James E Hartley

Whither the American Dream?

Who killed the American Dream?

David Leonhardt, a senior writer at The New York Times, picks up his magnifying glass and investigates in Ours Was the Shining Future: The Story of the American Dream. Note the past tense in the title.

In order to find the culprit, we must first learn about the deceased. What was the American Dream? As Leonhardt notes, while the range of definitions is vast, at its root, the American dream is about progress. In particular, he zeroes in on a “core part” of the dream, that children will lead better lives than their parents did. Leonhardt makes the definition sharper by beginning with the Origin Story. Pause for a second and ask yourself, “In what decade was the American dream born? What are the defining features of its life?”

Chances are your answer to those questions are not the ones in this book.

Read the rest at the American Institute for Economic Research

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Stuck in the Middle With You

In 1944, Friedrich Hayek wrote in “Why the Worst Get on Top” in his The Road to Serfdom:

It seems to be almost a law of human nature that it is easier for people to agree on a negative program—on the hatred of an enemy, on the envy of those better off—than on any positive task. The contrast between “we” and “they,” the common fight against those outside the group, seems to be an essential ingredient in any creed which will solidly knit together a group for common action. It is consequently always employed by those who seek, not merely support of a policy, but the unreserved allegiance of huge masses. From their point of view it has the advantage of leaving them greater freedom of action than almost any positive program.

Eighty years later, Hayek’s observation is still accurate: the worst still get on top by emphasizing their negative program. Where do we see this phenomenon these days? Chances are, you immediately thought of the group about which this is true. Did you think of the Woke Academy or the Evangelical Church? Hayek’s description is, after all, equally applicable to both. While the comparison will annoy people in both communities, as discussed below those two groups are mirror images; left and right get swapped in the mirror, but otherwise the image is the same. They need each other; if one of those groups didn’t exist, the other group would have to invent it.

The importance of this fact was driven home to me while reading Tim Alberta’s The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism. It is a remarkable bit of journalism, organized episodically as Alberta wanders the country going to churches, conventions, and meetings with evangelicals. Chapter by chapter, he allows ample space for assorted parties to explain themselves, what they are thinking, and what they’re trying to do. The portrait of a divided evangelical movement is gripping. If you are interested in the evangelical church, this book is a must-read.

However, the story that Alberta tells has implications that are of national importance, whether or not one is affiliated with the church.

Read the rest at Law and Liberty

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Battle Cry in the Culture War

Let’s start with a quick quiz. Name this book:

The United States is in great peril because it has abandoned its Christian roots and is being taken over by people who are immersed in a humanistic worldview which is antithetical to God. The result will be a tyranny which will oppress Good Christians everywhere.

Trick question, obviously. There are thousands of books fitting that description. Even more books fitting that description will be published in the next six months. And the six months after that. And after that…

Truth be told, I truly wonder why people keep reading these books. They are insanely repetitive. The anecdotes illustrating the thesis get updated every year, but the basic argument is the same. Pick up one of these books from the early 1990s and switch the names “Al Gore and Jesse Jackson” to “Joe Biden and AOC,” and you have the 2020s version.

If you want to read a book in this vein, then you might as well read the template. Francis Schaeffer’s A Christian Manifesto was published in 1981. It was a sensation—so much so that those thousands of writers in the last four decades have simply been rewriting it. How big was this book? From the back cover, we have Joel Belz, founder of World magazine (which is basically just Schaeffer’s book in a biweekly news magazine): “Go to any evangelical Christian gathering and ask 20 people the simple question: ‘What single person has most affected your thinking and your worldview?’ If Francis Schaeffer doesn’t lead the list of answers, and probably by a significant margin, I’d ask for a recount.”

“The basic problem of the Christians in this country in the last eighty years…” That is the opening of A Christian Manifesto. No soft sell here. You, dear Christian, have a problem. A big problem. What is the problem? You “have seen things in bits and pieces instead of totals.” You notice that this thing in society over here is a bit problematic (fill in your own anecdotes). Oh, and that other thing over there is also a problem. And there is that other thing going on that just seems wrong. And you just heard that story that you have a hard time believing could actually be true—surely nobody would do that.

Enter Schaeffer, in effect saying, “All those things you notice: they are all connected!”

There is a war going on in the country (and remember this was written in 1981) between two worldviews. The Christian Worldview and the Humanist Worldview. “The term humanism…means man beginning from himself, with no knowledge except what he himself can discover and no standards outside of himself. In this view, man is the measure of all things, as the Enlightenment expressed it.”

Now obviously, Schaeffer wants all his readers to join Team Christian Worldview, but he does not think this is simply a lighthearted game of checkers. “Humanism, with its lack of any final base for values or law, always leads to chaos. It then naturally leads to some form of authoritarianism to control the chaos. Having produced the sickness, humanism gives more of the same kind of medicine for a cure.” This is a serious battle for the future of society.

As I said, change the anecdotes, and this book could have been published in 2024 with zero change in the underlying structure of the argument. Why should that be so? How is it possible that the framework of this battle has not altered at all in half a century? Neither side has won. Both sides stare at the enemy from their trenches. Is there any reason to think things will be different in 2081? What could possibly happen that will enable a victory in this cold trench war?

Just when the realization that A Christian Manifesto is just the original battle cry of the Christian soldier hit, I got to the part which was obviously coming where Schaeffer notes, “the bottom line is that at a certain point there is not only the right but the duty to disobey the state.” Yep, here we go.

The next sentence: “Of course, this is scary.” Ya think?

Then came the surprise. The scary part wasn’t just what those other guys were going to do when Christians start disrupting the social order. The really scary part is what Christians on the Christian side will start doing. Suddenly, the book turned into a prophetic warning about what could happen to Christians as they engage in this culture war.

“First, we must make definite that we are in no way talking about any kind of a theocracy.” Now, everyone these days denies that they want a “theocracy.” But Schaeffer elaborates: “We must not confuse the Kingdom of God with our country. To say it another way: ‘We should not wrap Christianity in our national flag.’”

Christian nationalists have no place in Schaeffer’s army of the good. Suddenly, this book doesn’t fit in with the copycat books being written in the 2020s. How to explain how a movement born with an explicit argument against wrapping Christianity in the national flag emerged into a movement that does exactly that?

We must say that speaking of disobedience is frightening because there are so many kooky people around. People are always irresponsible in a fallen world. But we live in a special time of irresponsible people, and such people will in their unbalanced way tend to do the very opposite from considering the appropriate means at the appropriate time and place. Anarchy is never appropriate.

Now that is most certainly not the sort of thing that is commonly said by Team Good Christian in 2024.

A Christian Manifesto thus stands not as yet another example of the type of book that litters the political sections of bookstores today, but rather as a useful corrective to those books. The Christian nationalists and the irresponsible people have grown in numbers over time. The effect has been that the central message of Schaeffer’s book is lost in one social media firestorm after another.

The real reason to read or reread A Christian Manifesto is not because you want to see a historical version of a common contemporary theme, but because you want to find a way out of the current morass. Schaeffer stands there like a marker showing where you entered into the mire. Sometimes the best way to get out of a swamp is to go back to your starting place.

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(Mandatory Note: I am not sure if Team Humanism or Team Christian doubts my sincerity here, but one of the other has made it my legal obligation to tell you that Crossway sent me a copy of this book so that I could review it.)

Crafting a New Evangelical Imagination

“All great systems, ethical or political, attain their ascendancy over the minds of men by virtue of their appeal to the imagination; and when they cease to touch the chords of wonder and mystery and hope, their power is lost, and men look elsewhere for some set of principles by which they may be guided.”
Russell Kirk wrote that in 1955.

Seven decades later, Karen Swallow Prior shows how prophetic Kirk was in her book, The Evangelical Imagination: How Stories, Images, and Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis.

Evangelicalism was born in the early eighteenth century, but as Prior argues, it came of age in the Victorian Era. By the twentieth century, evangelical culture was so intertwined with Victorian culture that it became hard to tell the difference. The result is that the Evangelical Imagination, the set of metaphors and images which define the movement, was solidified in ways that would look very familiar to someone living in late nineteenth century England.

Read the rest at The University Bookman

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Greatest Economist of All Time

GOAT: Who is the Greatest Economist of All Time and Why Does it Matter?

Even if you have never thought about that question before, now you want to know the answer. Indeed, you may even be set to argue that the given answer is wrong.

The GOAT question is the greatest bar argument of all time. Who is the GOAT shortstop? Rock vocalist? American novelist? Greek philosopher?…pick the category, and a lively debate ensues. But, the GOAT economist? You probably have not had that debate. Until now. Pull up a barstool.

Tyler Cowen wrote a book using that question as the title. (The book is free to download here.) Since he wrote the book, he gets to set the ground rules, the most important of which is the definition:

To qualify as “GOAT the greatest economist of all time,” I expect the following from a candidate. The economist must be original, of great historical import, serve as a creator and carrier of important ideas, have a hand in both theory and empirics, have a hand in both macro and micro, and be “not too wrong” on the substance of issues. Furthermore, the person also must be a pretty good economist! That is, if you sat down with the person and discussed economic issues, you would be in some way impressed. That is a pretty all-encompassing definition and most importantly, it allows for lots of room to debate.

Read the Rest at AIER

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No Creed But the Bible?

“I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible;
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of his Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father; by whom all things were made; who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; he suffered and was buried; and the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father; and he shall come again, with glory, to judge both the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.
And I believe in the Holy Ghost the Lord, and Giver of Life, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son; who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified; who spake by the Prophets. And I believe one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church; I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins; and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.”

The Nicene Creed has been recited in churches all over the world for over 1500 years. (There are some small variations over time and across branches of the church, but the differences need not concern us here.) I grew up going to Protestant churches—many different ones. But, I had never even heard about the Nicene Creed, let alone recited it until I was an adult.

How did that happen? My experience is quite common. Of late in American evangelical churches there has been a massive rejection of the historical creeds. “No creed but the Bible!” is the rallying cry. My best guess about why this happened was that it was part of the rejection of all things Roman Catholic in evangelical circles—the baby goes right out with the bathwater. It’s a loss. I really like the Nicene Creed, both the content of it and the idea of it. I wish I had grown up with it as a part of my church experience.

Carl Trueman thinks the abandonment of the creeds is an even larger problem than simply missing out on something beautiful. He thinks churches which have abandoned the Creeds have taken a very wrong path. Crisis of Confidence: Reclaiming the Historic Faith in a Culture Consumed with Individualism and Identity (an update of his 2012 book, The Creedal Imperative) argues that if your church does not recite and teach the creeds, if it does not refer back to the historical confessions of the church, then your church is in serious danger.

First, though, why is reciting a creed like the Nicene Creed above such a valuable thing for a church?

“In reciting the creeds, the purpose is not simply to declare a set of propositional truths. Rather, the action is somewhat richer than that: to state the obvious, in reciting the words of the creeds together, each member of the congregation publicly identifies with every other member in expressing a corporate unity of belief in a common gospel. They are also expressing their common belief with every other Christian throughout history who has used these words to witness to Christ. Further, they are reminding themselves and each other of who God is and what he has done. In other words, the creeds, in liturgical context, become a means of fulfilling the public declaration that Romans 10 demands of believers: the confession (a document) becomes a confession (an act of pointing toward Christ before the church and the world).”

That is a perfect summary of what I have discovered to be true about reciting the Creeds in the decades since I found out about the practice. Reciting the Nicene Creed is the single best way to remind myself that I am united with Christians around the world and throughout time in a single universal catholic church, that this is what we, all of us, believe, that while we disagree on many things, we all share in believing this. The Nicene Creed is an incredible reminder that what unites Christians across the globe and across time is vastly more important than what divides us.

So, why did the Creed get abandoned? Why are there churches who feel virtuous in abandoning these historical statements of faith? Trueman believes it is a symptom of the modern age’s obsession with what he dubs “expressive individualism.” Look at society and it is hard to escape the fact that we have built an entire culture around the idea that you are in charge of defining every aspect of your own life and that nothing should get in the way of your ability to express your own individuality. Ironically, as Trueman points out, churches have embraced expressive individualism with their assertion that every local church congregation is free to set up its own list of maxims of what will define Christianity. Every local congregation stands alone.

This doesn’t mean every church has wandered into heresy. Many churches which have replaced a universal creed with an individualized statement of faith have merely replicated creedal theology with a freshly worded version of the same thing. Many churches have made minor modifications to the content of the historical creeds, but have stayed within the bounds of orthodoxy. But, even still, Trueman is concerned. Once a church or a pastor has set itself up as the sole definer of theological accuracy, it is in real danger of slipping into heresy.

Christians who grew up in church like I did are unaware there is even an alternative way to think about theological orthodoxy. Trueman’s book spends significant time giving an overview of the development of the creeds and confessions of the faith. This is not a side note to Trueman’s argument:

“Historical theology, the genealogy of doctrinal discussion and formulation, is thus an important part of Christian education and should be a part of every pastor’s and elder’s background. It should also be a central part of the teaching ministry in all churches.”

I have long lamented that such things were not a part of my education in the church.

In other words, I completely agree with Trueman’s argument. I completely agree that he is rightly emphasizing the importance of constantly acknowledging the central theological doctrines of the church and that the best way of doing so is by joining Christians around the world in churches very different than my own in reciting common language.

Since I agree so strongly with Trueman’s conclusion, I was quite disheartened about the manner in which Trueman made his argument. The conclusion is sound, but the arguments for his conclusion were shockingly weak. As a book preaching to the choir, it was nice, but I cannot imagine the book persuading anyone who disagrees.

Throughout the book, Trueman takes aim at pastors who proudly assert they have no creed but the Bible. Imagine you are trying to persuade such a person that the creeds are incredibly useful, that the pastor’s church would be stronger and healthier if it used the creeds. Imagine trying to convince someone that using an extra-Biblical text like a Creed is a way to strengthen, not weaken, the centrality of Christ and the Bible. How would you persuade such a person?

Trueman’s approach completely misses the mark. Consider some examples. Trueman points to 2 Timothy 1:13, where Paul writes “Follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.” Trueman points to the fact that Paul emphasizes the form of words, not just the content of the words. Then in 2 Timothy 1:15, Paul writes “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” Trueman notes: “Here it seems abundantly clear that Paul is using previously established phraseology, a form of sound words, to capture in a nutshell the gospel.” Trueman points to many passages in the Bible just like that. Philippians 2:5-10, Romans 1:3-4, 1 Corinthians 8:6, 1 Peter 3:18-21.

Again, I don’t disagree with Trueman here. But, imagine someone who believes that Christians should have No Creed but the Bible. Does providing a list of passages in the Bible which seem to rely on other sources prove that there are things which are not in the Bible which are important? The whole argument of “No Creed but the Bible” is that if Paul wrote it, then it becomes authoritative. Similarly, “No Creed but the Bible” fully agrees that the form of words matters, and the right form is whatever is in the Bible. Similarly, saying “No Creed but the Bible” does not mean a dismissal of everything written in the past; the Bible was written in the past. Again, saying that churches need the creeds because they need something that explains what the church believes misses the point that every “No Creed but the Bible” church has a written Statement of Faith, based on the Bible, setting forth what the church believes.

Reading the book imagining I disagreed with it was a very unsatisfying exercise. I had a hard time imagining being persuaded by the arguments in this book. Trueman argues: “The question is not so much ‘Should we use them?’ as ‘Why would we not use them?’ They do nothing but ensure that biblical content and priorities are kept uppermost in the public worship of the church.” I love that way of framing the matter. I agree completely. But, if I didn’t, there is sadly nothing in this book that compels the conclusion that Trueman and I both believe.

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(Governments have things like creeds too. Here is one: Crossway sent me this book so I could review it. Not quite a beautiful as the Nicene Creed, is it?)