Reviewing Chuck Colson's Review Of Ayn Rand

The late Chuck Colson gave a long overdue Christian response to today's metastasizing influence of Ayn Rand. Hopefully, her influence amongst some Conservative Christians has been spreading only because they are exercising a loyalty to the Conservative brand. Otherwise, we would have a serious crisis of apostasy.

You can see Colson address Ayn Rand's influence in a short video (http://www.colsoncenter.org/twominutewarning/entry/33/17003) and read it in a short article at (http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/entry/13/17057 ).

Why are Rand's views so dangerous to the Christian and Society? Apart from her atheistic worldview and antagonism towards religion, which is not even a threat to the religious, the extreme selfishness of her philosophy, if carried out with any degree of consistency, will cause societies to implode and Christians to fall away from the faith.

American Christians are already ensnared by the temptation that tells us we can live as selfishly as we want and still be holy as long as what we want is not on a Bible's taboo list. We call this being righteously selfish and have mentioned it in some previous blog posts. Such selfishness denies the cross each person must bear. Such selfishness compels us to love the world rather than God (I John 2:15). According to the Bible, selfishness is a trait we must continually repent of and ask forgiveness for rather than embrace. Enough cannot be said against Rand here and Colson does a good job at showing the poverty of living for riches.

But his quick comment against big government and declaration that there are better ways to critique such a government than through Ayn Rand's philosophy is something that misses the mark. Why? It is because government is like love in that size does not matter, fidelity does. The problems we have with government today is not necessarily because of its size but that its love has been bought and paid for by the financial elite leaving the people abandoned. And that point cannot be repeated enough. Any government becomes an enemy to its people when its devotion can be auctioned to the highest bidder. Whereas religiously conservative Christians, who have reflexively bought the conservative label, want to uncritically prune government's size, the real reason any government fails is that it has lost what is suppose to be its first love.

Unfortunately, the history of mankind gives ample evidence that governmental adultery is the rule rather than the exception. Thus, many conservatives wrongly reason that government should be limited so as to reduce the clear and present danger of any abuse of power which it can pose. But too small a government leaves it impotent to help and protect those in need from predators--whether foreign or domestic. An impotent government fosters, by default, a culture of silence in an age of abuse. This is because power never dissipates when governments shrink, it migrates. So if the centralization of power is the enemy, not only must governments grow smaller, so must all other human institutions especially those that serve as the centers of wealth. And, considering that in a working democracy, the power of government is more answerable to the people than centers of wealth are, our best bet is to always maintain a big enough government.

The key to keeping government on the straight and narrow is to establish and maintain a working democracy. But there are two obstacles here and one of them is us. The first obstacle is that a working democracy can only be established in an economic system that allows workers to find the time necessary to be informed and involved in the democratic process. And the minimal amount of time to remain informed and involved is quite a bit. So, the more time we can put into educating ourselves and watching the actions of our elected officials, the less likely they are to stray. However, our current economic system works against a working democracy because, for too many of us, our jobs require too much time and energy for us to be involved with many other responsibilities. Thus, as our employment consumes more and more of our time, our democracy grows weaker and weaker allowing government to look wantonly at potential paramours, especially those who are big spenders.

As previously mentioned, we are the second obstacle to participating in a working democracy. For the more we ogle our nation's prosperity, the less we embrace the sound principles of self-rule.  And presently, too many of us are doing quite a bit of leering. The cost of preferring prosperity to involvement in the democratic process is that we trade control of our own destiny for what's behind the curtain where the lovely Caroll Merill is standing. The prizes waiting for us include: longer and harder hours we have to put in at work, the pleasures we dream of for some, and the rule of others made necessary because somebody has to make the decisions while we either work ourselves to death or frolic. And the more time we spend slaving aways or playing with new toys, the more complacent we become with the ever diminishing quality of the rule of others.

So we face a stark choice, our current economic system and pleasures or an enlightened autonomy through a government that is constantly being kept on a short leash by its people. The immediate reward of the former is high while its initial investment is low. In contrast, the long-term reward of the latter can be as high as the lifetime investment. But as fatigue sets in, we become more willing to settle for less and less. This is the challenge that is before us.

And this is also the challenge for movements like Occupy Wall Street. For not only does Occupy Wall Street call for the 1% to change, it calls on all of us to change as well. Will we be willing to spend less time enjoying ourselves in order to make our voices heard in the democratic process? If not, then Occupy Wall Street, and the whole Occupy Movement, will fade into oblivion.

All of this is what makes Chuck Colson's comments on the size of government miss the mark.

The Fundamentalists' Faux-Pas: Pro-Life = Anti-Abortion

While talking with a fellow fundamentalist, pro-lifer, and friend, something was said that clarified today's  Pro-Life dilemma. My friend was bemoaning Obama's "nanny" state and  his "cradle to grave" care. Such comments are intended to shame anybody who has even the smallest sense of self-reliance and independence so as to make any welfare state, even Obama's, repulsive. In response I asked if one places an unconditional value on human life, wouldn't one want to welcome a "cradle to grave" provision. Then my friend shared his deepest fear. That fear was that he would have to pay for loafers, for those who refused to work.

Never once did he express a concern for the working poor, the elderly, the disabled, or those who have limited to no opportunities to support themselves. Rather, his primary worry was that welfare cheats would become parasites and attach themselves to his paycheck.

This is when it hit me about the current Pro-Life movement and the liberal portrayal of it. Their narrative claims that Pro-Lifers are only concerned with the unborn. This is wrong. Rather, conservative Pro-Lifers, at least the ones I am familiar with, are more concerned with who's footing the bill and who is paying for whom than who needs what to live.

The term Pro-Life indicates being for life, for the right to live. And like the statement in the Declaration of Independence about all men, should be all people, having the right to life, the implications are underestimated. For it is a cruel joke to tell people that they have the right to life but make what is necessary for life, such as housing, food, a healthy environment, affordable healthcare, and education, inaccessible. A broader view of Pro-Life was put forth by Ron Sider during the 1970s. But while conservative Pro-Lifers rightfully oppose elective abortions, they are too concerned with their own prosperity to embrace his definition. In addition, many conservative Pro-Life advocates are far too eager to support our military interventions in the name of patriotism even though what could be more pro-death than unnecessary wars. At the same time, we have Pro-Choice advocates who have enthusiastically adopted some of Ron Sider's definition of Pro-Life.

Conservative Pro-Lifers cry foul here. They say that there are no guarantees, life is tough and so everybody has to make of it what they can. But, if life is tough and we have placed an unconditional value on human life as Pro-Lifers do on human life in the womb, shouldn't we be more willing to share than be resentful for having given?

Anyway, we have Pro-Lifers who proudly beat their chest and claim to be the defenders of the defenseless who also feel robbed and violated when their money is used to support life preserving social and environmental programs and are oblivious to the death and destruction caused by the wars their taxes fund. The result here is that the Pro-Life attempts to shelter the unborn are too easily discredited by hypocrisy and self-centeredness.

We who care about the rights of the unborn must make a decision here, we must decide on a new name for ourselves. This is because we have others who are defending life in other ways, including some of the ways Ron Sider specified,  who also deserve the Pro-Life monicker despite their views on abortion. We must therefore expand the Pro-Life tent to include them.  And then we must be able to distinguish Pro-Lifers who oppose elective abortion from those who do not.

At the same time, we must recognize the one obstacle that stands in everybody's way from becoming more consistently Pro-Life. That hurdle is individualism. For conservative Pro-Lifers, their denial of life's interdependencies in order to justify the maximizing of personal profits stands in the way of welcoming the necessary sharing a consistent Pro-Life ethic calls us to. For those Pro-Lifers who defend abortion rights, reproductive and individual freedoms keep some from recognizing the humanity of the unborn.  Perhaps, this is why such Pro-Lifers currently frame the question of what is in the womb as whether it is a human person than a human life. The implication here is that an unborn child could not become a person until those outside the womb interact with him or her. Regardless of when we assign "personhood" to the unborn, each unborn child is a living human.

In Jesus' parable of the prayers of the pharisee and the tax collector, one person bragged about his own righteousness and condemned the other while the other could only see his sin and need for mercy. If we were to rewrite that parable to reflect today's Pro-Life debate, we would more often than not describe two groups of pharisees praying rather than tell of a groveling tax collector who found forgiveness. This is tragic because, in the end, none of us are in the mood to listen to our own shortcomings that are inconsistent with the Pro-Life name.

Fundamentalists bear the brunt of the responsibility here, and thus guilt, because of the Pro-Life name with which we have cloaked ourselves. We are the ones who have exclusively bound the term with the abortion issue. And in so doing, we have both excused ourselves from other Pro-Life responsibilities and covered up our own sins. If we are to prove our critics wrong, we are the ones who need to expand our definition of Pro-Life according to what its name implies and then find a way to distinguish the two groups of Pro-Life advocates.

ONIM for the week of May 28, 2012

The Salvation Army Continues To Battle Social Injustice -- Christian Today (UK)

Pornography Threatens Church Says McDowell -- Christian Today (UK)

How the Faithful can help the Faithful Stay Faithful -- Christianity Today

The Moral Universe of Glee -- Christianity Today

A Memorial Day Article by Frank Schaeffer -- Frank Schaeffer's Blog

An Balanced Approach to Honoring Veterans -- Christian Century

The Christian Attitude That Speaks Louder Than Words

If you ask conservative Christians what their biggest obstacle is when sharing the Gospel, they might say it is the non-Christiand or today's anti-Christian culture. But if you ask a non-Christian the same question, he or she might point to the messenger. So the question for us conservative Christians becomes, what is our biggest problem in evangelizing.

 The difference between these two perceptions for Christians is that one is a threat and the other a weakness. A threat occurs when the source of our headaches exists outside of us; here it exists with the audience, the Gospel itself, our culture, and perhaps with laws designed to prevent us from witnessing--though the last reason does not apply to those witnessing in America. 

If the problem is with the audience's reaction to the Gospel is the Gospel itself, then there is nothing we can do. For if we change the message, we lose. The Gospel must remain a constant in our sharing regardless of how people react to it. If our problem is with neither the Gospel nor the messenger, then we can make adjustments to how we share.

But if a big problem people have in hearing the Gospel is with the messenger, then we must identify our weaknesses. Here, we are not talking about the personal flaws of any individual Christian. What we are talking about are common traits or beliefs that us Christians hold on to that are inconsistent with our faith.

In last week's post (When Squeezed, Is The Church "Wimpy, Wimpy, Wimpy"), we talked about 3 beliefs that American conservative Christians might insert into their faith, and thus their message. This can cause them to compromise the message of Christ. Here, we will isolate one of those convictions and show how it also hurts the listener.

Conservative Christians who are capitalists or patriotic do not offend others especially as long as they are willing to listen. But once they too easily brush aside the views of others, then their beliefs in capitalism and/or patriotism, though very apparent, are not the issue. What is the issue is the refusal to listen and reason.

This brings us to authoritarianism. Christians have a more complex relationship with authoritarianism than what first appears. What is most visible is the fact that so many of our relationships involve living under or exercising authority to various degrees. These relationships include the God-believer relationship, the husband-wife relationship, the parent-child relationship, the believer-church relationship, the employer-employee relationship, and the government-citizen relationship. In each of these relationships, the Bible includes the authority of one party over another.

The Christian's problem becomes how to turn off that authoritarian relationship switch when it is not called for. Since the Bible stresses authority in so many of our relationships, it is easy for many of us Christians to believe that it is called for in every relationship. Thus we can have problems when we interact in a democratic society. Here, many of our relationships are between equals, not superiors and subordinates. And this equality is not a problem until we find ourselves with fellow citizens who have different values.

When we find ourselves in serious disagreement with non-Christian equals over morals, we look for that authoritarian security blanket to save the day. At this point, it is a short trip for the conservative Christian to assume a state of moral superiority, because his or her values have been enlightened by God's Word, and this ends any exchange between peers. Now, in the eyes of the believer, one person has everything to teach while the other has everything to learn.

This last phrase should sound familiar to those who are well versed on Martin Luther King for he stated something identical regarding the West and why they were in Vietnam. In a speech in which he criticized the American war in Vietnam, King said the following:

The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

Having everything to teach and nothing to learn is how the authoritarian conservative Christian can come across to the unbeliever. And the conservative Christian has a parental type defense for being heavy-handed; it is for the unbeliever's own good. This pertains to when conservative Christians try to control the morals of the nonChristian--we are referring to personal morals that that do not infringe on the rights of others. Here, the conservative Christian is trying to parent the nonChristian in spite of the nonChristian's ingratitude. Kids!

We should not be surprised by this authoritarianism with a parental concern being displayed by American conservative Christians especially if such Christians also value patriotism and capitalism. This Paternalism is what drove European, including American, colonialism during the past few centuries. In America, assuming the superiority of one's own culture helped carry out Manifest Destiny. The self-image of settlers who took land from America's indigenous peoples framed the theft as an attempt to bring civilization to the land. Of course, Europeans with their history of peace were the ideal candidates to bring enlightenment. So, what those who conquered thought of themselves differed from what those who were conquered thought. A similar line of thought was the reason given for why we colonized other lands such as the Philippines and Guam.

There is another way in which authoritarianism hurts conservative Christians in how they share the Gospel with others. Here, we are talking about how conservatives learn and determine truth, scientific and otherwise. Those who are authoritarian focus more on the credentials of the speaker/writer than on the fact and logic of an argument. 

The heavy use of credentials by the conservative Christian in learning and determining truth becomes a very exacting filter. Those who have "bad" credentials are almost always automatically discarded while what is said by those with good credentials is often uncritically accepted. Here, the conservative Christian unknowingly participates in a virtual book burning for his religiously amish-like community. He or she does not have to exercise much critical thought when listening to or reading speaker or writer on the good list but he or she can ignore those who are on the naughty list which, in turn, prevents those on that list from earning their credibility wings.

Again, such authoritarianism kills the message of the Gospel in the ears of many unbelievers. The same attitude of having everything to teach and nothing to learn will rightfully offend the nonChristian but is taken for granted by the Christian. And the tragedy here is that such authoritarianism is not just unnecessary, it is wrong. 

Not knowing when to turn off the authoritarian switch is killing a significant part of the Christian witness in America. It can come from misreading the plethora of authoritarian relationships outlined in the Scriptures into all of our relationships. But I believe it is more than that. The desire to control, whether it is our of ambition or out of fear, is also a driving force here. It makes the Gospel something not just to be ridiculed, but to be resented as well. This is something American conservative Christians must address before they share the Gospel in these turbulent times.

ONIM For The Week Of May 21, 2012

London's Christians hear call to be 'city changers'-- Christian Today (UK)

Iranian Pastor Could Face Death For His Faith--Christianity Today

Mourning Charles Colson--Christianity Today

On World Magazine And Talking To Evangelicals --Frank Schaeffer's Blog

Talking About Incarceration--The Christian Century

When Squeezed, Is The Church "Wimpy, Wimpy, Wimpy"

Not too long ago, those who made Hefty garbage bags ran a commercial that compared their bags with a generic store brand in the following way. They showed the generic store bought bags eventually breaking after a certain amount was put in and this was followed by the chant, "wimpy, wimpy, wimpy." Afterwards, a person was stuffing everything but an M1A1 tank into the unbreakable Hefty garbage bags while the chant, "hefty, hefty, hefty" could be heard.

Though the Church cannot be compared, except by some critics, with garbage bags and how much can be stuffed into them, the question of how the Church stands up to pressure is an important one. Pressure for the Church comes when taking a stand costs something. And if the Church becomes wimpy and intimidated by people, regardless of who is pushing it, we need to speak up.

Those who can pressure the Church come from one of two groups. The first group are individual people while the second consists of the status quo. Individuals can make the Church feel coerced by threatening to  leave. Such losses mean more to a church than just a smaller congregation, it results in less income. The main rub between individual members and a church comes when a church challenges its members on personal morality. Another conflict between the two revolves around the worship service styles.  The question here is whether the worship service is oriented around making the attendees feel good about themselves or does it direct the congregation's focus on God.

The second group that can push the Church is the status quo. The status quo consists of the combination of those with wealth and those with authority, that is the rich and the government. There are a variety of relationships between the wealthy and the government from a combative one  to one where one group rules through the other. Here, the potential clash is whether the Church will speak out against the neglect or oppression of those in need which results from the reign of the status quo. In America, the consequences for the Church that come when challenging those with wealth and power can be similar to that of challenging individuals when they sin, that is the Church can lose members and thus revenue.

I can only speak for the Conservative Church here because that is what I am mainly exposed to, but the Church does have a mixed record when standing for what is right. It has demonstrated that it can be stronger than hefty when dealing with an indivudual's sins but worse than wimpy when challenging the status quo.

Why the difference? The answer can be found in the word syncretism. Syncretism is the act of trying to pound a square peg into a round hole. If you hit the peg hard enough, you will insert it but not without doing violence to either the peg, the hole or both. Syncretism allows the Church to hold on to unbiblical values while preaching the Gospel. The Church most often employs syncretism when its allegiance to the Gospel does not lead to challenging sinners to repent.

Here, we want to focus on the sins of the status quo. These include creating an economic system that robs people of their jobs, homes, and democracy. The latter is difficult for some to see at first but one only needs to see what is happening in countries like Greece and Spain before one could perceive it happening here. In Greece and Spain, the governments must decide whether they will serve their foreign investors or their people. Note that these foreign investors lent these countries money on one condition, to make a profit. And that is what most help is based on in our global economy, can the lender make money off of helping the people in need.

Certainly the above is an oversimplification of what is happening but it has much truth. In this country, while Conservatives are slaughtering those in need on the altar of the bottom line, both them and the "liberal" Democrats are funneling tax money to the wealthy. The channeling of funds takes many forms including the revision of tax laws and the implementing of unnecessary and even harmful policies--especially foreign policies requiring military interventions--that require the purchase of goods and services provided by certain corporations. Here we see how the status quo feeds itself at the expense of all others without including the bailouts, relaxed regulations on financial institutions, Obamacare, and tax breaks that have consolidated wealth to those those at the top and thus, in a world of limited resources, robbed others of the chance to make a living.

So why is the Conservative Church so silent about sins that kill and rob multitudes of people while it is quick to make stand up to individual sins especially if those transgressions are sexual in nature? What is holding the Church back from preaching the same kind of hell-fire sermons to those whose riches depend on theft and murder as it does to individuals who hurt just a few through consensual activities?

Here, we must return to syncretism. But we must delve a little into the details of how conservatives hold non compatible ideas. We should note that it is common for people to project their life experiences into their religion. For conservative Americans growing up in a prosperous capitalistic society, patriotism has been preached as being involved with something greater than oneself. In addition, Conservatives are naturally receptive to authoritarianism. So here we have the ingredients that can greatly alter one's faith. We should also note that the status quo wraps itself tightly in these viewpoints.  Thus, it is a personal allegiance to and comfort with capitalism, patriotism and authoritarianism that makes the Conservative Church hesitant to challenge the sins of the status quo. Questioning these three is taken off the table for many Conservative Christians.

The problems that projecting capitalism, patriotism and authoritarianism onto the Gospel are undeniable to their often invisible victims; thus, it is hard for the Conservative Christian to see. What does the Conservative Christian risk when he/she employs an uncritical approach to capitalism, patriotism, and authoritarianism? The danger is that unless we let the Gospel change us into becoming honest brokers enabling us to challenge our old ideas and philosophies, we are in danger of accepting another gospel to stand alongside the Gospel of Christ. That second gospel is the gospel of self-exhaltation. Believing that the system one grew up in is God's system makes one feel very good about oneself. And that good feeling is what makes it so difficult to pry capitalism, patriotism, and authoritarianism loose from its mismatched joining with the Gospel.

The Conservative Church does have a mixed record when it is squeezed by today's world. This record tells us that you should not cross paths with the Conservative Church unless you are part of the status quo. The reasons for the Church's inconsistency are personal and apply to each believer.  And thus the Conservative Church will need all of the help it can get to become hefty when pressured by those with wealth and power to remain silent.

ONIM For The Week Of May 14, 2012

Is the Church losing the young to secular culture? Christian Today (UK)

Are conservatives preaching Jesus? the Christian Left

Is the national day of prayer too exclusive? Christianity Today (blog)

A religious analysis of Obama's same-sex marriage statement Religion Displatches

Does self-righteousness of the moral allow the immoral to understand the Gospel first? the Christian Post