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This Month's Scripture Verse:

But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.
2 Timothy 3:1-5

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Wednesday, March 6, 2024

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For March 6, 2024

Feb 10

To Heidelblog and Carl Trueman for the part of Trueman's article from First Things quoted in this Heidelblog post. This article is about whether Christians can attend same-sex weddings.

Trueman's full article can be found at the link below:

    https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2024/01/can-christians-attend-gay-weddings

The question I want to ask everyone who shares Carl's opinion on Christians attending same-sex weddings is this: Can a Christian attend the worship service of another religion simply as an observer? After all, there are bound to be things said in that worship service that a believer should not just object to, but speak out against. And so to rephrase the question, can a believer quietly attend the worship service of another religion as an observer?

The real issue in us attending a same-sex wedding is whether or not we are condoning the union that is being created by the wedding ceremony. If we are not condoning it and, because of adequate communication, our objections to such a wedding are made known, why can't we attend such a wedding either as an observer or for personal reasons?

This idea of an unbiblical wedding as mocking Christ is a manipulative statement. It is there to stir the anger in any red-blooded American Christian into action. After all, how many sins do not mock God which we are not told to react to? And how are our angry responses going to compare with how God responds? In fact, they might interfere with God's response because He often gives people who sin time to repent. Do we realize how much God treats us that way and will treat us that way for as long as we live on earth? And so when Trueman says that a same-sex marriage mocks Christ, is he saying that so that we either will pray for their repentance or come to God's defense by lashing out at the mockers? And, btw, does God really need us to defend Him?

Isn't it enough for us to respond to the LGBT community by preaching the Gospel in ways that bear the fruit of the Spirit? Or does God need us to try to do more than what the Gospel can do?

Here is the real issue for us religiously conservative Christians. Too many of us have been waging war against the LGBT community because they are starting to gain an equal status with us in society. And not only do we object to that, we are seriously offended because we consider them to be moral lepers. We are offended because our place in society is now going to those whom we consider to be our moral inferiors. And all they want is to be equal to us in society.

It isn't that homosexuality and transgenderism are not sins; they certainly are sins. The question is, how does the New Testament want us to share society with unbelievers. Should we seek to share society with unbelievers, including the LGBT community, as equals, or should we seek a privileged place of supremacy over unbelievers, including the LGBT community, in society because we believe that we are morally superior to them? Please realize that I am not making the claim that we are morally superior to unbelievers. And because we are all sinners and because of what the New Testament says, I believe that we religiously conservative Christians must and should share society with unbelievers, including the LGBT community, as equals.

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Feb 15

To R. Scott Clark and his article that reviews gambling from the perspective of the Reformed Traditions. This article was posted in Heidelblog.

The weakness of the Reformed confessions is that they tend to do what in football use to call a late hit: piling on. In essence, these confessions attribute to the prohibition implied by a commandment actions and practices that does not always relate to the commandment. Gambling is not necessarily stealing. And not all gambling is done for selfish reasons. There is a certain social gambling that occurs in some card games such as when the winnings and losses are insignificant and the playing of the game is mostly for social reasons. The same can be said of playing a state lottery with coworkers. In addition, others are benefiting when one plays a state lottery.

We should also note that there is a form of gambling that is older than the gaming we see today, but it is not only legal, itis deemed to be irresponsible by some not to gamble in this way. That is investing in the Stock Market. But when investments are made purely for the sake of its ROI, how is that different than sports betting? This is especially true when one is not buying originally issued stocks. In that case, those investing in the Stock Market purely for its  ROI are like the people whom Martin Luther King Jr described below:

'A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: "This is not just."'

What King stated shows the real problem with most gambling. That is where there is the investment of funds solely for selfish gain without regard for others who might be affected. And here, the idea of vocation stands in stark contrast many forms of gambling including playing the Stock Market. That is because with vocation, one is contributing to others through one's work.

We should note that what drives the wrongful forms of gambling is what also drives the Consumer economy in which we live: making decisions solely for selfish reasons. The idea that one's personal significance is determined mostly by what one consumes and how one consumes it. That idea is not just like a virus that infects an individual, it is more like a virus that becomes a pandemic. It contributes to what King called a 'thing-oriented society.' And King warned us that unless we switch from being a thing-oriented society to being a 'person-oriented society,' we will never rid ourselves of the inseparable triplets of racism, economic exploitation, and militarism.

Thus we can see from King's view that investments made purely for the sake of its ROI, that such investments are a failure to love one's neighbor. And because investments are also a form of gambling, the same can be said of many, if not most, forms of gambling. Such gambling is a failure to love one's neighbor as themselves. And that is true not necessarily because gambling steals from one's neighbor, but it is because practicing such gambling in lieu of a job, doing works of mercy, or giving to those in need is a failure to be concerned about another person's welfare.

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March 3

To Dermont Quinn and his article that states that religion should not longer be privatized by the government. Instead, religion, the right religion of the Roman Church, should have a favorite place in directing society. This article was originally posted in 2013 and has been reposted in the Imaginative Conservative.

Christendom, the time period when religion was imposed on others rather than privatized, had its reign and it was not short enough. Religious wars with their atrocities, inquisitions, imperialism, colonialism, and ethnic cleansings are forever part of its legacy. Another part of its legacy was its strong tendency for the predominant branch of the Church in a given nation to side with wealth and power which resulted in the Church supporting economic exploitation and social injustices in those nations. The pre-revolutionary times of France and Spain where that branch was the Roman Church and of Russia where that branch was the Orthodox Church provide such examples. Here in America, that legacy lives on in the Evangelical side of the Protestant branch that sides with wealth.

In a world where we overuse bipolar thinking, there is an alternative to either imposing or privatizing religion. That alternative can be seen in the work and writings of Martin Luther King Jr and the SCLC. They worked for equal rights for all who were oppressed because of their race and economic class rather than for a privileged position for the Church in society. And because of that, King showed how religion could enter the public square without it being imposed on others.

For most of world history, we have lived in an authoritarian world. That authoritarianism came in two flavors: secular and religious. For perhaps just over a century the world has been flirting with democracy with equality world without ever having fully embraced it. But lately, because democracy with equality has been allowing too many different people into the equality mix, there has been an emergence of authoritarian ethnocratic movements both here and in Europe. Those movements serve as a major counter-revolutionary challenge to democracy with equality. 

The above article supports its own specific version of a Christian authoritarian ethnocratic movement. In fact, in America and some Eastern European countries, the authoritarian ethnocratic movement revolves around religion. In Western Europe, it revolves around race and national origin. 

The call of these authoritarian ethnocratic movements is a call to return to a time when nations were more ethnically homogeneous than they are today. The belief is that an adequate level of similarity in the nations, especially the appropriate religious one, would allow each nation to function better because there would be more unity and less internal strife. 

Unfortunately, the current call by these authoritarian ethnocratic movements is a call to return the world to the past, to its pre-WW I times. And there is every reason in history to believe that if we did return to that past, we would see history repeating itself

 



Tuesday, March 5, 2024

On Soros's Payroll?

I spend a lot of time participating on Christian blogs. All of those blogs are religiously conservative Christian blogs and all but one of them are politically conservative blogs too. 

I participated on those blogs despite my now past health problems because it is less taxing to respond to an article than it is to write one from scratch.

One of the best religiously conservative blogs I've seen is Roger Olson's My Evangelical Arminian Theological Musings (click here for the blog). Though we do have some differences of opinion on a couple of important topics, such as I'm a Calvinist and he isn't, his articles are well thought out and I have learned much from them and appreciate how he manages his blog. In addition, Olson is very much an independent thinker both theologically and politically.  Olson's blog is a safe blog to comment on because it is tightly moderated. He does not allow personal attacks to appear in the comments. If only all religiously conservative Christian blogs would follow that example.

On one of the politically conservative blogs on which I comment on, I have received a few comments FALSELY claiming that I am being paid by George Soros. Those comments are derisive and so I am not sure how literal they are being in their accusations. But such comments are directed at me because I have expressed many political views that are not conservative on that blog. I have found that to share non-conservative political views on most religiously conservative Christian blogs invites personal attacks and accusations. Some of the attacks can be described in no other way than abusive. 

Soros seems to be a favorite whipping boy and scapegoat for most of my politically conservative Christian friends. A lot of that is due to Soros's political leanings and philanthropic efforts. Soros believes in democracy with an open society while almost all of my religiously conservative Christian friends are politically conservative. And we should stop here and note the contrast: democracy with an open society vs political conservatism. Btw, his pairing of democracy with an open society is similar to my pairing of democracy with equality except that my pairing sees equality as being inextricably linked to democracy. That is you can't have democracy without equality.

I found that many of the claims about Soros made by my fellow religiously conservative Christian friends are nothing more than false accusations that often stem from conspiracy theories. And so when I saw the documentary Soros on the list of Tube movies, I decided to watch it (click here to see the movie).

The way that Soros has made his fortune did not impress me. Why? It is because he made his fortune as a hedge fund manager. Such an occupation and the values that come with it often, if not always, practice and promote what Martin Luther King Jr. associated with a choosing a thing-oriented society rather than a person-oriented society. A thing-oriented society is where the people value gadgets, profit motives and property rights more than they value people.

However, the combination of Soros's life growing up in Hungary, which included the time of Nazi occupation, and his current approach to philanthropy has given me a great respect for the man. So that the next time I am accused of being on Soros's payroll, I'll take it as a very high compliment, but one that I don't deserve. For his philanthropy consists of more than just charity to relieve an immediate survival needs, it also includes projects that promote education and democracy with an open society. And those projects are designed to produce lasting results.

But here, we need to return to King's statement that was quoted in my last post. In his speech against the Vietnam War, along with his 1967 interview with Xander Vanocur, King said that we need to change from being a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society so that people are more important than our gadgets, profit motives, and property rights. For, according to King, it is only then that we can eliminate racism, economic exploitation, and militarism (click here and proceed to around the 21:17 point in that interview). And though Soros has so generously donated money to financially help groups and communities out of poverty and to promote an open society, we need to change from being a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society for Soros's donations to have lasting effects. 

Though Soros's donations has done much to restore freedom and equality to parts of the world that had been oppressed with tyranny, and though His donations have also helped to improve those nations that claim to lean toward democracy with equality, there is a new threat to Soros's projects, among other things, that has emerged in Europe and the U.S. For just as Putin has undone almost all of Gorbachev's work to establish openness in Russia, so today's Nationalist movements in Europe and America are threatening not just to undo much of what Soros's donations have helped to enable, they are threatening to reverse any nation's leaning toward building a democracy with equality.

Here we should note that those nationalist movements are nothing more than authoritarian ethnocratic movements. Here we should note that the term 'authoritarian ethnocratic' is repetitive. That is because all ethnocracies are authoritarian to varying degrees. For with an ethnocracy, a particular ethnic group, whether the ethnicity of that group is based on race, national origin or language, descent, or religion, has a greater claim to and control over the nation and its society of a multiethnic nation than the people from the other ethnic groups--btw, the list of the ethnic categories comes from from Jeff Halper's book, An Israeli In Palestine: Resisting Dispossession, Redeeming Israel. And that greater claim to and level of control over a multiethnic nation denies, to varying degrees, the equal rights and status of people from the other ethnic groups.

And so it should come as no surprise that authoritarianism in the guise of ethnocratic conservative movements in Europe and here in the U.S. are threatening to undo whatever portion of openness we have as well. That a significant contributing factor to those movements has to do with the distribution of wealth especially in the face of growing refugee problems. 

But those authoritarian ethnocratic movements have cultural concerns to when it comes to refugees. People in those movements are scared that the culture of their society will change with an influx of foreign refugees. Here we should note that there is only one way for a nation to protect its culture from changing: DON'T HAVE CHILDREN. Maybe it is because I am a child of the 1960s when the young people radically changed the culture, but it seems that each new generation here in America has made significant changes to our own culture. And regarding accepting immigrants who are refugees trying to escape poverty and violence, we must ask ourselves if we care more about whatever comfort we have with our culture than we care about human life?

In addition, we Westerners need to admit that much, if not most, of our refugee immigrants problems are due to Western economic and/or militaristic foreign policies. Those authoritarian ethnocratic movements either support or do not oppose those policies that made messes in other parts of the world. They only care about not having to deal with the aftermath of those messes when that aftermath emigrates to where those movements live. And there is often racism in the refusal to deal with those messes. Here note the different response that Ukrainian refugees receive from their European neighbors in contrast to how Middle East refugees are received in Europe and how refugees from south of the border are received here in America.

Soros is understandably troubled and concerned over the rise of these authoritarian ethonocratic movements for at least a couple of reasons. First, he escaped the clutches of such a movement in Hungary during WW II because of his father's daring and wisdom. But he still saw its horrific effects on friends, family, and others. Also, as mentioned before, those authoritarian ethnocratic movements are threatening to undo some of the projects that promote domocracy with open societies which he started and so heavily invested in. 

It is so deeply tragic to acknowledge that most of those in America's religiously conservative Christian community embrace authoritarian ethnocratic movements. Their embracement of those movements  promote varying levels of authoritarianism. And the lower the degree of authoritarianism promoted by a given movement, the more that ethnocratic movement can disguise its character and goals in plain site.

For those of us who want Soros's projects to experience more and  lasting success, we must look to change society. As King said, we need to change from being a thing-oriented society to being a person-oriented society. To do that we must learn to value people over our gadgets and machines, our profit motives, and our proper rights. That does not mean that we can't appreciate our gadgets and machines or that we believe that profit motives and property rights are not important. It means that we must continue to learn to value people, especially those who are vulnerable, more than we value those things. 

Even though America is leaning a little more toward democracy with equality thanks to a not infallible wokeism, there is still more work to be done. There is still a revolution in values that our nation needs to undergo and our structures still need changing. And that revolution and needed change will not occur without everyone's participation.




Tuesday, February 27, 2024

What Does the Bible Say About A Corporation's Social Responsibilities.

 The Gospel Coalition contains a lot of posts that target the general public. It also provides a link to a website that contains more in depth articles that are published periodically in an evangelical, peer reviewed journal called, Themelios.

The most recent publication of Themelios contained an article that discussed whether corporations have social responsibilities. The article was written by Gary Gundill (click here for the article, a very brief bio is at the end of the article). What Gundill wanted to discover is whether there is any Biblical support for insisting that corporations have social responsibilities.

Before going any farther, we should note that during the last few centuries, a given nation's predominant branch of the Church has all too often supported those with wealth and power. That happened in the pre-revolutionary times in France, Russia, and Spain with disastrous results for both the people and the reputation of the Gospel. We see the same kind of favoritism here in the US in the guise of the overwhelming evangelical support for the Republican Party. Of the two major political parties in the US, the Republican Party provides the most legislative breaks and advantages for businesses.

Gundill makes the claim that the Bible does not support the notion that today's corporations have social responsibilities. For the most part, what Gundill means by social responsibility is a corporation's responsibility to help people in society and this would especially include the underprivileged. It seems that a corporation's social responsibilities also includes how a corporation treats its stakeholders. The definition of a stakeholder is that of any party that is affected by the operations of a given business. So stakeholders would include shareholders, workers, customers, suppliers, vendors, the environment, and communities. 

Does the Bible support the notion that corporations have social responsibilities to all but especially to those who are not stakeholders? Gundill attempts to answer this question by first defining what a corporation is and noting that there was no such entity during the times of the writing of the Scriptures. Therefore it is difficult to find Biblical passages that address the question.

Next, many of the passages that some  would list as social responsibilities for all including corporations are, according to Gundill, addressed to Christians only. Seeing that corporations can have as owners at least some unbelievers, Gundill concludes those passages do not apply to those corporations that are not owned by Christians.

Gundill notes that what some passages, which could speak to corporations, about the ethicality of its business practices could be addressed solely by departments within a corporation such as treatment of workers, their work schedule, and pay. And because those practices are internal matters, the corporation should use its own resources to address most of those issues.

Gundill admits that there are some Biblical passages that directly address those who did not belong to God's people. The passage that Gundill cites in is Obadiah where God judges a nation for how it was mistreating people. But then Gundill points out that Obadiah was speaking to a nation, not a corporation and that nations are known by their people while corporations are known as legal entities. Plus, it would the job of a given nation's political leaders to define the social responsibilities of its people through the laws they create.

Gundill concludes that the Bible does not assign social responsibilities  to corporations. But if people want corporations to have such responsibilities, then they should attempt to persuade their political leaders to legislate those responsibilities that they want corporations to meet. 

But Gundill's analysis is deficient in several ways. First, his take on the subject is opportunistically literal. That produces a legalistic protection for corporations from potential social responsibilities. That can be seen in how some of the Biblical passages are seen as applying to Christians only because, as he concluded, the Bible was addressing Gods people in those passages. But if none of those passages do apply to corporations, read the article for those passages, because they are owned by some unbelievers and those passages are applications of the summation of the 2nd table of the law, then are individual unbelievers also not responsible for following the commands and prohibitions that corporations are excused from obeying? If so, how will unbelievers be judged by God's Word? 

Another example of opportunistic literalism in Gundill's article is found in his definition of a corporation. While Gundill rightfully says that corporations were unknown to the Biblical writers, businesses were not. And, after all, regardless of its legal definition, a corporation is a kind of business and not the other way around. In fact, Gundill sometimes uses the word 'business' synonymously with corporation. But he does not do so when considering whether the Bible says anything to its social responsibilities. 

As Gundill emphasizes that a corporation is a legal entity, one has to wonder how those who are victims of a corporation's actions can classify those actions. Certainly those actions cannot be called acts of God. And depending on the laws where one lives, a victim cannot blame any unjust actions on people because a corporation is first thought of as a legal entity, an impersonal object,  rather than a group of people. 

However, there are Biblical passages that address businesses people and two of those passages can be found in Leviticus 19:9-10 and in James 5:1-6. The passage in Leviticus talks about how farmers are suppose to harvest their fields. Farmers are told to leave a certain part of their fields unharvested so that the poor can have access to food. Here we should note that part of being a farmer is being a business person because farmers must operate the farm,  buy materials needed to farm, and they sell their goods.

The passage in James warns the wealthy about underpaying their employees. James says the following (click here for the source):

Come now, you rich people, weep and howl for your miseries which are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments have become moth-eaten. Your gold and your silver have corroded, and their corrosion will serve as a testimony against you and will consume your flesh like fire. It is in the last days that you have stored up your treasure! Behold, the pay of the laborers who mowed your fields, and which has been withheld by you, cries out against you; and the outcry of those who did the harvesting has reached the ears of the Lord of armies. You have lived for pleasure on the earth and lived luxuriously; you have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. You have condemned and put to death the righteous person; he offers you no resistance.


Now as we read that passage, does James's warning seem to apply to Christian business people only? Are Christians the only ones who will be held accountable to such warnings? If so, then, again, how will unbelievers be judged? If Biblical passages such as the ones just mentioned are both part of loving one's neighbor and only apply to believers, what is there for unbelievers to confess and repent from besides idolatry? It isn't that there are no Biblical injunctions meant only for the ears of God's people. But if we acknowledge that all people are held responsible for loving one's neighbor by the Scriptures, we need to be able to properly distinguish what all people are held accountable to from what only God's people are held accountable to. Gundill fails to adequately make those distinctions.

Gundill's literalness prevents him from seeing what the Scriptures tell us in the abstract. Consider the following quote from Martin Luther King's Jr. speech against the Vietnam War (click here for the source):

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered...

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: "This is not just."

We should note from the above quote that the relationship between the investors and the society where their investments are located is one that is a consumer relationship only. That the investors mentioned are looking to solely to gain wealth from those societies. With the command to love one's neighbor, is that the kind of relationship that anyone should have toward the society let alone the relationship that investors should have? 

In fact, outside of the Scriptures, don't all members of a society, including businesses, have a give-take relationship with the society in which they are located? Or are we all just consumers of society who are only looking to get the most from society without being concerned for its people? We should note here that there is a symbiotic relationship be each member of a society and society itself. That not only do we reap the benefits of the society in which we live, we also have responsibilities. Yes, politicians can define some of those responsibilities by writing laws. But when laws don't adequately hold us accountable for how we should live in society and its members don't pick up the slack, society comes in danger of collapsing. And in a consumer society where too many of its members, including corporations, believe that their only role in society is to consume, that society will suffer much inner turmoil until it implodes.

If the quote from King abstractly deals with general Biblical principles of how members of a society should relate to a society, then the question becomes this: does each member of society have social responsibilities in addition to obeying the laws of that society? Is it biblical for a society to be a thing-oriented?  Is it biblical when we, as members of society, count the things King mentioned to be more important than people who are made in the image of God?

The question that Gundill attempted to answer is not whether it is realistic to expect corporations to seek to meet social responsibilities. The question is whether the Bible says, either literally or abstractly, that corporations have social responsibilities.

Gundill attempts to reduce a corporation's social responsibilities to that which is required by law. That is because Gundill believes that only politicians have social responsibilities according to the Scriptures. And the social responsibilities of the general public would be specified by the laws where a person lives.

And so are politicians the only ones who have social responsibilities? And would all the above mean that corporations don't have any social responsibilities outside of what is specified by the laws of the land? According to Gundill, the Bible assigns no moral basis for corporations to have social responsibilities. And if that is true, then isn't it unfair for politicians to pass laws that assign social responsibilities to a corporation which the Scriptures do not? In too many cases, that is what the evangelical supported Republican Party lives by. And thus Gundill's basic claim that the Bible does not require corporations to have social responsibilities is merely a repeat of the history mentioned earlier in the article. 



Wednesday, February 7, 2024

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For February 7, 2024

Sept 10

To Patrick Garry and his article that first criticizes the 4 indictments of Donald Trump as being political silencing and then praises conservative activists as they try to influence local governments. This article was posted in the Imaginative Conservative Blog.

The criticisms that Garry makes on the 4 indictments of Donald Trump borders on, if not fully embraces, lunacy. For at least 3 of those indictments, we have clear, already publicly available evidence that justifies investigations. And then, without access to the evidence that the 4 Grand Juries examined, Garry calls each indictment an attempt to political silence Trump. If we didn't have the publicly available evidence, Garry might have a case. But we do have the evidence along with Trump's admissions that he can do whatever he wants.

It is political tribalism that Garry is appealing to in the above article. But to make matters worse, Garry reduces democracy to our involvement with local governments while praising the conservative activists who are engaged with local governments.

Being involved in one's local government certainly is an exercise in democracy. But so is being involved in one's state and federal governments.

What conservatives overlook with their emphasis on downsizing the size of government, which is often done in order increase the power of business elites, is that democracy isn't measured by the size of a government. For government is like love in this way; size is not the issue, fidelity is. And one way to promote fidelity in every level of government is to ensure that each  group  of citizens is well represented in each level of government. This structurally forces people from different groups to work for the interests of others as well as their own. Here we need to remember that Thomas Jefferson warned us against using majority rule to oppress any minority by denying them their equal status and equal rights.

And so what conservatives are blind to is a demographic centralization of representation in every level of government. For example, when a given group of citizens has a significant enough majority of representatives, they can dominate what that particular level of  government does. 

Conservatives are not just blind to the toxicity that comes from a demographic centralization of representation, they passionately embrace it as long as they are the ones who have the power. Here we should realize that the real political silencing comes as a result of the demographic centralization of representatives in any level of our government. That is because the groups not represented by that kind of majority have no say in government. BTW, that we allow that to happen, let alone not even notice it, proves what Hegel said about how we learn nothing from history.

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Sept 21

To Heidelblog and Carl Trueman for the portion of Trueman's article that harshly criticizes some of the ways leaders would appear while leading worship at a specific church.

Trueman's whole article can be accessed at:

    https://wng.org/opinions/turning-worship-into-a-clown-show-1691540989

I think that Trueman's criticisms are too harsh. There seems to be no attempt on his part to see the rationality behind why some leaders would lead worship dressed as cartoon characters. It seems to me that one of the motivations for leading worship that way is  the same motivation for  worship music bands to lead singing. That motivation is trying to be relevant.

But when we try too hard to be relevant, we sacrifice some of the reverence that we are to have when worshiping. And that reverence is suppose to revolve around what Trueman mentioned: the holiness and transcendence of God. And so when we try to be too hard to be relevant in our worship of God, we overemphasize the immanence of God at the expense of acknowledging His holiness and transcendence.

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Sept 29

To Heidelblog and Carl Trueman for the portion of Trueman's article that complains about the 'sexual imperialism' sought by the LGBT community as well as its interpretation of the article, Queering the Mary Rose‘s Collection

Trueman's full article:

https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2023/08/queering-a-tudor-warship

The Article referred to:

https://maryrose.org/blog/collections/the-collections-team/queering-the-mary-rose-s-collection/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=CampaignMonitor_Editorial&utm_campaign=LNCH%20%2020230809%20%20House%20Ads%20%20JO+CID_2ce6f81ac95a44b47d43901aab4eb61f

In his article, Trueman seems to be hiding from the real social, not ecclesiastical, issue here: full equality for the LGBT community. Trueman's complaint about 'sexual imperialism' is made selectively since he is really complaining about the change in society's views about sexual orientation and gender identity. He would have no problem if society reverted back to its previous views  about sexual orientation and gender identity that were held to during Christendom. And when complaining about imperialism, what did Trueman think Christendom was? In addition, Trueman's pejorative use of the label, 'anti-Western left,' is used to manipulate is audience to believe that those he opposes on this issue as their enemies.

History has examples of liberal reforms being followed by conservative efforts to undo those reforms. That is what we have here with the LGBT issue. On the one hand, will Christians help push society to steer a steady course toward full equality for the LGBT community? On the other hand, will the LGBT community learn how to make distinctions between  legitimate criticisms from implied calls to bring back the old status quo. A failure to make those distinctions can lead to the LGBT community becoming a mirror image of its enemies.

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Oct 22

To Heidelblog and Rosaria Butterfield and the Butterfield video making a public comment against teachers who would keep information about a child's transitioning from their parents.

It is important to use comparable objects when making a point. The question becomes whether comparing those who are anorexic with those who have gender dysphoria is valid. Regarding anorexia, there are physical and nonphysical possible causes. Most of them revolve around perfectionism.

The possible physical causes of gender dysphoria include the inability of the body to process certain hormones as well as a disparity between one's brain structure with one's assigned biological sex. Note that there is a male brain structure and a female one. It is possible that at least some with gender dysphoria have the brain structure of the gender they are identifying as. Overall, no one knows what is causing gender dysphoria.

It is the possible physical causes, especially the last one, that seems to have slipped the notice of Christians who are adamant that the science is on their side. The science they refer to is Genesis 1:27, which is a statement made before the Fall. Their science says that there are two discrete biological sexes: male and female. But the science listed above presents a more complicated picture of biological sex. For example, along with the presence of those who are intersex, if a disparity between one's biological sex and the sex associated with one's brain structure along with what we see in some of nature suggest that the biological sexes should be placed on a continuum.

Placing the biological sex categories on a continuum should not threaten to contradict Genesis 1:27. Why? It is because the interpretation that the biological sexes should be regarded as discrete categories does not account for Adam's sin and the Fall. For the Fall just didn't introduce a sin nature in Adam and his descendants, nature fell too according to Paul. So acknowledging what science is investigating does not imply that Genesis 1:27 is false.

A similar argument is made about homosexuality. Many prominent Christian leaders and influencers deny any physical cause for homosexuality. Instead, they attribute homosexuality simply to man's sin nature--which is the part in us that chooses sin over obeying God. But same sex behavior (SSB) occurrs in 1,500 species of animals--living creatures that have no sin nature. So what else is there to attribute SSB to but nature.

And here is the point. Certainly there is a universal side of nature that has been defined by the Scriptures. That side tells us what God designed nature to be. But because of Adam's sin, nature fell too and so there is also an individual personal side of nature where what nature is saying to us depends on how we are biologically constructed and function.

Finally, regarding the high percentage of children in whom gender dysphoria does not persist, there is some missing information. That missing information includes social factors, external pressures, and personal reasons that might cause a person with gender dysphoria to stop their transitioning. Included in the personal reason those children who had gender dysphoria who develop and change in sexual orientation and due to sexual experiences.

The high percentage of children who have gender dysphoria does not negate the existence of those whose gender dysphoria persists. And all of that calls on the medical profession to develop a more stringent set of criteria for diagnosing gender dysphoria and standards in how they will treat gender dysphoria in people of all ages. Perhaps, some protection for children from their parents is needed because of how the parents might react to those whose gender dysphoria will persist through their lifetime. 

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Nov 9

To Heidelblog and Carl Truman for the portion of Truman's article that claimed that the LGBT community is waging war against their bodies by their sexual orientation and/or gender identity and transitioning

Truman's full article can be found at:

https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2023/09/the-battle-for-the-body

Unfortunately,  for many of us religiously conservative Christian the understanding of the body stops at Genesis 1:27, a verse that precedes the Fall. However, science has been providing evidence that the body might being giving some people different messages than what would be expected from Genesis 1:27. And if we understand enough ramifications from the Fall, this would not make us feel threatened when trusting Genesis 1:27.

We see in the animal kingdom same sex behavior in some 1,500 species as of the last count. We also see some species in which the gender of an animal is not fixed and that gender roles can vary from species to species. Science has also told us that at least some people with gender dysphoria have the brain structure not of the gender that was assigned based on external genitalia, but the structure of the gender they identify with. Science also tells us that some bodies process or fail to process certain hormones in ways that could contribute to gender dysphoria.

And despite all of that, many of us religiously conservative Christians insist that we know the messages being sent by the body based on Genesis 1:27. Just as with geocentrism or with the denial of certain aspects and degrees of evolution, the statements that some of us are making about science could hurt the reputation of the Gospel because they are wrong.

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I used google translate to read the article posted below.

Dec 2

To R. Scott Clark and his article in Turkish about whether the civil government was bound to follow what Paul wrote about women teaching and leading in the Church. This appeared in Heidelblog. BTW, the article is in Turkish. I used Google translate to read the article.

Most of what is written above is good. The problem is at the end. Musical instruments were a type of Christ and thus should not be used in worship today?

Or it is clear in Romans 13 that the government governs by Natural Law? But whose Natural Law? Is Clark referring to the second table of the law? Then what about children who don't honor their parents or those who commit adultery? What about homosexuality? The government is to  criminalize those who don't honor their parents? We should throw in jail those who commit adultery or who practice homosexuality?

If Natural Law is based on observation of nature, then the criminalizing of homosexuality would be inconsistent. But as for the first and third questions, didn't Paul show an apathy toward sexual purity in society in I Cor 5? Didn't Paul seem to say that homosexuality should not be seen as a surprise in unbelievers in Romans 1? And aren't those 2 questions borrowing from what Clark observed Paul saying regarding the civil order? And aren't both tables of the law written on the consciences of all people? This seems to be part of Paul's writing in Romans 1:18ff.

I wrote the above because it seems that the basis that Clark uses to say that some of the Mosaic law is no longer binding also applies to practices that Clark sees as binding on civil governments today. In other words, Clark is inconsistent here. Then again, we all have our inconsistencies. 

Plus, that the older Reformed churches eliminated the use of musical instruments should cause us to look at those older Reformed churches as having erred in how they read the Scriptures in addition to the obvious contributions they made to reading the Scriptures. Here, we should be leery of following the traditions of men too closely.

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Dec 10

To R. Scott Clark and his article on the concept of 'Always Reforming.' Clark's article was written in Spanish and I used Google Translate in order to read what Clark wrote. This appeared in Heidelblog.

Like all other traditions, the Reformed is a mixed bag of good and bad regardless of their intent to be faithful to the Scriptures. After all, didn't most leaders of groups have that same intention during Christendom?

And like other traditionalists, Reformed traditionalists commit the same mistake that Martin Luther King Jr. mentioned when he spoke out against the Vietnam War:

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

For if we replace the word '<b>Western</b>' with a fill-in-the-blank, we find that all traditionalists are guilty of harboring the same arrogance. And I write that because of the English translation, which comes from Google Translate, from the above article includes the following:

They did not imagine that the theology, piety, and practice of the Reformed church according to the Scriptures were inherently deficient and needed to be supplemented by other traditions.

The 'they' refers to Calvin and other Reformed writers. The arrogance says that they had no deficiency and thus did not believe that what they said needed to be supplemented from the outside is the kind of arrogance about which Martin Luther King spoke. But it could also be at least part of the arrogance exhibited by the Pharisee in the parable of the two men praying.

Hopefully that translated sentence from Clark's article is more projection than a historically accurate assessment of Calvin and the Reformed writers about whom Clark wrote. In any case, the belief that oneself or one's group has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them, regardless of how accurate that one or one's own group can be about some essential doctrines, seems to go against the Scriptures. After all, we are not talking about the Apostles.

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Dec 15

To Stephen Wolfe and his article on it being ok to be a Christian American. This appeared in the sovereignnations.com website.

There are a variety of Christian families. Perhaps there are families where the parents are professing Christians, go to church, pray, and read the Scriptures. At the same time, the father beats the kids or the mother is having an affair or the kids are on drugs. Would we call such families Christian families?

What have we seen in America? Didn’t America start as white supremacist nation. Never mind The Constitution’s acknowledging racism, the Naturalization Laws of 1790 and 1795 prohibited anyone except for free whites from becoming citizens. Many Blacks were slaves. Women could not become full citizens until the early 1920s. Native Americans could not become citizens until 1924. Blacks could become citizens shortly after the Civil War but following the brief respite provided by Reconstructionism, came Jim Crow. And still many Blacks experience what they call systemic racism today. 

Is it odd that when America was considered to be a Christian nation, racism ruled. When the nation started to leave that Christian status in the 1960s, racism began to be mitigated.There is no need to mention the subjugation of women, the ethnic cleansing of Native Americans from the land, the use of state power to violently suppress workers who struggled to have rights recognized. We could also note how America started to become an overseas empire during the latter part of Christendom’s hold on America.

So the question becomes whether America is just a Christian Nation or has it always been a mixed bag? Or has it always been a Christian Nation in name only? We could cite Christian based laws written in the Constitutions of some of our states, but if we break one law, don’t we become lawbreakers according to James?

Either we can deduce the importance of our national identity from highly regarded traditional Christian writers, or we could take our cue from Paul in Philippians 3 when he counted his ethnic identity, as well as his own personal righteousness, as meaningless in the light of belonging to Christ. And that belonging to Christ was the work of God only. Or we could go to Galatians where there is no Gentile or Jew when it comes to being Christians.

There are at least two reasons why we belong to groups: security and a sense of significance. Some divisions in the Church occur when too much of our sense of significance comes from the other groups we belong to and not enough sense of significance comes from belonging to Christ. Though Paul used his Roman citizenship to help his preaching of the Gospel to more people, didn’t Paul also regard such ties as being of the flesh and thus nothing to be proud of? In fact, doesn’t Paul speak of pride as being the antithesis of faith?

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To Hiram R. Did, III and his article that sharply disagrees with Trueman's views that we are in a time period of excessive individualism. This reaction was posted in the Sovereign Nations website.

I am a Christian fundamentalist and politically lean toward Marx, and contrary to what was expressed in the above article, I find Trueman's model of thought regarding excessive individualism to be very flawed.

But I also find the above analysis of Trueman's thought to be flawed too. Why? It pronounces Trueman's model of thought as being guilty by association--its association with Marx and Hegel. And so to pronounce it flawed because of that association is to beg the question of the validity of the ideas of Hegel and Marx which are being borrowed. Such an interpretation is an authoritarian approach because the authoritarian test for truth depends on  the use of irrelevant criteria. And while all of what Hegel and Marx wrote assumed rather than proven to be wrong, the association of Trueman's ideas with Hegel and Marx becomes irrelevant criteria. And remember that I disagree with Trueman's model of thought.

What also shows an authoritarian approach to Trueman in the above article is the all-or-nothing view of Marx and Hegel. Forms of all-or-nothing thinking, a black-white worldview in particular, are traits of the authoritarian personality. 

Compare the all-or-nothing approach to Hegel and Marx with the approach that Martin Luther King Jr. demonstrated when comparing Marx and Capitalism in his book 'Stride Toward Freedom.' King's criticism of Marxism and Communism, which he unfortunately conflated is that it forgot that life was individual. When King turns toward Capitalism, he remarks that it forgot that life was social. Thus King acknowledge where parts of both Marxism and Capitalism were wrong, and by implication other parts in both Marxism and Capitalism were said to be right. His analysis stands in stark contrast to the analysis given in the above article. 

Where Trueman is wrong in his analysis is that it is an overreaction to the rejection of traditional authority structures. In addition, and I get the following from reading his articles rather than his book, Trueman is not aware of the individual physical nature of people who are either homosexual or transgendered. Science could have told him about that if Trueman didn't take Genesis 1:27 and Romans 1 as the final word of science on the issues of gender and sexual attraction. Science has been finding evidence of physical and natural causes for homosexuality and gender dysphoria even though both can have multiple causes.

But Trueman is a true ideologue and, as all ideologues are, he is approaching what he sees with an authoritarian mindset. And with that, Trueman and the above article, from different ideologies, share an authoritarian reaction to contrary views.

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Dec 17

To John Hornet and his article that says we need godly leaders to lead because unbelievers cannot represent the godly. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog

The other pandemic is authoritarianism. And so what we are seeing in many nations today is a battle between democracy with equality and authoritarianism with inequality. While the former is based on sharing power and collaborating, the latter revolves around conquering and controlling.

So where does what the above article claims and is calling for fit in with that model of thought? Seeing that we religiously conservative Christians have a penchant for authoritarianism, the above article is calling us to repeat the mistakes of Christendom. We should note here that Christendom is just one of the natural parents of Critical Theory and Post Modernism.

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Jan 31

To R. Scott Clark and his 2nd article on how to respond to Satanists and other pagans. This appeared in the Heidelblog.

Before we assess the present and near future threat of our persecution, we need to distinguish how much animosity is being shown to the Gospel as opposed to Christendom and its after effects. For if we could separate the Gospel from Christendom, we could find legitimate points of agreement with unbelievers and such would be a Biblical and rational approach to living at peace with unbelieving neighbors. It would also be a biblical and rational approach to mitigating unnecessary persecution. 

Also, to predict any significant degree of persecution that is coming could be in football terms a false start at playing the victim role.




Tuesday, February 6, 2024

A Partial Return Of The Blog

I had to shutdown the blog for health concerns. I spent part of that time trying to get in the best shape for surgery, and now I am spending time recovering from surgery with which there were complications.

Last year, I spent quite a bit of time talking about the threat of the other pandemic: authoritarianism. That time was spent on this blog as well as in my comments on other blogs. The threat of authoritarianism around the world is real and growing. In the U.S., it is politically most pronounced in today's Republican Party, especially in its leaders like Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis. It is also exhibited in groups like Moms For Liberty and results in many of the state laws passed regarding voting and gender transitioning. Religiously, it is most pronounced in those fellow religiously conservative Christians who are Christian Nationalists. Those working for such a nation are being driven by authoritarian sentiments more than by biblical concerns as seen in the sources they use to prove their claims.

In discussing authoritarianism, we can further define it by its alternative: democracy. For with authoritarianism comes hierarchy while with democracy comes equality. The hierarchy that comes with authoritarianism can manifest itself in terms of the power of a single leader, the power of a small group of elites, or the power of an ethnicity and/or an economic class. With the last classification comes the notion of a shadow nation. A shadow nation is where a given nation is seen as belonging more to one ethnicity and/or economic class than it belongs to the rest of its citizens. Evidence of a shadow nation can be seen in the laws passed by a nation's government. Do they favor a specific economic class more than the other economic classes? If so, and they do so here in America (click here and there), then we could classify a nation as a classocracy. If the laws passed by a nation give a privileged position to a given ethnicity in a multi-ethnic nation so that there is a diminishing of the equal rights of other ethnic groups, there is an ethnocracy. Totalitarian regimes can also be ethnocracies and/or classocracies. There are at least two ethnic groups vying to establish an ethnocracy in America or parts of it: whites and every form of Christian Nationalism. And what makes every form of Christian Nationalism a Biblical problem is that it puts all of us Christians in the inevitable position of 'lording it over others.' And it puts all of us Christians in the inevitable position having privilege and supremacy over the group to which we are to preach the Gospel. Is it unreasonable to suppose that many to whom we preach the Gospel will have already stopped listening because they first noticed the inferior position in society they have to us?

Starting this year, I will try to focus on the Martin Luther King Jr. quote below even with a partial return of the blog. It is partial because I will be posting at the most one article per week except for the first week. On the first week I will also post one article showing comments that were blocked on conservative blogs that same week. I will provide other posts like the one on blocked comments on a regular basis when I am able to.The King quote is below (click here for the source):

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered. 


If we were to apply King's statement, we find that it speaks to us as individuals, to our institutions, to our businesses, financial institutions, and corporations, and to the nation as a whole. As consumers, we are so easily sold on the latest technological gadgets. We are also hyper aware of what our expenses, including taxes, are compared to our income. We are even more conscious of what others get, especially from the government, in comparison to what we receive. But we are not a monolith.

Some know all of the above from the perspective of deprivation. Others know it from a treading water status. While others know all of the above as the results of having done well  and some of them have succeeded by exploiting others. It is natural and right for those from the first two categories to speak out because they are doing so for survival. 

But what about those who done well? What about those including both individuals and businesses of all kinds who are wealthy? Do they have the right to complain when their taxes pay to assist those who are from the first two categories? Do they have the right to complain about paying taxes that would benefit the education of the children whose parents are from those first two categories? Do they have a right to complain when some fellow citizens work to change our economic structure so that there are fewer people who are either living in deprivation or are just treading water?

And for those who have done well, do they really think that their own charitable giving is enough? If they do, then they should read the next two quotes.

The first quote is from King. It is a continuation of the quote given above. King said (click here for the source):

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. n the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life's roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say: "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

Now below is a quote from Vlad Lenin. Generally, I don't like Lenin. He acted as a prototype to Stalin and the structure of his government, as Rosa Luxemburg noted, was based on a bourgeoisie dictatorship model rather than a socialist one. But the following quote from Lenin coincides significantly with was just quoted from King (click here for the quote):

Religion is one of the forms of spiritual oppression which everywhere weighs down heavily upon the masses of the people, over burdened by their perpetual work for others, by want and isolation...But those who live by the labour of others are taught by religion to practise charity while on earth, thus offering them a very cheap way of justifying their entire existence as exploiters and selling them at a moderate price tickets to well-being in heaven. Religion is opium for the people. Religion is a sort of spiritual booze,   in which the slaves of capital drown their human image, their demand for a life more or less worthy of man.

Another way of saying what Lenin said is that, for many of the wealthy, charity can become an indulgence that removes the guilt that comes from either directly exploiting others or a system in which people are economically exploited. Again, charity is a bandaid used to cover the wounds of a the disease of economic exploitation. And so for the wealthy who would believe that giving charity is all that is morally required, they must realize that they need to go farther. They need to remove the structures and policies by which their abundance of wealth is due to taking advantage of others. 

And isn't that what King is saying too? It isn't enough to give charity and to help individuals or even groups. We need to change the structure of our economy so that there are fewer and fewer victims and beggars on the road on which we all travel in life. 

We should note that our current form of Capitalism, is not the form of Capitalism that was employed in America and around the world after WW II. That form was called the Bretton-Woods System. The Bretton-Woods System was a form of economics that, while employing a significant measure of Capitalism, gave national governments more control over their economies. And in a democracy, that translates giving the people, who elected those leaders, more control of their own economy.

Our current form of Capitalism, which was introduced to some nations through manufactured crises, is called Neoliberalism. Neoliberalism eliminated many of the powers that were reserved for the government. As a result, private investors, sometimes even those who are from other nations, gained more power in determining a given nation's economy. And many of those private investors religiously followed the maximize profit ethic, which is a cannibalizing ethic that devours all of its peers. And as a result, disparities in wealth and income, both between the economic classes and the races, have continued to increase for the past few decades. Can we now see how the economic road on which we all travel needs to be changed so that there are fewer people in need? 

BTW, we also need to see that Neoliberalism has both a domestic side and a foreign side. That distinction was made in the 2016 election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. While Clinton favored trade agreements that would give more control of our economy to foreign investors, Trump favored tax and regulation cuts that gave American corporations and financial institutions more control over our economy. Only Trump successfully obscured the fact that he was still promoting a Neoliberal capitalism.

Not all in our society have preferred to be part of a thing-oriented society rather than a person-oriented society. And not all who have preferred to be part of a thing-oriented society do so to the same degree.  Certainly the Democratic Party is a mixed bag in terms of caring more about people than it does about profits and property rights. Some third parties and individuals try to promote a person-oriented society to varying degrees.

In contrast to those who are working to advance a person-oriented society, there is Wall Street. Clearly, Wall Street favors profit motives and property rights over people as do many from corporate America. And here we should note that the "wokism" promoted by many in corporate America does not imply that a corporation is promoting a person-oriented society over a thing-oriented society. That is because many in corporate America can favor certain woke causes that do not interfere with the economic policies they lobby for that make profits and property rights more important than people's need to be able to earn livable wages, the needs that people have for government assistance, and/or regulations that protect people and the need to protect the environment.

The Republican Party under Trump has cared and continues to care much more about profits and property rights than it does about people. That was shown by the policies of Trump that decreased the financial and social responsibilities of corporations and financial institutions in order to increase their immediate profits. And their increase in profits also contributed to a spike in the deficit.

Today's Republican Party under Trump has become the political home for Cain when he rhetorically asked God, 'am I my brother's keeper'?Of course, one could retort that at least that such a question is Biblical, but it is Biblical in the same way of how Pharaoh treated the Hebrews who were being led by Moses. Despite that, today's Evangelical support for the Republican Party under Trump is continuing a conservative Church tradition over the past few centuries of siding with wealth and power. Such was done in France, Russia, and Spain before their respective revolutions. 

We should note that the Church paid dearly both during and after those revolutions. And the reputation of the Gospel has been harmed because of the oppression and abuses that were logical consequences of Christendom. Both Critical Theory and Post Modernism have accurately pointed out the failures that came with Christendom and other sources. That oppression from and brutal treatment by those who claim to have an exclusive knowledge of the truth is part of the history that Critical Theory and Post Modernism is directing our attention too. Sadly, neither Critical Theory nor Post Modernism have provided viable solutions to what Christendom wrought. And worse, those who want to bring back Christendom, with the promise that they can do domination right, are speaking louder and louder and are stirring up a growing audience because the Christians in that audience are in fear from anticipating the coming of a real persecution as secularism becomes more pervasive.

The New Testament tells us that 'the love of money is a root for all sorts of evil' (click I Timothy 6:10 for the source). That is true not just for the individual Christian, it is true for everyone. And it is true not just for individual people, it is true for businesses, corporations, financial institutions, society, and the nation. It's not that profits and property rights are not important, they are necessary for economic survival. It is that when gadgets, profit motives, and property rights are more important than people to our institutions, businesses, society, and nation, we are all forced to merge onto a highway leading to self-destruction.

At the same time, it is not enough to point out the failures of others. James 3 tells us that 'we all stumble in many ways.' Paul tells us in Romans 3:9 that both the person who denies the existence of God and the religious person are equal in sin and are thus in the same boat. And so to the best of our ability we need to point out those failures in the same way that we want others to point out our own failures. We need to point out those failures as fellow sinners. We need to point out those failures not as those who are morally superior to sinners or as a way of tearing others down, but as a way of offering an alternative way to live. We need to point out those failures not as authoritarians who are virtue-signaling by seeking to punish others. Instead, we need to point out those failures as peers in sin who want people to change for their own benefit so that they can be better than ourselves. I have not mastered that way of pointing out the faults of others. In fact I am still trying to begin to learn how to do that. At the same time, some things must be immediately pointed out.

So, hopefully, the importance of not just distinguishing a person-oriented society from a thing-oriented society will be the focus of this blog during this year, but the importance of promoting the former society over the latter one will also be emphasized.



Tuesday, November 28, 2023

Another Article On The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

 I am in the midst of a medical break from blogging. But the current situation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict requires another article to be posted here. My regular blogging will return some time after the New Year.

There are two traps that many people fall into when looking at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The first trap is the binary thinking trap. That trap divides people in the conflict into two fixed and disjoint groups: innocent victims and oppressors. Because the groups are fixed, innocent victims can never become oppressors while at the same time, oppressors were never innocent victims. And because the groups are disjoint, the people involved can never be both innocent victims and oppressors at the same time. 

When it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the term 'oppressor' could easily be replaced by the word 'terrorist.' A word of thanks goes to a pamphlet written by Jeff Harper from ICAHD.

However, using the word 'terrorist' can become problematic for Americans. That is because our war on terror pits people in the right uniforms who salute the right flag and serve in one of the several branches of our military against terrorists who are non-state actors who tend to dress informally. Such a perception ignores the definition of terrorism. The definition of terrorism is the threat or use of force on civilians to achieve political ends. We Americans might not want to recognize that definition especially when our nation threatened to unleash, and eventually did, 'Shock and Awe' on Iraq unless they replace their then leader Saddam Hussein. For when we did that, we were practicing terrorism. And it wasn't the first time that we practiced it.

Now what we see with the binary thinking trap when working in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that one side are always made up of innocent victims while the other side are always terrorists. Those spectators who favor Israel will see Israel as the eternal innocent victim and the Palestinians as the persistent terrorists while those who favor the Palestinians will see the roles reversed.

And that leads us into the second trap when viewing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: the tribalism trap. Tribalism occurs when loyalty to a group, regardless of what the group is based on, goes too far. As a result a person's moral vision becomes compromised so that what is right and wrong depends on who does what to whom. That kind of moral vision or sense of morality is called moral relativity. So for example, suppose Palestinians attack Israeli civilians after Israeli had just attacked some Palestinian civilians. Those who are too loyal to the Palestinian cause will rationalize the Palestinian attack on Israeli civilians while passionately condemning the Israeli attack. And those who are too loyal to Israel will see it the other way around.

The binary thinking trap is an overly simplistic view of people by putting them in black-white categories.  In fact, that is its attraction. It gives us an easy analysis of the conflict so that we can focus on other things in life. And because it is an easy way to interpret the conflict, it provides a comfortable way of looking at the situation. 

But the hazard in the binary thinking trap is that, in reality, its charm is really the rocks that shipwreck our ability to think. For rigidly dividing groups in a conflict into two disjoint groups is an example of a black-white thinking. And so falling into the binary thinking trap limits one's ability to think deeply and see the complexity involved in the conflict. For the complexity of the conflict reveals that both Israel nor the Palestinians are both victims and terrorists. And so overly simplistic thinking  renders one unable to see the conflict for what it is.

The tribalism trap comes with its siren call and rocks too. What is attractive with tribalism is the appeal to loyalty. That is because loyalty is often portrayed as an important virtue to have. And so when we demonstrate loyalty in the face of adversity, we feel a growing sense of righteousness. And that makes us feel more important. 

But the hidden hazard of tribalism is that the virtue hides how tribalism damages, or even destroys, our ability to be fair to all sides. That is because with tribalism one embraces moral relativity. Such a state may not be apparent to those who are tribal because of how loyalty is seen as a virtue and necessary for survival. But too much loyalty both is counterproductive to maintaining moral standards because one becomes blind to one's own immorality and puts the survival of one's own tribe at risk by creating unnecessary enemies.

What both traps have in common is that they are signs of a growing authoritarianism. We should note here is that authoritarianism is the other pandemic. Also, it is important to note that a black-white worldview is a characteristic an authoritarian personality type. On the other hand, one way to partially describe tribalism is to say that it promotes group authoritarianism. For in tribalism, one is demanding that those from other groups should automatically submit in various ways to one's own group without resistance. And what we should note about authoritarianism is its karma. That is the authoritarian ways in which one's own group acts toward others is the authoritarianism the group will visit on its own members.

Another point that should be noted about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the reliance on the threat or use of force. Such a reliance is called the rule of force. And though at this time the force is with Israel, Hamas and other Palestinians are practicing terrorism in ways that attempt to change the balance of power. For example, the Hamas atrocities of October 7th were partially designed to instigate the kind of Israeli response that would cause others to join the fray. Both fortunately and unfortunately, that has yet to come about. It is fortunate that others have yet to join the fray because the world has seen enough violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is unfortunate because, just perhaps, if the forces were equal, there would be more incentive for both to negotiate.

The reliance on the use of force is authoritarian in nature. And such a  reliance logically follows the authoritarianism that involves the binary thinking and tribalism traps. In addition, the rule of force invites a seemingly forever king-of-the-hill battle that results in each side succumbing to military defeat and/or moral suicide. And the moral suicide that is experienced in how a side attacks its enemies can be similar to the moral suicide in how a side eventually treats its own members.

What is a common theme in all that has been discussed thus far is authoritarianism. And though it would be overly simplistic to reduce the cause of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to that of being authoritarianism, authoritarianism looms large in how the conflict is both perceived by both insiders and outsiders and reacted to. That is because with authoritarianism comes the expectation of hierarchical relationships between those who are in conflict. Those who are on the upper side of the hierarchical relationship will view their position as being merited and those who are on the lower side of the hierarchical relationship can feel morally outraged at the injustices that are visited on them.

Regardless of the self-declarations made by either side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the path that has been rejected by both sides is the rule of law. The rule of law views all sides as equals, as having the same rights. The rule of law holds all sides accountable to the same laws and standards, laws and standards that are based on all sides being equal and having the same rights.And the rule of law allows outsiders to hold the warring sides accountable to those laws and standards that are based on equal rights for all groups.

With both Israel and the Palestinian terrorists using the atrocities of the other side as an excuse for their own atrocities, it is apparent that neither group, nor their allies, are promoting the rule of law. And so here will be a modest proposal for the beginning of a just and peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. That the the U.S., Israel, and the Palestinians submit themselves to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The ICC would use the same international law in judging the actions of the U.S., Israel, and the Palestinians that it has used to judge others who have been charged with committing crimes against humanity. And whatever actions that the ICC finds as violating international law will be corrected by the guilty party without the threat or use of force.

'You may say I'm a dreamer.' Maybe so. But the above proposal will allow the world to identify those who favor the rule of law from those who merely claim to follow it. Distinguishing those who favor the rule of law from those who prefer the rule of force will perhaps allow us to identify the warring sides of the global conflict that mankind has forever been battling. That war pits those who favor equality and democracy against inequality and authoritarianism. And in an age when WMDs are inevitable, because technology is a whore, at least the above proposal will distinguish those whose first priority is the survival of mankind from those who are all too willing to sacrifice the world because they refuse to share power and wealth. And perhaps the ability to make such a distinction will temper our own desires for any kind of tribalistic conquest. 

One final point to be made is that for as long as Israel's Occupation against the Palestinians is in place, talk of a two-state solution is disingenuous. For with Israel's Occupation of the land comes the continuing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the land followed by an annexation of the land. And atrocities are being committed to achieve that ethnic cleansing. With the West Bank, where settlements along with how Palestinian communities are divided by those settlements and their highways, a viable Palestinian state has become not just a mirage or even dream; it has become an impossible dream. After all, if Israel  dismantled the settlements in Gaza because of the expense of protecting them, what could possibly motivate Israel to even consider dismantling the settlements in the West Bank? 

Talk of the Two-State Solution is merely camouflage for land theft for as long as the Occupation continues. And that goes back to the form of Modern Zionism that has taken. That form says that the Jewish people are to have ownership the land from the river to the sea. That doesn't necessarily exclude the allowance for there to be Arab citizens in Israel. Zionism, for them, provides a formal equality only with their fellow Jewish citizens of Israel. It is an equality declared by Israel's constitution but not an equality that is actually practiced. And it never could be for as long as Israel is defined as being a Jewish state. For that definition means that Israel must take official measures that will keep the Arab population in check in order to preserve a vast Jewish majority. 

Both the Jews and the Palestinians deserved a homeland in order to be protected from past abuses. That is true even though European Jews have historically suffered more than Palestinian Arabs. The choice for a homeland that both parties could have selected is a binational, democratic state. But by defining Israel as a Jewish state while there exists Palestinians in the land, both as citizens of Israel and noncitizens who are living in the land that Israel seeks to annex, results in Israel being disqualified as being a democratic state. For the state of Israel does not equally belong to all of its citizens. This is a point that Jeff Halper makes when he distinguishes a democracy from an ethnocracy. 

The same would be true if Hamas's goal of creating an Islamic republic in the land from the river to the sea became reality. And though the Israel's Zionism is more palatable than Hamas, it becomes more and more comparable to Hamas and its efforts to create an Islamic republic, as Israel continues to both slaughter innocent civilians in Gaza and forcibly, including the use of deadly violence, annex land in the West Bank.