Thou Shall Not Judge: A Geopolitical Approach

Picture a Middle Eastern nation that prefers to have nuclear bombs and other weapons to defend itself from a regional rival that is dead set on destroying it. If the nation you saw in your mind was Israel, you would be correct. But if the nation you first thought of was Iran, you would also be correct during the Netanyahu years. That is because Netanyahu has dreamed of destroying Iran for 4 decades.

That brings us to the first 2 chapters of Paul's Epistle to the Romans. Following Paulˋs argument against homosexuality in Romans 1 comes the warning against judging others at the beginning of Romans 2. We Christians often conveniently forget that sequence.

Why are we warned against judging those whose sins are listed in Romans 1? It is because in so doing we condemn ourselves for we commit some of the same sins. James says something similar in James 2.

We often think that the warning against judging others as applying only to individuals. But should that be the case? What if we apply that passage to nations, especially after they attack other nations for an alleged offense? 

Take the American and Israeli attacks on Iran that started last Saturday as an example. A number of reasons have been given for the attacks. The Iranian takeover of the American Embassy in 1979 is one. The claim that Iran has killed thousands of Americans in another. And that Iran has recently killed tens of thousands of its own people is another. And then there is Iran's exporting of terrorism while wanting to possess nuclear weapons.

We should note that before the Iranian Revolution with its takeover of the American embassy in 1979, we supported another Iranian government that employed a secret police that would arrest, imprison, and torture dissidents in order to maintain a Ẁhite Revolution that consisted of a top-down government and a modernization of parts of Iranˋs society. When that government was overthrown, the U.S. provided shelter for is leader, the Shah, in part because he was suffering from cancer. Those in the Iranian Revolution wanted to put him on trial for the crimes he had committed against the Iran's people. And so here the U.S. supported one dictator who was cruel to the Iranian people, we are currently attacking another such leader who did the same.

The claim that Iran has killed thousands of Americans is false though the number is above 1,000. And many of those deaths were members of our military who were killed by proxies in response to their presence or actions. In addition, there were some embassy bombings that contributed to that number. But the claim is made in a way that implies that the murders would occur at the spur of the moment to civilians in public and that is false.

Along with Israelˋs and Americaˋs claim that the current Iranian regime has treated its own people horribly, what is never mentioned is how Israel treats the Palestinians and how America supports that treatment.

Israelˋs government has officially opposed the creation of a Palestinian state while it uses the Occupation to cover its ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the Occupied Territories. And so we must ask, especially wth Israelˋs recent atrocities in Gaza and its violent annexing of land in the West Bank, how different, other than with tactics, is Israelˋs treatment of the Palestinians from Iranˋs treatment of its dissidents? Certainly, Iran's current government is evil because, in part, of how it treats its people. Here we are not asking which nation's practices are the most evil. When evil is being practiced, such a question is irrelevant here.

Do we understand how our accusations against Iranˋs government can easily turn to self-accusations or perhaps confessions of wrongdoing? That is not to excuse the atrocities Iran has committed.  What we need to realize is that those who are doing the accusing are just as guilty of committing or supporting atrocities as the Iranian government is.

And so if attacking Iran can be justified for its treatment of its own citizens, why are Iran and its proxies not justified in attacking Israel for its treatment of Palestinians? Are not Iranian citizens and Palestinians humans and thus deserve to be equally respected as people with human rights? A similar argument can be made for Israelˋs right to defend itself against Palestinian attacks. If Israel can openly and brutally attack Palestinian civilians, which has been done on a monumental scale in Gaza, then what is wrong with Palestinians returning the favor?

If we wish to justify the joint U.S. and Israeli attack on Iran because it was expanding it ballistic missile program and plans to build a nuclear arsenal while shouting ˋdeath to Americaˋ and ˋdeath to Israel,ˋ what is wrong with Iranˋs nuclear intentions when Israelˋs Prime Minister has wanted to attack Iran for decades? After all, Israel has a nuclear arsenal and its own missiles.

One thing that is wrong with all of the attacks on both Israel and Iran is that their perceived necessity could have been avoided through negotiations. But the negotiations that are needed here are the ones between Israel and the Palestinians over land. That is because most of the atrocities that are either practiced or enabled by Iran has been because of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Those nations who exercise their judgement against other nations or people with the non defensive use of force have demonstrated that they rely on the rule of force. Israel, in particular, uses force to enact its own version of the Bush Doctrine. That Doctrine stated that the U.S. would not allow rivals to become even emerging threats. And that is what Israel attempts to do with attacks on its neighbors. And such an approach is done to eliminate any possible check on Israelˋs desires to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians from the Occupied Territories.

Here we could also ask my fellow Americans this question. If America is justified in attacking Iran for its treatment of its own citizens, then wouldnˋt the use of force to affect regime change in America have been justified during slavery and Jim Crow? After all, our treatment of Blacks and other minorities has been horrific for most of our history. However, our nation's need for self-flattery refuses to consider the question.

Applying the beginning of Romans 2 to geopolitics presumes that there exists a great equality between ethnicities and between nations. And the question then becomes if people who look down on others in judgment are subject to the judgment of God, then why wouldnˋt nations be subject to that warning too?

Something else needs to be added. Because of his lack of self-restraint, Trump has taken the act of judging others for crimes that America also commits to a new level. Certainly Iranˋs leaders are morally horrible. But in acting as their executioner, Trump if not imitating their crimes, commits his own set of crimes. For in judging other nations, Trump assumes that he is only answerable to himself.

The Bible says not to judge in several places. At the same time, there are times when we must confront people or nations with their wrongdoing. How do we handle this possible contradiction? Perhaps when judging others, we must distinguish between looking down on others from looking at others. While the former judges with a sense of moral superiority that comes from being blind to one's own sins, the latter does not.

Inaction Can Also Speak Louder Than Words Too

 After Trump expressed anger at Putin's attitudes toward Ukraine in his war against it, something went missing. For after Trump threatened additional tariffs against Russia, no additional tariffs came even after Trump declared a trade war with the world and Putin's persistence in attacking civilian targets and slaughtering children. Tariffs against America's now former allies were put into place; but, again, no new tariffs for Russia could note even be seen on the horizon (click here).

What does the above mean? It should be quite clear by now. We have been witnessing a geopolitical shift. America is no longer a reliable ally of the NATO nations. It is even no longer an ally of its dearest and closest friend, Canada. Canada and the rest of NATO are all now America's exes. Perhaps now is the time for those exes to write a tell all book about what it is like to have America as a partner.

But where is America heading? The way Trump is acting as President, it should be abundantly clear. Trump is acting like America's CEO and Americans are his employees. He is reserving the right to fire any of his employees (a.k.a., even deporting those who have legal green card status) which is a right he will most probably assume when he deports American natural-born citizens whose parents were American citizens.

Another way to look at where America is going is to look at Russia. Why? One reason is because we just don't know how much Trump owes Putin for his election; but we have seen signs of how much Trump admires him. We know that Russia was using disinformation during Trump's previous two Presidential campaigns to help Trump. My own experiences on the internet says to me that I ran into Russian interference during this most recent election. I saw Russian meddling on those  who were on the Left and the Right. The goal of the Russian internet ventures during the last Presidential race was to make Trump look preferable to Biden first and then Harris second regardless of Trump's faults. Evidence for this claim is in the efforts of a self-allegedly conservative Christian website writing at least one article justifying Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

In addition, because of both Russia's help in electing Trump and the words of some fellow believers in Christ, I had predicted that if Trump was elected, that Russia would be our future. I predicted that Russia would be our future because it is an oligarchy while granting the Russian Orthodox Church just enough privileges and considerations  to keep it in the fold. And indeed we are on the way there.

Trump's lack of additional tariffs on Russia despite their conduct in their War against Ukraine should at least indicate, if not imply, that Trump is moving the U.S. closer and closer to Russia both in terms of being its ally and in terms of becoming more and more like it. 

In other instances, the Trump Administration has failed to act on Federal judicial rulings. The most infamous one concerns a man who was mistakenly sent to a maximum security complex in El Salvador. Though the Trump Administration admitted that sending the man there was an error, with the bigger error being that they sent even one person to a prison in another nation without due process of any level, it argued that it has no right to demand that El Salvador has to return the prisoner. In fact, though admitting the error, the Trump Administration has made no voluntary effort to have the man returned. Instead, it argued that the man had ties to MS-13. The man's lawyer denied the claims as well as claimed that the man in question had no criminal record.

Think about the implications here. The Trump Administration can can send anyone to an El Salvador maximum security prison or a prison in any other nation and then wash their hands of the mistake regardless that it was a mistake. That isn't just an ominous position for legal migrants, it applies to American citizens as well. That means any of us could be arrested and sent away with no legal recourse to have the mistake corrected.

And so is the Trump Administration putting America first here? Perhaps the question should be this: Is the Trump Administration putting Americans first? Regardless of the claims made by the Trump Administration, it isn't just actions that speak louder than words, it is inaction as well.

Now that we have pointed out the sins of others, what does our own inaction say about what we really believe? As we reflect on how we have sometimes been inactive in the presence of injustice, especially when we were unjust to others, in addition to urging people to become active in ways that speak out against injustice, we need to have empathy with those who don't. That is because we've done what they are doing now.

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For August 22, 2023

 Aug 20

To the Imaginative Conservative blog for the reprinting of Russell Kirk's article on America's greatness. Kirk also stated that order with injustice is preferred to anarchy.

With its emphasis on tradition, I have come to expect the following attitude from conservatives. That attitude can be expressed as a mantra: 'we must be praised.' And that seems to be the basic tenor of the above article.

Now what was America's initial order when only Blacks could be property and land could be seized from Native Americans? What was America's initial order when from almost the first 80 years of its existence as a nation, only whites could qualify for citizenship. And severe oppression and persecution followed after the Civil War and Reconstruction.

"Nobody's perfect," you say. But at what level of injustice can one no longer hide behind that statement.

According to the article, what cannot be tolerated is anarchy. And as was mentioned early in the article, even the order that the Bolsheviks brought was better than anarchy. But, again, at what level of injustice is that statement true?

Have we considered that the more injustice there is, the more we live under the rule of force whether the owner of that force is centralized, such as the state, or localized, such as a gang. And the question then becomes, does one have a better chance fighting off a gang or the state? What would the victims of the purges by Lenin and Stalin say?

When I read Kirk's above article, I am reminded of a revolutionary who challenged the established order of his day. That radical wrote the following (see https://www.csuchico.edu/iege/_assets/documents/susi-letter-from-birmingham-jail.pdf):

'I MUST make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councillor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says, "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically feels that he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time; and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season."'

The radical who wrote that was Martin Luther King Jr. And perhaps what Kirk's article is really about is that whether one prefers order depends on whether one is a recipient of the injustice practiced by the current order. BTW, we should note that one of the reasons King chose nonviolence was in order to challenge the current order while avoiding anarchy. We are fortunate that his voice was more powerful in the Civil Right Movement than the voices of those who called for violence. And despite the advances made by the Civil Rights Movement, we still have systemic racism. And its continued presence wears down the resistance of those who believe in peaceful means to change the order of things.

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August 22

To Marc Barnes and the reposting of his article on how America is a hyperChristian nation and its religious direction has been compromised by liberalism. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.

Perhaps the motive for saying that we live in a hyperChristian nation is that the writer is trying give authority to someone or something by association. It is like being guilty by association only this association is more positive. 

But if hyperChristianity is a compromise of Christianity by something like liberalism, that is at least part heresy, wouldn't it be more correct to say that we live in a hypoChristianity? And if the explanation for why America relied on slaves is that everyone else was doing it, then how does one defend society's Christian credentials. Again, that is a compromise--an overwhelmingly serious one.

And perhaps we should consider how America was based on white supremacy before making claims that Christianity was ubiquitous in America. Or if we look at the religious wars among Christians in Europe and realize that we are their descendants, would would not make the strong claims about America that are made in the above article.

And perhaps if we studied The Constitution or realized that the writer of the Declaration of Independence was not written by a Christian, Thomas Jefferson, we would stop trying to force the claim that we live in a Christian or HyperChristian nation. Perhaps we could look outside of Christendom to see how other societies were introducing humane treatment of people before claiming that Christianity 

On This July 4th, Will America Be The ...

Will America still be 'the land of the free and the home of the brave'? Please note that that quote came in the form of a question in its original source: the National Anthem. And it would be a good question to ask ourselves if we were so disposed to be honest with ourselves. But are we honest enough with ourselves to ask that question or are our corporate and individual egos so fragile that attempts to answer that question produces a conflict of interests?

My guess is that conservatives are less prone to honestly ask whether  America is the 'land of the free and the home of the brave.' After all, thinking that America the greatest nation in the history of the world is one of their basic tenets. In fact, affirming that to be the case about America is one of the litmus tests many of them use for determining who is a real American and a true patriot. They tell those of us who don't believe that about America to leave. Ironically, staying in America because one believes that it is the greatest nation in the history of the world is being nothing more than a fair weather patriot.

But there is another indicator that reveals why conservatives are less prone to honestly ask whether America is the 'land of the free and the home of the brave.' That is because of their extremely sensitive allergy to change--and being able to change is mark of both being free and being brave. In fact, calling their reaction to change an extreme allergy is an understatement. Rather, change is to most conservatives what Kryptonite was to Superman. But let's be fair, once we are established in a favorable situation or way of thinking, we all resist change. However, not all of us react to change like many conservatives do.

What changes do conservative resist? They resist changes necessitated by the reality of climate change, the pandemic, systemic racism, and the fairness of the 2020 Presidential election. Their resistance to changing in the face of theses situations went so far as to cause them to embrace conspiracy theories and pseudo science to deny those realities. 

Their avoidance of changing in order to reduce systemic racism has caused them to take the approach to racism taken by the Reagan Administration. His Administration took the position that, after the Civil Rights Movement, the only racism that still exists is that of personal prejudice. And so they believed that the continual harping on the presence of systemic racism causes some to feel and express racism in response. Meanwhile, some conservative are parading individual blacks on social media who say that they do not see systemic racism. But these same conservatives ignore the statistics and reports of the racism practiced by institutions like law enforcement, the justice departments, in our economic system evidenced by the ever growing wealth and income disparities between the races, in our election system as there seems to be an erosion of voting rights as seen in the elimination of parts of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, in the reports of environmental racism, or in the testimonies of blacks who have been questioned or arrested by law enforcement because they were walking or driving while black. The recent SCOTUS decision to undo Affirmative Action policies by the conservative Court also bears testimony to the  denial of systemic racism.

Another rejection of change by many conservatives is their refusal  recognize equal status and rights for those in the LGBT Community. Religious conservatives reject analogies being made between the struggle for equal rights for the LGBT community and the struggle for civil rights for blacks during the Civil Rights Movement because they say that there is no sin in belong to a minority race. What that view implies about those in the LBGT Community is more obvious than an appearance of a drag queen show. And while conservatives proudly brag about how they adhere to science on LGBT issues, what the scientific community is reporting is the need to change some of our views about why some have same-sex attraction or why some have gender dysphoria.

We might want to consider another marker of freedom and bravery: tolerance. Here I am thinking of how disingenuous the title of Ron DeSantis's book called, The Courage To Be Free. Are we talking about the diminishing freedom of teachers to teach racism from a non white, religiously conservative American perspective. We are also talking about the right of school libraries to carry books that  mention same-sex attraction (SSA) or other LGBT issues. Doesn't DeSantis know that Freedom - Equality = Privilege. And thus, the title of his book should be 'The Audacity To Seek Privilege.'

But bravery isn't seen when we try to repress those groups of people who are significantly different from our own. It isn't bravery to try to marginalize a group of people, who are not denying the equality or rights of others, because you don't like that group. Trying to silence, control, and marginalize them is a sign of fear, not courage.

However, it seems that some groups of conservatives are not the only ones who lack the courage to tolerate those who are different. The Politically Correct crowds, there is more than one, also try to silence and marginalize those whose language or ideas they do not like. And some in the LGBT Community, while striving for equality, use labels and other tactics to silence those who do not believe that one cannot change one's own biological sex because of how one feels or transitions. 

As much as we should be working for the full equality of all in the LGBT Community in society, that doesn't mean that we have to change the biological facts of life. The problem here stems from the fact that we categorize people by one of 2 biological sexes even though there are more than two genders. Therefore, we need a more complex way of categorizing people that recognizes their gender identity and biological sex independently from each other while promoting full equality for those from each gender identity.

Part of our intolerance of others is that we either refuse or have become unable to make some necessary distinctions. And thus we unnecessarily engage in too much black-white thinking and  cannot see the 50+ shades of gray that lies between the polar opposites. The refusal or inability to make distinctions lies at the heart of many of our intolerances, attempts to silence others, and prejudices. 

An example of a distinction that some either refuse or are unable to make practiced by some of my fellow religiously conservative Christians is to differentiate between people disagreeing with one's religious beliefs and being persecuted. Much of the disfavor that religiously conservative Christianity has found itself with many people is that such Christianity has, during the time of Christendom, oppressed certain groups of people by denying them their equal status and rights in society. And when people voice this disfavor, many of us religiously conservative American Christians interpret it as persecution of the faith rather than a protest against our attempted control of them.

Though I have picked on conservatives quite heavily here, there are a significant number of liberals and leftists who lack courage as evidenced by how they treat conservatives or others who disagree with them. This lacking of courage and the desire to replace freedom with the ability to control others is prominent throughout the whole nation and it knows no ideological boundaries. And so when we celebrate July 4th today, we need to honestly ask ourselves whether our nation is as good as we say we are, or are we floundering because we have too easily believed the headlines that we have written about ourselves.

The short of it is this, America is not the 'land of the free and the home of the brave.' It isn't that not because there is a giant meteor is heading for our heartland or a mighty nation is poised to attack or invade us. Rather, we are not the 'land of the free and the home of the brave' because of how we feel about our fellow Americans whom we deem to be too different from ourselves.

What Happened To Germany, American Style

What is meant here in the title? It refers to the time period of the search for absolute power by the Nazi Party with Adolf Hitler. The birth of the Nazi Party was made possible by the Versailles Treaty that became the final settlement of World War I. The treaty itself imposed such harsh economic conditions on post war Germany that the emergence of extremist political parties became an inevitability. The Nazi Party was one of those inevitabilities. And that period culminated Adolf Hitler's becoming Germany's leader in 1933.

We should not be surprised that harsh economic conditions can cause extremism. Such conditions cause enough deep suffering that people will, out of desperation, latch onto any kind of group or ideology that explains their current condition in simplistic terms and thus promises a simple and certain solution to alleviate the suffering. 

Of course, one of the perceived solutions was to find the scoundrels who were responsible for the then economic conditions. The end of World War I provided the scapegoats needed for Nazi extremism to eventually thrive. The scapegoats were the political non-conservatives, in particular the Jews who were associated Marxist Socialism, who betrayed and corrupted the nation according to Hitler. It was those political non-conservatives who were portrayed as having moved Germany to unnecessarily surrender in World War I. That surrender deeply embittered many German soldiers who were returning home. On the other hand, those soldiers may not have been aware of the harsh conditions that fighting World War I forced on the German people.

We should note that Nazism's growth had an inverse relationship with the German economy. When the economy went well, the Nazi Party was unpopular. But with the Stock Market collapse and the Great Depression, coupled with the crippling sanctions of the Versailles Treaty, the once proud German nation was reduced to ruins causing much poverty among the people. This caused an increase in interest in what the Nazi Party was saying.

When Hitler campaigned in the 1930 elections he denounced the abandonment of German traditional values and preached a Germany-first approach to policies. In stressing traditional values, Hitler emphasized the family, race, and the people and he opposed materialism, cosmopolitanism, and “bourgeois intellectualism (click here for source). In essence, Hitler wanted to make Germany great again and to do that Hitler wanted to eliminate every source of corruption to the German people whether that corruption was in the form of ideas or race. 

With Hitler's Germany First approach, he taught that virtues like  loyalty, struggle, self-sacrifice, and discipline were German values. Hitler also preached that harmony with nature was a cultural value. Hitler opposed homosexuality because he saw it as a cause for the fall of Ancient Greece (click here for source).

We should note that Hitler tried to gain control of Germany two times. He unsuccessfully used violence the first time in what some call the Beer Hall Putsch. He used democratic political means to gain control the second time. What was ironic was that Hitler opposed democracy in Germany because, according to him, it failed (click here for the source).

So what do we see in America today? We see not just Trump, but those who follow either him or his side of the Republican Party. We saw Trump's side resort to violence in the January 6th Insurrection in order to maintain his presidency even though he lost the election. So what does Trump want to do now? He wants to win back the Presidency. And if he wins, he is promising to take revenge on those who spoke against or slighted him. We should note that Trump's leading rival for the Republican nomination has already shown that he will use his political power to take revenge on at least some who oppose his agenda. Of course I am referring to Ron DeSantis and his war of vengeance against Disney World for Disney World's speaking out against a DeSantis bill that targeted the mention of homosexuality for some elementary school children. But that is not all DeSantis has done. He has declared war on all wokism whether it deals with equality for the LGBT community or the teaching of CRT. And we should also note that many state Republican leaders took revenge on fellow party members who voted to impeach Trump or sat on the January 6 committee.

We should also note that in a recent poll, the majority of Republicans and some Democrats favored their leaders using strong-armed speech tactics to force their ways on government (click here for source). Such tactics are against the spirit of democracy and can lead to authoritarian rule.

We should also note similarities in what Hitler proposed and what the Trump side of the Republican Part has campaigned on. They include the restoration of traditional values, opposition to homosexuality, and an America-First approach to policies. And while Hitler promoted the idea Aryan superiority, conservatives more than liberals believe that America is the greatest nation in the history of the world. These conservatives are afraid of America being corrupted by immigrants and political non-conservatives. In addition, both Hitler and the Trump side of the Republican Party have believed that those people who were different from them were corrupting their nation. For Hitler that involved non-Aryans. For the Trump side of the Republican Party it includes the LGBT community and immigrants from South of the Border or who are Muslims.

As for America, Sinclair Lewis said the following

When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.

Conservative self-proclaimed patriots on the right seem to be deliberately trying to prove Lewis right. Like with the Nazis, these self-proclaimed patriots see all who are not members of their side of the Republican Party as enemies and thus feel the need to seek absolute control over  America at all levels of government from seeking to overthrow a Presidential election, to controlling Congress, and to expelling one state's legislators because they protested against the lack of action on gun control. In the meantime, volunteer groups are looking to purge school libraries of not just LGBT materials, but any material that presents a CRT view of racism in AmericaIn addition, classic books written by some well-known classic works by authors like F. Scott Fitzgerald, George Orwell, John Steinbeck, Alice Walker, James Joyce and others are being banned from school libraries.

There are other disturbing similarities that will be omitted here. The point being is that the Trump side of the Republican Party is seeking to undo our democracy and take a kind of fascist control over the nation. Its MAGA slogan and its spiritual direction from many of my fellow religiously conservative Christians shows little tolerance to moral behaviors that in contrast with our moral beliefs. It seems that many who are not seeking to redefine America as a nation that follows the 10 Commandments, they are seeking to make America into a Christian ethnocracy where religiously conservative Christians seek varying levels of control over the government and its laws. And many of these Christians are proud Americans.

But until Russia's invasion of Ukraine, there were quite a few Christians who admired Putin's reign in Russia especially because of his ties to the Russian Orthodox Church and his opposition, or persecution, to the LGBT community in Russia. The problem with that fondness is that Putin's way of ruling is autocratic. Yes, they have elections, but other nations have taught us that the presence of elections does not imply the existence of democracy.

Just as Germany's moment lasted years before it was resolved in the most unfortunate way, Germany's moment, American Style will be with us for quite a few years. It is aided by our 2-party system that would force many Republicans, who would normally not vote for candidates with autocratic tendencies like Trump and DeSantis, to vote for such candidates  in order to avoid electing the alternative.

Gone are the days when serious misconduct by a Republican candidate would be fairly objectively scrutinized by members of his own party. What we have now is a situation where America seems to be treading water to avoid sinking into fascism. And so the question that comes into play here is, how long can we tread water?

Reflections On Another Super Bowl

The wife and I watched this year's Super Bowl with some old friends--we have been friends for decades. And I found myself in a familiar role of being the only one rooting the team I favored. So while everyone else rooted for the Eagles, I rooted for the Chiefs despite having grown up in the Philadelphia area.

 I use to be an Eagles fan but then dropped the team when they hired Buddy Ryan as their coach. That was decades ago. I moved on to another team. The Chiefs was not that team, but I rooted for them because I really like their quarterback.

The Eagles played with the more energy than the Chiefs in the first half and I suspected that the Chiefs would return the favor in the 2nd half and they did. The only question was whether the Chiefs could overcome a 10 point deficit. They did thanks a good team effort and the quarterbacking of Patrick Mahomes. And even the opposing quarterback statistically outperformed Mahomes, Mahomes's engineering of the victory earned him MVP honors for the game.

The Chiefs did have one advantage over the Eagles that was rarely if ever mentioned. The Chiefs had been tested during the playoffs by Jacksonville and Cincinnati. Both of those opponents were tougher teams than the Eagles face especially after both 49er quarterbacks were injured in the NFC Championship game with the Eagles. 

As I watched the different parts of the pregame ceremonies and the game itself, I tried to imagine how people from other nations saw the U.S. We should note that almost every part of the pregame ceremonies was hyped which demanded applause. The same could have been said for the halftime show that was far more show than it was music. Pop music in the US is rather simple and it promotes conformity in how audiences suppose to respond. That conformity can be used to promote authoritarian mindsets. Then, as in most of our professional baseball and basketball championships, we had a world championship event where the teams came from the same country: the U.S. And so I wondered just how narcissistic does America come off to the world.

Though those who are proud to be American patriots might be offended by my musing, that would only confirm my thoughts. After all, how many nations currently bill themselves as the greatest nation in the history of mankind? How many nations have a significant percentage of their population who believe that the world would fall into tyranny and disarray without their existence? And how many of us American citizens get significantly offended when their fellow citizens or other people question the image that we have of our country? How many of us have either said or heard the phrase, 'America, love it or leave it'? Are we willing to admit that our nation has a significant problem with narcissism because of what we believe and insist that others think about us?

I then reflected on the fans. Of course, the fans from neither team are monolithic. But what we had there was a large portion of those fans who paid thousands of dollars per ticket and dressed up in ways that showed support for our team. In Philadelphia, the city was preparing for a celebration in case the Eagles won by trying treat the light poles so that no one would climb them. Some other American cities have had near riot conditions when their teams won "world championships.' 

All of the ways that the fans behaved and were prepared to behave made me wonder if we Americans are living more vicariously than we should or realize. By that I mean that we are finding more significance in the achievements by and recognition of our favorite entertainment and sports heroes or other elites than we find in what we accomplish or in how we live.

I finally was wondering if our nation would improve if all of the hype and attention that we put into entertainment events like the Super Bowl were put into the proper education of our young people, especially our young people who live in economically depressed areas. What if we showed more interest in and care for those young people than we show in our favorite entertainers? What if more of us paid more attention to national and world events that hurt the lives of many people than the information we pay to events like the Super Bowl? What if more of us valued learning more than we value being entertained? How much better would life be for many of our fellow Americans?

Welcome To Churchtopia

In part 4 of Tim Keller's (click here for his bio) series on the decline and his proposed renewal for the American Church, he sets out a vision for where he would like the Church, if it was renewed in the direction of the historic Protestant faith, to be. There are 16 parts to his vision for such a Church. His vision for the future Church includes the following (click here for part 4):

• 'Cities become filled with flourishing neighborhoods that point to the churches within them as a crucial source of their life and strength.'
• 'Every U.S. community is honeycombed with home fellowship groups and house churches that build up the Christians within them, welcome non-believers, and serve their neighbors.'
• 'New churches are being planted twice as fast as churches are closing, and 2/3 of the people in the new churches are formerly unchurched and non-believers.'
• 'Christians would become famous for being the ones who show up in force first to help victims whenever there is any disaster.'
• 'Christian churches would be known as the most racially and culturally diverse institutions in society. The ‘face’ of the renewed Christian church toward society—its leading voices—are highly diverse ethnically, and the American church is tightly connected to the global church.'
• 'The church would become publicly recognized as a refuge for sufferers, known for its ability to help people through grief, pain, and loss.'
• 'There would be a robust, respected, and growing community of intellectuals and scholars that hold unashamedly to historic Christian doctrine who are (a) active in every academic field of inquiry, producing scholarship that contributes to and alters the field, (b) a growing presence in universities, and (c) an entire alternate intellectual economy of study centers, think tanks, academies, periodicals, and publishing.'
• 'Christians would be known for their just use of power, so that:
• In business, Christians are known to be less selfish and ruthless and more generous to peers, employees, and customers.
• In social entrepreneurship, Christians are known to be fueling an explosion of creative and effective nonprofits that target every social problem, leading to a measurable decrease in the poverty rate and improvements in other statistics of social well-being, and that Christians would be famous for being those most given to charitable giving and volunteering their time for those in need.
• In politics and government, Christians would be known for seeking the common good rather than their own electoral interests, and for being cognizant of the importance of government policies for a just society.
• A growth in church planting and church renewal among the poor would occur, supported non-paternalistically by the broader church and led by the poor themselves. This would be seen by society and credited with improvements in social indicators.'

Keller's vision for the Church is really a Church utopia. And though I respect and very much appreciate the sentiments expressed in his vision and his deep concern for both America and its Church, I feel that there are some logical flaws that are deeply engrained in Keller's vision and approach.

One of the logical flaws is that the goals expressed in Keller's vision becomes a standard of measurement that we should be working toward and use to determine if the American Church is being renewed. But as Keller correctly said in an earlier article in the series, revivals and revival movements are at the discretion of God's Spirit. And so while we flawed and sinful humans can contribute to revival and renewal, we do not have sufficient control to reach the goals Keller has laid out. Thus, it is possible that we can become so focused on Keller's goals in Keller's vision, other ways by which the Church is being renewed will fly in under our radar and thus we would be missing out on how God is already changing us.

This leads us to a problematic statement made by Keller. Before laying out his vision, Keller said the following:

'Our vision cannot be simply for a restoration of churches and Christian institutions to their former states of strength. That is to mistake means for ends.'

His statement is problematic in part because Keller's vision is simply an updated and improved state of what our churches and Christian institutions once enjoyed. And when we look at what has happened to the American Church and the fact that God's Spirit is sovereign in determining when and where revival movements occur, perhaps our means should be our ends as we trust God to do with our means what He has purposed to do.

There is another logical problem in Keller's vision for the American Church. When one scans the abbreviated above list, what seems to be the case is that Keller has placed the Church in a competition with secular people, institutions, and ideologies to prove which one more true and relevant. The ones who contribute the most to the common good win. Of course those who win also get the most followers. So we Christians are, according to Keller, by our actions, prove the Gospel to be true by our actions of out performing unbelievers.

There are problems with that approach. The more we are competing with secular people, institutions, and ideologies, the more we are prone minimize the contributions of those not in our group while exalting our own. Basically, the more we compete, the more tribal we become. And the more we  do that the more harm we bring to the reputation of the Gospel. But not only that, the Gospel is proven to be true not by our works, but by the works of Christ--especially His crucifixion and being raised from the dead. It is what God did that proves the Gospel. As for us believers, we are mixed bags when it comes to acting in ways that bring honor to the Gospel. But regardless of our failures and whether we contribute more to society than unbelievers, it is what Christ did on the cross and His being raised from the dead proves who He is.

There are some analytical problems with Keller's approach. In earlier articles, Keller laid out why the American Church has been in decline and he has some good observations and insights in doing that. Those reasons include magnifying the importance of political issues at the expensive of theology, embracing a faulty political ideology or agenda, sharp divisions in the Church and society over political ideologies, anti-intellectualism, a growing individualism and secularism inspired by the Enlightenment, racism, rigidity in how people react to differences in interpreting the Scriptures, insularity, and the secularization of society. In all of that, Keller gives an insider's view of why the American Church has been in decline. 

But he fails to give an outsider's view of why the American Church has been in decline--an outsider being an unbeliever? To sum up an outsider's view, we could simply say Church History is the reason why the American Church has been in decline. But such is too general a statement to be helpful. In particular, we need to look at the American Church, and American History for that matter, from the perspectives of Critical Theory, Critical Race Theory, Marxism, and Post Modernism. Those approaches have very helpful models of thought that can fallibly tell us religiously conservative Christians part of why our Church has been in decline. 

While Keller, from an insider's point of view, is content to blame the Enlightenment for the what is called 'excessive individualism' of today has a problem, the question becomes whether our society's excessive individualism has been more the result of our own consumerism and Free Market System. 

Here we should note that the Enlightenment emphasized reason and science over faith  and authoritarian religions in interpreting the world. Part of that was due to the role superstition played in the exercise of faith. Replacing faith and reverent submission to religious leaders with reason does not mean that one is encouraging more individualism. Rather, emphasizing reason is emphasizing logic and the mathematics behind logic. Conservative theologians have been perhaps overly critical of the Enlightenment because it freed people from being compelled to submitting Church authority especially when the exercise of that authority was abusive.

From an outsider's view, we should note that the rise of "excessive individualism" started in the 1960s and served as part of a protest against the automatic submission to authority figures and past traditions that could also be oppressive and abusive. The protests were against racism, an immoral war, an overly-materialistic society, the subjugation of women, and the marginalization of the LGBT community. 

In addition, by the time of the 1960s, consumerism was all the rage. As consumerism grew, one's personal significance became more and more tied to what one consumed and how one consumed it. And as the desire to consume more grew, the concern for and connections with others which would move us to serve and help them, grew less. In his book, Stride Toward Freedom, Martin Luther King Jr. criticized capitalism because of how it enabled people to measure their lives in terms of what they earned and consumed and less by how they were connected with and helped others (click here and see pgs 94-95). The introduction of Neoliberal Capitalism only made consumerism hotter.

Neoliberalism or Neoliberal Capitalism was the form of capitalism that followed the Bretton Woods System, which lasted from just after the end of WW II to the 1970s and 1980s. The Bretton Woods System of Capitalism allowed for much more government control and intervention into the financial world. But Neoliberal Capitalism sought to cut as many social responsibility ties as possible between the business world and both government and society. This freed businesses, especially publicly owned companies and corporations,  to pursue maximizing its profits to benefit the ROI of shareholders. Such an ethic removes concerns for others as well as other external factors because the sole focus for maximizing profits is one's own welfare. And as business principles were applied to other areas of life during this current stage of Neoliberal Capitalism, so too were a growing disconnection with and lack of concern for the welfare of others.

So how is it that Keller, and other religiously conservative Christians scapegoat the Enlightenment for the individualism we see today? It is because the Enlightenment challenged the religious authorities of both its day and today. All of that is part of why I wrote that there are analytical problems with part of Keller's views on the causes for the decline of the American Church.

Another analytical problem with Keller's assessment of what caused the decline of the Church is that verboten theories, like Critical Theory, Critical Race Theory, and Marxism, theories that are adamantly rejected by religiously conservative Christians like Keller, sometimes give a better analysis of Church and American history than Keller and other religiously conservative Christians have. Now Keller has a point in warning us about those theories because their plans for solving the problems provided by those theories are often inadequate if not harmful. But at least their analysis is often on target and insightful.

Those  theories, such as Critical Theory, Critical Race Theory, Marxism, and Post Modernism shed much light on the failures of the Church and the Western Civilization. If we look at what the Frankfurt School said about authoritarianism or authoritarian personality type, we see a partial description of how religiously conservative Christians too often interact with each other as well as society and the world. Marx's analysis of the form of Capitalism during his lifetime serves us well to understand our current economic system that revolves, for the most part, around the whims and desires of wealthy shareholders. Such shareholders serve as the business world's equivalent of absentee slum landlords because, for the most part, their only concern is for what return they can get out of business while showing little to no concern for the other stakeholders of a given business. Stakeholders here could include the environment, employees, and communities in which those employees live.

We could go on, but perhaps it is time to offer an alternative solution to Keller's approach. It would be nice if the solution presented here would help satisfy some of the parts of the vision Keller provided, but doing so should be treated as unintended achieved benefit.

If we want to stop the decline of the Church, we must do damage control. As mentioned before, the Church has directly, and indirectly through Western Civilization, failed humanity in major ways. We have to come clean with our failures in a more expansive and pervasive way than Keller has pointed out.

One of the ways in which we can come clean with some of our failures is to admit that we don't consider our nation's democracy to be an important factor in how we hope to fix the Church and the nation. Here we should note that democracy is more than majority rule through elections. Also included in democracy, because of what the word means, is what Jefferson fallibly hinted at in his 1801 inaugural address (click here for the source):

'All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.'

Democracy, according to Jefferson's words, but not necessarily by his actions as President, involves a certain egalitarianism that goes against the grain of authoritarians because the latter prefer hierarchical societies. Thus, what we Christians must consider to be social justice should be guided more by Jefferson's statement than what some of us would call Biblical justice or by what Keller often cites as the common good. We should note that many a dictator has appealed to the common good when mandating abusive policies. That was true of both Hitler and Lenin.

We should note that the New Testament itself recognizes that the Church lives in a different setting than the Old Testament people of God did. For the latter lived, for the most part, in a religiously homogeneous society while we Christians have often been living in religiously heterogeneous societies. And thus, unless we want to lord it over others by gaining a privileged place of supremacy in society over others, we need to pursue equality even for many of those with whom we disagree the most. For example, we need to pursue and defend full equality for the LGBT community while adamantly holding to Biblical sexual moral values in our evangelism and within the Church.

Because of our religiously heterogeneous democratic society, we need to collaborate more with unbelievers regarding what social justice is and how we should pursue it. For social justice must be society's response to its injustices. Yes, there are some issues on which we can't agree with many unbelievers on. For example, we cannot agree with the legalization of elective abortions. However, we can commit to collaborating in creating social and governmental policies that significantly reduce the need for abortion in addition to making elective abortions illegal.

In short, we can't isolate ourselves from the world to forge a "Christian" vision for social justice and then try to force that vision on unbelievers in society. 

In addition, we must address the different forms of tribalism that are in our midst. Tribalism occurs when there is a high degree of loyalty to a group regardless of the identity of the group. That high degree of loyalty indicates that a person gets a great sense of significance from identifying with the group. Thus that high degree of loyalty eventually moves us to pursue a moral relativism with regard to the groups we are tribal toward so that a what is right and wrong depends on who does what to whom. Nationalism, which would be tribalism based on national identity, is a major culprit that causes Christians to embrace moral relativism when it involves evaluating and even supporting the policies of one's own nation. The result of tribalism is that the Christian starts to lose the ability to condemn immoral actions practiced by one's own nation. Ideological and political tribalism does something similar only for a given ideology or political party. The solution here is for us Christians  to base an overwhelming majority of our personal significance on the fact that we are sinners who are saved only by God's mercy shown through Christ alone. All other sources of significance must be very limited in comparison to the significance we gain by belonging to Christ.

If we want to battle anti-intellectualism, the we Christians have to break up with our use of authoritarianism. On a political level, authoritarianism is anti-democratic. On an apologetic and personal levels, authoritarianism is anti-rational. For authoritarianism believes that what is right and wrong depends on the tribal credentials of a given source more than on the facts and logic used by that source to make one's case.

Are there more things we can do to do damage control in order to help the Church? Certainly. But this article has already gone on too long to list them.

The Christian Counterrevolution

 To many a religiously conservative Christian, the 2015 Obergefell SCOTUS decision was their Waterloo in the Culture Wars. Yet many of us have yet to give up the ship. Many continue to fight back and their aim is to codify at least some of the Biblical laws the govern society's sexual practices.

I come from the Reformed Theological position. And almost every Reformed thinker, scholar, preacher, and whatever else I've read or listened to have commented on LGBT issues multiple times. Prior to the Obergefell decision, these public Christian figures opposed the legalization of same-sex marriage mainly because it would put limits on the rights of Christians in how they could treat those from the LGBT community. That is that Christians might have to recognize those in the LGBT community as having equal rights and thus might have to live or work in too close of a proximity with those from that community.

Now that same-sex marriage is legal, Reformed Theological leaders are labeling our society as being anti-Christian and that we should expect more and more hostility, and even persecution, because of our beliefs about values and sexual practices. And thus a counterrevolution is thought to be necessary in self-defense. But here we should remember what the LGBT community suffered through when they were being marginalized because of the Christian influence on society. During those days, many of us were the ones who visited hostility and persecution on others. Now people are trying not only to stop those injustices, but to prevent it from ever happening again. And when people try to undo and prevent long-standing social injustices, they often employ a phobic reaction so that they try so hard  that they employ a throw out the baby with the bathwater approach.

And so those leaders want a reversal of the legal standing of same-sex of marriage and even homosexual acts. And thus they are working toward codifying Biblical sexual mores and values for everyone in society, even for unbelievers. And the current Dobbs decision by SCOTUS now gives our courts the necessary tools for reversing past SCOTUS decisions allowing for the possible reversal of rulings that protect homosexual practices and same-sex marriage. In fact, some Reformed leaders speak and act like reversing the current legal protections for the LGBT community is the most important task that today's Christians face.

One of the unfortunate parts of this religiously conservative Christian response to losing the Culture Wars is the insistence on imposing Biblical sexual values on society. Well, let's say that they are starting with imposing Biblical sexual values on society. I'm afraid that these fellow Christians will support political leaders who say they support imposing other Biblical mores and values in other areas of life. That makes these Christians vulnerable to political opportunists who falsely promise the they will promote laws that incorporate those values. 

But the religiously conservative Christian response is also making many of my fellow Christians vulnerable to leaders who are more authoritarian than they are Biblical. And the trouble with falling to such leaders is that once we embrace their authoritarianism and leadership status, we become less rational in our decision making. We lose capacity for using the Scriptures to rationally consider, and even question, what these leaders are teaching.

And all of the above points to the current status of the American Christian Counterrevolution. Its first problem is that instead of opting for cultural coexistence (a.k.a., multiculturalism), it's directing Christians to fight a culture war in order to gain a place of supremacy over unbelievers in society. Such a response, which is not supported by the New Testament, makes us enemies of Democracy. And as enemies of Democracy, we sabotage our efforts to carry out the Great Commission--that is if we are still interested in carrying it out. Such a response will sabotage our efforts because unbelievers will see our oppression of others before they will listen to us share the Gospel.

The Culture Wars being waged by many of my fellow Christians is becoming a cover for a larger war. It is camouflaging the efforts of some Christians to either create a Christian nation or to restore Christendom in America. The difference between the two is that with the former we see more blatant effort by Christians to pass more restrictive laws based on the Bible for our nation while the latter speaks of a greater prevalence of Christian values in culture and society as well as passing some laws. 

In short, too many my fellow religiously conservative Christians are, with their counterrevolution, seeking a place of supremacy in society and our nation over unbelievers rather than sharing power with them as equals. That searching for supremacy can only end badly. For it can only end in either establishing a Christian Fascism, or an imitation of the relationship between Church and State that Russia has, or a failed attempt at supremacy where though  it is good that the attempt failed, the harm done to the reputation of the Gospel will be immense.

Is America Descending Into Madness?

When one considers what we have learned in the January 6th hearings and then witness as people who supported the coup attempts are now running for public offices, one has to worry about the mental health of our nation. Trump's over the top narcissism, along with the delusional beliefs of many of his followers, was bad enough. But what we see happening today is even worse. It is so bad that if Trump succeeds in being reelected, I plan to go to the Germany Embassy to apply for Mental Health asylum because my nation could be legitimately called insane.

And so the question at hand could be answered in the affirmative. With so many Trump supporters willing to overthrow the government because they have been the victim of being persuaded to believe some whopping conspiracy theories, of course America is descending into madness. We could also point to our gun violence problem. Despite having mass shooting after mass shooting, we still have too many our politicians who don't believe that any changes are necessary. It's insane.

But the madness started with neither Trump and his cult nor with over-the-top gun rights supporters. The recent John Oliver report on housing in America not only shows the dire straights some people are in, it shows a pervasive callousness on the part of many people who could otherwise help but they won't because they hear the siren songs of the free market.

Watching what many people who lack adequate housing have to suffer through, one has to wonder  why we don't have more violence and crime than we have in this nation. It's like watching a long line of commuters tailgate highway speeds and wonder why there are not more catastrophic car accidents.

Or take the denial of systemic racism still existing in this nation. Racism is seen in law enforcement, the criminal justice system, implementation of environmental policies, access to voting,  infrastructure resources, and obtaining jobs. And those are some of the areas in which Blacks feel the harsh reality of racism. Also, look at how our prisons treat prisoners and yet dare call themselves correctional institutions. And why are we surprised at prisoner recidivism when we see the difficulties that released prisoners have in restarting their lives. 

Look at our education system. Those privileged enough to attend schools in wealthy school districts have a chance to get ahead in the world. But those who attend schools in poor districts are being told by society that they don't count unless they can become exceptional at contributing to the wealthy. Look at how cities are willing to pour financial resources into sports and entertainment arenas that cater to the middle class on up at the expense of their schools that are already stretched for cash. In the end, cities are telling the students in poor neighborhoods that they don't count. Society is leaving many of them to rot in poverty without shedding a tear.

Or take our denial of climate change. Whether one blatantly denies man-caused climate change because admitting to such change would jeopardize their indulgent lifestyles or their political-economic ideologies. Or I look at myself as  being one who does believe that climate change is both a fact and a very ominous storm that has crossed over the horizon, but I can't help but contribute to man-caused climate change. Most of the products we buy contribute to human caused climate change or pollutes the world in ways that it will eventually further incapacitate the earth from supporting human life. Just to function as a retired adult, I automatically increase the size of my carbon footprint. And not only do I do that, everyone does.

Our economic system revolves around shareholders in general, and the wealthiest shareholders in particular. So many lives are being sacrificed to maximize their profits even though many of them already have more than what they know what to do with. So many others are left behind, ignored, and told to fend for themselves in a barren situation. Do we honestly think that a society that allows such conditions does not produce a great deal of bitterness and resentment? Do we honestly think that our society can last?

The American capacity for denying uncomfortable truths about both itself and the plight of its downtrodden is, in the eyes of some foreigners, what really makes us exceptional. But that kind of exceptionalism is not laudable. Rather, that kind of exceptionalism could categorize our society as being criminally insane.

So again, it didn't start with Trump and his supporters or the gun-rights people. They simply made madness more fashionable. They also gravely threaten what is left of our democracy. America has been descending into madness for quite a while. That's made evident by how we treat many of the vulnerable people in society. And we pretend that there will never be price to pay for abuse, exploitation, and neglect of the vulnerable. That is madness.

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For November 2, 2021

 Oct 13

To R. Scott Clark and David Vandrunen for Clark's blogpost citation of a Vandrunen article on racism from a Christian perspective. This appeared in the Heidelblog

Vandrunen's full article can be found at

https://www.opc.org/os.html?article_id=874

Most of the points made by Vandrunen in his article, and not just the part that was quoted above,  need some degree of correction and/or modification.

Take his first point, 'Race does not exist, although racism does.' The premise is not true when one considers the dictionary definition of race: 'any one of the groups that humans are often divided into based on physical traits regarded as common among people of shared ancestry' (see  https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/race   ). 

I was recently reminded of race during lunch with friends. One was African American and the other was literally from Africa. My friends had obvious differences between each and with me and those physical differences go back to ancestry. Now does that existence of race imply that we have no common ancestor? No. But a lot of "funny" things happened to different races on the way here from the Garden of Eden. 

The recognition of race has often been accompanied by assumptions of superiority and inferiority, and thus entitlement, which accompany the recognition of racial differences.

Thus the call for deracialization must be modified. It must be modified for two reasons: First, there are physical differences that exist between people due to common ancestries; and Second, we can't assume that racism will no longer exists if we were fully implement deracialization.

One of the excellent points made by CRT is what it calls racism, which is the oppression of people based on race, is experienced by many Blacks in more ways than just personal racial prejudice. Racism is experienced by many Blacks by institutional and social powers. Racism is still experienced in encounters with law enforcement and the criminal justice system, in terms of voting and voting rights, and in several ways in the economy. In addition, many Blacks still experience the after effects of past racism. 

We might also want to consider that deracialization forgets the different ways people are perceived because of their race. Because Blacks have been viewed not just as inferior, but they were treated as property for much of US history. Thus, we need to pay special attention to the accomplishments of people of color. These accomplishments help point out our equality and debunk assumptions of inferiority.

What we must be careful of  in critically thinking about racism is to use our theology and our subcultural biases to limit our understanding of how racism could be experienced by Blacks and other minorities. Because the charge of  racism is itself stigmatizing  and indicting, we need to admit that we have an inherent conflict of interest when it comes to acknowledging the full impact of both yesteryear's and today's racism as well as whether we are racist. It's easy for us to see the systemic racism that existed during slavery and Jim Crow. But when many Blacks talk about experiencing systemic racism today, we tend to balk. Such  balking is not a biblical reaction but a subcultural one. 

We cannot afford to use our theology, our ideology, or the image we prefer to have of our nation today or ourselves  to deduce that systemic racism no longer pervasively exists today. In fact, many of criteria that today's CRT proponents use to detect racism were used by Martin Luther King Jr. In particular, we are talking about the equality of results criteria (see  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xsbt3a7K-8https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xsbt3a7K-8   ). If we are going adequately understand what CRT is saying, then we must actively study it to see the continuities it has with the Civil Rights Movement as well as how it distinguishes itself from Critical Legal Studies and its criticisms of the politically conservative color-blind movement promoted by the Reagan Administration and scholars such as Thomas Sowell. For here we need to remember that many Blacks who agree with CRT are speaking from their experiences. And if we attempt to deduce that what they say they are experiencing is not true, we then show ourselves to be deliberately deaf to their complaints. And such deafness stands as a tremendous stumbling block for many might otherwise listen to the Gospel.

Finally, the Church has no choice but to be political in today's world. But that option for the Church is not to be political as the world is where one chooses to advance one own side's agenda at the expense of honesty and the truth. Rather, the Church must speak prophetically to the individual and corporate sins that each person and political and ideological side promotes and/or commits without commenting on any proposed ideological solution. 

Why is that our only option? It is because politics contain both ambiguous and non ambiguous moral choices. When a particular party advocates actions that suppress freedoms for a given group, the Church needs to speak prophetically to that suppression and the partisanship in which that is taking place. And while the religiously conservative American Christians have no problems with pointing out where they believe that their own rights are being infringed on, they have great difficulty in perceiving and acknowledging when they themselves are infringing on the rights of others. But why do we need to do that? It is for the reputation of the Gospel. That is that once a person or group identifies itself with Christ, everything it does and doesn't do, says and doesn't say is associated with the Gospel and acts to either hurt or enhance the reputation of the Gospel. That truth should give us all, as individuals, reason for pause because of our own sinfulness. But it should also give the Church abundant reasons for speaking prophetically against injustices in the world. That is because most, if not all injustices, violate either literally or in principle the commandments that prohibit murder and/or stealing. And for the past few centuries, through both advocacy and silence, the predominant branches of the Church in many areas in the world has aligned itself with wealth and power. In other words, we have a a lot of damage control and damage repentance to make up for.

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Oct 15

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost that calls the pandemic a 'religious event' and a lot of trust in the science of the vaccines a religion. This appeared in Heidelblog.

According to the logic used in the above article, the following statements must be true:

So the existence of polio and smallpox were religious events and those who flocked to the vaccines were making science their new religion.

We should not trust that the sun is the center of our universe and that gravity exists because Science does not trust, it doubts and tests. Of course, if science is always doubting and testing, then it never arrives at any firm answers.

Do we see the problem with the above logic yet? When religious leaders call solutions to crises a religion, what they are really doing is announcing the existence of a competitor in explaining the world. Calling science a religion because people are using what was learned from science as a help shows more than just a stretching of the word 'religion,' it's a defensive reaction to seeing another source of influence as a competitor to explaining the world around us. 

Who has a better position to to explain the different realities that we see around us? For example, who is in the best position to tell us whether climate change is at least partially but significantly caused by human activity? Are theologians in the best position or are climate scientists in the best position? Who is in the best position to tell us how effective vaccines and mandates are in curbing the current pandemic? Is it theologians or scientists who specialize in the areas of study that are concerned with viruses and how the body reacts to viruses?

Back when Heliocentrism was being floated as an explanation for a part of reality, both Calvin and Luther firmly rejected what Copernicus proposed. They too saw Copernicus's theory as a stepping on their turf. Because the Bible had already told them, however indirectly, the relationship between the sun and the earth, they felt comfortable in not just rejecting heliocentrism, they went on to ridicule anyone who proposed such a theory. Protestants followed Calvin and Luther's lead and the Roman Church then followed their lead. How dare a person use mathematics to contradict what was understood back then what God had to say.

Protestants and those from the Roman Church eventually got it right and the consequences were minimal. Today, not doing something about climate change because there are 'reasonable grounds' to question whether human activity is significantly contributing to it or to resist vaccine mandates because of one doubts the science behind it can have, and in some cases are having, disastrous, harmful effects on people. Never mind the percentage of  climate change scientists who are convinced by the evidence. And, btw, no one is telling dissenters that they cannot question what is being claimed, if all crises become religious events and the proposed solutions become religions themselves, then who can present themselves as being in the best position to people through those events but theologians. And that is what happens when we allow some to so easily expand the definition of religion.

The above article seems to be in denial of what logically follows calling the current pandemic a 'religious event' and the trusting of medical science's response as a religion even though no one is saying that what the medical scientists claim should not be questioned. But the vaccines those scientists have provided have proven to be helpful and even lifesaving. And if more people had followed their lead, we possibly could have avoided the overwhelming of our healthcare resources and prevented many deaths.

The above article seems to be nothing more than an attempt to defend one's turf not realizing that just as we should let vaccines be vaccines and science be science, we should let theologians be theologians and nothing more.

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Oct 17

To Bradley Birzer and his blog article on how great the American Republic was and how we can make it great again. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog. 

All too often, probably most of the time, our study of history and our learning religion share a common trait. That trait is that what should be a quest for truth has morphed into a search for personal significance. And that significance isn't found in realistic portrayals of our faults and sins, our significance is found in delusions of goodness and honor that we are fond to have dancing in our heads.

In particular, in terms of history we find those delusions when we magnify how we treated those who were like us while we minimize how we treated those who were different. In religion, we focus on how we think that we have been loving of God and people while we overlook our worship of idols and our coldness toward those who are different or toward those whose need would cost us more than we want to part with.

Such is my summary of the above article. The above article follows the road most often traveled.

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Oct 20

To R. Scott Clark and Carl Trueman for Clark's blogpost article that consists of quoting the part of Carl Trueman's article that tells us Christians not to imitate the world in how we react to the changing of the moral guard of society where Christianity has been replaced by movements like Post Modernism even though such a change threatens to marginalize us Christians in society. This appears in Heidelblog.

Trueman's article can be found at

https://www.firstthings.com/article/2021/11/the-failure-of-evangelical-elites

A few comments are in order regarding the cited part of Trueman's article. 

First, when Trueman talks about Christianity's place in society coming under threat, what was that place? Was it not one of supremacy over other beliefs, views, and practices so that it exercised various levels of supremacy over society? Should we lament over that lost privileged status?

Second,  when Trueman talks about Christianity being pushed to the margins, we might ask who was pushed to the margins when Christianity had its its day in the sun here? We do know that throughout US history, when Christianity had its privileged place, people of color, women, and the LGBT community were all marginalized to varying degrees. 

Trueman is complaining about how, with Post Modernism, unbelievers are turning the tables by imposing their moral values and thus marginalizing us Christians. At the same time, Trueman rightfully warns us not to conform to the 'spirit of the age.' And yet, with unbelievers turning the tables by imposing their moral standards on us, aren't they the ones who should be warned not to conform to the spirit that Christianity, as represented by many Christians, has been displaying rather than warning us believers not to conform to the spirit of this age?

We need to escape this black-white worldview where we Christians believe that either we must rule over others to some degree or be ruled over by them. We should seek to coexist with other views rather than trying to gain a privileged place over them in society so as to push our moral agenda, in particular our sexual moral agenda, on them. It is this belief that either we rule over them or they will rule over us that creating stumbling blocks to people who would otherwise listen to the Gospel.

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Oct 29

Tor R. Scott Clark and his blog article that says that if we only sung what was in God's Word, we could avoid singing songs about the climate change like the one he showed in his article. This appeared in Heidelblog.

The question we have to ask is whether the above hymn is better than the sound of climate change silence from the pulpit.

BTW, I am not a fan singing the above hymn in Church and its words are more focused on God than some worship songs I heard. 

Also, if we only sung from God's Word, then we would miss out on some wonderful hymns. The changing world demands that we stewardship of the world needs to change. So are we afraid to admit that the world is changing because then we must change with it to be good stewards of the world?

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Sometime in late October

To Bradley Birzer and his blog article on what is the essence of Freedom. This appears in the Imaginative Conservative Blog.

The essence of Freedom in society is not necessarily, it is equality. For equality is the first limit on our freedoms and distinguishes what we call freedom from what would rightfully be called privilege. Here we should note that  Freedom - equality = privilege. And privilege is all too often the result of refusing to share power and/or wealth.

When we insist on our freedom at the expense of another person's freedom, we are insisting on being privileged over that other person. Yes, we have duties that puts limits on our freedoms. But the first consideration  of what determines what our duties are in society is equality It is equality. So equality is the essence of Freedom in society.

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Oct 30

 To W. Robert Godfrey and his audio presentation about why America is changing in terms of race, sex, and so forth. This appeared on the Abounding Grace Radio website (click here for Abounding Grace Radio's website).

One key question is what constitutes a rejection of the Gospel? Is it a rejection of Jesus as God and how through faith God saves us from God's deserved wrath for our sins or is it a rejection of a Christianity's past privileged place in society expressed in law and culture? 

Another important question is how should we try to change things in our nation in the light of the 1st Amendment? Does seeking a privileged place for Christianity in the state and society lead to violating that Amendment?

Another important question is whether those in privileged groups can recognize problems and hardships that other experience. After all, being privileged can blinds one from seeing the sufferings of those who are not privileged especially those whose suffering is caused by the privileged place one's own group has in society. This is most evident in the wholesale rejection of BLM and CRT. It is most evident in the reaction against the Obergefell decision as well as the recent court decision that applies Civil Rights laws to discrimination against the LGBT community. It is most evident in our ignorance of the plight of Native-Americans. It is most evident in any opposition to increasing the minimum wage or to giving more workplace power to workers.

So it will be interesting to see if Godfrey addresses the above issues in answering the questions he posed in his presentation