Author: Papa Giorgio

Democrats Were Against Comey Before They Were For Him

Published by Papa Giorgio

The most urgent matter that Attorney General Sessions will face is that of deciding the fate of FBI director James Comey. Comey was appointed in 2013 for a statutory term of ten years. In principle, however, he can be removed by the president at any time. President Bill Clinton removed FBI director William Sessions about halfway through his term on charges that Sessions had misused official resources. Although President Clinton discharged Sessions for cause, the statute creating the FBI director does not limit the grounds for termination, and we believe that the president’s constitutional authority of removal would allow him to fire Comey for any reason. Rather than firing the FBI director, however, it is more likely that the president would first request his resignation. We think that Director Comey should leave office for the good of the FBI and the nation.

(NATIONAL REVIEW – November 2016).

I posted the following Tweet on my FB…. and I got this:

  • Not, you too….

Now. Knowing the person who made the comment and how he thinks, he was somehow — surely — connecting a belief in Vince Foster being a conspiracy (cover up) to my comparison. He would be wrong. Whatever you think of Vince Fosters death, it has no bearing on the media attention and narrative from then and now.

I simply responded:

These reporters, columnists, talking-heads all sound like Jerry Falwell (CNN MELTSDOWN):

What a joke the media has become. Forget the professional Democrat politician… the regular Nancy and Joe Bloe dislike Comey a lot… because of this:

The Clinton campaign blasted the FBI director, James Comey, for “jaw-dropping” double standards on Monday after claims that he had sought to withhold evidence of Russian support for Donald Trump for fear of influencing next week’s US election.

In a sharp escalation of their unprecedented war of words with federal law enforcement authorities, Clinton’s key aides contrasted this apparent caution with Comey’s controversial decision to release new details of its investigation into Clinton’s private email server to lawmakers on Friday.

“It is impossible to view this as anything less than a blatant double standard,” her campaign manager, Robby Mook, told reporters, claiming the decision “defied all logic”, especially as other intelligence agencies had favoured disclosure of suspected Russian involvement….

B-U-T N-O-W he is their martyr. Oh what a difference a day makes. RUSH LIMBAUGH thinks Trump is trolling the media… something I don’t think this is Presidential, if true. But this is the state of politics as I type. Comey. unlike the Left, is a man!

Former FBI Director James Comey on Wednesday sent a letter to agents and friends following President Trump firing him the previous day.

“I have long believed that a President can fire an FBI director for any reason, or for no reason at all,” he wrote, according to CNN. “I’m not going to spend time on the decision or the way it was executed.”

He continued: “I hope you won’t either. It is done, and I will be fine, although I will miss you and the mission deeply.”….

(THE HILL)

POST-SCRIPT: I find it comical that the Left says Trump just blurts out senescence when he speaks about topics, people, or his job. BUT THEN have a video of him saying he respects Comey for what he did with opening up the email case against her. Either Trump doesn’t know what he says or makes vapid statements… or the opposite.

Condoleezza Rice: The View and Confederate History

Published by Papa Giorgio

Love Condi!

Host Sunny Hostin tried to get back to the Russian hacking question again, asking bluntly:

HOSTIN: But Madam Secretary, if he indeed did engage in these types of tactics in our election, then the very legitimacy of our election is at issue, isn’t it?

Rice immediately shot that narrative down, as grasping at straws and showing a mistrust in the American people’s intelligence.

RICE: No, no. That’s where I — first of all, I don’t want to question his motives beyond he’s an eye for an eye kind of person. Secondly, I trust the people who voted in Wisconsin and Texas and Alabama and California to have voted on the basis of who they thought was best going to represent their interests. And so I’m not going to question the legitimacy of their vote because Vladimir Putin tried to interfere in the elections. That’s just a step that I don’t think we should take. Let’s trust our fellow citizens to have been smart enough to have voted for the people they thought they ought to be voting for.

(NEWSBUSTERS)

This next video is her addressing the removal of Confederate history:

 

Crazy Footage – Container-ship Hits Ship-to-Shore Crane

Published by Papa Giorgio

Again, WOW!

(G-CAPTAIN) An investigation has been launched after a CMA CGM containership struck a ship-to-shore crane while berthing at Jebel Ali in the United Arab Emirates, causing the giant to collapse.

The UK-flagged CMA CGM Centaurus contacted the quay while berthing at Jebel Ali on Thursday, May 4, causing the crane to collapse suddenly. A second crane was also shifted off its rails during the incident but remained upright and stable.

Amazingly there were no serious injuries even though there were many workers around at the time of the incident. ….

The “Card-Krueger” Study Debunked

Published by Papa Giorgio

The audio is the later part of Larry Elder commenting on Jane Fonda going to Detroit to advocate a $12.00 minimum wage (DETROIT FREE PRESS). I have already posted quite a bit on this (see the section titled “Minimum Wage,” on my “ECON 101” Page). While sitting many other studies… I wanted to zero in on Larry discussing the David Card and Alan Krueger study. I have had it cited to me in discussion, so I wanted to have a post to link to to refute the study.

I wish to have the reader view what is working against the “Card-Krueger” study:

  • A majority of professional economists surveyed in Britain, Germany, Canada, Switzerland, and the United States agreed that minimum wage laws increase unemployment among low-skilled workers. Economists in France and Austria did not. However, the majority among Canadian economists was 85 percent and among American economists was 90 percent. Dozens of studies of the effects of minimum wages in the United States and dozens more studies of the effects of minimum wages in various countries in Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean, Indonesia, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand were reviewed in 2006 by two economists at the National Bureau of Economic Research. They concluded that, despite the various approaches and methods used in these studies, this literature as a whole was one “largely solidifying the conventional view that minimum wages reduce employment among low-skilled workers.”

Thomas Sowell, Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy, 4th Edition (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2011), 241. [Link to 5th edition]

  • Economists aren’t certain about many things, but on the minimum wage, nearly all of them (90 percent, according to one survey) believe that the case is open and shut. All else being equal, if you raise the price of something (for instance, labor), then the demand for it (for instance, by employers) will decline. That’s not just a theory; it’s a law.

James Glassman, “Don’t Raise the Minimum Wage,” Washington Post (Feb 24, 1998).

Here is the NEW YORK POST article the “Prince of Pico-Union” [Larry Elder] was referring to:

….Back in 1994, Princeton economists David Card and Alan Krueger claimed that they’d looked at Garden State fast-food outlets in the wake of the state’s 1992 minimum-wage hike — and found that employment increased relative to similar restaurants in next-door Pennsylvania.

But six years later, the Card & Krueger study was debunked in the same economics journal that originally published it.

The Jersey study first gained notoriety when President Bill Clinton cited it in support of his proposal to increase the federal minimum wage in the mid-’90s. The economists’ work provided for a compelling story: Telephoning restaurants in New Jersey and Pennsylvania before and after Jersey hiked its minimum wage, they reported an increase in employment.

But other economists were skeptical. After all, just over a decade earlier, a seven-volume report from Congress’ Minimum Wage Study Commission had established conclusively that each 10 percent increase in the minimum wage reduced employment for young people by as much as 3 percent.

As it turned out, there was good reason to be skeptical. A team of researchers from the Employment Policies Institute (where I’m now research director) collected actual payroll data from 25 percent of the franchised restaurant locations that Card and Krueger had telephoned — and found that the hard info had little resemblance to what the economists (actually, students working for them) had gathered via phone interviews that used an ambiguous set of questions.

The funky data gave the Princeton economists a picture of businesses making implausibly large changes in employment — from zero full-timers to 35 in less than a year, for instance, or from 60 part-time staff down to 15.

EPI presented these results in a hearing before Congress’ Joint Economic Committee, and responsible outfits stopped relying on it. (Where media coverage of the Card-Krueger work once praised as a “most compelling study,” editorials now described it as “snake oil” that had been “dropped faster than a mis-flipped burger.”)

Economists David Neumark (then at Michigan State University) and William Wascher (Federal Reserve Board) followed up with a detailed independent analysis of the realrestaurant payroll data, and published their findings in the same journal where the Card-Krueger study first ran.

Far from boosting employment, they found, the mandated wage increase in New Jersey decreased employment — just as economic theory would predict.

Yet Jersey advocates for a higher minimum wage still cite the study. The liberal think tank New Jersey Policy Perspective recently cited the study as “groundbreaking,” while Rob Duffey of the New Jersey Working Families Alliancewrote in an op-ed last monththat it is “the seminal report on the impact minimum-wage increases have on employment.”

Sadly, some journalists are also playing this game: In recent months, writers inBloomberg, TheChicago Tribune, TheWashington Post and TheNew York Timeshave also trotted out the study to support their points.

Perhaps this is understandable — proponents don’t have many good studies to hang their hats on. The vast majority of economic research (including 85 percent of the best studies from the last two decades) points to job losses rather than job gains after a minimum-wage hike.

[….]

Unemployment is already 27 percent among New Jersey teens, and 35.5 percent for black teens — and hiking the minimum wage, as the advocates so dishonestly propose, will only make it worse.

To be fair, Paul Krugman has changed his view (as he has gone more Left… if that were even possible) on this over the years. FORBES notes the change with an “old” Paul Krugman quote and then some later commentary after some new ones:

…So what are the effects of increasing minimum wages? Any Econ 101 student can tell you the answer: The higher wage reduces the quantity of labor demanded, and hence leads to unemployment. This theoretical prediction has, however, been hard to confirm with actual data. Indeed, much-cited studies by two well-regarded labor economists, David Card and Alan Krueger, find that where there have been more or less controlled experiments, for example when New Jersey raised minimum wages but Pennsylvania did not, the effects of the increase on employment have been negligible or even positive. Exactly what to make of this result is a source of great dispute. Card and Krueger offered some complex theoretical rationales, but most of their colleagues are unconvinced; the centrist view is probably that minimum wages “do,” in fact, reduce employment, but that the effects are small and swamped by other forces.

What is remarkable, however, is how this rather iffy result has been seized upon by some liberals as a rationale for making large minimum wage increases a core component of the liberal agenda–for arguing that living wages “can play an important role in reversing the 25-year decline in wages experienced by most working people in America” (as this book’s back cover has it). Clearly these advocates very much want to believe that the price of labor–unlike that of gasoline, or Manhattan apartments–can be set based on considerations of justice, not supply and demand, without unpleasant side effects.

[….]

Old Krugman said that Walmart paying higher wages might lead to less turnover, better morale and higher productivity. But only at Walmart because the operative part was “higher wages than other employers”. And that’s the one thing that a general rise in wages, for example a rise in the minimum wage, cannot accomplish.

New Krugman tells us that a rise in the minimum wage will accomplish exactly that thing that Old Krugman tells us is impossible.

Economics is, as they say, all about the incentives. And my best guess here is that the incentives that Krugman faces have changed. In the earlier period the people who patted him on the head and said that he was a good little economist (read for which “excellent economist, one of the best”) were people who were economists, people who actually understood the subject. Today the people who pat him on the head and insist he’s a great economist are the editorial team at the New York Times. Not known as a hotbed of economic knowledge but equally well known as a hotbed of liberal ideology as being rather more important than reality.

Ho hum, how the mighty are fallen and all that.

Besides Paul Kugman getting worked over by economist Pedro Schwartz, and Krugman is woefully wrong on what Keynsianism can do and not do, there are also some funny memes of him!

“…it’s been 100 days, but good riddance, Mr. President.” ~ The Hammer

Published by Papa Giorgio

Via THE BLAZE:

Charles Krauthammer called former President Barack Obama’s “Profile in Courage” acceptance speech “complete moral condescension” during Fox News’ Monday night airing of “Special Report With Bret Baier.”

“It’s been a full 100 days but it’s nice to be reminded of why we should be grateful as a nation that he is gone,” Krauthammer said about Obama’s Sunday night speech. “There are a lot of arguments you can make on either side of the debate about Obamacare but notice how it was complete moral condescension. The other guys are cowards because I, and the people who support me, and oppose the legislation, stand with the poor and the afflicted and all of that and the others are on the side of the rich and powerful. That is nonsense.”

Claiming that Obama always assumed he was “on the side of angels” during his presidency, Krauthammer said a firm goodbye to the former president.

“Obama did that all through his presidency — always assuming he was on the side of the angels and always the one who was willing to go against public opinion when it was completely the opposite,” Krauthammer said. “He reminded us, reminded me, it’s been 100 days, but good riddance, Mr. President.”…….

Europe’s Leaders Have No “Skin” In The Game

Published by Papa Giorgio

A couple of the comments by others under STEFAN’S TWEET:

  • Macron’s step kids are probably older than him
  • They clearly wouldn’t want to bring children into this hellish world that they are helping to bring to fruition.
  • Nor does Sweden PM Stefan Löfven or Holland PM Mark Rutte, far as I know. Maybe a few trainee Prime Ministers will migrate to Europe.
  • Explains why they have no problem destroying their own counties, they have no biological stake in it!
  • — A point well made, no emotional capital in the future of their countries. No guilt when the mayhem starts
  • Europeans liberal leftist snowflakes don’t want children. it gives stretch marks. That’s why they let in millions of migrants to make them
  • They are the Mom & Dad to the Middle East
  • Neither do my friends who voted for Killary.
  • Actually… … Thank God.
  • That would make them natural *Keynesians* (Keynes also had no children): “In the long run we are all dead”.
  • Don’t forget the Netherlands and Luxemburg.
  • They don’t need them, they’re busy nannying the whole world.
  • That means that they don’t understand the truths of life which having children teaches you.

 

What Is The “Gender Wage Gap” Between All 58-Genders?

Published by Papa Giorgio

Really, there is more — BTW, I use “really,“ loosely.

Great question Uncle Hotep! How would you even quantify that?…

Agender
Androgyne
Androgynous
Bigender
Cis
Cisgender
Cis Female
Cis Male
Cis Man
Cis Woman
Cisgender Female
Cisgender Male
Cisgender Man
Cisgender Woman
Female to Male
FTM
Gender Fluid
Gender Nonconforming
Gender Questioning
Gender Variant
Genderqueer
Intersex
Male to Female
MTF
Neither
Neutrois
Non-binary
Other		 Pangender
Trans
Trans*
Trans Female
Trans* Female
Trans Male
Trans* Male
Trans Man
Trans* Man
Trans Person
Trans* Person
Trans Woman
Trans* Woman
Transfeminine
Transgender
Transgender Female
Transgender Male
Transgender Man
Transgender Person
Transgender Woman
Transmasculine
Transsexual
Transsexual Female
Transsexual Male
Transsexual Man
Transsexual Person
Transsexual Woman
Two-Spirit

Not A Puritan In Sight – Modern Day Witch Hunts

Published by Papa Giorgio

First of all, I have been posting on these varying aspects for some time: Transageism; Transgender; Transhuman; Transmisogynist; Transracial; Transspecies; Transterrestrial. The following is a great example of the Left cannibalizing itself. It is an attack on Journals, which are suppose to allow (esp. in philosophy), varying viewpoints to be “hashed out.” It is an attack on freedom of speech. It is an attack on science, and, it is an attack on truth. If some genes being turned off or on producing melanin is “absolute,” but a uterus, XX vs. XY chromosomes, a vagina, different pelvis’ (which you can tell the gender from), different skulls (which you can tell the gender from), on, and on… is fluid, as well as this:

a uterus, more than 21 percent of the entire human genome, which is composed of about 30,000 genes, code for gender-specific traits; XX vs XY chromosomes, a vagina, different pelvis’ (which you can tell the gender from), different skulls (which you can tell the gender from), on, and on

…In 2017, however, progressives argue there are dozens of human genders, including being gender-less or even “gender-fluid,” meaning a person’s gender changes periodically based on how he feels. They argue that gender isn’t tied to scientific study and research but instead to how someone “identifies.”

But a recent scientific study conducted by the Weizmann Institute of Science is tearing holes into the progressive narrative that sex and gender aren’t tied to science.

The study found that there are more than 6,500 unique genes in the human genome that express different traits depending on a person’s gender, either male or female, which explains the huge biological differences between men and women.

That means more than 21 percent of the entire human genome, which is composed of about 30,000 genes, code for gender-specific traits….

(THE BLAZE)

…then this intolerant witch hunt is ultimately an attack on reality. It is codifying lunacy!

Rebecca Tuvel, an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Rhodes College, is a modern day example of a witch-hunt — according to the NEW YORK MAGAZINE. And the funny thing is, the Puritans are Leftists in this story:

The biggest vehicle of misinformation about Tuvel’s articles comes from the “open letter to Hypatia” that has done a great deal to help spark the controversy. That letter has racked up hundreds of signatories within the academic community — the top names listed are Elise Springer of Wesleyan University, Alexis Shotwell of Carleton University (who is listed as the point of contact), Dilek Huseyinzadegan of Emory University, Lori Gruen of Wesleyan, and Shannon Winnubst of Ohio State University.

[….]

In the letter, the authors ask that the article be retracted on the grounds that its “continued availability causes further harm” to marginalized people. The authors then list five main reasons they think the article is so dangerously flawed it should be unpublished:

1. It uses vocabulary and frameworks not recognized, accepted, or adopted by the conventions of the relevant subfields; for example, the author uses the language of “transgenderism” and engages in deadnaming a trans woman;

2. It mischaracterizes various theories and practices relating to religious identity and conversion; for example, the author gives an off-hand example about conversion to Judaism;

3. It misrepresents leading accounts of belonging to a racial group; for example, the author incorrectly cites Charles Mills as a defender of voluntary racial identification;

4. It fails to seek out and sufficiently engage with scholarly work by those who are most vulnerable to the intersection of racial and gender oppressions (women of color) in its discussion of “transracialism”. We endorse Hypatia’s stated commitment to “actively reflect and engage the diversity within feminism, the diverse experiences and situations of women, and the diverse forms that gender takes around the globe,” and we find that this submission was published without being held to that commitment.

What’s remarkable about this letter is that, as Justin Weinberg noted in the Daily Nous, a philosophy website, each and every one of the falsifiable points it makes is, based on a plain reading of Tuvel’s article, simply false or misleading….

(read it all)

NATIONAL REVIEW has an excellent article as well

Every single time I think the academy has reached peak intolerance and peak insanity, it proves me wrong. There is no argument that is too stupid for academic radicals. There is no lie that these “scholars” aren’t willing to tell to advance their agenda.

Just ask liberal-feminist philosophy professor Rebecca Tuvel, the latest victim of the ritual “two minutes hate.” Her crime was serious: She had the audacity to write a paper exploring the arguments “for and against transracialism” and argued that “considerations that support transgenderism extend to transracialism.” In other words, she took the question that millions of Americans asked when Rachel Dolezal was exposed — if a man can “really” be a woman, why can’t a white person “really” be black? — and explored it through a liberal, feminist lens.

Judging from the reaction, you would have thought she burned a cross in the quad. A fully woke University of Tennessee professor named Nora Berenstain fired the first shots. Her (now-private) Facebook post reads like an Onion parody of political correctness. It’s worth quoting at length:

Tuvel enacts violence and perpetuates harm in numerous ways throughout her essay. She deadnames a trans woman. She uses the term “transgenderism.” She talks about “biological sex” and uses phrases like “male genitalia.” She focuses enormously on surgery, which promotes the objectification of trans bodies. She refers to “a male-to- female (mtf) trans individual who could return to male privilege,” promoting the harmful transmisogynistic ideology that trans women have (at some point had) male privilege. In her discussion of “transracialism,” Tuvel doesn’t cite a single woman of color philosopher, nor does she substantively engage with any work by Black women, nor does she cite or engage with the work of any Black trans women who have written on this topic.

[….]

Rather than defend Tuvel, Hypatia’s board of associate editors responded with one of the most craven and cowardly statements in the history of craven academic cowardice. It begins:

We, the members of Hypatia’s Board of Associate Editors, extend our profound apology to our friends and colleagues in feminist philosophy, especially transfeminists, queer feminists, and feminists of color, for the harms that the publication of the article on transracialism has caused.

“Harms”? Are “transfeminists, queer feminists, and feminists of color” really so delicate that they can’t withstand the publication of a paper they don’t even have to read?…

[….]

Academic freedom cannot and will not flourish if its alleged defenders reserve their outrage only for when their ideological allies fall victim to the online mob. If progressives feel they have to torch conservative straw men before mustering up the courage to defend free inquiry, then academic freedom has a dark future indeed. Conservatives will be walled out entirely, and progressive discourse will be jammed into ever-tighter ideological spaces as a brave few liberals fight a desperate rear-guard action against the true radicals.

One hopes that professor Tuvel’s ordeal will serve as yet another wake-up call, teaching professors that there is no safe space from social-justice warriors…..

(read it all)

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers Interviewed (Hewitt & Medved)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Here are two interview with Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, who wrote an important piece. She is the highest ranking House [female] Republican, mother of three, and one of her children ihas a special needs child with a pre-existing condition. Her op-ed in the Washington Post can be found on her site, and is entitled:

Here are the interviews that include some description underneath. Anjoy:

I attach the previous call to the interview, as, it dove tails nicely into the the topics discussed. It is key to hear the concerns of people — often misinformed, as my post on the issue makes clear. I set the time on the video to start at the opening of the interview. The mainstream media’s narrative is sickening, BTW.

Cathy McMorris Rodgers honestly states that rates will still rise a bit… but that this is a three-part “dealing with” Obama-Care. Hugh Hewitt fleshes out some strategy and other issues that plague the GOP in a polite professional matter in this all-too-important [HOT] topic of health-care.

Grace In The Reformation [of my heart]

Published by Papa Giorgio

When I was incarcerated, and the Lord had my time, I was reading through the Bible and a section I absolutely fell in love with was Hosea. I, like Israel, was ungrateful and unfaithful to the gift in contract that was offered to me (free) years earlier. God weighed upon me heavily by showing my infidelity to Him… my Master. My Groom. I was married to Him in Grace, and really should have become one with Him (Genesis 2:24 | Romans 6 | Hosea 1).

Revelation 19:7-9:

7 Let us rejoice, be glad, and give him glory,
    because the marriage of the lamb has come
        and his bride has made herself ready.
8 She has been given the privilege of wearing fine linen,
    dazzling and pure.”

9 Then the angel told me, “Write this: ‘How blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the lamb!’”… (ISV)

But I followed my carnal nature (Romans 7:14-24), and forsook my Creator (Hosea 2 | Daniel 9:7). But in that jail cell I realized just how much He loved me. God reached down in that dark time in my life and showed me the passion He has for me (Song of Solomon 8:6-7 | Luke 15:4-7), Since God is love (1 John 4:8 | Psalm 145:8) ~and FIRST loved me~  (1 John 4:19 | John 3:16-17 | Romans 5:8), He is right to be jealous when His bride serves other God’s (Exodus 20:4-5 | 2 Corinthians 11:2). And so, He reconciled me to Himself faithfully as He promised (Hosea 3 | Hebrews 6:13)… for God cannot lie (Titus 1:2)… and it is because of this I grab hold of Christ, faithfully (Philippians 3:12 | Hebrews 10:23). I was still not fully in awe of Him and still had to struggle through my pride and selfishness, but because of His promise and access to His faith, I am promised completion in the race (Hebrews 12:1-3)….

…Galatians 2:16-17 says,

“…yet we know that a person is not justified by the works of the law but by the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. We, too, have believed in Christ Jesus so that we might be justified by the faith of Christ and not by the works of the law, for no human being will be justified by the works of the law.” (International Standard Version [ISV])

~ According to the text in the ISV, Christ’s faith — not ours — does the justifying. It is His focus of attention, not ours, that does the work. (The “onus” then is put in proper perspective.) As an example from one of my favorite verses, Philippians 1:6:

  • “I am sure of this, that He who (a) started a good work in you will (b) carry it on to completion until the (c) day of Christ Jesus.”

To be clear:

(a) HE started the Good work [salvation];
(b) He will carry it out;
(c) He will complete it.

Which is why I LOVE this excerpt about Grace in the Reformation.

  • Michael Reeves and Tim Chester, Why The Reformation Still Matters (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2016), 84-88.

Grace in the Reformation

Luther’s Reformation message of salvation by grace alone could hardly have looked more different when compared with that old pre-Reformation teaching of his about salvation by grace. This is how he began to talk: “He is not righteous who does much, but he who, without work, believes much in Christ.” Here grace is not about God’s building on our righteous deeds or helping us to perform them. God, Luther began to see, was the one “who justifies the ungodly” (Rom. 4:5), not one who simply recognizes and rewards those who manage to make themselves godly. God is not one who must build on our foun­dations; he creates life out of nothing. It meant that, instead of looking to God for assistance and then ultimately relying on himself, Luther was turning to rely entirely on Christ, in whom all righteousness is achieved. “The law says, ‘do this,’ and it is never done. Grace says, ‘believe in this,’ and everything is already done.”

Here Luther found a message so good it almost seemed incredible to him. It was good news for the repeated failure, news of a God who comes not to call the righteous but sinners (Matt. 9:13). Not many today find themselves wearing hair shirts and enduring all-night prayer vigils in the freezing cold to earn God’s favor. Yet deep in our psyche is the assumption that we will be more loved when (and only when) we make ourselves more attractive—both to God and to others. Into that, Luther speaks words that cut through the gloom like a glorious and utterly unexpected sunbeam:

The love of God does not find, but creates, that which is pleasing to it…. Rather than seeking its own good, the love of God flows forth and bestows good. Therefore sinners are attractive because they are loved; they are not loved because they are attractive.

In Reformation thought, grace was no longer seen as being like a can of spiritual Red Bull. It was more like a marriage. In fact when Luther first sought to explain his Reformation dis­covery in detail to the world, it was the story of a wedding that framed what he said. Drawing on the romance of the lover and his beloved in Song of Solomon (especially 2:16, “My beloved is mine, and I am his”), he told the gospel as the story of the “rich and divine bridegroom Christ” who “marries this poor, wicked harlot, redeems her from all her evil, and adorns her with all his goodness.” At the wedding a wonderful exchange takes place whereby the king takes all the shame and debt of his bride, and the harlot receives all the wealth and royal status of her bridegroom. For Jesus and the soul that is united to him by faith, it works like this:

Christ is full of grace, life, and salvation. The soul is full of sins, death, and damnation. Now let faith come between them and sins, death, and damnation will be Christ’s, while grace, life, and salvation will be the soul’s; for if Christ is a bridegroom, he must take upon himself the things which are his bride’s and bestow upon her the things that are his. If he gives her his body and very self, how shall he not give her all that is his? And if he takes the body of the bride, how shall he not take all that is hers?

In the story the prostitute finds that she has been made a queen. That does not mean she always behaves as befits royalty but, however she behaves, her status is royal. She is now the queen. So it is with the believer: she remains a sinner and continues to stumble and wander, but she has the righteous status of her perfect and royal bridegroom. She is—and until death will remain—at the same time both utterly righteous (in her status before God) and a sinner (in her behavior).

That means that it is simply wrong-headed for the believer to look to her behavior as an accurate yardstick of her righ­teousness before God. Her behavior and her status are distinct.

The prostitute will grow more queenly as she lives with the king and feels the security of his love, but she will never become more the queen. Just so, the believer will grow more Christlike over time, but never more righteous. Thus, because of Christ, and not because of her performance, the sinner can know a despair-crushing confidence.

Her sins cannot now destroy her, since they are laid upon Christ and swallowed up by him. And she has that righ­teousness in Christ, her husband, of which she may boast as of her own and which she can confidently display alongside her sins in the face of death and hell and say, “If I have sinned, yet my Christ, in whom I believe, has not sinned, and all his is mine and all mine is his.”

For the rest of his life Luther took this message as good news that needs continually to be reapplied to the heart of the believer. From his own experience he found that we are so in­stinctively self-dependent that while we happily subscribe to salvation by grace, our minds are like rocks, drawn down by the gravitational pull of sin away from belief in grace alone. So he counseled his friend as follows:

They try to do good of themselves in order that they might stand before God clothed in their own virtues and merits. But this is impossible. Among us you were one who held to this opinion, or rather, error. So was I, and I am still fighting against the error without having con­quered it as yet.

Therefore, my dear brother, learn Christ and him cruci­fied. Learn to pray to him and, despairing of yourself, say: “Thou, Lord Jesus, art my righteousness, but I am thy sin. Thou hast taken upon thyself what is mine and hast given to me what is thine. Thou hast taken upon thyself what thou wast not and hast given to me what I was not.”

Amen!