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Thoughts of a Reforming Pelagian

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      18 Apr 2011

      Timely Quotes for Tax Day (April 18, 2011)

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      I tried to find a collection of both rightist and leftist quotes. I sourced this from the internet which sadly was lacking in footnotes and citations. Please advise me if I have things wrong.

      People try to live within their income so they can afford to pay taxes to a government that can't live within its income.  
      Robert Half
      Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
      Ronald Reagan
      Why would we want to keep a tax cut that's failed? Why would we not want to go back to the Clinton tax code? And why would we not want to help every family more with a health-care plan like mine? Let's help average people. Let's be Democrats. 
      Dick Gephardt 
      Sadly, this is the same old Republican story of Robin Hood in reverse - tax cuts for the rich while programs for average and low income Americans suffer. 
      Jose Serrano 
      On my income tax 1040 it says "Check this box if you are blind." I wanted to put a check mark about three inches away. 
      Tom Lehrer 
      Once again, the Republicans in the Senate have rejected an increase in the minimum wage. They support tax breaks for multi-millionaires, but they oppose helping the working poor to earn a decent income. 
      Mark Dayton 
      Bush is giving the rich a tax cut instead of putting that cut in the pockets of working people. 
      Carol Moseley Braun
      The real reason to oppose increasing tax rates on the wealthy is that it's a good bet they could do more to help the economy if they keep their money rather than have their earnings confiscated by the government and spent on another round of stimulus. 
      Terry Savage 
      I'm proud to pay taxes in the United States; the only thing is, I could be just as proud for half the money.  
      Arthur Godfrey
      Unquestionably, there is progress.  The average American now pays out twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages.
      H.L. Mencken
      The nation should have a tax system that looks like someone designed it on purpose.  
      William Simon
      We must care for each other more, and tax each other less.  
      Bill Archer
      The expenses of government, having for their object the interest of all, should be borne by everyone, and the more a man enjoys the advantages of society, the more he ought to hold himself honored in contributing to those expenses.  
      Anne Robert Jacques Turgot
      Be wary of strong drink.  It can make you shoot at tax collectors … and miss.  
      Robert Heinlein
      The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to get the most feathers with the least hissing.  
      Jean Baptiste Colbert
      The avoidance of taxes is the only intellectual pursuit that carries any reward.
      John Maynard Keynes
      The difference between death and taxes is death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets.
      Will Rogers
      A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money.
      G. Gordon Liddy
      The tax on capital gains directly affects investment decisions, the mobility and flow of risk capital... the ease or difficulty experienced by new ventures in obtaining capital, and thereby the strength and potential for growth in the economy. 
      John F. Kennedy 
      In fact, the best thing we could do on taxes for all Americans is to simplify the individual tax code. This will be a tough job, but members of both parties have expressed an interest in doing this, and I am prepared to join them. 
      Barack Obama 
      We don't seem to be able to check crime, so why not legalize it and then tax it out of business? 
      Will Rogers 
      We all know what the problems are: it's tax and spend. One party will tax and spend, the other party won't tax but will spend. It's both of them together. 
      Glenn Beck 
      Deficits mean future tax increases, pure and simple. Deficit spending should be viewed as a tax on future generations, and politicians who create deficits should be exposed as tax hikers. 
      Ron Paul 
      Many of you are well enough off that the tax cuts may have helped you. We're saying that for America to get back on track, we're probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good. 
      Hillary Clinton
      Taxes are important. President Bush's tax proposals leave no rich person behind. Voters approve of President Bush helping the kind of people they wish they were one of. 
      Andy Rooney 
      Instead of creating new jobs, Republicans gave tax cuts to companies that send jobs overseas. 
      Joe Baca 

      To do what we are doing in this budget to our children, cutting their health care funds, decreasing opportunity, simply so we can pay for tax cuts and a war in Iraq is beyond belief, and we need to reverse it. 
      Tom Allen 
      Where is the politician who has not promised to fight to the death for lower taxes—and who has not proceeded to vote for the very spending projects that make tax cuts impossible? 
      Barry Goldwater 
      The primary requisite for any new tax law is for it to exempt enough voters to win the next election. 
      Unknown
      All the taxes paid over a lifetime by the average American are spent by the government in less than a second.
      Jim Fiebig
      Intaxication:  Euphoria at getting a refund from the IRS, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.  
      Author unknown, from a Washington Post word contest
      Hall's Laws of Politics:
      1. The voters want fewer taxes and more spending.
      2. Citizens want honest politicians until they need something fixed.
      3. Constituency drives out consistency (i.e. liberals defend military spending and conservatives social spending in their own constituency.)
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      24 Jan 2011

      Review: The Wages of Spin (Part 2 of 2)

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      Part 1 Here

      The second part of Carl Trueman’s work The Wages of Spin is entitled ‘Short Sharp Shocks.’ These essays are shorter and more accessible. If I had to comment on the balance of the types of essay, I’d argue Trueman should have included more of these short essays. 

      Essay 1: The Importance of Evangelical Beliefs

      Carl Trueman argues in line with Gresham Machen and the Apostle Paul that Christianity does not exist unless history and doctrine are indissolubly united. While we may gain respectability in applying Jacob de Zoet’s aphorism, ‘The truth of a myth lies not in its words but its patterns,’ (The Thousand Autums of Jacob de Zoet, David Mitchell) to Christianity, if we do so we lose the Gospel.

      Essay 2: What Can Miserable Christians Sing?

      “In the psalms, God has given the church a language which allows it to express even the deepest agonies of the human soul in the context of worship.’ (p 159)

      This is probably Trueman’s best essay in this collection (out of several very good essays). He expresses that often the church has partially bought into the commercialism the West and with it the idolatry of health, wealth, and happiness. To this end, we end up denying that brokenness is part of the human—yes, even the Christian—condition. This is reflected in our worship; our songs as a whole don’t express this brokenness. 

      Trueman states that the Psalms have a higher priority in singing. In the Psalms, there is the range of emotion of man’s soul. Let us learn to lament with the language of the Psalms, argues Trueman, and we’ll have a healthier and more evangelistic church. To which I can only respond, ‘Amen’.

      Essay 3: The Marcions have Landed!

      Marcion lived in the 2nd century and held to a cannon consisting only of a redacted version of the Gospel of Luke and ten epistles of Paul. The rest of Scripture, including the Old Testament, he rejected. He formulated this cannon because he believed the gospel message was exclusively of love. 

      The essay proposes that modern evangelicals have so focussed on the love of God they have excluded a notion of his wrath. (Consider how the doctrine of penal substitution has recently fallen on hard times.) Unwittingly, this places them in line with Marcion’s theology.

      Another aspect of neo-Macionism is the neglect of the Old Testament ‘in our theological reflection and devotional life.’ (p 166) Again, ‘As the Old Testament is the context for the New Testament, so the neglect of the Old Testament leaves the New as more or less meaningless.’ (p 167)
      Trueman concludes with, ‘think truncated thoughts about God and will will get a truncated God; read an expurgated Bible, and you’ll get an expurgated theology; sing mindless, superficial rubbish instead of deep, truly emotional praise and you will eventually become what you sing.’ (p 168)

      If our doxology suffers so will our life and witness; let us call evangelicalism back to the God of the whole Bible.

      Essay 4: A Revolutionary Balancing Act Or: Why Our Theology Needs to be a Little Less Biblical.

      My original review started, ‘And now an article with I disagree with Trueman.’ But after some discussions learned that Carl Trueman is (mostly) right. In this essay, he argues that while Biblical theology is a good thing and has valuable insights, it should not be done to the exclusion of systematic theology. Originally I thought he overemphasized the problem that people were ignoring systematic theology, but after a discussion with my pastor, he stated that not only is there some ignoring systematic theology but down right despise it. I am grateful for my time in the Reformed world, that my pastors have been balanced in their use of biblical and systematic theology.

      Essay 5: Boring Ourselves to Life

      Carl Trueman begins his essay with an amusing anecdote with the news showing people in preparation for a winter storm by ‘stocking up’ on rental movies, lest they be stuck in their houses and become bored. 

      Why do we place such an emphasis on entertainment? Why are celebrities and sports figures paid so much? Why is entertainment more valueable to us than a host of other services and goods such as government and education?

      To answer this, Trueman turns t o the writings of Blaise Pascal in his Pensées. Left to ourselves we think about the reality of death and our mortality. ‘Why do we pay sports stars, actors, and the various airheads that populate the airwaves more than we pay our political leader? Because they help to take our minds off the deeper, more demanding truths of life, particularly the one great and ultimately unavoidable truth: death.’ (p 177) Trueman concludes his essay by urging us to spend some time reflecting on the claims of Christ and the truths revealed in him. 

      Essay 6: Why you shouldn’t buy the big issue.

      This is a great essay asking, ‘Why is homosexuality one bridge too far?’. Carl is right on; if we’ve tolerated heresy as theological diversity then we should not be surprised when morality crumbles. We should defend more concerns such as the deity of Christ, his literal resurrection, etc., while also affirming Christian morality. The proverbial line in the sand should not be drawn at homosexuality but at much earlier point with the integrity of Scripture and doctrine. 

      The essayist points out that when we make homosexuality the Big Issue rather than theological concern we come across not as being principled and biblical but merely bigoted and out of touch. Of course, we probably come across and bigoted and out of touch in any case but at least the world would be able to see a consistent ethic and practice if we were to take seriously the whole of God’s Word. 

      Evangelicalism Through the Looking Glass. A Fairy Tale 

      Carl Trueman’s last piece shows his characteristic wit. (I know I may not have mentioned it in the above reviews, this is of course why should read him and not me.) He humorously retells the Alice and Humpty-Dumpty encounter that must be read to be appreciated. 
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    A twenty-something confessional Presbyterian writing from Tucson, Az.

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