Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For September 16, 2014

Sept 8

To R. Scott Clark and his quote by a Yale Freshman student who talked about Yale becoming uncomfortable with controversial conservative speakers. This appeared in Heidelblog.

This is a two-way street here. To criticize capitalism or question patriotism makes many conservatives, especially in church leaderships, very uncomfortable as well. After all, we can't afford to offend those members who are politically conservative. This discomfort from dissent spurs the use of pejoratives and that is by both sides. So when talking about this discomfort, nobody can afford to imitate the Pharisee in the parable of the two men praying.

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Sept 9

To Michael Kruger and his blogpost on why Christians who call certain behaviors sin, especially homosexual actions, are called haters. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website

There is a problem with using the 1st century Church as a grounds for why we are called haters today. That problem is that the 1st century Church had no track record in controlling society where the Church today does. And with regard to how homosexuals have been treated in the past because of Church's influence on society and its laws, there is legitimate reasons to accuse some Christians of hating gays and others. Those reasons are seen in the laws Christians supported which marginalized gays in society.

In addition, because too many Conservative Christians have so strongly associated calling homosexuality sin with supporting laws that marginalize homosexuals, such as laws that would prohibit same-sex marriage in society or Jim Crow type laws allowing Christians to deny legitimate business services to gays, calling homosexuality sin is now understandably perceived as being a hateful act.

We will get nowhere in evangelism if we attribute people's rejection of our message solely to them without considering whether we have any faults.

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Sept 10

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost on why Millennials have trouble trusting others. This appeared in the Heidelblog.

Saying that the economic comes into play so late assumes that the economic dimension has a low priority in society. That presupposition should be checked at the door in a Capitalist society especially when the current form of Capitalism is neoliberalism and its revered teachers are people like Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman.

Rather, shouldn't we consider the inability to trust demonstrated by Millennials to be evidence supporting what Marx said about the Bourgeoisie of his day and perhaps Capitalism for our day:

It [the Bourgeoisie] has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his “natural superiors”, and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self- interest, than callous “cash payment”.

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To R. Scott Clark and his short video clip on 9-11 and ISIS. This appeared on the Heidelblog.

Seems like that only things some want us to remember is what is done to us. What is not forgotten because most of it was never known is what we did to others prior to 9-11.

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Sept 16

To Joe Carter and his blogpost on linking poverty with the decline in marriage. This appeared in the Acton blog

We are looking at marriage as the only factor having a correlation with poverty? We are not going to look at low wages, the drop in union membership, technological unemployment, and the outsourcing of jobs  overseas with poverty?  

We should also note  that correlations do not imply cause and effect--something that most educated  people know. So who is to say whether poverty causes a decline in marriage, or marriage causes a decline in poverty, or both.

With many corporations relying on gov't assistance programs to subsidize their payrolls, it seems that some conservatives are determined to avoid linking corporate practices with poverty and this is despite their eagerness to cite crony capitalism as a threat to our system. Of course the main culprit they identify  in crony capitalism is gov't. So at least these conservatives are consistent.

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To Joe Carter and his blogpost on how ending slavery made America richer. This appeared on the Acton blog.

It is not humorously funny that one should talk about the eradication of slavery as helping the economy without mentioning the other forms of worker abuse that took slavery's place. Those other forms included prison labor bolstered by Jim Crow laws and the horrible abuse of immigrant labor, such as those building the railroads, or those who were abused while working in factories. In fact, labor history in the US, especially after the Civil War, is replete with state violence against labor for the purposes of supporting businesses' control of labor.

Yes, ending slavery was human and moral necessity regardless of any possible economic sacrifice. But ending slavery did not end the exploitation of labor.