Wonderful Matters

An addendum to the folly that is the banking "crisis" addressed in the last post: Today Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson testified before Congress to explain his announcement that the federal government has an unlimited line of credit available for banks, especially those teetering on the brink of insolvency. When asked why he won't declare some quantifiable figure for that amount, he said if he gave a figure it would be completely tapped, but if he just left it as "indefinite" then it won't be. He actually used the analogy of a squirt gun versus a bazooka. If he announces he has a squirt gun, he may have to use it. But having a bazooka will mean he's less likely to have to pull it out. Interesting metaphor, using weapons to make his point. As they said in Rome, Tam Marte quam Mercurio, or "As much by Mars (war) as Mercury (business)." The key is how it is that Paulson can say the feds have an unlimited line of credit. Unlimited ? Well not exac...

Yesterday a pretty decent size bank was taken over by federal regulators. It was IndyMac, and right after I'd heard the news I thought about the branch on the corner of a quaint downtown area in a community near where we live, and the advertisement I'd seen on the side of the building just a couple weeks ago. The ad said, "We want to be your one and only." Next to these words was a nicely drawn picture of a big heart covering someone holding that heart out. I actually thought at the time, "How nice, that they'd use such impassioned language to promise they'd do a good job." Now that the truth about IndyMac's insolvency has come out, that approach sounds quite a bit like that homely person who vies desperately for your affections and must plead in such a way to try to get your commitment. "Please be mine." "Would you say 'Yes?'" "Tell me you love me." What really makes me very sad is that you will hear nothing...

Been looking a bit at Yale professor Amy Chua's new book Day of Empire , a breezy textbook on the history of empires. Her premise: It is a sustained policy of toleration that augments an empire's power, and abandonment of that policy sinks it. About half-way through the book she asks a provocative question, indeed it is one of the questions serious historians have asked through the ages, at least in some form. That question: Is it possible for a world-dominant power to be genuinely tolerant in the modern, "enlightened" sense? She asks this under the pretext of how much nations have or haven't tolerated the people of other cultures, races, or mores. Toleration in the "modern, 'enlightened'" sense certainly means affording civil protections or even privileges to those outside the provincially mainstream social norms and who are residing within the purview of the nation if not wholly within its borders. The assumption behind asking the question to b...

Just wanted to share a link to a terrific piece about the way the church is infected so virulently with the World, is sucked so fiercely into the culture war. Much of that is because they've allowed themselves to be deceived by World operatives, to remain in a state of law-abiding, and therefore to become incorporated subdivisions of the System by the contracts they themselves sign with that World. Russell Moore here gives a fine account of the fruit of that condition. And the title of the piece, how about this: "The Messiah Channel." Just get me entertainment featuring my Straw-Man Jesus and I'm good.

Yesterday (July 3) the Los Angeles Times opinion page had four pieces all having something to do with the holiday season, this time of year when we are all supposed to give a cheer for that one thing that wraps us all up in red white and blue. (Got warm star-spangled fuzzies yet? Visions of ferocious Samual Adams orations dancing in your head?) That thing is, of course, freedom. Freedom? Are you kidding? That thing is Tyranny. Huh? Don't we all wave the little toy versions of the star and strips in the parade for not- tyranny? Anti- tyranny? Vomit-from-our-very-being-the-very-spittle-of -tyranny ? First from the LA Times there was Timothy Garton Ash, Oxford professor and someone who seems to be getting quite a bit of newspaper space these days. He bemoans U.S. imperialism, but has nothing new to offer about it. Essentially, "Come on, we just don't have to do the Iraq thing with every country. Here's what let's do instead..." His four things, condensed a bit...

One of the most pronounced of the Gnostic creeds is "Knowledge is power." Those in the World trudge along by this, trying harder and harder to know in order to find their salvation. Salvation for those in the Kingdom--and along with it, genuine power--comes from one source, the Creator of the entire universe, Jesus Christ. I thought about that for a moment, and thought, couldn't one feasibly ask, "What about knowledge of Christ? Couldn't it be the case that one must have knowledge of this One Who Saves? Wouldn't he then derive his 'power' from the knowing of that One? And isn't that then the result of some effort put forth by the know- er , making it just as much a Gnostic endeavor as anything?" Wow. That's a fine challenge, and I'm sure one that has been considered before many times by many others in many ways. My answer may also be one that's been previously considered, but I really don't hear it much because the World i...

I've recently uploaded my latest webzine piece , and there is never a dearth of folly prominent in the news to use as a pretext for what I've written about. To wit: Some evangelical pastors are so riled about bad World things that they've started putting together a megarally to be held just before the November elections. Some guy named Jim Garlow from a big church in San Diego is enlisting the services of a guy named Lou Engle who did one of these back in 2000 (you mean bad World things Christians can do nothing about no matter how many of them screech is not new?! ) The idea of this thing they're calling "The Call" is to first reflect deeply on God's things-- okay so far; second pray and fast-- still good to go; third go vote righteously on November 4th. Um, excuse me: go select World operatives whose job it is to crack heads of willfully wretched people? What business is that of those who name the name of Jesus, unless that Jesus is the Roman one? App...