Today, John Podhoretz raises the following question:

"WHAT if liberal democracies have now evolved to a point where they can no longer wage war effectively because they have achieved a level of humanitarian concern for others that dwarfs any really cold-eyed pursuit of their own national interests?"  See Too Nice to Win for the complete discussion.

What is a society that values the individual above all else to do in the face of barbaric opponents who dare us to match them in barbarity and know that we will fail?

I would argue that the problem is with valuing the individual "above all else." Do we value the individual more than justice? Do we value the individual more than the destruction of a whole city in Israel?

The valuing of the individual above all else is idolatry. It is evidence that our society has slipped off its Jewish / Christian foundation.

The state does not wield the sword for nothing. Justice must be done. Evil must be resisted (and if possible, destroyed.) Citizens must be protected from barbarians who would murder them in their beds.

My father's generation knew how to respond to such challenges. The Axis was destroyed --- root and branch. But we have lost our grip. We have become feminized warriors. When faced with 100,000 soldiers who  are committed to fight and die to the last man, rather than kill them all, as the Army and Marine Corps did, we hesitate, we try to find a kinder, gentler solution.

Is there hope for us? Only if Red State values predominate. Only if we return to the Jewish / Christian foundation that has served us so well for several thousand years.

Richard Baxter (1615-1691) offers some reasons for avoiding marriage conflict: 

1. The duty of your marriage ­union requires unity. Can you not agree with your own flesh?

2. Division with your spouse will pain and upset your whole life ... Just as you do not wish to hurt your own self and are quick to care for your own wounds; so you should take notice of any break in the peace of your marriage and quickly seek to heal it.

3. Fighting chills love, fighting makes your spouse undesirable to you in your mind. Wounding is separating; to be tied together through marital bonds while your hearts are estranged is to be tormented. To be inwardly adversaries, while outwardly husband and wife turns your home and delight into a prison.

4. Dissension between the husband and the wife disrupts the whole family life; they are like oxen unequally yoked, no work can be accomplished for all the striving with one another.

5. It greatly makes you unfit for the worship of God; you are not able to pray together nor to discuss heavenly things together, nor can you be mutual helpers to each other's souls.

6. Dissension makes it impossible to manage your family properly.

7. Your dissension will expose you to the malice of Satan, and give him advantage for many, many temptations.

Extracted and modernized by Scott Andersen. Complete article is here.

Modern folk are often surprised by the wisdom and clarity of Puritan thought. I had a graduate student once, who, upon completing an assignment to read and summarize three of Jonathan Edwards' sermons, exclaimed "How can something that is so old be so great?"

The following is some sage advice from Richard Baxter (1615-1691) on How to Avoid Marriage Conflict.

1. Keep alive your love for one another. Love your spouse dearly and fervently. Love will suppress wrath; you cannot be bitter over little things with someone you dearly love; much less will you descend to harsh words, aloofness, or any form of abuse.

2. Both husband and wife must mortify their pride and strong self­ centered feelings. These are the feelings which cause intolerance and insensitivity. You must pray and labour for a humble, meek, and quiet spirit. A proud heart is troubled and provoked by every word that seems to assault your self­esteem.

3. Do not forget that you are both diseased persons, full of infirmities; and therefore expect the fruit of those infirmities in each other; and do not act surprised about it, as if you had never known of it before. Decide to be patient with one another; remembering that you took one another as sinful, frail, imperfect persons, and not as angels, or as blameless and perfect.

4. Remember still that your are one flesh; and therefore be no more offended with the words or failings of each other, than you would be if they were your own. Be angry with your wife for her faults no more than you are angry with yourself for your own.

5. Agree together beforehand, that when one of you is sinfully angry and upset the other shall silently and gently bear it until you have come to your sanity.

6. Have an eye to the future and remember that you must live together until death, and must be the companions of each other's lives, and the comforts of each other's lives, and then you will see how absurd it is for you to disagree and upset each other.

7. As far as you are able, avoid all occasions of wrath and quarreling, about the matters of your families.

8. If you are so angry that you cannot calm yourself at least control your tongue and do not speak hurtful and taunting words.

9. Let the calm and rational spouse speak carefully and compellingly reason with the other.  Usually a few sober, grave admonitions, will prove as water to the boiling pot.

10. When you have sinfully acted towards your spouse confess to one another; and ask for forgiveness of each other, and join in prayer to God for pardon; and this will act as a preventative in you the next time: you will surely be ashamed to do that which you have confessed and asked forgiveness for of God and man.

Extracted and modernized by Scott Andersen. Complete article is here.

For an important, brief description of the huge disconnect between Western war planning and Muslim tribal warrior cultures, see The Tribal Way of War.

In "Strategic Confusion," published today at Real Clear Politics, Tony Blankley underlines the importance of "formulating and executing a successful strategy for war against worldwide radical Islamist military and cultural aggression."

"And yet, listening to and participating in war debate this last week, I am struck by how few politicians, pundits and journalists even now accept the proposition that the West (and India, Africa and Asia) is facing such a remorseless threat."

I would suggest that the Evangelical Church needs to pay attention to this "remorseless threat" as it invests in the growth and development of churches around the world.

Tony Blankley suggests another economic and cultural shift that should be of interest to Evangelicals ---

"As Thomas Friedman has observed regarding economic activity, "cheap, ubiquitous telecommunications have obliterated impediments to international economic competition," causing the world to be economically "flat." Well, for similar reasons the world is flat for terrorist military and cultural aggression as well. The impediments to asymmetrical terrorist war have been obliterated by telecommunications and new compact dangerous weapons."

"It is curious that so many "experts" and commentators who have comprehended the reality and significance of globalism in the economic realm (even though it is not a vertically commanded process -- indeed precisely because it is not vertically commanded) are so obtuse in seeing the same phenomenon expressed in the realm of terror and cultural aggression."

If the world has become economically "flat," and "flat" in the realm of terror and cultural aggression, surely Evangelicals can exploit that flatness to expedite world-wide church growth and development.

Read the whole article.

 

Thomas Watson (1620-1686) was one of the most popular preachers in London during the Puritan era. His teaching is clear and spiritually rich.

This is especially evident in his helpful exposition of the Shorter Catechism --- A Body of Divinity, The Ten Commandments and The Lord's Prayer.

In The Lord's Prayer, Watson analyses in detail the Preface to the prayer and the six petitions which it contains.

Pray like this.

Our Lord Jesus, in these words, gave to his disciples and to us a directory for prayer.

The Ten Commandments are the rule of our life, the Creed is the sum of our faith, and the Lord's Prayer is the pattern of our prayer.

Let this be the rule and model according to which you frame your prayers. [We ought to examine our prayers by this rule.  J. Calvin]

As the moral law was written with the finger of God, so this prayer was dropped from the lips of the Son of God. . . . Never was a prayer so admirably and curiously composed as this. As Solomon's Song, for its excellence is called the "Song of songs," so may this be well called the "Prayer of prayers."

[Ed. Note: Do you pray like this? Why not give it a shot today?]