August 3
To Chris Gordon and his article on definitions and the Identity Culture crisis which was partially quoted in a Heidelblog post.
Chris Gordon's article can be found at:
https://tabletalkmagazine.com/article/2022/07/the-salt-of-the-earth-and-light-of-the-world/
I am not sure that we have an identity crisis today, but our identities are tied to the groups we belong to. Those groups consist of both voluntary groups we join and groups based on our own characteristics.
The fault world's message to us about identity isn't that we shouldn't turn inward, it is that we should only turn inward. The message of Christ to us about our identity is complicated. It is complicated because we are both witnesses to sinners and we are sinners as well. And while Gordon's message focused on the former, it seems that the latter is often unmentioned by many Christian leaders when talking about our identity in Christ. For while we can call ourselves the salt and light of the world, we must also always identify as the Tax Collector from the parable of the 2 men praying. We must also always identify as him because, in that parable, it was the religious person, the Pharisee, who could see no sin in himself and thus he saw himself as morally superior to the Tax Collector.
And since we are to forgive others as God forgave us in Christ, and Stephen provides an example of showing such forgiveness in Acts when he is stoned to death, we must also always identify as the Tax Collector from that parable is essential to our lives as Christians.
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August 4
To Ben Dunson and the part of his article that was quoted in a Heidelblog post that appealed to Kuyper's approach to supporting Christianity as having a place of supremacy over all other faiths and other groups in society.
Ben Dunson's full article can be found at:
https://americanreformer.org/2022/07/religious-liberty-without-liberalism/
While Transformationalists are upfront about calling for a return to some form of Christendom or Christian Ethnocracy, appealing to Natural Law is the 2KT way of being closet supporters of a return to Christendom or Christian Ethnocracy.
Neither group understands that their calls for Christendom or Christian Ethnocracy are attacks on Democracy. They are attacks on Democracy because besides majority rule, Christendom and Christian Ethnocracy reserves a place of supremacy over society for the Church.
And neither group will admit that their appeal to Natural Law is an appeal to theology rather than the Scriptures. And that Theology was written during a previous time of Christendom by theologians who were authoritarians at heart. While the Old Testament was mostly written about a religiously homogeneous society, the New Testament gave no explicit instructions on to rule over a religiously heterogeneous society. There are statements suggest or implicit describe how a religiously heterogeneous society should be run, but none of them support the Church's promotion of Christendom or Christian Ethnocracy.
What Ben Dunson article basically says is that Kuyper knew how to institute Christendom better than the Constantinian approach. And he does so because of what he sees in society. And though elective abortion must end, is Dunson seeking to justify oppressing certain groups in society with his appeal to Kuyper?
The 'neutrality' that Dunson so opposes is the basis for ensuring equality among religious groups and unbelievers in society.
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Aug 5
To Michael J. Connolly and his article on Toryism and how it was thought of in England and how it could apply in the US. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.
According to Connolly, Toryism is Conservatism done right and thus Toryism is described in a self-flattering way. According to Connolly, if Toryism is adequately followed, it would produce a relative utopia, which is a utopia where the best possible state of affairs is achieved. But if Toryism also believes in the imperfectability of human nature, can we say with absolute certainty that Conservatism done right is always beneficial and that it is producing a relative utopia?
We might also note one of the prerequisites of Toryism. That prerequisite is to achieve a certain degree of conformity in morals and religion in a given nation. But we need to ask this question: Who gets to designate which morals and religious beliefs serve as the standard to which we must conform? And what do we do with those who do not adhere and thus resist those standards? We might also ask who gets to distinguish what is individuality and what is individualism since Toryism smiles on the former and frowns on the latter? Connolly seems to suggest that it is select groups of elites get to do that and whatever is left of democracy gets to ratify rather than question those standards. But which elites get to do that? And what will they do with those who do not conform enough to what they think society should practice and how it should think?
Certainly unlimited individualism and free markets are causing people to exploit and abuse each other. But is Toryism the answer in multicultural societies? And if not, do we choose to err on the side of multiculturalism or Toryism? These questions show one of the flaws of Toryism: the lack of robustness. The more diversity there exists in society, the harder it is for Toryism to "work."
We need to note that there is no human ideology that is omniscient. That means that there is no ideology that has all of the answers. That is true for Leftist, Liberal, and Conservative ideologies. Toryism is an ideology and thus no matter how we describe it, it will never be omniscient. And so we need to borrow from other ideologies as we employ parts of Toryism as we address our society's problems.
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