"AS
I SEE IT"
Volume 7, Number 4, April 2004
“I too will have my say; I too will tell what I know.
For I am full of words, and the spirit within me compels me;
Inside I am like bottled-up wine, like new wineskins ready
to burst.
I must speak and find relief; I must open my lips and reply.
I will show partiality to no one. Nor will I flatter any man.”
Job
32:17-21
["As
I See It" is a monthly electronic magazine compiled and edited by Doug
Kutilek. Its purpose is to address
important issues of the day and to draw attention to worthwhile Christian and
other literature in order to aid believers in Jesus Christ, especially pastors,
missionaries and Bible college and seminary students to more effectively study
and teach the Word of God. The editor's
perspective is that of an independent Baptist of fundamentalist theological
persuasion.
AISI is
sent free to all who request it by writing to the editor at:
DKUTILEK@juno.com. You can be removed
from the mailing list at the same address.
Back issues sent on request. All
back issues may be accessed at http://www.KJVOnly.org
All articles
are by the editor (unless otherwise noted) and are copyrighted but may be
reproduced for distribution, provided the following conditions are met: 1.
articles must be reproduced in unedited, unabridged form; 2. the writer must be
properly credited; and, 3. such reproduction must be for free distribution
only. Permission to distribute in any
other form must be secured in writing beforehand. Permission for reproduction in Christian
print periodicals will generally be given.]
----------
Finding True Self-Esteem
“No honour or reward,
however great, can be equal to that subtle satisfaction that a man feels when
he can point to his work and say, ‘See, now, the task I promised you to perform
with all loyalty and honesty, with might and main, to the utmost of my ability,
and God willing, is today finished.’ ”
Henry Morton Stanley, discoverer of David Livingstone.
Quoted in, Bula Matari: Stanley, Conqueror of a Continent,
by Jacob Wasserman (New York: Liveright, 1933), p. 321.
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Why I Hate KJVO Extremism
KJVO extremism, that
insidious view that there are no reliable Bible translations in English, or
indeed in any other language, except the King James Version only, is a
pernicious and destructive heresy, and I hate it. I do not hate it for its ignorance. If it were merely a matter of gross ignorance
(that it is rooted in massive ignorance is entirely true), we might pity its
adherence, without hating it. Were it a
mere grab-bag of absurdities (among them the denial of a pre-Christian Greek
version of the Old Testament, and remaking of Catholic priest Erasmus into a
closet Baptist), we might laugh in incredulity.
Were it just a string of unbiblical theological presuppositions and
misinterpretations and misapplications of various Bible texts, we might write against
it and correct its errors. But I do in
fact hate it, because of the spiritual wreckage that it makes of people’s
lives. On my most recent trip to Europe,
I encountered three utterly distraught Dutch Christians, whose spiritual
foundation had been torn from under them, whose faith had been utterly
devastated by KJVOism. Some American
zealot had convinced them that they should place no confidence in their Dutch
Bible--one they had read and believed and followed for years--because it was
not exactly like the KJV. They were fed
bogus arguments--the usual KJVOism stuff (the misrepresentation of Spurgeon as
KJV only; errors regarding the nature of Luther’s Bible; matters regarding the
Septuagint Greek OT; the nature of Erasmus’ Greek text; and much else). Employing a whole series of false, inaccurate
and dishonest arguments, this one, whoever he may be, annihilated the
foundation of their faith: their confidence in reliable and dependable Dutch
Bible translations. These three, with
only limited knowledge of English, were robbed of the Bible in their own
language by KJVOism, a dogma which
masquerades as a defense of the faith.
They were told that only this one English Bible, the KJV, is dependable,
and that whatever they had learned from any other Bible was suspect. When I met them, they were utterly
distraught, actually trembling and in tears that there was no trustworthy Bible
in Dutch. And of course, that is a lie.
There are and have long been
good, accurate, and reliable Bible translations in Dutch from the Reformation
era on, many of them strongly influenced by Luther’s German Bible, a Bible
which KJVOism acknowledges as reliable.
Yes, the standard Dutch Bible, the States-General version from the
1630s, does sometimes differ from the KJV, but in one place I recently examined
specifically (Daniel 3:25, “son of the gods”), it agrees with the Masoretic
text (and Luther) against the KJV, and is in fact BETTER than the KJV on this
verse.
I wish I could say that the
destruction by KJVOism of the faith of these three Dutch believers was the only
such incident known to me, but it is sadly far from it. I could relate accounts of similar incidents
in Romania where KJVO radicals from Utah, in Romania not 10 days and knowing
not a word of Romanian, began to tell Romanians in the southern part of the
country that they should not trust their Romanian Bible (the Cornilescu
version), the standard Bible used in virtually all Baptist churches and the
means of the conversion and edification of hundreds of thousands. And why should Romanians abandon the Bible
that has been blessed of God to the saving of their souls? Why, it differs from the KJV! Other KJVO zealots attempted to split a
sizeable Romanian church in the northern part of the country, seeking (unsuccessfully,
praise God) to impose a “King James Only” statement of faith on this large and
long-established congregation. Not a few
other incidents within Romania have come to my attention as well.
I received in the past
several weeks reports of a congregation of some 80 souls in Belize, Central
America, which exploded and was destroyed by KJVOism. Similar pernicious, yea, spiritually deadly
incidents could be repeated from Japan, Mexico, Hungary, Germany and elsewhere. It makes me want to scream, “You stupid, ignorant Americans--keep your
heresy at home. Stop poisoning the minds
and ruining the faith of believers here on the mission field.” KJVOism is part and parcel of the arrogance
that all too often characterizes American Christianity-“We have all the
answers, and what do you know, we alone have a perfect Bible in our
language!” I have said before that
KJVOism is so absurd that only an American could believe it. I do not understand why any church or
missions agency actually concerned with the conversion of sinners would send
out as missionaries adherents of this spiritually destructive heresy.
Rather than defending
the faith, KJVO extremism undermines, weakens, and even destroys the faith of
many. It leaves not a few of its
adherents in complete spiritual turmoil, with no foundation, no one and nothing
to trust to lead them to God. That is
why I hate it, and declare undying, unyielding war against it.
---Doug Kutilek
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“Dead in Trespasses and Sins”:
A Biblical Metaphor Correctly Explained by Bob Ross
A Christian brother asks:
“Since prior to being born-again a sinner was dead in their trespasses and sins
[Ephesians 2:1], how is it that they come to have faith in Christ?”
Paul used "death"
as a metaphor more than once, and it has unfortunately been misused by some to
teach something more or less than Scripture justifies.
For example, in Romans 6 where Paul says believers are "dead to sin,"
some sinless perfectionists claim that the true Christian cannot sin because he
is "dead to sin." "How
can a dead person sin?" they reason.
They are using the metaphor beyond its intended message. We are plainly taught elsewhere that
Christians do sin and are to confess their sins (1 John 1:8, 9; Matthew 6:12).
Some likewise misuse the metaphor of "death" in relation to the lost
sinner and construct a doctrine of depravity on the basis of an exact
comparison to physical death. This was
never the design of the use of this metaphor.
The basic idea of "death" is "separation"--sinners
are separated from God. They are very active in sin and sensitive to the things
of God in a negative way. The Word of
God "bothers" sinners; how could they be bothered by the Word of God
if they were "dead" like a corpse?
Spurgeon said we are not to try to make a parable "stand on all
fours." We are to interpret and apply the metaphor of
"death" by the overall teaching of Scripture, not form a doctrine
based on an exact comparison to the metaphor.
In Ezekiel 37, some are compared to dry "bones" in that metaphorical
illustration. Yet Ezekiel was told to
preach to them and bid them "hear the word of the Lord." Obviously,
the Lord did not intend for this to mean that "bones" have literal
ears. You can only use the metaphor so
far as it is illustrative of a particular point.
The metaphors simply illustrate, but they are not designed to
"define." We get the
definition of doctrine in more explicit, literal language.
Our Confessions say that the sinner is brought to life when he is united to
Jesus Christ by faith, through the instrumentality of the Gospel and its
empowerment by the Holy Spirit. God has
given us MEANS--the Word or Gospel, and His Spirit blesses those means to the
creation of repentance and faith. This
is regeneration, or the new birth. The
Hardshell idea of some mystical regeneration apart from means, without means,
before means, etc. was hatched up in the 1830's as a basis for opposing
missions and evangelism.
As Spurgeon once said, "If I am to preach faith in Christ to a man who is
regenerated, then the man, being regenerated, is saved already, and it is an
unnecessary and ridiculous thing for me to preach Christ to him, and bid him to
believe in order to be saved when he is saved already, being regenerate,"
(Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, vol. 9, 1863, sermon #531,
p. 532).
Bob Ross
Pilgrim Publications
[used by permission]
----------
Tools for Studying the “Church Fathers”
We who accept the sole and
final authority of the written Scriptures in all matters pertaining to our
doctrine and conduct naturally do not look to the “church fathers” as
they are called (or any subsequent theologians, preachers or writers), for sure
guidance as to what the Bible teaches and we are to believe and do. Nor do we elevate “tradition” to a position
equal in authority to the Bible. Indeed,
it has no inherent authority, except as it conforms to the Bible. We do not “settle” doctrinal disputes by
quoting Augustine or Jerome or Ignatius or Justin Martyr, though we may quote
them if they well state some point or idea.
That being said, it does not
follow that such early writers, especially of the first 5 Christian centuries,
are of no interest or importance. They
are valuable in tracing the rise of the formulating of the orthodox doctrine of
the Trinity, and establishing the early Christian belief in the inspiration and
authority of Scripture, to name but two subjects. Another by-product of studying the earliest
church fathers is the discovery that pre-millennialism was virtually the
universal belief in the 2nd century A.D. And the fathers are valuable in documenting
the rise, spread, and refutation of a whole spectrum of heresies that were spawned
in the first and later centuries. Many
of these heresies are still with us, sometimes somewhat modified. How they dealt with them is instructive for
us.
The writings, especially of
the fathers of the first, second, and to a lesser degree third and fourth
centuries are essential to understanding the history of professing Christianity
after the close of the NT. They contain
not a few early traditions that may be based in fact, such as the claim
that Paul was beheaded at Rome; that Peter was crucified upside down; that John
was pastor in Ephesus late in life; that John Mark ended up in Alexandria; and
much else.
In the fathers, we can trace
the rise of such errors within professing Christianity as infant baptism; the
false belief in the verbal inspiration of the Greek translation of the Old
Testament, the Septuagint (LXX); the worship of Mary; the cult of the saints;
etc. It is instructive to know by what
steps the truth of Scripture was abandoned for these serious doctrinal errors.
Anyone who has thought about
studying the church fathers is immediately confronted with the immensity of the
task. Sets of the fathers run to many
large volumes of rather small print (a famous 19th century set of
the fathers in the original Greek, Latin and Syriac, published by Migne,
actually runs to something around 300 hefty volumes!). And such immensity of material is very
intimidating. Just where do you start? What is worthwhile, if you can only read a
small portion? What is secondary and can
safely be neglected, except for the most thorough study?
There are numerous guides
through this dense forest. F. J. A. Hort
of Greek New Testament fame wrote Six Lectures on the Ante-Nicene Fathers (New
York: MacMillan, 1895), 138 pp., which when I read it 20 some years ago, I
found to be plain and dull. More full
and informative is Henry Barclay Swete’s Patristic Study (London:
Longmans, Green and Co., 1904), 198 pp.
For individual fathers, the entries in A Dictionary of Christian
Bibliography, Literature, Sects and Doctrines, edited by William Smith and
Henry Wace, 4 vols. (London: John Murray, 1877) is exceptionally full and
thorough, covering the first 8 Christian centuries. All these are out-of-print, but may be
occasionally met with in libraries, and more rarely used; a circa 1908
abridgement of Smith-Wace has been reprinted by Hendrickson of Peabody,
Massachusetts, and is available from CBD.
All of these give bibliography.
(The volumes in the Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene
Fathers sets noted in full below also have introductions and
extensive bibliography).
Still in print is the
immense undertaking Patrology, by Johannes Quasten, in 4 vols. Quasten was professor of ancient church
history and Christian archaeology at the Catholic University of America. It thoroughly covers the field, with
up-to-date bibliographies on each father, as well as other Christian and
quasi-Christian writings from the patristic period. He will give the student all the introductory
information he is likely to want or need.
Next, the reader needs the
text, and in English translation, please!
The multi-volume 19th century sets, The Ante-Nicene
Fathers, edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, 9 vols.; The
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, first series, edited by Philip
Schaff, 14 vols.; The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, second series,
edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, 14 vols.--sets still in print
(relatively inexpensive from CBD) and also available on CD-ROM--present an
extensive range of patristic writings (for all their size, they are very much
less than exhaustive in reproducing the writings of the fathers). Most of the more important or interesting of
the fathers through about 450 A.D. will be included here, and these sets will
probably be as much as the student will need.
Do not neglect to consult the extensive and detailed indices of Biblical
texts, topics, and bibliography with which these sets are enriched.
For many of the fathers,
separate translations of some or all of their individual works are available
and in print, without having to buy large sets; Augustine’s Confessions
comes to mind, as an example. One series
in which the writings of individuals are available separately is the extensive Ancient
Christian Writers: The Works of the Fathers in Translation, edited by
Johannes Quasten and Joseph C. Plumbe (Paulist Press). This on-going series includes among others,
the works of Patrick of Ireland (whose genuine writings show not the least hint
of Roman Catholicism), a writer not included in most sets or series. The reader will have to check with book
dealers for information as to whether specific works are available separately
in this series or otherwise.
For those who simply “must
have” the Greek or Latin text of the fathers, the old Migne set can be
consulted, if you live near a library with that in its holdings (a graduate
school I attended in Cincinnati actually had the complete set, and I did in
fact consult it a few times while there).
Purchasing it is pretty much out of the question--I have seen only two
or three stray volumes from the set for sale in the last 25 years. An inter-net search would yield somewhat
fuller results, of course. A complete
set if ever available would cost an arm, a leg, a first-born child, and more. For selected fathers, there are parallel
Greek-English or Latin-English editions in the famous “Loeb Classical
Library.” The so-called Apostolic
Fathers, Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History, much of
Augustine’s writings, selected letters of Jerome, the Ecclesiastical History
of Bede (a bit beyond the patristic era), and more (as well as Josephus and
Philo of Alexandria) are to be found in this famous series (and of course a
large part of classical Greek and Latin literature as well). Volumes cost about $21.00 each, new.
For Greek lexicons of this
literature, the standard NT lexicon, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New
Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, edited by Walter Bauer et
al. in its title suggests its usefulness here. But the real standard in the field is the
massive Patristic Greek Lexicon (Oxford University Press) by H.
W. F. Lampe, at the heart-stopping price of $325, more or less (probably
more). Well, I can dream.
I do need to say a word
about the Apostolic fathers--those who lived before about 150 A.D., and whose
lives overlapped, and in some cases whose paths actually crossed those of the
Apostles--Clement of Rome, Polycarp, Ignatius, and a few other writings. These are included in The Ante-Nicene
Fathers set noted above, and in a Loeb Classic edition (2 vols.) but
especially in a virtually exhaustive 5-volume study by J. B. Lightfoot, a set
that gives the Greek text and English translation, along with introductions and
extensive commentary. And the set has
been recently reprinted, cheap, by CBD!
One aspect of patristic
study is the ancient creeds. All that is
likely to be needed in this regard is the 3-volume set edited by Philip Schaff,
Creeds of Christendom, which gives such creeds and early confessions of
faith in the original Greek or Latin, with English translation and instructive
introductions. This set, too, is in
print.
Another recent and quite
useful tool for the study of the early fathers is A Dictionary of Early
Christian Beliefs, edited by David W. Bercot, an Anglican priest (Peabody,
Mass.: Hendrickson, 1998). In 704 pages,
documented quotations taken from the early fathers on more than 700 topics are
presented, from “abandonment of infants” to “Zoroaster.” Here, in brief compass, the views expressed
by Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Irenaeus, Origen, Clement of Rome, and many
others, on a multitude of topics--many still very much relevant--are given
(e.g., a simple reading of the quotes under “Septuagint,” noting the dates of
the quotations, would put to death the absurd notion current in KJVO circles,
that that Greek version of the Old Testament was a 3rd century A.D.
production of Origen). A brief
introduction instructs the reader on how to use the volume, and brief single
paragraph summaries of the fathers cited are included as well. This is a truly helpful volume, a virtual
“must have.”
And of course, for the whole
history of the patristic period, Philip Schaff’s History of the Christian
Church, vols. 1, 2, 3 should be consulted.
He conveniently introduces the reader to many of these early writers and
their literature.
Having described some basic
tools, what in fact should the student read?
Speaking from the perspective of an occasional, non-systematic
here-and-there reader of the fathers, I would recommend as follows: the
apostolic fathers--including the famous “Martyrdom of Polycarp”--merit
reading. So, too, the second century
apologists Justin Martyr and Irenaeus.
What I have read of Origen has not made me an enthusiast--he allegorizes
badly. John Chrysostom, in contrast,
adheres much more closely to the text.
The early creeds, before 325 A.D., are of note, both for what they
include and what they leave out (there are parts of the Nicene creed which I
find unbiblical--fodder for a later article).
Eusebius’ church history is definitely important reading. The writings of Patrick of Ireland, ever so
brief, are of interest in that they show him to be anything but a Roman
Catholic. Jerome’s commentary on
Daniel--not in any set in English translation but available separately,
translated by Gleason L. Archer--is of supreme importance on the interpretation
of that book. Some of his letters are
also quite instructive. Augustine’s Confessions
are widely praised, but I have not read enough of it to form an independent
judgment of it. His City of God,
his most extensive work, I have not read at all.
A vast field for study, one
not to be entirely neglected.
---Doug Kutilek
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Words of Wisdom from Vance Havner
from
Though I Walk Through the Valley
“When you face the light,
the shadow is behind you.” (p. 15)
“You can go crazy
considering the circumstances. Plenty of
people have.” (p. 17)
“If a man cannot turn to God
in the hour of his deepest need and come boldly to the throne of grace for help
in such a time, then the gospel means nothing and Christian experience is a
delusion.” (p. 26)
“There are mountaintop
experiences in our journey through this world, those rare and lucid moments
when God is consciously near and speaks to us as a man speaks to a friend. There are those ordinary days when we may not
be thrillingly aware of his presence but neither do we doubt it. But there are also those strange times when
things do not add up or make sense, when we seem to be forgotten, when the
heavens are brass, when instead of happy answers to our petitions, an ironic
spirit laughs at us and makes mockery of our feeble faith. We sit with Job and wait for an answer that
seems never to come. . . . God may seem slow, but is never late. Sometimes He says yes. Sometimes He says no. Sometimes He just does not say and we can
only wait.” (pp. 44, 45)
“You had better not pray to
be conformed to the image of God’s Son unless you mean business! It may be anything but the delightful
experience you had in mind. God uses
strange ways to make us more like Jesus.
But they work together for good and the finished product is worth all
the cost.” (p. 57)
“Today at lunch a friend of
mine told me that Spurgeon said that God is too good to be unkind, too wise to
be mistaken, and when you cannot trace His hand, you can always trust His
heart.” (p. 89)
“When God consumes the dross
and refines the gold in His children, they feel it. When He operates He does not use an
anesthetic. He does not develop His
saints in their sleep. We wrestle with
the powers of darkness and we do not come from a wrestling match looking like
we had just left a dress parade, well tailored and perfumed. Artificial flowers may look better than real
flowers because they have not been exposed to wind and rain. God is not out primarily to make us happy but
to make us holy--and holiness is not cheap.” (p. 101)
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BOOK REVIEWS
The American Indian and Christian Missions by George Warren Hinman. New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1933.
The stereo-typical picture
of white European interaction with the native populace of North America from
the time of the Pilgrims until the closing of the western frontier around 1900
is one of exploitation, expulsion and extermination of the red man by the white
man. And while there is far too much
reality behind the common understanding, this is very much less than the whole
of the story.
It is true that many whites
saw the Indians as merely a numerically, economically and militarily weaker
people to be exploited by corrupt traders or to be driven from lands the whites
coveted for themselves. And it is
equally true that the great majority of those who dealt wickedly with the
Indians were Christians in name.
However, one of the unsung
and largely unknown stories is the highly beneficial and very positive
relationship between the various Indian nations and genuine Christian workers
whose contacts with the Indians were marked by kindness, fairness,
self-sacrifice and self-denial, with resulting great benefit to the Indians
materially, economically, culturally and of course and especially spiritually.
Those Christians who had a
vibrant, living relationship with God through Jesus Christ, and who took
seriously the Bible they professed to believe all but uniformly had good
relations with the Indians, and sought to be a blessing to them, rather than a
curse. From John Eliot, Cotton Mather
and Jonathan Edwards in New England (to name only a few), to the Quakers,
Moravians and David Brainerd in the Middle and Southern colonies, to the
Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian and other missionaries in the
trans-Appalachian interior of North America, on to the Great Plains and to the
West Coast and desert Southwest, the Indians were respected, helped, and
advanced by their contacts with such people.
When, to note one case, the Cherokees were driven by force from Georgia
to open up lands for greedy whites, with rare exceptions the preachers and
missionaries of the various denominations working among them vigorously
protested and resisted this terrible injustice (some even going to prison for
their opposition), as did the white missionaries among other Indian groups who
were mistreated, exploited, cheated and otherwise abused.
Quite consistently, not only
was the spiritual well being of the Indians looked after, but so, too, their
economic well-being, as they we taught farming, livestock raising, domestic
industry, and reading and writing (with the various languages usually reduced
to writing for the very first time by the missionaries).
The fact that the exploiters
of the Indians claimed to be Christians was a great hindrance to the spread of
the Gospel among them (not unlike the difficulty of reaching Moslems with the
Gospel in part as a legacy of the “Christian” crusades conducted by the
Catholic Church in the Middle Ages). But
when the Indians were able to see first-hand consistent Christian character in
action in the lives of the missionaries, their understandable prejudice against
“Christianity” often dissolved.
George Hinman at the time of
writing was with the American Missionary Society. This volume is limited largely to events of
the 19th century (and doesn’t cover all of the major developments of
that century). His writing is highly
informative, and he mentions numerous other works in the course of his
treatment (unfortunately, nowhere does he give full bibliographical information,
nor is there a bibliographical appendix).
With great poignancy, he demonstrates the intense spiritual darkness and
debased and debasing idolatry and paganism that was the lot of the Indians
before they received the knowledge of the true God. In short, their evangelization was absolutely
essential, their condition and circumstances giving unmistakable testimony to
their great spiritual need.
He closes his discussion
with an analysis of the then-current state of Christian work and missions among
the Indians, with some positive and negative features (particularly the
counter-productive creation of Indian dependence on white preachers and white
Christian money to fund the work, rather than on native preachers and their own
resources under God--this criticism applies to a great deal of mission work
being done today as well).
Having for some while been
interested in the subject of the history of Christian missions among American
Indians, I have begun compiling a bibliography of important works on the
subject, with a view to possible future publication.
---Doug Kutilek
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Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain by Justin Kaplan.
New York: Simon & Schuster, 1966.
424 pp., hardback.
Mark Twain (the “stage name”
and nom de plum of Samuel Langhorne Clemens [1835-1910]--really his
stage persona) is generally thought of as a humorist and writer of
children’s books, especially Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn,
books which present the presumedly idyllic life Twain himself experienced
growing up in a small pre-Civil War Mississippi River town in Missouri. The reality is something different.
Life in Hannibal, Missouri
for young Clemens was so seemingly insufferable that he left it in his teens
for what turned out to be a lifetime of more or less restless wandering (Kaplan
begins his biography of Clemens as he is set to return from California to the
Eastern United States at age 31, and only alludes to Clemens’ youth, rather
than describing it in detail). First,
part of the decade of the 1850s spent on the River on steamboats, then a very
brief stint in the Confederate army (two weeks), followed by several years in
Nevada and California (here Clemens began making a living as a writer, as a
newspaper reporter and author of short stories). The region was in the throes of a great
silver boom, and Clemens did his share of prospecting and mining.
Clemens left California in
1868--never to return, though his adventures out west, heavily dosed with
exaggeration and pure fabrication were his stock-in-trade for his writing and
lectures for years--and sailed to Central America, crossing by land to the Atlantic
and sailing on to New York.
His struggle to make a
living as a reporter and humorist (a combination comedian and social
commentator) led him to go on the lecture circuit, a forum he would return to
again and again (especially when desperately in need of money). He also set sail under writer’s contract with
a ship full of Holy Land pilgrims, accounts of the trip becoming his first
published book, The Innocents Abroad (a book so open in its mockery of
Catholicism that I doubt it would get published today; much of his strongest
ridicule was expurgated before publication).
Clemens’ writings consisted
chiefly of semi-autobiographical accounts (such as Life on the Mississippi,
the first half of which is probably the single best account of the steamboat
era; Roughing It, about his trip west by stagecoach in 1862 and his 4
years out west; A Tramp Abroad, an account of travels in Central Europe,
hoping to repeat the publishing success of the Innocents book; and of
course several attempts at pure autobiography) and fiction (drawing often on
his own childhood experiences, in such works as Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry
Finn, Pudd’n-Head Wilson, and a number of others). He had a lifelong streak of cynicism and
seemed to become more and more filled with anger, even rage, increasing the
vehemence and intensity of his mockery of both man and God; some of his
writings were at his own request withheld from publication until after his
death, due to their shocking even blasphemous content.
In his early 30s, Clemens
hoped to marry Olivia Langdon, a decade his junior, and as a consequence made
external and superficial reforms in his conduct to please her and her
parents. He attended church and even had
plans to join. These reforms had short
life. Not many months into marriage, he
resumed his substantial and regular consumption of alcohol, tobacco, and his
contempt for sacred things. His own
cynicism poisoned his wife’s once strong faith and she died in abject
unbelief. His own children cowered in
fear of him and his explosive temper.
Clemens was ever the
contradiction--denouncing materialistic and greedy capitalists, he very much
enjoyed the friendship and company of such people, and lived a very extravagant
lifestyle himself, often well beyond his means.
He was gullible to any promising “get rich quick” scheme and endured a
humiliating bankruptcy as a consequence (he did ultimately repay his creditors
in full). He hated life in Hannibal, and
yet glorified it in his novels. He was
forever reveling in the adventures he experienced in Nevada and California, but
once he left there, he never returned.
He despised the invasion of privacy that fame and notoriety brought, yet
he craved the accolades and public recognition of the masses (the white suits
he adopted as his public “costume” the last years of his life were expressly
for the purpose of drawing attention to himself). And in spite of his own great success, he was
often filled with petty jealousy of the recognition given to other writers.
Clemens saw himself not as a
humorist or novelist but a preacher, not of the Gospel, but of contempt for the
human race, for God, and for himself.
The venom of cynicism that characterized his life is a toxin that
infects the blood of a man, and poisons all his relationships. Clemens is a classic example that long
indulgence in such contempt for everyone and everything consumes a man’s soul.
Kaplan’s biography received
the Pulitzer Prize when it was first published in 1966. It is an instructive volume, though not
entirely all that we should want. A
specialized presentation of Clemens’ religious up-bringing and some attempt at
discovering just how he became so bitter against God would be a worthwhile follow-up
study.
---Doug Kutilek
----------
Give Me a Break by John Stossel. New York:
HarperCollins, 2004. 296 pp.,
hardback. $24.95
John Stossel, long a
reporter for ABC news and now co-host of their long-running “news” magazine 20/20,
was a typical reporter--Ivy league background, accepting and reciting all the
mantras of Leftist indoctrination: capitalism is evil, government control and
state socialism are good, radical environmentalism is sound, feminism is right,
and so on. But experience and exposure
to the real world has altered his perspective; he is now a self-professed
libertarian. He is part of a small
fraternity of politically non-leftist on-air personalities at the national
networks, and is the rarest of these--he still has his job (the likes of Bob
Zelnick, Bernard Golderg, and others found themselves fired because of similar
views)
Stossel’s
stock in trade has been the in-your-face investigative reporter, exposing
scams, phonies, con-men and such in his 20/20 segments and several
hour-long specials over the past couple of decades. The book is largely a re-visiting of the
topics addressed in those segments and specials.
Though
agreeing with much of Stossel’s presentation--that the environmentalist
movement is dishonest, extremist and actually harmful to the physical and
material well-being of the masses, that government almost never does anything
as well as the private sector and in America is many times too large and
intrusive, that lawyers and the immense number of lawsuits filed are highly
destructive to freedom and prosperity, that transforming people into “victims”
destroys their initiative, and more--in matters where “libertarians” differ
from “conservatives,” Stossel invariably adopts the “libertarian” point of view,
favoring abortion on demand, homosexual rights, legalization of drugs,
legalization of prostitution, and so on.
His
arguments are here rather thin and bogus, chiefly: outlawing these things
hasn’t stopped them.’ The same could be
said of bank robbery, murder, and drunk driving. “But,” he would protest, “those things harm
other people. What people do with their
own bodies that doesn’t hurt other people is no one else’s business.” Herein he errs. These activities do harm other
people--abortion terminates a life separate and distinct from its
mother’s. Drug addicts become wards of
the state, making others pay for their self-indulgence (Stossel exposes and
condemns in a different context drug addicts who collect Social Security
disability checks--this kind of burden would increase exponentially if drugs
were legalized). Legalization of
promiscuous and perverted sexual behavior spreads disease, often to innocent
spouses, and with a high financial burden on others (has anyone calculated the
cost to the taxpayer of AIDS in research and treatment? It is certainly in the tens of billions of
dollars--and counting), undermines marriage which destabilizes society and
breeds poverty. Legalized gambling is a
particular burden on the poor and less-educated and usually undermines other
economic activity (retail stores, restaurants, entertainment), to say nothing
of those whose lives are ruined by addiction to government-sanctioned gambling
(and, notably, the spread of legalized gambling to almost every state has greatly
increased the quantity of gambling, and its attendant evil consequences,
not reduced them). Pornography is often
a catalyst to child-molestation, rape, and even serial killing (one common
denominator of nearly all serial killers is that they were large consumers of
pornography).
No,
vice has historically been criminalized by governments because these things
have been recognized as scourges on society.
The greatest error of the libertarians, Stossel among them, is that they
fail to recognize the inherent evil that inhabits every human heart, to say
nothing of the ultimate spiritual consequences of morally depraved behavior.
I
am happy that there is at least one voice on network television protesting the
leftist agenda, though I am sorry that on moral matters, he espouses the
libertarian line, which is identical to the moral agenda of the
political left.
---Doug Kutilek