How to print money on the gold standard

 How happy should we be if we had the privilege of employing the sheers, for want of a mint, upon foreign gold, by clipping it into half-crowns!

-- Jonathan Swift

Same as it ever was: This present age, full of tongue and weak of brain

 And of discerning goodness there are but these two ways: the one the knowledge of the causes by which goodness is made good; the other the observation of those signs and tokens, which being annexed always to goodness, argue that where they are found, there also goodness is, although we know not the cause by force of which it is there. The former of these is the most sure and infallible way, but so hard that all shun it, and would rather walk as men do in the dark by haphazard, than tread such long and intricate mazes for knowledge’s sake. As therefore physicians are many times forced to leave such methods of curing as themselves know to be the fittest, and being overruled by their patients’ impatience are obliged to try the best they can, in taking that way of cure which the cured will yield to; in like sort, considering how the case does stand with this present age full of tongue and weak of brain, behold we yield to the stream thereof; into the causes of goodness we will not make any careful or deep inquiry; to touch them now and then it shall be sufficient, when they are so near at hand that easily they may be conceived without any far-removed discourse: that way we are contented to prove, which being the worse in itself, is notwithstanding now by reason of common imbecility the fitter and likelier to be brooked.

-- Richard Hooker, The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity I.8.2 (1594) 

The mouth of fools poureth out foolishness. 

-- Proverbs 15:2

The concept of cheap grace was formulated at least 300 years before Dietrich Bonhoeffer

 All the arguments to a good life will be very insignificant to a man that hath a mind to be wicked, when remission of sins may be had upon such cheap terms.

-- John Tillotson (1630-1694)

Benevolent night conceals our weakness

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Heaven, when the creature lies prostrate in the weakness of sleep and weariness,

spreads the covering of night and darkness to conceal it.

-- Robert South

Laser-focused middle class Christianity Today finds the speck in a brother's eye, doesn't like it when the poors complain

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is there no minimum wage? Is there no welfare? Do we not pay taxes?

 

Christianity Today publishes ethical monster Francis Collins, former head of NIH, in order to irk conservative Christians

 

Tim Keller Taught Us How to Live and How to Die

Francis Collins, Christianity Today

 

 

 

 

The history of the fall of Methodism in America is a cautionary tale for today's Christian nationalists, but they'll probably ignore it

 Mark Tooley, here:

The collapse of Methodist social influence in America began with its greatest political victory: Prohibition. After Prohibition’s repeal, Methodism first began to lose in its share of American population, and then later in absolute numbers, all the while becoming politically less and less relevant. Presidents Roosevelt, Taft and Wilson all spoke to Methodist governing bodies during the lead-up to Prohibition, after which another president never again addressed a Methodist juridical convention. In the 1950s, Bishop Bromley Oxnam was exasperated when the Methodist bishops met with President Eisenhower, who offered only a photo op, and no interest in hearing their views. Oxnam was not discouraged from pursuing other channels of political influence for his denomination.

All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full

 All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again. 

-- Ecclesiastes 1:7

Abraham Lincoln's ancient faith was human equality, his touchstone for it the Declaration of Independence more than the Bible

 

This is the point of view pioneered by Harry Jaffa in a nutshell, a Jew who saw Lincoln as a restorer of the principles of the Declaration, which go back to Aristotle, starting from John Locke.

Not mentioned by the Christians here:

And yet Lincoln emphasized the Declaration of Independence far more than the Bible in building his case against human bondage. He described the assertion that “all men are created equal” as his “ancient faith.” He argued pointedly that the immorality of slavery could be proved “without reference to revelation.” In sum, without penetrating Lincoln’s heart, it’s hard to know whether he viewed the Bible as morally authoritative, as Leidner claims, or selectively cited it when it corroborated what he already believed.     

This dread of nations, this almighty Rome

The Rape of the Sabine Women by Giambologna

 The boasted ancestors of these great men,

Whose virtues you admire, were all such ruffians;

This dread of nations, this almighty Rome,

That comprehends in her wide empire's bounds

All under heaven, was founded on a rape.

-- Joseph Addison, Cato

Forget the Christian nationalism, Christian globalism is where it's at, Jack

Mark Tooley, here:

But disdaining Emmett Till’s murder, and the civil rights revolution it helped unleash, as part of the wider ongoing, 2000-year-old Christian revolution of equality and dignity for all, is helpfully clarifying.

And don't you forget it™you Christian soldiers you, marching as to war.

The proud but more modest aims of the American nation died in 1865.

 

Study finds most people who stop going to church do so for the banal reason that they love money and status more

 Enthusiast for the Christian communist Bruderhof Gang Jake Meador, here:

Davis and Graham also find that a much larger share of those who have left church have done so for more banal reasons. The book suggests that the defining problem driving out most people who leave is … just how American life works in the 21st century. Contemporary America simply isn’t set up to promote mutuality, care, or common life. Rather, it is designed to maximize individual accomplishment as defined by professional and financial success. Such a system leaves precious little time or energy for forms of community that don’t contribute to one’s own professional life or, as one ages, the professional prospects of one’s children. Workism reigns in America, and because of it, community in America, religious community included, is a math problem that doesn’t add up.     

Same as it ever was.

Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

-- Matthew 6:24; Luke 16:13

For the love of money is the root of all evil.

-- I Timothy 6:10