Archive for Book Reviews
Disciple of Liberty by Jason Rink
Posted by: | CommentsBook review of Disciple of Liberty: Seven Priorities of a Christian Patriot by Jason Rink. The Liberty Voice: Ohio. 145 pages. Retail: $14.95.
In the world of literature on liberty, books fall into three distinct categories. First are the books for experts scholars, deeper works that address high level concepts, social or economic theory, and philosophical ideas. Next are the books for the informed reader, those that have a working knowledge of libertarian ideas and seek to improve one’s understanding of the philosophy of liberty. Finally, there are books for those just starting their journey in liberty, those who have little knowledge of economics or libertarian theory. Jason Rink’s Disciple of Liberty falls into the latter category, and it fills a particularly useful void in libertarian literature: an easily accessible explication of liberty to the Christian newcomer, from the Tea Party proponent to the disillusioned conservative or liberal.
Rink’s key point, made very early in the book, is that Christians do not need to wonder if it is appropriate or biblical to get involved in politics to defend liberty. On the contrary, it is good and right to become informed and take a stand for what is just, good, and right, we ought to get involved in some way. One cannot simply look at Romans 13 and say that “obeying the powers that be” is all we should do. For those “on the fence,” Rink says to get on board.
But Rink does not simply tell us “just do something, anything!” without a care for what we stand for. “Just get out and vote!” is not a compelling message at all. Rather, he takes the minarchist, constitutionalist position, and defends it wholeheartedly. Rink identifies seven priority areas to which Christians should pay special attention:
- Define the limits of authority – The government cannot, and should not, have unlimited power. Limits must be clear and precise.
- Demand fidelity to the Constitution – The limits of authority for the United States Federal Government are found in the Constitution, period. We should continually demand that representatives follow it.
- Defend liberty for all people – If we expect to have liberty, we need to defend liberty even for people with whom we disagree with their choices. This is a difficult, yet absolutely essential element part of our way of life. Rink quotes Thomas Paine:
“He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.”
- Despise debt – We know that individually we cannot spend more than we make; it is unsustainable and irresponsible. The same should be true of the government. No more can they be allowed to spend like a drunken sailor. And this isn’t even about welfare programs either, which account for a small fraction of total government spending. Rather, we must oppose spending on everything that is unconstitutional, from the FCC to the military-industrial complex.
- Demand honest money – The US Federal Reserve and it’s fiat monetary system is fraudulent, backed by nothing but empty promises. A return to the gold standard should be at the top of our priorities, for it is the ultimate check against runaway spending by the State.
- Desire peace with all nations – A Christian is called to love his enemies, not bomb them. We need to understand the history of our current wars in the Middle East and demand that the government cease interventionism.
- Disciple others in liberty – It is time to get involved in the fight for freedom, and we all can play an important role.
Disciple of Liberty has many commendable strengths. The book’s length, about 100 pages long plus reprints of the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, is very appropriate for a reader who is not ready to tackle a tome about libertarianism quite yet. It is fast paced and lively, yet gently brings the reader to see from a different point of view. The seven principles he outlines are really good, all are worth understanding in detail. Striking a balance between length and depth of material is quite a challenge. Overall, Jason Rink has put together an interesting and useful book that can help Christian newcomers to libertarian thinking grasp some fundamental ideas about liberty.
However, there are a few things in the book (or not in the book) that I don’t like. For one thing, the sources and bibliography are surprisingly short. A bit more along the lines of what to read next would have been nice. If I may be so bold, I’d recommend Rothbard’s For a New Liberty and Ron Paul’s Revolution: A Manifesto (which, I should note, was mentioned in the Bibliography).
Another minor point of contention I have with the book is its interpretation of Romans 13, but it is an admittedly debatable topic. Of course, Rink easily disproves the “you just have to obey the government” line that so many evangelicals take. He take’s Chuck Baldwin’s approach, which emphasizes that our contemporary “powers that be” are the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights, whereas my own approach is quite a bit different. Detailed exegesis, though, is difficult to distill when you are trying to reign in the length of a book, so it is understandable. But following on this point, overall I have certain doubts about making Constitutionalism our prime directive. Personally, I see the Constitution as a bludgeon or mirror, something we can use to say the Federal Government is so terrible that it does not even follow its own rules and never has. We need to remind people that government is aggression, and that our “resistance” against aggression is to expose such truth without apology. Now, Jason does mention each of these things in the book, so this is just the hard-core anarcho-capitalist in me talking. In no way am I downplaying Jason’s work.
As a personal friend of Jason now, I can honestly say that I am very proud of what he’s done despite my reservations on a few points. This is a great book for liberals, conservatives, or Tea Party supporters, who are all in need of some perspective about what liberty should mean to us. I think that it would be great to give to your Christian parents, relatives, or friends who are fed up with the Federal Government and are looking for an alternative. I encourage you to use Disciple of Liberty to strengthen your own resolve and plant new seeds of liberty in Christian hearts.
Visit Jason Rink at www.jasonrink.com. Buy his book here.
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Tags: christian libertarian, Christianity, conservatism, constitution, liberalism, libertarianism, Tea Party, theology, war
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Leo Tolstoy Against the State
Posted by: | CommentsThis past May, I posted a shorter essay about Leo Tolstoy and non-resistance. I wrote a longer paper on the topic (using the previous essay as its basis) and now wish to share it with you in full. Tomorrow I’ll post an excerpt from Tolstoy’s book The Kingdom of God is Within You that I find particularly compelling. It may be difficult for us to hear the challenge of Tolstoy to today’s world of violence, but even if we do not take a pure pacifist stance it is a message worth taking to heart. May we never think that a few more people dying will make our living better, may we never believe violence is the answer to the world’s problems.
Russian writer Leo Tolstoy is considered one of the greatest novelists of all time. War and Peace and Anna Karenina have inspired millions over the last century. Less well-known about Tolstoy, though, is that his interpretation of Christian ethics has had a profound effect upon the world, especially regarding non-resistance and pacifism. In this paper, I will examine the development of these themes in Tolstoy’s philosophy as they appear in The Kingdom of God is Within You.
Leo Tolstoy was born in 1838 into an aristocratic family. He was the son of Count Nicholas Ilich Tolstoy and Princess Marya Nikolayevna Volkonsky, whose marriage was one of negotiation and convenience. Social class meant everything in eighteenth-century Russia, and the Tolstoys were part of the upper echelon of power. Leo’s ancestry included generals, diplomats, and ministers of the Tsarist rulers. Thus, Tolstoy enjoyed the privileges of the high class, such as the ability to attend university. As a young man, he lived a profligate and wild life while attending the University of Kazan, struggling to find a purpose in his life. He decided to join the military and went to war. Seeing the grim reality of war motivated him to write, and he achieved some early success in his publications while on the front. He finally married at age 34 and settled down to begin the major portion of his literary career. He also began to re-explore religion and came to a realization about God, the church, the state, and self. It was during this time that he reflected upon the writings of anarchists such as Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, and saw that non-resistance was the only means of lasting change to be found.
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Tags: Book Reviews, Gandhi, government, leo tolstoy, Martin Luther King, non-resistance, pacifism, recommended books, The State, theology, violence, war
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Leo Tolstoy and Non-Resistance
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Russian writer Leo Tolstoy is considered one of the greatest novelists of all time. War and Peace and Anna Karenina have inspired millions over the last century. Less well-known about Tolstoy, though is that he had a profound effect upon many due to his interpretation of Christian ethics, especially regarding non-resistance and pacifism. In 1884, he expounded upon his beliefs in What I Believe, and this work was promptly banned in Russia for its negative depiction of the state and the Russian church. After the book had spread throughout the world and garnered attention, Russian secular and religious intellectuals began attacking his ideas. The Kingdom of God is Within You, published in 1894, is a further explanation of his beliefs and a response to his opponents.
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Tags: non-resistance, pacifism, recommended books, theology
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Anarchy and Christianity
Posted by: | CommentsBook review of Anarchy and Christianity, by Jacques Ellul. Eerdmans Publishing Company: Grand Rapids, MI. 1988 / trans. to English 1991. 105 pages. Retail: $14.00
Jacques Ellul (1912-1994) was a French sociologist, philosopher, and theologian, but his main profession was teaching law at the University of Bordeaux. He held strong views about the nature of government as antithetical to Christian faith, and is counted among the 20th century Christian anarchists.
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Tags: anarchy, ethics, free market, free society, gospel, government, history, Marx, philosophy, The State, theology
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Panderer to Power: The True Story of Alan Greenspan
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Book Review of Panderer to Power, by Frederick Sheehan. McGraw-Hill: New York, 2010. Retail: $29.95
For the bulk of my life so far, I have lived in the age of Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank from 1987 to 2006. Mentioning a Federal Reserve chair like this in the past would not have been considered normal, yet Mr. Greenspan has a sort of legendary status associated with him. Well, at least some people consider him to be an iconic figure, but more and more the general public is coming to realize the destructive effect he has had on the world economy. Books like Frederick Sheehan’s Panderer to Power have something to do with the dispelling of the myth.
Sheehan’s book is the first critical, post-crash biography of Greenspan. Using Greenspan’s own words, Sheehan tracks Greenspan’s education as a young man, early professional life, his meteoric rise to stardom as a celebrity figure, and his tenure as Federal Reserve chair. The questions primarily raised are: What kind of man is this who has so much power over the world, and what did he do that has led us to today’s economic crisis? The answers are quite surprising. Here are some of the things I learned about Greenspan.
- Greenspan was supposedly a disciple of Ayn Rand, yet he probably did not understand what Rand generally was talking about. Nathaniel Branden wrote later, “I wondered to what extent he was aware of Rand’s opinions.” Apparently, he would even argue the question of his own existence with the objectivist coterie. Rand herself wondered, “Do you think Alan might basically be a social climber?”
- Even in his pre-Fed years, Greenspan was actually a rather mediocre economist and forecaster. Time after time he would make highly-publicized predictions and yet the exact opposite would occur (see pages 43, 54, and chapter 7).
- Greenspan was a master self-marketer, which is probably the reason for his rise to stardom. He constantly engaged the media and the New York financier social scene, hence he had everyone’s ear without the wisdom to back it up. How else can you be both a professional economist and yet date Barbara Walters?
- Even though Greenspan has supposedly had a historically apolitical career, he was a master politician (read: liar). One only need look to his involvement during the Nixon and Carter presidencies to realize that he knew how to play the political game brilliantly.
- Greenspan’s policies during his Fed years were incredibly political as well. He frequently timed his actions in accordance with what was politically expedient. Wall Street and the fat cat Congress could count on the legendary “Greenspan Put” to be their savior when things were looking down.
- Post-crash, Greenspan has tried to play his own game of historical revisionism about his policies that led to the economic crisis. Sheehan exposes these and many other lies.
- Greenspan has been hired as a consultant by many of the firms who profited from the economic crisis via government handouts. Go figure, the man who enriches Wall Street and causes the meltdown gets the extra paycheck…
Clearly, there is much yet to learn about the man whom many called “the second-most powerful man in the world” for nearly twenty years.
In summary, Sheehan’s retrospective on Greenspan is a fascinating read, and I anticipate it will become a valued resource for those looking to understand the Greenspan years from a perspective that offers more than tacit approval of inflationism and government intervention in the economy. Keep in mind, though, it is not an easy read. Economics is discussed at a fairly high, but understandable level. You will probably end up like me, referring to Wikipedia and other sources to recall certain investment and econ topics. Nevertheless, Panderer to Power is worth your time if you desire more knowledge about the Greenspan legacy.
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Visit Frederick Sheehan’s website.
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Tags: Bernanke, biography, Book Reviews, economics, Federal Reserve, Greenspan, money, recommended books
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