First Word

An essay by Prof Mark A. Noll of Wheaton College in the collection Religion and the American Civil War (Oxford, 1998) outlines the place of the Bible in the American debate on slavery during the years leading up to the Civil War. Noll identifies the dominant view of the Bible on both side of the debate as “Reformed literalist.” Given that view of the Bible, the proslavery side seemed to have the upper hand. The Abolitionists were willing to move toward a “spirit not letter” type of interpretation, but all the orthodox saw this approach as a trajectory toward liberalism. Noll knows that “proslavery” — his term — is wrong, though a high view of the Bible is right; so he explores what might have gone wrong. He examines four alternative hermeneutical traditions that could have led to a different conclusion on slavery, while still holding to a high view of the Bible:(1) the “African American” way of reading the Bible; (2) the Roman Catholic; (3) High-church Lutheranism or Reformed; (4) the non-Southern Reformed, especially Charles Hodge. Only the last named of these had enough of a foothold in America to temper the discussion, but it fell short because of a root inconsistency in the American outlook which compromised the profession of sola scriptura and led to failure to draw a key distinction that would have unraveled the proslavery argument. (more…)

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Two Hundred Years Together: Russo-Jewish History, vol. 1 (1795-1916)

Chapter 1, To End of 18^th Century, fifth installment (see contents).

[G45] Since the start of the reign of Paul I there was a great famine in White Russia, especially in the province of Minsk. The poet Gavrila Romanovich Derzhavin, then serving as Senator, was commissioned to go there and determine its cause and seek a solution — for which task he received no money to buy grain, but instead had the right to confiscate possessions of negligent landowners, sell their stockpile and distribute them. (more…)

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Two Hundred Years Together: Russo-Jewish History, vol. 1 (1795-1916) (more…)

I have prepared a chart showing the Romanov succession of czars, along with the preceding century, in a way that is proportional to elapsed time, and with a few noteworthy parallel events in history indicated. Go here. (May be helpful while reading the Solzhenitsyn selections.)

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Two Hundred Years Together: Russo-Jewish History, vol. 1 (1795-1916) (more…)

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Two Hundred Years Together: Russo-Jewish History, vol. 1 (1795-1916) (more…)

Since the previous post on “monsters” (The Ten Worst Monsters of American History) proved diversionary for some, I thought a similar treatment of our cousins across the Atlantic would be of interest. (more…)

The British were willing to negotiate with Napoleon, and in August 1806 made generous concessions, only asking for unmolested control of Hannover; Talleyrand favored the agreement, but Napoleon nixed it. (more…)

Beautifully filmed statement of the key events in the life of Martin Luther. It seems to include the same main facts as Roland Bainton’s great biography, with the exception of ignoring the role of the knights; but liberties are taken with the details, and an episode with a suicide is, so far as I can ascertain, completely made up (though for an acceptable thematic purpose). (more…)

The return from Lutheran bare orthodoxy to inward change, known as Pietism, was begun by Jakob Spener, though anticipated in the earlier writings of Johann Arndt. It grew wings, however, as a result of the life of August Hermann Francke (1663-1727), and transformed the city of Halle in remarkable ways. This is a brief rehearsal of this amazing story. (more…)

Roger Williams, because of his views of freedom of conscience and the separation of church and state, and the fact that he was able to implement them in Rhode Island, is celebrated as the founder of American liberties by writers as diverse as nineteenth-century Democratic historian George Bancroft (History of the United States, vol 1, p. 255), Southern Presbyterian theologian Robert L. Dabney (Lectures in Systematic Theology, p. 880) and the writer of the article on Roger Williams at Wikipedia. (more…)

That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of the time –John Stuart Mill

To balance out the ten worst monsters list, I offer my top ten American heroes. There have been many more monsters than heroes, so compiling this list has been a bit more work. (more…)

In a recent article, Gary North enlists the aid of his readers to come up with the worst monsters in American history. I immediately went to work, but soon realized that my criteria were not the same as North’s. For one thing, North put on the stricture that the monster had to use other people’s money. Though this requirement is met in most of the monsters I came up with, it did not include all. So rather than contributing to his list, I offer my own. Below is the fruit of my effort. (more…)

Philip Jacob Spener wrote this initially as a preface to an edition of some sermons by J. Arndt; it became popular in its own right and subsequently was published by itself (more…)

Jena (pron. YAY nuh) is a quiet little town on the Saale River. The Saale forms the left segment that, with the Elbe, defines the triangle in which the Saxons finally (more…)

Johann Arndt (1555-1621) was a Lutheran minister that was troubled by formalism or dead orthodoxy among the German people. He wrote this book, True Christianity (Wahre Christenthum) to counter this trend, arguing that mere assent to correct doctrines (more…)

What does a fifteenth century German Diet have to do with American “no taxation without representation”? Quite a lot, actually. (more…)

Review of Robin Bruce Barnes, Prophecy and Gnosis: Apocalypticism in the Wake of the Lutheran Reformation (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1988). BT 819.5 .B35 1988

Under the rubric of apocalypticism, this book weaves together a story about views of time and history, eschatology, astrology, magic and secret societies in Lutheran Germany in the century following the Reformation.

Prof. Barnes (of Davidson College) defines apocalypticism as a view of the future combining prophecy and (more…)

In the later twelfth century, Leipzig (more…)

This is a pamphlet I discovered at the WTS library containing a speech by one Adolf Zahn to the evangelical faculty of the Royal and Imperial University in Vienna in around 1871. It is interesting for two reasons.

First, it is fascinating to discover an intellectually vigorous Reformed movement (more…)

To understand politics, one must understand origins. And the Republican Party cannot be understood without understanding Abraham Lincoln. (more…)

The execution of the law is the life of the law

All societies, whether savage or civilized, have norms which govern the intercourse between men. Law is unavoidable. When two are more people live in proximity to one another some standards of conduct must be recognized, even if tacitly, if they are to experience (more…)