Month: June 2012

Riches are uncertain.

There is a doctrine out there which is dangerous. It is based to a certain extent on the proverbs, and on natural law. The Proverbs and Natural Law remind us that we reap what we sow. If we do not exercise, we become unfit. If we do not practice a craft or discipline, we fail to improve. If we spend impulsively and recklessly, we will be poor.
And if we chase wealth and happiness we will be disappointed.

1 Timothy 6:6-21

6 Of course, there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment; 7 for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it; 8 but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these. 9 But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. 10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.

11 But as for you, man of God, shun all this; pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness. 12 Fight the good fight of the faith; take hold of the eternal life, to which you were called and for which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. 13 In the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you 14 to keep the commandment without spot or blame until the manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 which he will bring about at the right time—he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords. 16 It is he alone who has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see; to him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.

17 As for those who in the present age are rich, command them not to be haughty, or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. 18 They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, 19 thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life.

20 Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you. Avoid the profane chatter and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge; 21 by professing it some have missed the mark as regards the faith. Grace be with you.

I am referring to the prosperity doctrine. If one does what is good, one will get a good result.

This is a partial teaching, because the times are uncertain, and we do not live alone. We can do everything well and properly and be swept up in a depression or war, or persecution. We can be preserved from all that but be struck down by illness.

This world is orderly enough that most of the time being prudent, humble and hard-working will lead to one reaping benefits for their family and themselves. But that has never been guaranteed. Paul tells young men to pursue righteousness. For riches, although good (it is better to have some money than none) can be a trap.

For Administration. Against prohibtion.

I have been playing with the backend of wordpress this evening. Mainly because it is the end of a fairly horrible week, it is the first day of winter (and I needed gloves this morning: there was ice on the ground and a chill in the air) and I did not have a public sitemeter account, which means that I am not in the NZ blog traffic list.

The sitemeter account is now running, I have ensure that the webcrawlers are working for bing, google and ask.com, and I have updated the sitemap.

Now to other things.

The good Captain has a list of the main blogs in the manosphere.  There is some overlap with the orthosphere, but not as much as you would think. The most useful thing he has done is identify the links by classes.

This morning, over in the orthosphere, the old issues of prohibition came up. Gabby admitted that it all came together serendipitously...

An interesting exercise in nostalgia, this posting?

This post kind of evolved out of nowhere. I was first thinking about reformers and then about women’s movements and then I was thinking about prohibition and wala..this post was born. Or maybe I just wanted an excuse to share the picture of the ax-wielding lady.

This got me going all over the net to find another picture of a prohibitionist. I think I have found a more depressing picture than she had.

One needs to snark… one needs. The physiognomy on display there would be enough to drive me to drink. And I’ve got Presbyterianism injected into me: the bottle only gets open when people come over (and they come over for the cellar)

Cl posted on this, and correctly noted.

It seems if a man has a beer or two, certain women think he’s a raging alcoholic. If it’s not effecting your productivity or making you impotent or something, what’s the big deal over a drink or three? Again, it’s a lack of trust in a man to be able to control himself. I guess they think it’ll turn into this (and since they don’t seem to like sex either, it’s their nightmare):

Now, at this point I took some of the issues that were coming up and commented back at the original post.

Ah, prohibition. The original form of feminism. It had three core assumptions shared by the current culture.

1. Women are the source of all virtue.
2. Men are evil, and the source of all harm.
3. If we can adjust society, men will not be evil, and all will be well.

This is a distortion of the puritan doctrines around men being sinful (because the Puritans saw women as just as sinful) and the need to use society to minimize vice (which the puritans took too far in the Cromwellian military dictatorship). It moves towards the heretical notion that we can develop a perfect society on this earth, at this time.

Men and women have always used substances to excess. We no longer ban alcohol — correctly. But we ban a whole pile of things the Victorians used frequently: opium, cocaine, marijuana (“Indian hemp” — legend has it that Queen Victoria used it for pain).

The problem with blaming it all on men, drunken men… is that it puts women on a pedestal from which they admire their virtue — instead of noting that they have their own vices that need just as much reformation. Looking at the picture of the hatchet wielding harridan, one suspects that pride and wrath were her sins of choice.

Me? I’d legalize the lot of them.

Prohibition is generally an error. the most frightening thing in the analysis put together by Gabby is that the temptation to (a) associate with women of the upper class (b) the ability to place oneself on a pedestal, is overwhelming. We have to watch ourselves, because it is when we are most self righteous that we harm each other the most.
Pragmatically, Regulation and taxation are simply more effective.

Ordain carefully, condemn more carefully.

Church discipline is not civil discipline.  This passage talks about how to monitor the performace of elders. At the level where you are ministering publicly, you need to both expect repentance if sin, but you need to demand proof.

1 Timothy 5:17-22 (23-25)

17 Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching; 18 for the scripture says, “You shall not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain,” and, “The laborer deserves to be paid.” 19Never accept any accusation against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses. 20 As for those who persist in sin, rebuke them in the presence of all, so that the rest also may stand in fear. 21 In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of the elect angels, I warn you to keep these instructions without prejudice, doing nothing on the basis of partiality. 22 Do not ordain anyone hastily, and do not participate in the sins of others; keep yourself pure.

23 No longer drink only water, but take a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments.

24 The sins of some people are conspicuous and precede them to judgment, while the sins of others follow them there. 25So also good works are conspicuous; and even when they are not, they cannot remain hidden.

Now, ordination to the position of an elder is something we should take very seriously. It is not a matter of popularitly, or having the correct balance of groups. I’d argue that the mode of life of this person is very important: they should truly be repentant and keeping close accounts of their flaws.

The Roman Church has argued that the best way to keep people disinterested and not engaging in factions is to not let them marry. That the priesthood should be celibate. And many saints of the church were.

Many still are.

But that is not the only means of leadership. The orthodox, protestants, and some Catholic rites have married priests. One of the tests of eldership is that the man involved can lead his wife and children: if he cannot lead those whom he loves how can he lead the church, which is full of irritable, broken, cross-grained people like me?

The other thing is that he is a bit older. His wife is a bit older. They have dealt with many of the issues of the day. (This is not to deny that young people cannot have a great ministry — but Paul tells timothy not to let them despise his youth for a reason).  His wife can teach and lead the younger women, and he can counsel the men, by word and example.

(As I am writing this, the economics of it became more apparent. In a working class  or slave church, you wait until a man’s back has gone and he cannot do physical labour, Then, if he is righteous and can teach, make him an elder and support him. This is speculation — but Paul set the age to enrollment in the widow’s roll (for support) at sixty, and advised widows under that to remarry. In the ancient times, if you made it to 60 as a manual labourer you were doing fairly well,)

Attached to this is that the elders should judge their own but not openly condemn until a person is flagrantly disregarding them and continuing in sin. Open declaration of faults removes the mantle or mana from that person.

As Ordination needs to be done carefullly, Condemnation needs to be done carefully. But it needs to be done.