OPEN BOOK, Views & Reviews, No. 43
Copyright (c) 1998 Biblical Horizons
December, 1998
From Plato to NATO: The Idea of the West and Its Critics, by David Gress (New York: Free Press, 1998).
Reviewed by James B. Jordan.
This book came into my hands after I had finished my series of essays on Western Civilization. It is so good that I was tempted to summarize it in the pages of Open Book, but I have decided instead to recommend it to everyone interested in this topic. It is somewhat slow reading, because it is dense with material, but is worth the effort.
Much to the distress of many conservative intellectuals, Gress argues that originally Western Civilization owed rather little to the ancient Greeks. For every man who got his philosophy of history from Herodotus, there were myriads who got theirs from Genesis, Samuel, and Isaiah as they encountered them in the Church. Gress shows that the myth of Greek influence was invented by post-Christian Germans and others seeking for a source of civilization from some place other than the Bible, which they (as anti-semites) regarded as a late-BC production of some groups of Jews. His presentation of this history alone makes the price of the book worthwhile.
I’ll write no more. I recommend this book highly. We are not going to sell it through Biblical Horizons , because it should be readily available anywhere; and if not, order one from Amazon.com or some other internet bookseller.
OPEN BOOK, Views & Reviews, No. 43
Copyright (c) 1998 Biblical Horizons
December, 1998
In a recent issue of the Chalcedon Report (March, 1999), R. J. Rushdoony praises Patrick Buchanan’s book The Great Betrayal (Boston: Little Brown, 1998), a defense of protectionism. Rushdoony claims that the conflict between free trade and tariffs is a religious conflict, and he is correct. Unfortunately and surprisingly, he takes the wrong side.
Tariffs are placed upon trade by government, that is, by men who are ruling other men. Tariffs are purely statist, and inescapably are set in place to favor some workers and discriminate against others. Theoretically, tariffs discriminate against foreign workers, but in fact they always favor some local workers against others. Whatever the case, however, tariffs always permit the state to regulate the economy. That is, tariffs allow men with guns to favor some men’s labors and to cripple the labors of others.
What possible Biblical foundation is there for this? A free market, including free trade, allows the worker to sell his wares for whatever the market will bear, and wherever he can find a good price. Free trade eliminates statist interference in the economy. This is precisely what Biblical ethics and economics always presents as righteous.
Consider exactly what tariffs mean. A group of people provides favors or threats to the state, and the state, as their agent, uses the sword to punish anyone selling goods cheaper than at state-established prices. In other words, the threat of the sword is used to keep some people out of the marketplace. Such a procedure is not only an attack upon the God-ordained cultural mandate, which applies to all human beings everywhere, but is also organized theft, a huge breaking of the eighth commandment: We are not authorized to steal from people on the basis that they are not citizens of our particular nation.
Where in the Bible does God ever imply that we may rightly use the sword to prevent poor people in other countries from selling goods in our markets? Nowhere. Quite the contrary: The Bible always tells us to show kindness to the stranger and the sojourner, and orders us to have the same laws for them as for us (Exodus 12:49).
It does not matter whether such a policy is "good for us" (good for America) or not. It is what God requires. Period.
But Rushdoony sets aside the Biblical testimony, and Biblical justice and equity, in favor of a specious theological canon. He states that "the essential meaning of free trade is the essential goodness of men and nations, so that all things work naturally [his emphasis] for good, not by God’s ordination, but by man’s." This is a sweeping generalization, and is untrue.
First, since free trade is taught in the Bible, it certainly is by God’s ordination. In fact, history shows that apart from the influence of the gospel, protectionism and statism reign supreme. It is the gospel that liberates human labor from the constraints of powerful brutes with guns.
Second, it is true that after the Last Judgment, all things will not work together for good to the wicked. But in history this is not true. God sends the sun to shine on the righteous and wicked alike; and while the wicked live in this, God’s world, they experience many blessings, blessings that should lead them to repentance. Even their suffering is designed to provoke them to repentance, and thus can work for their good.
Ultimately, Rushdoony’s position is heretical, no doubt unintentionally. It presumes that there is no complexity in the will of God. Like Herman Hoeksema, Rushdoony takes seriously the fact that God wills to damn some people for their sins; but also like Hoeksema, Rushdoony implicitly fails to admit that God also desires all men to be saved. By implication, Rushdoony rejects a distinction between God’s historical love for all His images, and His eschatological hatred for the damned.
This is not a contradiction because God’s will is complex; He wills different things at different "levels" so to speak. Only if we assume that God only has one will – the heresy of the simplicity of the will of God – can we deny that God both loves and hates the reprobate.
The proof of the complexity of the will of God is that Jesus, both God and man, wept over Jerusalem and stated that He desired to gather them to Himself, but they would not be gathered (Matthew 23:37). Here we see that God does desire all men to be saved, and is willing to be grieved when they reject Him. This truth must not be set, however, as the Arminians do, against the equally true fact that God raised up Pharaoh in order to destroy him. For God also wills, in a different way, that not all men be saved.
Rushdoony used to understand this quite well. His defense of "common grace" in his early book By What Standard? (1958) is a sustained attack on Hoeksema for just this type of error. It seems that he has moved from or forgotten his earlier position. Many years ago I heard a series of fine lectures by Rushdoony on American History. Back then he understood the evil of tariffs, but he seems to have changed his mind.
I have dealt with Rushdoony’s short review essay because he is an influential Christian thinker and it seems that more and more Christians are thinking along these lines. There is more to be said on the matter, however.
Reviewers have not been slow to point out the glaring mistakes in Buchanan’s treatise. David Frum, writing in the 13 April 1998 issue of The Weekly Standard, notes the many statistical and historical errors contained in the book. He then points out that if Buchanan has his way, certain industries will be "protected" by tariffs, but that this will mean other Americans will have to pay more for such goods, thus discriminating against other parts of the economy. To "protect" one industry without protecting others is to use the sword to harm those others.
History certainly shows this to be the case. Frum points out that in the period from 1873 to 1913, the heyday of tariffs, workers in certain parts of America were brutally exploited by workers in other parts. "Americans who grew wheat and cotton, who felled timber and mined copper, were highly dependent on export markets. The goods they sold were priced at world prices, but tariffs ensured that the things they bought – from farm equipment to shoes – were priced far above world prices. The trade policy of the late nineteenth century brutally exploited the South and the West, and the farmers, loggers, and miners knew it. . . . [U]nder the Morrill and McKinley tariffs, two-thirds of America was a colony of New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Massachusetts." Frum points out that the Fordney-McCumber tariff of 1922 "can fairly be said to have caused the Great Depression," which was only worsened by the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930. These also prevented the "bloodied and starving" Europeans after World War I from selling goods in the United States and thereby acquiring the wealth to rebuild. Particularly hard hit was Germany, with results that were especially horrific and tragic.
Ramesh Ponnuru in the July/August 1998 issue of The American Enterprise points out that after the "evil" NAFTA began operating, "U.S. manufacturing employment is up since 1993; ditto for the automotive, electronics, and industrial machinery sectors." And this at a time when many American workers are moving into retirement and taking social security!
Buchanan worries that American industrialists are moving overseas and employing cheap labor. If that is happening today – and statistics belie the charge, as we have just seen – we may ask why? Why didn’t American manufacture move overseas long ago, in search of cheap labor? The answer is that laborers in "third world" countries are not anywhere near as trustworthy as American laborers, because there is no "work and time ethic" in those places. Also, such nations have always been very unstable. If some American industries are moving overseas now, it is because of the huge number of U.S. federal regulations and the vast amount of paperwork the U.S. federal government now requires. The continual change and increase of these burdens makes the U.S. government very "unstable" in its face toward industry – at least as unstable as "third world" nations might be. It is now cheaper, in some cases, to put up with "third world workers." The corrective is to lighten the burden the federal government places on American industry, not to impose tariffs, which are destructive to the economy.
Buchanan argues that his proposed "protections" would bring down America’s trade deficit. Apart from questioning what is so problematic about a "trade deficit" (i.e., so what?), Ponnuru points out that tariffs would do no such thing. "Imports would go down, but so would exports. Exporters would be hurt by an appreciating currency, by retaliatory protection abroad, and by increased sluggishness among protected firms that would suddenly have little incentive to look outside the cozy home market." Ponnuru has the clear testimony of history on his side here.
Other matters come up for consideration as well. What if a nation, like Red China, uses slave labor to push loads of cheap goods on the United States, thereby undermining our workers? What if, having wrecked U.S. industry, China then hikes up the prices and exploits us? Possibly in such extreme situations it would be right for the U.S. government to impose tariffs, just to make the playing field equitable. Yet, there are some arguments against such a seemingly reasonable notion.
For one thing, Americans can only benefit, in the short haul at least, from cheap foreign goods. When Americans can buy many things cheaply, they have more money left over for other things, such as investing in American industries. The American economy thus benefits and grows as a result of cheap foreign goods, however they may be manufactured.
For another, no nation stays the same generation after generation. Red China won’t be red forever. Arguably, the influx of American money will not help keep the reds in power so much as undermine them. Arguably, the lives of those in "slave labor" will gradually improve as more money comes into the economy; they may be given better food, for instance. Then might come a revolution of rising expectations, the development of a small but growing middle class, etc. Such things are not inevitable, but they are possible. Would Castro still be in power in Cuba if the United States had not embargoed that nation, if the Cuban economy had become enriched by selling to the U.S.? Or would Castro have been thrown out years ago?
Thus, even the "fair trade" argument for a few tariffs is a shaky argument.
A second reflection is this: Buchanan is arguing for "economic nationalism." Do we as Christians believe in "nationalism"? No, we don’t. We believe in the international, catholic, universal community of the Church. We also should believe in international, catholic, universal free markets and free trade. There is no Christian justification for using the power of the state to prevent "foreigners" from selling their wares wherever they wish. The state is not "international" but local, and the purpose of the state is to restrain violence by the threat of physical punishment (the sword). The state has no legitimate role in fixing prices except in extreme circumstances (i.e., to prevent the exploitation of people suffering in dire emergencies, as when wicked people charge huge amounts for water to people whose water systems have broken down after a natural disaster).
Thus, I can fathom no Christian basis for a policy of economic nationalism and protectionism. To be sure, many of those advocating free trade today are on the left, and their advocacy is selective. Such men also want an international political government, whether the United Nations (cf. George Bush’s Gulf War) or NATO (cf. Bill Clinton’s Yugoslav War), and Biblical Christianity advocates the opposite (local government). But I submit that we should be happy that, whatever their motives, they are doing the right thing in this instance. Our position should be in favor of international trade, but opposed to international statism. By linking the two, Buchanan is every bit as far to the left as his opponents.
Buchanan wants the state to use the power of the sword to favor some workers at the expense of others. It may bother us that men like Al Gore take the right side of this issue, while a decent man like Pat Buchanan takes the wrong side, but this kind of confusion is often seen in history. Such confusion will manifest itself from time to time until the end of time. Christians must take their ideas from the Bible, and not be swayed by personalities, good or bad.
For a more extended discussion of the role of the state and of nationalism, see my essay "The Case Against Western Civilization" published in these pages in 1997-98, and my book The Bible and the Nations, available for $12.00 from Biblical Horizons.
BIBLICAL Horizons, No. 112
Copyright (c) 1998 Biblical Horizons
December, 1998
Joseph and Esther
The third patriarch was Joseph, and the third phase of pre-gospel history is the Restoration. We have not spent time looking particularly at the Joseph narrative heretofore, because it is different in cast from the Abraham and Jacob ones. There is no explicit promise, fulfillment, and crisis pattern in the life of Joseph as an individual. Indeed, we move from a promise-fulfillment pattern to a prophecy-fulfillment pattern.
God promised Abraham seed, land, and glory-influence, with a primary focus on seed. God promised Jacob land. But the initial word of God that comes to Joseph comes in a dream, indirectly, and makes no promise. Rather, the dream prophesies that Joseph’s parents and brothers will some day bow down to him. Only some kind of tyrant would regard that prophecy as some kind of wonderful promise, looking forward to ruling over his family! This initial prophecy, consisting of two dreams, is followed by two other pairs of prophetic dreams (chapters 40 & 41), which again are not promises to any persons, but predictions of future events.
The contrast is also evident from a comparison of the Jacob and Joseph exile stories. Like his father, Joseph is driven from the land and the community of the priestly people by brothers who intend to murder him. Like Jacob, Joseph goes to a strange land with only the shirt on his back. Like Jacob he is oppressed for a time, but then is given an estate; though unlike Laban with Jacob, Pharaoh rejoices to honor Joseph. Like Jacob, Joseph acquires a wife in the strange land, and has sons there. But strikingly unlike the story of Jacob, we do not read of any special encounter with God on the road to Egypt. God did not meet with him; he was left on his own, it seems.
But he was not alone, and he was not without promise. It is just that Joseph had to rely on the general promises God had made to all His people. No special promise was given to him. He had to rely by faith on the revelation God had given to previous generations, because no special verbal revelation came to him. In this regard, he is just like us: He had to regard the "Bible," the history of previous events, as his promise.
Such faith, we may say, is a higher and tougher form of faith. It is faith without any external support in miracles and special revelations. Most pointedly, it is faith that is generated by the Holy Spirit in a more comprehensive way than before.
The absence of special personal and verbal revelations in the Joseph story fits with its theological focus, which is on the Spirit. The Father was in primary focus in the Abraham narrative, and the Brother was in primary focus in the Jacob narrative. God came in Person to dialogue with Abraham and to wrestle with Jacob, and spoke words to both of them. With Joseph, the Spirit is the primary focus (Genesis 41:38 – "in whom is the Spirit of God"). The form revelation takes in the Joseph narrative is not that of person and word, but that of wisdom and influence: The Spirit gently influences and guides Joseph to make him wise. But note: The Spirit does this because Joseph already has possession of the Person and Word revelation to his fathers.
Just as there is no special Tree of Life revelation to Joseph at the beginning of his story, so there seems to be no special Tree of Judgment crisis in the middle of it. When Joseph comes out of the exile of prison, there is no crisis; rather, Pharaoh is immediately converted and receives Joseph with open arms. When Joseph’s brothers arrive later on, Joseph is fully in control of the situation.
In fact, though, the attack of Potiphar’s wife is Joseph’s Tree of Knowledge crisis. It is his willingness to see through that crisis, and not fall into sin with the "daughters of men," that results in his having world influence.
Potiphar’s wife accused Joseph of attempted rape, and this was a capital offense. (Obviously, for a mere slave to try an rape a noblewoman would have been a capital offense.) Because Joseph had been faithful, God moved Potiphar to spare him. Yet Joseph was sent into the "death" of imprisonment.
Thus, the question for the Joseph crisis is this: ARE YOU WILLING TO DIE AND LOSE ALL GLORY AND INFLUENCE IN ORDER TO MAINTAIN FAITH WITH ME? Joseph had built up influence with Potiphar, who was Captain of Pharaoh’s Bodyguard — a highly influential position. We read that Potiphar left everything in Joseph’s hand. Thus, Joseph had great influence in Egypt, indirectly. Now he had to give it all up in order to be faithful. Eventually, though, he was rewarded with far greater influence, taking over not Potiphar’s but Pharaoh’s household.
The Spirit is the glorifier. The Spirit had given Joseph a glorious estate, and now the Spirit demanded Joseph give it up.
There is a strict relationship between glory and marriage, for the woman is the glory of the man (1 Corinthians 11:7), and while Jesus has no form or comeliness that we should desire Him, His Bride is beautiful and glorious because of the work of the Spirit (Revelation 21). Men want beautiful wives, and are tempted by the beauty and glory of the "daughters of men" (Genesis 6:2). The beauty of a woman is the husband’s glory. (When an older man marries a beautiful young woman, we call her a "trophy wife.") Thus, the temptation to take glory the wrong way is focussed in the temptation to become involved with attractive but sinful women. That was Joseph’s crisis, for Potiphar’s wife definitely sought to attract Joseph, as Tamar sought to attract Judah (Genesis 38).
Now, the Joseph story is recapitulated in larger form in the Restoration era. The parallels are instructive. The stories of Joseph and Judah, which are sandwiched in Genesis 47-50, both concern the lure of Gentile "daughters of men." Judah falls into sin with the daughters of men, but repents. Joseph does not fall, and goes to prison. He was willing to forego sexual relations with Potiphar’s wife for God’s sake, and was later given a royal bride as a reward. Similarly, the sin of intermarriage and compromise is the major sin of the Restoration era. Both Ezra-Nehemiah and Malachi point to the sin of intermarriage as the major problem. And intermarriage with unconverted women is only a symbol of the larger sin of compromise with the Gentiles. The Jews were supposed to witness to the Gentiles, not compromise with them.
In the Joseph story, the Gentiles receive the wisdom of God first, and only later are the sinful brethren converted. The same thing happens in the Restoration. The story of Jonah is an anticipation of this theme, but in Daniel we see Nebuchadnezzar and Cyrus converted and following the wisdom of God before we see the Jews enabled to return from exile.
In the Joseph story, the Hebrews live within Egypt in Goshen, the best of the land. In the Restoration, the Jews live within the empire, in the province Beyond the River (Trans-Euphrates).
In the Joseph story, Joseph exercises world influence under a Gentile lord. The same is true of the Jews in the Restoration era.
In the Joseph story, Joseph must resist the allure of the "daughters of men." In Malachi, the sinful Jews have divorced their Jewish wives and taken lovely young "trophy wives" from among the unbelievers. In Ezra-Nehemiah, the Jews have sinned by marrying the "daughters of men," and are commanded to send them home, to give up this false glory.
The first time of crisis is described in Esther. Like Joseph, Esther (now a bride-figure rather than a son-figure) must live faithfully without any special personal or verbal revelation. The crisis comes as a test in terms of the new privilege of humble (under a Gentile lord) world influence. Just as God gave Abraham a son and then tested him in terms of it, and just as God gave Jacob an estate and then tested him in terms of it, so God gave Joseph a glory-influence and then tested him in terms of it: would he compromise with Egypt or break with it to serve God? Similarly, God gave the Jews an influence and then tested them in terms of it.
Mordecai sat on the Supreme Court of the Persian Empire, the Gate of the King. Probably he was the representative of the Jews, possibly of Trans-Euphrates Province. Like Joseph in Potiphar’s house, Mordecai had standing and glory-influence in the Persian empire. Then God tested him. God put Haman over him, and commanded him to respect Haman’s office. Unlike David with Saul, Mordecai refused to respect the king’s decision. Moreover, seeking influence at court the wrong way, Mordecai told Esther to conceal her Jewish identity, and thus not to be a witness to the Gentiles.
God then brought the crisis. He attacked Mordecai and all the Jews, threatening to exterminate them. In this crisis, Mordecai repented and sat in sackcloth and ashes. But now Mordecai had to give up his influence, influence that came through the bride, Esther. He had to tell Esther to reveal her peo-ple to the king, even though she might die for doing so. Because Esther saw through the crisis, she was willing to do this. She was a representative of the true Bride, the Church. Esther went before the king and bowed low, recognizing his God-given au-thority. She revealed that she was a Jew. And then God reversed everything and the Jews were saved. Not only so, but many Gentiles converted, so that the far side of the crisis was more glorious than before (Esther 8:17). Meanwhile Mordecai was elevated to a much higher position of glory-influence than formerly, moving from the "Potiphar’s house" of the Persian Supreme Court to becoming "Pharaoh’s" chief advisor. (For more on Esther, see my tape series "Witness or Perish.")
As a note, we should probably also correlate the famine that drove the Hebrews to repent before Joseph and be saved, with the death-threat against the Jews that drove Mordecai to repentance and saved the Jews.
The second time of crisis in the Restoration era is described to Daniel in visions. (See my commentary on Daniel for detailed information on this.) It came at the time of the Maccabees. God brought about a crisis by raising up an adversary, Antiochus IV Epiphanes. The wicked Jews failed to see through the crisis, and removed the High Priest Onias III, a Zadokite as God had commanded in Ezekiel 44. They allowed a man named Jason to become High Priest, and he made a deal with Antiochus. Then a man named Menelaus overthrew Jason and made further deals with Antiochus, bringing pagan institutions into Jerusalem. The unfaithful Jews were seeking peace and comfort, seeking to avoid persecution, not by wrestling with God, but by compromising with the pagans. Like Mordecai, they sought influence at court by denying the faith, much as modern Christian conservatives seek influence in politics by speaking of "natural law" rather than of the kingship of Jesus Christ.
The result, predictably, was that they died. Antiochus was provoked to anger by the Romans, and took out his anger on the Jews. Persecution came, and it was far worse than the Jews had feared, and far worse than it might have been had they been faithful.
The faithful who saw through the crisis resisted the tendency to compromise with Antiochus’s pagan dreams. But some of them also failed the test. They rebelled against Antiochus and did indeed gain political freedom for the Jews, but they did not call back the true Zadokite High Priest. Instead, the Maccabees made one of their own family members High Priest. The result was, again, predictable. This man turned against the faithful and persecuted them; and in fact, from that time on the High Priests were persecutors of the faithful. Thus, only a small remnant really passed the test.
As when God tore the Tabernacle apart in the days of Eli, so from the time of the Maccabees forward there was no full worship in the Temple. Only a valid High Priest could conduct the Day of Covering (Atonement) rituals (Leviticus 16), and so although the false High Priests went through the motions of that ritual, God never counted it as valid. Jesus went to all the feasts and religious events of Israel, but not to the Day of Covering.
Let us now summarize. In the story of Joseph and in the history of the restoration, the focus is on the Jew-Gentile relationship, especially as that relationship is played out at the human level in the relationship of husband and bride. The mid-life crisis concerns the Jew-Gentile relationship: Will you give up your God-given glory for the privilege of being God’s humble witnesses? Mordecai initially wouldn’t, and the Jews in the days of the Maccabees wouldn’t. Those who pass the test, who see through the crisis by faith, are ready for the Tree of Rule and can become the Bride of Jesus Christ, co-ruling with Him as world-emperors.
The test of the Tree of Knowledge, as it comes to us as individuals and nations, means at least this in its Joseph dimension: Will you undergo suffering and loss of glory for the privilege of bearing witness, and not try to seize it for yourself by compromise? This was the test before Joseph and before Mordecai. Those who see through the crisis, when it comes to them, acquire world influence.
