I spend a lot of time participating on Christian blogs. All of those blogs are religiously conservative Christian blogs and all but one of them are politically conservative blogs too.
I participated on those blogs despite my now past health problems because it is less taxing to respond to an article than it is to write one from scratch.
One of the best religiously conservative blogs I've seen is Roger Olson's My Evangelical Arminian Theological Musings (click here for the blog). Though we do have some differences of opinion on a couple of important topics, such as I'm a Calvinist and he isn't, his articles are well thought out and I have learned much from them and appreciate how he manages his blog. In addition, Olson is very much an independent thinker both theologically and politically. Olson's blog is a safe blog to comment on because it is tightly moderated. He does not allow personal attacks to appear in the comments. If only all religiously conservative Christian blogs would follow that example.
On one of the politically conservative blogs on which I comment on, I have received a few comments FALSELY claiming that I am being paid by George Soros. Those comments are derisive and so I am not sure how literal they are being in their accusations. But such comments are directed at me because I have expressed many political views that are not conservative on that blog. I have found that to share non-conservative political views on most religiously conservative Christian blogs invites personal attacks and accusations. Some of the attacks can be described in no other way than abusive.
Soros seems to be a favorite whipping boy and scapegoat for most of my politically conservative Christian friends. A lot of that is due to Soros's political leanings and philanthropic efforts. Soros believes in democracy with an open society while almost all of my religiously conservative Christian friends are politically conservative. And we should stop here and note the contrast: democracy with an open society vs political conservatism. Btw, his pairing of democracy with an open society is similar to my pairing of democracy with equality except that my pairing sees equality as being inextricably linked to democracy. That is you can't have democracy without equality.
I found that many of the claims about Soros made by my fellow religiously conservative Christian friends are nothing more than false accusations that often stem from conspiracy theories. And so when I saw the documentary Soros on the list of Tube movies, I decided to watch it (click here to see the movie).
The way that Soros has made his fortune did not impress me. Why? It is because he made his fortune as a hedge fund manager. Such an occupation and the values that come with it often, if not always, practice and promote what Martin Luther King Jr. associated with a choosing a thing-oriented society rather than a person-oriented society. A thing-oriented society is where the people value gadgets, profit motives and property rights more than they value people.
However, the combination of Soros's life growing up in Hungary, which included the time of Nazi occupation, and his current approach to philanthropy has given me a great respect for the man. So that the next time I am accused of being on Soros's payroll, I'll take it as a very high compliment, but one that I don't deserve. For his philanthropy consists of more than just charity to relieve an immediate survival needs, it also includes projects that promote education and democracy with an open society. And those projects are designed to produce lasting results.
But here, we need to return to King's statement that was quoted in my last post. In his speech against the Vietnam War, along with his 1967 interview with Xander Vanocur, King said that we need to change from being a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society so that people are more important than our gadgets, profit motives, and property rights. For, according to King, it is only then that we can eliminate racism, economic exploitation, and militarism (click here and proceed to around the 21:17 point in that interview). And though Soros has so generously donated money to financially help groups and communities out of poverty and to promote an open society, we need to change from being a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society for Soros's donations to have lasting effects.
Though Soros's donations has done much to restore freedom and equality to parts of the world that had been oppressed with tyranny, and though His donations have also helped to improve those nations that claim to lean toward democracy with equality, there is a new threat to Soros's projects, among other things, that has emerged in Europe and the U.S. For just as Putin has undone almost all of Gorbachev's work to establish openness in Russia, so today's Nationalist movements in Europe and America are threatening not just to undo much of what Soros's donations have helped to enable, they are threatening to reverse any nation's leaning toward building a democracy with equality.
Here we should note that those nationalist movements are nothing more than authoritarian ethnocratic movements. Here we should note that the term 'authoritarian ethnocratic' is repetitive. That is because all ethnocracies are authoritarian to varying degrees. For with an ethnocracy, a particular ethnic group, whether the ethnicity of that group is based on race, national origin or language, descent, or religion, has a greater claim to and control over the nation and its society of a multiethnic nation than the people from the other ethnic groups--btw, the list of the ethnic categories comes from from Jeff Halper's book, An Israeli In Palestine: Resisting Dispossession, Redeeming Israel. And that greater claim to and level of control over a multiethnic nation denies, to varying degrees, the equal rights and status of people from the other ethnic groups.
And so it should come as no surprise that authoritarianism in the guise of ethnocratic conservative movements in Europe and here in the U.S. are threatening to undo whatever portion of openness we have as well. That a significant contributing factor to those movements has to do with the distribution of wealth especially in the face of growing refugee problems.
But those authoritarian ethnocratic movements have cultural concerns to when it comes to refugees. People in those movements are scared that the culture of their society will change with an influx of foreign refugees. Here we should note that there is only one way for a nation to protect its culture from changing: DON'T HAVE CHILDREN. Maybe it is because I am a child of the 1960s when the young people radically changed the culture, but it seems that each new generation here in America has made significant changes to our own culture. And regarding accepting immigrants who are refugees trying to escape poverty and violence, we must ask ourselves if we care more about whatever comfort we have with our culture than we care about human life?
In addition, we Westerners need to admit that much, if not most, of our refugee immigrants problems are due to Western economic and/or militaristic foreign policies. Those authoritarian ethnocratic movements either support or do not oppose those policies that made messes in other parts of the world. They only care about not having to deal with the aftermath of those messes when that aftermath emigrates to where those movements live. And there is often racism in the refusal to deal with those messes. Here note the different response that Ukrainian refugees receive from their European neighbors in contrast to how Middle East refugees are received in Europe and how refugees from south of the border are received here in America.
Soros is understandably troubled and concerned over the rise of these authoritarian ethonocratic movements for at least a couple of reasons. First, he escaped the clutches of such a movement in Hungary during WW II because of his father's daring and wisdom. But he still saw its horrific effects on friends, family, and others. Also, as mentioned before, those authoritarian ethnocratic movements are threatening to undo some of the projects that promote domocracy with open societies which he started and so heavily invested in.
It is so deeply tragic to acknowledge that most of those in America's religiously conservative Christian community embrace authoritarian ethnocratic movements. Their embracement of those movements promote varying levels of authoritarianism. And the lower the degree of authoritarianism promoted by a given movement, the more that ethnocratic movement can disguise its character and goals in plain site.
For those of us who want Soros's projects to experience more and lasting success, we must look to change society. As King said, we need to change from being a thing-oriented society to being a person-oriented society. To do that we must learn to value people over our gadgets and machines, our profit motives, and our proper rights. That does not mean that we can't appreciate our gadgets and machines or that we believe that profit motives and property rights are not important. It means that we must continue to learn to value people, especially those who are vulnerable, more than we value those things.
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