Feb 17
To W. Robert Godfrey and his adult church class on the fall of Christendom. This particular session focused on Karl Marx. This appeared in the Abounding Grace Radio website.
One could approach Godfrey's from two different perspectives here. One perspective would be to ask Godfrey the same question about Christendom that he asks about Marxism. That question is, did Christendom provide what it promised or expected to produce? It's certainly a fair question to ask of Marxism, but why not ask the same question of Christendom since the basic theme of Godfrey's series here is the fall of Christendom.
The second perspective to take when looking at Godfrey's content in this lesson is a more critical one. That is because it seems that Godfrey knows enough generalities about or commonly perceived conservative views of Marxism and CRT, the latter of which he tossed in there, to oversimplify both systems of beliefs. And it is in that oversimplification that Godfrey makes some significant errors when talking about both.
Regarding Marxism, is Godfrey aware of one of the major splits between Marxists? That split would somewhat part company with Lenin and fully part company with Stalin over whether they ruled as Marxists. Among those who lean more toward Trotsky is the belief that Lenin, though a Marxist, never ruled Russia as a Marxist. This was pointed out by a fellow socialist contemporary of Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg. Other Marxists also parted ways with Lenin and in how he ruled Russia. Lenin points this out when he openly insults leftist Marxists in Russia. Luxemburg's point was that Lenin ruled Russia not as a Marxist, but as a member of the bourgeoisie in how they would run their business. Luxemburg point that Lenin was not promoting or installing the proletariat dictatorship, which was partial democracy based producing the class rule of the proletariat. We should also note that Lenin was never a member of the proletariat just as Trotsky never was. And Stalin's work history did not really qualify him to represent the proletariat. But we should note that Stalin was once a seminary student
Around the time of the October, 1917 Russian Revolution, there were a number of Marxist political parties. But that revolution brought about a tyrannical rule by the Bolsheviks who prohibited the other Marxist groups from having any pull. After securing power came the purges of socialists as well as the revolt by the Kronstadt sailors. That alone tells us that neither Lenin nor Stalin had a monopoly on representing Marxism. And yet, they are two of the major faces of Marxism in the West while the others are ignored.
Currently, the nation that comes closest to practicing Marxism is Germany. And that is the case because of Germany's codetermination laws. For the foundational point of Marxism is the redistribution of power from the bourgeoisie to the working class so the proletariat could free itself from the rule of the bourgeoisie. And though Germany's codetermination laws deliberately fall very short of any kind of proletariat dictatorship, those laws do enable a significant redistribution of power to workers.
Godfrey's treatment of CRT is much worse than his treatment of Marxism. For Godfrey effectively reduces CRT to Marxism with the oppressed and oppressors. Such a reductionism ignores the similarities and differences between CRT and Critical Legal Studies, the latter of which is the approach to racism from which CRT emerges. Even more than that, much of CRT consists of a continuation of the works and teachings of the Civil Rights Movement. Here we should note that CRT strongly opposes the conservative approach to Civil Rights which, based on Reagan's approach to racism when he was the President, relies on a colorblind approach to racism. However, the implication of Godfrey's calling CRT Marxist is that it is safe for us religiously conservative Christians to throw all of CRT's similarities to Critical Legal Studies and the Civil Rights Movement out the window.
In the end, the combination of Godfrey's overly simplistic statements on Marxism and CRT are disappointing because of Godfrey's scholarly reputation.
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On or After Feb 17
To Patrick M. Garry and his article that defends traditional conservatives from the claims made against it by national conservatives. While the former group stresses individual liberty more than the latter group does, the latter group emphasizes the need to pay more attention to the Common Good by the government. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.
What is unfortunate in the above article is the laudative and pejorative use of labels. Such uses give evidence of an authoritarian approach that employs a begging the question logic. For example, the term 'conservative' is an example of a laudative use of a label while 'wokism' is an example of a pejorative use.
What is unclear is why there exists a conservative intent on limiting democracy, especially among the traditional conservatives. That intent is expressed both explicitly and implicitly in the above article. Perhaps the reason for limiting democracy is one that was shared by James Madison when he spoke the following during the Constitutional debate as recorded in Yates's notes (see https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/yates.asp ):
In England, at this day, if elections were open to all classes of people, the property of the landed proprietors would be insecure. An agrarian law would soon take place. If these observations be jsut, our government ought to secure the permanent interests of the country against innovation. Landholders ought to have a share in the government, to support these invaluable interests, and to balance and check the other. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority. The senate, therefore, ought to be this body; and to answer these purposes, they ought to have permanency and stability. Various have been the propositions; but my opinion is, the longer they continue in office, the better will these views be answered.
So how altruistic was Madison's concern about limiting the power of democracy?
We should note that the national conservatives have a point about The Constitution and the common good. The was an expressed concern about creating a government that would last for a long time during the Constitutional Convention and in the beginning of The Constitution, comes the following phrase:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Insuring 'domestic Tranquility' and promoting the 'general Welfare' are explicit terms expressing some of the concerns of the participants in the writing of <i>The Constitution</i>.
Another weakness of the above article is an inadequate description of the context of the events mentioned. Those events include the the writing of The Constitution, the 1960s, and today's 'wokism.' What is especially missing from the contexts of those events are the sufferings of certain groups of people.
For example, what triggered the writing of The Constitution were Shays Rebellion and the widespread dissent due to the troubled, and what seemed to many to be the unfair, economic troubles of that time. In the 1960s, we saw a far greater systemic racism demonstrated than seen today in the Jim Crow South and in the discrimination heavy real estate and banking practices in the North along with a military draft that gave economic-based privileges, a higher degree of poverty than seen today an immoral Vietnam War for which both major political parties were responsible, second class citizenry for women, and discrimination against and criminalization of homosexuals. The context of today's corporate 'wokeism' has to do with establishing a more consistent equality for those in the LGBT community. Why were the sufferings of these different groups left out of the article when mentioning the times in which The Constitution was written, or when progressives looked to reform society in the 1960s, or with today's corporate wokeism.
The writer of the article is correct in saying that traditional conservatism is not libertarianism. But so what? Traditional conservatism is closer to and has more in common with libertarianism that the national conservatism described above or progressivism. And hasn't at least some of the abuses people have suffered from corporations been at least partially due to the privileges which the traditional conservative approach have granted to the corporate world?
Finally, we should note that because our ideologies are created by us, by people, that no ideology created by people is omniscient. And thus we should feel free to borrow from multiple ideologies including those outside of conservatism, let alone from different conservative ideologies. The refusal to do so suggests the belief that one's own ideology is omniscient.
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Feb 21
To R. Scott Clark and Carl Trueman for Clark's blogpost that quotes part of Trueman's article that heavily criticizes Biden for an appointment of a gay man to a government position. Clark's quotation in posted in Heidelblog while Trueman's article appeared in World Magazine.
The link to Trueman's article is below:
https://wng.org/opinions/decadence-on-display-1645449344
What is Trueman's beef here, that someone from the LGBT community was appointed to a government job? That such appointments might promote equality for the LGBT community? Does Trueman want society to demand that our government prohibit government appointed jobs to the LBGT community?
And while picking on #NeverTrumpers, does Trueman give the alternative outcome that would result from reelecting Trump? Didn't Jan 6 tell us what we could have expected from the reelection of Trump? After all, look at the, talking about, extremes that Trump and is group went to try to steal the election that they falsely claimed was stolen from them.
Being a leftist, I knew what to expect from a liberal Biden. He, like Trump, is an authoritarian. Only Biden's authoritarianism is in the form of having a hero complex. Whatever rudeness one might see in Biden has been far surpassed by Trump.
Finally, doesn't Romans 1 describe homosexuality in the unbeliever in a way that says we should not be shocked by such behaviors? And yet Trueman is because of his hypersensitivity over sexual issues. Does Trueman want society to marginalize those in LGBT community? If so, he is overlooking the narcissistic authoritarianism of Trump and the violence promoted by Trump's camp. Does that mean that Trueman is more tolerant of violence than of homosexuality?
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Feb 22
To Stephen Spinnenweber and his blog article on how those who oppose Greg Johnson's position that those who are SSA but do not act on it should be able to hold offices in the Church. Johnson also includes the idea that those opposing his position do not care about Christians who struggle with being SSA. This appeared in Heidelblog.
There are a number of issues that need to be addressed here. First, I get the idea that the concept behind the word 'attracted' is not the same for the two parties involved here. While one talks about a general attractiveness of a person, the other includes feelings of wanting or lust. With the former, unless one struggles withhomophobia, we freely notice people from either sex whom we regard as being attractive.
Second, we seem to overlook 2 things about Romans 1 and its statements about homosexuality. First, that homosexuality should not surprise us in the unbeliever because the unbeliever has traded his worship of the Creator for his worship of the creature. Second, Romans 1 is followed by Romans 2:1ff. And there, after discussing homosexuality and listing other sins with it, including gossiping and being disobedient to parents, Romans 2 starts off with a stern warning for those who believe in God: do not judge those mentioned in Romans 1 because you too are guilty. If we are not guilty of having identical sins as the unbeliever, we are guilty of sins that at least live in the same neighborhood as the sins of the unbeliever. Here, it might be helpful to compare and contrast the prayers of the Pharisee and the tax collector from the parable of the two men praying (Luke 18:9-14). Note that it is the very religious person who thanks God that he is not just like other people, including the tax collector. In addition, it might be useful here to compare and contrast how Paul describes homosexuality in Romans 1 with the sexual sin Paul has to deal with in I Corinthians 5. For where as homosexuality is described as something not to be surprising in the unbeliever even though it is against nature as God designed it, having relations with one's father's wife goes beyond the pale of what is known among the Gentiles.
What Spinnenweber wants us to notice and focus on here is the distinction between those sins that are according to nature and those that are not. And thus a necessary hierarchy is introduced here, but it is one that can be misapplied. After all, Paul states in I Corinthians 6 that the sexually immoral from both the SSA and those who are attracted to the opposite sex are said no be disqualified from inheriting the Kingdom of God. And, again, we should note the prayers prayed from the parable of the two men praying.
Another thing we should note that seems to escape the notice of both those who believe that it is ok to be SSA as long as one doesn't act on it and those who oppose what Johnson is advocating for: nature is fallen. It fell with Adam's sin. And so while Paul's says what he says about homosexuality being against nature, it is against nature as God designed it, it may not be against what fallen nature is telling someone on the inside. BTW, if we don't think nature has fallen from its original design, then how do we explain homosexuality in around 1,500 species of animals in which there are benefits produced by the homosexuality practiced in some of those species?
Also, does our identity in Christ preclude other identities? According to Spinnenweber it does if those other identities are sinful. But how many such benign identities, such as national or ethnic identities, that are the cause of personal pride and thus division in the Church, fly in under the radar that Spinnenweber is using? In addition, does our new identity in Christ preclude our identity of being a sinner like the tax collector from the parable of the two men praying.
If people like Spinnenweber do care about Christians who struggle with being SSA, then they have an odd, or perhaps inconsistent, way of showing it. For Spinnenweber et. al. look down on such fellow believers for whom Christ died. They neglect to notice that perhaps fellow believers who struggle with being SSA have an even greater battle against the fallen nature of the flesh than themselves whose attraction is according to the design of nature. And they seem oblivious to the at times horrendously harsh struggle that homosexuals have had in society.
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