Secret Agent Man!

C.S. Lewis Was a Secret Government Agent.

The Anglo-Saxon Fyrd

Piggybacking on the post immediately below.

When I hear "conservative" Anglican clergy say that they will "pray for gun control", this article helps to explain what I mean when I say they've alienated themselves from their Anglo-Saxon patrimony. The Founding Fathers, and especially the Antifederalists among them, meant to guarantee a popular militia, which was the successor to the Anglo-Saxon "fyrd". This is the purpose of the Second Amendment, and the firearms protected by that amendment are accordingly those most suitable to service in the reserve militia:

The Anglo-Saxon Fyrd c.400-878 AD - Part 1

The Anglo-Saxon Fyrd c.400-878 AD - Part 2

Beware Certain Anglicans. . .

who speak conservative Anglican theology out of one side of their mouths while spouting left-wing drivel out of the other.  As Peter Hitchens recently intimated, if our political theory does not match up with our theology, something has gone terribly awry.  Those modern Anglican males in the Anglosphere who propagate feminized moral and political nonsense have alienated themselves not only from historic English Catholic political thought but their Anglo-Saxon patrimony.   C.S. Lewis rightly called them "milksops."

"Anglican and Reformed": The Spirit of Anglo-Calvinism

A Facebook friend posted this from a website of the Reformed Episcopal Church (REC).  Some excerpts:

One thing many churchgoers of our time may overlook or fail to think seriously about is the ornamentation of churches. Many Christians, considering the matter in a pragmatic or utilitarian way, wouldn’t think it to be of significance. However, God was particular with the Hebrews about the peculiarities of their worship—from the skins and dyes of the Tabernacle to the bells on the priests’ clothing in the Temple, he prescribed the right way to approach him in worship. We know the foremost thing of concern is the condition of the heart. . . .

We should consider how our church ornamentation may reflect our love for God and reflect our theological beliefs as an Anglican and Reformed church. It is thinking on these matters that led to, for example, the removal of the sanctuary lamp from our chancel, the termination of ringing bells during Communion, the disposal of stoles and chasubles, and so on. The chancel and the entire chapel have been simplified greatly so that they do not distract us from the center of our worship: Jesus, the Christ.

This does not mean, of course, that all decoration is harmful or distracting. However, we should be careful in selecting what will be used in the service of the church, both in our preaching and teaching, and in our ornamentation. We are not Puritans, and I do not understand the Second Commandment to forbid images, but I do believe we can quite easily begin to substitute for reality the images of our own making.

I have asked that we do not employ an Advent wreath in our church because I believe it to be a distraction from our principles of worship. This is not to suggest that the use of an Advent wreath in the home is wrong; in fact, I think the wreath is more suited to the good use of the family life. I do not suggest, either, that congregations that use Advent wreaths and candles in their churches are in some grave error. There is some area on this matter on which Christian men may disagree, but it is still an issue we should give careful consideration: what do the Scriptures say; what do the Articles of Religion say; what do the Homilies say. . . ?

I have shared my thoughts on this matter so you may better understand my motives in guiding us toward certain practices in the church. There is much more to consider on this topic, and I commend, for your edification, the reading of the first, second, and third homilies of the Second Book of the Homilies. We will revisit the subject of church ornamentation, and I will share broader and deeper thoughts on the usefulness and appropriateness of ornaments in the church.

First, concerning the rector's statement, "We are not Puritans."  It's clear that he's resistant to the application of the appellation "Puritan" to him and his parish, but this pastoral letter nevertheless exudes the spirit of Puritanism, maybe not radical Puritanism, but Puritanism nonetheless. 

Second, it is often said by our spokesmen that Anglicanism is "Reformed Catholicism" or something to that effect, but this typically means something other than what certain Anglicans mean when they refer to "our Anglican and Reformed", "our Reformed and Protestant faith", etc.  They mean to communicate by such terms their belief that Anglicanism is, or should be, theologically Reformed, which is to say, Calvinistic.  This not only means a devotion to Calvinistic soteriology, but also a devotion to the "Genevan Discipline", that is, a total rejection of anything that appears "Romish" or "high church" in worship:  no "sacerdotal" vestments or stoles, no incense, no altars (rather, "communion tables"), no "lights" (candles) - which of course would include Advent candles.

Though these folks bristle at the term, they are oftentimes called "Presbyterians with prayer books."  I don't really think, as they do, that this is a particularly pejorative term.  These folks clearly say that their clergy are "presbyters", not sacrificing priests, and that they place little or no stock in the doctrine of apostolic succession.  If all of that is true, it means they have essentially embraced a Presbyterian polity rather than a classically Anglican one.

It is true that Cranmer, Jewell and others from the second phase of the English Reformation desired to take the Church of England in a theologically Reformed direction, and the Books of Homilies do reflect the essentially Reformed theology of the homilists.  The Puritans later attempted to bring that attempt at reform to its full fruition, but as Diarmaid MacCulloch and others note, the Church of England ultimately put the kibosh on the goals of that particular phase of the English Reformation.  Monarchs beginning with Elizabeth and divinity beginning with Hooker would pull the English Reformation back in a more conservative and Catholic direction.  As a result, to put it blunty, the Puritans lost and ornaments won.  

That an REC rector would toss the Advent wreath out of the church just takes my breath away, and I know the vast majority of Anglicans, including a goodly number of them who lean Reformed, are with me.  The REC started out as a low church and Reformed split from the Protestant Episcopal Church of the USA, but over time it has moved in a more classically Anglican direction.  There are Presbyterian holdouts in the REC, however, and in this pastoral letter we see the spirit of Anglo-Calvinsm writ large.  

'Tis sad.  My longtime readers will know that I myself went through a brief Anglo-Calvinist stage, but that I came to see that MacCulloch et al. are correct in their observation that we cannot confine the English Reformation to Cranmerianism.  The English Reformation, like the Continental Reformations, were drawn-out processes that lasted some 100 to 150 years.  Some of my Anglo-Calvinist buddies like to cite the MacCulloch article linked above as evidence that the early English Reformation meant to produce  Anglo-Calvinism.  But as MacCulloch notes at the end of this article, of the two orthodox parties, Reformed and "Arminian", which contend for the right to use name "Anglican", they "contend for mastery within English tradition, and they have created that fascinating dialogue about the sacred which the world calls Anglicanism. Long may the fight continue. It will be better for the sanity of the Anglican tradition if neither side manages to win." (Emphasis mine)  I would only add that if numbers are any indication, the "Arminian" side has won that war, putting orthodox Anglicanism on a course, if not of reunion, then of signifcant federative relationship with Rome and Orthodoxy, especially with the latter.  My argument is that Anglicanism will not survive long term unless this happers.

A blessed Second Sunday of Advent 2015 to all.  

                 

Second Sunday of Advent

Again, the (Anglican) Vicar of Baghdad: "What We Saw in San Bernardino, Paris Is Beginning of a Third World War" (Updated 12/6)

12/6 Update:  journalist and war historian Michael Lind has written an article for The American Conservative that echoes the proposal concerning the revival of a Citizen Reserve Militia floated by former US Congressman Tom Tancredo, which is linked below.  Although Lind, unlike Tancredo, envisions a militia that is largely unarmed, it's the same basic idea of galvanizing American and European citizens into a hugh, vigilant "neighborhood watch".  I take Lind's reticence to recommend a largely armed militia as a sign of his not wanting to be seen as a "crazy."  To his credit, Tancredo has never worried about that, though it was cost him.  Tancredo believes, rightly, that an unarmed militia is no militia at all.

___________________________________

From Canon White:

On a day after those events in California yesterday, those awful, terrible events, we realize that the destruction of religion is not just over there, [in the Middle East], it's here where you are," White contended. "What we are seeing going on, what we saw in Paris, what we saw yesterday in California, is, as far as I am concerned, the beginning of the third world war. It's unlike any concept of war we may have had before. Society is falling apart. It's not just Iraq that is broken — It is society. - Article here.

Canon White goes on to argue that he is working with Muslims in addtion to Christians and others in the struggle against Islamic terrorism.  To the extent that we can can work together with Muslims in the Middle East and in the West, well and good.  But if it is true that we are on the doorstep of World War III, and I think it's becoming increasingly clear that we are, then additional measures will be called for.  This is especially the case if the nature of this war is as Canon White describes it, and I believe he's right about that as well.  There will be violence in the West, and likely hundreds of thousands of American and European boots on the ground in the Levant.

Over at Chronicles Magazine -- a source that is, in my opinion, a must for any traditional Anglican -- Srdja Trifkovic has outlined what he believes will be necessary measures for the West to take during this coming war:

1. Spying on Muslims is necessary, legal and justified—Let us start with the complex and emotionally charged issue of constitutional rights versus national security. In December 2005 it was disclosed that soon after the September 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency “to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the U.S. to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying.” The unwillingness of the mainstream media to disclose the exact identity of the NSA eavesdropping subjects was reminiscent of its refusal to disclose the religious identity of tens of thousands of rioters who wreaked havoc in dozens of French suburbs a decade ago. Glossing over the surveillance targets’ identity has implied that that a Muslim who has become a naturalized American citizen is so thoroughly and irrevocably “American,” that no hyphenated designation or qualifier is called for. This fits in with the liberal world view that rejects the notion that faith can be a prime motivating factor in human affairs, or that importing Muslim immigrants may be in any way disadvantageous for the host country’s security. Having reduced religion, politics and art to “narratives” and “metaphors” which merely reflect prejudices based on the distribution of power, the elite class did its usual thing, calling—most recently—the attackers in Paris last month “French” or “Belgian.”

Our awareness of the many failures of the Bush II presidency should not make us instinctively disinclined to see the legal justification for its conduct. The threat posed by jihad today is different in degree to that faced during the Cold War, but not in kind: it is an existential threat. 24/7 surveillance—at home and abroad—is the right and proper part of that response. The legal and constitutional dilemma, such as whether the U.S. should spy on jihadist-minded “Americans” at home is both false and unnecessary under the circumstances. Radical solutions are needed for radical challenges, and they do exist.

If and when all persons engaged in Islamic activism are excluded from America, there will be no need for such intrusive domestic surveillance. We don’t need any legislation to protect CAIR’s clients’ privacy, we need the law that will treat any naturalized citizen’s or resident alien’s known or suspected adherence to an Islamic world outlook as excludable – on political, rather than “religious” grounds.

2. Refuse/Rescind Citizenship to Islamic Activists—All Americans—real Americans, that is, and not those who falsely take the oath of citizenship but continue to preach jihad and Sharia—will be spared the worry of state intrusion if Islamic activism is treated as grounds for the loss of acquired U.S. citizenship and deportation. The citizenship of any naturalized American who preaches jihad, inequality of “infidels” and women, the establishment of the Shari’a law etc., should be revoked, and that person promptly deported to the country of origin.

A foreigner who becomes naturalized (myself included) has to declare, on oath, “that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.” (In acknowledgement whereof I have hereunto affixed my signature.)

This is a legally binding document. For a Muslim to declare all of the above in good faith, and especially that he accepts the Constitution of the United States as the source of his highest loyalty, is an act of apostasy par excellence, punishable by death under the Islamic law. The sharia, to a Muslim, is not an addition to the “secular” legal code with which it coexists with “the Constitution and laws of the United States of America”; it is the only true code, the only basis of obligation. To be legitimate, all political power therefore must rest exclusively with those who enjoy Allah’s authority on the basis of his revealed will. America, to a believing Muslim, is inherently illegitimate.

So how can a self-avowedly devout Muslim take the oath, and expect the rest of us to believe that it was done in good faith? Because he is practicing taqiyya, the art of dissimulation that was inaugurated by Muhammad to help destabilize and undermine non-Muslim communities ripe for a touch of Jihad. Or else because he is not devout enough and confused, but in that case there is the ever-present danger that at some point he will rediscover his roots, with predictably unpleasant consequences for the rest of us. This is exactly what happened with the slaughter in California.

3. Reintroduce “Profiling”—In June 2003 the government ordered a ban on “racial and ethnic profiling” at all 70 federal law enforcement agencies. It has been upheld ever since. Guidelines issued by the Justice Department directly impacted some 120,000 law enforcement officers at the FBI, the DEA, Homeland Security Department, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Coast Guard and other agencies. The guidelines said that authorities may subject certain groups to greater scrutiny if there is “specific information” that such people are preparing to mount a terrorist attack. Specifically, Middle Eastern men might draw greater attention at airports, but only if the government discovered a plot to mount an attack.

These rules place front-line defenders of America in a quandary. They are discretely violated by law enforcement officers, especially at passport and customs checkpoints, who care about doing their jobs well more than doing them “right.” Ahmed Ressam was stopped in December 1999 by a Customs Service agent as he tried to enter the U.S. from Canada, even though the agent had no specific information giving him cause to suspect the traveler—prima facie, a classic case of profiling, of bad and even illegal policing worthy of moral condemnation and bureaucratic censure. It turned out that Ressam was a terrorist with over a hundred pounds of powerful explosives in his car trunk, explosives meant to blow up the Los Angeles International Airport.

The aversion to “profiling” is a symptom, minor but telling, of the contemporary Western pathology. Law-enforcers in other parts of the world pay no heed to the dictates of “sensitivity” and anti-discriminationism. Arabs profile other Arabs, Indians profile Pakistanis, Japanese profile Chinese and Koreans, and everyone profiles Africans (unless they are invading Europe). Israel, democratic and friendly to America, profiles everyone entering and exiting all the time, and makes no qualms about it.

Not all Muslims are terrorists, but for some decades now all terrorists of concern to America’s national security and to the quality of life of its citizens have been Muslims. Two percent of practicing Muslims living in the United States were responsible for over 95 percent of terrorist offenses and serious threats in the country since 9-11. A young Muslim man is literally hundreds of thousands of times more likely to carry out a terrorist attack in the United States than an Episcopalian, Roman Catholic, or Orthodox Christian, a Jew, a Hindu, or a Buddhist. Or for that matter a Lebanese Christian. Membership of a group is a valid pointer in assuming and judging unobserved behavioral characteristics of an individual, especially in the absence of specific information about that individual’s background. To suggest otherwise is neither moral nor sane.

Profiling is not “good” or “bad” policing, it is just policing. It is necessary and it should be perfectly legal: there is nothing in the Constitution to suggest otherwise. It is time to accept that “profiling” based on a person’s appearance, origin, and apparent or suspected beliefs is an essential tool of trade of law enforcement and war on terrorism.

4. No Security Clearances for Muslims—A person’s Islamic faith and outlook is incompatible with the requirements of personal commitment, patriotic loyalty and unquestionable reliability that are essential in the military, law enforcement, intelligence services, and other related branches of government. For as long as practicing Muslims are able to get security clearances, terrorist organizations will continue trying to insinuate their supporters into the hiring pools of American security agencies. Any presence of practicing Muslims in any such institution would present an inherent risk to its integrity and undermine its morale. Examples abounds, such as the Ft. Hood massacre.

Parallel with the removal of Muslims from all positions requiring security clearance, it will be necessary to use religious profiling in recruiting replacements. Lebanese and other Middle Eastern Christians should provide a large pool of qualified candidates with excellent linguistic skills and cultural assets essential to the task. Wherever they went, Lebanese Christians have assimilated and become valuable and respected members of their host communities. Their former neighbors, the ethnically and physically almost indistinguishable Lebanese Muslims, have not.

5. Re-haul Immigration Laws and Procedures—The 9/11 Commission’s Final Report says, “better technology and training to detect terrorist travel documents are the most important immediate steps to reduce America’s vulnerability to clandestine entry,” which is incorrect. Better technology is certainly needed, but “the most important immediate steps” demand controlling the borders. No counter-terrorist strategy is possible without complete physical control of the homeland’s boundaries. Illegal immigration from Islamic nations is a major terrorist threat that can and should be eliminated. Cooperation of state and local law-enforcement agencies at all levels in apprehending illegal immigrants and assisting in their deportation, focusing on those from nations and groups at risk for Islamic terrorism, should be made mandatory. State and local law-enforcement agencies should not be subjected to a single command and control center, but they need to cooperate in enforcing the law and protecting national security.

New immigration legislation is badly needed, and it should include laws to exclude all persons engaged in Islamic activism from America. Such activism should be defined as the political act of propagating, disseminating or otherwise supporting “Jihad” (in its primary sense of divinely sanctioned war against non-Muslims), discrimination against Christians, Jews and other “infidels,” discrimination and violence against women and sexual minorities, anti-Jewish bigotry, sanction of slavery, poll tax, etc. Islam’s violent manifestations and discriminatory message are inseparable, and adequate safeguards against the adherents of that message should be put in place. The proposed definition of Islamic activism would be a major step in the direction of denying actual or potential terrorists a foothold on American shores.

New legislation should treat a resident alien’s or prospective visitor’s known or suspected adherence to an Islamic world outlook or affiliation with the propagators of Jihad, sharia, etc. as excludable—excludable, let us re-emphasize, on political, rather than “religious” grounds. The broad model is provided by the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act (INA, the McCarran-Walter Act). Senator McCarran’s and Congressman Francis Walter’s provisions aimed at curtailing subversion were well devised and they have been unjustly demonized in recent decades. They allowed the exclusion or deportation of any alien who engaged or had the purpose to engage in activities prejudicial to the public interest or subversive to national security.

Islamic activism should be treated as the grounds for the exclusion or deportation of any alien, regardless of his status or ties in the United States, because such activism is inherently prejudicial to the public interest and injurious to national security. Useful precedents exist. Keeping out and facilitating the expulsion of politically undesirable foreigners has been at the heart of this country’s immigration legislation since 1903 when Congress barred the admission of anarchists in response to President McKinley’s assassination. “Ideological” grounds for deportation were on the statute books until 1990, when they were repealed by Congress. After the Russian revolution foreign communists were singled out for deportation. One night alone in January of 1920, more than 2,500 “alien radicals” were seized in thirty-three cities across the country and deported to their countries of origin. Those who preach Jihad and Sharia can and should be treated in exactly the same manner.

It is possible that the “affiliation” in this clause will affect a number of people who do not actively identify with all of the goals and methods of the Jihadist core. That may be unfortunate but it is inevitable. Personal assurances by individuals thus affected cannot be taken at face value: Islam not only allows, but mandates lying to “infidels” in order to gain political or any other advantage (i.e. Taqiyya, the concealment of one’s Islamic beliefs to non-Muslims). The problem is well known to INS officials: attitudes of Muslims who apply for U.S. visas or asylum often change once their status in America is secure. In addition, even “lapsed” Muslims are at permanent risk of going back to their roots, as many Western-born youths are doing.

6. Supervise Mosques and Islamic Centers—All mosques, Islamic centers and their individual members should be obliged to register with the Attorney General. They need to be subjected to legal limitations and security supervision that applies to cults prone to violence and “hate groups.” The acceptance of proposed measures would lead to a swift and irreversible reduction in the number of mosques and Islamic centers in the United States. The remnant would have to be registered with the Attorney General and subjected to legal limitations and security supervision that applies to cults prone to violence and “hate groups.” All over the Western world Islamic centers have provided platforms for exhortations to the faithful to support causes and to engage in acts that are morally reprehensible, illegal, and detrimental to the host country’s national security. Their message is seditious, incompatible with the the U.S. Constitution and with common decency. Subjecting them to the relentless supervision by every government agency needed for the task, and doing it right now, is both necessary and justified. - Defeating Domestic Jihad: A Program of Action

Former U.S. Congressman Tom Tancredo has also recently floated the idea of reviving the Citizens Reserve Militia, a proposal David Kopel and I mentioned in our 1997 Marlyland Law Review article, Communitarians, Neorepublicans, and Guns: Assessing the Case for Firearms Prohibition. Many people will howl at this proposal, but it is not as crazy as it may seem.    Here is how Tancredo sets forth why we need to revice this old American institution and how it would be structured:

Consider the dire condition of our law enforcement capabilities.

• The FBI is not given the resources to do its job in preventing radical Islamists from acting on their plans. Stopping nine out of ten plots probably means a hundred mass killings not blocked.
• The CIA and other intelligence agencies issue warnings that are ignored by our leaders—it doesn’t fit the head-in-the-sand political narrative.
• The Republican-controlled Congress refuses to halt the flow of refugees from regions known to be infused with radical Islamists.
• Our LEGAL immigration and asylum policies allow a half-million Muslims into the country each year.
• The local police are great but are 5-to-10 minutes away after a 911 call.

We can wait to fix all of those obstacles to self-defense through the political process, or we can act while we work on those fixes. We can act to defend ourselves by arming ourselves. If attacked, do you call 911 and wait for police to arrive, or do you take the bastards down?

In San Bernardino, the police arrived in 4 minutes of the first shots, and still 14 people were slaughtered. Next time it could be 140 or 400.

In San Bernardino, the assassins were two “self-radicalized” Islamist jihadists, one of them an American-born Muslim of Pakistani immigrant parents. The mastermind of the Paris attack of last month was not a refugee, he was a French citizen born to Moroccan immigrants. The female half of that pair of assassins had been “vetted” by two federal agencies and awarded a visa.

It’s time to wake up and smell the ashes of self-delusion.

In response to radical Islam’s declaration of war on America, Barack Obama plays golf and Hillary Clinton wants to have a “national conversation” about gun confiscation. Let’s hope she continues with such vapid stupidities, as it will be a fitting final chapter to her political biography.

If President Obama or any president ever attempts gun confiscation in America, there should be and will be a second civil war. An America disarmed is an America in subjugation.

But there are things government can do — if citizens will demand it. In the absence of statesmanship and leadership from above, it’s time for states and communities to act in their own self-defense.

• Without any action by Congress, under the Tenth Amendment states and local governments can organize local reserve militias, a properly trained and deputized battalion of local citizens who serve as backup to local law enforcement.
• Reserve militia members will be sworn to uphold the Constitution and protect communities from violent assaults from any quarter.
• States and communities can also declare an end to so-called “gun free zones,” which are nothing but suicide pacts formed by delusional escapists.
• States and communities can allow and indeed encourage more private citizens to obtain concealed carry permits and arm themselves. - Tancredo: Organize State, Local Militias to Defend Against Radical Islamist Assaults

Christian men, it's time to "gun up" if you haven't already.  We should all be prayer warriors, yes.  We should be proclaiming the sovereignty of God is these terrible times, yes.  And yes, we should work to evangelize Muslims.  But eschatological hand-wringing, spiritual platitudes and a desire to win Muslims for Christ are not enough.  The Crusades are back, and we must fight again.  It us not our doing that has led to this, any more than the original Crusades were the doing of Christians in those days.  Islamic imperialism has forced us into the war.   

The (Anglican) Vicar of Baghdad: 'I've Looked Through the Quran Trying to Find Forgiveness... There Isn’t Any.'

"Isis bombs have exiled Canon Andrew White to Hampshire, but he's itching to get back to the Middle East."

Get Him!

ISIS, 9/11 and the "Calvinist God"

My good friend and OJC reader Peter from San Diego comments at this old article about Calvinism. 

The Calvinist "Good News" is only good news for the divine lottery winners. Unconditional election is contrary to the entire message of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. But if the Calvinists are correct, then no one should worry about anything; everything, including my post, has been preordained, just as 911 and ISIS were ordained by the Calvinist God.

I will often post noteworthy comments to old articles in new blog entries, but in light of my recent de-emphasizing of Anglicanism's Protestant legacy, I welcome the opportunity to reiterate what I believe about the Western Catholic view of election and divine predestination.  So, Peter, thanks for the comment.

I'm still a biblical predestinarian, and so I reject the notion that unconditional election is "contrary to the entire message of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation."  For one of the most scholarly exegetical treatments of predestination and unconditional election, my readers should purchase, read, mark and imwardly digest John Piper's magisterial The Justification of God: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Romans 9:1-23.  Piper's detailed exegetical work delves deeply into the Old Testament basis of Paul's teaching regarding unconditional election.  However, as the title indicates, the argument is confined to the explication of only one key biblical text that deals with these issues.  As anyone familiar with the "Calvinist-Arminian" debate knows, there are many texts both in the Old Testament and the New which bear upon God's sovereignty both in the redemption of man and in the ordering of the events of world history.

Peter is clearly troubled about the "Calvinist" interpretation of those texts, as evidenced by the conclusion he draws about 9/11, ISIS and the post that came about as a result of his own volition.  There are a number of things to be said in response.

First, as I've explained in several previous online discussions in which Peter was involved, the kind of predestinarianism we observe in the Bible is a "compatibilist" one, meaning one that sees both human volition and divine predestinarianism as "compatible."  I typically trot out the account of the shipwreck at Malta as a clear example of what I mean.  In Acts 27: 22 ff., Paul tells the terrified sailors and passengers:

But now I urge you to keep up your courage, because not one of you will be lost; only the ship will be destroyed. ²³ Last night an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I serve stood beside me ²⁴ and said, ‘Do not be afraid, Paul. You must stand trial before Caesar; and God has graciously given you the lives of all who sail with you.’ ²⁵ So keep up your courage, men, for I have faith in God that it will happen just as he told me. ²⁶ Nevertheless, we must run aground on some island.”

In other words, God had divinely ordained that all would survive the storm, though the ship itself would be destroyed.  However, a few verses later we observe some men wishing to save themselves via the lifeboat, which prompts Paul to warn the centurion, "Unless these men stay with the ship, you cannot be saved.”  This is a clear nod to the reality of human volition.  Volition, but not blind contingency, for the salvation of the crew and passengers "will happen just as he told me."

Philosophers have attempted to work out various solutions to the nagging problems of compatibilist determinism.  Norman Swartz is one such philosopher who employs modal logic.  And I am sure his work has been subjected to the scrutiny of his peers.  I am no philosopher, however.  My theological education focused more on hermeneutics, exegesis and theology, and those tools point me in the direction of compatibilist determinism aka "biblical predestination".

The second observation I have about Peter's argument is that it attempts to defeat biblical predestinarianism through applying a reductio ad absurdum that neither accounts for all the ontological intricacies through which divine predestination and human volition are in fact reconciled, nor for Anglican theologian J.B. Mozley's point about all this, on which I've written before.  Catholic Augustine scholar Gerald Bonner summarized Mozley's point (bolded emphases mine):

In a study of Augustinian predestination first published in 1855, J.B Mozley, brother-in-law of John Henry Newman and later Canon of Christ Church, Oxford, and Regius Professor of Divinity, theologically orthodox but fair-minded and aware of the limitations of the human intellect, noted the ideas of Divine Power and human free will, while sufficiently clear for the purposes of practical religion, are, in this world, truths from which we cannot derive definite and absolute systems. "All that we build upon either of them must partake of the imperfect nature of the premise which supports it, and be held under a reserve of consistency with a counter conclusion from the opposite truth." The Pelagian and Augustinian systems both arise upon partial and exclusive bases.

However:

Mozley held that while both systems were at fault, the Augustinian offends in carrying certain religious ideas to an excess, whereas the Pelagian offends against the first principles of religion: "Pelagianism . . . offends against the first principles of piety, and opposes the great religious instincts and ideas of mankind. It. . . tampers with the sense of sin. . . . (Augustine's) doctrine of the Fall, the doctrine of Grace, and the doctrine of the Atonement are grounded in the instincts of mankind." (Freedom and Necessity: St. Augustine's Teaching on Divine Power and Human Freedom)

In other words, if we're going to err, we need to err in the direction of Augustine's predestinarianism.  Indeed, a number of Anglican theologians have decried the Pelagian tendency of the English people, and have noted how Pelagianism is inherently destructive of the faith, which leads to my third observation about Peter's argument:

If we push his logic, we arguably end up not only in Pelagianism, but in Open Theism.  I'm pretty sure that Peter does not believe in the "Pelagian God" or the "Open Theism God", but taken at face value his comments imply that God is not sovereign either in the affaris of human history or in human salvation.  Forget about the decretal theology of Augustine, his school in the Catholic West, and the Protestant Reformation, and think about things like 9/11 and ISIS only in light of the orthodox (and Orthodox) belief that God in his perfect omniscience has perfect knowledge of the future.  If, before the foundation of the world, God perfectly foreknew that 9/11 and ISIS would happen and then he created a world that would become the historical matrix of those things, then 9/11 and ISIS WOULD happen, because God cannot be wrong about what he foreknows.  That is to say, they would occur on the world scene with just as much necessity as they would have if they were actively predestined.  But then we look at Holy Scripture and see that divine foreknowledge is simply the flip side, theologically, of predestination.

Lastly, in response to Peter's complaint that the "good news" according to the Pauline-Augustinian theology is only that to those who are "divine lottery winners", it needs to be stressed that Pauline-Augustinian predestinarians don't believe in a "divine lottery", but a divine decree.   I get what Peter is saying here, but chance really has noting to do with it, either on God's end or man's.  We have to answer the question of why one person believes and why another doesn't.  I believe the Bible answers that question, and that St. Augustine got it right on that answer, which accounts for the fact that the Catholic West, to one degree or another, is predestinarian, anti-Pelagian, anti-Semipelagian, and anti-Open Theism.  The Catholic East is officially opposed to at least three of those things, but I have seen Orthodox thinkers drift dangerously close to, if not into, Open Theism.  That is the danger of Peter's logic, and many an Anglican anti-Calvinist theologian has recognized that danger.  Some Arminian Evangelicals have already swallowed Open Theism, hook, line and sinker.  Some Orthodox theologians are tempted.  Western Catholics need to stay grounded in the theology that led to the condemnations of Pelagianism and Semipelagianism, even if they can't bring themselves to believe in the doctrine of unconditional election, as Mozley himself could not.  Mozley nevertheless stood that Augustine's theology bore a relation to the Catholic Faith that Pelagianism never could. 

Why Anglicans Don't Need to Become Orthodox

"If an Anglican (or anyone) is attracted to Eastern Orthodox spirituality, by all means study and learn from their theologies and ascetical practices, etc. The only hesitation I have -- and this applies to Anglicans -- is that sometimes that seems to substitute for, rather than complement, a prior and deeper study of Anglican theologies, particularly those rooted in, and arising from, 11th to the 15th century origin (Anselm through Kempe). The more we Anglicans immerse into and rediscover the theological sensibilities that informed and issued in the Prayer Book ("behind the text"), the more our exchange with Orthodoxy is a two-way street, mutual and cooperative, all within the one Body of Christ. And all of this applies to Roman Catholicism and all other holy traditions in the Church, as well.

Anglicans, the serious ones, already study the Caroline Divines, and the rest. What is not studied in any coherent way -- that is to say, consonant with the subsequent emergence of the BCP and its spirituality and ascetical characteristics -- are the 14th and 15th centuries of English Christianity; of course Anselm is studied closely, but how often as the spiritual ancestor of Jeremy Taylor?

But is not this era 'Western/Roman'? Such a characterization is not misguided, but only too broad. Sure, Anselm, Julian, and the rest belong to the whole Church, but so do Hooker, Andrewes, and Taylor. When the common spiritual attributes of the 'English mystics' and the Carolines are seen in the proper light (best articulated by Martin Thornton in English Spirituality), Anglicanism itself is beheld as the rich Catholic tradition many (including me) recognize it implicitly to be. And yes, it is about balance -- the more affective emphases of 'Anselm through Kempe' nicely complement the more speculative emphases of "Hooker through Law." -- Matthew Dallman

Anglican Theologian Writes in Defense of the Just War Doctrine

In Defense of War.

From the reviews at Amazon:

Pacifism is popular. Many hold that war is unnecessary, since peaceful means of resolving conflict are always available, if only we had the will to look for them. Or they believe that war is wicked, essentially involving hatred of the enemy and carelessness of human life. Or they posit the absolute right of innocent individuals not to be deliberately killed, making it impossible to justify war in practice.

Peace, however, is not simple. Peace for some can leave others at peace to perpetrate mass atrocity. What was peace for the West in 1994 was not peace for the Tutsis of Rwanda. Therefore, against the virus of wishful thinking, anti-military caricature, and the domination of moral deliberation by rights-talk In Defence of War asserts that belligerency can be morally justified, even though tragic and morally flawed.

Recovering the Christian tradition of reflection running from Augustine to Grotius, this book affirms aggressive war in punishment of grave injustice. Morally realistic in adhering to universal moral principles, it recognises that morality can trump legality, justifying military intervention even in transgression of positive international law-as in the case of Kosovo. Less cynical and more empirically realistic about human nature than Hobbes, it holds that nations desire to be morally virtuous and right, and not only to be safe and fat. And aspiring to practical realism, it argues that love and the doctrine of double effect can survive combat; and that the constraints of proportionality, while real, are nevertheless sufficiently permissive to encompass Britain's belligerency in 1914-18. Finally, in a painstaking analysis of the Iraq invasion of 2003, In Defence of War culminates in an account of how the various criteria of just war should be thought together. It also concludes that, all things considered, the invasion was justified. . . .

Nigel Biggar is Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology, and Director of the McDonald Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Life, at the University of Oxford, where he is also a Canon of Christ Church Cathedral. Before taking up his current post in 2007, he held chairs in Theology at the University of Leeds and at Trinity College Dublin. Among his published works are: Behaving in Public: How to Do Christian Ethics (2011), (co-ed.) Religious Voices in Public Places (2009), Aiming to Kill: The Ethics of Suicide and Euthanasia (2004); and (ed.) Burying the Past: Making Peace and Doing Justice after Civil Conflict (2001, 2003). He sits on the Editorial Advisory Board of the Journal of Military Ethics and has lectured at the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom.

The Curate's Corner: What Do You Mean By Anglo-Catholic?

New to the blogroll as well.

New To The Blogroll

The Salisbury Review: The Quarterly Journal of the Conservative Anglosphere.

Soldier Saints and Holy Warriors: Warfare and Sanctity in Anglo-Saxon England

The 700-page thesis available here as a pdf.

The Archbishop of Canterbury is Clueless. (Who Knew?)

Who knew?  We'd say he's clueless about a great many things.  But he is vexed, very vexed, about an English movie chain that won't show a CofE advertizement featuring people saying the Lord's Prayer.  Does he not understand how apostsy in Anglican ranks has helped to fuel this?

An Anglican priest I know comments, and shows that the battle lines between Christian culture and secularist culture are now clearly drawn:

I understand the point that +Welby is making, but I think that he does the Christian faith no service by presenting it as inoffensive. As for carol services and church services on Christmas Day? Consider this. In Luke's narrative of the nativity of Jesus, an angel announces to shepherds, "To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord." This announcement isn't just about the arrival of some inoffensive religious figure who'll go about the country spouting platitudes about how to live a better life or how to create a better society. It is an announcement that the Kurios, the Lord - the Greek word that translates the Hebrew word Adonai in the Septuagint, the Hebrew word that stands in for the Tetragrammaton, YHWH, the Name of God - has just been born in a stable in the podunk town of Bethlehem. And that he is both Kurios and Soter (Savior) - two titles to which the same Augustus Caesar who ordered the census that sent Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem in the first place laid claim. Jesus, not Caesar - in other words, not any political system nor political ideology - is Lord.

Carols services and church services on Christmas Day are dangerous to Caesar's regime and deeply offensive to a world who thinks either that belief doesn't really matter, or that religion is just about making you a good person, or that all beliefs lead to God. That angelic announcement, like Mary's Magnificat and Zechariah's Benedictus, says that belief does matter, that religion is precisely not about making you a good person, and that only one belief - or better, only one Lord and Savior - leads to and is himself God.

Again, I'm not surprised by the advert ban. The "secularists" get it, and they want nothing to do with threats to their fragile and dissolving notions of society.

Two Complementary Articles from First Things

The Impossibility of Secular Society.   The author argues that a religionless society is doomed to fail.  Organic human societies are intrinsically religious.  The New Right in Europe and in the Anglosphere understands this.  The only question for that movement is whether Europe's and the Anglosphere's true religion is paganism or Christianity.  Both camps agree, however, that Western liberalism must die if Europe is to live.

The Church as Culture.  Explaining in part why that religion must Christianity, and not paganism.

FIFNA on What Our Response Is To Be

Kingdom Thinking.

Our enemies in spiritual warfare are the world, the flesh and the devil. The Church teaches her children to keep up the attack on these three enemies, however they manifest themselves. The devil was certainly active in Paris on November 13, and heads of state must work out their escalation of the war against Islamic terrorism. Spiritually, we are to remain always on the offensive. There is no record in the Book of Acts of the apostles ever fighting defensive rear-guard actions. They were always seizing the initiative for Christ, to change a stubborn world for Him. After careful training, always strike hard. “Be strong and of good courage,” for God is with you (Joshua 1). God wants us in a ministry that drives us to our knees in prayer and fasting. Father George Rutler used to say that we are to “launch a revival so impossible that it is doomed to failure without God.”

We are to extend the Kingdom, and cure souls. Bring them in, and set them on the path to spiritual maturity in Christ. To do this we do not need to manufacture strategies. Our vocation is to produce saints first, then strategies. Saints are the ones who accept God´s challenge to grow spiritually and to grow in break-through thinking. Breakthrough thinking is to accomplish seemingly impossible goals through new and creative approaches, and to let go of entrenched patterns of thought, behavior and organizational structure that bind us to the mundane and keep us from reaching our goal, to present every man mature in Christ. Orthodox Christians are the branches connected with Jesus, the true Vine, with roots secured in heaven, drawing all resources from the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, risen and victorious. Orthodox Christians are therefore the strongest, the freest, and the most creative agents in breakthrough thinking. Mother Teresa of Calcutta is a perfect example of this. With her deep roots in Christ, thoroughly soaked in prayer and the sacraments and in the Tradition of holy Mother Church, she, penniless, did what no social worker could ever do among the poorest of the poor. She is regarded by multitudes today, Christian, Hindu, Muslim and agnostic, as the Mother of India. Malcolm Muggeridge, the famous BBC journalist, was converted to Christ by being with Mother Teresa for a film shoot. . . .

The Isis terrorists and their 7th century predecessors, the Muslims who took nearly the entire Mediterranean world by terror and bloodshed, are really the dupes of the barbarian gods, the demons, who demand human sacrifice and human blood. In stark contrast to this, the Son of God, the Father Almighty, gives His Body and sheds His Blood for us, for the life of the world. Bishop Charles Grafton, the Patron Saint of the Episcopal Church, counseled his priests in Wisconsin a hundred years ago: “Let us be inebriated with the Blood of the Holy Sacrifice, and on fire with the Holy Spirit.”

We mustn't every lose sight of what our role as spiritual warriors is to be.  But by the same token, in keeping with Bishop Hewett's observation about the role of the state and all the practical things that follow for us personally, we also must realistic - "wise as serpents" - about Islam.  This means, among other things, being realistic about the phenomenon of Muslim immigration to the West.  It is my observation that many if not most Anglicans are clueless.

"Welcome, Welcome Refugees!"

ISIS Claims Responsibility, Calling Paris Attacks ‘First of the Storm’

If any of my Anglican readers, whether clergy or laity, look upon this blog with a knitted brow because I say things like "The post-war liberal governments in Western Europe and the Anglosphere are not fit to govern and have accordingly lost political legitimacy" and "war is coming",  or because I post memes like the one below, well, perhaps now a change of mind on their part is in order.

"Welcome Refugees!"

How Sweden, the most open country in the world, was overwhelmed by migrants.

Word

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. ... A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing he cares about more than his own safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.”

~ John Stuart Mill