April 19
To Chris Gehrz and his article that compares Lindbergh's 1939 isolationism and his failure to condemn the Nazis with today's Republicans who oppose involvement in Ukraine and their failure to condemn Putin for his invasion. This appeared in the Anxious Bench blog on Patheos.
There are a few points to make here:
1. Lindbergh's accomplishments along with some of his political views illustrate something that is true about all of us: that each one of us is a mixed bag of good and bad. Some will have and display more good qualities while others will have and display more bad ones. That is not to write off the horrible thinking that Lindbergh was promoting. But it should put a temper on any self-righteous indignation. His ideas of callous isolationism and white-centric thinking have to be clearly rejected and opposed.
2. Some have called WW II a war between empires. Germany and Japan were seeking to establish their own empires while the Soviet Union, France, Great Britain, and the US already had empires. So here we should note why it might be understandable, but still horribly wrong, for Lindbergh to draw false equivalencies between Germany and Great Britain. Yes, Great Britain's empire was based on racial superiority and controlled much of the world. But Great Britain's empire didn't come close to committing the number of horrific atrocities that Germany was committing. But Great Britain had already committed enough atrocities for Lindbergh to somewhat plausibly make the comparison between Germany and England. We should note here that when questioned about the atrocities committed by some nation, I can't remember the name of the country, Trump responded, perhaps in partial Lindbergh fashion, by saying that the US isn't innocent either.
3. After WW II, the US sought to establish a different kind of empire, one in which the regional leaders had a lot of autonomy. And what we have discovered since then is that imperialism, like isolationism, is not a solution to the world's problems of emerging tyrants. It is not a solution because not only do empires destroy the republics of nation s that run those empires, but they provide role models for tyrants to aspire to. And so what empires do is to establish a forever king-of-the-hill battle between empires and other empires or emerging empires. That is part of what we have with Russia today.
4. To avoid unnecessarily antagonizing Russia and give any credibility to its feeling threatened, NATO should not be adding members that are located so close to Russia's border.
Yes, we have to oppose Russia's invasion of Ukraine whether that opposition will be successful or not--my feeling is that time is on Russia's side but we can't afford to overuse sanctions and try to rush Russia's defeat through other than military means. But also we have to practice what we preach to the world. Because the world will be far more willing to listen to our actions than our words.
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April 21
To Jack Lee and his article that lists and briefly describes 6 misconceptions about Calvinism. My comment was directed to the first misconception that said that Calvinists worship Calvin and the sixth misconception that claims that Calvin murder Servetus because Calvin turned Servetus in to the Geneva authorities because of heresy. This appeared in The Chorus In The Chaos blog on Patheos.
I will mildly disagree with #1 and thoroughly disagree with #6.
When Calvin becomes the guide for how to read the Bible, then Calvin has become a canon above the canon and thus Calvin himself has been placed on too high a pedestal. Such a pedestal starts bordering on worshiping Calvin.
Regarding #6, the New Testament never states that denying the Trinity--though the word is not in the New Testament, the concept is--merits the death penalty. In fact, the strongest form of discipline the Church has is excommunication. Once the Church uses physical punishments, especially on those who are or should not be members, either directly or through proxies, such as the government, the Church has gone way beyond what the New Testament allows. To say that death was an appropriate penalty because of the time in history and place is to imply that there could be other times, such as in the future, and places, such as here, when such a penalty is justified. The execution of Servetus serves as an indictment on Calvin and Geneva. We can apply a relative moral view to what happened in Geneva back then. And let's not forget the number of witches who were given the death penalty as well. Calvin was an accessory to the murder of Servetus.
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April 26
To George Stanciu and his article that attempts to distinguish patriotism from nationalism. This article appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.
While Stanciu would like to create an infinite chasm between patriotism and nationalism with definitions, I don't believe we can separate patriotism from nationalism. Instead, we need to recognize that patriotism is the opiate of nationalism.
Defining Patriotism as 'the love of place, countrymen, and local traditions' shows that it is simply the basis for nationalism. For what is that love based on? Is it not based on the same perception of goodness, including delusions of grandeur and denial of sins, that nationalism is based on. Inserting the Nation-State isn't a game changer here because tribalism is involved and nationalism is a form of tribalism. And we should note that tribalism existed before the emergence of the Nation-State.
Here we should note that one of the working definitions of tribalism is a high degree of loyalty to a group regardless of what unifies a group. Well what does real love of place, countrymen and local traditions evoke but a high degree of loyalty. And with tribalism, that high degree of loyalty eventually creates a moral relativity that defines what is right and wrong depends on who does what to whom. Attempts at localizing one's object of affection by introducing 'local traditions' as an object of love does not change the dynamics here.
If the Civil War provides an example of the difference between patriotism and nationalism, how is the Southerner singing about Dixie any less delusional than the Messianic mission of the North? Those good times in Dixie were built on the backs of slaves. And while Stanciu rightfully acknowledges the atrocities suffered by Native Americans, somehow the sufferings of Blacks, who were on a good day in the South then were only counted as being inferior, did not merit the same recognition Stanciu gave to Native Americans. Here, Stanciu is exhibiting a similar disregard for Blacks that Tocqueville showed.
There isn't the chasm between Patriotism and Nationalism as Stanciu proposes. Rather, it is patriotism that feed nationalism and both are manifestations of tribalism.
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