Free Republic

A missionary cannot properly evaluate the differences among cultural expressions until he has understood their universals.At the root of the most thoughtful defenses of contemporary worship today is an appeal based on a missions philosophy that stresses indigenous ministry. If, as the International Missionary Council asserted as far back 1938, an indigenous church is one that "spontaneously uses forms of thought and modes of action natural and familiar in its own environment," then it makes sense that a church use those music forms that are most common in its culture. A pastor or a missionary should not expect a church...

Edmund Burke, one of history's greatest conservatives, warned that abstractions are the enemy of responsible government. "I never govern myself, no rational man ever did govern himself, by abstractions and universals," Burke wrote. "A statesman differs from a professor in a university; the latter has only the general view of society; the former, the statesman, has a number of circumstances to combine with those general ideas." Alas for all of us and for American conservatism in particular, the new Republican majority that took control of the House on Wednesday is embarked on an experiment in government by abstractions. Many in...

What are the key principles that explain Mankind, Society and the Universe best? If you were to give a few general principles, easily stated, what would they be? I have been thinking of how to explain things simply to the next generation, ie my kids, and I have just been reading Bastiat's "The Law", a book that has clear and cogent thinking about how Government ought to work. Bastiat explained that Governments overstepped their bounds when they engaged in 'legalized plunder' which all forms of protectionism and socialism fall prey to, and that all errors in Governance flow from violation...

  A Universal Mistake One of the most important of Ayn Rand's contributions to the field of epistemology is contained in the seventh chapter of her Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology entitled, "The Cognitive Role of Concepts." In it she explains how the world we are conscious of is comprised of an infinite complexity of existents, events, and relationships and why it is not possible for us to comprehend this complexity simply by perceiving it. To understand it, we must "break it up," into manageable pieces we can identify and understand. This, Ayn Rand explains, is the role of concepts."The essence...