ANTONIN SCALIA: APPLAUSE, PLEASE

Antonin Scalia was born in Trenton, New Jersey, on March 11, 1936, the son of an Italian immigrant. His father graduated from Colombia University and eventually became a professor of Romance Languages at Brooklyn College.  Antonin's mother was no dummy--she was an elementary school teacher. They had only the one child.

Antonin was a Boy Scout, and  was admitted to the prestigious Order of the Arrow in that organization. When he graduated from Xavier High School in 1953, he was first in his class and was the valedictorian. From there, it was on to Georgetown University In 1953, where he graduated valedictorian and summa cum laude in 1957 with a Bachelor of Arts in history. {The fact that he majored in history was a tip-off that he would do great things.)

While in college, he was a champion collegiate debater in Georgetown's Philodemic Society and a highly regarded thespian. He spent his junior year at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. Scalia studied law at Harvard Law School and graduated magna cum laude (What else is new?) In 1960, travel throughout Europe during 1960–1961.

He was a true Renaissance man: he loved the opera, played the piano, loved to sing, to travel; he enjoyed and excelled in writing, although he said it was agony because, when he wrote, he HAD to chose the right word, not a cousin of the right word, but the precise word.  His family consisted of a baseball team; he and his wife had 9 children. He loved nothing greater than, at the end of every day, going home to be with his family.

President Ronald Reagan appointed him to the Supreme Court where he served for 30 years until his death in Texas on February 13, 2016. He stayed true to his conservative principles all his life, becoming committed to conservatism when he was in high school. 

And he had one habit that should bring those of us who love the Bible to our feet in applause. 

If you were to go into Scalia's library, you would be confronted by a multitude of dictionaries. He would tell you that one of those dictionaries was more important than all the others: it was Webster's Dictionary, Second Edition, the dictionary used by our Founding Fathers. And therein hangs a tale.

Since Scalia was a Supreme Court Justice, he studied the Constitution and devoted his life to its principles and interpretation. And this is where Webster's Dictionary (2nd. ed.)  comes in. His passion was to know the precise definitions of the words our Founders used to write the Constitution. He didn't want to know the definitions those words have today, but what the definition was back in the day when Madison et al., used them. 

When Scalia studied the 2nd Amendment, he wanted to know what "militia" meant back in Jefferson's, Washington's, and Franklin's day. To say it another way, not in reference to the 2nd Amendment, Scalia wanted to know how John Adams and Patrick Henry would have understood "cruel and unusual" or "high crimes and misdemeanors."  

Scalia knew that words evolve over time, so he wanted to nail down the precise meanings of the words of the Constituiton at the time those most brilliant of men put quill to parchment. 

Speaking of words evolving, "peruse" is one such word. Some time back, "peruse" meant to give something a close and serious scrutiny, but today, it means to give a furtive glance to something. 

And this brings us to why those of us who love the Bible should stand and applaud. What Scalia did with the Constitution is what we should to with the Bible, that is, we should ask the question, "What did the words in the text mean to the first readers/ what did the words mean to the author," not, "What do those words mean to us today?" 

The classic reason that this is important, vital, and crucial: we need to ask, "What did 'repent'/'repentance" mean to the first readers? What did they mean to the authors? The answer is not, "What the word has come to mean today?" Back when Paul wrote, "repent" meant, "change of mind." It did not mean, "feel sorry for sin" or "weep for your sins." The word had no connection with "penance" or it's reenforcement, "REpenance." 

Scalia, in my opinion was a great jurist. We need more like him. We also need more Christians who will hound and harass their pastors with the question, "What did this text mean to the first readers?" 

If you're not doing that, begin now. The right kind of teacher will love it!  

THEY'VE SOLD US A BILL OF HISTORICAL GOODS

Back at the establishment of our country, contrary to what some scholars and historians say, America's, Founding Fathers and the common folks like you and me were absolutely saturated with the Bible. Unless in abject poverty, every home had a well-read Bible. They attended church and when they did, they adults and children, listened to sermons that were two hours long. (A pastor who spoke for a mere hour or less, wasn't considered to be much of a preacher or a theologian.)

EDUCATION

Their schools were Bible-soaked as well. When a student entered college, he was expected to be able to translate chunks of the New Testament from the Greek as part of his entrance exam.

POLITICS

If an orator, a politician spoke of the Ark, Cain, Samuel, or Uriah the Hittite, everybody knew who he was talking about; he didn't have to tell them. Even Thomas Paine used I Samuel 8 to illustrate for his readers just how much God despised a monarchy. (Way too many in our churches today can't even FIND I Samuel 8.) Not only that, but Paine recommended reading the Bible for its wisdom.

THE GOOD BOOK

George Washington bought a small Bible, portable, so he could have it with him. His wife, Martha read her Bible everyday and delighted to instruct the grandchildren from it. Thomas Jefferson had numerous Bibles in his library and read them. Although Jefferson thought that every home had a Bible, he contributed to its distribution to the poor.

FAMILIES

Children were raised in families who read the Bible and encouraged and saw to it that their children did too. John Adams had questions about Enoch in the book of Genesis and wrote Jefferson to see what his comments on the text were.

NAMES

Parents named their children after men and women in the Bible. Look around the United States and you'll see one town after another bearing the names of cities mentioned in the Bible.

They founded universities to train ministers of the gospel--the Ivy League schools and then some schools to carry the gospel to the American Indians.

FRANKLIN

Benjamin Franklin recommended that the Constitutional Congress spend more time praying. He also loved to listen to the preaching of the great English evangelist George Whitfield. He became so interested in Whitfield that he measured the distance his voice carried as he addressed thousands in the open air before the days of public address systems.

Franklin recorded his findings by writing,

He had a loud and clear Voice, and articulated his Words and Sentences so perfectly that he might be heard and understood at a great Distance, especially as his Auditors [audience], however numerous, observ’d the most exact Silence. He preach’d one Evening from the Top of the Court House Steps, which are in the middle of Market Street, and on the West Side of Second Street which crosses it at right angles. Both Streets were fill’d with his Hearers to a considerable Distance. Being among the hindmost in Market Street, I had the Curiosity to learn how far he could be heard, by retiring backwards down the Street towards the River; and I found his Voice distinct till I came near Front Street, when some Noise in that Street, obscur’d it. Imagining then a Semicircle, of which my Distance should be the Radius, and that it were fill’d with Auditors, to each of whom I allow’d two square feet, I computed that he might well be heard by more than Thirty Thousand. This reconcil’d me to the Newspaper Accounts of his having preach’d to 25,000 People in the Fields, and to the ancient Histories of Generals haranguing whole Armies, of which I had sometimes doubted.

In his autobiography, Franklin writes about attending the preaching of Whitfield: 

"I happened soon after to attend one of his Sermons, in the Course of which I perceived he intended to finish with a Collection, and I silently resolved he should get nothing from me. I had in my Pocket a Handful of Copper Money, three or four silver Dollars, and five Pistoles [Spanish coins] in Gold. As he proceeded I began to soften, and concluded to give the Coppers. Another Stroke of his Oratory made me asham’d of that, and determin’d me to give the Silver; and he finish’d so admirably, that I emptied my Pocket wholly into the Collector’s Dish, Gold and all."

His liberal giving didn't get Franklin entrance to the Pearly Gates, only faith alone in Christ alone does that, but it shows his admiration for the character and preaching of Whitefield. 

  To sum up, every every single one of the 30 Founders of our nation believed in a God who intervenes in history. Of course this didn't make them Christians. Four didn't accept accept orthodox beliefs, but they weren't as we've been led to believe, that our Founders didn't believe that God intervenes in human history. If some historians say they were all deists, as deists are defined today, they're misleading us. If some say that even a few were deists (those who believe that God created man, then walked away) they're not being honest or they're just parroting what they've heard their teachers say.

THE DAY OF SATURATION IS OVER

On a quiz show, the contestants were to press the buzzer if they knew the answer to the show's rapid-fire questions. The emcee began the question, "What is the name of the man in the Bible who was known as a strong man?" A contestant hit the buzzer and answered, "Hercules!" (I rest my case.)

Dr. Carl J. Richard wrote me reflecting on the lack of biblical saturation today: "I share your distress at contemporary Americans' astonishing biblical illiteracy.  I think it is the main reason why our society is in so much trouble. Three-quarters of the American public identify themselves as Christians, yet only a small percentage have any clue as to the contents of their professed religion's holy book.  For this reason, we now have the surreal situation of genuine Christians being persecuted in a country in which seventy-five percent of the people profess to be Christian."

We need biblical teaching, not "success principles." We don't need the Bible taught as shallow morality stories. We don't need political opinions proffered from pulpiteers.  We don't need campaigns and marches for social justice. We need systematic Bible teaching, verse by verse through the books of the Bible, so people can understand the literary and historical contexts and the purposes of the books, then gain the meaning of the text, and apply the Bible to their lives.

Our founding was not a golden age, no era is, east of Eden. But America's founding was a time of biblical saturation. Today, sad to say, our country is rebelling against that saturation by rewriting our history, thus cutting us off from our story. We must begin and continue to turn up the heat of biblical instruction.
 

FAIR HARVARD

It is one of the most beautiful of school songs, ranking right up there with "Far Above Cayuga's Waters,"(Cornell) and any school song to the melody of "Gaudeamus Igitur"* (Monterey Senior High School, Lubbock, TX). The one ranking right up there with those musical jewels is Harvard's song, "Fair Harvard."

Reverend Samuel Gilman of the class of 1811 wrote it for Harvard's 200th anniversary in 1836, a song bidding the school an affectionate farewell. Students sing it at the beginning of their matriculation and then when they graduate. Of its four verses, the first and fourth are traditionally sung and the second and third omitted.

UNFAIR FOR "FAIR HARVARD"

But, as of today, right now, the old song has fallen on hard and post modern times. There are those who've declared the song offensive because of its last verse:

Farewell! be thy destinies onward and bright!
To thy children the lesson still give,
With freedom to think, and with patience to bear,
And for right ever bravely to live.
Let not moss-covered error moor thee at its side,
As the world on truth's current glides by
Be the herald of light, and the bearer of love,
Till the stock of the Puritans die.

See the offending lines? "Be the herald of light, and the bearer of love, Till the stock of the Puritans die." In our politically correct universe, the reference to being "the herald of light until the stock of Puritans die" must go because (1) it's outdated and (2) it's not inclusive of others who have "their own light."

Underlying all of this is that the song is saying that the Puritans were the heralds of light and that's offensive to some because, according to post modernism, there is no "light," that is, there is no body of absolute truth for any one to be the herald of.

LET THEM HAVE THEIR SAY

Let's let the university speak for itself. Harvard’s Presidential Task Force on Inclusion and Belonging wants to create a new ending to “Fair Harvard” because they say the reference to Puritans "suggests that the commitment to truth, and to being the bearer of its light, is the special province of those of Puritan stock,” which they say could be viewed as racist since the Puritans were of Anglo-Saxon descent.

The task force wants to sponsor a contest to see who can come up with the best lines for what they want to omit from the song.

In this bizarro world in which we live, no one, no group can claim that it knows, has, or possesses the truth. Yet John 14:6 and John 17:7, et al. stand against such an idea. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life, no man comes to the Father, but by Me." Jesus also prayed, "Sanctify them through Your Word. Your Word is truth."

There are those who object to the plans of the Presidential Task Force on Inclusion and Belonging to omit the lines of the song. Two who oppose the change make excellent points.

Social commentator Frank Furedi called it a “Morally disoriented attempt to detach Harvard from its past." Harvard professor Stephen Shoemaker added that history “should not be neglected . . . we need to know where we came from." Right on!

IF WE DON'T LIKE IT, WE'LL SCRUB IT 

The Presidential Task Force, in declaring its purpose in scrubbing the lines of the school song, declares, "The goal is to affirm what is valuable from the past while also re-inventing that past to meet and speak to the present moment."

WAIT. WHAT?

Wait. What? Their goal is to re-invent the past? The past can't be re-invented. The past is. The committee may not like the past, but they can't re-invent it. The history is that Harvard was established by the Puritans who came from England to escape persecution. When established, the following, from 1642, is the reason they gave for why they were bringing Harvard into existence

"Let every student be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider well the main end of his life and studies is to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life (John 17:3)… And seeing the Lord only gives wisdom, let everyone seriously set himself by prayer in secret to seek it of Him (Prov. 2:3).."

"Everyone [of the students] shall so exercise himself in reading the Scriptures twice a day that he shall be ready to give such an account of his proficiency therein, both in theoretical observations of the language and the logic, and in practical and spiritual truths, as his tutor shall require, according to his ability; seeing the entrance of the word giveth light, it giveth understanding, to the simple (Ps. 119:30)."

HERE'S THE RUB

You might be thinking, "Well, so what? It's just a line or two of some Ivy League fancy pants school song; what's the big deal? The big deal in all of this is to obliterate any reference to where Harvard came from,, thus cutting them off from their history and the reason the school exists.

Russell Kirk in his magnum opus, The Conservative Mind, said that the philosophy and practice of conservatism cannot be held by a people who are cut off from their history. (He said it better than I, but that's the gist of it.) People need to know where they came from. It's true for Harvard, it's true for America: people need to know where they came from. Yet, in college after college, history courses are being omitted from the required curriculum to the point that we don't know where we came from.

Let's apply this to the human race. The human race needs to know where it came from and why we are the way we are. That's why God gave us the book of Genesis because Genesis 1-3 tells us: we came as the special creation of God, created in the image and likeness of God, but because of Adam's sin, the human race fell into sin.

Cut us off from knowing who we are and teach us that we're animals, the product of time + chance + the impersonal and what do you get? People who act like animals. That's exactly what we're seeing, a world descending into chaos of violence, a world bloody in tooth and claw, the wholesale murder of the inconvenient unborn, and the destruction of marriage, morality, and family because, like animals, "there is no fear of God before their eyes."

They want to change "Fair Harvard." If they do, the change will take more than a few lines of a song with it.
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*For those musically inclined, you can listen to renditions of "Far Above Cayuga's Waters," "Fair Harvard," and "Gaudeamus Igitur" (Let Us Therefore Rejoice) on youtube.com The latter song was used for the climatic scene in the movie, "People Will Talk," (1951) as Gary Grant conducts the orchestra in a stirring rendition of it. 






 

THE DUCK TEST

If you've been exposed to the viewpoint of Lordship salvation, you know that those who advocate it have at least one problem. Lordship salvation, as its proponents define it is, "The gospel call to faith presupposes that sinners must repent of their sin and yield to Christ's authority. That, in one sentence is what Lordship salvation teaches." Another within their camp states, ""The Lordship view expressly states the need to acknowledge Christ as Lord and Master of one's life in the act of receiving Him as Savior."

Lordship salvation front loads commitment, obedience, and surrender as "must-dos" in order to be forgiven and have eternal life. For the lordship salvationist, there must be a deep sorrow for sin and a turning away from one's sins in order to be saved. (Now you can see why a leading spokesman for this viewpoint has said that a child cannot be saved.)

One of their problems is that, depending on who's talking, the "must-do's" for forgiveness of sin keep piling up. One says that James 4:7-10 contains the "must-do's." This means that there are 9 things to do, which include, "be miserable, mourn, weep, and let your joy be turned into gloom." To be saved, you have to become miserable? When others talk, their list may not be 9, but sometimes less, sometimes more.

Another lordship salvationist has written a book calling for a new word. "Faith" isn't good enough because, according to his way of thinking, people will come to the conclusion that the gospel is justification by faith alone. To avoid this "problem," he calls for a new word and a new translation for "faith." What word does he want instead? "Allegiance."

Therefore, John 3:16 would read, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever professes allegiance to Him should not perish but have everlasting life."

You ask, "What does he mean by '"allegiance?" Now, we're getting into it; that's a good question. He says that allegiance involves three aspects: mental affirmation that the gospel is true; swearing loyalty to Jesus alone as the cosmic Lord; enacted loyalty through obedience to Jesus as King. (Can a child understand all this?)

Now, let's go back to John 3:16 and put all that in verse: ""For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes the gospel to be true, swears loyalty to Jesus alone as the cosmic Lord, and enacts this loyalty through obedience to Jesus as King shall not perish but have everlasting life." (I like John's word better: "believes.")

So, now, with the new word, we wind up with works as "must-do's" for salvation in addition to faith in Christ. That's what he's saying in the third aspect of "allegiance."

The author is showing the classic confusion of mixing discipleship (allegiance to Christ) into the gospel of faith alone in Christ alone. Allegiance is a good thing--for following Jesus AFTER salvation, but that's a different issue than faith alone in Christ alone for salvation. By his own definition, allegiance is works. One lordship author may call it "submission," another may call it "allegiance," but it can't pass James Whitcomb Riley's duck test: if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is a duck.

It's works.