As is noted in the collect i quoted earlier today, New Year’s Day is the day of our Lord’s circumcision. I find it very interesting that Christians universally (now) recognize Christ’s circumcision day as the first day of the year. There had been Christian nations that celebrated the Nativity (December 25) as the first day of the year, some celebrated the Annunciation (i.e., the conception) of Christ (March 25), but over time, one week after the Nativity became universally recognized as the first day of the year. Sure, January 1 was the first day of the New Roman Calendar (i.e., the Julian Calendar), the much more prevalent pagan practice was to celebrate the beginning of the year in March. So, the sometime Christian disagreement on what to recognize as the first day of the year shows that the subsequent agreement to mark the beginning of the year from 1 January was thoughtful.

So, why mark the beginning of the year from the day on which Christ’s circumcision was celebrate? It seems to me that, even if implicit or unintentional, there is something really Covenantal going on in such a celebration. Did Christ’s earthly life begin at December 25 (assuming that was the date on which he was actually born)? Not at all. It actually began nine months earlier, when he was conceived by the Holy Ghost in the Virgin’s womb. But his life as Savior, sanctifying the Law of God and redeeming those under the Law and those not under the Law by fulfilling the Law began when his flesh was cut, and he shed his blood for the first time. This is as Covenantal as you can get. Christ’s blood is the blood of the Covenant, and this was the beginning of his work that would culminate in the full and final sacrifice. This is because circumcision is the Covenantal dedication of that which is circumcized, recognizing that if part is dedicated to the Lord, then the whole thing is (cf., tithing, firstfruits, redemption of the firstborn, &c.), and it is also the binding of the one circumcized to fulfill the Covenant God has entered into with him, or else be cut off just the way the dedicated part of him was cut off—either way, he belongs wholly and only to the Lord of the Covenant, whether obedient or disobedience, for good or for bad, for salvation or condemnation. It is fitting, then, that the Christian calendar (i.e., Anno Domini) would begin, not with the birth, nor even with the conception, but with the Covenantal dedication of our Lord Christ.

This, of course, i believe, has strong implications on where we view the beginning of the Covenantal life of each individual Christian. Just as Christ’s life as Savior of the world began with his circumcision as a member of God’s Church, so our life under the Lordship of that same Christ begins with our baptism into membership in the Church (through which God accomplishes, as he so pleases, and at the time he chooses, the circumcision made without hands in our hearts). In other words, because we cannot know when the Spirit moves and does what he does in the hearts of individuals, we must treat people Covenantally, marking the beginning of their lives at the point of their baptism.

A new era in the history of the world began when Christ was circumcized, and so a new era of our own personal history in the world begins when we are baptized. That is where we should look when asked about the beginning of our new life. Everything else—even subsequent conversion and true embracing of Christ by faith—are all simply our coming to grips with the fact that we belong to the Lord, our Redeemer, and with what we have vowed to do in our baptism.

So, as this New Year begins, let us remember Christ’s circumcision and reflect upon the new life we have in him, looking also in fear, knowing that we may be cut off if we do not love him truly and sincerely as our faithful God and Savior.

This is an excellent question.

An even better question, i think, is this: if it only took 400 years for the Church (a very small minority of the population of the world at the time) to go from persecuted back rooms and catacombs to cathederals and an almost universal Christendom, what have we been doing for the last 400 years (since the time of the Reformation) that has seen the absolute decline of our culture and the Chrstian world at large?

As our Hobbit friend, David, shows us, there is a difference between the “strict Calvinist” position on the atonement and the balanced Calvinist position. It all comes down to the nature of imputation: whether the whole world’s sin was imputed to Christ and whether the sins of only the elect were imputed to Christ. Both believe in the sufficiency of Christ’s atonement for all men (hypothetically in the case of the latter, but still), and both believe that only the elect will be saved, but only one can be the true and consistent basis for an offer of salvation for all men. The question is, in reality, one of logic much more than Scripture (and if you’ve ever embraced Calvinism because of “Owen’s Dilemma,” you probably already know that; Owen held to the latter schema).

I find it interesting that Dabney was so keen to show that Arminian objections to Calvinism were well-founded and that biblical Calvinists could and should be moved by the arguments that our Arminian brothers offer to us from Scripture. He certainly wasn’t from the Owen School of Calvinism, which sought, by hook or by crook, to rebuff the Arminian argument with decretalist rejoinders. Dabney, like Hodge, Edwards, Shedd, and many others, didn’t default to God’s decrees to explain everything about Christ’s sacrifice, the free offer, and what Scripture so plainly states. We need to recapture that balance as Reformed Christians, because, if we don’t, we’ll quickly become obsolete in the whole realm of Christendom.

I’ve had some discussion of late about the War for Southern Independence, AKA the War of Northern Aggression, and its true causes. As i have said, i completely sympathize with those who wished to abolish slavery in the United States for moral reasons. However, as i have also repeatedly stated, that’s not the issue that was of primary importance in the so-called “Civil War.” Of course, the issues were always political, not moral; they were economic, with the economics of taxes and labor in general (and with slavery as only one small aspect of those) being the main driving force.

In Thomas DiLorenzo’s book, Lincoln Unmasked, the veil is pulled back on Lincoln as the driving force behind the push for war back in the 1860s. The book shows that his push for war could never have been a principled opposition to the Southern people who just wouldn’t give up their slaves, but rather his threat to invade and attack states in the Union (and their citizens) was in order to retain control over revenues from Southern states who protested exorbitant import and export duties that Washington was trying to foist upon them. Here’s a review and summary of the book that gives some tid-bits.

Truth is, when you lay it all out, from the suspension of habeas corpus to the warmongering for deceitful motives, George Bush is, as many Neo-Cons have claimed, indeed following in Lincoln’s footsteps.

Garrett Craw from The Craw offered some friendly criticism about what he called “the Southern thang” and how it was “just way too emotional.” I understand completely how this looks to people outside of the South, and i fully bow to God’s sovereign will in keeping the United States an intact nation—so far. :-/  I’m sure, though, that as an Asian American, Garrett can understand what it is like to be pigeonholed about one’s culture and also what it is like to identify with it and be zealous to keep its rich heritage and traditions (the good ones!) alive. That’s certainly what i seek to do as a Southron, but please do understand that, other than the fact that i currently serve in the PCA, i have no allegiance to the Southern Presbyterian Church in any wise.

I must say, though, that i agree with Garrett totally about the inconsistency of the Southern Presbyterianism. It is a sad fact that they did not live up to the Covenantal principles of Presbyterianism by baptizing and teaching all of those who were either born or purchased into their household, as God’s command was to Abraham. This was, no doubt, due to a terrible inconsistency in Southern Presbyterians about even how to treat their own children (Thornwell was, himself, a perpetrator of what we commonly call today “vipers in Covenant diapers” view).

Beyond even Southern Presbyterianism, i can say without qualification that there was very much lacking in Southern treatment of slaves in general (even if there were many Christians who sought to treat their slaves well and disciple them, which there were). There was much abuse, degradation, and inherent subjugation. Indeed, blacks weren’t viewed even as a subjugated social class within the society at large; they were, by and large, viewed as beasts and property with as many rights. As i said, i believe this had much more to do with a woeful and horrendous view of blacks as a race (i.e., whites viewed them as inherently inferior and inhuman), and not with anything to do with the inherent evil of slavery (i’m not a strict Theonomist, but i agree with R.J. Rushdoony on the issue of slavery, though not necessarily his view of Negro slavery).

But even in spite of all the bad we could dredge up about American slavery (we need to remind ourselves that not only Southrons owned slaves), we can find a few bright spots. I always think of the happy exception that produced the first black elders of the Southern Presbyterian Church (seven of them) in 1869; he was, i believe, the bright spots of the Old School Southern Church: John Girardeau. He pastored a mixed (predominantly black, but with white members) congregation in Charleston (incidentally, in Zion Presbyterian Church, the whites were the ones typically who sat in the balcony, though, it was very common to have whites and blacks integrated in the church).

I love the passion of such a man to make blacks and whites equal in the Kingdom of God–and he was a student of Thornwell! It is said that he had a certain preaching style: extemporaneous; preaching directly from the Greek/Hebrew text; and with his own emotional style, mimicking the Gullah style of story-telling and speech he had grown up around, (he believed it helped the slaves and freed blacks to understand his messages when he gave not only a verbal but also an emotive message in his sermons). Here’s what the PCA historical summary of him (linked above) says about his ministry in Charleston:

In 1858/59 the Anson Street Mission experienced a marvelous revival and in April 1859 they moved into a new building at the prestigious and prime intersection of Meeting and Calhoun Streets. The black membership was given the privilege of naming their church (which was particularized in 1858) and they chose “Zion.” Zion Presbyterian Church became famous for Girardeau’s preaching—he was called “the Spurgeon of America”—, but it was also noteworthy for its diaconal ministry in the community, catechetical training of hundreds in the city, sewing clubs for the women, and missionary activity. The outreach and influence of Zion was of such public notoriety that Girardeau and the session were often criticized and sometimes physically threatened. For example, the catechetical training and teaching of hymns and psalms was so effective that some Charlestonians believed Girardeau was teaching the slaves to read for themselves (which was contrary to state law).  

Girardeau was a strong advocate for Puritan-style worship (i.e., stark liturgy, no accompaniment, psalms only), so i can’t say that i agree with him on everything. I’m sure he wasn’t far away from Thornwell when it came to ecclesiology either. However, he was worlds away from Thornwell and Dabney on the place of blacks in American society and especially in the Church, and he made a big deal about it all over the place. Was he opposed to slavery? Not at all, apparently—not even of race-based slavery, which i believe to be reprehensible. And yet, he was a Christian man who lived out the Gospel principles as they applied to social conventions about race in the face of many even of his own Church who had little, if any, understanding about how King Jesus has changed the world in which we live, and we need to live in light of that Kingdom, and not of the dying city of man all around us. It is that kind of Southron that i want to be.

It is not, fundamentally, a revision of history to note the oft-overlooked issues surrounding the War of Northern Aggression (in case you’re wondering, we really do call it that in normal, everyday conversation). More importantly, there shouldn’t be anything wrong with my remembering and touting my culture for what it was, warts and all. We can and must move forward into the future, but i don’t want to forget the past, and i won’t, as far as i have anything to do with it, let anyone else do their own version of revisionist history with the Southern cause. But as i move forward, i want to live out the kind of exceptional life that Girardeau did, even while remaining close friends with the likes of Dabney and Thornwell.

Some of you may be familiar with the term “The War of Northern Aggression” to refer to the so-called “Civil War.” Those of Southron heritage have long used that term to describe what they saw as over-extended Federalist power to strong-arm the sovereign states into bowing before the assumed authority of the Federal Government. (This eerily shadows the growth and ascendency of the power of a centralized Western Church under the authority of a single monarch in the person of the Bishop of Rome, who claimed to be the head of the Church on earth in Christ’s place, displacing and undermining all of the rights and claims of all other regional church governments through local bishops and elders.)

Democrat Thomas Jefferson had much to say against that kind of Federalism, but even the Democrat Andrew Jackson was corrupted by its enticements to think that he could control the fortunes of all of the states in the Union by sheer force of power from the Federal government—and his great political move was to convince the great majority of the populace that he was actually protecting and standing for the people instead of stealing away their liberties, which is precisely what he did. His progeny are seen in the Democrat Party of the modern day, who claim to stand for individual liberties and freedoms for the people, but who steal away that liberty more and more every year by government control, oversight, and regulation. Of course, the freedoms that Jefferson advocated, which he referred to as “republican” virtues, aren’t well protected by the vast majority of modern day Republicans either; they don’t seem to have any kind of warriness toward governmnetal power, but are happy, like Jackson, to advocate just as much that kind of centralized power, just for a different political purpose (it was not without cause that the Republican Party became associated in the popular psyche with rich and powerful business interests).

Gene Healy wrote an article a while back that i had never read until i saw it linked on the Borg Blog. It was a great piece showing how the traditional “republican” (with a small “R”) or classical liberal view of states’ rights was, at one time, a check on Federalist aggrandizement of power. He reminds us of what traditional Southron folks have long sought to emphasize: that the War of Northern Aggression was called that, not because the North wanted to “force” the South to free all its slaves (a relatively minor, but still important, cause of the War for Southern Independence—but only one that came into the fore of the national mind when Lincoln, capitalizing on the abolitionist tendencies of New England, made it a political hot-button), but because the North had its mind to force the South, with its “nullification” mindset, to bow to the Federal will and be the cash-cow for Yankee industrialists bent on using the Federal power to grow the industry of the North and Mid-Atlantic by breaking the backs of the Southern citizenry with immensely burdensome and inequitable taxation.

In our day, we have no less that kind of Federalist grab for power. (Maybe “grab” is a bad word, since it implies that they don’t have it and are trying to get it; “lust” may be a better word, because, acknowledging our Federal Government today does indeed have that power to wield as it wills, they still seek to place more of the rights of the several states and of the people under the ginormous thumb of the hand of an Old-Glory-clad Uncle Sam pointing to us and telling us that he wants us.) However, in our day there is no check against that Federalist hunger for greater power. Since the stamping out of independence-seeking Southerners, Federal power has grown almost unchecked over the last 150 years. No longer does that monster of political power need explicit Constitutional authority to act (cf., the Ninth and Tenth Amendments of the US Constitution), it can act with full authority to do anything, by any means, to ensure what it alone sees as a benefit of the people, even over against the protestations of the states that make up our Union (cf., the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution). A couple of symptoms of this kind of Federalism are also seen in Amendments to the US Constitution: the Sixteenth Amendment, giving the Federal Government ownership over all income of its citizens (because if the government can tell you how much of your income you can keep, that means that they own it all); and the Seventeenth Amendment, which circumvents a check on Federal authority that the framers saw fit to include in the original Constitution, namely the appointment by the State or Commonwealth Legislatures of the Senators in the upper house of the Federal Legislature, replacing it with direct election of Senators by the people, completely cutting states out of any check on Federalist assumption of power. Now that the “Civil War” has shown that the states actually have no right to question Federal claims, what can we do but submit to the continued interposition of government regulation and intervention into our everyday lives? What option do we have? The War of Northern Aggression succeeded; the greatest fears of all our ancestors that fought and died to secure liberty against centralized governmental power that thought that it could impose its will upon all people, regardless of what say they had in the matter (i.e., King George III, against whom we fought for our original independence), has now come true.

Most of you know that, theologically, Thornwell and i aren’t exactly on the same page. However, in this case, i couldn’t agree with him more. He preached in a sermon entited “Our Danger and Our Duty“:

We are fully persuaded that the triumph of the North in the present conflict will be as disastrous to the hopes of mankind as to our own fortunes. They are now fighting the battle of despotism. They have put their Constitution under their feet; they have annulled its most sacred provisions; and in defiance of its solemn guaranties they are now engaged, in the halls of Congress, in discussing and maturing bills which make Northern notions of necessity the paramount laws of the land. The avowed end of the present war is, to make the Government a government of force. It is to settle the principle, that whatever may be its corruptions and abuses, however unjust and tyrannical its legislation, there is no redress, except in vain petition or empty remonstrance. It was as a protest against this principle, which sweeps away the last security for liberty, that Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Missouri seceded, and if the Government should be reëstablished, it must be reëstablished with this feature of remorseless despotism firmly and indelibly fixed. The future fortunes of our children, and of this continent, would then be determined by a tyranny which has no parallel in history.

We have that kind of despotism and tyranny today in the United States Government. It is a government that will do anything, attack anyone, demand any money, punish any citizen, and invade any nation to establish its own notion of well-being—and not even the well-being of its citizens as a whole, but the well-being of a certain sub-set of the population that the Federal Governmend deems favored for whatever reason. The only answer to this kind of absolute abuse of power is for the people to rise up and stand against it. We must not allow ourselves to be allured by the promise of some small benefit over some small hardship—a hardship which, most likely, the government herself caused by her own abuses—, but we should be willing to stand together, and to stand against government abuse. The whole point of having a written document that charters our government is to have set limits and protections against the power granted to it. Why ignore it? Why not demand that our government conform to the supreme law of the land? Why not elect a president, senators, and representatives who will return to us the freedom and liberty that the Constitution itself guarantees to us? Until we do that, we will continue to have a monster at the helm of our national ship. We will go where that monster drives us and we will have no say in it one way or the other, except to bow to that monstrous King, who has, like Napoleon and like all of the Bishops of Rome, crowned himself with usurped power that belongs to someone else.

My prayer is that my children and grandchildren will be freer than i am today because i and all of my fellow Americans throughout the several states will stand up against the tyranny of the warmongering taxmasters on the dole of all the special interests so that our government will, once again, be a government for the people and by the people.