Taxing My Patience
Taxing My Patience
As I write, we are fast approaching April 15. This is the day when we send all our information to Washington, to see if they'll let us keep more or less of the money that we earn. Now to be sure I have grumbled a time or two about the intrusiveness of the state in these pages. But what really has me gasping today is that what we thought was once a secret thought, is now out in the open. That is, there seems to be an underlying assumption as we fill out our tax forms that what is going on is that we are arguing with the state about what we might be allowed to keep. The assumption in Washington seems to be that they own all that we make, but if we're good, they'll let us keep some. But that's one of those implicit, unspoken assumptions, something that either flows logically from other things (but Washington is never logical), or it is a shameful assumption of the heart, that dare not show its face.
No more. In the midst of this campaign season, George W. has floated a proposal for a tax cut. And his principle opponent has called Bush's plan (returning $483 billion of a projected surplus of $590 billion), "economic snake oil, and a risky tax giveaway." A tax giveaway? When you face lower taxes (I know, "lower taxes" sounds like "square circle") this is, in the judgment of Algore, the giving away of what belongs to the federal government. You see it plain as day- he's claiming that your money is their money.
Remember when you get your refund that that's your money. They're not being nice to you. But also remember that if you take the Earned Income Credit, that's not money you paid in, it's money I paid in. It is welfare, plain and simple. Taking it is both wrong, and degrading. Have some pride, and some smarts. Keep what's yours, and take from no one else.
I'm a Calvinist and I'm OK
One of the central affirmations of our relativistic age is not only that truth has no meaning, but that the words that make up truth claims have no meaning. Words are mere tools in the sophist war of rhetoric. If a particular word carries with it some useful emotional baggage, well then, we'll just hijack it. This is why we have feminists who call themselves evangelicals, who make Paul not mean what he means. This is why we have Open God "evangelicals", people like Clark Pinnock who argue that they are in fact orthodox, and that the god they worship does not know the future. He's so open he has a hole where his head used to be. Men like Pinnock, and Greg Boyd at Bethel Seminary are not only heretics, but they are liars. They have no more respect for words than they do for the Word.
But now even evangelicals, rightly so called, have started to play the name game. Dr. Norman Geisler, who at least once tried to coin a new word to describe his views (he called himself a "Cal-minian" and was half right), in a new book called Chosen But Free calls his own Arminian views, "moderate Calvinism." Calvinists, naturally, become "extreme Calvinists." I have only read long portions of Geisler's book, but enough to know that my previous estimation of him was off base. I used to call Geisler the world's only smart Arminian. That he is Arminian hasn't changed. If you or your friends find yourselves swayed by Geisler's book, please check your pulse and take the time to read The Potter's Freedom, a point by point refutation of Geisler, by James White, published by Calvary Press. I've read the manuscript, and White not only decimates Geisler with the Word of God, but dusts off the spot on which Geisler stood, that Arminian camp that is trying to fly our flag.