A special welcome to all of our new readers. We're very grateful you're with us, and we hope we can be of some benefit to you. Since the beginning of the year we've added eight more pages and have placed our Polyphony column on hiatus until further notice. Beginning in this issue, two of those pages will be devoted to Disputatio, a short dialogue between opposing viewpoints on a select topic.
From You:
Dear Editor:
Why the attacks on Rush Limbaugh? He is one of few conservative voices which support the family. Admittedly he is not perfect but in a very imperfect world he is a breath of fresh air compared to the rest. Pick on those that truly deserve it, et al. Clinton and crew.
Name lost(!)
Dear Editor,
I have been reading your magazine for a few years. I enjoy it and agree with most of your viewpoints. What prompted me to write this letter was your comment on Rush Limbaugh . . . . [Rush] believes what is true no matter how uncomfortable it makes others. He believes in creation not evolution, he is pro life and outspokenly so. He thinks women should take care of their children at home and applauds them . . . . He is irreverent to political correctness and does have faults but he is speaking our values into the culture more than anyone else I know. He relates to Christians as well as non Christians. His two main faults as far as I am concerned are his view of homosexual birth and occasional risque jokes.
Pam Forrester Fallbrook, CA
Douglas Wilson replies: We agree that Rush Limbaugh says many things that are true, and which conform to biblical values. We also have no problem with the fact that he makes the liberal humanist establishment apoplectic. But there are two basic assumptions which were behind our passing criticisms of Limbaugh. The first is that, as a non-believer, Rush is building a fine house (traditional values, etc.) on a foundation of sand (right-wing humanism) -- and our Lord taught us what to expect when a storm hits such houses. Secondly, the Bible plainly and bluntly teaches that pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall (Prov. 16:18). Limbaugh is manifestly a very proud man, and we are concerned that far too many Christians will be standing right next to him when he finally craters. It will be a bad time for Christians to be dittoheads.
Dear Editor,
What does Mr. Wilson mean when he speaks of uninspired preachers? Does the author mean to suggest that God no longer gives his servants inspiration? By inspiration, I mean God-breathed words. You said that after the death of the Apostles all preaching became uninspired. I don't understand where this statement comes from. Is it Biblical? What in the world is uninspired accuracy? . . . You say you are in agreement with the confessional statements of classical Protestantism. Whose Protestantism is classical? Luther, Zwingli, Huss, Knox or Cranmer? Or perhaps there are others you agree with that I have not named?
Lee Heeter
Katy, TX
Douglas Wilson replies: The Bible teaches that the Christian church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets (Eph. 2:20). In building a house, the contractors first pour the foundation, and then proceed to the entirely different operation of framing in the house. God guaranteed the church an infallible apostolic foundation (1 Cor. 3:10), but He taught us that the builders who came after were not gifted with infallibility (1 Cor. 3:10,12). They might err in tampering with the foundation, or by building with hay and stubble. So while God guarantees an infallible start, and a final glorious result, the work in between is done by uninspired men -- the infallibility of inspiration is not promised to them. Their words are accurate only to the extent that they line up with the foundation.
Our affirmation of classical Protestantism is deliberately general. The types of confessional statements we have in mind would include the Westminster Confession, the 1689 London Baptist Confession, the Belgic Confession, and so on. So we are not trying to choose up sides between Calvin and Zwingli. Rather, in that statement we are aligning ourselves with Calvin and Zwingli over and against contemporary pop-evangelicalism.
Dear Editor,
Most of the people I come into contact with who claim to be Christians certainly are "Biblically-challenged" in that they see nothing wrong with embracing a quasi-divine Santa Claus. Don't these people need to be reminded?
Edith Maki
Hancock, MI
Dear Editor,
My purpose is to comment on your report of Martin Bobgan's article concerning Santa Claus. I read the Bobgan article when it appeared in the Sword and Trowel. At the time, I thought it was a bit over-done, but more than anything else, I thought it was a bit trivial compared to the other writings that Bobgan has produced. But I question your response to the article . . . . The theme of your latest publication was principles for which we need to stand fast. I just was not convinced that your opinion of Bobgan's article was one of those burning issues.
George Seevers
Crowley, TX
Douglas Wilson replies: We appreciate the valuable work the Bobgans have done, but we also believe their central point (the illegitimacy of fusing psychology and biblical truth) is important enough that it must not be undermined through rank silliness. Sure, Santa Claus is represented as quasi-divine, and sure, people need to be reminded of how dumb that is -- but not by means of a point equally dumb.
Dear Editor,
Your extraordinarily literate and visually delicious magazine offers me a continual feast. You must be a rare group of folks. However, Bob Callihan's Honest Money article (your Vol. 5, No. 6, p. 18), "Ten Percent of What?" left me breathing hard with confusion. Where does the Bible create two different classes of humanity for tithing? Apparently I missed reading that, but Mr. Callihan cited it nonetheless: Class 1, the wage or salary earner; Class 2, the investor or businessman. What's the difference? Class 2 enjoys considerably greater privileges than poor Class 1. Class 2 gets to deduct cost of production from the income, i.e., increase, upon which its members must tithe. Class 1, however, gets the backhand from Scripture and is allowed no deduction. For the members of Class 1, all revenue is increase . That Class 1's members must feed and clothe themselves and their families, provide sustenance and shelter in order that they keep on fueling that wage-drawing machine does not enter into the calculation of their increase . For them, everything that comes in is increase , and no deduction is allowed for reckoning their tithe. Ridiculous? Sounds so to me. The Scripture is plain, and undivided for all men: Pay tithe on the increase . Surely increase is calculated the same way for all? Or is there one law for the businessman and another for the wage-earner? With all due respect, I believe Mr. Callihan is tying up a burden on faithful Christian people which God did not mean them to bear. Ultimately this misinterpretation will prevent the very blessing tithing should bring: it will decapitalize wage-earning believers.
Franklin Sanders
Memphis, TN
Bob Callihan Replies: Thanks for the compliments, and for letting us know of your objection. We seem to agree that Scripture teaches the tithe is on one's increase. Wage earners invest too, and many investors earn wages or salaries. We are not talking about two classes of persons, but two classes of income. We are not to tithe on the tools used to produce the increase but on the increase itself. Money invested is the tool, not the gain. Example One: A wage-earner invests $1000 in a bank savings account. He tithes on the interest earned, not the $1000 capital investment. Example Two: a potato farmer (a businessman) takes out an operating loan (which may be tenfold the value of the increase) to invest in the purchase of seeds, fertilizer, and employee wages. The result of his season of labor and investment is a harvested potato crop, which he sells. All his sales receipts are income, but all are not increase. He pays back the operating loan, then tithes on the difference between expenses and income, if any. Net profit is the only money available for him to use for the things the wage earner uses his wages for, including the tithe. He does not gain what he borrowed, and cannot use it for tithing. If his borrowed investment were ten times the profit, and he was expected to tithe on his gross income, he would have no profit. The wage earner invests his time and energy (so does the farmer or other businessman), but is not told to tithe ten percent of the value of his daily investment of eight or ten hours of time and energy, in addition to tithing ten percent of the wages he receives. If he did, and if he were paid what he was worth, he would be giving twenty percent of his wages. Neither wage earner nor investor deducts living costs (food, clothing, shelter) as investments, because they incur those costs whether they earn income or not. So we agree, in one sense: increase is calculated the same way for all.
Dear Editor,
John Bunyan's quotation in your verbatim section [Vol. 6, No. 1] was powerful and moving. To hear a brother so removed in time yet so close in heart reminds me of how Christ is our life and how this has been so to the saints of all history . . . Next to this excellent quote your table of contents directed me to an article entitled "Meditations on the Cross" by Jim Nance. As I read Mr. Nance's words, my anticipation led only to disappointment and that to consternation as it became evident that he had no intention of directing me toward Christ . . . Hopefully someone else will comment more fully on his dredging up Pelagius and labeling modern evangelicalism in all its forms as semi-Pelagian, like one would label semi-soft cheese. Regardless of my personal stance on reformed or evangelical thought, I will always consider Christ as the progenitor of "modern evangelicalism in all its forms." But outrageous as were some of his statements, the heaviness, the sadness, the disgust that this article brought me came from the secondary importance Christ was shown in these non-meditations. Rather than a King, Christ was the pawn used to strengthen Mr. Nance's position . . .
M.C. Boothman
Pullman, WA
Jim Nance replies: In the quotation to which you refer, John Bunyan noted of our Lord that "a right sight of him, as he hanged there for thy sins, will dissolve thy heart" to make it "a fit place for the grace of fear to thrive in." Many modern evangelicals do not know this thriving grace simply because their "sight of him" is not right. My purpose in "dredging up Pelagius" and those who followed him was an attempt to bring to light the root of this wrong- sightedness and to contrast it with the glorious gospel of God's sovereign love and Christ's powerful death, with which my article closed. This I did in the hope that our sight would be set right to see the King that Bunyan so powerfully preached.
