Adolphus Writer's Blog

Climax of Prophecy – Review and Commentary

Richard Bauckham says he has been fascinated by the Book of Revelation and has studied it for twenty years. In Climax of Prophecy, he offers a way to understand Revelation as rooted in early Jewish Christianity yet applicable for all times, places, and peoples.

Bauckham examines the book’s literary composition, use of Old Testament scriptures, place within the Jewish and Christian apocalypse traditions, and its contextuality then, now, and in the future. To this last point, he writes this abo...

American Empire Disaggregated

We’ve taken our post, ‘Revolution Within the Form – Review and Commentary’ and disaggregated it. It was too long and tortuous as extracted from the source material, so we took it apart into more cohesive modules. However, as with all blog posts, these modules were posted in reverse order so that they would be in order when read later. This post links these posts for those who saw them issued in reverse order.

Do Not Look for a Revolution – Garet Garrett and his views on our loss of the Americ...

Do Not Look for a Revolution

Seventy years ago, Garet Garrett, a journalist and novelist, maintained,

There are those who still think they are holding the pass against a revolution that may be coming up the road.  But they are gazing in the wrong direction.  The revolution is behind them.  It went by in the Night of Depression, singing songs to freedom.

He quotes Aristotle’s Politics, “one thing takes the place of another, so that the ancient laws will remain, while the power will be in the hands of those who have bro...

Our Government’s Erosion

In a Mises Institute condensation, titled, “The American Empire,” (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) from Garet Garrett’s book, The People’s Pottage, he wrote,

The extent to which the original precepts and intentions of constitutional, representative, limited government, in the republican form, have been eroded away by argument and dialectic is a separate subject, long and ominous, and belongs to a treatise on political science.

…When the process of erosion has gone on until there is no saying what the supreme...

What Has Become of Our Government?

Summarized in a Mises Institute condensation, titled, “The American Empire,” (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) from Garet Garrett’s book, The People’s Pottage, we read,

If you may have Empire with or without a constitution, even within the form of a republican constitution, and if also you may have Empire with or without an emperor, then how may the true marks of Empire be distinguished with certainty?  What are they?

Garrett lists six of these marks,

1) The executive power of government shall be domin...

The Bureaucratic State

Before the administrative state was named, it was called the bureau government.  Garet Garrett defined it in his book, The People’s Pottage.  From a Mises Institute condensation, titled, “The American Empire,” (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), we read,

What Empire needs above all in government is an executive power that can make immediate decisions, such as a decision in the middle of the night by the President to declare war on the aggressor…

The Federal income-tax law of 1914 gave the government unlimited ...

What Should We Do About the American Empire?

Garet Garrett defined the American empire in his book, The People’s Pottage, seventy years ago.  From a Mises Institute condensation, titled, “The American Empire,” (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), Garrett says,

Do not ask whether or not it is possible [to alter our course].  Ask yourself this: if it were possible, what would it take?  How could the people restore the Republic if they would?  Or, before that, how could they recover their Constitutional sovereign right to choose for themselves?

When you have...

Revelation – J. P. M. Sweet — Review and Commentary

I’ve been reading several commentaries on the Book of Revelation. Many people think it’s a coded message describing world history in detail. But Sweet’s commentary says it’s a broad picture of the Creator God’s plan to save people from the penalty of their sins, destroy evil, and recreate His paradise in which He will dwell with mankind forever.

Revelation, Sweet says, describes the cyclical rise and fall of empires and the beastly nature of those emperors. He uses those emperors (e.g., presi...

The Theology of the Book of Revelation – Review and Commentary

Richard Bauckham’s book, The Theology of the Book of Revelation, presents a different interpretation of the book of Revelation. From the Amazon sales page,

The Book of Revelation is a work of profound theology. But its literary form makes it impenetrable to many modern readers and open to all kinds of misinterpretations. Richard Bauckham explains how the book’s imagery conveyed meaning in its original context and how the book’s theology is inseparable from its literary structure and compositi...

Revolution Within the Form – Review and Commentary

Garet Garrett wrote several essays and books on “the New Deal planning state and the regimentation of national life it brought about.” In a condensation, titled, “The American Empire,” from his book, The People’s Pottage, he quotes Aristotle’s Politics,

People do not easily change but love their own ancient customs; and it is by small degrees only that one thing takes the place of another; so that the ancient laws will remain, while the power will be in the hands of those who have brought abo...