The Usury Dilemma Revisited (III)

Should I dispense with bank accounts? I wouldn't mind doing so but it's increasingly becoming impossible. I tried at one point years ago - operating on a cash basis, paying all my bills with money orders and the like. It's very difficult and frankly pretty miserable. It's not really possible anymore in a lot of urban locations. I live in the boondocks, where there are miles of endless forest, no traffic lights, and more deer than cars.

The Usury Dilemma Revisited (I)

...Usura rusteth the chisel

It rusteth the craft and the craftsman

It gnaweth the thread in the loom

None learneth to weave gold in her pattern;

Azure hath a canker by usura; cramoisi is unbroidered

Emerald findeth no Memling

Usura slayeth the child in the womb

It stayeth the young man’s courting

It hath brought palsey to bed, lyeth

between the young bride and her bridegroom

CONTRA NATURAM

They have brought whores for Eleusis

Corpses are set to banquet

at behest of usura.

From Ezra Pound's Canto XLV (1937)

Wrestling with the matter of usury and in light of recent discussions, I have been forced to address the question differently and through the lens of different contexts. This is not a question of situation ethics but rather applying wisdom and some Biblically-driven discernment to a question that is both simple and straightforward but also inescapably complex - and perhaps without solution.

Another Example of Progressive Orthodoxy

https://churcheswithoutchests.net/2025/03/13/the-imitation-of-christ/

I am pleased to note de Bruyn also offers some praise for the Theologia Germanica, another worthy pre-Reformation work.

But as I've often argued there's a problem with this approach to orthodoxy - it's progressive. Men like de Bruyn are willing to say that à Kempis and the anonymous author (the Friend of God from the Oberland) of the Theologia were Christians.

The Magdeburg Confession of 1550

While there is much to laud with regard to Lutheranism, the 1550 Magdeburg Confession is a remarkable exception. Written by Lutheran pastors, the document argues for the basis of lawful resistance - in other words the justification for Christians killing others to secure their own rights and privileges. Indeed, there are times when Christian must resist certain laws. But it must be asked if this perceived need or right allows the Christian to abandon New Testament ethics? Is this not a case of the end justifying the means?

Recent Discussion of the Salem Witch Trials

https://reformedforum.org/podcasts/ctc907/

https://churchandfamilylife.com/podcasts/scripture-applied/681b88f593d37c3f67415b85

Regarding the Salem Witch Trials of 1692/93, it was evident early on that the host of the show was not familiar with the subject when he raised the question of whether Britain had its witch episodes as well. I guess he's never heard of Matthew Hopkins (d.1647).

The 17th century represented probably the height of the witch craze in the Western world. Many wrongly think of the Middle Ages when it comes to witches. Most of the episodes actually occur in the post-Renaissance context and the phenomenon seemed to equally afflict both Protestant and Roman Catholic circles.

Samuel Davies: A Colonial Era Hero, Presbyterian Patriot, and Christ-hater

https://americanreformer.org/2024/07/samuel-davies-colonial-presbyterian-patriot/

My eye was drawn to the locales mentioned in the opening paragraph. They are well known to me as my family has made a point of visiting these places for historical reference - and they're not too far away from where we live.

Samuel Davies (1723-1761) is also a name well known to me from my days spent in OP and PCA circles. He is a titan in American Presbyterianism but to be honest I hadn't give Samuel Davies a lot of thought in quite a few years. So by this point I was hooked and decided to read the article.

A Popular but Contrived Celtic Heritage

A Calvinist blogger (from the South) posted about wanting to understand his Celtic roots and then listed some books being read to that end.

Malachi Martin and Rich Church, Poor Church

Back in the 1990's I used to pick up some Malachi Martin works on occasion. He provides insider information about the Jesuits and the Vatican and while I've never agreed with him, I've always found him to be interesting.

I stumbled on his 1984 work 'Rich Church, Poor Church' in a pile of discount books and since it was only $1.50, I decided to pick it up. It was a work I had never encountered before.

Anglicanism and Prima Scriptura

https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2024/11/the-new-divide-in-global-anglicanism

This article interested me because it's connected to some of the recent issues I've touched on respecting Anglicanism and how the High Church tradition approaches doctrine and the question of authority.

Appropriating the Waldenses (II)

Too often Protestants have fallen prey to 'successionist' thinking or rather tying the idea of succession to some kind of institutional or genealogical pedigree. The apostolic succession (if we want to call it that) is located not in a group, tribe, geographic location, or institutional/ecclesiastical continuity but in the doctrine of the apostles. Those who recognize and obey the Christ-granted oracular authority of the apostles or New Testament writers are the heirs of the apostles.

Appropriating the Waldenses (I)

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/church-history/article/waldensianism-before-waldo-the-myth-of-apostolic-protoprotestantism-in-antebellum-american-anticatholicism/0A7BA2B1A7B2B890E8A2A2622E710EC3

For obvious reasons this article on Waldensian Historiography captured my attention and I was thinking of Philip Schaff long before his name emerged in the article.

Romanticism took on many hues during the 19th century and while American Protestants poured most of their energy into crafting the narrative about the Mayflower Pilgrims or Pilgrim Fathers, they were not alone. Hostility to Roman Catholicism generated other historical debates over Church History and Protestants from the US and the UK, to France and beyond wanted a piece of the Waldensians.

Crossing the Authority Line

I recently had a nice long chat with an Anglo-Catholic priest and we discussed the issue of authority and how their understanding differs from Rome and its Magisterium, from the models that seek to place Scripture, Reason, and Tradition on par, and Protestant understandings of Sola Scriptura.

The Great Ejection Revisited

https://banneroftruth.org/us/resources/articles/2023/the-background-to-the-great-ejection/ 

For years I simply accepted the narrative surrounding the 1662 Great Ejection. For those unfamiliar with this event, this was after the English Civil War and the reign of the Puritan Parliament. Its failures resulted in the Cromwell dictatorship which effectively ended with his death in 1658.

Belgic Article XXXVI and Kuyperianism (II)

These discussions and debates are further confused by the influence of Neo-Calvinism (not to be confused with New Calvinism) and Theonomy which build on Kuyper and in some cases apply his ideas (by means of holistic assumption and inference) to their monistic models. Under such thinking, Sola Scriptura is effectively redefined not only in terms of philosophy but with this recasting comes a notion we might call hyper-sufficiency.

Belgic Article XXXVI and Kuyperianism (I)

https://reformedperspective.ca/on-the-proper-role-of-government-and-article-36-of-the-belgic-confession/

The Reformed Perspective/Bredenhof article in question provides a worthy discussion of the some of the dynamics concerning Article xxxvi of the Belgic Confession (1559) and the views of Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920). To many in the Reformed sphere, their teachings are effectively one and the same and yet this is not actually the case. For some Kuyper actually represents a serious departure creating an uncomfortable situation for those who would both champion Kuyper as the twentieth-century Reformed Theologian par excellence, and yet demand a strict Confessional Subscription.

In Belgic Article xxxvi we read:

Musing on The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance and Forty Years that Shook the World (II)

All things considered, I don't disagree with Wyman's general narrative regarding the rise of the modern West and how it surpassed previous super-power states and cultures like that of the Ottoman Empire.

But rather than celebrate Capitalism and the way it has reshaped the world, I would offer some different narratives to consider.

Cessationism, the Charismata, and Messy Chapters in Church History

https://www.christianpost.com/voices/reformed-cessationists-should-not-quote-church-history.html

I have no wish to provide comfort or aid to a false teacher such as Michael Brown, but on this issue he has a point. The Church History argument (taken by itself) is not really on the Cessationist side. This however does not mean that so-called Continuationism wins the day – it simply requires a different reading.

Historical Cycles: The Post-Napoleonic Context of Adolphe Monod, Reveil, and Some Contemporary Analogies (III)

As has so often been the case in Church history, persecution failed to defeat the faithful. They were instead defeated by peace and flourishing, and through compromise, the ability to attain status and respect in society. The American Beast did not persecute the Church, instead it seduced it. The crisis for American Christianity came at the turn of the twentieth century when the Classical Liberalism of its founding (with its secular assumptions) finally overtook and began to openly subvert the (by then) weakened and deformed Christian consensus – thus creating the crisis that would generate new cycles and chapters of reaction and compromise in American Church history throughout the twentieth century right up to the present.

Historical Cycles: The Post-Napoleonic Context of Adolphe Monod, Reveil, and Some Contemporary Analogies (II)

The American context at this time was completely different. The new Republic had been able to successfully fuse Enlightenment ideas with Christian ideology.

Historical Cycles: The Post-Napoleonic Context of Adolphe Monod, Reveil, and Some Contemporary Analogies (I)

I recently finished Constance Walker's small biography on Adolphe Monod (1802-1856) which I would recommend to anyone interested in nineteenth century conservative Protestantism on the European continent – of which there is not a great deal. This is why figures like Monod stand out.