Traders Point Christian Church

Traders Point Christian Church began in 1834. 

In 2016, Traders Point became a multisite church after opening a second location in Carmel, Indiana.

There are now six total locations, one each in Avon, Broad Ripple, Downtown Indianapolis, Fishers, Carmel and Whitestown.

Traders Point Christian Church streams their services live every Sunday from the Whitestown campus. Each location has its own worship experience, video teaching, and campus pastor.

Believe it or not, the city of Indianapolis is barely older than TPCC. Just 13 years after Indy was platted in 1821, the group began operating as Ebenezer Christian Church. The 10-member congregation grew to nearly 100 by 1853, a rate that has hardly slowed in the century and a half since.

Although the group of believers called many different buildings home over the next few decades, it remained in the same general area, first meeting in a log cabin just south of Fishback Creek, then moving to a building in the Village of Traders Point in 1886 (and officially changing the name to Traders Point Christian Church), before finally migrating to 7860 Lafayette Road in 1964, where it remained for 50 years.

In 1983, Howard Brammer became the lead pastor, ushering in Traders Point’s modern era. During his tenure, the church took a socially conservative stance, with politically conservative figures such as attorney Kenneth Starr (of Bill Clinton impeachment-hearings fame) and creationist Ken Ham speaking at the church. Their elder team included Curt Smith, president of the Indiana Family Institute, who would later gain notoriety for lobbying against gay marriage and his involvement in the RFRA fiasco. By the time Brammer left in 2006, TPCC was well on its way to becoming a bona fide megachurch—1,000 members and counting.

Late that year, the church moved to its Whitestown location, and Brockett, the current pastor, took over. The church’s tone softened somewhat. Brockett ditched the overt conservatism for a more accepting—if not exactly progressive—political position. “We just want to love everyone,” he says repeatedly throughout his sermons.

Indianapolis became a seat of county government on December 31, 1821, when Marion County, Indiana, was established. A combined county and town government continued until 1832, when Indianapolis was incorporated as a town and the local government was placed under the direction of five elected trustees. Indianapolis became an incorporated city effective March 30, 1847. Samuel Henderson, the city’s first mayor, led the new city government, which included a seven-member city council. In 1853, voters approved a new city charter that provided for an elected mayor and a fourteen-member city council. The city charter continued to be revised as Indianapolis expanded.

Baptists, Presbyterians, and Methodists established Indianapolis’s first religious congregations in the 1820s, but other groups including the Episcopalians, Disciples of Christ, Lutherans, Catholics, Congregationalists, Society of Friends (Quakers), Universalists, Unitarians, and Jewish congregations were established in Indianapolis before the Civil War. Many of Indianapolis’s early religious buildings have been demolished, but several of the congregations continue to exist, although some have been renamed or relocated to newer facilities.^[51]

Indianapolis’s first Baptist congregation, organized in 1822, built the First Baptist Church.^[52] Presbyterians formed four of its early congregations in the city prior to the Civil War: First Presbyterian Church (1823), Second Presbyterian Church (1838), Third Presbyterian Church (1851), and Fourth Presbyterian Church (1851).^[53] Methodists organized three early Indianapolis congregations: Wesley Chapel (1822), Roberts Chapel (1842), and Strange Chapel (1845).^[54] The city’s other early congregations included the first Disciples of Christ congregation, organized in 1833; Holy Cross Parish (1837), Indianapolis’s oldest Catholic parish; Christ Church (1937); the First English Lutheran Church (1837); the United Brethren Church (1844); the first United Brethren in Christ congregation (1850); First Friends Church of Indianapolis (1854); the Indianapolis Hebrew Congregation (1856); and Plymouth Congregational Church (1857), among others.^[55] An early Universalist Church Society was established in 1844, but soon disbanded, and a subsequent congregation erected the city’s First Universalist Church (1860). Indianapolis’s liberal-mined Unitarians organized in 1860.^[56]

Indianapolis’s early African American and German communities established their own congregations. The town’s oldest African Methodist Episcopal Church congregation organized in 1836.^[57] Second Baptist Church (1846) became Indianapolis’s first Baptist congregation for African Americans. Indianapolis’s Germans established several German-speaking congregations: Zion Church (1841), the city’s first German Evangelical congregation; Saint Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church (1844); First German Methodist Episcopal Church (1849); First German Reformed Church of Indianapolis (1852); and Saint Marienkirche (1856), the city’s first German-language Catholic parish.^[58]

Adam Smith – Biography

Adam Smith  (baptized 16 June [O.S. 5 June] 1723^[1] – 17 July 1790) was a Scottish^[a] economist and philosopher who was a pioneer of political economy and key figure during the Scottish Enlightenment.^[6] Also known as “The Father of Economics”^[7] or “The Father of Capitalism”,^[8] he wrote two classic works, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776). The latter, often abbreviated as The Wealth of Nations, is considered his magnum opus and the first modern work of economics. In his work, Smith introduced his theory of absolute advantage.^[9]

Smith studied social philosophy at the University of Glasgow and at Balliol College, Oxford, where he was one of the first students to benefit from scholarships set up by fellow Scot John Snell. After graduating, he delivered a successful series of public lectures at the University of Edinburgh,^[10] leading him to collaborate with David Hume during the Scottish Enlightenment. Smith obtained a professorship at Glasgow, teaching moral philosophy and during this time, wrote and published The Theory of Moral Sentiments. In his later life, he took a tutoring position that allowed him to travel throughout Europe, where he met other intellectual leaders of his day.

Smith laid the foundations of classical free market economic theory. The Wealth of Nations was a precursor to the modern academic discipline of economics. In this and other works, he developed the concept of division of labour and expounded upon how rational self-interest and competition can lead to economic prosperity. Smith was controversial in his own day and his general approach and writing style were often satirised by writers such as Horace Walpole

Smith was born in Kirkcaldy, in Fife, Scotland. His father, also Adam Smith, was a Scottish Writer to the Signet (senior solicitor), advocate and prosecutor (judge advocate) and also served as comptroller of the customs in Kirkcaldy.^[12] Smith’s mother was born Margaret Douglas, daughter of the landed Robert Douglas of Strathendry, also in Fife; she married Smith’s father in 1720. Two months before Smith was born, his father died, leaving his mother a widow.^[13] The date of Smith’s baptism into the Church of Scotland at Kirkcaldy was 5 June 1723^[14] and this has often been treated as if it were also his date of birth,^[12] which is unknown.

Although few events in Smith’s early childhood are known, the Scottish journalist John Rae, Smith’s biographer, recorded that Smith was abducted by Romani at the age of three and released when others went to rescue him.^[b][16] Smith was close to his mother, who probably encouraged him to pursue his scholarly ambitions.^[17] He attended the Burgh School of Kirkcaldy—characterised by Rae as “one of the best secondary schools of Scotland at that period”^[15]—from 1729 to 1737, he learned Latin, mathematics, history, and writing

Smith entered the University of Glasgow when he was 14 and studied moral philosophy under Francis Hutcheson.^[17] Here he developed his passion for liberty, reason, and free speech. In 1740, he was the graduate scholar presented to undertake postgraduate studies at Balliol College, Oxford, under the Snell Exhibition.^[18]

Smith considered the teaching at Glasgow to be far superior to that at Oxford, which he found intellectually stifling.^[19] In Book V, Chapter II of The Wealth of Nations, he wrote: “In the University of Oxford, the greater part of the public professors have, for these many years, given up altogether even the pretence of teaching.” Smith is also reported to have complained to friends that Oxford officials once discovered him reading a copy of David Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature, and they subsequently confiscated his book and punished him severely for reading it.^[15][20][21] According to William Robert Scott, “The Oxford of [Smith’s] time gave little if any help towards what was to be his lifework.”^[22] Nevertheless, he took the opportunity while at Oxford to teach himself several subjects by reading many books from the shelves of the large Bodleian Library.^[23] When Smith was not studying on his own, his time at Oxford was not a happy one, according to his letters.^[24] Near the end of his time there, he began suffering from shaking fits, probably the symptoms of a nervous breakdown.^[25] He left Oxford University in 1746, before his scholarship ended.^[25][26]

In Book V of The Wealth of Nations, Smith comments on the low quality of instruction and the meager intellectual activity at English universities, when compared to their Scottish counterparts. He attributes this both to the rich endowments of the colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, which made the income of professors independent of their ability to attract students, and to the fact that distinguished men of letters could make an even more comfortable living as ministers of the Church of England.^[21]

Smith’s discontent at Oxford might be in part due to the absence of his beloved teacher in Glasgow, Francis Hutcheson, who was well regarded as one of the most prominent lecturers at the University of Glasgow in his day and earned the approbation of students, colleagues, and even ordinary residents with the fervor and earnestness of his orations (which he sometimes opened to the public). His lectures endeavoured not merely to teach philosophy, but also to make his students embody that philosophy in their lives, appropriately acquiring the epithet, the preacher of philosophy. Unlike Smith, Hutcheson was not a system builder; rather, his magnetic personality and method of lecturing so influenced his students and caused the greatest of those to reverentially refer to him as “the never to be forgotten Hutcheson”—a title that Smith in all his correspondence used to describe only two people, his good friend David Hume and influential mentor Francis Hutcheson.

Smith began delivering public lectures in 1748 at the University of Edinburgh,^[28] sponsored by the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh under the patronage of Lord Kames.^[29] His lecture topics included rhetoric and belles-lettres,^[30] and later the subject of “the progress of opulence”. On this latter topic, he first expounded his economic philosophy of “the obvious and simple system of natural liberty“. While Smith was not adept at public speaking, his lectures met with success.^[31]

In 1750, Smith met the philosopher David Hume, who was his senior by more than a decade. In their writings covering history, politics, philosophy, economics, and religion, Smith and Hume shared closer intellectual and personal bonds than with other important figures of the Scottish Enlightenment.^[32]

In 1751, Smith earned a professorship at Glasgow University teaching logic courses, and in 1752, he was elected a member of the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh, having been introduced to the society by Lord Kames. When the head of Moral Philosophy in Glasgow died the next year, Smith took over the position.^[31] He worked as an academic for the next 13 years, which he characterised as “by far the most useful and therefore by far the happiest and most honorable period [of his life]”.^[33]

Smith published The Theory of Moral Sentiments in 1759, embodying some of his Glasgow lectures. This work was concerned with how human morality depends on sympathy between agent and spectator, or the individual and other members of society. Smith defined “mutual sympathy” as the basis of moral sentiments. He based his explanation, not on a special “moral sense” as the Third Lord Shaftesbury and Hutcheson had done, nor on utility as Hume did, but on mutual sympathy, a term best captured in modern parlance by the 20th-century concept of empathy, the capacity to recognise feelings that are being experienced by another being.

François Quesnay, one of the leaders of the physiocratic school of thought

Following the publication of The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Smith became so popular that many wealthy students left their schools in other countries to enroll at Glasgow to learn under Smith.^[34] After the publication of The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Smith began to give more attention to jurisprudence and economics in his lectures and less to his theories of morals.^[35] For example, Smith lectured that the cause of increase in national wealth is labour, rather than the nation’s quantity of gold or silver, which is the basis for mercantilism, the economic theory that dominated Western European economic policies at the time.^[36]

In 1762, the University of Glasgow conferred on Smith the title of Doctor of Laws (LL.D.).^[37] At the end of 1763, he obtained an offer from Charles Townshend—who had been introduced to Smith by David Hume—to tutor his stepson, Henry Scott, the young Duke of Buccleuch. Smith resigned from his professorship in 1764 to take the tutoring position. He subsequently attempted to return the fees he had collected from his students because he had resigned partway through the term, but his students refused.^[38]

Smith’s tutoring job entailed touring Europe with Scott, during which time he educated Scott on a variety of subjects, such as etiquette and manners. He was paid £300 per year (plus expenses) along with a £300 per year pension; roughly twice his former income as a teacher.^[38] Smith first travelled as a tutor to Toulouse, France, where he stayed for a year and a half. According to his own account, he found Toulouse to be somewhat boring, having written to Hume that he “had begun to write a book to pass away the time”.^[38] After touring the south of France, the group moved to Geneva, where Smith met with the philosopher Voltaire.^[39]

David Hume was a friend and contemporary of Smith’s.

From Geneva, the party moved to Paris. Here, Smith met Benjamin Franklin, and discovered the Physiocracy school founded by François Quesnay.^[40] Physiocrats were opposed to mercantilism, the dominating economic theory of the time, illustrated in their motto Laissez faire et laissez passer, le monde va de lui même! (Let do and let pass, the world goes on by itself!).

The wealth of France had been virtually depleted by Louis XIV^[c] and Louis XV in ruinous wars,^[d] and was further exhausted in aiding the American insurgents against the British. The excessive consumption of goods and services deemed to have no economic contribution was considered a source of unproductive labour, with France’s agriculture the only economic sector maintaining the wealth of the nation.^{[citation needed]} Given that the British economy of the day yielded an income distribution that stood in contrast to that which existed in France, Smith concluded that “with all its imperfections, [the Physiocratic school] is perhaps the nearest approximation to the truth that has yet been published upon the subject of political economy.”^[41] The distinction between productive versus unproductive labour—the physiocratic classe steril—was a predominant issue in the development and understanding of what would become classical economic theory.

In 1766, Henry Scott’s younger brother died in Paris, and Smith’s tour as a tutor ended shortly thereafter.^[42] Smith returned home that year to Kirkcaldy, and he devoted much of the next decade to writing his magnum opus.^[43] There, he befriended Henry Moyes, a young blind man who showed precocious aptitude. Smith secured the patronage of David Hume and Thomas Reid in the young man’s education.^[44] In May 1773, Smith was elected fellow of the Royal Society of London,^[45] and was elected a member of the Literary Club in 1775. The Wealth of Nations was published in 1776 and was an instant success, selling out its first edition in only six months.^[46]

In 1778, Smith was appointed to a post as commissioner of customs in Scotland and went to live with his mother (who died in 1784)^[47] in Panmure House in Edinburgh’s Canongate.^[48] Five years later, as a member of the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh when it received its royal charter, he automatically became one of the founding members of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.^[49] From 1787 to 1789, he occupied the honorary position of Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow.^[50]

Smith died in the northern wing of Panmure House in Edinburgh on 17 July 1790 after a painful illness. His body was buried in the Canongate Kirkyard.^[51] On his deathbed, Smith expressed disappointment that he had not achieved more.^[52]

Smith’s literary executors were two friends from the Scottish academic world: the physicist and chemist Joseph Black and the pioneering geologist James Hutton.^[53] Smith left behind many notes and some unpublished material, but gave instructions to destroy anything that was not fit for publication.^[54] He mentioned an early unpublished History of Astronomy as probably suitable, and it duly appeared in 1795, along with other material such as Essays on Philosophical Subjects.^[53]

Smith’s library went by his will to David Douglas, Lord Reston (son of his cousin Colonel Robert Douglas of Strathendry, Fife), who lived with Smith.^[55] It was eventually divided between his two surviving children, Cecilia Margaret (Mrs. Cunningham) and David Anne (Mrs. Bannerman). On the death in 1878 of her husband, the Reverend W. B. Cunningham of Prestonpans, Mrs. Cunningham sold some of the books. The remainder passed to her son, Professor Robert Oliver Cunningham of Queen’s College, Belfast, who presented a part to the library of Queen’s College. After his death, the remaining books were sold. On the death of Mrs. Bannerman in 1879, her portion of the library went intact to the New College (of the Free Church) in Edinburgh and the collection was transferred to the University of Edinburgh Main Library in 1972.

Smith explained the relationship between growth of private property and civil government as follows’

Men may live together in society with some tolerable degree of security, though there is no civil magistrate to protect them from the injustice of those passions. But avarice and ambition in the rich, in the poor the hatred of labour and the love of present ease and enjoyment, are the passions which prompt to invade property, passions much more steady in their operation, and much more universal in their influence. Wherever there is great property there is great inequality. For one very rich man there must be at least five hundred poor, and the affluence of the few supposes the indigence of the many. The affluence of the rich excites the indignation of the poor, who are often both driven by want, and prompted by envy, to invade his possessions. It is only under the shelter of the civil magistrate that the owner of that valuable property, which is acquired by the labour of many years, or perhaps of many successive generations, can sleep a single night in security. He is at all times surrounded by unknown enemies, whom, though he never provoked, he can never appease, and from whose injustice he can be protected only by the powerful arm of the civil magistrate continually held up to chastise it. The acquisition of valuable and extensive property, therefore, necessarily requires the establishment of civil government. Where there is no property, or at least none that exceeds the value of two or three days’ labour, civil government is not so necessary. Civil government supposes a certain subordination. But as the necessity of civil government gradually grows up with the acquisition of valuable property, so the principal causes which naturally introduce subordination gradually grow up with the growth of that valuable property. (…) Men of inferior wealth combine to defend those of superior wealth in the possession of their property, in order that men of superior wealth may combine to defend them in the possession of theirs. All the inferior shepherds and herdsmen feel that the security of their own herds and flocks depends upon the security of those of the great shepherd or herdsman; that the maintenance of their lesser authority depends upon that of his greater authority, and that upon their subordination to him depends his power of keeping their inferiors in subordination to them. They constitute a sort of little nobility, who feel themselves interested to defend the property and to support the authority of their own little sovereign in order that he may be able to defend their property and to support their authority. Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.^[116]

Theology and Economics

 How does religion shaped economic philosophy?

The origin of ideas. Why do ideas come up when they do, where they do? What’s the motivation behind them? What’s the prod?

If you go to 1885, and the rather organized emergence of economics as a discipline with the formation of the American Economic Association, I believe you say the 23 of the 181 founding members were Protestant clergymen?

1885 is an important year for this reason. The Indian National Congress was established when 72 delegates from all over the country met at Bombay in 1885. Prominent delegates included Dadabhai Naoroji, Surendranath Banerjee, Badruddin Tyabji, Pherozeshah Mehta W. C. In 1883, Hume had outlined his idea for a body representing Indian interests in an open letter to graduates of the University of Calcutta. Its aim was to obtain a greater share in government for educated Indians, and to create a platform for civic and political dialogue between them and the British Raj. In North America, the American Civil War ends ten years later in 1865 with the surrender of the Confederate States, beginning the Reconstruction era of U.S. history.

1885, in North America saw the emergence of economics as a discipline with the formation of the American Economic Association, with 23 of the 181 founding members being Protestant clergymen.

Harvard was famously a Puritan Foundation in the original days. But also, in the days of Smith and Hume, all patronage was church patronage in Scotland, because in 1707, the Scots had given up their status as an independent country. They had no Parliament left, but they had the church. And also, in those days, people fought over religious questions in a way that fortunately we don’t today.

The Kingdom of Scotland emerged as an independent sovereign state in the 9th century and continued to exist until 1707. England agreed to give Scotland money to pay off its debts, and both countries’ parliaments passed the Acts of Union to become one nation. Scotland had to relinquish its parliament under the agreement, but it kept Scottish law. Thus, the 1707 Act of Union, which went into effect on May 1, 1707, creating the Kingdom of Great Britain, was a winning deal on both sides of the border. Scotland today is not an independent country (yet!) as it exists within the framework / political union of The United Kingdom and retains its sovereign state status and strong national identity.

Scotland is not an independent country or state, and neither are Wales, Northern Ireland, or England itself. However, Scotland is most certainly a nation of people living in an internal division of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. 

The English Civil War was not between the Catholics and the Protestants. It was about what kind of Protestant people were supposed to be. Theological wars can become military wars in that era.

Einstein argued that the worldview comes first, the scientific theories come subsequently.

David Hume, for example, was an outspoken opponent of any kind of organized religion. He used to refer to Church of England bishops as retainers to superstition. That was his phrase. He was never able to get a university appointment. Everybody understood that he was the leading figure of the Scottish Enlightenment. But he was never able to get a university appointment because he was at the very least an outspoken agnostic. Probably, I think he was an atheist, actually.

Adam Smith was much more private about his personal religious commitments. He was probably something of the form of a deist, like the way we, Americans, would think of Benjamin Franklin from that era, or Thomas Jefferson Smith, there’s no evidence of religious commitment for him. When he became a professor, Smith asked to be exempted from the requirement to start every lecture with a prayer. Incidentally, his request was denied. So, these were not religiously committed men.

The world as a whole is just too complicated a phenomenon. Nobody can think clearly about the world as a whole. And so, what everybody does, is to form in his or her mind a simplified, what economists would call a model, what Einstein called a worldview, what one of the great economists at Harvard, Joseph Schumpeter, called a Vision. Schumpeter called it Vision with a capital V. The idea is that people have something in their minds, they don’t just sit down to do their work with a blank piece of paper or a blank slate for their minds. And Einstein was very clear that as he put it, scientific work comes out of pre-scientific thought. Schumpeter thought that economic analysis came from this pre-analytic vision, and all of these other figures thought the same thing.

We all inhabit an intellectual house, and it’s never totally vacant. There’s some furniture in the house. And whether we recognize it or not, that furniture has a great deal to do with our understanding of reality. And the furnishings of the intellectual house of Edinburgh, for example, in the 18th century, it would have been explicitly Christian, such that the culture was Christian, even if the individuals were some form of unbeliever even to what would then have been called an infidel. Theologically, no one begins epistemologically, in terms of knowledge from nowhere. Everyone has to begin somewhere.

Edinburgh itself is just a fascinating place during the times of David Hume and Adam Smith. An era that saw the emergence of so many ideas, the coffeehouse culture, the literary societies that had given a fascinating place to live. Religion was integrated into this intellectual life

.

Adam Smith and David Hume were members, original members, of the most distinguished of these dining clubs called the Select Society. Of the 31 original members, again, including Smith and including Hume, five of the 31 were Church of Scotland clergymen. And that included this very interesting figure who was their close friend, William Robertson, who was simultaneously the head of the church. He was the moderator of the Church of Scotland General Assembly. And at the same time, Robertson was the principal, in our language, the President of the University of Edinburgh. Well, think about that a moment. That would be as if the president of my university, Larry Bacow, were simultaneously the President of Harvard and also the head of the Central Conference of American Rabbis. Well, he’s not. Or it’s as if his predecessor, Drew Faust, had been President of Harvard and head of the Presiding Bishop over the Episcopalian Church in the United States. Robertson had both of those titles simultaneously. So, it was a very different world from ours, from the perspective of the integration of religion and religious thinking into the intellectual life of the time.

SBTS was founded in 1859 and was explicitly modeled after Princeton, from the original documents of Princeton, but with the synthesis of Brown. James Petigru Boyce, who was the founder of this institution, was a graduate of Princeton. But before that, he was the prized student of Francis Wayland at Brown. Wayland was the most prominent Baptist layman of his age and was the President of Brown University, teaching moral philosophy as presidents did at the time.

Wayland was very much an economist and very interesting character. He was an abolitionist, famously so. He was a free trader, famously so, and as a Baptist clergyman, he anchored those beliefs in his religious thinking. So, unlike Smith and Hume, and when we get to Wayland, here’s somebody who really was a religiously committed individual.

Wayland’s economics textbook, goes on at great length about how it would be wrong to impose tariffs in the United States. The tariff issue was the leading economic issue in the first half of the 19th century other than slavery, and he goes on at great length about how it would be wrong to impose tariffs on imports, because God wanted nations to trade with one another in order to promote amity among nations. And his story was in part that that’s why God created the oceans. By this time, everybody understood that sea travel was a lot more efficient and cheaper than land travel. And so, the reason the oceans where there, according to Pastor Wayland, was precisely to facilitate trade among nations. So, his was a very religiously anchored argument. And, of course, by virtue of being president at Brown, we know he was definitely a Baptist minister. He started his career here in Boston at a Baptist Church and then quickly moved to Brown where he became the great figure at Brown in the 19th century.

Wayland and his colleagues would also have tied the existence of the oceans and the ability to have commerce and shipping and exploration is tied to missions, so then theology still very much there. Economics and missions, just as economic and social betterment and the social gospel were tied very much together in mutual interest.

The decline of Orthodox Calvinism as the official theology of the Anglosphere led to the birth of capitalism, as emerging from a great theological shift that was antecedent to it, and that is the decline of belief in predestination in particular.

In Max Weber’s great book, called The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Weber was primarily looking at the 17th century, when belief in predestination was at its, not at its height, but pretty strong, and was looking in effect, Weber kept thinking about all of these Puritans in Massachusetts walking around, suffering what he called existential anxiety about whether they were among the elect, and therefore desperate to have external signs. They knew it couldn’t be causal, but they were looking for external signs of whether they were among the elect. And they persuaded themselves. This is Weber’s story. They persuaded themselves that if they were industrious and worked diligently at their calling, if they save their money, if instead of living luxuriously, they plowed their money back into their businesses, they were thrifty. All of these would be comforting to them because they were external signs. Now, that was a story about people’s behavior, according to Weber. And it’s a story mostly about the 17th century.

In the 18th century b Smith and Hume and others of that era gave us modern Western economics. As an Orthodox Calvinist and Augustinian, and a very much a believer in predestination, and a theologian, I think predestination and the sovereignty of God are often understood from the outside as a form of determinism or fatalism. Whereas in our understanding, it’s rooted in a personal God, not an impersonal deity who relates to us in personal terms, and so there’s more to it than fatalism or some just kind of mere determinism. But still, there is no doubt that when you’re talking about unconditional election, you are talking about a divine decree that is unchanging and unchangeable.

But it is also interesting that if you go back to the 16th century and the 17th century, the great debate in many ways between the Protestants and the Catholics, and especially as you consider Luther and Calvin, was over the issue of assurance. And it was the Reformers who argued for the reality of assurance of salvation. And the Roman Catholic Church and the Council of Trent identified that as among the chief errors of the Reformation, which they condemned. If you look at the economies of historically Protestant Europe and the economies of historically Catholic Europe, you’re looking at very different economic patterns. And Weber talked about the survival of ideas like thrift and investment and patience and those Protestant virtues as being a part of that work ethic.

What I think enabled him to come to these insights was a worldview based on the more expansive notion of the opportunities and possibilities for human choice, human action, human agency that came out of the movement away from belief in predestination. I think if he had still been laboring under the idea that there was nothing a person could do to affect his or her salvation, because that decision had been made not only before the person was born, but before the world had even been created. I’m quoting now from the Westminster Confession. That doesn’t leave a lot of room for thinking that people can make important and worthwhile things happen by what they choose to do. And by contrast, by the time we get to Smith, and the whole new movement is toward believing that, yes, people can affect their salvation to use the words of John Tillotson, who was the first Archbishop of Canterbury, appointed after the Inglorious Revolution in England in 1688. People are able to cooperate, to cooperate with God in effecting their salvation. A very secularization of that idea is that people are able to do good in the world. People are able to tell right from wrong. People are able, just through their innate, inborn nature, what John Locke called the Candle of the Lord, it’s there, if we are only willing to make use of it. People are able to make good things happen, and Smith was looking at the economy, and he said, well, how is it that people just acting on their own instincts can take actions which make other people so much better off? I think it’s an idea that came to him because he lived in this world of pushback and movement away from predestinarian belief.

In 1643, the English Parliament called upon “learned, godly and judicious Divines” to meet at Westminster Abbey in order to provide advice on issues of worship, doctrine, government and discipline of the Church of England. Their meetings, over a period of five years, produced the confession of faith, as well as a Larger Catechism and a Shorter Catechism. For more than three hundred years, various churches around the world have adopted the confession and the catechisms as their standards of doctrine, subordinate to the Bible. The Westminster Confession of Faith was modified and adopted by Congregationalists in England in the form of the Savoy Declaration (1658). English Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and some others, would together (with others) come to be known as Nonconformists, because they did not conform to the Act of Uniformity (1662) establishing the Church of England as the only legally approved church, though they were in many ways united by their common confessions, built on the Westminster Confession. The Westminster Confession of Faith is a Reformed confession of faith. Drawn up by the 1646 Westminster Assembly as part of the Westminster Standards to be a confession of the Church of England, it became and remains the “subordinate standard” of doctrine in the Church of Scotland and has been influential within Presbyterian churches worldwide.

During the English Civil War (1642–1649), the English Parliament raised armies in an alliance with the Covenanters who by then were the de facto government of Scotland, against the forces of Charles I, King of England, Scotland and Ireland. The purpose of the Westminster Assembly, in which 121 Puritan clergymen participated, was to provide official documents for the reformation of the Church of England. The Church of Scotland had recently overthrown the bishops imposed by the King and reinstated presbyterianism (see Bishops’ Wars). For this reason, as a condition for entering into the alliance with the English Parliament, the Scottish Parliament formed the Solemn League and Covenant with the English Parliament, which meant that the Church of England would abandon episcopalianism and consistently adhere to reformed standards of doctrine and worship. The Confession and Catechisms were produced in order to secure the help of the Scots against the king. The Scottish Commissioners who were present at the Assembly were satisfied with the Confession of Faith, and in 1646, the document was sent to the English parliament to be ratified, and submitted to the General Assembly of the Scottish Kirk. The Church of Scotland adopted the document, without amendment, in 1647. In England, the House of Commons returned the document to the Assembly with the requirement to compile a list of proof texts from Scripture. After vigorous debate, the Confession was then in part adopted as the Articles of Christian Religion in 1648, by act of the English parliament, omitting section 4 of chapter 20 (Of Christian Liberty), sections 4–6 of chapter 24 (Of Marriage and Divorce), and chapters 30 and 31 (Of Church Censures and Of Synods and Councils). The next year, the Scottish parliament ratified the Confession without amendment. In 1660, the Restoration of the British monarchy and Anglican episcopacy resulted in the nullification of these acts of the two parliaments. However, when William of Orange replaced the Catholic King James VII of Scotland and II of England on the thrones of Scotland, England and Ireland, he gave royal assent to the Scottish parliament’s ratification of the Confession, again without change, in 1690.^[1]

Some General Notes –

Go Extra Mile

Be present and persistent

Imagine 19,000 People –

Imagine First Initiative – First Offering – 3.3 Million

Initiatives we are kicking off and projects accelerating.

Raising the NEXT generation is our biggest assignment in life. Cease opportunity to influence and shape and bless the next generation.

A parent is only as happy as their saddest child.

Bible has overarching theme of family.

Israel was in bondage and slavery for 400 years in Egypt.

Slaves get to wilderness and they discover, they don’t know how to live free life. Freedom can be very confusion if you have not lived in freedom. Hence God gives this people commandments to help them know the boundaries and joys of freedom.

How do you make the most of freedom – by knowing the standards – Deut. 6:7.Building and sustaining a godly home. Are you providing for your children a godly home. What kind of human does our home produce? Optimistic or pessimistic? What kind of humans are you raising and produce? Eventually you will send this people into the world. What kind of Christians does our home produce? Is your faith impressive or oppressive?

When we access ourselves with hard questions, we grow. Speech, symbols and Surroundings. Are you speaking life over the next generation? Words last. Words cost and words make investments.

You are free to disagree. My hope is that you will consider what is the best approach. I am going to be a great dad- I will get donuts or I will be cook. ARTIST – Blessing Offer. One who can craft a good message – when you hear his lyrics – there is so much substance. Little Birds is one of the songs by Blessing offer. It is a song about freedom in Christ. Even freedom needs fences. Important of fences in freedom. It is better to have a fence on top of the cliff than a hospital. Even birds needs to come down. Even blue skies need the ground. I don’t want the colors that you are blessing. True freedom is discovering God who loves you the most. The one loves you has boundaries and blessings. He doesn’t want to clip your wings, he wants to put wind.

Help your children TRANSITION well. When others speak poorly about you, remember God speaks powerfully about you.

Difference between stress and pressure. Good parenting places healthy pressure on children. Character requires pressure. Pressure is more honest. Pressure reveal continent. Steward the pressure your children are faced with. Don’t eliminate trials and blessings that comes with adolescences.

There is always a storm in the forecast. All the lies they will have to navigate. Raise pastors of substance who will stand in the word of GOD. Become an empty nester and discover you raised VESSELS of HONOR. Steward well the lives and the Children you get to RAISE.

David Hume – Biography

This post is a recent addition to Chepkwony’s “Introductions to Key Philosophers” series, which offers “biography” on major philosophers.

Today, we are talking about David Hume. David Hume (1711-1776) well-known in his own time as an historian and essayist wrote four major philosophical works.

1. A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-1740),
2. The Enquiries concerning Human Understanding (1748) 
3. concerning the Principles of Morals (1751),
4.  Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (1779)

Born in Edinburgh (Capital of Scotland), Hume spent his childhood at Ninewells, the family’s modest estate on the Whitadder River in the border lowlands near Berwick. His father died just after David’s second birthday, “leaving me, with an elder brother and a sister under the care of our Mother, a woman of singular Merit, who, though young and handsome, devoted herself to the rearing and educating of her Children.”

In adulthood, Hume moved to France, where he could live frugally, and finally settled in La Flèche, a sleepy village in Anjou best known for its Jesuit college. Here, where Descartes and Mersenne studied a century before, Hume read French and other continental authors, especially Malebranche, Dubos, and Bayle; he occasionally baited the Jesuits with iconoclastic arguments; and, between 1734 and 1737, he drafted A Treatise of Human Nature.

Hume returned to England in 1737 to ready the Treatise for the press. To curry favor with Bishop Butler, he “castrated” his manuscript, deleting his controversial discussion of miracles, along with other “nobler parts.” Book I, Of the Understanding, and Book II, Of the Passions, was published anonymously in 1739. Book III, Of Morals, appeared in 1740, as well as an anonymous Abstract of the first two books.

Back at Ninewells, Hume published two modestly successful volumes of Essays, Moral and Political in 1741 and 1742. When the Chair of Ethics and Pneumatical (“Mental”) Philosophy at Edinburgh became vacant in 1745, Hume hoped to fill it, but his reputation provoked vocal and ultimately successful opposition. Six years later, he stood for the Chair of Logic at Glasgow, only to be turned down again. Hume never held an academic post.

In the wake of the Edinburgh debacle, Hume made the unfortunate decision to accept a position as tutor to the Marquess of Annandale, only to find that the young man was insane and his estate manager dishonest. With considerable difficulty, Hume managed to extricate himself from this situation, accepting the invitation of his cousin, Lieutenant-General James St. Clair, to be his Secretary on a military expedition against the French in Quebec. Contrary winds delayed St. Clair’s fleet until the Ministry canceled the plan, only to spawn a new expedition that ended as an abortive raid on the coastal town of L’Orient in Brittany.

Hume also accompanied St. Clair on an extended diplomatic mission to the courts of Vienna and Turin in 1748. (“I wore the uniform of an officer.”) While he was in Italy, the Philosophical Essays concerning Human Understanding appeared. A recasting of the central ideas of Book I of the Treatise, the Philosophical Essays were read and reprinted, eventually becoming part of Hume’s Essays and Treatises under the title by which they are known today, An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. In 1751, this Enquiry was joined by a second, An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals. Hume described the second Enquiry, a substantially rewritten version of Book III of the Treatise, as “incomparably the best” of all his works. More essays, the Political Discourses, appeared in 1752, and Hume’s correspondence reveals that a draft of the Dialogues concerning Natural Religion was also well underway at this time.

An offer to serve as Librarian to the Edinburgh Faculty of Advocates gave Hume the opportunity to work steadily on another project, a History of England, which was published in six volumes in 1754, 1756, 1759, and 1762. His History became a best-seller, finally giving him the financial independence he had long sought. (Both the British Library and the Cambridge University Library still list him as “David Hume, the historian.”)

But even as a librarian, Hume managed to arouse the ire of the “zealots.” In 1754, his order for several “indecent Books unworthy of a place in a learned Library” prompted a move for his dismissal, and in 1756, an unsuccessful attempt to excommunicate him. The Library’s Trustees canceled his order for the offending volumes, which Hume regarded as a personal insult. Since he needed the Library’s resources for his History, Hume remained at his post, but he did turn over his salary to Thomas Blacklock, a blind poet he befriended and sponsored. Hume finished his research for the History in 1757, and quickly resigned to make the position available for Adam Ferguson.

In 1763, Hume accepted an invitation from Lord Hertford, the Ambassador to France, to serve as his Private Secretary. During his three years in Paris, Hume became Secretary to the Embassy and eventually its Chargè d’Affaires. He also become the rage of the Parisian salons, enjoying the conversation and company of Diderot, D’Alembert, and d’Holbach, as well as the attentions and affections of the salonnières, especially the Comtesse de Boufflers. (“As I took a particular pleasure in the company of modest women, I had no reason to be displeased with the reception I met with from them.”)

Hume returned to England in 1766, accompanied by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who was then fleeing persecution in Switzerland. Their friendship ended quickly and miserably when the paranoid Rousseau became convinced that Hume was masterminding an international conspiracy against him.

After a year (1767-68) in London as an Under-Secretary of State, Hume returned to Edinburgh to stay in August, 1769. He built a house in Edinburgh’s New Town, and spent his autumnal years quietly and comfortably, dining and conversing with friends, not all of whom were “studious and literary,” for Hume also found that his “company was not unacceptable to the young and careless.” One young person who found his company particularly “acceptable” was an attractive, vivacious, and highly intelligent woman in her twenties — Nancy Orde, the daughter of Chief Baron Orde of the Scottish Exchequer. One of Hume’s friends described her as “one of the most agreeable and accomplished women I ever knew.” Also noted for her impish sense of humor, she chalked “St. David’s Street” on the side of Hume’s house one night; the street still bears that name today. The two were close enough that she advised Hume in choosing wallpaper for his new home, and rumors that they were engaged even reached the ears of the salonnières in Paris. Just before his death, Hume added a codicil to his will, which included a gift to her of “ten Guineas to buy a Ring, as a Memorial of my Friendship and Attachment to so amiable and accomplished a Person.”

Hume also spent considerable time in his final years revising his works for new editions of his Essays and Treatises, which contained his collected essays, the two Enquiries, A Dissertation on the Passions, and The Natural History of Religion, but — significantly — not A Treatise of Human Nature. In 1775, he added an “Advertisement” to these volumes, in which he appeared to disavow the Treatise. Though he regarded this note as “a compleat Answer” to his critics, especially “Dr. Reid and that biggotted, silly fellow, Beattie,” subsequent readers have wisely chosen to ignore Hume’s admonition to ignore his greatest philosophical work.

Upon finding that he had intestinal cancer, Hume prepared for his death with the same peaceful cheer that characterized his life. He arranged for the posthumous publication of his most controversial work, the Dialogues concerning Natural Religion; it was seen through the press by his nephew and namesake in 1779, three years after his uncle’s death at 65 years of age.

The Treatise is an exercise in

• epistemology,
• moral psychology and
• cognitive science.
• Hume is out to give an account of human nature. Hume gives accounts of how humans come to know things, how they think about things, what emotions are, what perception is, whether there is free will, the relationship between will, reason and passion, the basis of morality and virtue, the nature of moral judgment, and the origins of society and social morality. He answers these questions in three books; Book I concerns the understanding, Book II, the passions, and Book III, morality.

A Treatise of Human Nature (1738) is the most comprehensive work published by the Scottish philosopher David Hume, widely regarded as the most influential English-language philosopher and one of the most important figures in philosophical history. The Treatise aims to place the study of human nature on the same empirical footing which Hume’s contemporary Isaac Newton brought to the physical sciences. Contrary to the philosophical rationalists of his day, Hume argues that emotion and mental habit, rather than reason, form the basis of most human beliefs. By examining his own inner landscape, and deploying skeptical reasoning about what he finds there, Hume concludes that there is no rational basis for any belief in morality, cause-and-effect, or personal identity. As well as making an essential contribution to the philosophical doctrines of empiricism, skepticism, and naturalism, A Treatise of Human Nature has been extremely influential in the fields of psychology and cognitive science.

Hume introduces the Treatise by setting out his proposal to bring an empirical methodology to the study of the human mind. He argues that without a scientific understanding of human thought itself, the other sciences, and all other intellectual disciplines including philosophy, are built on unknown and uncertain foundations. Since controlled experimentation is impossible where mental processes are concerned, Hume proposes to base his “science” on his own mind and the behavior of people around him.

The first of the Treatise’s three books is “Of the Understanding,” in which Hume attempts to set out “the extent and force of human understanding.” In Parts I & II of this book, Hume takes aim at the rationalist belief in innate ideas which derive from the intellect alone. He argues that all ideas derive ultimately from sensory impressions. Complex ideas are collections of simple ones. Abstract ideas, he suggests, are formed from sense impressions by a particular habit of mind. This applies even to such abstractions as space, time and existence.

In Part III, Hume classifies the types of possible knowledge. He argues that in addition to knowledge gained directly from sensory experience, there is also knowledge which arises from the relations between our ideas, such as the intuitive knowledge that one color is brighter than another, and the knowledge that can be demonstrated by mathematical reasoning. Noting that we are also able to achieve knowledge inductively—that is, by observing the constant relationship between a cause and its effect—he asks where our idea of causation comes from. He concludes that our belief in cause and effect is a product of the mind’s natural habit of associating ideas which have appeared together in the past.

Part IV considers the philosophical position of skepticism: the belief that no certain knowledge is possible. Hume concludes that this position is simply irrefutable, but that the horror of skepticism can easily be overcome by “carelessness and inattention.” He advances skeptical critiques of arguments for the existence of an external world, the mind and personal identity, arguing that all these ideas derive from natural habits of the mind. Hume concludes the book by subjecting even his skepticism to skeptical doubt, suggesting that the habit of philosophical inquiry is just that: a habit.

Book II, “Of the Passions,” begins by classifying types of human emotion, analyzing how emotion arises in the mind and attaches itself to particular ideas. He tests his account by examining examples of pride, humility, love, hatred, and “compound passions” (made up of one or more simple emotions). Throughout, he argues that identical processes can be observed in animals as well as humans.

Part III of the second book discusses the question of free will. He argues that other than by violent restraint or compulsion, which can restrain our freedom, human beings’ actions are completely determined. Our belief that we could have acted differently than we did derives from the vague, imaginary idea we can conjure of our alternative course. From there, Hume goes on to examine the mental causes that determine our actions.

Book III, “Of Morals,” sets out Hume’s argument that moral judgment derives from mental impressions—emotions that attach to particular ideas—rather than rational distinctions. He argues that reason is useless in moral argument, concluding famously that the way things “ought” to be can never be deduced from the way things “are.” Part II considers justice and injustice, arguing that they are “artificial virtues” created by social convention. He goes on to attempt a historical analysis of how these conventions came into existence. He develops this analysis to account for the existence of laws, governments, and patriarchal conventions governing women’s behavior.

Finally, Hume turns to the “natural virtues,” arguing that our ideas of such virtues as courage and benevolence ultimately derive from sympathy and an innate preference for what is useful to us and to society. He concludes by reassuring readers that his system need not undermine our sense of the value of morals.

God is Interested in the PROCESS

Process could be described as “who we are while we are carrying out kingdom work.”  It is about us, in relationship to Jesus, this is God’s main concern.  Who we are as followers of his son Jesus, is what sets us apart.  Apart from what?  Apart from the world, the greed, the “ends justifies the means” mentality, and the preaching one thing, but doing another, leader. I am not implying perfection here. We are all sinners and fall short. But we must agree that the soul of the steward leader is of utmost importance to God.

April 3, 2022

And where was the darkness when hope was restored?
Where was despair when my God split the shores?
Where was defeat when the Lord took a breath?
When He stood in pow’r by the grave that He left?

Nowhere (nowhere); Nowhere (nowhere)
Nowhere is the fear when my King resurrects

Nowhere (nowhere); Nowhere (nowhere)
Nowhere was the doubt when my King conquered death, yeah

Come on church, sing out
Where was the sorrow when dry bones arose?
Where was the pain when the sick touched the robe?

And where was disgrace when the King laid to rest
The stronghold of sin by the grace He possessed?

Nowhere (nowhere); Nowhere (nowhere)
Nowhere is the fear when my King resurrects

One of the best things you can do is to do something wonderful for someone else.

FAITH

Everything God wants to do hinges on FAITH.

Book of Acts is ACTS of the HOLY SPIRIT not Acts of Apostle.

I am sending you a defense attorney. I am sending you into a world where the Devil will be working to bring you down. But don’t worry, you will have a defense attorney in the HOLY SPIRIT.

The Greatest MOVEMENT ever started when the HOLY SPIRIT showed up. Love attracts a lot of hate.

THE FINAL FOUR – Acts 20:22-38

²² “And now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there. ²³ I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me. ²⁴ However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace.

²⁵ “Now I know that none of you among whom I have gone about preaching the kingdom will ever see me again. ²⁶ Therefore, I declare to you today that I am innocent of the blood of any of you. ²⁷ For I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God. ²⁸ Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God,^[a] which he bought with his own blood.^[b] 29 I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. ³⁰ Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. ³¹ So be on your guard! Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears.

³² “Now I commit you to God and to the word of his grace, which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified. ³³ I have not coveted anyone’s silver or gold or clothing. ³⁴ You yourselves know that these hands of mine have supplied my own needs and the needs of my companions. ³⁵ In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ ”

³⁶ When Paul had finished speaking, he knelt down with all of them and prayed. ³⁷ They all wept as they embraced him and kissed him. ³⁸ What grieved them most was his statement that they would never see his face again. Then they accompanied him to the ship.

1. THE SPIRIT’s Prompting – Even when you get it wrong, God gets it right. Without doctrine of TRINITY theology unravels. Things fall apart. Christian Theology centers of THREE God in ONE. Mormorns, Jehova Witness, Islam attack the doctrine of Trinity. 1 + 1+ 1 = 3 but 1 x 1 x 1 = 3. Are doing addition or multiplication? God’s ways are higher than our ways. God is bigger and brighter than us. Book of Acts hinges on the showing up of the Holy Spirit. Pentecost was a bigger catalyst than resurrection. On the other side of resurrection was the Pentecost. Promptings, promises and principles go together.
2. Certain Uncertainty – there are is uncertainty in living for Christ. In all reality we have all faced seasons of uncertainty.
3. Predictable Resistance – When we step up, Satan wakes. Our obedience gets hell’s attention. We are not better than any one, but by the Grace of Christ, we are better off. Spiritual Warfare – we don’t fight against flesh and blood. Where the LORD leads you, the enemy will meet you. Opposition is the best form of confirmation. Hard to embrace that, but it is true. The devil will always try to bring us to a posture of kneeling in our knees not knowing that, that is the position of our power. There is a time to declare this a battle we will not lose.
4. Irresponsible Responsibility – If you are over the age of 40, you are good. You are going to make it. Snow always melts on the edges first. For nine years between 2000 and 2020 we were closing 200 churches were closing every week. If we loose interest, the next generation will pay the fee and the penalty of our empathy at this month. We should go all in. The church is the best things on the planet. At some point, you will need a church to run to.