Aug 27
To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost that defends the right of people to refuse to comply with vaccine mandates. This appeared in Heidelblog.
Are there justifiable moral reasons for refusing the vaccine in the face of the current pandemic? The argument for that refusal must be regarded as weaker now in the face of the Delta variant and the future variants that the Delta variant points to.
The beginning of the above blogpost is problematic because it points to competing claims. That is problematic because it doesn't mention the sources of those competing claims. It doesn't say anything about people vetting their news sources. To spread misinformation, especially deadly misinformation because one was negligent to vet one's news sources is to become vulnerable to violating the prohibitions against bearing false witness and killing. So this discussion about having the moral right to refuse the vaccination must start with knowing how to obtain news sources that are as reliable as possible.
Next, Clark's argument is structured around the individual and their conscience. The selective appeal to the sovereignty of the conscience is determined by the writer's own views and political-moral issues at hand. For example, Clark does not argue for the sovereignty of the conscience when it comes to homosexuality and same-sex marriage. Why? Because the conscience is fallible and thus must answer to higher authority. So why are we not discussing the fallibility of the conscience when structuring the discussion of mandated vaccinations around the conscience?
We should note that to so structure the discussion around the conscience can become counterproductive to promoting Biblical morals. Why? That is because to structure the discussion that way causes people, especially Christians, to be self-directed to the point of being self-focused. The concern for such people is to maintain their own moral purity. But Biblical morals are also about loving one's neighbor as themselves. Biblical morals adds to the mix a concern and even preoccupation with the welfare of others. Note that Biblical morals adds love for neighbor to the mix; it does not replace the valid concerns for maintaining one's own purity.
Next comes a confusing concern about the legality of the abortion from which fetal cells were used in the development of the vaccines. Before noting the confusion, we should note that fetal cells, that is cells from an actual fetus, were not used at all in the development or production of any vaccine. Rather, cells from a fetal cell line were used. That means that reliance on these cells is not causing more abortions.
As for the moral objections to using such cells, one might ask if it is immoral to use organs in transplant operations from a person who was murdered. Again, the question of whether such use becomes an incentive for future murders is important here. Does the cause of death suggest anything about the use of those organs? If not, doesn’t the comparison suggest a similar, if not the same, answer, for use of fetal cells from an abortion? And since cells from a fetal cell line is being used, doesn’t the suggestion become stronger in the face of the current pandemic?
Clark’s objection to this line of thinking is one of choice only in a broader context. A volunteer organ donor is making the choice to donate one’s organs. But how does that apply when the fetal cell donor has no ability to make such a choice? Is Clark comparing apples to oranges in making this particular point? Again, isn’t the overriding moral issue here whether the use of these fetal cells leads to future abortions?
As for the confusing concern for the legality of the abortion when it occurred, if one believes that elective abortions is murder, what does the legal status of the abortion add to the discussion of using cells from fetal cell lines?
Clark’s argument encourages Christians to be very focused on their own moral purity. In so doing, he is encouraging a greater self preoccupation at the expense of love for neighbor. The moral objections he considers are not well thought out. And at the end, he lacks precision in talking about the flaws of the vaccines. He fails to mention that the drop in the efficacy of the current vaccines are due to the Delta variant rather than a drop against the earlier forms of the Covid-19 virus. In addition, the growth of the Delta variant has been greatly contributed to by the number of unvaccinated people. And for as long as that number is not reduced, new variants, which pose even greater threats than the current forms of Covid-19, are more likely to emerge.
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Around Aug 27
To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost that quotes an article by Chris Gordon that that we must focus on and keep the 10 Commandments in order to worship God as he wants us to. This appeared in Heidelblog.
The link for the article quoted by Clark is below:
https://agradio.org/resource/legalism-what-it-is-and-what-it-is-not
But isn't true that in the Old Testament, ways of living and worship had to be more prescribed in detail because Christ and His coming was veiled in the Old Testament? For the Old Testament doesn't just contain the 10 Commandments, it also adds to that ways of applying those Commandments. Isn't it true that in the Old Testament, God's people were centralized in a geographical area and under a certain lineage for the most part and thus God's direction for them was to be different from the neighbors to show that they were set apart while worshiping a revealed Christ?
And isn't it true that under the New Testament, many of those strict prescriptions for life and worship no longer became binding? Isn't it true that the New Testament describes the Sabbath as shadow of what was to come?
And isn't it true that we now live as a dispersed people throughout the world? And thus our unity is no longer around a particular ethnic group or geographical center, but around Christ. And so local culture may play legitimate roles in a group of believer's worship of God.
And so isn't it true that if how we live and worship accurately reflects or points to Christ, that we are not worshiping God according to our own devices, but instead we are following and proclaiming Christ? And if how we worship God is adequately proclaiming Christ, then our worship is not only valid, it is safeguarded from following our own devices. In fact, revolving our ways of worship around who Christ is according to the Scriptures is a better perspective for determining how we will worship.
So shouldn't the focus of our worship be on Christ rather on the 10 Commandments. For if our ways of worship accurately portray Christ as the Scriptures define him to be, we will automatically include what is necessary from the 10 Commandments since those Commandments play a significant role in defining who Christ is because they show why He came to earth in the first place.
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Sept 1
To R. Scott Clark and Katie Herzog for his blogpost citing of an article by Herzog on how some in Medical Schools are approaching gender identity issues. This appeared in Heidelblog.
Herzog's article can be found at:
https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/med-schools-are-now-denying-biological
The article cited contains quite a generalization from a few examples. But it also contains a common error made by both conservatives and many in the LGBT community. That error is to conflate gender or gender identity with biological sex.
While conservatives believe that our gender identity should be defined solely by our biological sex, those on the other side of the argument believe that our biological sex should be defined only by our gender identity. The problem there is that while our biological sex is a physical construct, our gender identity is a social construct which implies that there are other factors, non physical factors at that, that contributed to our gender identity.
What the AMA and doctors that follow its direction when recognizing and attempting to respond to gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria is a real condition that is not yet adequately understood. We should note that though in somewhat different ways, this gender identity issue was handled differently by some Native American tribes some of which only recognized up to 5 genders, they honored those whose gender identity was different than their biological sex. But, again, the gender identity issue in those tribes did not always match up with our gender identity issues here.
The point here is that we religiously conservative Christians, not all of whom are politically conservative, need to stop conflating biological sex with gender identity before judging others for approaching gender identity in ways we disapprove of.
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Sept 3
To R. Scott Clark and Matt Taibbi for Clark's blogpost quote of a Taibbi article on an NPR episode that talked about the 'dangers of free speech.' This appeared in Heidelblog.
Reality says that authoritarianism is the other pandemic. Authoritarianism, from what I have personally experienced, has become the rage in liberal circles, conservative ones, and even leftist circles. BTW, I count NPR as being liberal, not leftist. And it is authoritarianism that helps govern how tolerant of diversity we are especially in our own ranks.
Common sense would tell us that conservatives have a stronger penchant for authoritarianism than others have because of their emphasis on preserving tradition. In fact, the conservative vigilance in guarding tradition produces conservatism's most glaring fault: the over reliance on selective parts of the past to understand and respond to the present. But the more ideological a group is, the more likely it is to become authoritarian regardless of its conservative credentials. Only instead of the past, a strongly ideological group will rely too much on its own ideology to understand and respond to the present.
And how ideological a group becomes will depend on how much it sees its own ideology as being be all and end all it is either regarding all of life or a given sphere of life. The more a given group believes that its own ideology is omniscient, the more it sees the ideas from other groups as a corrupting influence and thus the less tolerant it will be of those other groups and the more authoritarian it will act toward others.
So it isn't just NPR that is antagonistic to free speech, every authoritarian group is. They just show it in different ways.
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Sept. 9
To R. Scott Clark and Carl Trueman and Clark's blogpost quote of an article by Trueman on how the faults of past Christian leaders should not move us to dismiss everything they said. This appeared in the Heidelblog
Carl Trueman's article can be found at:
https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2021/09/judging-the-sins-of-our-fathers
If judging the sinfulness of our fathers should include taking into account our own sinfulness, that's a good point that should be taken. But should that also apply when we judge the sinfulness of our ideological, religious, and all other opponents too?
But we should add another point when it comes to judging Christian leaders like Jonathan Edwards. That point is that we are often reminded of Edwards's good credentials as reasons to accept what he said without much examination. At the same time, here we are told to remember our own sins when being reminded of his sins. Perhaps, we should remember both Edwards's sins and his good points when we listen or read to his theology so that we neither automatically accept nor reject it. Instead, we should thoroughly examine Edwards's words to see what we agree with and what we disagree with it. To do otherwise would be to passionately embrace authoritarianism.
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Sept 10
To R. Scott Clark and Ilya Shapiro for Clark's blogpost citation of Shapiro's article that opposes vaccine mandates. This appeared in heidelblog.
Ilya Shapiro's article appears in
https://www.cato.org/blog/federal-vaccine-mandates-pose-constitutional-triple-threat
What is missing from the above citation is the context for vaccine mandates. We do know that even before the pandemic, we've had vaccine mandates. Many colleges require its residential students to receive a particular meningitis vaccine. A vaccine mandate regarding the vaccine for smallpox was supported by SCOTUS in 1905 (see Jacobson v. Massachusetts) and there was a 1922 case ruled on by Judge Brandeis regarding school mandates for children (see https://www.npr.org/2021/08/29/1032169566/the-u-s-has-a-long-precedent-for-vaccine-mandates ).
To debate vaccine mandates in general would be to go against history and the present. To go against particular vaccine mandates requires an adequate discussion about the disease, the vaccines, and both the public and private risks and benefits of a given set of vaccines. But neither the above citation nor the article it comes from includes past or present mandates nor the specifics about the proposed vaccine mandate. Rather it speculates on the effects vaccine mandates can have on the application of The Constitution.
So why does the above citation and the article it is taken from avoid so much of the context of vaccine mandates in general and the recently proposed one in particular?
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Sept 11
To Joseph Mussomeli and his article on the importance of remembering the dead from the 9/11 attacks. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative.
Mussomeli come closer to understanding 9/11 than most conservatives I've either listened to or read. But where he comes closest to understanding is also where he loses it.
In analyzing the reactions of both the left and the right to 9/11, he correctly describes the perpetrators of 9/11 as acting out of a desire for justice, though it was a perverted sense of justice. And he is correct in describing the left as sort of attributing 9/11 to American belligerence and imperialism. But what he fails to understand was that the left was not excusing crimes, they were trying to get us to understand why it happened. Also, the perpetrators of 9/11 were acting not out of a merely perceived sense of just, but out of remembering their own dead--remembering our dead from 9/11 is the central theme of the article.
In what was said innterviews with Bin Laden can be easily confirmed by history. It was Bin Laden who pointed to the number of dead in Iraq from both our sanctions (hundreds of thousands of children died from the combination of first Persian Gulf War and the sanctions that followed) and from our support from Israel's Occupation against the Palestinians (more Palestinian civilians have been killed than those from any other group in the conflict). Another reason for the 9/11 attacks was the use of US troops in the first Persian Gulf War and their continued presence in Saudi Arabia.
Not being cognizant of the number of dead we've caused as being a necessary lesson to understanding 9/11 is a key missing link in better understanding 9/11 in order to prevent another such attack. This is where Mussomeli fails. But his failure is partial.
Furthermore, we might note that what happened on September 11th, 2001 was actually the second 9/11. The first one occurred in 1973 and saw a US supported violent military coup in Chile. Yes, that was the first 9/11. And many more civilians died in the aftermath of that 9/11 than were lost in our 9/11. In addition, what makes us oblivious to those facts is our own America-cefuller picture of 9/11. Though it must be said that Mussomeli's America-centrism is not as strong as that of many other people. And Mussomeli should be commended for coming as far as he did in reflecting on 9/11.
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