. For one, Luke 14:7-11 comes across as law, a way to manipulate God to exalt us. Second, things do not always work out that way. The host may see us in the lower seat and say, “Oh, I’m glad you found a place to sit,” rather than telling us to move up.

The pastor interpreted this passage in light of the Gospel. Like the person Jesus healed of dropsy in the preceding pericope, we are beggars before God. Jesus, however, through his saving work, tells us to move up to a position of honor.

B. The church started a Sunday school class on death. It was sad to hear people’s stories about that. One elder shared that, back when he was a teenager, his father committed suicide.

The teachers said that death did not exist in Eden, for it is the result of sin. Suppose, though, that Adam and Eve did not sin. Would nobody have died, ever? How would the world sustain billions and billions of people? Someone suggested that God could have taken some people up to heaven, as God did with Enoch and Elijah. I recall Abraham Kuyper making a similar point: had Adam and Eve not sinned, God eventually would have taken them to heaven. The point of their creation was fellowship with God.

There will be no Sunday school class next week because it will be “Rally Sunday.” The traditional and contemporary services will be meeting at the same time.

Book Write-Up: Small Talk, by Diane Weston

Diane Weston. Small Talk: How to Start a Conversation, Truly Connect with Others and Make a Killer First Impression. 2019. See here to buy the book.


Diane Weston is a PR specialist at a Fortune 500 company. She is an introvert, sharing tips she has learned about how introverts can shed their shy exteriors and succeed in an extroverted world. She has studied the topic of communications, both informally and also formally.

As the title indicates, this book is about how to do small talk. Weston addresses such issues as the importance of body language and eye contact in making a positive impression, ways to ameliorate anxiety about social situations, the sorts of topics to talk about, and ways to politely exit a conversation. Weston also includes sample conversations.

The book was stressful to read because there is so much to keep track of in social situations. You have to come up with things to say, while listening to others speak. And, all this time, you need to look authentic rather than contrived. Weston tries to make following her suggestions easier through acronyms, and those acronyms probably reflect truths about what attracts people and what turns them off. But, by themselves, I doubt that they impart the sort of social ability that Weston talks about. One may want to supplement her work with materials from Dale Carnegie and Deb Fine.

Weston makes a good point when she states that one should start talking about one’s surroundings—-a shared experience—-before moving on to more personal topics. That may explain why I have gotten strange looks in the course of my life! A problem or question that I have with this advice is that you do not want to talk about your surroundings in a way that offends someone who may overhear. You have to be careful about what you say about somebody’s dish, or presentation, lest that somebody or somebody’s friend overhears you and gets offended. Greater sensitivity to this issue would have enhanced the book.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the author. My review is honest.