Science Fiction Writer John C. Wright’s “More Rational Model,” and a Deeper Evaluation of the Difference Christian Faith Makes

Publisher’s Weekly, in 2002 said he “may be this fledgling century’s most important new SF talent.”

 

The science fiction writer John C. Wright recently responded to a question on his publisher’s website which asked:

“Do you have any suggestions for finding faith? I see the necessity of religion, and Christianity in particular, but aside from history and cultural affinity I don’t have actual belief.”

While I am glad that Wright converted to Christianity [i] and wants others to do the same, almost every one of the arguments he makes in response to this question are ones I would not give.

Let’s look at some of the meat in Wright’s article:

…consider that the Christian worldview is more coherent, robust, and rational than any secular worldview.

Our model explains things such as why stars look fair and beautiful to our eyes when it serves no credible Darwinian purpose to do so.

Our model explains the naturalistic fallacy, that is, the gap between ‘is’ and ‘ought’ which secular philosophy cannot explain, and some cannot even address.

Our model explains how free will can exist inside a deterministic universe. A materialist cannot even formulate the question in a rational way.

Our model explains why humans seek beauty. Social-evolutionary explanations for this are less convincing than astrology.

Our model explains how creatures with free will capable of grasping intellectual abstractions can arise in a universe which contains no such thing as intellectual abstractions.

Our model allows investigation of final causes in nature, without which nature cannot properly be understood….

Our model explains the various miracles and supernatural wonders that are in the older history books, and which, for no scientific reason, were excised from being reported.

Our model explains both why there is a plurality of religions and why there are striking similarities between them.

Our model explains the origin of the universe. By definition, if the universe were all that existed, exists and ever will exist, than a material cause for it is impossible.

…Our model explains why you should not let your daughter whore around. She is immortal, and will outlast any nation, and language, any institution and human work on Earth.

Our model explains why you should not, once you have truly and deeply contemplated the vastness of the universe and the oppressive span of time to follow the death of everything you know, fall into despair, and end your meaningless life.

Our model gives something to live for nobler than one’s own pleasure seeking.

Our model avoids the logical paradox of asserting man can create meaning in life out of a vacuum. That would require an ability to create meaning out of meaninglessness, which is absurd.

Our model explains why men and women are different, and how we must arrange the dangerous mystery of the mating dance between the sexes to improve our chances to achieve joy rather than misery.

Our model gives rational hope of seeking the departed dead again.

Our model explains human psychology better than perverted old Freud dressing up old Greek myths in make believe, and far better than cranky old Thomas Hobbes and his cynicism.

Our model makes sense. Others are either incorrect, incomplete, or paradoxical, or lead ultimately to wrath or despair. Our model is the sole one which sees life as not futile and death as not bitter.

And, on an intellectual level, our model is the one to which to turn once your mind has become wearied with the reductionist, absurdist and postmodern models, which are in fact no models at all, but rather, are excuses why one should not make a model of the universe, nor seek any answers to deep questions.

It is the model to which to turn once you are heartily sick of hearing “It Just Happened” as the explanation for the origin of man, the universe, and all things.

Now I really don’t want to get too down on what Wright is doing here. These are some excellent things for anyone to think about. He is on target when he asserts, quite beautifully, that these points are meant to: “whet the appetite of intellects starved and desiccated after vain attempt[s] to feast on the shadows, dust and ashes of modern thought, and show the contrast.” Likewise when he says “All human reason can do is clear away false objections to faith. Faith itself is a supernatural gift bestowed by God to protect his own from the sudden, irrational loss of confidence in the self evident to which our foolish race is prone.”

Amen to that!

My main gripe is this: even though Wright wisely notes that each point in the list above “would require a separate and in depth conversation,” he also says that this is a partial list “of the intellectually satisfying fullness of Christian thought. It is the scent and savor of the feast of Christian philosophy, not the meat and potatoes.”

I disagree that the list has much to do with the fullness of Christian thought at all. After all, all the things above are points that can be credibly be made by Jews and Muslims seeking to reach secular persons as well. Not only this, but many of these points could also be made by informed proponents of other non-theistic religions! This should not surprise us, because in the book of Romans it says:

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse…. Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice [evil things] deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.”

In sum, even if people do not acknowledge the Christian God, everyone knows at some level that there is a powerful divine mind that lies behind the cosmos. Furthermore, while our conscience can be badly seared, we will continually understand at some level, existentially, that there is a real right and wrong and that humans are designed for some things and not others. Regardless of what anyone says they believe, all reveal in their actions that they believe in right and wrong — even if what they believe about right and wrong is exceedingly messed up. This is why atheists like the late Christopher Hitchens would get so offended when people asked him how atheists could be good without God: because he is (was) a human being who stood in moral solidarity with other human beings about a great many things which were clearly perceived, by many wise persons, as being either good or evil (this is also why there are, ultimately, no true antinomians in the world – the world hates God’s law but we will always, even subconsciously, seek to replace God’s law with other laws thought to be good, even as there will always remain some overlap with God’s law). Undoubtedly, these matters are highly complex, but human beings must think about them.

Wright goes on:

Our model explains the prevalence of so many theists throughout history. The theory that over nine tenths of mankind, including some of the most brilliant thinkers in their age, were raving lunatics who hallucinate about imaginary sky beings is not credible and not supported by evidence. (italics mine)

It should go without saying that many of those 90% are not theists. Of course, even cultures that practice polytheism also acknowledge the core importance of hierarchy and so do tend to have supreme gods, such as Zeus or Brahman. Of course, many of the sophisticated elites of cultures like these tend to get abstract when it comes to these notions, depersonalizing their countrymen’s deities. And, of course, as Jordan Peterson puts it, empirically speaking, human beings are the most complicated beings we are familiar with, and a spirit without any form isn’t intelligible.[ii] I’d go on to assert that when we are talking about some kind of a “divine mind,” it only makes sense that that we are dealing with a personal being here (what else has a mind? ; and how can the personal arise from the impersonal?), and ultimately, a supreme personal being. 

Again, Wright:

Our model explains the current hegemony of the West and makes clear the meaning and purpose of what otherwise seems like insane and suicidal attempts by the apparently sober and sane men on Left to undermine and destroy it.

Again, enter the non-Christian Jordan Peterson, becoming more and more popular every day – who believes that the Bible is the thing needed to save Western civilization – though it seems he doesn’t necessarily have our eternal souls in mind…(more) Here, as useful conversation partners for Wright’s and Peterson’s audience, I recommend Vishal Mangalwadi’s and Alvin Schmidt’s work to chew on.

(here’s a bit of Mangalwadi):

 

This brings me to Wright’s first suggestion, which I have saved for last: “Pray.”

Again, I disagree.

Why? Because the Scriptures are quite clear that God does not invite unbelievers to pray, but rather to repent and trust in Him. God certainly could choose to use the prayer of an unbeliever in some way, but we are told time and again in the Scriptures that He does not listen to them.

I am sure that many Mormans and Jehovah’s Witnesses pray all the time. Furthermore, that they also not only find Christianity as they perceive it appealing and certainly see its “necessity.” Nevertheless, because of their faulty view of Christ and man, they end up being more pagan than Christian.

Sure, they might realize that they need to give attention to the figure of Jesus Christ reported in the Bible, risen from the dead and coming to judge the world[iii], but given that any individual’s assent here is sincere, it is one entirely based on fear and abject misunderstanding, not one driven by true grace, peace, joy, and trust. We grant that they, using the Bible, should be closer to the truth than many, but the fact that they can be so close and yet believe so wrongly – in spite of their prayers – does not assure.

That’s God up there man (the God-man, to be precise), the only One good and strong enough to save.

Therefore, given the above, my first suggestion—given that you insist repentance and faith aren’t a possibility—is to think.

Ask yourself if it makes sense that in the midst of this cacophony of world religions and even this cacophony among those whose central book is the Bible whether God might still speak clearly today for those with ears to hear. Dive deeply into the Bible, preferably with some guidance (see Acts 10) – particularly when it comes to the passages dealing with just who Jesus Christ is. Further note that the Apostle Paul acknowledges the importance of divisions between those claiming allegiance to Christ: “No doubt there have to be differences among you to show which of you have God’s approval.”

By the way, of course God wants all His children (yes, I’ll call you that – see Acts 17, for example) to be those who pray (rightly). As the 16^th century church reformer Martin Luther said:

“For those who preach, hear, and know God’s Word but do not pray, indicate thereby that they are still proud and secure, as if they did not need God’s grace everywhere, do not see their need and danger, think that they are now seated firmly and already have what they might request. The devil is right behind them, assaults them, and overthrows them before they even know what happened to them.”  This is why Christ, by his own example, teaches us not to forget prayer in addition to the sermon lest the Word remain without fruit when it is used. (see here for more)

Prayer is certainly a critical part of a believer’s life. I am just urging you to first hear the Word of God and it’s most knowledgeable and devoted proponents, for we are told that “faith comes by hearing the Word of God” (Romans 10:17). That is why I am urging this – which means I am urging you to look to Jesus Christ, so wonderfully described in the Scriptures and well-summarized in things like the Nicene Creed.

Now…

“Taste and see tha the Lord is good!”  “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free!”  And, I pray that even you might come to say: “I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that Day what has been entrusted to me” (II Tim. 1:12).

Blessed is everyone who takes refuge in Him! — Psalm 2:12 (the picture depicts the All Saint’s Eve in Sweden)

FIN

 

 

[i] From Wikipedia: At age 42, Wright converted from atheism to Christianity, citing a profound religious experience with visions of the “Virgin Mary, her son, and His Father, not to mention various other spirits and ghosts over a period of several days”, and stating that prayers he made were answered.^[8] In 2008, he converted to the Roman Catholic Church, of which he approvingly said: “If Vulcans had a church, they’d be Catholics.”^[9]

[ii] https://jordanbpeterson.com/2017/05/episode-19/

[iii] As I have written in the past: “I do not think that we can start being “neutral” towards Christian claims upon hearing them. They demand to be taken seriously and demand our full attention and engagement.  Why these claims over the claims of any other world religion?  Why should Christianity and the truths it purports to preach get our attention?  Well, does any other religion claim to vindicate its founder – who incidently, claimed to be God, via a resurrection from the dead? (not to mention all the miracles leading up to that final, crowning miracle – ponder, for example, Mark 2:9-11 here).  Does any other world religion claim to offer proof, assurance, “faith” – that we can know who it is who will in the future judge the world? (see Acts 17). None. Therefore, anyone who does not take these things seriously – is, by definition, not being rational.  Would most philosophers agree with me?  I don’t think so.  And even if some found it to be an intriguing argument, perhaps they may say, after looking at things, that there is “insufficient evidence” for what Christianity claims. Then what? Well, do they get to decide what sufficient evidence is?  Might they be under any obligation to reconsider and look again?  Who charges them to do so?  How deeply did they look into it?  Did they do so prayerfully?”  These words should hit all like a hammer, and to the one who has not been made a friend of God, they should offer no peace.

 

Advertisement

 

The Christian and Nationalism: Examining Bonhoeffer’s Anti-Nazi “Bethel Confession”

“Right-wing populist parties in European national parliaments (March 2016).” (see here) Support for far-right parties has increased across Europe since 1999, per British journalist Nafeez Ahmed…

God brings His Kingdom in Jesus Christ, so what is His attitude regarding earthly nations, or, “ethnos” (from where we get the word “ethnic”)?[i] Just what should the Christian think about a phenomenon that appears to be rapidly emerging once again: nationalism?

Christian commentator Al Mohler: idolatries of globalism…and nationalism…

This week, Albert Mohler devoted almost a whole show to stories related to the topic[ii], where he argued that in Europe there are “two forms of nationalism” – one healthy, concerned with matters of subsidiarity, and one unhealthy, “often reduced to a form of racism.” And when it comes to our own American context and concerns about movements on the increasingly “non-religious” political right (note Ross Douthat), look at what Pastor Todd Wilken tweeted out a little over a year ago:

At the time, I responded to Pastor Wilken’s tweet with some mild pushback, including the words “Just seems to me like all sense of proportion is lost with stuff like that” (he disagreed). A week later I followed up with a tweet (not only responding to Pastor Wilken!) that he also took issue with: “Anti-Trump postings & articles I see increasingly seem less measured/honest & more hysterical/overstated. Doesn’t serve #NeverTrump well.”

In any case, with the recent failure to pass the Republican’s health care bill, Dilbert creator and cultural guru Scott Adams contends that the media Narrative about Trump has now changed: he is not Hitler, but incompetent.

Incompetent?: “Trump hollowed out the GOP and he’s wearing it as a skin” — Scott Adams

Even if it is the case that we will now hear less of the Trump/Hitler comparison, it is, of course, still informative to think about nationalism – and the response of faithful German Christians to it as it occurred in their homeland in the 1930s.

First of all though, we should take a look at what the Bible has to say.

Paul says that God’s “purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two.” Is this not why the early Christian apologist Aristides said that Christians were now a “Third Race,” set apart from both [unbelieving] Jews and Greeks?[iii] (apologia 2). This is the core thing that we as Christians want to communicate: the newness that we all have in Christ.

Christians are now a “Third Race,” set apart from both [unbelieving] Jews and Greeks… – Aristides

That said, when it comes to politics in this world, there are other things we must keep in mind. Not long ago, I tweeted the following: “We will be infected with sin until Christ returns. We will be many nations until the One Kingdom of heaven.” When I wrote that I had in mind what is said by the Apostle Paul in Acts 17:26: “From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands,” as well as the harrowing words spoken by Jesus about the Last Days from, e.g. Matthew 24:7: “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.”

And of course, even in heaven, we evidently will not lose the ethnic diversity that is a part and parcel of the traditional notion of nations (again, “ethnos”) – and which evidently emerged after the fall and the tower of Babel. For Revelation 7:9 gives us this amazing picture:

“After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.”

Therefore, while uniting all persons in Christ, Christianity, counter the Left, also gives us a favorable picture of what we call ethnicity – a term that has both culture and family ties in mind. The fact that mothers have a natural inclination – and equipment – to nurture their young[iv], that we might speak of our “fatherland,” and that “Nature produces a special love of offspring” (Cicero) – these are all good things. The cultural Marxist Left, on the other hand, hates the natural family – and hence nations[v] – for the same reasons it hates marriage: these are living icons of the church.

Our marriages are living icons proclaiming Christ and His bride, the church…

I had in mind these kinds of things when I declared some months ago that I was, in a sense, embracing identity politics and labeling myself a “Liberal Christian Nationalist” (yes, I know that sounded frightening to some people).

….And our families, living icons of the Church: our common Father – Jesus’s to – protects us!

With this said though, I wondered how this view would stack up vis a vis the response of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the other Christians who penned the Bethel Confession penned in 1930s. As we take a look, keep in mind that it was written to help the church theologically counter Hitler’s efforts to appropriate the church for his own racial program (the Bethel Confession never gained wide acceptance and the Barman Declaration become the document of choice for most who resisted ; you can read more about the Bethel Confession in Lowell Green’s book Lutherans Against Hitler: the Untold Story)

According to the Bethel Confession:

• Jesus is “a member of the Israelite nation from the family of David…. All nations and races, also the noblest ones, are also guilty of his death and daily become guilty of it anew, when they insult the Spirit of grace (Hebr. 10:29).”
• “God chose Israel to be his people among all the nations of the earth. He did this only in the power of his word and for the sake of his mercy, by no means for the sake of some natural prerogative (Ex. 19:5-6; Deut. 7:7-11).”
• “Struggle is not the basic principle of the original creation, and a fighting attitude is therefore not a commandment by God established by the original creation.”
• Christians “must reject all attempts to place the natural phenomenon of race on the same level as the institutional orders that are grounded in a direct divine commandment to man.”
• “God’s Holy Spirit alone works faith in man. He alone creates the fellowship of confessing rightly. The fellowship of such confessing is never coextensive with the boundaries of a certain ethnicity.”
• “We oppose the teaching that it belongs to the essence of the church to be a national church [“Volkskirche”]. The church is free to be national church, so long as this form is a means to carry out its commission.”
• The church can live even where there is no nation, for “where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them” [Matt. 18:20].[vi]

In a core passage, we read that the church rejects the view that “the church is the religious organization of one nation,” and that “it should give religious support to ethnicity; that the boundaries of the church and the nation should be identical (religious nationalism).” (italics in B.C.)

An alternate view: “[Religious] identity endures through change. Indeed… it only endures by change….
I think we should be masters of [all] our identities and not let them master us.” (listen here)

“God’s kingdom is not of this world,” Jesus informs us, and therefore two realms must be kept in mind.

The role of the government, of the fatherland, of the nation, on the one hand, is ultimately to bear the sword to punish the evildoer and enact justice. This is not the proper role of the church, and therefore, “[we] reject the false doctrine of a ‘Christian state’ in every form.”

On the other hand, the realm of the church is to share God’s forgiveness in Christ through the means of grace, His Word, come to us in the Scriptures, and His sacraments.

“Behold the man.” His Kingdom is not of this world.

A longer section goes into some great detail providing guidance as this regards the church vis a vis diverse ethnic groups and “nations” that are held together more by force than culture. There is much nuance here, and so I quote in full not to miss any of it:

Christ is sent as the Redeemer of the whole world. This is why he commissions the church to bring the gospel to all nations. As it carries out this commission, it enters into the forms and structures of the nations of their time. It can live among a multitude of nations as the one church regardless of political boundaries. It can be a national church within the boundaries of a realm regardless of ethnicity. It can be church within a certain ethnicity while transcending political boundaries. It can be church within a certain ethnicity without transcending political boundaries, but within the boundaries of this ethnicity. Its external form is not subject to duress, but is determined by the only rule, namely, “by all means to gain some” [1 Cor. 9:22]. This is why it becomes a Jew to the Jews, a Greek to the Greeks, a Chinese to the Chinese, a German to the Germans. The manner and extent of such entering into time can be determined only based on the commission of the church.  The proclamation of the church always remains the alien grain of seed that is planted in the ground. Where the content of a specific time becomes the content of the proclamation the gospel is betrayed, because it is no longer said to the time, but absorbed by it….

We reject the false doctrine that the church belongs to the nation, or that it is there for the nation. The church does not belong to the nation, but to Christ. He alone is its Lord. Only in intrepid obedience to him it truly serves the nation in which it lives. It is there for every member of the nation, to gain it for the congregation of Jesus (italics in actual document).

All, in all, after reading the Bethel Confession, I find myself saying “Amen!” and marveling at its confession of Christ and His Church. I come to the conclusion that it is indeed fully compatible with my thoughts about Christianity and nationalism.

Can you have America without Christian influence?

One more very interesting thing. Taking a turn that would be considered very politically incorrect this day, the Bethel Confession also says the following:

No cultural or political considerations can liberate the church from the duty to call Israel to repentance and to baptism. Just as little can the Gentile Christians separate themselves from the Christians out of the nation of Israel. Their fellowship in word and sacrament is the sign for the fact that the church of Jesus Christ is the heir of Abraham’s promise. This is why the church must resist every secularization of the mission to the Jews which views the reception into the Christian church only the sign of the reception of the Jews into Western civilization.[vii]

This brings me to my closing thoughts.

As best I can tell, the rise of Nazism, a race-based ideology, was more theological than anything else. Hitler’s desire was not only to destroy the Jews, but eventually, Christianity as well. In sum, those who the Bible says were God’s chosen people by grace were to be replaced by the race that Nature had chosen. Its winners.

Most all of us are rightly horrified by the thought (though listen to this). Now without losing any of that horror, listen to the popular novelist Andrew Klavan, who says the following about his own conversion from Judaism to Christianity:

The Holocaust was the crucifixion compulsively reenacted on a grand scale: an attempt to kill God’s people in order to extinguish the Light of the World that shows us who we are…There are some people who say that an evil as great as the Holocaust is proof there is no God. But I would say the opposite. The very fact that it is so great an evil, so great that it defies any materialist explanation, implies a spiritual and moral framework that requires God’s existence. More than that. The Holocaust was an evil that only makes sense if the Bible is true, if there is a God, if the Jews are his people, and if we would rather kill him and them than truly know him, and ourselves. (Chapter 12, emphasis his, The Great Good Thing)

Worth pondering? I think so.[viii] God cares deeply about all people, all nations – even if here we need eyes of faith to see. His love is why in Christ He unites Himself together with us, first as regards the Jews, and then as regards the Gentiles – and promises them that in Him, we are a part of the family that will never perish.

FIN

 

Images: Right wing parties in Europe ( Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license) ;  Al Mohler, James Thompson, Flickr, CC BY 2.0; Donald Trump Arizona, by Gage Skidmore from Peoria, CC BY-SA 2.0 ; Aristides public domain ; Kwame Anthony Appiah, by David Shankbone, CC BY-SA 3.0 ; Christian flag from Pixabay (free use).

Notes:

[i] As will be seen below the biblical idea of “nation” has more in common with the idea of “people” or “people group” than it does “country with borders” or modern “nation-state”. That said, during the era of Romanticism there was in Europe, starting in Germany (and here with strong anti-semitic overtones and undercurrents), a strong backlash against the universalistic project of the Enlightenment. It would no doubt also be a good idea to explore further just how the notion of “people” and “nation” we find in the bible may have shifted in meaning during the last few centuries.

[ii] Relatedly, he also spoke about the secularization of Europe, where Christianity is seen as an embarrassment, evidenced by efforts to expunge Christianity from the record of how Europe came to be.

[iii] Biblically, earthly nations are inseparable from the concept of “ethnos,” from which we get “ethnicity”. In like fashion “genos”, from where we get “genes,” can be translated as offspring, family, race, nation, kind, or even sex. We see that both of these terms involve notions of blood and parentage, even if “ethnos” is more closely connected than “genos” with our notions of culture.

Christians are first and foremost citizens of heaven, not earth. In, but not of the world, their “dual ethnicity” means that they belong first to the kingdom of heaven, and are members of “God’s chosen ethnos” (I Peter 2:9). Though all are one “in Adam,” God has, post-fall, also ordained a diversity of nations (see Acts 17:26), from whom He will obtain worship (Rev. 7:9). Ultimately, the Church is a new Nation that re-unites, by faith in Christ, persons not just from this or that race, tribe, or nation, but from the entire human family – making one Nation, or more accurately, Kingdom.

[iv] For more along these lines, see my satirical article here.

[v] Note that Karl Marx was in favor of free trade, largely because of the effects he said it would have on families and nations. Ideological forms of capitalism do not get a pass here either (see this from Chesterton). Steve Keen’s work, Debunking Economics, is worth noting here.

[vi] Also from the Bethel Confession: “We reject the false doctrine that the existence of the nation is presupposition for the existence of the church, or that the existence of the church is presupposition for the life of a nation….

A nation can live and have a grand history, even where there is no church. Nations live within the natural world and have incurred the law of death that reigns over all creation. This is why a nation as a whole cannot be redeemed, for redemption is always God’s act upon an individual. However, the church, grateful to God, always lays hold of the assistance offered to it in the ethnicity or other natural orders for the execution of its commission.”

[vii] I think what the Jewish conservative writer Ben Shapiro says here really does not evince the proper kind of nuance:

“For folks who don’t know what the alt-right is, it might be worthwhile to just sort of start at the beginning and talk about what the alt-right is—because there are a lot of these various definitions floating around, nearly all of which are wrong.

Basically, the alt-right is a group of thinkers who believe that Western civilization is inseparable from European ethnicity—which is racist, obviously. It’s people who believe that if Western civilization were to take in too many people of different colors and different ethnicities and different religions, then that would necessarily involve the interior collapse of Western civilization. As you may notice, this has nothing to do with the Constitution. It has nothing to do with the Declaration of Independence. It has nothing to do actually with Western civilization. The whole principle of Western civilization is that anybody can involve himself or herself in civilized values. That’s not what the alt-right believes—at least its leading thinkers, people like Richard Spencer and Jared Taylor and Vox Day. Those kind of folks will openly acknowledge that this is their thought process.”

I do not believe that the beliefs and moral values, influenced by Christianity, that many civilizations have are “inseparable from European ethnicity”. On the other hand, we do call Western civilization “western” for a reason (and some have argued that this simply became an appropriate way [code!] of talking about Christianity in recent years… whereas “Christendom” was the term that said much the same thing before that), and I do not think that the beliefs and values they possess—even though they are not necessarily tied with ethnicity—are easily transferable or guaranteed transferable in any sense (hence appropriate and measured concern about immigration issues). Finally, of course, I also think that ethnicity needs to be distinguished from ideas of biological race (see note 3 above).

[viii] Please note that in favorably quoting Klavan I am not saying that those who do not trust in Jesus Christ will be saved (nor do I believe he is saying this).

 

 

Individualism in the Age of Trump: the Unbridled Sophistry Behind Sexuality, Gender… and the Theory of Evolution

Author of Think BIG and Kick A** in Business and Life and 45th President of the U.S.A., Donald Trump

In the Western world, today’s “conservatives” are increasingly libertarian when it comes to matters of sexual morality. Whatever good might come out of a Trump Presidency (full disclosure: I voted for the man), it seems unlikely that the nation’s appreciation for the importance of sexual morality will deepen.

Increasingly in our society, the expectation for any romantic relationship is that it must be sexual or get sexual without much delay – married or not. Going hand in hand with this, political progressives and libertarians both seem basically united on the idea that the choice of each individual is the controlling principle. As some on the Supreme Court told us in 1992, “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.”[i]

This kind of thinking really does not seem all that alien from what the Trump-supporting “free speech fundamentalist” Milo Yiannopoulos has said:

Read what you want.
Watch what you want.
Play what you want.
Think what you want.
Say what you want.

That might not work in a marriage, but otherwise why the hell not? (marriage couldn’t be that important anyways, could it?) Political correctness can die the death it so richly deserves! The sky is the limit!

An unmanly man?

Yiannopoulos may say that some – by virtue of biological and psychological limitations – can’t be whatever they want to be, but with his emphasis on the individual’s rights, one is hard-pressed to argue why some, at least, shouldn’t give it a shot (please note I say all of this wanting to defend free speech to, while being concerned that not all of our speech is helpful).

And, tying this back to matters of sexual morality, why suppress human nature? Yiannopoulos regularly encourages college students to not hold back in exploring their sexuality with others. And, when asked here about Harvard’s men’s soccer team this past week – namely, about their recently revealed shared Google form treating their female counterparts as sexual objects – Yiannopoulos defended them to the hilt. One might think he could have said, at the very least, that the men’s behavior was to be strongly discouraged – even if the Harvard President had overreacted (read this and this for a balanced perspective). He didn’t say this though – he simply talked about our inability to overcome human nature: basically “men will be men”.

After all, as popular You Tuber Gavin McInnes says (language alert) all men act like this. And likewise, all men must surely know that they are incapable of waiting for sex – and they must be lying if they say they do! Guys like Tim Tebow (what has he accomplished lately?) are surely hypocrites, and evidently, most of the time, just aren’t manly enough to obtain the good things that come their way, grabbing them by the….

But even if we perhaps should respect the real power of human nature here, we also cannot overcome the consequences of human nature. Even if you, by virtue of your social capitol and financial resources, appear able to rise above some of the most socially deleterious effects of sexual licentiousness, many – particularly the most vulnerable – can’t. And all of this contributes to the fracturing and weakening of the family, which one would hope any conservative would understand. This glorification of our choices when it comes to matters sexual, of course, makes the goal of marriage – and the commitment involved therein – less and less of a possibility for many (listen to Jennifer Roback Morse here).

Milo Yiannopoulos: “double down, don’t back down.”

Yiannopoulos may have once written about the dangers of pornography in the past (see here and here), but these days, he seems to have left that concern behind (a necessary casualty of his message and newfound fame?). Now, ironically, it is some on the left (some!) who are bringing up the critical importance of this issue (see here and here for example). Speaking merely from a tactical standpoint, perhaps persons like Yiannopoulos should find a creative way to address this, before being outflanked by progressives concerned about the truth of these matters?

So, what does any of this have to do with the theory of evolution – and sophisty?! Hang on… we getting there right now….

First of all, a popular meaning of the word sophistry is “the use of fallacious arguments, especially with the intention of deceiving”. It is a simple matter that men simply can control themselves (though, if I may say, we seem to live in an age that likes to play with the fire of temptation).

Second, in the theory of evolution, all is about sex (and death): everything comes down to being able to pass on one’s genes to the next generation. Supposedly, evolution “designed” us for this.

Third, and here is the meat of my point, in a recent edition of the Atlantic, an article called “The Case Against Reality,” lays out the implications of the theory of evolution (spurred on by what I call the MSTM, the modern scientific and technological mindset) in a very helpful manner. An interview with cognitive science Donald D. Hoffman is featured, where he argues that “the world is nothing like the one we experience through our senses… the world presented to us by our perceptions is nothing like reality” (as the Atlantic sums him up).

In short, Hoffman believes that “evolution itself [is] to thank for this magnificent illusion, as it maximizes evolutionary fitness by driving truth to extinction” (italics mine). It is not accurate perceptions which helps us to effectively pass on our genes but “fitness functions,” i.e. “mathematical functions that describe how well a given strategy achieves the goals of survival and reproduction.” “Suppose,” he says, “there’s a blue rectangular icon on the lower right corner of your computer’s desktop — does that mean that the file itself is blue and rectangular and lives in the lower right corner of your computer? Of course not… And yet the desktop is useful.”[ii] Hoffman says that this is “conscious realism,” meaning that “Objective reality is just conscious agents, just points of view.”

“We have no idea how life emerged, and cannot with assurance say that it did.” – David Berlinski (p. xiii, The Devil’s Delusion).

And hence, evolution’s connection with classical understandings of sophistry is complete. Perhaps Christians taken with evolution should take evolutionists like Daniel Dennet more seriously when they assert that it is a “universal acid” that “eats through just about every traditional concept, and leaves in its wake a revolutionized world-view, with most of the old landmarks still recognizable, but transformed in fundamental ways” (see here).

The Sophists of the ancient world said that our base assumption should be that certain truth and goodness is unattainable. With change being the only constant and knowledge an illusion, everything is about building consensus through persuasion. The ethical sophist – assuming positing such a person is reasonable! – would persuade on the basis of arguing for things that are not true, but possible and perhaps probable…

How is this not sync perfectly what Hoffman is saying, a “match made in heaven,” or hell, as the case may be? Cannot he – or anyone else – see the implications of this thinking for human reason itself?

Let’s break it down:

• In brief, Hoffman, assuming temporal survival is what life is all about, says that it is our “fitness functions,” and not accurate perceptions, which help us to pass on our genes.
• Therefore, it follows that being able to create grand, plausible sounding theories – whether they are true or not – also can be reduced to being about the survival value they have (in that they attract partners who know brains are valuable – and who can pass on genes).
• Therefore, as long as one can avoid the impression one is totally disconnected from matters of concrete fact, disqualifying one’s self in other’s eyes, the sky is the limit!
• As Hoffman says, our perceptions are “tuned to fitness, but not to truth”. Why would our capacity to construct narratives, our story-telling imaginations, not be as well? Why would this also not figure into the all controlling “fitness function”?
• So, if this is the case, why believe the theory of evolution is true at all? It might be useful for passing on genes, but true?

And yet, of course, what Hoffman is doing in his interview – what he cannot avoid doing even if he might protest he is doing it – is putting forth a truth claim. Truth, in one sense, is “driven to extinction,” where, in another, it rises from the ashes reborn. “Believe me,” he is saying… “I am speaking with some real authority on these matters.” The ancient sophists played the same game… the truth is that we cannot not really know truth… what is important is that you listen to me, noticing how smart I am…

And so, as evolution and truth evolves, so does “our” (Not mine! Not yours I hope!) understanding of individuality, sex, and gender.

To state the obvious, given his assumptions, is that not just his “fitness function” speaking? And if he opposes me socially and politically and I fight back, evidently with my own fitness function that still falsely believes there is truth, just what hope for common ground do we now have?

I’m calling B.S. I’m calling out these new sophists for the danger to society and culture that they are. Absolute. Total. Nonsense.

In like fashion, Minnesota’s own Katherine Kersten (Star Tribune editorialist), challenging the transgender revolution, recently spoke some real sense at the First Things site:

…public policy making will become impossible if new interest groups attempt to piggyback on the transgender movement’s success, as seems likely. U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch now insists that schools accept a kindergarten boy’s self-understanding and treat him as if he is a girl. What happens when an individual suffering from body integrity identity disorder identifies as disabled and applies for federal disability benefits? What if a white male business owner identifies as black and seeks to participate in a federal contract set-aside reserved for minorities? What if a forty-year-old woman regards herself as a senior citizen and demands Social Security benefits? How can policy makers logically deny their claims? As we enter the world of fantasy—when reality ceases to matter—it is impossible to predict where our society will crash against nature, as it inevitably will.

All marriages are an icon of The One True Marriage.

Alas, I think the ground we have for making these arguments has already disappeared beneath our feet – at least in the minds of many of our fellow Americans (not in reality). And this warning especially goes to “conservatives” who have already given up way too much ground to the sexual revolution as well. In some ways I can’t but like and respect persons like Milo Yiannopoulos, but in this area I think he is as clueless as the progressives he so effectively targets and trolls.

What is the endgame here? Ultimately, it is not earthly marriages, that most excellent fireplace for the fire of passion, that will saves any of us – as much as good marriages will surely help any nation. It is rather the True Marriage which our “desktop icon” of marriage points us to: Christ’s love for His Church and Her love for Him. This and this alone gives us the true life, love, and light – hope! – that we know in this world. Hopefully, the current President-elect we have in America will end up being friendly to these concerns (his opponent on the other hand, said this).

The sooner the church as a whole wakes up to the concentrated Satanic attack on this truth, born of ancient Sophistry, the better (and perhaps we can count those friendly to ancient philosophers like Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics as allies of a sort here).

When Hoffman says “It’s conscious agents all the way down,” he is surely right, but not for the reasons he thinks he is. That move should not actually banish God from reality. Rather, it should point us towards our need to acknowledge Him.

Friends, let’s fight the good fight.

FIN

 

Images:

Trump, by Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America (licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license) ; Milo Yiannopoulos, photo by @Kmeron (this file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license) ; Tim Tebow by Clemed (this file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license).

[i] It seems to me that even neoconservative intellectuals like Yuval Levin (author of the 2016 book Fractured Republic: Renewing America’s Social Contract in the Age of Individualism) seem to take this principle for granted.

[ii] In response to a question about whether or not everything is just one big illusion, Hoffman responds: “We’ve been shaped to have perceptions that keep us alive, so we have to take them seriously. If I see something that I think of as a snake, I don’t pick it up. If I see a train, I don’t step in front of it. I’ve evolved these symbols to keep me alive, so I have to take them seriously. But it’s a logical flaw to think that if we have to take it seriously, we also have to take it literally.”

 

Embracing Identity Politics: Why I Am Now a Liberal Christian Nationalist

Christian first, because you can’t get America without it.

The Lord is king forever and ever;
the nations perish from his land. – Psalm 10

+++

Should we be “Cultural Christians”? Even, perhaps, as I am now calling myself, “Liberal Christian Nationalists”?

First of all, some critical definitional notes: by using the word “liberal” I want to capture the sense of “marked by generosity”, or “given or provided in a generous and openhanded way”. Since “progressives” today shy away from this label, I’ll happily re-appropriate it. More, by “liberal” I am not thinking primarily about education (i.e. a “liberal arts education”, “concerned mainly with broadening a person’s general knowledge and experience”), or modern political liberalism (“open to new behavior or opinions and willing to discard traditional values” ; “not bound by authoritarianism, orthodoxy, or traditional forms”), or even classical political liberalism (“associated with ideals of individual especially economic freedom, greater individual participation in government, and constitutional, political, and administrative reforms designed to secure these objectives”). (definitions provided by Google and Merriam-Webster online).

Second, the phrase “Cultural Christianity” is typically used in the Christian circles I know to describe those who would identify as Christian, and would appreciate some of the practices and rituals of Christianity, but do not actually possess faith, or living trust, in Jesus Christ (note: Christians are not to be “fruit checkers”). I am using this word in a sense that does not exclude actual faith, with the intent to emphasize that Christianity also can, and perhaps should, be understood as a culture, i.e  “the beliefs, customs, arts, etc., of a particular society, group, place, or time” and “a particular society that has its own beliefs, ways of life, art, etc.” (Merriam-Webster). Ours is a way or form of life (with some diversity in earthly expression) whose origin is given from above, not below.

One [social constructivist] man’s flawed view of America.

Third, in short, I am making the following case: Just like you can use rhetoric and not be a sophist, I am saying that you can embrace “identity politics” and not be a relativist. I am certainly a person who believes in truth and seeking truth – and acknowledges human reason as a valuable tool in this process (if you did not look at my post about the very real problems with social constructionism and constructivism – related to moral relativism – you may want to take a look at that).

Fourth, getting to the meat of this short essay and bulleted points for debate, here is my answer to the subtitle of this post: “Yes,” I think, because our sense of identity, who we truly and ultimately are, must – should – necessarily go very deep. Especially, we who are Christians should realize more than most that what is true is deeply bound up with who God is and who we are. We all need a deep sense of cohesion and direction, and we, especially, get this from an identity which derives not only from above, but from a common historical narrative.

I think First Things’ editor R.R. Reno would agree with me about this Christian identity’s close connection with our politics – since in a recent political article provocatively entitled “Nationalism is not Xenophobia,” he goes so far to state that

“We need a Christian nationalism, one that encourages the unity of mankind while recognizing that human beings thrive best as members of a particular people and as proud recipients of a distinctive cultural inheritance.” (hear more about Reno’s views in the latest “First Things” podcast).

For years I have voted mostly Republican, even though there are many things that some Democrats say that make a lot of sense to me as well (of course the “Tea Party” and the “Occupy Wall Street” movements agreed on many critiques of our economic system). I’ve always never really felt at home with either party. My own conviction, I think in line with Reno’s, is that it is simply true to insist that a nation cannot continue to have Western principles and ideals without more explicitly acknowledging, crediting – and ultimately embracing – the predominantly Christian heritage of those countries.

Even if you deny it.

After thinking about this for a good long while, this is my response to the identity politics which the “Alt-Right” is now mimicking: to say that their response to the left highlights the critical aspect of identity. I don’t consider this a betrayal of American ideals, because I think the only way that we have come to have a society where we believe (or used to) that each individual is critical and even has “inalienable rights” is because of Christian – not Enlightenment – influence (though the Enlightenment – like the medieval revival of Aristotle and the Renaissance before it – did force Europe’s Christians to become more reflective and nuanced when it came to the meaning of Christianity). In short, in order to have the rights of the individual elevated in a way that has a basis in reality and “takes”, you need real beliefs that come from Christians – from a “collective” (Gasp! – is this socialism? No.) of Christians! For Christians, who have seen the importance and purchase of the concept of “worldview” (again, see my essay critiquing social constructionism and constructivism) for a while now, none of this really should come to a shock. I think I am just trying to take things a step further.

Given the important link between Christianity and the belief in real human rights as a thing (not in a functional or “useful fiction” sense), it makes sense to me that the Catholic writer Michael Novak would say “Tocqueville famously hinted… that one day [Roman] Catholics would become the best intellectual defenders of the American way of understanding natural rights” (see here). Some Christians who look at America from the outside agree that the Christian worldview – and with this the Christians’ identity – are critical here. The Indian Christian Vishal Mangalwadi made the following claim in his book “The Book That Made Your World”:

“A postmodernist would be absolutely right in insisting that the Declaration of Independence was wrong. These ‘truths’ are not ‘self-evident’. Human equality is not self-evident anywhere in the world – not even in America. Equality was never self-evident to the Hindu sages. For them, inequality was self-evident. Their question was, why are human beings born unequal? Hinduism taught that the Creator made people different. The higher castes were made from his head, shoulders, and belly, and the lower castes were made from his feet. The law of karma accentuated these basic differences. The Buddha did not believe in the Creator, but he accepted the doctrine of karma as the metaphysical cause for the inequality of human beings….

Equality and human rights are not self-evident truths. In his original draft, Thomas Jefferson penned, ‘We hold these truths to be sacred and unalienable.” That was the truth. That is why the Declaration grounded the ‘unalienable’ rights in the Creator rather than in the state. The most honest declaration would have been, ‘We hold these truths to be divinely revealed.’ Revelation is the reason why America believed what some Deists ascribed to ‘common sense.’ To be precise, these truths appeared common sense to the American founders because their sense was shaped by the common impact of the Bible – even if a few of them doubted that the Bible was divinely revealed.” (391, 392)”

Frazer: Divine revelation yes – but only within Reason! Also check out “IV. Finitum capax finitum” here (and “VI. Division,” as well)

I do not think that the majority of politicians who exercise influence in public life reflect on matters to the extent that Mangalwadi does. This goes for our country’s founding fathers as well. I note here that Gregg Frazer, writing in a monograph about the founding fathers of America published by the University of Kansas Press, thinks very few of them were actually Christians. On the other hand, he says that the category of “deist” also does not work for most of them either, as most of them believed in a present and active God (who intervened in history) and also allowed for the existence of some divine revelation, although they also believed that all true revelation would be acceptable to human reason. He says that many of them also show evidence of believing that “all roads lead to God” – God has different names, but it is all the same… For these reasons, he says we need a new category: not deist, not Christian, but “theistic rationalist”. (note: not even a “rationalist theist”). Frazer argues that men like Jefferson and Adams really did believe themselves to be Christians because they actually did appreciate the moral teachings of Jesus. That is what they meant by “Christianity”.

In any case, what this means is that when it comes to politics, I am now moving my most important identity to the front and center: my Christianity. I think I am a “Liberal Christian Nationalist,” and, now that Christians arguably have no real influence in this country – just as they, particularly nationalists, have little influence in Europe (first see here ; then here and here) – this shouldn’t scare anyone.[i] I don’t expect to get too many of my fellow Americans to identify with me in this, nor does it mean I expect to see a LCN party arise. I suspect that the list that I have put together below though – explaining what I mean by “Liberal Christian Nationalism”, might be of more use to countries who are young when it comes to their Christian commitment.

Please note that these points deal with issues of “race” in some detail, since that is, I think, always the elephant in the room and demands thoughtful engagement. Further, in full disclosure, I put together this 32 point list in part in response to a list that the “Alt Right” leader, Vox Day (author of The Irrational Atheist), put together (listen to this interview).

Before jumping into my list, a key point: in my view, the Leftism of today includes many who would consider themselves on the political right. Their philosophy is ultimately deferential to the language used in the 1992 Planned Parenthood vs. Casey decision of the Supreme Court: “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” (of course, logic tells us that “private beliefs” will ultimately only be permitted to be translated into action for some persons – others’ actions will inevitably be determined to be “out of bounds” – see below). A person who is conservative, on the other hand – including those who find room to account for the importance of identity in politics – would continue to agree with the words of the late Russel Kirk – or, perhaps, at least want to agree with him: “[conservatives are] all those people who recognize an enduring moral order in the universe, a constant human nature, and high duties toward the order spiritual and the order temporal.” “Conservatives” who say that what Kirk says is “no longer true” or irrelevant are being anything but conservative. After all, if what Kirk says it is no longer true, how was it ever more than an illusion to begin with (given that he speaks of the words “constant” and “enduring” as if these terms mean something)?

My list:

1. The history of the world teaches us that the separation of religion and politics is ultimately untenable. Ironically, the possibility of conceiving of a “separation of church and state” could have only taken place in a nation that is largely made up of an influenced by Christians (“give to God what is God’s, to Caesar what is Caesar’s”), who justifiably, at their best, have a reputation for both being simple, humble, content, and not apt to glorify strength.
2. The Bible is the Word of God. Whoever you are, Jesus Christ is your Creator, your God, your King. This is what Christians have always believed and taught. It is only for the sake of conversation and common ground with the world – all of whom we are to love with Christ’s love – that we might start by talking about how the Bible “contains God’s Word”, “contains the Gospel”, how Jesus is “our God,” or how we consider the Bible to be authoritative.
3. If “true patriotism” means “freedom and equality not only for Americans but for all people on earth,” as Eleanor Roosevelt said, one should consider supporting Christian missionaries who share the Gospel of Jesus Christ – His defeat of sin, death and the devil for us through the (unlikely) victory at the cross vindicated by the resurrection – out of sincere conviction and not with any colonial-esque designs.
4. Those countries who have attained a high level of political liberty, including freedoms of speech, press, assembly and religion – as well as greater effectiveness, mobility, and choice when it comes to economic issues (made possible by increased trust) – are nations that have been greatly influenced by Christianity.
5. Greco-Roman culture, as well as the Renaissance and Enlightenment which drew from it, forced Western forms of Christianity to become much more reflective and nuanced in their understanding of biblical truths. Christianity also seeks to appreciate what is good, true, and beautiful from all cultures (see Philippians 4:8).
6. Christians are first and foremost citizens of heaven, not earth. In, but not of the world, their “dual ethnicity” means that they belong first to the kingdom of heaven, and are members of “God’s chosen ethnos” (I Peter 2:9). Though all are one “in Adam,” God has, post-fall, also ordained a diversity of nations (see Acts 17:26), from whom He will obtain worship (Rev. 7:9).
7. Biblically, earthly nations are inseparable from the concept of “ethnos,” from which we get “ethnicity”. In like fashion “genos”, from where we get “genes,” can be translated as offspring, family, race, nation, kind, or even sex. We see that these terms involve notions of blood and parentage, even if “ethnos” is more closely connected than “genos” with our notions of culture.
8. Ultimately, the Church is a new Nation that re-unites, by faith in Christ, persons not just from this or that race, tribe, or nation, but from the entire human family – making one Nation, or, more accurately, Kingdom, to whom all the earthly nations will stream in the life to come, “Kingdom come”.
9. The idea to rather sharply distinguish “church and state” comes from Jesus Christ Himself. He said to “give to God what is God’s and Caesar what is Caesar’s”. It is desirable that the Church and earthly nations support one another even as it is also desirable that each stay out of the other’s core business – the Church forgiving sin and giving eternal life, nations protecting their people while seeking truth and justice.
10. It may indeed be better to be governed by a wise Turk than a stupid Christian (mis-attributed to the 16^th Church Reformer Martin Luther, though it might seem to sum up his thinking well) though even with this consideration (which seems not to be mindful about continuity), the ideal or preferred persons to lead a nation are, in general, Christians with political gifts – not the leaders of the Church, but Christians nonetheless.
11. In contrast to some, there is nothing in the Christian religion that demands we, in our earthly sojourn, must have Christian rulers or even a certain kind of government. If a beloved Christian chieftain or king were to step down to establish a democracy, even with the caveat that the elected ruler must be Christian (e.g. “firm Nicean”) – or at least persons sympathetic to Christianity – it is reasonable to debate whether or not this would, generally speaking, be a responsible move.
12. Nevertheless, there is no theological reason, in theory, that a Democratic or Republican (understood classically, not in terms of the American political parties) Liberal Christian Nation should not be desirable – along with the desire to keep it thusly (Ben Franklin: “A Republic – if you can keep it” – see here).
13. But if this is the case, here, a “balance of powers” is only one part of the puzzle. Collective theological – and hence cultural – formation must be seen as being absolutely critical: in order to have equality under the law, real respect for the dignity and rights of each individual, a wise degree of cultural tolerance, etc., one must, simply, have Christian teaching. “Liberal Christianity” and their progressive allies are, in fact, parasitical here (see here).
14. As “childless men who had forgotten their childhoods” (Bertand de Jovenel), Hobbes and Locke (largely followed by Leo Strauss, the father of “neo-conservatism”) believed the false philosophy that we are by nature “free and independent,” naturally “ungoverned and even non-relational.” (see here) Hypothesizing “states” (personal and corporate!) that are devoid of nationality, ethnicity, and religion is simply unreasonable, and can’t not result in expressions of social Darwinism, glorifying the powerful and attractive, and impatient with, and dismissive towards (or worse) “losers”.
15. When it comes to the sexes, the Left has, in essence, rejected fatherhood as a category. Might not the rejection of the notion of “fatherland” by related? (this article is worth pondering) America cannot be “an idea,” however much that statement might force us to consider its seemingly unique qualities.
16. As traditional Christian thought and practice loses its hold in areas of the world, Liberal Christian Nations would nevertheless hold to their right to, as the world says, “self-determine” (actually: the right to be who it, by God’s truth and grace, knows itself to be – along with the Church of which it is a part).
17. All ethnic groups and the nations that they form must – much like colleges and universities in fact – more or less consciously take deliberate steps to indoctrinate their people into a specific and limited range of acceptable ways of understanding the world (there are always certain views that one and one’s community will determine to be “out of bounds”).
18. Charles de Gaulle said that “Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.” A friend said “Nationalism is pagan worship of the state as an expression of blood and soil European tribalism. It is neither Christian nor conservative. And it isn’t American.” This would not be a Christian understanding of nationalism – the kind that are Christian fathers, including Martin Luther, embraced – which would actually dovetail with what we call “patriotism”.
19. “If you love something, you let it be free”. Unlike other religions, God’s Kingdom is “not of this world”, and therefore Christian love – the Church’s love – as it is expressed in the world, begets a political tolerance which may bestow “the right to be wrong”: in one’s heart of hearts, the beloved is absolutely free to reject the Lover of the whole creation (Psalm 145:9) who would help transform their ethnos.
20. The hope that all persons would be able to freely express themselves and become the selves and nations they wish to be is true, pure and lovely (Philippians 4:8) – even as it is a hope that simply cannot reasonably be fulfilled in all situations (even secular persons recognize the world embraces very evil ideas).
21. Therefore Christians, while still holding to critical norms in their Churches, institutions, and nations, should not only eschew physical force as much as possible (a nation must however, be ruled by moral laws which sometimes need to be enforced by force) and practice forbearance, but can seek to understand – and sympathize with insofar as possible for them (i.e. without sin) – the unbelieving world in its search for identity, security and meaning (see the Apostle Paul in Acts 14 and 17, for example).
22. And yet, in their efforts to take a stand, make their voices heard, and influence the wider world that they inhabit, Liberal Christian Nations would have the freedom to directly or indirectly – through artistic, didactic, or political means – confront contemporary voices that promote certain views determined to be “out of bounds” – for their community, and beyond, as determined necessary.
23. Nevertheless, the practice of highlighting persuasion through conversation, with a view towards seeking what is true and just, should be the most important tool for a Liberal Christian Nationalist. The significance and real impact of cultural and racial differences (ethnicity) are not ignored, but our common nature as reasoning creatures who can manage to communicate with another and can’t not – at some level at least – be concerned about matters of truth, is highlighted above all.
24. For example, those who, shunning simplicity of life, live in pursuit of land-grabbing (e.g. the taking of native’s lands, the Mexican-American war, colonialization and subsequent exploitation, Mohammad’s conquests, etc.) are morally wrong for reasons able to be explored and explained by the Golden Rule. Even as constant retaliation is no answer either (a kind of “statute of limitations” needs to exist here, entrusting final judgment to God).
25. In general, societies which show themselves to be both non-land-grabbing and which exhibit long-term endurance must follow the Golden Rule to some extent, and therefore have something to commend themselves (even if we might think that they need significant reform in other areas).
26. According to Jason Brennan in the National Interest, “high-information voters favor free trade, globalization, immigration and civil libertarianism,” but clearly, legitimate pros and cons can be identified for each of these issues. By what criteria do we evaluate these things? G.D.P.? Efficiency? Having enough jobs so that wives can make good money as well as husbands? What about the effects on those closest to us?
27. For the Christian is to love all, but must ask: how to prioritize my love, i.e. to be concrete when it comes to “doing good unto…”? “Who are my people?” is the key question. Answer: 1. God alone 2. The future heavenly Nation, the Church 3. My family/tribe 4. My immediate neighbors, without respect to race or creed (even as my immigration view might be in some real tension with this) 5. My town/city 6. My country 7. The world – including anyone God throws in my path personally. Ideally, all of these things work together. In reality, difficult decisions – including many we may possibly come to regret – need to be made.
28. Likewise, “racism” can be a tricky issue – even trying to be “colorblind,” can be insensitive, and it is foolish to insist to persons adopted from other ethnic groups that the confused feelings they may experience are wholly unwarranted. And if some societies desire, for example, to remain largely ethnically homogenous (e.g. Japan, China, Hungary, etc.) or even religiously homogenous (Saudi Arabia, Israel), does this mean countries who believe that all can and should strive to support more racial and religious diversity should attempt to force their will on these countries through hard or soft power?
29. While we all must fight fear of others not just like us, “racist” is a thoughtless slur in our society – definitions are rarely offered. Simply put, racists are those who assert that their biological identify is intrinsically superior to those of others – and subsequently understand reality primarily through this lens (it is their ultimate principles). Believing that something we might loosely call “Western civilization” is, as a whole, better than alternatives – or merely ultimately preferring it to other ways or forms of life – cannot reasonably be called racism.
30. If those sharing common genetics are found to possess greater intelligence, artistic ability, strength, beauty – or any other particular quality or combination of qualities – this does not mean they are intrinsically superior in value. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. In like fashion, good parents and other family members will not even show less love to a child who has a severe disability or, less seriously, lacks other desired qualities.
31. All this said, in truth, ethnic diversity is often not a strength and conducive to a society’s flourishing (perhaps, in certain circumstances, it may ultimately end up being so – looking at the origin of the British people, for example?) While a generous act – particularly when addressing dire needs – accepting foreign immigrants may well be to a society’s disadvantage (note the church’s historic teaching on the topic). There are, in fact, many advantages of having a more ethnically homogenous society, starting with the simple ability to communicate, and extending to the convenience offered by shared cultural norms (listen to the discussion here).
32. Nevertheless, whatever one’s thoughts about such issues, Christians in particular are to strive, in some fashion at least, to be kind and hospitable to outsiders – and to be mindful of and meditative on the beautiful picture of full reconciliation provided in Revelation 7: “there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.”

FIN

 

Images: Images: Christian flag from Pixabay (free use) ; Christus Victor: https://adorationlc.org/2014/10/04/christus-victor/

Note:

[i] Discussing the current political situations in America and the list of principles which follows, I said this to an online discussion-partner:

“We are not promised the gates of hell will not destroy America. When I say, I want to retain the country I grew up with, that means retain, while it can be retained, what remains. I think it’s basically over. Conservative Inc. is done. I agree that even if Trump is elected, and stops the flow of cheap labor (and future Democrat voters), the odds that Christian conservatives will be able to gain influence in the “hollowed out” GOP (that Trump wears as a skin) – and then, on top of that, find an appealing candidate who can persuade others of our views – is basically nil… Culture is downstream from politics. Battle is lost. God has judged us as we deserve. Think the BenOp attitudes will become more common, and hopefully a government that does allow some religious liberty. I think what I objected to growing up was the “America is an idea” thing – that seemed strange to me. But I loved America. I don’t even know if I will vote for Trump. My list assumes that things are [politically] over for the American Christians now. It is probably more of a post-mortem reflection assuring me that God is in control, and that there is a better way of thinking about “American experiments” than the more Enlightenment frame (or perhaps even the Madisonian one – I don’t know, not having read enough of him, but I do recall reading a piece pointing out a key deficiency in his theology). As for unity, nationalism – understood to some degree as ethnicity – should unite us (vs the radical individualism)…. I think removing the notion of father [in the family] is indeed the problem, but perhaps, that downplaying, ignoring, or denying the notion of fatherland (not necessarily an idol) in favor of the nation being an idea, is connected….”

 

Heartfelt Spiritual Counsel for “Fabulous Internet Supervillain” Milo Yiannopoulos

Brieitbart provacatuer Milo Yiannopoulos, a.k.a. “Nero”

I recently watched a couple of interviews (here and here) the ever controversial Breitbart journalist Milo Yiannopoulos did with “Duck Dynasty” patriarch Phil Robertson about his new movie “Torchbearer”. According to an article from the same Breitbart news, the film’s “thesis” is that “sin has become mainstream in Western culture, which will soon lead to societal destruction.”

Yiannopoulos himself, a vigorous proponent and practitioner of free speech, identifies as both gay (flauntingly so) and Roman Catholic, and so I wondered how he would interact with Robertson, who a few years ago was fired (and then re-hired following protests) for remarks about the sinfulness of homosexuality.

Christian persecution is a topic of the aforementioned film, and according to Yiannopoulos’ boss Alexander Marlow, he was “very touched” during the film at the Cannes festival in France (where the interviews also took place). In Yiannopoulos’ own words, during the movie he was often “clutching [his] crucifixes and having tearful moments.” His being greatly affected by the film was in evidence during the interviews as well, as he complemented Robertson about the movie: “it even changed my mind about you…. I thought ‘this guy is smart and compassionate – I want to meet this guy.’”

Robertson: if they don’t buy it [the Gospel] we love them and move on… we love them and move on…

In the second interview they discussed Robertson’s temporarily being fired in Dec. of 2013 for simply sharing the “list of sins” in the Bible in response to a question about homosexual practice (“read that list and see if you are in there…”, Robertson quipped about his usual practice of helping people discover their sins). When Robertson talked about his personal experience seeing notorious sinners become godly men and women, Yiannopoulos replied, “other kinds of Christians are Christians because they think they are good people. Catholics are Catholics because they know they are not”, and this prompted a quick “that’s a good point”, from the “Duck commander”. When he later insisted that the pardon and power of Jesus Christ definitely “works”, Yiannopoulos responded, “I’m looking for a ‘pray it away camp’ that will work for me”, making one think – even if just for a moment – that he was quite serious.[i]

Recently, at a talk at the University of California – Santa Barbara, Yiannopoulos expounded on matters like these further, in response to the question “how do you reconcile being a Roman Catholic and a homosexual”. He began by politely suggested that the man asking the question did not really understand Catholicism, stating in part (see full comment here) the following:

The catholic church is different from the Anglican strain of Christianity not just because they’re wrong….I can’t remember who said this, but people are Anglicans… they’re Baptists or Methodists or whatever because they believe they’re good people. Well, Catholics are Catholics because they know they’re not…. we have this thing called original sin….we go to church because we know we’re not good, and I think for me at least, at least certainly living the lifestyle I do, that’s a more honest approach to theology than other sorts of Christianity have to offer.[ii]

First of all, when it comes to his claim that some of these groups attribute goodness to human nature – and hence themselves personally – this does, in fact, describe the views of many liberal Protestants (not to mention Catholics!). Furthermore, even though many conservative Anglicans, Baptists and Methodists would undoubtedly take issue with Yiannopoulos’ claim here, whether or not the struggle that the Apostle Paul describes with his sinful nature, or flesh (see Romans 7 and Galatians 5) – as when he cries out “who will rescue me from this body of death?” – applies to Paul as a Christian (and hence to Christians today) is evidently an open question in even many of these more conservative churches. So far at least, this “habitual sinner” can really identify (throughout our lives we each face our own particular crosses, temptations…and even sins) with Yiannopoulos’ rather striking answers.

Lutherans who hold to their confessions assert that Romans 7 describes Paul after he became a Christian.

And yet, then we get to the issues of Yiannopoulos’ comments about “living the lifestyle I do”. Is there a fight vs. sin here, or a sense of resignation due to the futility of fighting? Here, it seems, is the crux of the issue, and this is where my challenge to Yiannopoulos lies. He playfully kids about not having feelings, and doesn’t put a lot of stock in how “fact-free” people “feel”. So here I note that however much – or little – Christians have disagreed among themselves, they have, until only very recently, always claimed to be putting forth Scriptural teachings that, because they do not change, are able to give us the hope we so desperately need. In short, because these teachings are rooted in the very character of God Himself, His eternal law and eternal Gospel do not change – they, as Robertson was keen to point out, offer an anchor of stability and goodness we can trust…

And what this means is that those teachings have always been seen by Christians as something we today call “objective” (just subtract any Enlightenment connotations from it!) – i.e. they exist in a certain way no matter what we, personally, might feel about them (for more, see part 2. here) This, of course, holds true even for “the most fabulous supervillain on the internet.” To put this delicately to Milo (and I hope he sees this), is it not hard to claim allegiance to Jesus Christ when one is frequently giving the impression that he doesn’t need or want His forgiveness – at least for this or that thing He calls “sin”?[iii]

Yiannopoulos graciously reminding us of the kind of adulation Jesus deserves.

This forgiveness, of course, is something far more personal than the removal of the threat of punishment – it is, in fact, the act of continuing in, or the act of being ushered into, the closest of relationships with Almighty God Himself. It is because of the fact of this relationship that when He calls us “sinners” and calls our desires and actions “sins”, we are able to not only bear with this, but actually able to exult and glory in His companionship! As the One who rescues us from sin, death, and the devil through His atoning death and resurrection, He is our lovely Alpha (and Omega) – worthy of our highest honor, praise, and worship!

For non-Christians reading this, let me be clear: when it comes to considering our sins vis a vis such a One, there need be no “animus” towards any particular kind of sinner here. In other words, when it comes to particular Christians retaining these traditional views, there may well be as little “homophobia” in this or that case (here is what I published the day after last year’s Obergefell decision – homophobic?) as there is with Mr. Yiannopoulos’ purported misogyny, racism, or “transphobia”. This is something I have no doubt he would say “Amen” to.[iv] Blanket charges of “bigotry” and “animus” towards more traditional viewpoints like ours[v] are not only careless – they are, frankly, without a whiff of reason (just because I tell my children they are wrong when they are wrong, for example, doesn’t mean that I don’t love them).

In sum, to talk about the importance of all Christians acknowledging and confessing all of their sins is not to exult in self-righteousness (“I thank God we ‘good Christians’ are not like other men”) – thinking one is a Christian because one, over and against one’s fellow human beings, is or does good.

At the same time, neither is it to assert that our sin cannot sabotage the Christian life God grants. For example, when it comes to particularly nefarious and soul-killing sins like self-righteousness (a species of pride), perhaps Milo might readily say “Amen!” to what one Lutheran Christian on Twitter recently said: “Lord, forgive my sin. More importantly, forgive my righteousness, by which I suppose I have no sin, or little sin, or not as much as others.”

The advice is sound – even as we also realize that such righteousness would not be the true righteousness Christ creates “in us” (sanctification) by His being “for us” (justification), outside of us (see 2 Cor. 5). Such “righteousness” would rather be that which our “old Adam” claims – for it is we according to our sinful nature who are always eager not only to count and measure our progress over and against others – but to earn God’s final approval!

But that we cannot do, nor should we try. As the controversial Roman Catholic writer and renegade priest Brennan Manning said, it is like a plumber looking at Nigara Falls and saying “I think I can fix this” (read Romans 3!). No – for us it is simply as Jesus said: “So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’” (Luke 17:10). And the approval that ultimately matters comes in the peace and certainty He gives in, with, and through His own beloved Son’s sacrifice for us (see Rom. 5:1 and I John 5:12-13) – we stand before Him not because we are good, but He is. Of this we may be reminded again when we pray “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.”

Grace for sinners indeed! We bow to our kind Lord and Master – and perhaps kiss His feet and wipe them with our tears.

I am indeed pleased that Milo wants to identify with Jesus Christ and the great Christian tradition. And yet, if he is going to endeavor to speak for it, I would hope that he would be at great pains to accurately represent it. When something is as good as this – “as good as it gets” in fact! – you don’t want to get it wrong.

Jesus Christ: fabulously humble and simple – for us.

Dive in “Nero”. Jesus Christ, always provocative, had the utter nerve to say that His words were spirit and life, right? He further asserted that we live by every word that comes from the mouth of God! Who did – Who does – He think He is? (the caps might give that away)

In sum, Christianity is even better than the most fabulous earthly things we can imagine.

Bow, brother. Of course this habitual sinner is ready to stand by you through it all.

FIN

 

[i] Yiannopoulos has, in the past, said both that he wishes that he wasn’t gay, and that he thinks that God made him the way that he is in order to help him to overcome the atmosphere of identity politics, utterly confounding the academic left (and “just to make the heads of feminists spin”).

[ii] More from his comment: “Though here’s the thing: progressives will sometimes demand all manner of complex and weird acknowledgements themselves…they want to be a gender-queer-blah-blah – throw in cis… blah, blah but what they can’t seem to understand is other people asking for the same acknowledgement that life is messy and complicated, and that sometimes things aren’t fully recognized or realized or pulled together in your own mind and sometimes it takes a lifetime of study or prayer…”

This part of Yiannopoulos’s answer is perfect if the intention is merely to show that those who oppose him (generally on the left) are often inconsistent and irrational. But of course if he wants to strongly put forth the beliefs of his church as being different – that is of being rational and reasonable – his answer falls short.

[iii] Yiannopolous is known as a conservative in today’s cultural and political environment. That said, does his theological approach in fact resemble that of another provocateur, Nadia Bolz-Weber, whose Christianity, in turn, bears a striking resemblance to the philosophy of Hegel?

[iv] Yiannopoulos talks in the first interview about Robertson holding a “perfectly respectable opinion” that millions of Americans hold.

[v]  I have crtically touched on aspects of the “cultural libertarianism” he expounds on here: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/justandsinner/what-does-the-rise-of-trump-have-to-do-with-science-and-christianity/

 

Image credits (Creative Commons): Milo Yiannopoulos, photo by @Kmeron ; Phil Robertson speaking at CPAC 2015 in Washington, DC., by Gage Skidmore ; Milo on throne used with permission from @KingCrocoduck (twitter) ; Palm Sunday 10 by Waiting for the Word.

 

My response to the article cited by Anthony Sacramone in his blog post about losing faith

Not what He wants: “The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD, but the prayer of the upright is acceptable to him.” — Proverbs 15:8

 

Anthony Sacramone, a former editor of First Things and former author of the defunct blog Strange Herring, has written an article about losing his Christian faith. He is still a conservative of sorts, but he now says this:

One day, should enough people care, and the proper venue provide itself, I will attempt a more thoroughgoing explanation of what happened, of the internal revolution that has left me with no more confidence that the New Testament is reliable, inspired, true, or “inerrant” than I do that astrology, Marxism, or the Happy Healthy Vegan Kitchen is reliable, inspired, true, or inerrant.

If you are surprised or stunned by that last sentence, believe this: no more than I….

Frankly, the existence of an evil deity has far more explanatory power to me in relation to this vale of tears than either no god or a “good” god. But he doesn’t make for nearly as appealing Christmas carols.

I am very saddened to hear this. I’ve enjoyed Mr. Sacramone’s honest and heart-felt writing over the years, even as I got the sense sometimes that he was teetering near the edge.

As he says, he may in the future provide more details on his journey to where he is now. Suffice it to say, however, that he did drop a hint in his article:

In fact, I believe some of the worst pathologies of leftist-progressive thought has its roots in Christianity’s inability to come to terms with its own internal contradictions. For that matter, I have never understood how conservative pro-lifers could find support for their cause in the cult of YHWH, which, as Jon D. Levenson has shown, began with a fetish for child sacrifice that was only extinguished later in its history. (In fact, the early history of this deity, one of several in a Near Eastern pantheon but singled out by ancient Israel as its God, illustrates a near penchant for the killing of children. Think of the Flood and Canaanite-massacre narratives, not to mention the Matthaean infancy story, in which how many babies were supposedly slaughtered because a providential star led “wise men” to Herod first rather than directly to Bethlehem? Fortunately—for some Near Eastern families of antiquity, at least—this episode is a fiction, merely a reboot with different actors of the story of the slaughter of the Hebrew babies in Exodus.)

Nevertheless, because I am a conservative, I do not suddenly believe that the American experiment would be perfected if all religions were wiped from the cultural landscape….

The link to the chapter by Jon D. Levenson hit me pretty hard, because four years ago I had an LC-MS friend send it to me as well who, I got the impression, found the argument compelling (and he wanted me to read it).

Before I read it and replied to him (my friend, that is), I said this:

Well, evidently [child sacrifice] was legitimate among some of the neighbors – and, as false worship in Israel increased, those immersed in these things certainly would be tempted to take that Exodus 22 passage in isolation and use it apart from its full context, right?….

Since the fall, sacrifice is as natural as breathing for mankind (see Girard’s insights here as well).  Even those things considered most valuable among us – the things that seem to be the greatest cause for hope (like firstborn and firstfruits) – die and need to die because of sin.  The core concept is this: without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin.  We need bloodshed to absorb and protect us from the consequences [and] judgment that bloodshed-causing sin brings on itself (Passover as analogy here).  What we are dealing here in Exodus 12 and 13 are sin offerings: God is showing, through the example of the firstborn (again what is considered among us on earth to be more valuable and hope-giving than a firstborn?  I note that the wider creation to is redeemed… donkeys in Exodus 13 : ) ), that it is only through bloodshed that He provides (Jungel’s work here is good if I recall….) that the groaning creation is set right – even the things on earth that seem to be indicators of the most hope.  No, apart from God’s provision, there is no hope.  We are condemned.  Yet death conquers death.  What is hopeless brings hope.  What is meaningless brings meaning.

Now – how much did the Old Testament folks think along contours like this?  Well, the faithful among them at least understood the core truth that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin.  And they surely knew of the Promise.  That much is unmistakeable.

Also note: even thank offerings (not sin or guilt) that involve the shedding of blood would not exist if it were not for the power of sin in man that demands atonement.

After I read the article, this was my reply to him:

Babies.  Children.  Sacrifice.  So – I also finally read the article you gave me.  Thank you again for copying it for me and desiring to engage me (I presume) on this issue.

In response, I’ll just *try* to ask questions.  Answer any you feel comfortable answering and have time to answer.

By the way, the whole idea of Christians asking questions like these has been on my mind lately.  The whole question of “intellectual honesty” (3) as it relates to “academic freedom” (which we know, no institution of higher learning has en toto, as there are always parameters) is a difficult one.  Here at Concordia, it seems there is the potential for a new openness regarding the homosexual question (have run into this 2 x in the past week as regards some encounters with leadership here on campus).  Some may cheer, and others might wonder if God is sending us a strong delusion (2 Thes 2:11).  I take that latter view very seriously, even as I struggle to know how best to handle issues like these.

Questions.

1. …first of all, as I said in my previous email about this stuff, you may have to educate me as to why JEDP lives. Levenson’s argument on pages 3 and 4 strike me as odd, to say the least, for the reasons I mentioned earlier.  Now, I know there are issues with the simple “inerrantist” opinion, things that Sasse pointed out (i.e. there was no properly Christian theory on the nature of inspiration [i.e. it is a fact but what is the process?], what does it mean that they are also truly human literature, what about the fact that it was common for disciples to write books under their master’s names [i.e. Pythagorus, Isaiah?], why is almost every important event in the history of salvation told not once, but twice or even more often, what about situation like the David of Samuel or the pious David of the Chronicles,(why two version of Israel’s history and what seem to be contradictions?), is it the Hebrew canon or the Septuagint (not just a “translation”!) – why does the N.T. recognize both?  Are we working with the concept of truth of Greek philosophy, i.e. Aristotle’s logic?, in what way do we see truth and in what way must it be believed….?, what does it mean to do thorough historical research accompanied by thorough dogmatic thought?), but I do not need to accept uncritically this JEDP scholarship, do I?  What is one book that I absolutely must read as regards this?

2. Regarding Ezekiel 20:25, 26 (to dive right in), let’s assume that the laws God gives to indeed have to do with child sacrifice (as, I admit, it does seem to be the case, on the face of it). If that were indeed the case, why would it not be perfectly reasonable to think that the laws that God gave them, were simply the religious “codes” or “laws” of the godless – i.e. the Canaanites, or Israelites influenced by Canaanite practice?  I know that Hammurabi’s “code” did not really have to do much with religious matters, and that even Jahweh notes that the gods of other nations did not care enough about their people because they did not give them their law (as Yahweh did), but still – of course these nations had some of their own “theological or moral ideals” (which could be seen to go hand in hand with the concept of “law” – see Psalm 94:20 and Isaiah 10:1 here) – their gods most definitely preferred sacrifice, not obedience!  Why is it not the best explanation that, given the rest of the other “anti-infant sacrifice stuff” in the prophets and the Torah (again, JEDP here I know….) God gave the Israelites over to what they, in fact, wanted  (and with this, perhaps the hope that some, at least, would come to their senses)?  This is not to say that God desired this, but that he gave, after numerous attempts to alter the situation, man what he wanted – even as, as Luther says, “God is all in all”, as he energizes all of the life and activity of life in the universe – not to mention allows and permits certain things (therefore, he “does” them) , and uses evil for good in His plans as they unfold for us in history, even as they all times exist simultaneously for Him as He not only actively controls all things, but also reacts to His creatures, losing no control, but always actively remaining the Captain of the ship (in what sense is God “behind” all things? – in a sense like this…God only “decrees” Pharoah “do” evil [i.e. lets him do it] after numerous attempts to change Pharoah, and when Pharoah continues resisting as he does, he is appropriated into God’s plan for His glory in the way He is….)

3. Again, if we assume that Ezekiel 20:25 and 26 does indeed connect these laws to child sacrifice, it seems to me that this would mean that the Israelites were not being faithful to God’s Law because they were being idolaters (Ezekiel 20:18) – why should we assume that many Israelites (perhaps most, with only a few faithful remaining, a la Elijah) innocently misread Exodus 22:28-29 instead of assuming, that first, through the lure of the idolatry of the nations (i.e. unbelief and bad-character-forming actions) they had fallen into the practices of the nations (i.e. child sacrifice) and then, they perhaps justified their actions by reading Exodus 22:28-29 out of context (i.e. chapter 13:2,13)? (further, how would reading Exodus 22:28-29 in this way, given the failure to account for chapter 13 be a “literal interpretion” (8)?!) I also note that Levenson himself sees the Laws given as God’s retaliation for idolatry (7).  Therefore from my view, It’s not that God perverts their hermeneutics, but that he confirms them in their sin, which has caused them to previously adopt faulty hermeneutics (sin=spin) to justify their actions.  Why is this not the best way to look at things?  It certainly seems to flow with the rest of the biblical accounts, does it not?

4. When Levenson writes: “Could it be that Jeremiah’s hearers saw themselves as apostates or syncretists but as faithful YHWHists following the ancient tradition of their religion?” I get very confused. Is this not always how syncretists and apostates see themselves?  When is it otherwise?  Does Kathryn Jeffries Schori see herself as an apostate and syncretist?   Definitely not.  Nevertheless she is.

5. Levenson quotes Greenberg “at least from the time of the last kings of Judah it was popularly believed that YHWH accepted, perhaps even commanded [child sacrifice]” and then he comments “What is curious in Greenberg’s comment is his certainty that popular practice was so radically separate from the normative religion.Why , if there is no evidence in the Bible (outside of Ezek. 20:25-26) for the sacrifice of the first-born son to YHWH, did so many Israelites come to adhere to such a practice?” (end quote)  I reply:  why, if there is no evidence in the Bible that homosexual activity is permissible did so many who follow the lead of Gene Robinson and Kathryn Jeffries Schori, did so many Episcopalians (and ELCA, and Presbyterians, etc. etc. – in spite of the fact of the Orthodox presences around them!) come to adhere to such a practice?  I know – from their (your?) perspective – the passages in Romans could very well be the equivalent of the “bad laws” of Ezekiel 20.  How to know?  The Spirit of course.  But why is it wrong to ultimately approach the Scriptures (after as much historical investigation as desired has been engaged in) with the view that Jesus himself seems to have of the Old Testament?  Believe like a child the simple words?  (saying, it might seem this other view is likely, but ultimately, there is much we can’t confidently assert here….)

6. Obviously, I do not think that the “the latter opinion… better fits the biblical data: YHWH once commanded the sacrifice of the first-born but now opposes it”.

7. Regarding Molech (10), why should God not execute Molech by the instrument of his own choosing – Tophet? Why not put him down via his own bread and butter?  Does Levenson have no sense of sweet poetic justice?

8. Why not assume that at the time Micah writes he does not condemn child sacrifice because he didn’t need to – because it was now widely known now due to Hosea and Isaiah having made known the teachings of the Penteteuch again. Why not assume that everyone in their audience basically now knows this?  Just because the pagans may have thought that child sacrifice was the greatest act of devotion to god – i.e. he desired [a cult of child] sacrifice not obedience – does not mean that the prophet expected his readers to buy into this.

9. Top of 12: “presented lovingly to his Lord”. Ugh.  As to why the account of Abraham and Isaac survived in the midst of this condemnation of child sacrifice (which, according to my reading of Genesis, I believe is condemned in that very book as well), why should we not assume that the most important thing here is that Abraham was willing to ***obey**** God here when it was, understandably really, really hard?  Levenson, states Gen. 22 shows that Abraham’s piety “was not to be taken as paradigmatic – a most unlikely interpretation”.  Why not say that it *is* but that the key point is to let God be God.  To listen to Him even when He seems to contradict what He says elsewhere, because we trust Him to fulfill His promises?  To think that He desires obedience, not sacrifice?  Paradigmatic indeed – but not because of a general piety that embraces child sacrifice as part and parcel of this piety!  Why is Levenson’s suggestion here not bordering on ridiculous and parody?  If this were as important as he claims why would this practice not be continued in the Scriptures (again, one must assume JEDP….) by other prominent and respected fathers of the faith?

10. Regarding Jephthah (not a prominent and respected father of the faith, by the way), the author of Judges is notoriously vague on whether many of the things he shares are descriptive rather than prescriptive, but I’d suggest the last line of the book should have the most weight here (everyone did what was right…) Why not simply assume that Jephthah, though heroic, is simply evidence of how incredibly affected Israel was by their neighbor’s views?  I think this simply underscores the tragedy of how badly off the Israelites were.  And yet, God was merciful and worked through such corrupt folks as these, who had gotten so far from the truth.

11. I don’t think II Kings 3:26-27 necessarily underscores the “full acceptability of this act even to the Israelite author of this narrative”. I think it could just as well underscore how much the demons appreciated and actually reciprocated child sacrifice.  It really works.  See Girard as well.

12. P. 16 and 17: God is in the dock everywhere here. It is hard for me to not see all of this reasoning as undermining the message that the Scriptures really present.   Our Spirit-suppressing hermeneutics are a sight to behold.

I know my saying this might cause you to feel that you want to stop the conversation, but I hope not!  Know that I think all of us are permeated with the Satanic, since his venom is deep within us, infecting us, killing us and driving our relationship-killing actions as you say.

But Christ is risen as well, as you say.

(end of email to my friend)

My friend never responded to my questions though I will not assume it is because he would not be able to provide answers to them. It’s just as possible it may have simply fallen off his radar.

In any case, I hope that if these questions are not helpful to Mr. Sacramone, they may at least be helpful to others who have read Levenson.

Our God does not desire the death of the wicked – whether they be old or young – period. Jesus, who bid the little children come to Him, fully reveals to us the face of YHWH. Little ones to Him belong… they are weak and He is strong.

And this strong one – again, who is the only one who can help us understand the Old Testament in its depths – puts to flight the lies of the evil one. As I noted in a recent post about Martin Luther’s view of Scripture, summing up a recent paper from my pastor (partially quoting him):

“Luther gives the impression of believing ‘Scripture to be a coherent whole, in spite of its many writers, languages, historical contexts and transmission issues… [and] Where conundrums were discovered he let them be.’”

In other words, if the explanation that I am hinting at above in my questions to my friend is not the correct one, there is, rest assured, another one. Christ shows us the kindness of God – even as He still speaks of hell! (He is decidedly not a safe and tame lion!) – and reveals His firm desire to save all from all the myriad varieties of unlove, unlive, and unlight that Satan would peddle.

“Jesus loves me” – and all – “this I know“, by the grace of God. That grace that continues to reach out to, and be there for, Mr. Sacramone as well.

Much love to you sir!

FIN

 

Image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Foster_Bible_Pictures_0074-1_Offering_to_Molech.jpg

 

My Six Sentence Secular Response to President Obama and Liberals in His Train

So, maybe like you, I woke up this morning to this:

Coincidently, yesterday I spent a couple hours thinking about and writing the following, which addresses issues very much like this:

When Richard Rorty defines truth as “what our peers will let us get away with saying”, how does this not, in effect, make truth liable to being nothing more than a power play for one’s advantage? From which it follows that it is really true (!) that it is ultimately only things that overpower other things that can be said to exist… to be. This certainly puts a new spin on what Aristotle said about truth, namely that “to say that which is, is and that which is not is not, is true”! With this assumed, the best among us can only be those who take – and lead – leaps of faith into oceans, hoping that the evolving beliefs we think are “good” – and not just our genes – will be spread and passed on. Here, any classical notions of knowledge as “justified true belief” are banished as whatever can win, if only temporarily, is all that remains for us to hope in. On the other hand, what if what we ultimately need is real knowledge… real wisdom… involving a truth that even goes beyond “accuracy” – implying perhaps even a goodness that goes beyond our own subjective impressions?

The President is making a grave mistake here, even as it is a mistake that, given his view of the world, he can hardly avoid making. Still, as I implied earlier this week, this kind of “compassion” is a lie: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/justandsinner/intelligent-public-discourse-on-transgenderism-able-to-moderate-the-current-bathroom-battle/ …

Update:

I had sent the paragraph above to my pastor, along with my three-part explanation of how my Christian faith dovetailed with it:

• Many believe knowledge is power. Further, power is truth. In short, what works to accomplish the desires I believe are good that I have for myself and those I choose to love is true.
• But if truth is only about the “is” that overcomes and outwits the desires of those we compete with by “effective knowledge practices” are we not left without hope?
• If we desire to become that “is” ourselves, are we not embracing not what we are meant to be and become, but rather death itself? Death is that “is”. But there is also “I am”.

My pastor comments:

“As I understand what you have written:

In the world, knowledge is power and power establishes truth. More simply: Power establishes truth. So the question: In order to “grasp” the “truth” must we acknowledge, believe in, succumb to, or simply embrace the “power”? Whatever we do, however, we do not discover what is true, but simply become the “power”.

If I remember right, this was the subject-matter of Orwell’s “1984”.

FIN

 

Intelligent Public Discourse on Transgenderism – Able to Moderate the Current “Bathroom Battle”?

Are there limits to our interpretations of reality or to what our imaginations can construct and build?

.

If you are a serious Christian – or even if you aren’t – and you feel like you could use a good primer on the issues transgenderism presents, I wrote this article for you. And… I even revised my initial draft with the help of this article by David Blankenhorn about being an effective de-polarizer (learned about it here). We’ll see if it works. : )

One can rest assured that most traditional Christians think that the new progressive (will refrain from putting that in scare quotes!) demands regarding “bathroom laws” are both a bad and unnecessary idea, even if they don’t speak out about it.

And why might they not raise their voices?

When even professors from Harvard University now suggest treating conservative Christians, the losers in the culture wars, the way that America treated Germany and the Japanese after World War II, one might begin to understand such unwillingness on the part of some (others might have other reasons as well). On the other hand, Christians can always hope and pray that some of our other liberal friends will take the tack of New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof instead. In any case, we who just celebrated Ascension Day are confident that Jesus reigns already, even as “at present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him”, as the author of the book of Hebrews (2:8) put it.

Israeli transgender flag by Ponetium

On to the specific issue at hand.

Some Christians, like Aaron Wolf for example, make a case that making an effort to win this battle is a losing cause. As Wolf puts it, “When we as a society accepted the notion of transgenderism itself, we lost the bathroom battle”. Based on what I have read, I am not sure that is right and want to lay out some of the more interesting content that I have found on the very helpful website Public Discourse, which

is an online publication of the Witherspoon Institute that seeks to enhance the public understanding of the moral foundations of free societies by making the scholarship of the fellows and affiliated scholars of the Institute available and accessible to a general audience.

What follow, therefore, are clips from a few of the articles on the website dealing with transgenderism that I found particularly helpful and interesting. I’ve divided the concerns into a few main categories.

I. What can account for the transgender inclinations some persons experience?

Gregory Brown writes in his article, “Conservatives and Transgenderism: A Response to Jennifer Gruenke” (see Gruenke’s Public Discourse piece here) the following:

I welcome Jennifer Gruenke’s recent essay in Public Discourse, wherein she describes the rare intersex condition “from a biological point of view” and argues that, given the scientific facts surrounding many of these cases, conservatives should take a more tempered approach toward transgenderism. As long as other possible explanations of gender dysphoria are ruled out, she argues, conservatives should give transgender people the benefit of the doubt and take their introspective reports at their word. Because there is a plausible genetic account of transgenderism, conservatives should assume that the transgender person’s professed divergence between bodily sex and reported gender is a result of some variety of intersex condition.

Unfortunately, I do not find Gruenke’s case convincing…

This account of sex.. has much in common with the account of sex identity that Christopher Tollefsen recently introduced at Public Discourse. Because human beings reproduce sexually, human beings are either male or female in the typical case, and their sex corresponds with the function that their reproductive organs can play in coitus. There is no other principled way for picking out the sexes.

As Tollefsen argues, sex being so defined, it is not even possible to change one’s sex, and attempts to do so will mutilate otherwise functional organs. So long as the practice of medicine is correctly understood as the practice of restoring human bodies to their proper functioning, gender-reassignment surgeries will fall outside the domain of medicine. The conservative can happily grant Gruenke’s biological account, for the sake of argument if not because it is true—there is a fair bit of disagreement over the science and how best to interpret it, after all. But Gruenke’s account, in what it presupposes, offers only reasons to accept Tollefsen’s argument, while offering nothing to resist his conclusion…”

To another of Gruenke’s objections, Brown writes:

“It would be silly to doubt the honesty of an anorexic person; though we think there is something wrong with her introspective report, we do not doubt that there is something behind it, that she makes it for some reason. The anorexic person might have brain chemistry similar to that of someone who is overweight. In fact, the chemical imbalance might be a result of some heritable mutation, shared by one’s identical twin. But an anorexic person’s introspective report is nevertheless incorrect.”

Consider reading the whole thing.

II. Concerns about the mental health – and lives – of the transgender community

Walt Heyer, in his article “The Danish Girl: People Aren’t Born Transgender, But Playing Dress-Up Can Spark Psychological Problems”, writes the following:

The usual diagnosis for patients who identify as transgender is “gender dysphoria.” According to the DSM-5 (the latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), gender dysphoria is characterized by a marked incongruence between one’s experienced/expressed gender and one’s biological sex, lasting at least six months. Although it isn’t talked about much, studies show a majority of transgender patients suffer from other comorbid (co-existing) disorders.

A 2011 survey found that 41 percent of transgender people reported attempting suicide at least once. Unhappiness and suicides were first reported in 1979 by a doctor at Harry Benjamin’s gender clinic, endocrinologist Dr. Charles Ihlenfeld. After six years administering cross-gender hormone therapy to five hundred transgender patients, Dr. Ihlenfeld said that 80 percent of the people who want sex-reassignment surgery should not have it. The reason? The high rates of suicide among the post-operative transgender population. More startlingly, Dr. Ihlenfeld stated that transgender surgery was never intended to be a life-long treatment solution, but only a temporary reprieve.

In another article titled “50 Years of Sex Changes, Mental Disorders, and Too Many Suicides”, Heyer writes…

… Charles Ihlenfeld administered hormone therapy to some 500 transgender people over a period of six years at Benjamin’s clinic—until he became concerned about the outcomes. “There is too much unhappiness among people who have the surgery,” he said. “Too many of them end as suicides. 80% who want to change their sex shouldn’t do it.” But even for the 20% he thought might be good candidates for it, sex change is by no means a solution to life’s problems. He thinks of it more as a kind of reprieve. “It buys maybe 10 or 15 years of a happier life,” he said, “and it’s worth it for that.”

But then, Ihlenfeld himself never had a sex change. I did, and I disagree with him on that last point: The reprieve is not worth it. After I had a reprieve of seven or eight years, then what? I was worse off than before. I looked like a woman—my legal documents identified me as a woman—yet I found that at the end of the “reprieve” I wanted to be a man every bit as passionately as I had once yearned to be a woman. Recovery was difficult…

…two powerful and influential doctors were early pioneers in the treatment of transsexualism. Dr. Ihlenfeld is a homosexual psychiatrist; Dr. Paul McHugh is a heterosexual psychiatrist. Both came to the same conclusion, then and now: Having surgery did not resolve the patients’ psychological issues.

… A 2014 study found 62.7% of patients diagnosed with gender dysphoria had at least one co-occurring disorder, and 33% were found to have major depressive disorders, which are linked to suicide ideation. Another 2014 study of four European countries found that almost 70% of participants showed one or more Axis I disorders, mainly affective (mood) disorders and anxiety.

Again, suicide rates of this group are very high:

… Transgender people report attempting suicide at a staggering rate—above 40%. According to Suicide.org, 90% of all suicides are the result of untreated mental disorders. Over 60% (and possibly up to 90% as shown at Case Western) of transgender people have comorbid psychiatric disorders, which often go wholly untreated.

His conclusion is devastating:

Allowing a political agenda to override and silence the scientific process will not prevent suicides or lead to better treatments for this population. It’s not compassion; it’s reckless disregard for people’s lives.

Also in this article, Heyer links to a piece that Paul McHugh, mentioned above, wrote about these issues in the magazine First Things. In the article, titled “Surgical Sex: Why We Stopped Doing Sex-Change Operations”, he concluded as follows:

I have witnessed a great deal of damage from sex-reassignment. The children transformed from their male constitution into female roles suffered prolonged distress and misery as they sensed their natural attitudes. Their parents usually lived with guilt over their decisions—second-guessing themselves and somewhat ashamed of the fabrication, both surgical and social, they had imposed on their sons. As for the adults who came to us claiming to have discovered their “true” sexual identity and to have heard about sex-change operations, we psychiatrists have been distracted from studying the causes and natures of their mental misdirections by preparing them for surgery and for a life in the other sex. We have wasted scientific and technical resources and damaged our professional credibility by collaborating with madness rather than trying to study, cure, and ultimately prevent it.

III. Concerns about the encroachment of these issues into the lives of children

In her article, “Transgenderism Has No Basis in Science or Law“, Margaret A. Hagen writes:

While no one is yet publicly advocating the surgical alteration of children, loud voices in the media and among advocates—even at Boston Children’s Hospital—have called for and have even implemented hormone therapy to delay the onset of children’s puberty in order to facilitate gonadectomy later in their teens or young adulthood. Research on the sexual development of children who at some point are seen to be nonconformist shows that more than 80 percent of such children outgrow their “transgenderism” by the end of their teens. Interference with the normal sexual development of children on the basis of political ideology is not just unethical—it is child abuse. It is not only past time for an extensive public discussion of this practice; it is past time to put an end to it.

In light of this, might progressives better understand the position taken by the state of North Carolina namely that of “allow[ing] accommodations based on special circumstances, including but not limited to transgender individuals”? I thought “hard cases ma[d]e bad law”.

Another very interesting point in this article (not related to children) is the following:

The conviction that one is a “one-limbed person trapped in a multi-limbed body” is now being treated as an actual mental disorder called “Body Integrity Identity Disorder.” Seven such patients are reported as having had an arm or a leg electively amputated as “treatment” for this disorder. Immediate post-operative reports seem to be positive, but what about follow-up reports on life as a voluntary amputee ten and twenty years after the surgery? How about an extensive social discussion of the ethical limits of elective amputation—both for the doctors and for the society at large?

Some other good articles at Public Discourse you might want to check out include the following:

An African-American Woman Reflects on the Transgender Movement by Nuriddeen Knight

Is Christian Teaching on Sexuality Psychologically Harmful? by Andrew T. Walker and Glenn Stanton

Sex Identity by Christopher O. Tollefsen

Gender Identity by Christopher O. Tollefsen

“Sex Change” Surgery: What Bruce Jenner, Diane Sawyer, and You Should Know by Walt Heyer

When My Father Told Me He Wanted to Be a Woman by Denise Shick

The Girl in the Tuxedo: Two Variations on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity by Jean C. Lloyd

Transgenderism: A Pathogenic Meme by Paul McHugh

The Absurdity of Transgenderism: A Stern but Necessary Critique by Carlos D. Flores

Our Great Sexual Adventure: Where Does It End? by Jeremy Neill

The End of Single-Sex Higher Ed by Kelsey Paff

Freedom to Change Your Life: Why the Government Shouldn’t Ban “Reparative Therapy” by Walt Heyer

North Carolina’s Bathroom Bill and the Constitution by E. Gregory Wallace

And one of my favorites: The New Dignity: Gnostic, Elitist, Self-Destructive Will-to-Power by Roberta Green Ahmanson

My conclusion is that we do not need to deny that there may very well a biological component to transgenderism. In any regard, I think based on what was said above, it makes sense to be opposed to progressive bathroom laws for reasons other than concerns about enabling male predators, as Wolf also points out. There is also a good case to be made that the government should not give the impression that transgenderism is a good thing. In any case, I think it is certainly right for us to have compassion for those who deal with these issues, while at the same time remembering that “hard cases make bad law”, as many in the legal profession put it.

Of course, for the Christian, there is a wider concern about what all of this means in the big picture. First, there are the concerns that are raised, and second, there is, in light of this knowledge, the hope that we gain. Here, Scripture can give us the clue that even much that seems to occur according to nature has to do with the Fall into sin, and this presents us with the opportunity to talk about the promise of the God-Man Jesus Christ. Christ and His redemption help us to address the nagging sense we all have that the world is not the way it is supposed to be – He saves us not only from our sins (and death and the devil), but also the effects of the sin which manifests itself differently from person to person (more on that here).

FIN

 

 

 

 

“I feel like most religions are based on the same basic principles.” Yes?

A student writes (shared with permission):

Our chat was nice and when someone asked the questions about different religions.  This is always confusing to me because I do not understand how people look down at other’s beliefs. I also find it difficult to understand how you can get along with and close friends with someone if you are so different in beliefs or if one person believes that the other isn’t going to heaven if they are not Christian. So people say I love and respect this person yet they are not going to heaven?  I feel like most religions are based on the same basic principles. Even Yancey explained that all religions want us to be pure and kind to ourselves and others, so why then is it so bad to disagree? My way is not the right way for everyone and this is not just applicable to religion.

My response:

Y,

Thanks for your honest comments. Yes, there are persons who are friends and yet believe that there friend is not on the right side of God’s judgment. I understand that might be hard to grasp, but a Christian, who is commanded to love his/her enemies, can certainly keep that in tension.

Are there similarities between Christianity and other religions? Sure, there are some. Many religions generally teach some form of the law, for example, what we see in the “second table” of the Ten commandments. In other words, honor your father and mother, do not murder, to not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness…. I am not sure about not coveting! Other religions also generally have the negative form of the Golden Rule, i.e. “do not do to other people what you do not want them to do to you”. Many times, even atheists think these rules make a good deal of sense, and of course, anyone, regardless of their religion or lack thereof, believes in a right and a wrong (even if they deny it). Here much common ground can be found, even if the other religions do not acknowledge the God of Israel and His Son Jesus Christ. On the other hand, in some religious systems the gods or spirits do not even care about people enough to give them guidance via laws. These gods exist to be feared and appeased. Law and order is provided by those on earth who have power – and have historically often claimed to be gods themselves.

As I said in class, “thank God Jesus is God”. And He is different! Other religious leaders, for example, did not have clear prophecies uttered about them hundreds of years before they were born (see Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53 for some of the most striking). Other leaders did not perform miracles like Christ that confirmed Messianic prophecies (see what Jesus tells a doubting John the Baptist in Luke 7). Other leaders did not claim to be God (see the great “I am” statement in John 8, where Jesus claims the same thing for Himself that Yahweh does in the Old Testament). And of course other leaders did not claim to be the only way to come to the Father (“I am the way, the truth and the life – no one comes to the Father except through me”). Nor were they raised by the Father in order to have their claims vindicated and to give life to the world (new life to a fallen world that is). So yes – other leaders did not endure a shameful death on the cross for the sin of the world before seeing the vindication of a resurrection from the dead. For me, it all comes down to this: I want to follow the One who is risen from the dead.

But some might ask this:

“How do we know that Muslims aren’t worshipping the same God without realizing it? How do we know that Muslims just don’t believe in the Trinity, and that God (our God) is who they call Allah?”

I’ll address this issue in general first. Biblically, there is only one God. People do see God in different ways, but the Bible would assert that those who understand God, His view, and His actions differently than those ascribed to Him in the Bible are “misinterpreting” Him to say the least. The Bible calls it idolatry. Again, there is the true Jesus and false Jesus’ as well Paul tells us. Biblically speaking, these false views of God are not harmless, but as I said in the first chat, connected with the demonic. Here one thinks of Elijah’s confrontation with the false God Baal, who incidently, like most old pagan gods and goddesses, encouraged some pretty corrupt practices, like temple prostitution, child sacrifice, etc.

One might say from a Christian perspective, the Jewish and Muslim versions of God are not quite as bad, as they more closely resemble the Christian God in some respects. That said, what they are missing is quite key though: Jesus. They specifically deny that Jesus is who He said He was, which is God incarnate (see John 8) come to save the world from sin. Without Him there is no sacrifice for sins left, and whoever denies Him denies the Father.

I understand if people do not believe any of that – and I will defend person’s right not to believe it, as I expect them to defend my right. I think it is important for persons to have a good sense of what they are rejecting though. I think persons often don’t.

Regarding the idea that we all worship the same God for me it is like this. Let’s say you and I are talking and we realize we both know the same person. How cool! Let’s say we go on thinking this is the case for a while.. that is, until we start talking about the person in more detail. It is only then – after we have more information – that we realize that we actually were not talking about the same person at all.

Getting into a lot of depth about the actual teachings of other world religions can be a real eye-opener. Take a look at this first page of this document. I put that chart together mostly from memory (my study of other faiths) – and am certainly open to being corrected about any of it.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3Etm0mkvfrCNzhRbDIzLWlXa0U/edit?pref=2&pli=1

As I said on the dbs…Here in wintry Minnesota, I went sledding with my boys the other day. The three year old could not walk up the steep hill. One son said he wouldn’t help him. Another said he couldn’t help him. Only father was both good and strong enough to help. Likewise, only the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ – who refuses to be thought of apart from His Son – is strong enough to help us, to save us, from our desperate condition of bondage to sin, death, and the devil.

I know this was a lot. I hope it helps somewhat.

+++

For more thoughts on this issue, see this more recent post: https://infanttheology.wordpress.com/2020/02/28/is-it-arrogant-to-believe-that-we-know-the-real-god-and-the-rest-are-unaware/

 

For Scalia, R.I.P. – Why Nature Must Be Stopped

I say “You shall not pass!” My friend Arya says “By the Spirit we shall.”

I dedicate this post to now deceased SCOTUS justice Antonin Scalia. May he rest in peace.

“Not to resent offenses is the mark of a base and slavish man.” — Aristotle

“I attack ideas, I don’t attack people – and some very good people have some very bad ideas.” — Antonin Scalia

+++

In a recent internet conversation, a woman named Arya Blynde took exception to a comment I had made about the ancient Latin poet Ovid, who said “I approve the better course, and yet I choose the worse”. Regarding this I had commented, “In a world increasingly devoid of Christian truth, even relatively good heathen like the Latin poet Ovid, all too aware of their inner darkness and failures, will be harder and harder to find.” Arya opposed me on this with great zeal.

That said, Ms. Bynde is delightfully civil, frank, and easy to talk to – the kind of opponent a good debater like to have. She also has unflagging conviction one can respect and appreciate. When I said “Long live the soft patriarchy. Long live complementarity. Long live the defenders to the weakest and most helpless among us – I feel like Gandalf saying to you ‘you shall not pass’”, she wrote me a longer response saying, “thank you – but we shall pass”.

Since I think it is a good thing for Christians to be aware of articulate and rhetorically powerful arguments from those who disagree with us, I asked Arya if I could publish her response on this blog. I appreciate her willingness to let me do this, and hope you enjoy her penetrating comments. Like many editors, I have made some small changes and have chosen the title for this article, admittedly making it a bit more sexy and provocative than the article itself. Enjoy her piece:

Why Nature Must Be Stopped

by Arya Blynde [note: yes, this is a satirical piece written by me, [Infanttheology], in case anyone is confused]

Rachel – I am perplexed at the hostility shown to you for simply being true to your inner self. – Arya B.

Nature has this annoying habit of stacking the deck against those of us who long for progress and liberation. It, for example, predisposes us to label things and put them in categories that are actually only as real as we imagine them to be. Christian-Muslim, white-black (hang in there Rachel Dolezal…your truth — and critical thinking — will overcome!), male-female – we know that all of these labels are simply social constructs that have no reality beyond what we imagine. What really matters, of course, is the freedom of our human spirit — and love. But nature, sadly, is persistent

What do I mean? Well, nature, among its many problems, has issues pertaining to privilege. Take, for example, the rights of [cis] women

(note: this, in shorthand, means women who are born in women’s bodies — if you are not up with this vocabulary yet, please read this — it’s critical you get peoples’ preferred pronouns right: he, she, ze…).

It’s just not fair that…

• their bodies should attract so much unwanted attention from cis males (that is, for my knuckle-dragging friends, men who are born in men’s bodies)[i]
• their proclivity to bear[ii] and nurture children makes it more difficult for them to keep kids’ demands in perspective and get on with real work
• women should have to take extra special care to make sure fetuses are not harmed due to alcohol consumption in utero, or be prone to feel shame over not trying to exclusively give children breastmilk, the best available nourishment (see here[iii])
• a woman might grant the fetus she carries her recognition of “being child” only to miscarry – and then feel overwhelmingly great sadness that, in general, only more backwards, “pro-life” folks will sympathize with (see here[iv])
• some women might be inclined to feel sorrow, concern, and even guilt – directly after someone around them felt compelled to pay some attention to a fetus’ actions during routine women’s reproductive health services like abortions (see here[v])
• some especially have a penchant for being bothered by the respectful and reverent sacrificing of otherwise unwanted fetuses that others may be blessed – and thank God for their human organs and tissues. Finally…
• publications like the National Review evidently think that, in 2016, they can get away with nonsensical – and grossly insensitive headlines – like “only a Barbaric Nation Drafts Its Mothers and Daughters into Combat” (see here[vi])
• so much more could be said!

Rey don’t mansplain: of course the strongest woman can take the strongest man – Arya B.

If people think that “nature” can be referenced to justify any of these situations, using forceful phrases like “natural law” for example, it only reinforces the point that I am making.

The systematic bias that nature exhibits is obvious. For example, it provides cover for unjust privileges by predisposing us to use oppressive labels like “male” or “female” – so that many see nothing wrong with saying unnerving things like “it’s a boy!” or “it’s a girl!”.

This kind of bias – starting right from our first breaths even! — is clearly insane. Nature simply needs to be exposed, stripped of its power, and dragged through the streets in shame.

Indeed, those who insist that we can’t overcome any of these things I listed above show time and again that they do not know what they are talking about.

First of all, what right do people have to insist that I am something – like a man or woman for example – that I do not see myself to be?[vii] The abject hurtfulness of this — in addition to the absence of critical thinking here — is glaring. Everyone should be able to see that, to say the very least, it is alarming and disturbing that some people actually feel they can operate like this from their space of entitlement. If you think nature itself makes you prone to do this, that leads me to the following.

Second, the undeniable success of holistic medicine, for example, rediscovering what is possible from nature itself, should be a clear marker for all of us here. We must open our minds to the way that some redeemable parts of nature can actually work with us to overcome its less favorable parts. Not in some crass way of course, where we harness brute scientific methods and technology to basically rape it, as was implied by that 16^th century man Francis Bacon. No – I am talking about working with it, in harmony, to overcome the pains, negative feelings, and hurtful comments from others that so often invade our true selves.

Let’s consider how this might apply to the National Review article referenced above. “How”, you may ask, can certain parts of nature help the “nation” (code: white privileged males) give up the “natural” idea that they should protect “their” women? It seems clear to me that people who regularly expand their minds with the blessing that is marijuana – good job, nature! – are going to have a much different perspective on these issues. I suggest that they will more readily be able to grasp that when you open up combat positions to women it is only reasonable to draft them into those positions as well. Already four years ago the New York Times was publishing pieces about how parenting goes better when marijuana is utilized. With help from it and other natural substances, we women might even be able to get our husbands to give up patronizing behavior like always being first to check that loud noise downstairs. Here, nature can actually assist in promoting equality and freedom for all.

Hippocrates: with his foolish “pro-life” oath, just another sad ancient patriarch/oppressor. – Arya B.

The Latin poet Ovid said “I approve the better course, and yet I choose the worse”. Such a lack of self-confidence in one’s abilities – as if nature should necessarily teach anybody such things! – is typical of ancient Romans like him.

We have come a long way. It was certainly a step for progress when more enlightened persons put the bug in Christians’ brains that the words “creation” and “nature” could be used more or less interchangeably. But the time for that equivalence has now ended. Even talking about “nature” is saying too much really. It implies limits. Persons like Ray Kurzweil who attempt to defeat death with technology are right to want to deny the limits imposed on us by nature. They are simply wrong in that they aren’t focusing on the right limits to deny. Overcoming death and time is certainly one thing that we as a species are aiming for, but we must have our priorities straight: equality first. Right now, we all die, so we should work on things where nature makes us not equal.

Kurzweil isn’t the only one who is a bit short-sighted. Years ago, the atheist philosopher Richard Dawkins talked about defying nature by telling our genes to “go jump in the lake”. The problem with his view, however, is that it is devoid of the spirit. It is the spirit of life – even the Great Spirit – that tells nature to jump in the lake! It is this Force, this Spirit, that sets us free from the elementary principles of this evil world, from the physical, the material… the “flesh”.

Christians have forgotten this knowledge – don’t they remember that the “natural philosophers” they love to tout like Aristotle believed and taught as knowledge that slavery — as well as the inferiority of women and children — were “natural”? There is your “permanent” or “enduring” nature Christians! But the Holy Spirit, that great Force, overcame all of this! Christians should realize that the Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. It’s true: “Nature” itself holds an unwarranted position of privilege. Doesn’t the message of Jesus Christ free us from just this?

I’ll admit that, with the death of SCOTUS justice Antonin Scalia, I am discouraged by what of my friends are quick to publish online — we should always take care to have respect for the dead. I won’t speak ill of the man, but will simply note that we are talking about someone who had some very peculiar ideas of what Christianity was all about. In one of his public talks, he actually said “God assumed from the beginning that the wise of the world would view Christians as fools…and He has not been disappointed….If I have brought any message today, it is this: Have the courage to have your wisdom regarded as stupidity. Be fools for Christ. And have the courage to suffer the contempt of the sophisticated world.”

“Mystery, magic, and divinity”… Are not such words used to keep us in submission? – Arya B.

On the contrary, doesn’t that message of love and freedom that Jesus beings fit perfectly with others around the world who are in tune with the Spirit? By all means, worship your Jesus – just realize though, that you might indeed become more “Christian” by leaving those old ideas of what Christianity is behind. That form of Christianity is located in the past, not the future. Buddha refused to wrangle about questions of origins, i.e. where we came from. That way is “a jungle, a wilderness, a puppet-show, a writhing, and a fetter, and coupled with misery, ruin, despair and agony.”

It’s time to truly change this world and truly make it in the image of the Spirit in whom all of us live and move and have our being. That Spirit, always fluid and not constraining, can fill us with authentic feeling and the critical thinking that everyone needs — so that they to can free themselves from the bias that besets them and realize that no views (well, no reasonable views) are superior than any others.

In short, there is no reason why that list of grievances above needs to get any one of us down — there is indeed hope.

I think that you know I have a point – and you also know that you are tempted here for good reason – very good reason. I don’t think we should doubt for a minute that we, in step with this great Force, have the power to do this! Men like John Locke, for all their faults, were instrumental in getting us here, and now we can finish it… “Nature” itself is our blank slate. We — join the Cause! — are that Force of nature that we need. And I sincerely hope that you to will join me in this great Cause and Endeavor.

FIN

All images save the You Tube video shot from Wikipedia

Notes:

[i] Things are particularly difficult for our trans woman sisters like Caitlyn Jenner. In the case of trans women seeking attention from certain cis males, there might be from these men a tendency towards queasiness and disgust instead of attraction – even in spite of the trans woman looking similar to a cis female externally.

[ii] Again, things really are unfair for trans women like Bruce Jenner. Only trans-men and not trans-women are endowed with the necessary biological capacities in order to carry a baby.

[iii] The op-ed article begins: “The American medical establishment instructs pregnant women to not drink alcohol, and those who ignore this advice — like those who do not breast-feed their children — are subject to social shaming. Is the circle of shame about to get a lot bigger?”

[iv] A clip from the article: “The more I considered it, the more I became convinced that the silence around miscarriage was connected to feminism’s work around abortion. How could I grieve a thing that didn’t exist? If a fetus is not meaningfully alive, if it is just a collection of cells – the cornerstone claim of the pro-choice movement – what does it mean to miscarry one? Admitting my grief meant seeing myself as a bereft mother, and my fetus as a dead child – which meant adopting exactly the language that the anti-choice movement uses to claim abortion is murder.”

[v] This “feminist” writes, for example referring to the observations of a male doctor: “After injecting the hormone into the patient’s womb, the doctor left the syringe standing upright on her belly. Then, Selzer wrote, ‘I see something other than what I expected here. . . . It is the hub of the needle that is in the woman’s belly that has jerked. First to one side. Then to the other side. Once more it wobbles, is tugged, like a fishing line nibbled by a sunfish.’ He realized he was seeing the fetus’s desperate fight for life. And as he watched, he saw the movement of the syringe slow down and then stop. The child was dead. Whatever else an unborn child does not have, he has one thing: a will to live. He will fight to defend his life. The last words in Selzer’s essay are, ‘Whatever else is said in abortion’s defense, the vision of that other defense [i.e., of the child defending its life] will not vanish from my eyes. And it has happened that you cannot reason with me now. For what can language do against the truth of what I saw?'”….

[vi] In a pernicious display of chauvinism and male entitlement, the mostly male editors of this article write, among other things: “Men should protect women. They should not shelter behind mothers and daughters. Indeed, we see this reality every time there is a mass shooting. Boyfriends throw themselves over girlfriends, and even strangers and acquaintances often give themselves up to save the woman closest to them. Who can forget the story of 45-year-old Shannon Johnson wrapping his arms around 27-year-old Denise Peraza and declaring “I got you” before falling to the San Bernardino shooters’ bullets?…. [War] is not a video game. It is not a movie, where young Hollywood starlets karate-kick their way through masses of inept thugs and goons. When we order women into ground combat, we are ordering them into situations where men larger and stronger than they will show no mercy — crushing the life out of them like Meyer crushed that Taliban.”

[vii] “Journalist Amanda Taub believes the political correctness backlash misses the point and glosses over real issues. In an article published in Vox.com, she argues that so-called political correctness is really about protecting and promoting marginalized voices.” See the program here for more: http://www.ttbook.org/book/political-correctness-keeps-people-safe