Sorting out the Civil War’s causes
With the upcoming Sesquicentennial (150 years) of the Civil War, a lot of discussion is occurring around racism in America, as well as the role of religion and politics in the making and unmaking of slavery and racism in America.
Here’s two really good resources, both podcasts.
First, in Evangelical Fervor and the Crisis of the Civil War: A Conversation with Historian David Goldfield, Albert Mohler interviews historian and award winning author David Goldfield on his new book America Aflame: How the Civil War Created a Nation.
Podcast: Play in new window
The Age of Reason = The Age of Infidelity
Atheists and secularists are fond of quoting the articulate Thomas Paine, author of the free-thinkers creed Age of Reason. Few know, however, that a founding father wrote a rebuttal in 1801, which American Vision has reprinted. Elias Boudinot’s book The Age of Revelation was seen as a powerful rebuttal. And now you can read it too. Below is the blurb about the book from American Vision.
How many times have you heard some skeptic claim that this or that non-Christian was a Founding Father of America? Thomas Jefferson is one of their patron saints, and yet he wasn’t even present during the drafting of the Constitution. Of course, Jefferson was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence which states emphatically that God is the Creator and the Judge of the world. The ACLU plays down these words. Benjamin Franklin is another one skeptics love to trot out as an anti-religious Founding Father. But it was Franklin who stood up at the Constitutional Convention and quoted Psalm 127:1 as a warning to the delegates:
‘Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it.’
Not much is said about these remarks by Franklin.
Analyzing the 6 C’s of Atheism – Part III: The 7 C’s of Christianity
NOTE: This post is part of a series on The 6 C’s of Atheism
These Seven C’s are nicely described at The Seven C’s.
I won’t go into detail, and you can purchase the book at right, but here they are:
- Creation - the creation of the universe by God
- Corruption - the sin of Adam and Eve
- Catastrophe - the flood of Noah
- Confusion - the confusion of languages at Babel
- Christ - the birth of Christ
- Crucifixion - the substitutionary death of Christ
- Consummation - the return of Christ
This doesn’t really contrast with the 6 C’s of Atheism, since this is a historical outline, not a list of the virtues of the Christian world view. But I thought that another list of C’s was interesting.
Augustine on Christians and Civil Government
Evangel, the evangelical blog at First Things has a nice series of posts entitled Augustine on Christians and Civil Government. Enjoy these goodies:
1. Introduction: Christianity and Politics
2. Augustine on Civil Government: The Two Cities
3. Augustine on Civil Government: Two Further Preliminaries
4. Augustine on Civil Government: Authority
5. Augustine on Civil Government: The City of God and Compromise
6. Christian Political Participation
7. Religious Motivations in Politics
George Washington and Religion
The awesome podcast from Probe Ministries has an interesting 13 minute podcast this week on George Washington and Religion. Enjoy.
Europe’s Dark Ages and Islam’s Golden Age – two historic fictions?
Islam Watch has a good article entitled Europe’s Dark Age and Islam’s Golden Age: Two Facets of The Same Fiction?, which discusses the content of the book on the same subject, entitled Holy Warriors.
In the twentieth century, a whole new body of evidence became available to historians; evidence unavailable to previous generations of scholars: The evidence of  archaeology. And what archaeology tells us has been devastating to the traditional view…..
On the word of the written histories, then, archaeologists expected to find, from Spain to eastern Iran, a flourishing and vibrant culture. An Islamic world of enormous cities endowed with all the wealth of antiquity and the plunder gathered in the Muslim wars of conquest. They hoped to find palaces, public baths, universities and mosques; all richly decorated with marble, ceramic and carved stone.
In fact, they found nothing of the sort.
For a more accurate rendition of history that isn’t colored by the anti-Catholic enlightenment historians or the Muslims trying to pretend that their faith has contributed to humanity, see How Christianity changed the world and The biblical origins of science.
America’s 200 year history of war with Islam
American Vision offers this excellent 30 page PDF entitled America’s 200-Year-War With Islamic Terrorism (PDF). In it, author Gary DeMar discusses the conflict of the early 1800′s with the Barbary Coast Pirates (Muslims), and explains many misunderstandings around the phrase in the Treaty of Tripoli, which states:
As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
Many have mistaken this for a denial of our Christian heritage, history, and ideological roots, and have also misattributed it to George Washington. However, as DeMar quotes from Boller’s They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, and Misleading Attributions:
The statement was not Washington’s, and diplomats had used that particular phraseology because they were eager to make it clear that Christianity was not an American state religion, and that therefore the U.S. government bore no official hostility toward Islam.
QED.
Part II: How Christianity changed the world – Life, Sex, Marriage & Status of Women
Dr. Alvin Schmidt was interviewed in a series on the excellent Lutheran podcast Issues Etc regarding his new book, How Christianity Changed the World. I am blogging through the interviews because I think their content are a great introduction to what appears to be a great book that re-revises history in an effort to fix the errors of modern anti-theists, as well as the dominance of anti-Catholic and anti-theist spin among the enlightenment historians.
Just imagine if all of these evils done away with PRIMARILY by Christianity were still prevalent. Oh sure, "Christianity is evil." Wake up from ignorance of history. The evils of the Catholic Church and such misrepresented events such as the Crusades and the Inquisition, while important, pale in comparison to the substantial, if not critical impact of Chrsitianity on the west. Advances which paganism, humanism, and atheism had naught to do with, except sometimes as OPPONENTS to such advances.
Here's the audio, and I have brought out some points below.
Part I: How Christianity changed the world by Alvin Schmidt – Introduction
Alvin Schmidt has written what may be one of the definitive books on the positive influence of Christianity in history, entitled How Christianity Changed the World.
Others, like Rodney Stark, have written similar 'revisions' of history, needed to correct the anti-Christian and anti-Catholic misinformation of enlightenment and liberal historians. While us Protestants are glad to discuss the historic errors of Catholicism, and to a lesser extend our own, liberals tend to overblow these mistakes and misrepresent them in their retelling of history.
For example, they refer to the Crusades as a religious pogrom against Islam and Judaism, rather than a response to 400 years of Muslim aggression and brutality, which unfortunately digressed in some cases to antisemitic behaviors due to an "if you are not with us you are against us" mentality which was condemned by the Church.
However, I just came upon a fantastic multi-part interview with Schmidt regarding his book on Issues Etc, the great Lutheran podcast (see Best Podcasts for Christians). And so I'm gonna do a series explaining the amazingly positive impact of Christianity on history.
Book Review: Dred Scott’s Revenge by Judge Andrew Napolitano
America has had a difficult history when it comes to racial issues and often the government has done more harm than good according to an excellent new book by Judge Andrew Napolitano entitled Dred Scott’s Revenge. Click here to read my review of the book.
![552655: Dred Scott"s Revenge: A Legal History of Race and Freedom in America](http://ag.christianbook.com/g/thumbnail/5/552655t.gif "552655: Dred Scott"s Revenge: A Legal History of Race and Freedom in America") |
Dred Scott’s Revenge: A Legal History of Race and Freedom in America By Andrew Napolitano / Thomas Nelson |
Looking at the New Deal with Amity Shlaes
One of the most fascinating books I have read over the last few months is The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression. Actually, in reading the book I was amazed at how much President Barack Obama's economic policies are like that of FDR. Needless to say, that was not comforting.
Recently I had the opportunity to talk with Amity Shlaes, author of the book. Click here to read more about our conversation and what she had to say about the current economic crisis.
Jesse Helms: 1921-2008
This past July 4, Jesse Alexander Helms, Jr. died. Helms is another conservative icon whom liberals love to hate and ridicule, not only for his longstanding outspoken positions against abortion, affirmative action, government arts funding, gay rights and AIDS research funding, but for his sometimes rude and racial remarks, thick southern drawl and less than pretty face (he’s no Ronald Reagan). Jesse on abortion and the 9/11 attack:
This is indeed another kind of
holocaust, by another name. At last count, more than 40 million unborn
children have been deliberately, intentionally destroyed. What word
adequately defines the scope of such slaughter? [After 9/11]
the American people responded with shock, sadness and a deep and
righteous anger — and rightly so. Yet let us not forget that every
passing day in our country, more than three thousand innocent Americans
are killed [through abortion].
Living Loud For Liberty
Jane Hampton Cook, author of the excellent book Battlefields & Blessings: Stories of Faith and Courage from the Revolutionary War, has posted this terrific video as an Independence Day tribute for those who sacrificed so much so that we could enjoy the blessings of liberty.
Religion, innovation and economic progress – Part II
This symposium covered the positive impact of Protestant Christianity on economics and innovation in history. In contrasted the various world views to show which were most influential and why.
In Part I, I covered the comments of Lawrence Hamilton, Director, Cultural Change Institute and Lecturer, the Fletcher School, Tufts University, who discussed the economic progress of nations based on their predominant ideologies. Today, I review the comments of Robert Woodberry, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Texas at Austin.
Answering the ‘crimes’ of Christianity
I have previously discussed why the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition are not really very good objections to Christianity, and pastor D. James Kennedy addresses them nicely in his recent podcast Crimes In the Name of Christianity. In a succinct 26 minutes, he addresses:
- The Crusades: “Which crusade are you talking about? The one where the Muslims forcibly took the Holy Land and all of the sacred places of Christianity [destroying half of them], or the later crusade of Christians to take them back? Are you only interested in the latter crusade? Why is that?”
- The Inquisition: “We as Protestants had no part in the Inquisition, and … frequently it was evangelical Protestants who were on the receiving end of the inquisition, and never on the giving end. We must understand the distinction between true Christians and nominal Christians, which even Jesus distinguished.” That is, you my blame institutional Christianity of the time (Catholicism), but not Christianity itself. In fact, true Christianity broke out of the Catholic church in the Protestant reformation.
Related Posts:
The Star of Bethlehem – the astronomical explanation
I was watching the Christmas special Miracles: Fact, Fictions and Faith (a Fox News special, check your local listing, it will repeat tomorrow, Christmas day), and as part of it, they interviewed Michael Molnar, astronomer and author of The Star of Bethlehem : The Legacy of the Magi. He had long accepted the astronomical explanations of others who had addressed this subject, until he came upon a coin from the Roman empire.
Molnar believes that the star was actually Jupiter, which was involved in an eclipse with the moon in 6 B.C. While the eclipse, or "occultation," would not have amplified Jupiter’s brightness, it would have indicated to astrologers that a king was coming.
Keeping Marriage Public
In a nice article in First Things, Michael Fragoso responds to a NYT article which attacked the idea of public marriage by taking on these common anti-marriage claims:
- Why do people–gay or straight–need the state’s permission to marry? For
most of Western history, they didn’t, because marriage was a private
contract between two families. - The parents’ agreement to the match, not the approval of church or state, was what confirmed its validity.
- For 16 centuries, Christianity also defined the validity of a marriage on the basis of a couple’s wishes.
- If two people claimed they had exchanged marital vows–even out alone by
the haystack–the Catholic Church accepted that they were validly
married. - In 1215, the Church decreed that a ‘licit’ marriage must take place in church.
- But people who married illicitly had the same rights and obligations as
a couple married in church: their children were legitimate; the wife
had the same inheritance rights; the couple was subject to the same
prohibitions against. - Not until the 16th century did European states begin to require that marriages be performed under legal auspices.
- In part, this was an attempt to prevent unions between young adults whose parents opposed their match.
Separation of Church and State, but not God and State
American Thinker has a nice post entitled Judeo-Christian Values, in which they examine America’s Founding Fathers’ view of religion and state, and they make some nice distinctions – not ones that would make secularists happy, but ones that make sense in light of the actual history, writings, and actions of the founders, and in light of scripture’s view of separation of church and state. (HT: EvangelicalOutpost)
Remembering the Heroes of D-Day
Today is the 63rd anniversary of the taking of Omaha Beach, the day in which allied forces took back Europe from Hitler. Today’s Focus on the Family had a nice remembrance by playing the prayer of Roosevelt, and the 40th anniversary speeches of President Reagan.
To me, the ideological significance of Roosevelt’s speech, and the battle of D-Day are critical things to observe, in light of the threats of our own day.
The Christian Life and Character of the Civil Institutions of the United States
American Vision has just brought back into print another great book, The Christian Life and Character of the Civil Institutions of the United States. Originally published in 1864, it documents the Christian roots of our civil institutions in a way that would make modern secularists beg for mercy. Or as American Vision’s Gary DeMar says in their email marketing blurb:
I was debating an ACLU attorney at Christmas on an NPR station. I pulled out a Xerox copy of The Christian Life and Character of the Civil Institutions of the United States and said to her: "Until you answer this book, the ACLU can’t make a case against America’s Christian founding." She was shocked when she saw it. She asked where I had gotten it. The only thing that gave her relief was the fact that the book was not in print. But now it is.
