Laurence M. Vance

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Laurence M. Vance
Laurence M. Vance

Laurence M. Vance is an author whose areas of professional interest include Christian theology, Christian exegesis, history, and Austrian economics. He is also an adjunct instructor in accounting at Pensacola Junior College in Pensacola, Florida. According to the Vance Publications website, Vance holds degrees in history, theology, accounting, and economics.[1]

He is the proprietor of Vance Publications, which primarily publishes new editions of out-of-print works that have passed into the public domain but also publishes Vance's own works. Vance also founded the Francis Wayland Institute, which describes itself as, "[A] think tank in the intellectual tradition of the nineteenth-century Baptist minister Francis Wayland.... The Institute is dedicated to making available books and articles that uphold the ideals of Christianity, liberty, property, and peace."[2]

Vance's articles are often published on Mises.org and LewRockwell.com, and he is sometimes a speaker at Mises Institute events. Vance penned a chapter—entitled "Christian Killers"—for the 2005 IHS Press offering, Neo-Conned, an anthology of essays that criticize the Iraq War primarily on the basis of traditional just war arguments.

Contents

[edit] Christianity and War

According to the Francis Wayland Institute description of it, Christianity and War makes the "...contention that Christian enthusiasm for the state, its wars, and its politicians is an affront to the Saviour, contrary to Scripture, and a demonstration of the profound ignorance many Christians have of history."[3]

In the book, Vance is critical of pro-war Christian leaders, such as Jerry Falwell, stating,

We know from the Bible that God is pro-holiness and pro-righteousness, but to say that God is "pro-war" doesn’t sound like any description I have ever read in a systematic theology book. Was God pro-Crimean War? Was God pro-War of the Austrian Succession? Was God pro-War of the Roses? Whose side was [he] on in these conflicts? What Falwell really means is that God is pro-American wars. [4]

According to a review published in the Mises Institute's Mises Review, where Review editor David Gordon contrasted The Virtue of War: Reclaiming the Classical Christian Traditions East and West (2004) by Alexander F.C. Webster and Darrell Cole with Vance's Christianity and War. Gordon notes that,

[Vance] agrees with Murray Rothbard that "America has had only two just wars (1776 and 1861, [on the Confederate side]). ‘A just war exists when a people tries to ward off the threat of coercive domination by another people, or to overthrow an already-existing domination’" (Vance, p. 3, quoting Rothbard). Since Iraq was hardly in a position to threaten the United States with coercive domination, Vance deems it obvious that the war should be condemned.[5]

The Chalcedon Foundation published a 2005 review of the short Vance book. Timothy Terrell says, "A blind nationalism has deprived American Christians of judgment when it comes to their nation’s own wars, and Vance’s book is an antidote. "[6]

[edit] Books

  • The Other Side of Calvinism (first edition, May 1991; revised edition, August 1999)
  • A Brief History of English Bible Translations (July 1993)
  • The Angel of the Lord (June 1994)
  • Archaic Words and the Authorized Version (first edition, July 1996; revised edition, December 1999)
  • A Practical Grammar of Basic Biblical Hebrew (August 1997)
  • Double Jeopardy: The New American Standard Bible Update (July 1998)
  • Christianity and War and Other Essays Against the Warfare State (January 2005)
  • King James, His Bible, and Its Translators (October 2006)
  • Greek Verbs in the New Testament and Their Principal Parts (October 2006)

[edit] External links

  • Article archive at Mises.org [7]
  • Article archive at LewRockwell.com [8]
  • Vance Publications official website [9]
  • "Early Origins of the Iraq War," video interview at Antiwar.com [10]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ "About Laurence M. Vance". VancePublications.com. [1]
  2. ^ "The Francis Wayland Institute". FrancisWayland.org. [2]
  3. ^ "Christianity and War by Laurence M. Vance". FrancisWayland.org. [3]
  4. ^ Gregory, Anthony. "Book Review: Christianity and War". Freedom Daily. Future of Freedom Foundation. April 2005. [4]
  5. ^ Gordon, David. "Thou Shalt Kill, or Not?" Mises Review. Ludwig von Mises Institute. Spring 2005. [5]
  6. ^ Terrell, Timothy D. " A Review of Christianity and War, and Other Essays Against the Warfare State." Chalcedon Foundation. 16 May 2005. [6]
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