Oct 2
To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost blaming the problem Millennials have with perfectionism on the influence of social media. This appeared in Heidelblog.
The article is beyond belief. Why? When mentioning a real problem, the problem Millennials have with perfectionism, the parents of Millennials do not even receive honorable mention. How is that possible?
One reason why may be possible it is because it is us baby-boomers who, for the most part, are the parents of Millennials. Parents still have a significant influence on how their children grow up, especially with how a child reacts to changing social and cultural conditions. Plus, has Clark forgotten about 'Helicopter Parents'? Clark is correct in starting off by saying that he was not critiquing Millennials. But he should have followed that by saying that saying that this was a partial critique of those who raised Millennials.
As for neoliberalism, Scott seems to have a selective memory regarding what fostered neoliberalism and what it produces. Neoliberalism started after America supported a military coup in Chilé in 1973. That coup overthrew the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende after Allende, with support of many of his people, had decided to pursue a more leftist agenda. America's government, because of business interests there, wanted a free market. And so a dictator was installed so that a free market could follow. And, btw, that dictator was eventually indicted for committing crimes against humanity which involved crimes against his own people. Since then, free markets have been following the growth of authoritarianism in governments. Some of that growth in authoritarianism has occurred right here in the U.S. (see https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746 ).
Furthermore, neoliberalism's free markets have caused growing wealth disparities throughout the world. Some of those losses have occurred right here in the U.S. (see https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746 ). Of course that doesn't include the fact that workers support their families in a shareholder economic world where these workers are seen as disposable objects for profit. Even if the produce a significant profit for their owners, if a higher profit can possibly be made elsewhere, workers can lose their jobs. So many jobs offer no job security because workers can be easily replaced by having their jobs offshored or by technology. Do we really believe that the angst caused by such an environment was never passed down to the kids?
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To Paul Krause and his blogpost about how Christianity must significantly change culture for its own good. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative.
I look at articles like the one above as a defense for Church to assume more control over society and culture. The defense for such actions are deductively made, but that defense becomes unraveled when induction, via examining history, is employed. Church history does not tell many positive stories of the West when the Church was dominant. For when Christianity is seen as revolving around a region, it all too soon becomes a vehicle that promotes self-worship instead of the worship of God.
The self-worship seen in Western Civilization when the Church was a dominant force included colonialism and imperialism along with white supremacy. In America, the ethnic cleansing of Native Americans from the land, race-based slavery, and Jim Crow were strongly promoted and then defended with perceived tenets of the Christian faith along with the Scriptures. But America has always been more Protestant than Catholic. But not all parts of Europe were that way. And what we find in history is the lust for power, the use of violence, the embracing of intolerance, and the hoarding of wealth. These practices were seen as entitlements if not morally obligatory. Thus with the proclamation of the Gospel was the claim that white men must rule over women and people of color.
The problem with articles like the one above is that they either explicitly or implicitly promote Christian supremacy over society. That means instead of Christians sharing society with all others as equals, Christians must seize the day so as to save any pagan society from itself. But who was there to save Christian Europe, and parts of the rest of the World, from the Church? Thus came the problem that civilization changed from being Christian to being more atheistic because of the failures of the Church when it was in charge.
The NT Scriptures command us to preach the Gospel and to promote justice. And they warn us against meddling too much in society in terms of personal matters. Finally, Jesus warns us against 'lording over others.' So we need to be very careful when we Christians attempt to change society and culture lest we imitate our forefathers in how they tried too hard to influence society and culture.
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To Rev. Ben Johnson and his blogpost citing a German Socialist party’s claim that Jesus would be a Socialist had he been on earth today. This was posted in the Acton blog.
It certainly is wrong of the Socialist Party to speak for Jesus on the issue of voting. But regarding the problems brought to us by Capitalism, Marx, not necessarily all of his followers, was on target especially regarding neoliberalism--today's form of Capitalism. We live in a shareholder economy where the traditional definition of stakeholder has been reduced to shareholders and possibly a few key decision makers. The traditional business definition of stakeholder consists of all who are impacted by the business. That includes those who are included in today's definitoin as well as workers, the community in which a business is located, customers, and others. To give an example, a while ago, the then CEO of Exxon was asked if Exxon should be concerned about the effects of their prices on their customers. He clearly stated that the only people Exxon is accountable to are the shareholders.
With today's new definition of stakeholders, all others are considered to be disposable objects whom a business could choose to care about. But when a business follows the maximize profits ethics, which is a popular ethic followed by those who reject the traditional definition of stakeholder, what follows is that not only do we work with the redacted definition of stakeholders, but that that ethic is cannibalizing ethic that devours all other ethical and moral guidelines. Thus obeying the law depends on belief that either the business can get away with it or that being caught will not impact the ROI.
We should note that with neoliberalism, we see an ever growing wealth disparity and that results in an ever growing political power disparity. Growing political power disparities destroy democracies.
Finally, I am not sure why Marx said that religion is the opiate of the people, but do know why Lenin said it. He spoke from observation on how those following the Christian religion enabled the exploitation of workers and others by those with wealth. He wasn't speaking from an ideological point of view as much as observational one. It is one of the few things he got right.
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