FV

Doug Wilson is indeed a prolific blogger. I must say I am impressed with the sheer amount of coherent words he is able to string together on a daily basis, covering all sorts of topics. If he was a writer in ancient Israel they would had to fell half the trees in Lebanon to provide enough paper for his writing.

Anyhow, I was surprised to see that Wilson is responding to every chapter of every book that engages in a critical analysis of the Federal Vision. So he is currently responding to By Faith Alone edited by Gary Johnson, and he recently finished Covenant, Justification, and Pastoral Ministry edited by Dr. Scott Clark. The responses by Wilson can be found here. One consistent reservation that Wilson registers is the idea of the republication of the covenant of works at Sinai. He thinks that this is setting up God's people for inevitable confusion, because if the COW was republished at Sinai, it would mean there were two principle operating at the same time in redemptive history: the Covenant of works and the Covenant of Grace. If this is the case, then Wilson argues that we somehow have to distinguish between which parts of this era relate to works and which relate to grace - something that would be unnecessarily tedious. I don't want to get into it in detail here, but I think one problem is that Wilson does not seem to understand the typological aspect of the covenant of works in the Mosaic economy. Here I would simply recommend an interesting article by TL Donaldson called the "The Curse of the Law and the Inclusion of the Gentiles" (in New Testament Studies, 32 - 1986- pgs. 94-112). Here is a great paragraph from the article that relates to the subject at hand:

"Israel serves as a 'representative sample' for the whole of humankind. Within Israel's experience, the nature of the universal human plight - bondage to sin and to the powers of this age - is thrown into sharp relief through the functioning of the law. The law, therefore, cannot accomplish the promise; but by creating a representative sample in which the human plight is clarified and concentrated, it sets the stage for redemption. Christ identifies (with) not only the human situation in general (Gal 4:4), but also with Israel in particular, thereby becoming the representative individual of the representative people" (pg. 105-106).

Islam

Here is the first paragraph of a paper I did for a "Witness to Muslims" class:

Malise Ruthven states decisively, “If there is a single word that can be taken to represent the primary impulse of Islam, be it theological, political, or sociological, it is tawhid – making one, unicity…”[1] The Muslim doctrine of God (Allah) underlies this noticeably strong emphasis on the oneness of Islam: it forms the very first part of the Islamic creed – “there is no god but Allah…” All subsets of Muslim belief and practice including the authority structure, the law, and the community subserve the aim of submitting to the one will of the one God Allah. Ruthven further asserts that “the overwhelming stress on God’s uniqueness reflects the polemical context in which early Islam was forged. Tawhid simultaneously challenges Arabian paganism, Zoroastrian dualism, and the Christian doctrine of divine incarnation.”[2] Indeed, one of the first visible acts of Muhammad was his destruction of all the pagan idols set up in Mecca, save one: Allah. Perhaps metaphorically this is how adherents of Islam might like to conceive of its status: a force that has dispersed all competitors and established itself as the supreme religion above all others. For fourteen centuries Islam, despite all its internal turmoils, has sought to remain committed to tawhid, zealously guarding it against pagan polytheism and Christian Trinitarianism.
[1] Malise Ruthven, Islam: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: OUP, 1997), 49.
[2] Ibid, 50.

Music

A diversity of friends means a diversity of musical tastes, and I rather like that. So here (without consulting them) are some friendly favorites:

My friend Peter likes Orishas, a Cuban rap group that is really quite musically diverse.

My friend Stephen likes Carla Bruni, a French jazzy-type singer with great song-writing skills.

My friend Scott likes Christian Forshaw, a great saxophonist who integrates choral works with his creative instrumentation.

My friends Justin and Erika like Regina Spektor, a great lyricist with a unique voice: the song "Samson" is worth pondering.

My friend Ellis likes (or at least used to) Blessid Union of Souls, a band with clever (if sometimes depressing) lyrical rock ballads.

My sister Tami likes the Magnetic Fields, an old-school sounding band with very melodic and memorable tunes.

Prolegomena

So I've been reading Provan/Long/Longman's book A Biblical History of Israel which on the whole is very well written and a great overview of ancient Israel. One thing I have noticed though is that while the book is some 300 pages (with small print), a full third of the book is dedicated to historiographic concerns - essentially a justification for writing a history of Israel using the biblical text as a primary source. While it's a helpful discussion, I wonder if these authors have gotten caught in today's almost obsessive preoccupation with prolegomena, seen especially in Christian theology and philosophy.

One of my professors has said that prolegomena is like clearing the throat before one speaks. What is funny is that if we take this analogy to our present context, then there are many scholars and writers today who seem to spend the majority of their time clearing their throats and then finally getting around to saying something worthwhile (if they ever get there!) I think one of the unforunate aspects of the contemporary academic landscape - call it "postmodern" if you like - is that many feel like they have to spend a good deal of labor and book space with preliminary issues and philosophical questions, and then end up doing less with their actual object of study. Thus, a scientist in a Christian university has to come up with a "Christian philosophy of science" before he ever looks at something under the microscope. Bavinck, a theologian who himself wrote a very lengthy Prolegomena to his dogmatic theology, wisely comments right at the beginning that in going through introductory matters like the authority of Scripture and the place of the church and tradition in theological formulation, one is already doing theology! This seems like a wise insight - and it warns us not to draw a map before we've actually hit the trail.