Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For June 2, 2021

 June 1

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost quoting from an article written by Keith Mathison that talks about how the Church's desire for political power, as in the days of the Roman Church in the Middle Ages, will be one of the factors that contribute to its death. This appeared in Heidelblog.

Link to article cited in Clark's article

https://www.keithmathison.org/post/the-shared-priority-of-american-evangelicalism-and-the-medieval-papacy

The question here is whether the Church, including the evangelical part of the Protestant branch, can speak prophetically to the state without lusting for power. For while the above post and article cited makes the traditional conservative mistake by viewing the Church's interaction with the state solely in the light of the past, we need to also consider the present. The present includes a significant laundry list of politically facilitated oppressions some of which are still promoted by Evangelicals including those who are providing the criticisms of evangelicalism described above.  One only needs to ask if homosexuality and same-sex marriage should be legally allowed to show that point.

We should also note that it isn't just liberals who, as described above, teach that cultural standards should replace the scriptures, conservatives do that too. Only conservatives know that the appearance of doing so raises red flags. And so instead of teaching people that we should replace what is taught in the scriptures with cultural values, they teach that their favorite sacred cow cultural values are also taught in the scriptures. Some of those cultural values include patriotism, conservative political ideology,  and capitalism. 

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To Russell Kirk and his article, possibly written in 1973, about the need for order and how the American order, though not perfect, has brought freedom and justice to people. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.

The more unjust the order, the greater risk of challenges to that order which can cause unjust changes in current order or a new order to  become more unjust. The latter happened in Russia following the October 1917 Revolution. The former seems to be happening in Israel with its Occupation of Palestinian territories. Now Israel faces a choice between military defeat and moral suicide. It seems to be vying for the latter. 

The perception of the justness of America's order often depends on whether or not one is privileged. One can quote Tocqueville to one is blue in the face, but he spoke as a member of the privileged from Europe. Thus he failed to see America's atrocities for what they were. Those who suffered the atrocities of the American order have seen things differently, and perhaps more realistically, than Tocqueville did.

We have a choice when facing the corruption of the current but weakening American order. Either we can insist on maintaining the current order because order is better than anarchy, or we can look to change the current order to become just--note that I didn't say more just. Those who are privileged, are looking for affirmation when they view the current American order. Their insecurity is evident when they either describe the merits of the current order or when minimize its atrocities. But because they have prospered by way of oppression, nagging self-doubts caused by guilt cause them to gloss over reality.

So the question is whether we will have the courage to face a real picture of the moral failures of the American order. We've already seen, through examples, what  our options will be if our courage fails.