John Frame on Christian education

Recently, there was an overture in the PCA to recommend that parents withdraw their children from the public education system. The overture was turned down, however. I think that was the right decision, even though I agree that the dismal state and the anti-Christian environment of the public education system are good reasons that parents should consider. The public education system, for all its faults, still has more resources (albeit at a steep price) than home schooling, and not all parents are qualified to teach their children in various subjects and there are many who just cannot afford private Christian schools. Education is all-encompassing, and I think parents who are overzealous and underqualified may actually rob their children of essential skills in life.

Prof. John Frame’s article, recently posted at his website, gives some good perspectives on the issue. Of course I cannot read his mind, but some analogies in his article resonate with what I think of the current state of the state:

A thief takes all my money, then offers me $5 for bus fare home. Should I refuse to take it?

It can be just as easily argued that the state should not be involved in the retirement saving of its citizens. Does this imply that I should refuse my social security checks when they come due? Certainly not. They are mine. One may argue that the state stole the money from me, but when the state offers to return some, I am certainly not obligated to turn it down. To accept the money is not to acknowledge the state’s right to have taken it in the first place. It is not to be complicit in the sin of the state.

Another step toward tyranny

The Supreme Court weakened private property rights by its ruling of Kelo v. City of New London. Justice Scalia dissented, commenting, “You can take from A and give to B if B pays more taxes?” George Will says, “That is the logic of the opinion written by Justice John Paul Stevens and joined by justices Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.”

And I thought leftists were for the little guys.

UPDATE: The Castle Coalition is a good place to start in fighting back this outrageous encroachment of private property and freedom.

UPDATE 2005-07-12: The Lost Liberty Hotel project aims to develop a hotel in the town of Weare, New Hampshire. Obviously, this has the potential of increasing tax revenues for the town, since Justice David Souter’s house isn’t doing much these days.

Of just and cruel punishment

Rand Simberg has an interesting article about the paradox of life-extending medicine and punishment at TechCentralStation.

But wait ... isn’t there already such a punishment “in perpetuity”? It’s called Hell.

More evidence that Prof. Krugman has lost his mind

Not that we need any more evidence to be convinced, but it doesn’t hurt. Krugman’s nemesis Donald Luskin has the latest in NRO. Another piece (by a European, no less!) appears at TechCentralStation.

Machen’s warrior children

Prof. John Frame has just posted his article summarizing the major controversies in the conservative Reformed circles.

Bach cantata newly discovered

I am excited to see this. I plan to acquire the complete Bach works when the set is eventually published by Bärenreiter.

The use of anthropos as a feminine

WOLRD Magazine’s blog on the TNIV Stealth Bible has an entry on June 2, 2005, that points to Michael Marlowe’s article on the use of anthropos. A commenter named CSB pointed out that Liddell-Scott-Jones (LSJ, which is available online through Tufts University’s Perseus) has cited a few examples of anthropos in reference to women. I was going to post the following comment, but WORLD’s blog server had a bug that rejected it as it rejected all others during that time. By the time the server came back in order, Mr. Marlowe had already replied to CSB. Mr. Marlowe is, of course, more knowledge in Greek than I. But with my limited knowledge I could still observe that the feminine uses of anthropos were exceptional. So, instead of posting to WORLD’s blog, I will just put the comment here.

On the other hand, in most of the examples cited by Liddell & Scott (for the feminine sense), the feminine article "he" is used, clearly marking the special use of anthropos as referring to a female human being and sometimes contemptuously to a female slave. In the example where the article is not used, anthropos appears in the phrase tis anthropon. Tis can be grammatically either masculine or feminine, but the context makes it clear that it is used as a feminine.

It must also be kept in mind that the use of anthropos to refer to a female individual is rather rare. One might reasonably suspect a special rhetoric purpose for such usage (e.g., contemptuous reference to female slaves). Thus the burden of proof is still on the gender-neutral party to show that when anthropos is used normally as a masculine noun referring to an individual it might refer to a female person.

Will gender-neutral “Bibles” march toward this absurdity (and blasephemy)?

Thanks to James Taranto of Best of the Web Today for this link:

A new edition of the Gospels of the Bible for the first time shows Christ as a woman, named Judith Christ of Nazareth, and God as female. In all other respects, the classic texts of the Gospels remain unchanged.

The publisher, LBI Institute, has released this new Bible entitled: "Judith Christ of Nazareth, The Gospels of the Bible, Corrected to Reflect that Christ Was a Woman, Extracted from Matthew, Mark, Luke and John." The book is available in bookstores and online.

"This long-awaited revised text of the Gospels makes the moral message of Christ more accessible to many, and more illuminating to all," says Billie Shakespeare, V.P. for the publisher. "It is empowering. We published this new Bible to acknowledge the rise of women in society."

(UPDATE 2005-06-08): I wonder why they didn’t discover that the Gospels were actually written by Mathilda, Marcia, Lucia, and Johanna.

Smithsonian’s screening of Privileged Planet

apparently has caused hysteria among the fundamentalist Darwinists, even though it is not specifically about evolution and even though most of them probably didn’t see it because they would regard it as beneath their contempt. It is funny that the kind of fervent reaction provoked in these ultra-Darwinsts is not all that different from what they and their secularist cohorts would ascribe to so-called fundamentalist Christians when the Christians’ doctrines and moral convictions are attacked in word or in deed. If they would deign even to engage in a little self-examination and self-reflection, they might as soon apply the label “fundamentalist” to themselves.

In a sense, it is not all that surprising. People get worked up when their ultimate conviction and commitment are challenged, when their idols get smashed and they are revealed to be idolators. But why would there be an offense? Why is an offense offensive if there were not some kind intrinsic human dignity that is grounded in the imago Dei? Van Til was proved right once again.

Oh, and there is the irony that the computer program that the evolutionnews.org blog runs on is called b2evolution. Was that intentional?