Let me explain.

• (Unless otherwise noted the quotes that follow are taken from A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing, at Spurgeon.org; and Charles G. Finney: How Theology Effects Understanding of Revival, at The Highway. But they are widely available elsewhere, with a caveat: revisionist work on Finney is rampant; many of his more egregious statements have been redacted; and his doctrinal positions modified, postmortem.)

"You see why you do not have a revival," stated the self-assured, egotistical Finney in his 1835 Lectures on Revival. "It is only because you do not want one; because you are neither praying for it, nor feeling anxious about it, nor putting forth efforts for it."

Finney concluded, "God has put the Spirit at your disposal. If the Church will do all her duty, the millennium may come in this country in three years [i.e., 1838?]. . . If the Church would do all her duty, she would soon complete the triumph of religion in the world."

Assessing Finney’s ministry, Billy Graham concluded that Finney near single handedly produced "one of the greatest periods of revival in the history of America."

Yet, instead of either the millennium or "triumph of religion in the world" following Finney, on the heels of his "revivals" America plunged into civil war. Giving Finney the benefit of the doubt—he may have been off a few years on dating the millennium—his revival methods, combined into a brand new evangelical medium, were applied diligently over the next 150 years by a spate of evangelists from D. L. Moody to L. S. Chafer to Billy Sunday to Billy Graham, with Phoebe Palmer and "all on the altar" squeezed between. Yet, instead of heralding a belated millennium, there followed the bloodiest, costliest, and most disastrous century in human history.

Billy Graham, of course, came along after the Great War to End All Wars (WWI), The Depression, WWII, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki; but he was right there with every President from Truman to Bush—including proudly Nixon—for Korea, Viet Nam, Gulf War I, and the War on Terror, including 9/11, Afghanistan and Iraq. And after applying all the new methods proposed by Finney, at the close of Graham’s gargantuan efforts odds still favor Iran getting The Bomb, Radical Islam winning the War on Terror, everyday Islam triumphing in religion, and Sharia law running the millennium.

Revival, where art thou? As it turns out, promising revival, Finney had pronounced judgment on the entire evangelical movement. Promising life, his new methods worked death. The message of his McLuhan’ medium, then, was, "Evangelicalism is sure to self-destruct!" It has. All signs say we are now in a post evangelical age.

What happened? And what does the future hold in store because of what happened? Well, ask Grandpa…

But before we get to that...

Grandpa worked in the mail room for the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy (CB&Q) out of Union Station in Chicago during the heyday of U.S. mail by rail service. It also happened to be the heyday of U.S. Pentecostal revivalism.

Today’s varied Pentecostal phenomena began as a trickle of "other tongues" bubbling up and out of Charlie Parham’s Bethel Bible College in Topeka, Kansas, in 1901. In 1906 it spread to Los Angeles, California, where in true latter rain fashion glory poured down on Azusa Street so heavily that it burst forth like a deluge defying undersized LA storm drains. From there the phenomena flooded the world with a modern Pentecost.

Not surprisingly, much of it flowed back to the Midwest where in 1914 in Hot Springs, Arkansas, a group of adherents moved to gather into a common flow compatible, positive streams of the movement. They formed the General Council of the Assemblies of God—or simply, the AG, as it came to be known.

While Pentecostal associations had formed earlier, the AG gathered around classical Reformed views of the trinity, Christology, justification, and sanctification. This distinguished them from Pentecostals adhering to Unitarian modalism (Jesus only), on the one hand, and Wesleyan perfectionism (total sanctification), on the other.

In short, in fact AG-type Pentecostals in theory, anyway, were neither restorationist nor holiness; at the outset they could embrace church history and trace their roots through Calvin and Luther to Aquinas, Augustine and St. Paul, even if more than a few would have hated to admit it.

Grandpa encountered AG-type Pentecostals while working in the CB&Q mailroom in the late 1920s, but cared little about AG roots. He cared more about my Dad’s endorsement of what the AG stood for. My Dad was the guy who had married Grandpa’s oldest daughter. Tracing his own religious roots to an encounter with an on-fire Salvation Army group while serving in WWI, Dad insisted that the family get acquainted with what was happening in churches like Crystal Street Assembly of God in Elgin, outside of Chicago.

Grandpa got acquainted; but his personal conversion to Pentecost came in the gravel pit down behind the barn a good jog down the hill from the house. There he was baptized in the Spirit in Pentecostal fashion and started preaching a night or two weekly at the Union Mission not far from Union Station. Long known by fellow workers in the CB&Q mailroom as "Rosie" after the family surname Rosenquist, he soon became known as "Holy Roller Rosie" for his open testimony and mission preaching. You might say the CB&Q mailroom caught on fire without singeing so much as a stamp!

At its peak in the 1930s more than 10,000 trains crisscrossed the U.S. carrying mail, much of it on the CB&Q. The CB&Q would evolve into the Burlington Northern and become one of the nation’s largest railroads. But mail by rail declined with passenger service until in 1977 it went the way of the Pony Express. To the contrary, the Pentecostal revival matured, expanded, and with an influx of denominational folk following the charismatic insurgency of the 1960s, Pentecostals went Mainstream.

Long before this, however, Grandpa had traded his Chicago Union Station postmark and part time mission preaching for a fulltime Bible, travel trailer, and a tent. It happened that he was floored one day by a heart attack. As a doctor and others tried to revive him he says that he visited heaven. Like St. Paul "he was caught up into Paradise. He heard inexpressible things that man is not permitted to tell" (2 Corinthians 12:4). But restored to this world, grandpa spent the rest of his life trying his best to tell. Released by the CB&Q on an early disability pension, and ordained by the AG, he hitched the trailer to the family Studebaker and set out to preach the gospel wherever he could set up the tent. He filled it as best he could with folk gathered from hither and yon in the out-of-way places to which he, grandma, and the younger children traveled.

The kids delivered music in song, along with accordion, piano, trombone and guitar; Grandpa preached; Grandma supervised. Later, following my father’s untimely death, my mother and I would join them for a time; and along with singing once in awhile, I got to help set up and take down the tent.

What I remember about those days was the clear gospel preached by Grandpa, against the backdrop of his Pentecostal testimony, and the total absence of Holy Roller hype—Grandpa disdained Finney’s "new methods," even though many Pentecostals were using them. Whatever grandpa’s experience of heaven, he had his feet firmly planted on earth and his gospel deeply in the Bible. There was not a hint of Finney’s "other gospel" tainted by manipulating emotions with charismatic kookiness. In all the places traveled to, and the many, many Pentecostal churches visited, not one person responding to grandpa’s altar calls ever coughed up a demon, spit out a devil, rolled on the floor, or shook until hairpins fell out; nor did one get saved under pressure. While there were those who spoke in tongues, or had an encouraging, uplifting prophecy or two, and while from time to time we heard testimonies of healing, what was missing was everything out of order and untoward. Decency and in order were the orders.

Grandma saw to it.

A skeptic by nature, Grandma followed Grandpa into Pentecost reluctantly. You see, Grandma was a very formal Presbyterian, and resisted my Dad’s overtures to "come and see what’s happening at Crystal Street AG!" It was not until Grandpa’s heart attack when the doc could not find a pulse that Grandma really prayed in a way beyond blessing the food at mealtimes and repeating liturgical formalities. But if prim and proper, Grandma was a take charge lady at heart. When the doc said, "I can’t find a pulse," Grandma took charge of prayer and put Pentecostals at hand to shame. But they didn’t mind. Well into her prayer Grandma began to speak in a language she had never learned. She was still speaking that strange tongue when the doc announced Grandpa had a pulse; but so intent was Grandma on her praying that she paid the doc no mind.

Only when Grandpa spoke up in plain English did Grandma take notice.

Ever after Grandma was convinced that such things were the sovereign work of God, not the working up of men. You couldn’t just evoke extraordinary experiences and special visitations at will, she insisted; so it wasn’t enough to "go see" the latest spectacle at the church down the street, even if it was AG endorsed by my Dad. It needed to be God, and Grandma needed to know that in her own heart and in agreement with her Presbyterian upbringing. If these "outpourings" were true charismata, actual expressions of God’s grace for extraordinary times, then to Grandma they were not playthings given as past times. The Bible made this clear, she and Grandpa agreed. So Grandma watched for gimmickry and manipulation.

There was enough of it around, but not in Grandpa’s meetings. This may have been why he remained mostly unnoticed, navigating the backwaters of the revival circuit. He had as exciting a testimony as any around; but he shared it simply and quietly and let it work as God willed. Grandpa did not promote Pentecostal phenomena; he preached Jesus.

In any case, the gimmickry you did see—demons coughed up and captured in bottles; pictures of fire claiming to be Moses’ burning bush duplicated; braces and crutches propped around the platform as if cast off by cripples having been healed, but there always more props than people claiming to have been healed; etc.—did not come prepackaged with the Pentecostal phenomena. Where they were so packaged, you could be sure Finney’s "new methods" carried to logical extremes were at work; that is, the charismata were always stuffed twisted, crooked, and forced out of shape into the gimmickry by man not God. In other words, it was the deliberate application of forced Finney-emotional-marketing-methodology to the charismata that too often turned real Pentecostal revival into charismatic kookiness.

So when Dr. Michael Horton states, "Finney became the father of the antecedents to some of today’s greatest challenges within evangelical churches, namely, the church growth movement, Pentecostalism and political revivalism," he commits what N. T. Wright would call a fundamental "category error." He mixes apples with oranges. Finney did not father Pentecostalism; he fathered applied evangelical humanism, the methods of which some Pentecostals, like other evangelicals, may ill-advisedly employ.

Indeed, Finney certainly is the father of modern evangelical revivalism, including especially Billy Graham’s crusade methodology: revivalism based on psychology and marketing methods intended to manipulate a mass audience emotionally so as to produce immediate, visible results. It follows as stats show that the results do not last; this was the hallmark of Finney revivalism that few want to chat about over a cup of tea and crumpets: few upper New York pastors wanted Finney back after he had been through their districts. One man described his preaching as "like a cannon ball shot through a basket of eggs." Finney did not just persuade; he decimated an audience and dragged worn-out, tired, overwhelmed, emotionally drained, reluctant, put-upon victims to his altars. The difference between Finney and Saladin is that Finney disguised his sword.

One astute commentator wryly notes, "Given Finney’s exalted status in modern evangelicalism, one can only hope that his theological views are not well known by those who honor him so highly. Otherwise, we have no choice but to conclude that many important Christian leaders truly believe that even the most serious doctrinal error (actually, a denial of the core of the gospel itself) does not matter as long as the outward results are impressive."

Finney himself wrote, "There is nothing in religion beyond the ordinary powers of nature. It consists entirely in the right exercise of the powers of nature. It is just that and nothing else. When [men] become religious, they are not enabled to put forth exertions which they were before unable to put forth. They only exert the powers they had before in a different way and use them for the glory of God."

This puts Finney as far from authentic Pentecostalism as a flea from Grandma’s puppy that just came from the groomers. Fleas and hounds may get along but fleas and Grandma’s poodle never did. Grandma saw to that. If others do not, that does not make Grandma’s pooch a fleabag. Finney introduced humanism not to Pentecostalism but to the practice of evangelical religion, en masse, including modern mass evangelism, church growth, and the like. If certain Pentecostals get caught up in the practice of humanism it is no different than Baptist Graham falling into the mix; Graham does not pull all Baptists into the stew with him, nor do Pentecostal film-flam artists, or just everyday ordinary works-oriented tongue-talkers pull Grandma, Grandpa, and their heirs in with them.

Mr. Finney, meet Grandpa; then get on your knees if you can wherever you might be, and, if it were possible, pray, repent, and get right with God; you’re in the pot with the rest of the arrogant, self-assured, self-help lot, but not with Grandpa, Grandma, or me.

There is a great wringing-out ground that we will all pass through one day, Finney included, and I do not mean the wringer on Grandma’s old washer. Paul warns,

• "For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire" (1 Corinthians 3:11-15 ESV).

This tells us where Finney went wrong, and Grandpa didn’t. Paul asserted you must build on Jesus as Messiah (anointed one, Gr. Christ), the Savior who reconciles Jew and Gentile to God and each other in one family. Grandpa preached this even as he sang from time to time that the debt we owe is "too high, you can’t get over it, too low, you can’t get under it, too wide, you can’t get around it—you gotta’ come in at the door!" You must be reconciled to God through Jesus who is the door as well as the way, the truth and the life! Finney believed otherwise; Jesus was not Christ, the Messiah, Savior. To Finney, Christ might as well have been Jesus’ surname; he completely missed the point of Jesus as Savior; he asserted that Jesus died merely as the Great Example, but not for the sins of Grandpa, Grandma, you or me; that was not necessary, Finney insisted. Man can save himself. Christ died to inspire us to do so.

So you tell me who between Grandpa and Finney built with the gold, silver, and precious stones, and who with the wood, hay, and straw. Mr. Finney, meet Grandpa; if you made it to where he is, you can chat a bit; but be sure to ask Jesus directly about why he died.

Consider that Grandpa experienced Pentecost in a gravel pit; gravel pit aside, likewise Finney says he experienced "a mighty baptism of the Holy Ghost…like a wave of electricity going through and through me...[it] seemed to come in waves of liquid love."

And Graham assures us that "Through his Spirit-filled ministry, uncounted thousands came to know Christ in the nineteenth century, resulting in one of the greatest periods of revival in the history of America." So, must have been God…?

Consider also that Horton points out that following his mighty baptism Finney bypassed seminary and "began conducting revivals in upstate New York. One of his most popular sermons was, ‘Sinners Bound to Change Their Own Hearts.’" Grandpa, too, bypassed seminary but insisted only a miracle of God could change a sinner’s heart.

Further, if Finney’s preaching decimated his hearers like "a cannonball though a basket of eggs," his message decimated the gospel. Described as "stubborn, arrogant—and sometimes even a bit devious," Finney had as little respect for the integrity of the gospel as for his own pastor and other ministers whom he ridiculed. Grandpa had deep respect for his brothers in ministry and ridiculed no one because he respected the gospel out of reverence for the Lord Jesus whom he loved and served.

So whatever the validity of Finney’s personal experience of a "mighty baptism," the integrity of the gospel—what it is in itself—must measure his message; and whatever the apparent results of his message, the integrity of the gospel must also measure his ministry. Finney came up short on both points. It follows that Finney’s experience, message, and ministry are the measure of nothing, least of all Pentecostalism. Horton is just plain wrong.

Indeed, Horton’s category error flows out of a sincere desire to uphold the integrity of the gospel over against Finney’s crass humanism. But for this reason Horton must compare one’s claim of a spiritual experience, whether made by a Pentecostal, evangelical, or Calvinist, to the Scripture, not to Reformed tradition as if the tradition had the status of inspired Holy Writ; so when a neo-Calvinist claims—as one did straight-faced to me—that Paul was the first Calvinist, we have on the table another fundamental category error, and merely see what things look like on their head, with tradition upending what Paul actually said by making the earthly-grown Reformed orange equal to the divinely-inspired Pauline apple. This category error leads to several others including the foundational error that blinds too many Reformed folk to the valid scriptural basis for Pentecostal claims.

A cornerstone claim of Reformed tradition is that God imputes to the believer Jesus’ positive keeping of the Law as the believer’s source of righteousness; this is rather than God crediting to the believer Jesus’ total obedience unto death as if it were the believer’s death. Yet, the latter is what Paul asserts: "We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him" (Romans 6:6-8 ESV).

Paul is not talking here about sanctification as opposed to justification; he will get to sanctification soon enough in Romans 7; rather, in Romans 6 he is continuing the discussion of justification by faith opening chapter 5 with "Therefore being justified by faith we have peace with God…," continuing with "Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood…"(Romans 5:1, 9). In Romans 6, then, he is clarifying the foundation upon which we have been justified, "his blood," Christ’s death and resurrection being imputed to us: "we have been united with him," (6:5). If this is not clear enough, observe that Paul appeals to the meaning inherent in the believer’s sacramental baptism, a public confession by the believer and affirmation by the church that the believer has been justified by Christ’s death.

Thus, the Reformed claim of what has been imputed is a fundamental category error: while Reformed tradition rightly exults in a reservoir of righteousness available to the believer, it mistakenly supposes it consists of Jesus’ sinless earthly life; this is to invert Jesus’ earthly life before death with his resurrection life subsequent to death; and thus the natural man with the spiritual, Jesus’ perishable body (he died) with his imperishable body (he lives forever; see 1 Corinthians 15); finally, it is to invert an abstract concept of imputation with the existential reality of impartation of life and Holy Spirit empowerment. We have no real existential access to Jesus’ earthy life; it is gone forever, poured out in his blood; it can only exist as a historical memory, or as in the Reformed tradition, an ideological theory. We have real existential access only to Jesus’ resurrection life rising out of his blood from the grave to exist unto God forevermore. Thus, to claim imputation of Jesus’ earthy life as the sine qua non of justification is make redundant at best, and vestigial at worse, the actual power of justification: the imputation of Jesus’ obedience unto death and subsequent resurrection life. In practice, this is to remove from one’s field of vision, as if putting on blinders, and from one’s range of experience, as if putting on a straight jacket, the presence of resurrection life clothing the believer in Christ’s righteousness (we are "in Christ") and infilling the believer by the Holy Spirit with power from on high—in new birth overflowing into a "mighty baptism" in the Holy Spirit. Thus, it is to render the church powerless, abandoned to Finney-type marketing methods and psychological manipulation leading to the ashes of a post-evangelical world.

To the contray, Paul insists that God imputes to the believer, not Jesus’ earthly obedience, but the infinite value of his obedience unto death in order that the resurrection life of Jesus may be imparted to the believer as life unto God forevermore. "We know," Paul writes, "that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus" (Romans 6:9-11 ESV). Here Paul launches a discourse culminating in his grand declaration of victory through life in the Spirit in Romans 8: "he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you…for all who are led by the Spirit of God, are sons of God." Thus, through the gracious vindication of the believer by the cross and the regeneration of the believer in the resurrection we "have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, Abba! Father! The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God…Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God" (Romans 8:14-16, 26, 27 ESV). Here then is all of the righteousness of Christ given to us with the resource of the resurrection power of the Holy Spirit to live it out.

So in the face of Finney’s claims, there is something "in religion beyond the ordinary powers of nature." There is the power of the Holy Spirit enabling us to serve, Grandpa would say, leaving the saving to God, not Finney’s new methods, whether applied by Graham or an angel from heaven.

This serving in the power of the Spirit in no way reflects Finney, or any sort of works righteousness. Rather, it is Christ living in and through us as Paul asserts. If Finney got it wrong—plunging generations of evangelicals into a desperate race with demons of their own making—leading voices in Pentecostalism do not. The wiser ones had Finney figured out long ago and sent him off to chase after those who mistake ego for God’s voice, ambition for his call, personality for his gifts, and marketing psychology for his anointing.

Listening to, watching, and working with Grandpa set the course leading me to this conclusion, now a deeply held conviction. One could only wish that Finney had had just such a Grandpa, too.

As for the future of the faith, it belongs to no "ism," envagelical or Pentecostal. It belongs to followers of Jesus who will take Grandpa’s advice to heart. Leave saving the world to God; let’s serve. If we will be faithful in our God-given task of living out fully what it means to be servants of the Lord Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit, God will do the rest. The future belongs to us because it belongs to Jesus our Lord.

To reference producers comments on video, see Emma the Angel

Doing church growing up was a fairly straightforward affair: prayer meetings, Bible studies, and memorizing Scripture at home; mid-week church, Sunday school, and church on Sundays. I cannot remember not being in church; and also cannot remember not knowing the gospel.

We were Pentecostal to the core; Assemblies of God, to be exact. My buddy down the street was Baptist—thoroughly so. His Dad was a Baptist lay-minister. But other than him being allowed movie shows and me not, our church stuff meshed nicely. Probably this was because without making any big deal of it, we shared the same gospel. He read John 3:16 as did I. That was enough. I cannot remember that his eternal security or my charismata were ever mentioned—they probably were; but not in a serious enough way to be memorable. Of course, I had not at that point met Emma.

Given these roots, over a lifetime I never fell out with the Baptists over the gospel. Baptists I know hold tightly to biblical traditions covered with gray hair: their doctrine’s been around for awhile; and despite squabbles, little gets shifted as to gospel essentials. So too, Assemblies of God-style Pentecostalism has its roots in a strong gospel tradition stemming from Calvin. Early on this set the denomination apart from certain precursors to Pentecostalism not nearly as concerned with the integrity of the gospel as with other matters. In a similar way, today this strong gospel tradition sets mainstream Pentecostalism apart from a many-faceted, late-born epilogue to the movement that includes wild offshoots sprouting like weeds in a garden—and Emma; let us not forget Emma.

The precursors went their way but are still around; the epilogue’s wild offshoots keep sprouting. Together, precursors and offshoots have had a profound affect on how we view the gospel, and Emma the angel has had no small part in this. This being so, Emma matters to all to whom the integrity of the gospel matters. You can be sure, then, that Emma matters to Jesus.

Let me tell you why.

The precursors reach back to John Wesley, who was perhaps far more Arminian than Arminius; he was the master marketer of Arminianism, anyway; and semi-Pelagian to the core. But the precursors come forward though Charles G. Finney, who elevated Wesleyan views from mere step-child status into a full-blown Pelagian twin. If Wesley believed sinners were drowning but could grasp a life preserver, Finney insisted they need only swim for shore. God agrees with neither. He directs the gospel only to those who have already drowned. Owning up to this in part (as evidenced later by men like Lewis Sperry Chafer who endorsed Calvin), but fascinated with Finney’s on-demand revivalism, the "all on the altar," not-quite-second-blessing movement was born. Remembered as the so-called Keswick higher-life movement, it developed in two directions: on the one hand, it shaped full-blown second-blessing Pentecostalism cleaving the born again experience from the baptism of the Holy Spirit; on the other, it morphed into not-quite-second-blessing dispensationalism cleaving Jesus as Savior from Jesus as Lord. As expounded by Chafer, Jesus becomes your savior sovereignly, but only you can make him Lord. Chafer clarified this in his classic, He That Is Spiritual (See also reference above on Keswick, and this review of Chafer, Must Christ be Lord to be Savior? NO) This Chaferian emphasis seems to serve two purposes: first, it preserves the "all on the altar" higher-life flavor of Keswick while dispensing with distasteful (to some) second blessing theology; then, too, it allows evangelicals to hold serious-minded, stodgily-solid, gray-beard Father Calvin by one hand and fanciful, colorful, dynamic, inventive, persuasive, marketable Uncle Finney by the other. And it carves out a place ever so nicely, if not intentionally, for Emma as the eminently marketable guide watching over a kind of schizoid, psychic Christianity.

Thus, in brief, such were the precursors. As for the epilogue, the late-born offshoots have come primarily in two phases: first, Latter Rain, ca 1945 sparked by William H. Branham; and second, Charismatics, ca 1960 inspired by Episcopal Rector Dennis Bennett. We consider them in reverse order.

The Charismatics emerged front and center when Dennis Bennett an Episcopal priest at Saint Luke’s Parish in Van Nuys, California, announced to his church that he had spoken and would continue to speak in tongues. Bennett addressed the Pentecostal Fellowship of Greater Los Angeles shortly after his experience. In that message, he was as solidly in the Bible and honoring of the gospel as any Pentecostal or Baptist I have ever heard. It does not follow, of course, that Charismatics after him have always been as solid gospel-wise; but many of them drifted into Assemblies of God and other like-minded churches. In fact, they went where welcomed and today, "charismatic" is a benign-enough term to apply even to Calvinist John Piper’s Bethlehem Baptist Church. For the most part, Charismatics have been embraced by the larger evangelical milieu.

Such is not the case of the earlier Latter Rain. Decades before the Charismatics came along independent-minded Pentecostals had already spawned the lesser-known latter rain movement which is seldom quiet, loudly dismissive of tradition always, separatist in spirit, and would no more drift into an Assemblies of God-type Pentecostal or an un-Pentecostal-type Baptist church then they would wait around for sound biblical exegesis. PFA (pull from air?) prophecy is much more exciting. Besides, Emma gets to tag along; and from a Latter Rain perspective, Emma and others of her breed are key to a whole new gospel revolution. Jesus, it seems, they have had enough of. Ah, say, Jesus, got a moment? Meet Emma. She may know your Momma, so don’t feel bad when she says, "Move over...." It’s kind of in the family...?

Some date the movement to a revival in a Canadian Bible School in 1948; the Assemblies of God rejected the movement in 1949; but in fact the touchstone of the Latter Rain especially as it affects American evangelicalism today was William H. Branham’s healing revivals already underway in 1941; he published his seminal tract, "I Was Not Disobedient Unto the Heavenly Vision" in 1945; and claimed The Angel—Emma’s main man, apparently—visited him in 1946; Branham’s "angel" has formed a core of the movement’s claims regarding frequent "outpourings" from that point forward, including the touted Toronto, Canada, revival and the most recent event in Lakeland, Florida.

More on the above ahead; here we note that these offshoots of my side of the aisle, along with the precursors to my side of the aisle (I am letting my Baptist buddy off the hook), have profoundly affected how we do church today; and it is just no longer the case that I and my Baptist buddy can agree on the gospel and let other matters care for themselves. The other matters have so intruded on the gospel that often the gospel of God gets buried beneath tons of imitations. Precursors and offshoots alike have produced frauds of "deeper experience" mysticism which passes itself off as a "fuller" gospel in various guises. And too many innocent, and/or gullible bystanders to the whole thing have swallowed tainted bait sold to them as good news.

We Pentecostals used to call ourselves "full gospel;" then "charismatic" came along and the "full" fell by the wayside. But there is in fact only one way in which supposed full gospel people are not frauds: that is if with Paul we mean the gospel as "the whole will of God" (Acts 20:27). By this, Paul meant that he declared the full meaning of Jesus as Lord of all, Jesus Christ having fulfilled God’s complete intent in creation, and his promise in covenant, thereby upholding the integrity of God and of God’s gospel.

Quite different than this, somewhere along the way the label "full" grew bigger than the gospel. The offshoots of Pentecostalism inspired by precursors of second-blessing mysticisms stretched the label way beyond the boundaries of the gospel of God and came up with distortions much closer to gospel of Barnum and Bailey. Emma slipped into her bright shinny circus get-up and took over where Jesus left off. Thus we discover anew a truth of long-standing: when the gospel we preach is no longer God’s call to his full will to serve Jesus as Lord, Emma and her crew will happily supply what is missing. As Mr. Dylan insists, "Everybody’s gotta’ serve somebody."

In all of this, the integrity of the gospel has been compromised. To see how, we need to nail down what we mean by integrity. Then we’ll get back to Emma.

As sinful humans, people have degrees of integrity; by virtue of being sinners not one of us is complete; at best we are in process. Except for the pathologically proud, this existential fact elicits great humility if and when we own up to it. It is only by the Spirit of God that we ever do, of course; left to our own we are mostly sure that we are right – which explains a great deal of the human drama.

On the other hand, the gospel in itself is absolute integrity by virtue of what it is and who it is from; and this in spite of the many corruptions parading in the name of the gospel. The corruptions are indeed part of the human drama, perhaps a great deal of which is inspired by hell. The point is, however, by whatever means we get there, with the help of hell or on our own, only when people get into the mix sideways with the gospel does the integrity of the gospel come into question. Thus, we insist, it is the integrity of the human handling the gospel that needs improvement; the integrity of the gospel remains; we need only to restate the gospel in clear unequivocal terms.

Tellingly, while our theologies and worship forms have followed the ebb and flow of religion, culture, and politics over two millennia, being warped this way and that, from the messy milieu of history the gospel stubbornly insists on re-emerging unscathed; it overcomes suppression and oppression; corruption and carelessness; fraud and deceit; and even well-meant exuberance and exhilaration. Most tellingly, perhaps, is that it overcomes theological puzzles attached to it putting good men at loggerheads in pursuit of solutions—even as they agree that the gospel at the core of the puzzle is not a puzzle.

Notwithstanding the puzzles, the gospel remains "the gospel of God…concerning his Son, who was…declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord…" By this gospel message we are "called to belong to Jesus Christ" (Romans 1:1-6). Those who respond in faith are saved "because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved" (Romans 10:9-10).

As to how we should live as saved people, Paul explains that since Jesus is Lord now, we have been called to "the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations." (Romans 1:5). He is our Lord from the get-go, but the Lord of all others, too, and it is in Jesus’ interest—for the sake of his name—that they come to know this.

Here then is the gospel irreducible, whole, and complete; the entire enchilada; you need know nothing else to know God, live in fellowship with him, and enter the eternal kingdom of God while doing his work on earth joyfully, happily and purposefully because you have discovered your reason for being in Jesus Lordship. You were created to serve him; your freedom is in serving him. So you are to serve him as a vital member of a new humanity in a new creation inaugurated by his resurrection, ascension and the once and for all outpouring of his Spirit. We may expect times of refreshing; but the outpouring has taken place. Emma, step aside. We have work to do.

It is certainly advisable, of course, that to do this work we want to know all entailed in Jesus’ Lordship; we need good theology, including a vaild angeology; and we certainly need empowerment by the Holy Spirit to live out our mission as people serving the Lord Jesus together. But in knowing all else the essential, integral core of the gospel is the measure of the integrity of all else. Whatever else does not keep this core of Jesus as Lord front and center, clean and pure, whole, entire, and uncorrupted is false and not of God. So Paul warns those who "are turning to a different gospel—not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed" (Galatians 1:6-8). Angel from heaven—Emma, he did say him!

The integrity of the gospel is serious stuff, just because it is God’s gospel revealing his own integrity. To impugn the gospel is to impugn God’s righteous faithfulness to his own purpose in the gospel which is to reveal himself as the faithful promise keeper.

So…when a not-quite-second-blessing dispensationalist (they would not at all like that label, so you might suggest a better one) adds to the gospel the free ride of a once-saved-always-saved decision that is merely a vote for Jesus (a caricature of Calvin’s good doctrine of the perseverance of the saints) to get you to bite down on the apple; or a Pentecostal adds to the gospel the high-flying fireworks of "manifestations"— tongue-talking, holy-rolling, head-twisting, body-shaking, humbug prophecy—caricatures of real charismata such as speaking in tongues and prophecy to get you to bite the apple, we have a real problem: to what extent does any of this obscure, distort, or demean the gospel? To the extent that it does God’s purpose in the gospel is frustrated and God as Sovereign Lord will not long put up with it.

Without meaning to sound overly dramatic, I assure you judgment intended to clear the way for the pure gospel will come: "As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill…Serve the LORD with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled" (Psalm 2:6, 11, 12).

Given the above, for appropriate emphasis and by way of summary let me repeat in different words the two front-burner issues that confront all who preach, teach, or live out the gospel in witness in the world today. One is easy-believe-ism that distorts the gospel into a Jesus-punched ticket to heaven. This supposed two-tier, get-saved-with-an-option-way to heaven—cast a vote for Jesus, go on your way in his blessing; if you allow him he will catch up with you later to explain the benefit plan of his Lordship and the higher-life—obscures the true call of the gospel to "the obedience of faith," and in doing so creates space that Emma is sure to fill. To the contrary, the call of the gospel as set out by Paul is critically different than—in fact the reverse of —what it has morphed into in some circles, merely obeying the call to believe. To make "the obedience of faith" less than a call to righteous living "for the sake of his name" is to obscure all Paul says in the balance of Romans and demeans the gospel and God in the process. Further, it fills churches with unsaved people who think not only that they are ready for heaven but that God owes them favors on earth, including in too many cases spirit guides like Emma.

The second issue is a rash of so-called "latter rain" offshoots of Pentecostalism just close enough to what many Pentecostals and Charismatics are familiar with to pass the sniff test if not sniffed closely enough. For example, a key buzzword floating through the "latter rain downpour" is manifest. When one prophesies, for example, one must manifest wildly in some bizarre way to prove authenticity. The word, if not the bizarre antics, connects with Pentecostals; we believe in manifestations of the Spirit. But the wise among us, if myself least of all, recognize manifestations of the flesh, which are pure fraud. The latter runs rampant through the latter rain movement.

Consider that as previewed above the movement claims to be an extension of William H. Branham’s ministry. Branham strayed deeply into outright heresy. (Listen carefully in this video link early on for the reference to "the Branham anointing"). Following Branham’s path, current leaders employ highly experiential fantasies, visual showmanship, and group psychology, with the lottery-like hope of a miracle attached to attract followers. Further, the current expression of Branham’s legacy clearly shares his primary heresy. Fallen adherent Todd Bentley states plainly, the "Lord" told him that since the church already believes in Jesus that the latter rain "revival" is "all about believing in the angel"—hello, Emma. (For more extensive coverage See here and also see here and see here).

Why not ignore these circus clowns? Frauds have always been around, right? But among many other good reasons, we dare not ignore them because an astounding thing is taking place in American evangelicalism. It is aging; and in aging, failing to reproduce itself as a solid biblically-based movement. Younger evangelicals are ignorant of their roots, biblically illiterate, and unprepared for any sort of evangelical future. Some observers insist we are in the post-evangelical age. Would-be adherents drift away in one of several directions: toward Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodox, Mega-Churches, or, get this, Pentecostalism. Looking to Canada currently as an example of the U.S. evangelical future, a commentator notes "If you want to know what the America is going to look like in forty years…look at Canada today…the rise of the Pentecostal/Charismatic movement…along with moderate charismatics like the Christian and Missionary Alliance…are leading the way" in the face of evangelical decline. On this assessment, Pentecostalism is the neo-evangelical future. Problem here is that younger U.S. Pentecostals, like their evangelical counterparts, can be just as ignorant of their roots, biblically illiterate, and unprepared for the future. Thus, the door is wide open for a highly experiential, biblically vacuous, and spiritually dangerous imitation of Pentecostalism to sweep in and sweep away millions with deception. The door is open for many more Emmas.

It is high time for a clear restatement of the gospel; the integrity of the gospel as God’s only power to save is at the same time his power to expose ideologies, personalities, and powers that cannot save. Emma, meet Jesus—he who is entire and complete in himself will show up who is not. Indeed, this is an opportune time to "Preach the word…" (2 Timothy 4:2). The gospel is intensely apropos. In the gospel we meet Jesus as Lord, and as Lord, Jesus sends his Holy Spirit to bring to us the presence of himself and his Father in unbroken fellowship (John 14:15-21). Why settle for Emma?

The George w. Bush team (2001-2009) rightfully landed a second term because we trusted Mr. Bush on the international front with the war on terrorism even if his domestic policies with regard to the finance sector came up way short. Ironically, it turns out that, as his tenure showed, domestic policies with regard to regulating the cowboys on Wall Street are so entwined with international policy that the old capitalist mantra of mere self-interest as pushed to the limit by Bush suddenly appears poor beyond recovery

"Whoopee Ti Yi Yo," the cowboy’s days are numbered—again.

Let me explain

Just days ago the Los Angeles Times profiled "a fourth-generation cowboy working in a region where being a cowboy no longer makes sense," the paper says. The cowboys in San Diego County, California, are riding off into the sunset.

In fact, there remains a mere handful of working cowboys in the entire U.S. Workers in "animal production support roles" number about 9000 all told." These include farm hands, stockyard workers, more than 3200 rodeo workers, and all working cowboys. Do the math—real working cowboys are a rare, disappearing breed.

So too, Kevin Rudd promises, the cowboys on Wall Street just might be parting with lassos, bullwhips, and spurs to take up with green eyeshades, quill pens, and double-entry accounting ledgers. They will be trading rodeo-like rollicking for detailed accountability. It may be that the cowboy economy, first labeled such by economist Kenneth Boulding back in the 1960s (See "Why Santa Took Off the Cowboy Boots," this blog), like cowboys in San Diego, just no longer makes sense.

Not all agree. For example, "Adam Smith must be rolling over in his grave," lamented Lawrence Eagleburger, a noted global free market advocate from the days of the elder George H.W. Bush. Smith is stirring, Eagleburger thinks because we are "walking very far away from capitalism."

Or, at least the sort of capitalism envisioned by Eagleburger.

Yet, Eagleburger’s one time boss, then President George H. W. Bush declared in a speech to Congress on September 11, 1990, exactly 11 years before the infamous 9/11 destruction of New York’s Trade Towers, "The crisis in the Persian Gulf, as grave as it is, also offers a rare opportunity to move toward an historic period of cooperation…. Out of these troubled times a New World Order can emerge…."

For a short time back then Eagleburger was Secretary of State. But apparently he did not apprentice well under Bush I; his unbridled, unregulated free market vision just doesn’t mesh with "historic…cooperation" of the type meant by Bush.

Eagleburger contends that the "regulators…don’t want freer markets," meaning by regulators specifically France and Germany; further, that in attempting to form some sort of agreement with these "regulators," President Obama "has done us a great deal of damage." By this Eagleburger explains that the President has pushed the U.S. "left of center, in the ditch over there" because "he’s a regulator himself."

Hmm.

It may be that in Eagleburger’s mind, Obama just does not have the gall it takes to maintain U.S. presence in a world of Eagleburger-anointed, Adam Smith-oriented, free-market capitalism; Eagleburger may think that, in fact, Obama is a European-type socialist in disguise intent on leading America into socialism. Eagleburger did refer to Obama as a "charlatan." When asked to define this, Eagleburger could only mention Obama’s fund raising methods, very weak evidence to support such a charge. In fact, Obama’s fund raising seemed very free-market oriented, highly capitalistic.

So there has to be more going on here.

In stark contrast to this, Eagleburger was one of the first to verbalize the doctrine of the sovereign unilateral preemptive strike employed by the second Bush in the invasion of Iraq. In a CNN interview on 9/11/2001, Eagleburger stated plainly that striking back at terrorists "…does not necessarily mean that you have to strike back only at those that you know were the perpetrators of this thing. We know terrorists around the world and we know a lot of governments that have financed and supported terrorism."

Iraq, it was thought after 9/11, was one of these.

And with the invasion of Iraq it was, "Bye, bye, New World Order." The cowboys ride again. Charge! Gall and all to the gates of Baghdad and beyond!

Of course, we soon found out this could be sustained only for awhile. Gall can only take you so far and then you have to govern. Bush the Elder knew this and had no desire to make Baghdad a suburb of DC. He refused to take the Gulf War—Iraq War I—to Baghdad’s gates.

As it turns out, then, Eagleburger is much more in tune with younger Texan cowboy Bush that the elder Kennebunkport, Maine, aristocratic Bush. Now if Mr. Obama’s international vision seems even somewhat akin to Bush I, well Eagleburger’s ire aimed Obama’s way makes sense. He is a charlatan Eagleburger thinks because he does not take America’s self-interests serious enough. Like Bush I, Obama would never have mistaken Baghdad for Baltimore or camels for cows and preemptively ordered a roundup.

The cowboy or the charlatan—this is the choice we face in Eagleburger’s world. In the 2008 campaign Eagleburger’s instincts yearned for one last ride, roundup, and jaw-boning session back at the bunkhouse with the boys. Whoopee Ti Yi Yo! Get along little doggie! Eagleburger thought he would get that one last ride on the McCain wagon train, endorsing McCain early on. Now with Obama’s election, his presence on the world stage, and talk of international regulation, it has to turn out that Obama really is a charlatan; or Eagleburger and folk like him are just plain wrong.

So how will it turn out? Are we headed for socialism and one world government under Obama? Are the days of greed and gall gone forever? Do the cowboys stand a chance?

Not to worry; pray yes, but worry no; rhetoric on the world stage is one thing; regulations to reign in the cowboys in the global markets another; a new world order something else still; and the actual outcomes of any or all of this probably not even close to anyone’s most studious or panicked prediction.

Man proposes, it has been observed, but God disposes.

The One we all ought to pay mind to is the One who has the final say.

He reminds us that greed is not good; money is never enough; and a focus on profits is not the bottom line. Government or governments that do not reign in greed will fail. To Babylon, the prototype of greed run amok, the prophet shouts, "You praised the gods of silver and gold; of bronze, iron, wood, and stone, which cannot see or hear or understand. But you did not honor the God who holds in his hand your life and all your ways…you have been weighed on the scales and found wanting" (see, Daniel 5:23-27).

It follows that gall—brazen boldness coupled with impudent assurance and insolence, says Webster—falls under the same condemnation; it is nothing more than the narcissistic moral blindness that assumes entitlement and thereby drives unrestrained greed which is a good description of the cowboys on Wall Street.

So while we are not equating them with working cowboys, the bunch that ran amok at AIG certainly fall into a category of Wild Bunch cowboys like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

With this clarification we draw a conclusion: to the extent he gathers a posse to pursue the New Wild Bunch and requires regulations to do so, even global regulations if agreed to legitimately—meaning, for U.S. citizens, within the framework of our Constitution,—we say, “Go for it!”

On the one hand, none of this repudiates the younger President George W. Bush’s foreign policy. We believe history will tell a different story of the Iraq war than the liberals tell now, as compared to the Middle East, especially Israel; and the war on terrorism has kept us safe on the domestic front in the U.S. for nearly eight years. On the other hand, greed and gall has run amok. Increasingly unregulated, unbridled, old fashioned King George-type elitism marauding as capitalism has enabled a chosen few at the top to create their own type of one world government with themselves as kings and the people as peasants; this top-weighted, one-sided system has enriched a handful of international hedge fund managers while abusing millions of innocent people on the domestic front. To call such crime a "free market" does not excuse the fraud and make it right.

But the self-serving ideology of Eagleburger aside (he sets on the board of Halliburton and has every reason to root for global capitalism dominated by a handful of corporate gurus such as himself), and the rhetoric of the Elder Bush seen for what it was (an appeal to Europe and Russia in terms only they would applaud; American politics resisting even a polite nod of agreement), our course for the future seems clear enough. The enormous proven risk of Eagleburger’s cowboy capitalism blazoned indelibly in the conscience of the American public via AIG expunges the fear of possible, not even close to probable smearing at the fringes of American sovereignty by a nebulous new world order of Barack Obama. This frees up Obama to do what is right, not merely as measured by capitalism’s mantra of corporate America’s self-interest, but in the best interests of people wherever they are.

Can he follow though? Depends in part, at least, on how convincing he can be with the American public which will require clear enunciation of transparent regulations that actually accomplish in the next couple of years what he tells us they will. It remains that his team has its own day of accounting coming round, too, in 2010 and 2012.

In fact, U.S. self-interest has never stopped at the border; it has been shaped always in one way or another by international interests. But those international interests have been shaped always by conservative or liberal ideology, depending on who was in charge domestically (which can be seen most clearly perhaps in comparing Jimmie Carter’s presidency with Ronald Reagan’s). The question now is whether Barack Obama’s presidency will go down in history as having transcended ideology well enough to take to heart the interests of all people for whom Christ died, not just the capitalist or socialist elites—even if Mr. Obama does not have an evangelical bone in his body (you tell me). Greed, gall, and government just cannot escape the judgment of God.

Mr. Obama, we are praying for you.

"Greed is good...?" You’ve heard that, right? Gordon Gekko‘s (Michael Douglas) stated that famously in the 1987 movie Wall Street.

But we’ve also heard it more recently, from a much more credible source. "…we have too much fear and too little greed," former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers explained, assessing the current state of the U.S. economy. Greed seems to be the driving force behind a capitalist economy—we need it to keep it going, says Summers. Apparently, many people agree—that is, until things fall apart and then suddenly it’s politically correct to say, "Greed got us into this!"

"The only real difference between Bernie Madoff and the management of AIG is that when Bernie Madoff got caught, he pleaded guilty. When AIG got caught, it asked the government for $170 billion," the Boston Herald, poignantly stated beneath the headline, "Bailout ensures AIG’s greed, gall".

Who would have thought?

So in fact it took more than greed to get us where we are. Greed just is not enough—if it takes gall, too.

I thought about replacing gall with another word, but it seemed chauvinistic, given that it starts with "b" and has nothing to do with ladies’ lingerie. And if you cannot figure that out, you just don’t need to know.

But speaking of gall, it took a lot of it to get us into the economic mess we are in right now, a la AIG, GM, Chrysler, etc. Now, by gall I do mean big brass b— ah, lots of gall that assumes self-entitlement. No one without a huge reservoir of gall equating with a gigantic ego would ever taken the stupid risks (AIG), or have ignored obvious prudent steps (GM, Chrysler), and thereby put us in the economic mess we—all of us— now own as a nation.

In short it took great big brass ones to put the entire economy of a nation in the hole by putting other people’s money at risk, all to enhance one’s already ostentatious profits; or as in the case of GM, to assume that any corporation is such an icon of the economy, such a cherished institution that one can dawdle about keeping up with the competition because, well, because we’re GM.

"We want to continue the vital role we've played for Americans for the past 100 years," GM CEO Rick Waggoner stated to Congress months back as he held his hand out for a bailout after he had tooled into DC in a $55 million dollar corporate jet. If AIG is too big to fail, we are too vital. We are GM, doggone it!

Of course, the other side of this economic mess is that some people think God set this whole thing in motion as the original capitalist....

Laugh if you will; in fact, Limbaugh seems really to believe it; as do others, Christian conservatives especially.

This is not to disparage Rush Limbaugh; I own that I listen in from time to time and find he makes some sense. But then—well, he misses a great big point. Man, not God, invented capitalism; Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations is not a revised edition of the King James Bible nor was Smith a prophet of God; he was a Deist at best, an atheist perhaps, and his positing "self-interest" as the basis for a moral philosophy of economics, society, and government is clearly anti-Christian (Smith argued that state and personal efforts to promote social good are ineffectual compared to unbridled market forces.).

Limbaugh appears to some to be in the process of revising Smith’s reputation for all conservatives who like their economics dished up with God. Limbaugh speaks with the finality of God; many people believe exactly what he says as well as what they read between the lines and thinks he says.

For example, you come away thinking that

• God is a Republican, way over on the religious right;
• God is for sure a capitalist, hates big government, despises all regulation of the markets, and expects all of us to suck it up and just take it in stride when really big capitalists with lots of greed and gall turn Wall Street into their own private casino.

Of course, if the above is so, it follows that true believers should accept the ruin of retirement portfolios like a man with big brass ones. On the pure capitalist position, the market will correct itself even if you have to move in with relatives and die before it does.

What a God, this Capitalist Theocrat! Adam Smith apparently knew him well…

But where is God in all of this, really?

Well, "In the last days the mountain of the LORD's temple will be established as chief among the mountains; it will be raised above the hills, and peoples will stream to it. Many nations will come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.’"

As a result, "Every man will sit under his own vine and under his own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid…Rise and thresh, O Daughter of Zion…you will break to pieces many nations. You will devote their ill-gotten gains to the LORD, their wealth to the Lord of all the earth." (Micah 4:1,4,13).

I leave the timing of the fulfillment of the foregoing Bible prophecy to you; what matters here is what it reveals about how God views micro and macro economics. When "many nations…walk in his paths," the result is "every man…under his own vine…and fig tree" with the Daughter of Zion—whoever she may be; it matters not here—taking "ill-gotten gains" of the nations, "their wealth" to devote all to the Lord.

So much for Smith’s wealth of nations accumulated by the invisible hand of self-interest. It ends up in God’s pocket, confiscated like ill-gotten proceeds from a busted drug cartel!

With only minimal theological application you see God’s pleasure with micro-self sufficiency: every man under his own vine and fig tree, living in peace and relative prosperity, the vine and fig being primary wealth producers for ancient Israel. In contrast, you see "the nations" symbolized in ancient Babylon (Micah 4:10) with "ill-gotten gains…their wealth" accumulated historically through greed, lots of gall—gigantic egos—and as corollaries, deceit, oppression, and, yes, market manipulation on a macro scale. The strategy of ancient conquest was simply to corner the market on everything, every true capitalist’s dream, and the result was certainly wealth, but judged by God as ill-gotten gain.

The problem with the unbridled forces of macro-capitalism, then, is greed and gall and its attendant inability to account for micro-enterprise solutions except as a very minor trickle-down effect left over from stuffing the pockets of the super-wealthy with more cash. This is not anything close to the economics prophesied by Micah and approved by God.

At the same time we note carefully that communism, while not in view by Micah, is inherent in the concept of ill-gotten gains. It, too, when examined in the light of history is based on greed and gall. The difference is that capitalism competes to see who has the biggest set of greed and gall. Communism kills the competition, it being assumed the last man standing has the biggest. In either scenario greed and gall are the driving force. In either scenario the end is oppression of the weaker by the more powerful, and the death of Micah’s micro-enterprise solutions.

The point we make here is that the God of the Daughter of Zion delights in the wealth of micro enterprise and intends that the ill-gotten gains and the wealth of nations be devoted to him.

Micah said that not me.

Whatever spin you put upon this requires that you, like me, reassess capitalism not in terms of an alternative system as if there were one; there isn’t. The issue is not capitalism versus socialism or communism; these are straw men made into boogey men by ideologues to preserve their capitalist corner on things. Human nature, driving all human systems, is the same in capitalism or communism: whether capitalist or communist we remain greed and gall to the core(apart from true conversion); it’s just that some have more than others and take advantage of those with less in both systems.

Rather than pursuing an alternative system, then, we need to assess greed and gall on God’s terms and put a restraint on both.

How? In the community of the converted by grace, faith, and God’s word through an ongoing encounter with God and one another, and we still get it wrong; beyond this, say, like on Wall Street, like it or not government plays a critical role designed by God.

"Governing authorities," Paul writes, "have been established by God [as] God’s servant to do you good. But…an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer." (see Romans 13:1-7). God intends government to place a restraint on greed and gall.

Now this is far different than saying God intends government to redistribute wealth. He does not, and for good reason but that is another story. The point here is Wall Street excesses cry out for some kind of restraint; too big to fail is just another way of saying too much greed and gall, which at its core is the automakers’ failure, too, in its own way.

Perhaps the biggest run up of greed and gall in world economic history began with the introduction of Reagan’s supply-side economics in the 1980s, exacerbated by Clinton’s aggressive deregulation of the financial sector in the 1990s.

Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, the go-to guy who built AIG into a global powerhouse, established AIG FP, the division that essentially brought AIG to its knees, way back in 1987. On his decades-long watch AIG was "…driven by a thirst for greater profits." As a result, AIG FP "racked up guarantees on CDS worth a total of about $450 billion."

The source above notes, "AIG jumped into the high-beta world of credit default swaps when there was a low default environment…But when the market goes bad it all goes bad, and with the kind of exposure that AIG wrote, it is just rancid."

But AIG—with many others— had caught the fever, being spread hither and yon by greed and gall. Suddenly the American ideal of micro-enterprise—family farms, home ownership, small businesses, intellectual property, and so on—as the generators of wealth for the nation morphed into blips on a computer screen reflecting a world where one could be rich overnight on a bet—Wall Street ceased to be a somewhat honest reflection of the valuation of wealth inherent in America’s business, micro-enterprises and big business, too, and became instead a roll of the dice on imaginary financial instruments with little relation to the real world. It is telling that the Barry Madoff scam, like AIG’s venture into credit default swaps, began in the 1980s, took off in the 1990s, and crashed only when the whole imaginary world of money—a literal house of cards—of which it was a part came tumbling down.

In all of this—and this is the point—size of government grew, under both Republican and Democratic administrations; but quality of government diminished horribly. Government failed miserably to do its job.

So what does God think of this?

If we believe what he says, he calls governments to account.

How ironic that the Iraq war did not bring the Republican house tumbling down in 2008, but the lack of stewardship of the micro-enterprise economy did. Failure to rein in the excesses of Wall Street allowed short sellers to line their pockets with cash by betting against the small business sector, driving down the value of small businesses while enriching themselves. (The concept of shorting involves not just betting against a stock, but betting that short sellers can get the investors who initially bet that the stock would increase to change their position. This negative volume creates an imbalance in the market and forces the price of the stock down.) All the while AIG was taking bets from short sellers who were betting against the housing market that had been pumped up by speculators who were betting against the people living in the houses. They turned a man’s home from a castle into a commodity to be swapped like pork bellies or pecans, creating the illusion that houses magically increased in value forever. Between AIG betting for the illusion and short sellers betting against it, anyone in charge with half a brain should have seen the thing for what it was, a shell game for sure, not even a good dog and pony show, which at least delivers entertainment. Blind to the state of the vine and the fig tree the Bush administration watched over the run up of ill-gotten gains as never before seen in human history. The nation was defrauded not only by AIG, but by a government blinded by the ideology of blind faith in the markets as if greed and gall were going to govern greed and gall; they do not; they only show in the end who has the most greed and gall: in this case, the short sellers in gigantic hedge funds who needed the whole thing to come tumbling down in order to collect on their bets. So you can bet the Republicans were turned out of office in 2008 because they deserved to be. They simply were called to account and came up short. The irony is that the guys who invented the deregulation game back in the 1980s were again in charge when the game went south. Coincidence? You tell me.

Next post: where do we go from here?

Execs at GM and Chrysler realized this sometime around midnight Sunday (March 29,2009) when they expected to hear him shinnying down the chimney with another $22 billion in his sack.

Instead, GM‘s CEO Rick Waggoner‘s walking papers bounced down the chimney like a lump of very hard coal, caromed off the grate, and slid into the stocking Waggoner had left hanging by the chimney with care. Waggoner is now looking for work.

Chrsyler‘s CEO Robert Nardelli seems to have squeaked by with nothing more than a empty stocking (relatively speaking; Chrysler actually got another $6 billion and 30 days to shape up and complete a merger with Italy‘s Fiat or they‘ll be shipping out for sure in a forced bankruptcy. UPDATE: Chrysler reported reaching a deal with Fiat on Monday within hours after Washington issued the ultimatum).

Who would have thought? Just a few months back it seemed Washington was Detroit‘s Santa Claus for sure; but in fact I think we got it right in the previous post: Santa‘s no match for the USA‘s free wheeling cowboy economy.

So with what is left of his reputation in hand, word was he may have run for part‘s unknown. Who wouldn‘t be concerned with getting away before every boy and girl in the world came to think that everyday was Christmas; and that Wiis and X-Boxes now belonged in Cracker Jacks boxes because big fat bank accounts making video games seem like trinkets were the new Christmas goody to be handed out; and these had nothing to do with being good; in fact, the badder you were—with other people‘s money, anyway—the more Christmas cash you could get in January, June, or July, or any other month of the year? But now…?

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus; he is just not spending much time right here right now. Last seen landing in Amsterdam, we can‘t be sure the Dutch let him stay. Worried about ING asking for more money, the Dutch didn‘t want to get too close to the fat jolly fellow until his stained reputation as a front for Wall Street with an office in Washington could be rehabilitated.

But the Dutch are a hardheaded lot. So it may be that due to unease in the Netherlands Santa will just head back to his digs at the North Pole and stay there out of sight until December 24th rolls around. And then maybe he‘ll return to work but stick to kids and candy and stay out of high finance and big business.

What this means, of course, is that GM and Chrysler will just have to prove to Washington‘s satisfaction that they can be profitable somewhere down the road without frequent visits from Santa.

Anyone see a problem here? "Washington" and "profitable" in the same sentence equates with gobbledygook; they are as alien to each other as pro wrestling is to competition.

So the obvious question surfaces like flotsam from an overflowing storm drain: did Santa really leave Washington on his own or was he spirited away by Secret Service on instructions from the White House getting advice from Treasury: get that dude out of here so we can salvage something from the AIG debacle in the mind of the public by coming down hard on GM and Chrysler?

In fact, "The moves [to demand more of GM and Chrysler] also reflect growing criticism of government bailouts," one source notes.

Another adds, "The Obama administration, perhaps reflecting public sentiment outside Michigan, has shown less patience with the auto industry than with other troubled sectors."

But why?

Well, some think that Washington wouldn‘t know a real profit from a pencil because politics assumes compromise based on polls, pork, and promises with the nearest thing to a profit being the next election with a return to office.

So Santa, right now you are a liability, a drag on the campaign trail. Sorry, Big Guy. That red is just too noticeable; and the beard—a dead giveaway. Later, dude…

The point is politics is at work as usual in Washington in the guise of greater accountability. One wonders why if Washington now is willing to let the automakers slide into bankruptcy to insure future profitability, they didn‘t apply the same firmness to the financial sector. The difference seems deeper—or should I say shallower—than ideology or party affiliation, as if a Republican versus Democrat thing; it seems rather that the earlier giveaways to the finance guys were as political as are the current takeaways (a euphemism for giving less) from the auto guys, which simply means that everyone had, and now has, votes in view. The firestorm stirred among the voters by the AIG bonus boondoggle sealed the automaker‘s fate.

And Santa‘s fate, too. The idle chatter is we just cannot have the guy around attracting more attention to the cash cow roaming free in D.C.

Why, everyone will be queuing up with their hands out. "Please sir, may I have some more?" is a phrase best left buried in a Dickens‘ book where it belongs—on a dusty shelf in the deepest recesses of a book depository in London, if at all possible. Heavens! It is just too risky to remind folk that Oliver Twist‘s Fagin might have invented AIG had he lived long enough; and A Christmas Carol‘s Scrooge surely would have held a majority share in the firm. It is just best that morality plays be left to kiddies and Christmases.

But there goes Santa, too: an upright, outstanding, moral guy become a symbol of Washington handouts using taxpayer money to cover losses driven by Wall Street‘s greed and Detroit‘s ineptness. Not cool, man; not cool. Even if Washington politics have no more to do with morals than profits, they have everything to do with the polls. Which means Santa has to go…

It has nothing to do with who you really are, Bro; but everything with what you remind us of. If these latest signals from the White House ring true, Christmas may be un-PC in Washington for quite some time to come.

Let us hope so.

Peace, Big Guy! By the way, red is your color. Green is just…well, you know.

"Now Dasher! Now, Dancer! Now, Prancer and Vixen! On, Comet! On, Cupid! On Donner and Blitzen! To the top of the porch! To the top of the wall! Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!"

Because:

• the boots weren‘t his; they didn‘t fit, and his feet hurt;
• they are an affront to reindeer décor;
• the Dutch have taken a dislike to all things cowboy;
• Santa is just plain tired so he went to work for ING (Internationale Nederlanden Groep) on loan from AIG (American International Group);
• all of the above; or, none of the above.

Clue: headlines that didn’t make it into the Dutch daily newspaper De Volkskrant on Monday, to wit, "Santa Claus Conscience Corrals Cowboy Economy?" The paper did report that "ING Chief Executive Officer Jan Hommen said he had made a ‘moral appeal’ to the top 1,200 employees to return their variable bonuses earned last year."

Shades of AIG! Santa has defected to the EU (European Union) for sure! But folk in Brussels are not polkaing for joy just yet—they are sniffing around for the cowboy boots.

The fallout from U.S. taxpayers‘ outrage over bonuses paid to the AIG execs who led the giant insurer into near-default has reverberated globally and shaken the Dutch Finance Ministry to is core. So the Ministry has made a "moral appeal" for the return of "300 million euros (about 409 million U.S. dollars) in bonuses [paid] to about 40,000 staff members last year." These bonuses were paid AIG style even though ING "posted a net loss of 729 million euros (about 996 million dollars) for 2008 and has planned 7,000 job cuts."

In fact, the Dutch losses seem like chump change, mere "walking around money," less than a billion U.S. dollars compared to AIG‘s hundreds of billions in losses (when you combine losses from credit default swaps with the larger losses from AIG‘s Investments division ).

And maybe this is why Santa defected, sans the cowboy boots.

Let me explain.

Back in 1879 one fellow famously opted for Santa being an essential part of America culture, writing that "Yes, there is a Santa Claus;" he is one ray of that "eternal light with which childhood fills the world." That settled the issue for most Americans until AIG came along. For many Americans AIG extinguished that "eternal light." Now it seems, Santa is trying to defect to the Dutch.

It is just easier for Santa to appeal to the higher sensibilities of the wishful thinking he symbolizes in a culture where a paltry billion dollars seems worth quibbling about. Why go on beating his head against the cowboy culture of Wall Street? The Street had not a qualm about rolling the dice with credit default swaps that placed, not a mere billion, but hundreds of billions of dollars of other people‘s money at risk.

Did I say they lost the roll? They shot craps in a way that no one in the history of Monte Carlo, Las Vegas, or the back alley ever has.

So after more than a century of trying to be hopeful and influence the cowboy culture of Wall Street with peace, joy, and love, even a wishful thinker like Santa is for sure tired. Feet hurt, Santa? You bet!

As stated above, Santa got into the loop back in 1897 when Francis Pharcellus Church, an American journalist turned editor at the New York Sun, assured all of New York, America, and the world that in spite of callous, cold-hearted, calculating, cynical, skeptical, money-grubbling materialists, "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus." And everyone knew that "If you see it in the Sun, it‘s so!"

Church assured us in writing that "Santa Claus…exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist…there is a veil covering the unseen world which not…all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding…"

Except greed, deceit, and callous disregard for the wellbeing of investors, taxpayers, and a gaggle of other folk who neither invest nor pay taxes but may end up homeless and hungry due to the evil creative genius of high rollers who invented credit default swaps. Neither the poetic wishful imagery of Church nor the ‘supernal’ Santa Claus he proffered has a snow ball‘s chance in the hot place when Wall Street gets warmed up. When the Street is hot—well, makes a red devil turn green with envy as "love and generosity and devotion" to anything but money go bye bye.

"A cowboy economy" is how Kenneth Boulding described such frenzied greed. He coined the phrase back in the 1960s when describing an ‘illimitable’ economy symbolized in America‘s "‘illimitable plains’ and the ‘reckless and exploitative’ behavior of American economic activity." While he had harm to the environment mainly in view – egregious strip mining, deforestation, etc – clearly by extension Wall Street fits the critique.

The New American Plainsmen Foraging Pioneers are Wall Street‘s minions run amok. They remind one of fearless cowboy wranglers with Gatlin guns itching for the slaughter of a few billion buffalo, Native Americans, and prairie dogs thrown in for good measure. While we‘re at it, wouldn‘t hurt to strip a few billion acres of American backyards of shade trees, swings, and lawn chairs to make way for the cattle…

It just seems to many of us that a new breed of cattle baron has taken the helm of too many outfits on Wall Street. Illimitable, unregulated, scheming inventiveness in new ways to gamble with other people‘s money drives their evil genius. In turn, the barons are hailed by the drovers—in the manner of Jim Kramer, if Jon Dailey has his head on at least half straight—who corral the strays and keep the main herd in line with their stock picks.

Thus it is that Marty Robbins‘ “Whoppie ti yi yo! Get along little doggie, it‘s your misfortune and none of my own” sung to the cattle, has been replaced with the likes of AIG‘s mantra, "Get along little dummie, it‘s your misfortune and none of my own; we‘re too big to fail but we sure stuck it to you," sung to the unsuspecting taxpayer.

Such is the new U.S. cowboy economy; in the face of which the morality of a Santa Claus conscience based on wishful hope does not stand a chance: all the wishing in the world about ‘supernal beauty and glory beyond’ where Santa Claus frolics with "faith, fancy, poetry, love, and romance" will not reign in Wall Street greed—for Wall Street, Washington is the only Santa Claus there is, every child‘s dream be damned. Indeed, the clearest signal that there‘s a new sheriff in town, and that the real Santa had best skedaddle for parts unknown, is that the American dream has become a Wall Street playground for an economy of greed in which the fat get fatter and the rest get flattened in the stampede. So much for "moral appeals" in America.

They tell us (with President Obama backing them up as of this morning 3/24/2009) that there is not a legal thing can be done about the recent egregious bonus payments. (Fifteen of the top 20 employees at AIG who received bonuses have agreed to give them back—a refund that totals about $50 million—but only in the face of overwhelming public pressure and threats from New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo). Most of Wall Street excesses apparently fall into this lawless hole. If so, maybe it is so just because there is not enough moral substance in the American conscience to have been sure in the first place (before throwing billions of dollars around like leaves in the wind) that we matched the have to of law with the should do of essential morality for guys like AIG‘s cattle barons who have not a clue about ethics and morality. It follows that perhaps we let the Street slide into a sewer of greed because the burgeoning cowboy economy became the consumers own kind of Christmas Tree with Santa spreading goodies under it many thought were free because plastic and sub-prime loans just made it feel that way. So if the conscience happened to prick us from time to time, we quickly salved it over with wishes for goodness, rightness, and happiness forever and ever and ever as we rode one of the longest hot streaks in the history of the American economy right into the ground. Even if we did stay on till we began to think money grew on elms and cottonwoods as well as the evergreens of Christmas and it could be Christmas time all year, just a little honest scrutiny of what was driving the fantasy on Wall Street would have shown that ‘Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night’ was bound to turn into a nightmare.

Indeed, Santa is not hanging around. Legalities aside, he has fled to the moral appeals issued by ING‘s CEO Jan Hommen. "A spokesman for ING said on Monday it had launched a ‘moral appeal to management to hand in bonuses for 2008.’ So now we will see. Is there really "nothing else real and abiding" in the world other than the hopeful conscience of Santa Claus? Is there anything real enough in mere fanciful wishes that the ING people will be morally up to handing their bonuses back? Is the goodwill wishful thinking broad enough and deep enough in Holland to surmount the legal obstacle that there, too, there is no lawful requirement that anyone give the bonuses back?

Well, we will see. The Dutch are no dummies; for this reason they are inspecting the Santa Claus spirit that just emerged in Amsterdam very carefully: is this big fat dude dressed in red wearing cowboy boots? Is he not maybe a spy sent by Wall Street to infect the Dutch Finance Ministry with the cowboy fever? Is not all this "moral appeal" stuff really a ruse to divert attention while ING turns Amsterdam into its own Santa Claus? Why did Santa take off those cowboy boots anyway? Did he?

While Iowa Republican Senator Charles Grassley did not refer directly to hara-kiri, he clearly meant the taking of one’s own life as a matter of honor originating in the era of the Japanese Samurai. In fact, Hideaki Noguchi, vice-president of H.S. Securities in Japan was the last Japanese exec to even come close to traditional hara-kiri. He committed suicide by slitting his wrists missing his belly—the hara-kiri sweet spot—by at least a few inches; and he did the deed on the Isle of Okinawa in a capsule hotel at a Japanese resort missing by about 1000 miles the Tokyo Stock Exchange where the fruits of his failure were mostly felt. That occurred in 2006. More recently, in 2007 a Japanese Minister of Agriculture hung himself in the face of criticism about misused funds. There is no evidence that anyone suffered much from his misdeeds.

So AIG execs—what about it?

Plenty of people have suffered from your misdeeds—unless of course you can show to the public you missed work that day the credit default swaps were handed out?

Oh yeah, and before you grab that sword we should note that Senator Grassley clarified his comments. He doesn’t really think you should do the hara-kiri number. He‘s after an apology sincere enough to make a difference in how we all look at you: pretty much with the evil eye right now.

Should we feel differently?

Admittedly, America seems to be just the place for untethered consciences; they break free from their moorings every once in awhile. Barry Madoff‘s was last seen running down Wall Street headed for Broad as Barry picked the pockets of Jewry‘s most notable philanthropies. But why is this? How is it that Barry could keep the scheme going for two decades to the tune of 50 plus billion dollars, and when it is over smile, say sorry, and expect his wife to keep vast millions of dollars of the fruit of his chicanery? How is it that AIG execs do not even say sorry, but rather expect to be rewarded for their chicanery? Where is at least the closure of a hara-kiri scenario?

Actually, it‘s chasing after that conscience last seen turning left on Broad. Veered right, but right just seemed too—well, you know. If hara-kiri is the ultimate public expression of an inner anguish, it demands an appropriate inner anguish prior to achieving public finality. Such anguish is not the product of Wall Street; inner anguish as an appropriate expression of betrayal of public trust is not compatible with Wall Street as Madoff bears witness: himself the product of Wall Street, the darling of NASDAQ, ego, greed, and deceit trumped inner anguish everyday for more than 20 years and by all accounts would still be winning the day had not reality caught up….

The difference in a culture where hara-kiri brings finality even when greed has had its say is that, unlike America, one‘s conscience is as much a public as private concern. The ultimate disgrace in a hara-kiri culture is to have the inner anguish of one‘s private conscience exposed, which exposure is assumed as a matter of course when one betrays the public conscience.

It follows that Japan did not invent Wall Street for good reason: too much public conscience not enough private ego.

Of course, where private conscience ends and public conscience begins is a matter of debate; that Japanese culture creates a public conscience dominant enough that it drives private ego to hara-kiri is to western sensibilities weird. But that AIG execs with overblown egos should out of hand expect to be richly rewarded for turning Wall Street into their private gaming room with the public covering their loses is not just weird but wrong. It shows just how deeply and how long private and public consciences have been buried in private egos, greed, and deceit.

If this awful scenario playing out in Washington and on Wall Street right now does not shock us into reclaiming what has gone missing then we deserve what lies ahead. Hara-kiri is private suicide in a public manner; but there is also public suicide in a private manner.

This nation has no guarantee of its liberties or prosperity beyond the ability of our conscience to root out and rule over the stupid arrogances of Wall Street run wild, the financial abortions performed without permission on all of us by idiots with egos but neither brains nor conscience at firms like AIG. If we cannot recover for them that conscience gone missing we‘ll be like the kid in the AIG commercial standing at the foot of his parent‘s bed saying, "I can‘t sleep. I‘m worried about this family‘s financial future." His father‘s now ironic answer, "Buddy, we‘re with AIG," will be our deserved destiny. We‘ll not be tucking ourselves back in bed with Buddy; but taking all our Buddies by the hand, we will be discovering firsthand that there‘s always room for more lemmings in hell.

In the end, political posturing won the day; there was just nothing real to hold onto.

The Court signaled that it probably would uphold Prop 8, while not invalidating gay marriages already on the books; in short, it will offer a convoluted decision leaving a conundrum in place—whatever that may mean!

But this is just the point. The Court bore witness to its own loss of meaning as a symptom of a larger social malaise: the essence of what it means to human escapes us.

That it is not crystal clear that gay marriage is an abomination to God, an affront to humanity, and a denial of the fundamentals of humanness is proof of a societal darkness leaving us as ignorant of ourselves as an orangutan is of table manners. Impulse, appetite, and opportunity remain our constant companions in darkness, hounding ghosts of a civility that once was, making a mess that makes even the biggest monkeys proud but leaves humans retching their guts out in a gutter along a trail to nowhere.

Not civil enough any longer to know what humanness is, let alone have the courage to state it clearly, the Court grasps at what is merely momentarily opportune—the will of the voters— to avoid saying what should be stated clearly: that marriage is more than impulse, appetite, and opportunity—hormones, hunger, and a handy partner—which is what raw sexual drive is, hetero or homo. Marriage requires the richness of—dare I say it?— pure human sexuality, not in the sense primarily of holy but just untainted, unadulterated, and organic: human sexuality in its natural state forming an integral element of the whole; human sexuality serving its vital role distinguishing male from female in a vital union from which marriage springs.

Courts may never say this; by the same token they undercut all they do say about humanness, from human rights to hate crimes because apart from correctly defining the essence of humanness in marriage they have no definition of anything human; they can only lump us together with the orangutans and monkeys, applying impulse, appetite and opportunity as an imitation of the rule of law in what is in fact a lawless society.

There is more than one way to pervert this humanness, of course; and so-called “gayness” in itself does not, anymore than singleness does. One can be fully human and gay (if for the sake of argument we grant gayness), as one can be fully human and single; in which case, the very act of refraining from sexual intercourse fully reflects one’s humanness in reverence for the meaning of the sexual act. But one cannot be fully human and engage in sodomy, adultery, fornication, or other sexual perversion straight or gay. The moment one engages in sex outside the natural state as defined by God one jumps into the food fight with the orangutans and monkeys, running from civility, denying what it means to be human, and rejecting one’s own essential identity.

We will come back later to argue God-ness. Here—so that we do not talk past one another—we merely note in the reference above "as defined by God" the futility of engaging in sensible conversation about this or any other subject apart from God as the ultimate reference point for such a conversation. If God is not in the conversation with us, then conversation can be no more than a utility for self-deception, manipulation, and obfuscation in the name of proving anything or nothing. In short, apart from God in the conversation we talk nonsense. Witness the California Supreme Court in session, March 4, 2009. (or see, Dallas Willard on Correspondence Theory of Truth, or see Gary Madison on Rorty, Derrida, and Gadamer)

The point here is humanness is more than impulse, appetite, and opportunity no matter how good these may feel at any given moment or even continually; animals follow impulse appetite and opportunity, humans do not. Humans corral these, rule over them, and in doing so, rule all else; when this understanding is lost, human dominion is, too.

Created in the image of God as male and female, as male and female humans should rule the creation; to the degree that they do not we see chaos reflected in something amiss in the basic moral structure of what is real. Notice, I did not say in the basic "physical" structure of anything. Without going into issues beyond the scope of this post (we will take them up later), the creation cries out for moral guidance that can be rendered only by humans fully human: orangutans and monkeys cannot fill the bill nor can humans acting like them. God set the table of creation for humans with manners derived from moral sensibilities; apart from these moral sensibilities a feast becomes an orgy as manners morph into raw appetites run amok. Humans alone can supply the moral guidance fully reflecting humanness to all of creation and in so doing keep things on course, as it were, applying restraint to keep desert in its place as the accent to essential nutrition.

Part of this moral guidance should be to celebrate the equal value found in gayness (granting gayness as a matter of self-definition) that rules over impulse, appetite, and opportunity by refraining from sexual relations as in celebrating singleness that does so. In this, gayness and singleness can both speak to marriage guiding it back to the essential ideal too often lost. If we admit that mere union of male and female is no guarantee of ongoing humanness as reflected in God’s intent; and that although joined together, male and female too often find themselves at a table with the orangutans and monkeys having followed the deceitful lie of impulse, appetite, and opportunity into the gutter; then whether manifested in neglect, abuse, settled-in boredom, or divorce, when heterosexual marriage ends up on the rocks it is as much a witness in its own way of the loss of pure humanness as is the drive for gay marriage. Celibate singles, gay or straight, have something to say about this.

You may argue that divorce is an accommodation of a human condition as Jesus stated (e.g., Matthew 19:3-12); and that there can be circumstances where divorce is not merely justified but required. By the same token, one might argue that gay marriage is an accommodation to avoid same-sex promiscuity. So what is the difference? Merely that the whole matter turns on the meaning of the sexual union of male and female becoming one flesh; even in marriage this essential meaning can be so obliterated that sexual union becomes a lie and reconciliation is neither desirable nor justified: that to honor the meaning of the male-female sexual union divorce is required. On the same grounds it follows that gay "marriage" by definition is impossible because same-sex union obliterates the meaning of it: gayness, like singleness, can honor marriage and the essence of humanness only in celibacy; but in doing so, can legitimately serve as beacons of light shinning into the fog of confusion clouding broken marriages.

Whatever the finer points of this argument, and whether you agree or disagree, a couple of things come clear. One is that we who oppose gay marriage should be just as passionately for healthy heterosexual marriage. It just comes down to the fact that keeping marriage healthy is as important as keeping gays from it. The primary issue is not to protect marriage; but in protecting marriage to honor and celebrate what it means to be human beings bearing God’s image before the whole of creation. Orangutans cannot do this because they have no will to alter organic sexuality. Without table manners, they are without moral sensibilities, and procreate but do not create; that is their natural state. Bearing God‘s image we take giant leaps beyond mere procreation to create things both wonderful and awful. Altering organic sexuality, the natural state of you and me as part of a greater whole, is one of these. Some have done it and insist that we all join in. But like tinkering with a time bomb, there are consequences. So we have to ask: what will be the outcome? Blowing somethings to kingdom come is right in order. Blowing up other things entails blowing us up too. Traditional marriage is one of these. Even orangutans have more sense. Messy as they are, not one has been accused of self-immolation.

• "But also, this seal of approval is based on the value rising out of celebrating the differing roles. There is no greater threat to human value than forgetting, ignoring, or deliberately blurring the differences…."

In fact, I recommend you go to that post, "THE CURIOUS CASE OF THE GUY WITH GALS," and read it before you read this. You will find it by scrolling down or following a link in the column to the right. But doing so is not essential. This post will make sense either way; but that post adds flavor.

At this writing tomorrow—Thursday March 5, 2009, to be exact—the California Supreme Court will hear oral arguments for and against California‘s Prop 8—the ban on gay marriage.

The issue is inflammatory enough to have sparked demonstrations, debates, and open hostility. GOD HATES GAYS, shouted one sign at a recent fracas on a local college campus, even as a professor of law decried Prop 8 as an affront to the fundamentals of human justice. It is only fair, he argued, that gays be allowed to marry—and he meant each other: same sex marriage equals justice in his world.

But not in God’s world.

Of course, neither in God’s world does anyone wave signs selling hatred as a virtue.

One error on both sides of the issue is to elevate raw human will to the level of supposed noble causes: to blame one‘s own hatred of gays on God, for example; or to exalt one‘s own sentiment about gays to the level of justice, on the other. Both are arrogant expressions of rebellion against God, replacing God’s will with human opinion. Neither have anything to do with what God really thinks of gays.

To discover that you have to follow the curious case of God and gays in the Bible…

Now, it will do no good to say, "Yes! The Bible says God hates gays," on the one hand; or "Baloney! The Bible is irrelevant," on the other. Both responses are fruit of a common seed: ignorance of the Bible.

The Bible "has the ring of truth," said J.B. Phillips upon close enough examination of it to produce his widely-used paraphrased Bible.

The Bible is true because "it is true to what is," said Dr. Francis Schaeffer upon examining the major world philosophies in light of the Bible.

The Bible claims that God is speaking from its pages. If he is, the Bible makes perfect sense while making sense of the world; if he is not, then nothing makes sense....

It follows that the very pursuit of a definitive decision on gay marriage assumes a morality, an inherent justice written into the cosmos that we can discover; problem is you cannot call such inherent justice something like "human rights" and think you have dispensed with the Bible, for you have merely made a circle around the wagons and are back to human opinion. What are human rights? Either there is some clear mark of morality and justice apart from human opinion or there is not; and if there is, you will look high and low to find it apart from the Bible; so start turning pages as you read carefully and listen to what God says.

This does not mean to find proof texts about God and gays; you might find those aplenty but will not grasp one of them truly apart from grasping first the high value God places upon his good creation. God made things a certain way on purpose—because he is good and chooses goodness for the crown of his creation, man as male and female (see Genesis 1:27).

Here is the curious thing: God clearly calls man male and female—the basic unit of humanity is a pair, man and woman in union most clearly expressed in sexual union where they literally become one flesh. Male and male cannot express this union; female and female cannot express this union. The effort to do so is clearly against nature, a violation of the natural order and it doesn’t take rocket science to explain why. Sodomy is no more two becoming one flesh than stuffing a potato into a Volkswagon’s tail pipe makes the union German potato salad; that you can do both does not make either other than what they are in fact—a clear departure from the recipe.

But the case gets more curious: why call sodomy marriage? If it seems clear enough to so many that God‘s intent in nature of man as male and female in sexual union is that they be one flesh, and that this is what humans have for millenniums called marriage, why the drive to upend this and make what is clearly not one flesh one flesh? And why call this justice, as if sodomy were the equivalent of marriage? Why is it unjust to call sodomy, sodomy and marriage, marriage?

Because the ultimate goal is neither same-sex marriage or justice but an overwhelming, obliterating, blatant denial of God‘s goodness. Sodomy is a denial of man as male and female. It thus denies the most basic aspect of God’s goodness in creation, God‘s making of man in his own image as a community of distinct persons with essential differences joined as one in a union of love.

By the same token, as a God of loving goodness God cannot hate gays; but for their own good and that of his creation neither can he allow gays, straights, or in-betweens to slander his goodness.

The ideal of man as male and female in union as one flesh means the basic unit of creation is a community of love purposefully incorporating essential physical, emotional, and psychological differences; the differences are essential to the union of two and foundational to God’s purpose in creation, which is not just survival of the fittest—which denies the validity of sodomy— but a joyful celebration of the differences in a union of love in the presence of God. God calls this good, those who share in it know it is good, and nature concurs.

Whether the California Supreme Court will concur is another story. But in any case, the Court cannot pass judgment on God‘s goodness, and thus can have nothing to say about true marriage whatever it may say about sodomy as the equivalent. Such is the curious case of God and gays. "Let God be true and every man a liar," is how the Apostle Paul put it; and did so bluntly, I may say.(Romans 3:4).