Month: February 2014

The Fatal Flaw testimony

On By brandonadamsIn 1689 federalism, General1 Comment

Keith Troop posted a great testimony from someone who read Johnson’s The Fatal Flaw while struggling with the question of baptism. He was at a CREC church at the time:

About halfway through the book I was convinced that my new leanings were wrong. After chapters 8 & 9, the Scriptures spoke clearly and I knew that baptizing my children would be a mistake. Your book also helped me to understand the error of Federal Vision. The church we attend has strong Federal Vision leanings. For me, Federal Vision is hard to pin down at times but your book made it clear what the basic errors of their theology were. You addressed this well on pages 112-119.

…What also sealed the deal for me was the fact that the Mosaic covenant is not a covenant of grace. Also, covenantal faithfulness is a covenant of works and not one of grace in its truest sense. A person does not have dual citizenship, a person is either under the law or under grace.

http://reformedbaptist.blogspot.com/2014/01/testimonial-about-fatal-flaw.html

Praise God

Chantry on Frame

On By brandonadamsIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

The brand of theology which Frame practices will be the death of Presbyterianism if it is adopted; how much more quickly will it destroy the young and disorganized Reformed Baptist movement?

Brothers, this must not be. We must recognize this error for what it is: vain philosophy and empty deceit, built upon a human tradition unworthy of Reformed men. Let us not admit it into our churches, into our schools, or into our hearts.

Re-Framing Reformed Baptist Doctrine

Systemic Problems with the American Medical Association

On By brandonadamsIn health1 Comment

Here are some quotes/links I put together for a friend who is skeptical of my skepticism of “conventional” (allopathic) medicine:

I totally get your skepticism – I used to share it. The simple answer is: find out how the government is involved. Don’t underestimate the real consequences of government involvement.
–
  1. How Medical Boards Nationalized Health Care
    1. Laws and regulations covering doctors and hospitals plus all the other parts of our healthcare system now account for over half of all the words, sentences, and paragraphs in our entire body of law.
    2. There is one category of physician transgressor in particular the board will treat more harshly than any other. The major but unspoken mission of the state medical boards is to protect MDs from market competition. Is this not the main focus or purpose of labor unions and trade associations? State medical boards are the enforcement wing of the American Medical Association. State medical boards masquerade as consumer protection agencies to get public support, police powers, and taxpayer dollars. The Federation of State Medical Boards was organized to coordinate the fifty state medical boards and serve as liaison between them and the AMA. This combination and collaboration of AMA, Federation of State Medical Boards, and the state boards of medical examiners to form a medical monopoly was complete by 1912.

      Such combining of state and corporate entities is not unique to this AMA/state medical board combo. It was a popular approach at the start of the twentieth century. The common name for this arrangement is fascism. As Benito Mussolini pointed out, “fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.” Therefore what we have here in the United States is medical corporatism or medical fascism—or, even more precisely, a medical fascist monopoly. This medical monopoly has throughout the twentieth century continued to consolidate and strengthen its power. It has attacked any would-be competitor to its hegemony.

      The true purpose of this medical monopoly, like all monopolies, is to control the market.

    3. Whether the object of destruction by the medical monopoly be homeopaths, midwives, chiropractors, or internet prescribers, the purge is conducted in the same manner. No scientific proof or research data is offered to discredit these practitioners. The entire approach is one of character assassination directed at their profession.
  2. Has the Medical Profession Been Corrupted?
    1. Somehow or other, we have developed a government-industry-medical complex that extracts tremendous amounts of money from taxpayers and patients, but damages health. Subsidies for wheat and soybeans and corn make toxic foods cheap; junk science like the “lipid hypothesis” promotes their consumption; elite doctors appointed supreme authorities by government bureaucrats declare biomarkers of wheat, corn, and soybean oil consumption to be diseases requiring drug treatment; the drug industry sells tens of billions of dollars of drugs to the afflicted persons.

      Qui bono? Elites do well – elite doctors on the review and funding panels, bureaucrats, politicians, and pharmaceutical companies. Public health suffers.

    2. Medical research is very focused on incremental progress in an established research paradigm. Since many established research paradigms are mis-conceived – are cul-de-sacs that lead nowhere – incremental progress down these blind alleys translates into “no progress.”

      When stuck in a cul-de-sac, one should reverse course and try some new direction. But medicine is increasingly unable to do this, Dr. Charlton says, due to the bureaucratization of medicine, and consequent stifling of independent creative research:

      Nothing stifles creativity like a monopoly.

  3. Excerpt from Vitamin C, Infectious Diseases, and Toxins:Curing the Incurable, Levy MD JD, Thomas E.
    1. Most people, especially highly schooled ones such as physicians, doggedly persist in thinking as a group rather than as individuals contributing to a collective fund of knowledge. Once something gets etched into the pages of the medical textbook, and medical school professors throughout the country teach it to medical students and doctors in post-graduate training, any contradictions to this orthodox body of knowledge get summarily ignored once these impressionable trainees become practicing physicians. This unquestioning faith in the “established” medical knowledge is so deeply engrained that many doctors simply will not even consider reading something that comes from sources that they do not consider worthy of producing new medical concepts. And if they do accidentally encounter and read such information, they quickly dismiss it as just being ridiculous if it conflicts with too many of the concepts that most of their colleagues and textbooks embrace.
    2. As a practicing physician for more than 25 years, I can assure the reader that virtually all doctors fear being ridiculed by their colleagues more than anything else. This fear, more than any other factor that I can identify, appears to almost completely stifle independent medical thought. As Goethe once said: “We would rather admit our moral errors, mistakes and crimes than our scientific errors.” Certainly, a small handful of dishonorable physicians may realize that some unwelcome but legitimate medical breakthroughs could reduce their income, and they may oppose those breakthroughs for that reason. However, most physicians really care about and want to help their patients. The problem that remains is how to get physicians and the complete medical truth together.

See also:

  1. The FDA Escalates Its War on Health Freedom
  2. America’s Socialized Healthcare
    1. The large drug companies became part of the medical cartel through their agent, the federal Food and Drug Administration. Anyone who believes the FDA is an impartial or even helpful agency needs to read The History of a Crime; How Could It Happen, by Harvey Wiley, M.D., the first director of the FDA. In the book, he meticulously details how the FDA became infiltrated by food and drug companies and how its mission became completely subverted. As a physician, I believe no other domestic agency has caused more deaths than the FDA.

Review: Word Pictures

On By brandonadamsIn books, filmLeave a comment

I just posted a review of Brian Godawa’s “Word Pictures” over at my film blog if anyone is interested.

The book would have much more value if the thesis was framed in terms of the interplay between literal and non-literal (artistic) expression, rather than word and image. This spectrum would remove all the confusion surrounding Godawa’s categories and retain much of the valuable insights he offers in the book while avoiding some fatal pitfalls. The solution to the use of literal vs non-literal expression would then be to prioritize literal expression, rather than granting non-literal expression equal priority in the comprehension and communication of truth. However, that does not, therefore, mean that there is no value or place for non-literal expression. “For everything there is a season” (Ecc 3:1). Context is key. Gordon Clark offers a helpful explanation:

The Scriptures contain metaphors, figures of speech, and symbolism; for the Scriptures are addressed to men in all situations – situations in which their attention needs to be aroused and their memory facilitated, as well as situations in which plain information must be conveyed. But since symbolic language and metaphor depend on literal meaning, the most intelligible and understandable expressions are to be found in the literal theological statements, such as those in Romans