Indulging Vain Speculation

I noted earlier that I am attempting to read through The Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin this year. This is the 500th anniversary year of Calvin's birth and there are book releases, European study tours, lectures, conferences about the man planned by many groups this year.

No word yet on whether there will be mugs, mouse pads or neckties available.

I ordered a copy of the Institutes but it didn't arrive until January 8 which put me a little behind on the Reading Schedule provided by the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals by way of Reformation 21 blog. Today, while reading the entry for January 14, I came across this -

"In saying that some fall away into superstition, I mean not to insinuate that their excessive absurdity frees them from guilt; for the blindness under which they labor is almost invariably accompanied with vain pride and stubbornness. Mingled vanity and pride appear in this, that when miserable men do seek after God, instead of ascending higher than themselves as they ought to do, they measure him by their own carnal stupidity, and neglecting solid inquiry, fly off to indulge their curiosity in vain speculation. Hence, they do not conceive of him in the character in which he is manifested, but imagine him to be whatever their own rashness has devised. This abyss standing open, they cannot move one footstep without rushing headlong to destruction. (Institutes, 1.4.1)

I thought this was an apt description of many folks in our day, written over 400 years ago! Isn't he saying, basically, that people, in their pride, try to make God out to be whatever they want him to be and that doing so is damning to their souls? I think that's what he's saying.

Discuss.

Know Thy Enemy

Al Mohler is a genius.

I don’t know if he put his two latest blog entries back-to-back by design, but, taken together, they send a jarring message.

Thursday’s entry reviews historian Bernard Lewis’ piece in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal. Boiled down it says the militant Muslims, the jihadists identified two great enemies during the Cold War: the Soviets and the West. The Soviets collapsed and that leaves us.

Quoting:

"Professor Lewis explains that the Jihadists truly believe that their efforts
toppled the Soviet Union. Furthermore, he warns that the Jihadists see the West
as a far weaker enemy than the Soviets. Thus, these radicals see the West as
poised for collapse. All that is needed is the unrelenting push of jihad."

Lewis quotes Osama bin Laden:
“. . . dealing with the pampered and degenerate Americans would be easy.”

Pampered and degenerate? Really? Us? The church – going nation that we are – we are the good guys, aren’t we? God bless America and all that, after all!

Well, consider Mohler’s post from today. It argues that, while, yes, we are moral in a sense, the things we moralize about are nonsense. We are, unfortunately, moralizing about driving SUVs, or eating trans fats, or presenting images of, shocking, I know, images of cigarette smoking.

Mohler quotes Andrew Ferguson:

"our pop culture is shot through with moralism: sulfurous condemnations of
homophobia, smoking, guns, junk food, fur, big cars, and--this is the big
one--judgmentalism. (Our culture) simply will not tolerate intolerance."

While we dither about junk food and fur and big cars, the militant Muslims have a very clear and agreed upon set of values by which to decide moral dilemmas. And this matrix of values informs the Muslim that we are degenerate and must be conquered.

But we know better – we are moral! We know what’s important! Those bad, bad, bad jihadists! They came to our country on 9/11 and totally ignored the No Smoking signs!