RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
North, Gary. Conspiracy: A Biblical View.
With both the title of the book and the author's name, I have guaranteed that you will read this review. North has been accused of being many things. Boring was not one of them.
Most of it I already knew. The important section is the first one, where he outlines the biblical philosophy of history. In the second part of the book he names names--but I already knew those. If the biblical worldview is true, then "cosmic personalism" follows. Cosmic Personalism: men are responsible, personal agents. Further, there is a personal struggle in history, involving cosmic agents (Gen. 3:15).
North identifies “the conspiracy” as “the Establishment.” This is what Donald Trump called the Deep State, or the Swamp. What makes this unique is that it is a conspiracy of insiders against outsiders.
Thesis: : through their domination over the major educational, political, and financial institutions, these conspirators have "set the agenda," especially the intellectual agenda, for the last century (14).
The Biblical View
No one is claiming that God is going to lose in history and if there is a conspiracy, then Satan is all-powerful. No offense, but detractors who keep insisting that those who have a biblical view of history mean that are either ignorant, incapable of reading comprehension, or dishonest. Take your pick.
That might sound harsh. I guess I can rephrase the problem like this: given that governments are generally stupid and incompetent, how can a conspiratorial one-world government work, since it would be filled with even larger numbers of stupid and incompetent people? It is a fair question. I think it works like this, and this is not an angle North took: instead of a top-down structure, think more along the lines of a business model. That is far more efficient. In any case, businesses are often more powerful than some governments.
The People’s Will
North: When the people of a society accept the idea that the people's will is absolutely sovereign, they thereby condemn themselves to a life of manipulation by corrupt elites that will seek to rule "in the name of the People” (21).
It is a decent, quick read. Much of it is quite dated, since the USSR fell. And with the rise of President Trump, more conservatives are waking up to the fact that Beltway Insiders truly despise them and will work against them at all times.
With both the title of the book and the author's name, I have guaranteed that you will read this review. North has been accused of being many things. Boring was not one of them.
Most of it I already knew. The important section is the first one, where he outlines the biblical philosophy of history. In the second part of the book he names names--but I already knew those. If the biblical worldview is true, then "cosmic personalism" follows. Cosmic Personalism: men are responsible, personal agents. Further, there is a personal struggle in history, involving cosmic agents (Gen. 3:15).
North identifies “the conspiracy” as “the Establishment.” This is what Donald Trump called the Deep State, or the Swamp. What makes this unique is that it is a conspiracy of insiders against outsiders.
Thesis: : through their domination over the major educational, political, and financial institutions, these conspirators have "set the agenda," especially the intellectual agenda, for the last century (14).
The Biblical View
No one is claiming that God is going to lose in history and if there is a conspiracy, then Satan is all-powerful. No offense, but detractors who keep insisting that those who have a biblical view of history mean that are either ignorant, incapable of reading comprehension, or dishonest. Take your pick.
That might sound harsh. I guess I can rephrase the problem like this: given that governments are generally stupid and incompetent, how can a conspiratorial one-world government work, since it would be filled with even larger numbers of stupid and incompetent people? It is a fair question. I think it works like this, and this is not an angle North took: instead of a top-down structure, think more along the lines of a business model. That is far more efficient. In any case, businesses are often more powerful than some governments.
The People’s Will
North: When the people of a society accept the idea that the people's will is absolutely sovereign, they thereby condemn themselves to a life of manipulation by corrupt elites that will seek to rule "in the name of the People” (21).
It is a decent, quick read. Much of it is quite dated, since the USSR fell. And with the rise of President Trump, more conservatives are waking up to the fact that Beltway Insiders truly despise them and will work against them at all times.
