Scholarship and the Theological Library Part 1

It seems as if the priesthood of humanism’s academia have finally claimed victory over what

passes for scholarship today. They have successful filled both the public and university libraries with so much junk that it is almost impossible to tell one lie from another. Among too many modern Christians the topic of scholarship, serious research, and the importance of books is one of the furthest things from their mind. Scholarship seems to be a thing of the past. Even books themselves have lost their allure being replaced by superficial internet surfing, iphones, ipods, video games and anything that can easily distract the modern man from serious reading and study

Instead of serious reading and research material, our modern age has filled American  libraries with computer terminals, audio books and videos than with books. Libraries are becoming a thing of the past as a result of scholarship becoming a thing of the past. Even most church libraries, (if they even have one) are seldom used if they are ever used at all.

There seems to be a direct coloration between a nation’s reading level and scholarship capabilities with its national prosperity and ethical integrity. Before the collapse of the Roman empire reading was at an all time low. Scholarship was replaced with 365 days each year of Bread and Circus at the Coliseum. When finally the Visigoths sacked the Empire in AD 410, nobody cared. They were drunk on entertainment. It wasn’t until the smoke of the takeover cleared did the people realize what had happened. They had been destroyed. Yet, that destruction didn’t suddenly come upon them in AD 410. It was slowing destroying them intellectually for years until finally the culmination of their academic sloth took its toll.

The Library at Alexandria

The Royal Library of Alexandria, Egypt was one of the largest and most significant libraries of the ancient world. It was founded by Ptolemy I Soter1 and functioned as a major center of scholarship from its construction in the 3rd century BC until the Roman conquest of Egypt in 30 BC when the Roman’s set fire to it almost completely destroying it. The library housed a collection of thousands, if not millions, of works, and had an array of lecture halls, meeting rooms, and gardens as part of its construct. To be sure this was to create an atmosphere of relaxation so as to encourage reading and study. It was here at Alexandria where many of the most famous and influential thinker of the ancient world studied. The library was a symbol of wealth and power and was a cultural center for the ancient world. This of course  tells us something about how the ancients viewed wealth. Wealth was contained in knowledge. It was contained in their books. The destruction of the Alexandrian library was and probably always will be a symbol of the destruction of cultural knowledge

After the destruction of the library the ancient scholars, not able to be without a resource of scholarly books and scrolls, built a smaller version called the “daughter library”. It was housed in the Serapeum Temple but that too was destroyed in AD 391 by Pope Theophilus. Historically libraries, serious scholarship and cultural advancement always went together.The problem with the library at Alexandria is that it was primarily filled with pagan works. It was not a Theological center of Truth and it certainly did not have as it ultimate goal the reconstruction of the culture God-ward. For this reason the destruction of Alexandra’s great storehouse of knowledge may have really been a blessing.

Monasteries and the Modern University Model

During the Medieval ages books were very expensive and sought after by scholars like never

before. In them would be found all the treasures of wisdom. Monks would painstakingly copy out manuscripts and build extensive research libraries to satisfy their passion for knowledge and truth. Scholarship was honorable and something to be desired by all who understood its importance.

During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, European academies and universities were established at an ever increasing rate. These too, like Alexandria, were centers of cultural and academic knowledge. Out of these schools would emerge the leaders of the next generation. These schools, like the University of Salamanca, Spain, with its impressive library, was founded to be the “General School of the Kingdom.” While the idea was commendable, and its affiliation greatly desired, Salamanca as with other Universities of that era was steeped in Scholasticism which philosophy often argued with Biblical Truth.

The Academy At Geneva

It was not until the dawn of the European Reformation that academies, along with their libraries were founded with a focus explicitly upon the Biblical doctrines of Scripture and the application of Biblical Theology to every area of life.In 1537 the Lausanne Academy was formed within the city of Bern Switzerland under the oversight of Pierre Viret. It would become the hub of Reformation scholarship for the express purpose of training ministers in the doctrines of the Reformation and applied theology. Viret’s academy later relocated to Geneva, and with the help of John Calvin and Theodore Beza became the most influential University of the European world finally relocating to Geneva and changing its name to The Genevan Academy

According to one researcher Thomas Jefferson had once thought to bring Calvin’s Academy to Virginia.2 Although Thomas Jefferson carried a great hatred towards Calvinism, he had great respect for the academic reputation of Calvin's Academy in Geneva. It is interesting to note that a proposal was considered to transplant the Geneva Academy to Northern Virginia. The proposal was decided against by the Virginia legislature, but Jefferson's 1795 letter on the subject shows the tantalizing prospect (for those of us who live here) of what might have been.

Jefferson wrote To Fransois D'Ivernois Monticello, in Virginia, Feb. 6, 1795

“Your several favors on the affairs of Geneva found me here, in the month of December last…

Your proposition, however, for transplanting the college of Geneva to my own country, was too analogous to all my attachments to science, & freedom, the first-born daughter of science, not to excite a lively interest in my mind, and the essays which were necessary to try it's practicability. This depended altogether on the opinions & dispositions of our State legislature, which was then in session. I immediately communicated your papers to a member of the legislature, whose abilities & zeal pointed him out as proper for it, urging him to sound as many of the leading members of the legislature as he could, & if he found their opinions favorable, to bring forward the proposition; but if he should find it desperate, not to hazard it…”


While Jefferson hated Calvin, his theology and the tenants of the Reformation, being a secular libertarian, he nevertheless saw the glory in Geneva’s model and eventually established the University of Virginia with Geneva in mind. 

Next: Humanism’s Encyclopedia

1. Ptolemy I was referred to as Soter (lit. Savior) as a result of his military victories and his aid to allied kingdoms

2. The Puritan Board http://www.puritanboard.com/f18/jefferson-geneva-academy-12865/

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1.    Plotez’ Epitome of History, Tillinghast, Blue Ribbon Books, 1883,191

2.  Ancient Civilzations, Calton J.H. Hayes, Macmillian, New York University,1968

3.  Kogan, Herman (1958). The Great EB: The Story of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Library of Congress catalog number 58-8379

The Christian Strategy for Advancing Christ's Kingdom

Do Something Before It Is Too Late

Dominion - Christian Reconstruction - Cultural Warfare - Kingdom Advancement...

All of these concepts, when pursued from a Biblical standpoint, without a doubt are good. Moreover, they are an essential part of the Great Commission. Yet, these ideas are nothing without the impetus of action giving them teeth. As the saying goes, 

“Good ideas are not worth a thing. Everyone has them – even the moron next door…” 

Christians who talk endlessly about the dismal affairs of the culture and the looming threat of aggregated tyranny are usually the ones that do nothing about it. Instead of complaining action needs to be taken. 

The implementation of Christian Reconstruction and Kingdom Advancement principles and ideas are absolutely necessary for things to change. It has also been said that even mediocre ideas which are actually implemented are far better than great ideas that never see the light of day in action.

While the wicked conspire together and wage a unified front against all that is

good and Godly, mainstream Christianity either is cursing the darkness, wringing their hands in fear and unbelief, arguing about the trivial matters of the law, or ignorantly waiting expectantly for the supposed rapture.

What the culture needs is a Biblical plan for Christian Reconstruction coupled with a execution strategy complete with tactics for a successful plan in  becoming a real force in the social realm God-ward. Christianity needs fearless leaders who are not only tenacious, but  who are immovably resolved to execute God’s will no matter what the sacrifice for the good and security of all people, especially Christendom. Nothing short of this will suffice. Anything less will destroy us.

Oppression Tyranny & The Messianic State

R.J. Rushdoony rightly asserts, “It must be recognized that in any culture the source of law is the god of that society.”

Whenever the Law of God is replaced by another law it means firstly, that another god has taken the place of the True God, since all Law is the codification of religion and must come from a divine source.

Gary DeMar explains further:

“When political systems rule, they rule in accordance with a law system. This is inevitable. There can be no neutral law system… If man is the source of a society’s laws, then man is the god of that society. If society ignores the governing principles that God has set forth in His Word, then that society is competing with the Lord of all creation.”

Secondly, every law which is not divine, must be humanistic. Human law, which does not mirror Divine law, is simply another tactic by sinful man to assume a deity role. Whosoever makes the law becomes the lawgiver and that lawgiver now has the power to arbitrarily declare good and evil. This brings us right back to the garden of Eden when man sought to be as God to know, and to re-define good and evil.

As a result of unregenerate man’s quest to be as God he is forever seeking to take dominion over other men. This is especially true of those craving political power. As it was in the days of Egypt, the State was considered divine and Messianic and its Pharaoh was its god-man icon. Once men gain political office, if they are not bound by and to the Law of God, they will consider themselves a demi-god of the Divine State with supreme power and authority conferred.

This “stateist mindset” is clearly explained by political sociologist Jacques Ellul,

“[the state] is the ultimate value which gives everything its meaning. It is a providence of which everything is expected, a supreme power of life and earth over its members. It is an arbiter which …declares the law, the supreme objective code on which the whole game of society depends.”

Hebert Scholssberg comments:

“Deifying rulers has always been a means of legitimizing their rule. The imperial cult of Romebegan as early as the first century and was intended to solidify the hold of the emperors and establish their legitimacy…By the time of Domitian (81-96 AD) it had become common to address him as dominus et de-us…’My Lord and My God’….The idol State uses language of compassion because its intention is a messianic one. It finds the masses harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd, needing a savior.”

This idea of statist dominion can only be enacted upon a people who are already psychologically enslaved. They would rather be cared for by a totalitarian regime than take responsibility for their own well-being. American is such one nation of these individuals.

Matthew Trewella in his book, “The Doctrine of The Lesser Magistrate”  observes this tendency in the post-modern American mind:

“Unknowingly, Americans have accepted the role of Huxley’s servant minded people for decades. This is due in part to the fact that people love comfort and tend to avoid conflict. However, the other part of the equation is that people have lost the yardstick by which they should measure the limits of Government. As a consequence, we in American have become a slave-like people with the Federal government acting more like a Master than as a Servant, providing justice for the people.”

By Giving the Law to first Israel and then to New Testament Christendom, God was introducing a completely new concept of Mastery, very unlike Egyptian mastery. It was a mastery of righteousness and peace. It was a Lawful mastery which was divinely legitimate, and which had a hopeful future attached to it.

By moving Israel out of Egypt, an historical illustration of liberation from sin, death and all manner of political, social and economic tyranny, God was not only freeing them, He was empowering them to take the land that was rightfully theirs. He was offering them their promised inheritance. He had called them to be His rightful heirs provided they remain Covenantally obligated through obedience. This means that they were to be responsible individuals, never submitting again to Egyptian-type welfare, which would once again result in tyranny and oppression.

One obvious and potent example of the degree to which America has become enslaved is through

the taxation system. God’s taxing system, through the tithe, where Israel needed only to give God a tenth of their labors, was set up to showcase God’s relationship with Israel as one of mercy, grace, justice and equity. It was also set up so that through the Levitical and the poor tithe the church would be sufficiently funded barring the state from usurping the church’s sphere authority. The state would then be limited to its Biblical jurisdiction ensuring its inability to become a totalitarian regime.

God ‘s tax was to remind Israel that they had a relationship with a God Who was both their King and their provider. It was God alone Who sustained them and God wanted to make sure they remembered that fact. The tithe was also a reminder that God owned all things and mankind made use of the world and its bounty at the pleasure of God. He alone was the legitimate Messiah, not the state and not the church. Only God could rule with a system of reliable, predictable Laws which were wholly ethical. His taxation system testified of that fact.

What Israel had been used to in Egypt was nothing like this new tax system.They were commanded to give all to the Pharaoh. If they were to receive any economic well-being whatsoever from their own hard-earned labors, it was a gift of the Messianic State.The state owned all labor and all the fruit of labor since it owned all men.

Schlossberg again explains this idea in the context of the American Tax policy.

“In the United States, federal tax policy illustrates the government’s unconscious rush to be the god of its citizens. When a provision in the tax laws permits the taxpayer to keep a portion of his money, the internal revenue service calls this a ‘tax expenditure’, or an ‘implicit government grant’. This is not tax money that the state has collected and expended, but money it has allowed the citizen to keep by not taking it. In other words, [or any words for that matter], any money the citizen is permitted to keep is regarded as if the state had graciously given it to him. Everything we have [then] is [considered to be] from the state, to which we [should] owe gratitude. In fact we are the property of the state, which therefore has the right to the fruit of our labor.”

Christendom, along with every citizen of these United States, needs to understand the depth of our cultural problem. It is not so much a political or economic problem as it is a religious problem. If the Christian community continues to remain silent, in blatant disregard for their prophetic and judicial duty, the end of America, as it was once known, will be dissolved. Instead of soft tyranny and messianic statist-totalitarianism we will be facing a shift into active oppressive censorship and persecution. The days of being silent will finally bring the totality of God’s judgment upon the apostate pietistic church, and America will suffer for it.