America’s Prophet

“For four hundred years, one figure stands out as the surprising symbol of America. One person has inspired more Americans than any other. One man is America’s true founding father. His name is Moses.” (4)

In Bruce Feiler’s America’s Prophet: Moses and the American Story, he traces “how seventeenth-century Protestant separatists, eighteenth-century deist revolutionaries, nineteenth-century enslaved Africans, and twentieth-century Jews could all possibly have the same hero.” (201) Feiler shows how each of these groups used Moses and the Exodus story to find hope and encouragement along with justification for their actions.  While the book is an exhaustive overview of Moses’ influence on America – here’s a few illustrations of where Moses and the Exodus story have played a roll in America’s history and cultural formation.

Moses during the Revolution:

Donald Lutz and Charles Hyneman set out to read everything published in America between 1760 and 1805. They wanted to settle disputes over the sources of the Revolution and evaluate the influence of “Enlightenment writers such as Montesquieu, Locke, Hume and Hobbes, as well as ancient writers such as Plutarch and Cicero.” Their conclusion was: “If we ask what book was more frequently cited by Americans during the founding era, the answer somewhat surprisingly is: the Book of Deuteronomy.” A book of Moses. “Thirty-four percent of all references were to the bible, compared with 22 percent for the Enlightenment and 9 percent for the classics.” (93)

Moses and African-American Slavery:

When Africans were brought over to America as slaves they brought with them their religions. Some were Christian, some Islamic, and others different African religions. Once in America they were often forced to convert to and learn about Christianity. The slaves learned about Moses and the Exodus and quickly began to identify with the Israelites. They took the Exodus story and made it there own. They saw in the story the hope and encouragement they needed to know that God wanted them to be free. This can readily be seen in their spirituals, such as “Go Down, Moses,”:

When Israel was in Egypt Land,
Let my people go;
Oppressed so hard they could not stand,
Let my people go.

“Thus saith the Lord,” bold Moses said,
“Let my people go;
If not, I’ll smite your first-born dead,
Let my people go!”

Chorus:
God down, Moses
Way down in Egypt Land
Tell ol’ Pharoah,
Let my people go.

I could go on and on citing more examples and discussing numerous figures throughout America’s history that have been compared to  or drawn inspiration from Moses but I think the above gives you a good idea what the book is all about.

Jeremy

American Gospel

I recently read this book American Gospel by Jon Meacham. In this book the author gives a wide overview of religion in America by looking at how the Founding Fathers, past Presidents and prominent public figures have spoken about and used religion from the founding of America to the present.

The author argues that what we have in America is not a Christian religion but it is one that draws heavily on the Judeo-Christian tradition. He writes that the Founding Fathers could have used explicitly Christian language in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution but they did not. Instead the Declaration uses generic terms such as “Nature’s God” and “their Creator”. “Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Adams, Franklin, Jay, and their comrades could have chosen to draw on the examples of Jamestown, Plymouth, or Massachusetts Bay, but they did not.” (244-245) In the treaty of Tripoli which was “ratified by the Senate in 1797, the Founders declared that ‘the government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion…’” (19) However the author states that “the wall Jefferson referred to is designed to divide church from state, not religion from politics.” (19) This leaves us with a “public religion”.

The nation’s public religion, then, holds that there is a God, the one Jefferson called the “Creator” and “Nature’s God” in the Declaration of Independence. The God of public religion made all human beings in his image and endowed them, as Jefferson wrote, with sacred rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. What the God of public religion has given, no king, no president, no government can abridge—hence the sanctity of human rights in America. The God of public religion is interested in the affairs of the world. The God of public religion may be seen as capable of rewarding or punishing individuals or the nation either here and now or later, beyond time. And the God of public religion is sometimes spoken of as a God bound to the American nation, in Jefferson’s words, “as Israel of old.” (22)

It turns out that public religion is something close to but not quite Christianity. The book addresses how various Presidents and others have grappled with this public religion and balanced it with their personal faith. Some of the people discussed other than the Founding Fathers are Lincoln, Roosevelt, Carter, Reagan, Jerry Falwell, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Billy Graham. The author ends by trying to strike a middle ground between what he calls extremists: those on the far right who think we are a “Christian Nation” and those on the far left who think we are purely secular.

Book Burning a Success

I am sure that many of you were wondering how the Halloween Book Burning went: “We wanted to say that the Book Burning was a great success. It was a success because God’s Word was glorified and uplifted.” The website promises that there will be video footage soon. You can read a news article about it here. Apparently it was not exactly a book burning. Certain laws got in the way. But paper tears and is cut easily and the goal was to destroy garbage one way or another. “If there were any disappointments, it was that there were no other Independent Fundamental Baptist churches or individuals standing with us locally on the KJV. They hook up with the Southern Baptist and the Freewill Baptist to fight the liquor crowd, and the abortionist, but will not stand with the KJV, the Word of God.” Next year things will be better.

Pastor to Burn Bibles

Kathryn and I saw this article on Fox News: Pastor to Host Halloween Bible Burning Event

Apparently Pastor Marc Grizzard, of Amazing Grace Baptist Church in NC, is going to lead a Bible burning event on Halloween night. It is a social event since there will be a barbecue as well as a bonfire. The Halloween Book Burning takes place on Oct. 31, 2009 starting at 7:00 p.m. But don’t worry, they are not going to burn all Bibles. They are only going to burn every Bible that is not the King James Version 1611. This event is more than Bible burning though. They will not only burn Satan’s bibles but also Satan’s music and Satan’s popular books written by such authors as Billy Graham, Bill Hybels, Rick Warren, Mother Teresa, The Pope and many more.

So, what do you think? Will you be attending or will you simply donate some material?

Jeremy

Christian Basic Training

I read this online book from Bible.org called Christian Basic Training by Charles T. Buntin. It lays out what are the essential orthodox doctrines.

The Bible: Inspiration, Inerrancy, Authority

2 Tim 3:16 All of scripture is God-breathed. This extends to the words themselves not just the concepts. How exactly this was accomplished is a mystery. There are no errors in the original manuscripts of the Bible and there is ample evidence that we have a faithful transmission of the original manuscripts. Any problems that exist are minor and do not involve basic doctrines of faith. The entire Bible is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.

Attributes of God

God is sovereign, holy, omnipotent, omniscient, immutable, wrathful, and love.

The Trinity

There is only one God. (Duet. 6:4) Within the one true God there exists a plurality of persons. The Father is God, Jesus Christ is God, the Holy Spirit is God. The trinity is a mystery. “Believe what the Bible teaches and don’t try to understand it.”

Person of Christ

As God, Christ  is eternal and immutable so He has always existed. Through the incarnation and virgin birth Jesus became human. He is fully God and fully human but without a sin nature.

Work of Christ

Humans are utterly sinful. (Rom. 3:10-11, 23) We have inherited a sin nature, we add to our sin, and we are powerless to change our own situation. Christ died on the cross as a substitute, a satisfaction and a propitiation. Jesus was raised literally and bodily from the grave. (Rom 4:25, 1 Cor. 15:17) Jesus will return again. (Acts 1:11, Titus 2:13)

Saved by Grace

“The Doctrine of Grace teaches that we are totally unable to save ourselves, to help in our salvation, to do anything to merit all or any part of our salvation, or to keep our salvation.” What we have to do is believe. We must exercise faith in Christ for salvation. This is not a work. It is a surrender. We are justified by faith. “If I am Justified, it is Just-as-if-I’d never sinned, and Just-as-if-I’d always been holy and done the right things.” (Rom 3:21-24)

Living a Consistent Christian Life

The fact that God saves us by faith is not a license to sin. We are now a part of his family and we are expected to act like it. God is transforming us. We have the entire Bible, both the Old Test. and New Test., to use for guidance on how to live and behave.

Jeremy

Physics of the Impossible

I found this book at Barnes & Noble on the bargain table: Physics of the Impossible by Michio Kaku. I thought this book was very interesting and thought provoking. The author takes a look at different things that are often mentioned and promoted in science fiction novels and he discussed whether or not the impossible could ever be possible. Some of the things discussed are things you may see in Star Trek or Star Wars like: teleportation, star ships, laser guns, time travel, etc. He has divided these various impossibilities into three categories. Category one impossibilities are things that are impossible now but do not violate the laws of physics and may be obtainable in a couple of 100 to 1,000s of years. Category two impossibilities are things that are impossible now but do not violate the laws of physics and may be obtainable in several 1,000 to millions of years or more. Category three impossibilities are things that are impossible now and if anyone ever figures out a way to achieve them then the laws of physics would have to be rewritten. The book can be a little technical at times and the author often has to talk about things that are completely theoretical (and sometimes it is difficult to sort out if something is entirely theoretical physics or established physics).

Jeremy

10 Books That Screwed Up The World

10 Books That Screwed Up The World

I found this book on the bargain shelf at Barnes and Noble. 10 Books That Screwed Up The World And 5 Others That Didn’t Help by Benjamin Wiker, PH.D. was a very interesting and thought provoking book. In the book the author goes through 15 books that have been written which he argues have had devistating consequences for society. While the author does not mention it in the introduction it becomes clear through out the book that the author is arguing against the ideas in these books from a biblical world view. Each chapter covered one book and clearly presented what the book was about, the ideas that were in the book, and how those ideas have effected society. The books covered are: The Prince, Discourse on Method, Leviathan, Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality among Men, The Manifesto of the Communist Party, Utilitarianism,  The Descent of Man, Beyond Good and Evil, The State and Revolution, The Pivot of Civilization, Mein Kampt, The Future of an Illusion, Coming of Age in Samoa, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, and The Feminine Mystique. I had heard of some of these books and some of them I did not remember hearing about. However, even in the books I did not previously know about I have heard the ideas that were in them before. This book provides a way to understand those ideas and the flaws in them.

First Anniversary

more about “First Anniversary“, posted with vodpod

Jesus Mean and Wild

Jesus Mean and Wild

Jesus Mean and Wild by Mark Galli

I read this book after reading an article on Christianity Today.

This book was very interesting and thought provoking. The basic premise was that Christians today have fashioned Jesus into their own image rather than taking him as he really is in the Gospels. They have made Jesus meek and mild because the Jesus of the Gospels is mean and wild. He is untamable and dangerous. It uses the Gospel of Mark as its primary text for looking at the more difficult teachings of Jesus. An example is chapter 10 Sobering Power which talks about Mark 4:37-41 when Jesus quiets the sea and wind during a terrific storm. The author questions whether we really believe Jesus showed that kind of magnificent power over nature or do we only use it as a metaphor for Jesus quieting the storms in our lives. Do we really believe he “stormed through Galilee, stilling violent rains, healing the disfigured, and raising to life those whose bodies had gone stone cold dead”? If we do believe it are we “filled with fear and awe–and an unwavering confidence in his power to deliver us from evil”?  The book covered many other topics and I think gave me a new appreciation for the Gospel of Mark.

Jeremy

How We Got The Bible

How We Got The Bible

How We Got The Bible by Neil R. Lightfoot

I thought this book was very well written and presented the material in an easily understood manner. It covered a large range of material related to how we got the Bible such as the making of ancient books, the significance of textual variations, the canon of the scriptures, and the history of the translation of the Bible in English. Each chapter was short but detailed and ended with a summary of the material along with discussion questions. The author clearly has a high view of scripture as the Word of God and this book provides a clear guide to how the Word of God was handed down to us across the centuries and preserved for us.