Jan 26
To Harold K. Bush and his article on how the coddling of the Church has contributed to America’s problem with accepting truth and facts. This appeared in the Spiritual Coffee blog on Patheos
The real key into understanding what is going on today is to go back to what French says about tribes. But to fully understand why that is important, we have to go to the post-Cold War, sociological definition of tribalism. That definition included a high degree of loyalty to one's group regardless of what the group is based on. That loyalty, as what happened during the Cold War, allowed one side to excuse its own sins if is actions attacked the other group--the enemy. Remember that the US committed atrocities and supported many a tyrant if it meant that the target of its actions were the communists. Relative morality was then passionately embraced so that what is right and wrong depended on who did what to whom.
As loyalty to one's own group became more intense so too is the authority of the group. An important aspect of tribalism is the embracing of group authoritarianism. At this point, we need to understand authoritarianism which we can today because of yesteryear's work by the Frankfurt School. Erich Fromm distinguished between the passive, or masochistic, authoritarian and the active, or sadistic, authoritarian. While the former gladly gives itself over to a larger cause than itself and compulsively follows the whims of the leader in order to become a part of the group, the latter gladly takes a leadership role who relishes the sadistic role of not torturing others but of ruling over others in order to gain the approval of the group and eliminate disapproval..
Thus, the authoritarian personality is a fear driven type personality. While the passive authoritarian's fear is driven by immaturity which drives one to find and lose one's identity to a group and become submissive to the group's leader because their immaturity has made them ill-equipped to stand on their own . Here we can call the leader the nanny thinker for the passive authoritarian. Meanwhile the leader must conquer in order to gain control over others lest that leader loses the approval of the masses (see https://www.marxists.org/archive/fromm/works/1957/authoritarian.htm ). For both fear of the loss of control and aloneness becomes the driving forces of their tribalism.
At this point we should note that the Frankfurt school follows neomarxist thinking and, more importantly, took an interest in the authoritarian personality because those in the school wanted to understand why so many Germans remained very loyal to Hitler to the end. They wanted to understand that in order to find a way of reducing the number of times history would repeat itself.
While from a Christian perspective we can say that tribalism is a form of idolatry, the stigma of being idolatrous for the Christian can create a conflict of interest in examining oneself. Thus the understand tribalism authoritarianism and their signs can be helpful in examining ourselves.
In short, we need to recognize that the tribalism, with its resulting swallowing of conspiracy theories by some, appeals to us because it comes across as meeting some of our personal and emotional needs. And so we must realize that appealing to facts and logic, as necessary as that is, does not hit the core of why one has become tribal, and even cultist for some. Thus, we must find ways to address those emotional needs in how we talk to those who are tribal regardless of whether their tribe is affiliated with Trump, conservatism, libertarian thought, liberalism, or leftism--which is where I lean. The more ideologically tribal we become, the more we insist that our ideology is omniscient which is an anti-scriptural view because it results replacing the Scriptures with our own ideology. BTW, I apologize for the length of the comment.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Around Jan 29
Tp R. Scott Clark and his article that criticizes the Woke Church for its silence on sin and its attempt to be therapeutic rather than preaching about sin and the Gospel. This appeared in Heidelblog
The Reformed pulpits have their own version of niceness and silence on sins. That is they are silent when it comes to corporate sins, especially those that are part of the status quo or promoted by conservative political views. It is as if conservative preachers want unity in the body of Christ and so corporate, especially conservative ones, are not mentioned lest we see division in the Church. But such is not the case when a flaw or sins is practiced by non-conservatives.
Some would defend that silence by saying that such would promote Christian Nationalism and that is unbiblical. Yes, promoting Christian Nationalism is unbiblical, but one can preach against the corporate sins of society or a group in society without promoting Christian Nationalism.
Martin Luther King Jr. talked about the Church and how it responds to people who are in urgent need of relief in the here and now. He talks about how the Church either supports the status quo or is silent about its sins while people are begging for relief. Certainly Reformed preachers would not hesitate to condemn public sin when sex is involved. And I've enough criticism from Reformed pulpits and blogs of Critical Theory and Critical Race Theory even though both theories talk about sins without calling using the term. But when people other than Christians are marginalized, or when wealth disparity continues to grow, or when conservative conspiracy theories run rampant or when conservatives storm the Capitol in order to change the results of the election, all we hear from such preachers is the sounds of silence.
For how Martin Luther King Jr. looked at things, see the article linked to below:
https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/knock-midnight
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Feb 1
To R. Scott Clark and Carl Trueman on Scott’s article that cites Trueman which scapegoats the current individualism based in Rousseau and today’s sexual identity politics among other things not conservative. This appeared in Heidelblog.
While the much of the world's upsidedowness has a conservative touch, it seems that some religiously conservative Christian leaders are dead set on scapegoating Rouseau, current modern thinking, especially as it pertains to individualism, and the current sexual identity and orientation movement.
As one listens to the show, Trueman's analysis is solely from a conservative Western position. He seems unaware that what he complains about in terms of the individual determining who one is that other societies and cultures allowed for what we are witnessing today in our society and culture. Some of these societies and cultures include some Native American tribes that recognized up to 3 to 4 genders based on what roles individuals chose. We should note how Westerners, those with European nationalities, treated Native American tribes because those westerners believed in their own superiority and thus entitled to what Native American tribes had. That personal belief in their superiority also led to the subjugation of other races.
So it appears that the amnesia that Trueman complains about is not just practiced by his ideological opponents, but also from his ideological compatriots.
Is not Clark and Trueman aware that the biggest denial of truth we have known this century comes from avid Trump supporters, many of whom are religiously conservative Christians. They accepted the election lie based on conspiracy theories and the authoritarian speech of religiously conservative Christian leaders. And before that big lie, many religiously conservative Christians accepted a presidency that was the most corrupt and abusive Presidency in the history of our nation. Of course there have been many other lies accepted by many of the same conservatives.
If Trueman wants to be obsessed with sexual issues, not much can be done. If he wants to focus on the overthrowing of history by his ideological opponents while forgetting how fellow conservatives have and still do the same, again, not much can be done. But ideological conservatives should be leery of scapegoating society's problems on ideological enemies when the fingerprints for Trump's presidency and his attempted coup belong to so many of them. If I had the talent and was in the mood to write a song parody that would best summarize Trueman's scapegoating here, I would use a famous song from Fiddler On The Roof and replace the word 'Tradition' with 'Projection.'
No comments:
Post a Comment