Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For October 14, 2015

Oct 9

To Bethany Jenkins and her blogpost about how GM turned into a company that did not put safety first. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.

If we were to turn back the clock, we'd have to travel way back to at least before the Corvair was designed in created  The Corvair was first produced in 1960 and was one focuses of Ralph Nader's book, Unsafe At Any Speed.

Though this article is informative, we should note that GM didn't make the decision to relegate safety to a lower priority in a vacuum; it did so in a context, GM operates within a certain economic system. And this the problem with the article, it reduces GM's responsibility to GM alone rather than including the context, the economic system, in which GM made its decision. I am not trying to minimize GM's responsibility here, I am just saying that the economic system in which GM operates could have contributed to GM falling. And though GM is no child, what does Jesus say about stumbling blocks?

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Approximately between Oct 8 to Oct 10
 
To Joseph Pearce and his blogpost on the choice between globalism and freedom. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.

There are multiple problems with saying that the Roman Church has the answers to the problems alluded to above.

1.    The Roman Church still has problems of its own

2.    The claim that the Roman Church has the answers to these problems is shifting the solution from big government to big Church

3.    The claim that the Roman Church has the answers to these problems keeps democracy at arms' length, the same is said about globalization. This claim about the Roman Church moves us toward authoritarianism rather than toward democracy.

4.    The claim that the Roman Church has the answers to the above mentioned problems is a hypothesis at best. Being below best there appears to be varying levels of delusional thinking that is still only a hypothesis.

There are positive aspects to the above post. There needs to be an alarm sound over globalism. But here, we must be precise because globalism hits many areas of life differently. But reducing our problems to the issue of size oversimplifies our problems. First, we do need some bigness in what we do because we have a lot of people. Some needs can only be met by big while other can be met by small. There is no one-size-fits-all solution to our problems

But lest people point to #2 in my answer, I would say that the problem isn't size as much as it is participation. We don't have a full-fledged participatory democratic society and political system. Instead, we have a laissez-faire minimalist society and political system. Since the working definition of democracy is voting every x number of years for what I would hazard to guess is the majority of the population, we are far too sidetracked to have a society and system that is any different. And relying on authoritarian approaches, such as relying on the Roman Church's solution, minimizes participation to that of reading and following the instructions of the Church. That is just as undemocratic as the current globalism.
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Oct 13

To Joe Carter and his blogpost about changes in extreme poverty. This appeared on the Acton blog.

Unfortunately, what the above post does not share is where the bulk of that improvement has occurred. Since 1981, about 78% of the improvement in extreme poverty has come from East Asia with almost all of that improvement coming from China. Remember what kind of economy China current employs (my stats come from the World Bank website: http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/overview   ).

But with that improvement has come environmental problems as well as work condition problems. The work condition problems includes the use of sweatshop labor. In addition, the statistics cited above do not tell us how much improved are people's economic states above absolute poverty. Nor do they tell us the increase of wealth by those who benefit from the labor in countries like China. And with the improvement of other regions of the world is silence about the side effects such improvement brings.

What the statistics also do not show is whether there is an increase/decrease in the number of people approaching absolute poverty. So while much can be inferred by the simple statistics shown above, no real information is gained by them.
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To Joe Carter and his blogpost criticizing Donald Trumps's view of property rights. This appeared on the Acton blog.

Just perhaps both people are wrong concerning property rights. While I will leave it to Mr. Carter to show how Trump's view of property rights are wrong, Carter has reduced what the Scriptures say about property rights to the single command: Thou shalt not steal.

But the Scriptures say other things about property rights besides stealing. For example, Leviticus 19:9-10 tells farmers to neither harvest their crops to the edges of their fields nor to glean twice because the food that are on the edges of the fields and leftover from the first gleaning belong to the poor. Note that this is a command of God, not a suggestion. And one of the subjects it is address is property rights. But is also addressing poverty.

In addition, Deuteronomy 24:19-22 not only reiterates what was said in Leviticus, it adds another stipulation. If an area of a field was overlooked in harvest, that area should be left to provide food for the the poor.

Finally, we should also note that the tithes, which were mandatory gifts from one's private property, was, in part, used to help feed the poor.

So there is a problem with reducing a description of property rights to a single scripture verse. For not only are there philosophical and psychological problems that come with such a reduction, there are scriptural problems as well. And the latter problems are because the Scriptures deal with other just as important subjects besides property rights. Thus, while Carter might be more than correct in identifying Trump's errors and wrongdoings, something which we should thank Carter for, Carter's view of property rights is also problematic.
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To Joe Carter and his blogpost supporting the TPP. This appeared in the Acton blog.

We should also note the following about the TPP. It authors did not include personal representatives from either labor organizations or environmental groups. And though it is claimed that international labor standards will be followed along with environmental standards, past trade agreements show that such standards have not been enforced.

In addition, the arbitration method used to resolve disputes seem to recognize a one-way direction in terms of complaints. The method relies on ISDS who will recognize complaints from corporations and investors against governments, but not vice-versa. There is also an expressed fear that the ISDS decisions will have precedence over court decisions from other nations including our own.
And we should how past arbitration and trade deals have affected other nations. For example, the province of Ontario Canada was prevented from using local suppliers in the building of solar electric facilities by the WTO. A Canadian mining company has used a trade agreement to sue Costa Rico because it has denied that company rights to mining gold because of the expected environmental impact. Do treaties like the TPP surrender national sovereignty of nations to investors?

We might also want to revisit the past promises of financial pie in the sky for everyone. NAFTA, for example, was marketed that way, but it has primarily benefited corporations while hurting Mexicans who work in certain economic sectors such as agrigculture.

So why support the TPP especially when its text is not fully available to even all of the Congressmen and Senators who are voting on it? Where is our right to informed consent here?

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For December 3, 2014

This series of posts reflects on the values of some conservatives. Realize that the comments expressed here will be the result of less editing than the blogposts here and will contain more errors than the blogposts. Please be aware that the decision to block a comment or blacklist a person is not made by the individual writing any blogpost, but by the administrators of the blog.

Nov 24

To Andrew Spencer and his review of a book that defends traditional marriage against change. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.

This is our problem, we write so much in reaction to changing societal values on marriage while writing little to nothing about the economic disparity and classism, war and empire, and environmental destruction. And why do we write so much about same-sex marriage and so little about the rest? Is it because we are upset that society is no longer following our lead on marriage? For if that is the answer, then, again, why aren't we writing about the other issues that produce so many victims and so much destruction? The answer could be convicting.

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Nov 25

To Darrin Patrick and his blogpost showing a round table discussion on racism. This appeared on the Gospel Coalition website.

The mistake that was made when Michael Brown was killed was that his death was tied to closely with the struggles that the residents of Ferguson with racism and the abuse of power. Such a close association makes it impossible for Wilson to get a recognized fair trial. 

At the same time, the reaction of people across the country is further proof that we have still have a horrible problem with racism. That problem was demonstrated in this discussion when there was a discussion of Black-on-Black crime without discussing the problem we have with White-on-White crime. See, many Whites don't think in racial terms when White commit crimes against Whites. But they do see race when there is either Black-on-Black crime or Black-on-White crime. Such shows how racism can be subtle as well as in one's face. It is time we face all of the levels of racism that exist in our country today. And we need to show paradoxical approaches to racism. On the one hand, we cannot tolerate racism. On the other hand, we need to foster an environment where people feel free to openly deal with any level of racism which is in their hearts and minds.

Finally, racism isn't the only issue here, abuse of power is too. And this abuse of power starts at the top. Now we've always had abuse of power but it got a non-Colbert bump when the President of the United States decided to take action while refusing to recognize being accountable to anyone. That President, of course, was George W. Bush with his Patriot Act and his war against Iraq. Yes, President Obama has his own abuse of powers as well. But Bush amplified the abuse of power with his policies. 

This abuse of power has filtered down to local and state police. Certainly we have the high number of shootings of unarmed nonWhites. But we also have highway-forfeiture practices. Those of us in the Occupy Movement also witnessed the abuse of power by the police, noting that we also had faults, and observing how individual police officers could commit lower level assaults because the City was fined while the police officers were not criminally prosecuted.

For too long, the Church, especially the Conservative Church, has remained silent on all of these matters and other matters except for the obvious forms of racism. We need to do better.

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Nov 26

To Voddie Baucham and his blogpost commenting on Michael Brown and Ferguson. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.

This is perhaps one of the most disappointing posts I have seen on this website. It seems that the writer sees an exclusive-or choice between individual responsibility and systemic sin. Such a choice is tragically unfortunate and unwise. For what is systemic sin but the sin of groups which is made of individuals. And if systemic sin causes one to sin, what should we say about that system? The more systemic racism that existed in our country in the 1960s and before was systemic and the reaction to that then was not to be apathetic. For to be apathetic to the more systemic racism seen during the 1960s and below was nothing less than to be complicit with that systemic sin.

And what if the white privilege to which Baucham refers acts a stumbling block to Blacks, at least for the sake of those who provide that stumbling block, shouldn't we address it. And what if White Privilege and systemic sin significantly contributes to fatherlessness in Black families, should the White privilege and systemic sins be addressed? Also, what if White privilege and other systemic sins contribute to the Black-on-Black crime rate? Shouldn't we address this privilege and our systemic sins? And we should note that White privilege cannot be reduced to being more likely to having 2 parents in the house as Baucham seems to suggest. And what about Blue-on-Black crime? Can it be reduced simply to the number of Blacks shot by the police? And why is it that White-on-White crime is the only kind of crime committed where race is not an issue to be addressed? And if it is true that Brown robbed a store beforehand, he deserves to be shot for that? Should that be what happens when White rob stores or use the law to rob people in our current financial system?

Finally, hasn't this site try to prevent the acceptance of same-sex marriage from becoming part of the system and now we are told in this post that we should only be concerned that people are sinners rather than worry about systemic sin?

Yes, there is an individual sin aspect which we can address from the Gospel perspective. But that should never imply that we ignore the contributions that system sins make to the plight of Blacks in this country. We need to address both; we need to address the sins of the individual and systemic sins, which are nothing more than the sins of a group with a group being a collection of individuals.

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Nov 28

To Benjamin Watson and his thoughts on Ferguson. This appeared the Gospel Coalition website.

Watson's article is certainly better than some other articles I've read. But there is a problem for Christians here. The problem is that we want to reduce our problems with racism to sin. Yes, sin is a major part of it. But when we stare only at sin as being the problem and forget to look at the various systems involved, we hurt our chances at providing some relief because we are refusing to change actions that contribute to our problems here. 

Yes, let's talk about sin. But let's also talk about the systems employed by our society and how they contribute to the injustices being protested. 

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Nov 29

Should note that a portion of this comment is now on the blog. Time will tell if it remains there. 
Update: comment was removed from the blog.

To armk and his comments which were in response to my comments about whether we could say that 1st century preachers preached material other than what was written in the NT Epistles. The context of our discussion was whether preaching reveals also reveals the social struggles of the congregation. This appeared in the Whitehorse In blog

Armk,

First, what you first declared had nothing to do with what the NT requires. It had everything to do with documentation. Without the documentation, your declaration about what 1st century preachers preached on is speculation.

Second, will address evidence for divergence in a later note.

Third, regarding your first P.S., realize that the historical context between the first century church and today's church has changed. It has changed in the following ways:

1.    Whereas the Gospel was new to the world when the Acts of the Apostles, the epistles, and Revelation was written, the same cannot be said today.

2.    Whereas the Christianity and the Gospel had no track record in society in days of the Apostles, the same cannot be said today. And this point is vital because one of the major concerns expressed by the NT writers was the reputation of the Gospel.

3.    Whereas the Roman Empire ruled with absolute authority in the days of the Apostles, democracy has instituted a more participatory kind of government and, as such, disperses culpability for the injustices that exist in society.

4.    Did you forget all of the OT passages about social justice? Why aren't they important anymore?

Regarding your P.P.S.

Should the State be involved in religion? It is easy to say no right away but then we have to realize that many injustices practiced in America were done in the name of some sort of Christian faith.

Should the Church be involved in the State? Yes, but not in a way that seeks a privileged status for Christians. Not a big 2K fan here but they have a point to make to the NeoCalvinists about not seeking Christian privilege in society. BTW, when you look at how NeoCalvinists implement their efforts to influence culture, the differences between the two groups is actually smaller than what we are led to believe.

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Dec 1

To Bethany Jenkins and her blogpost on false hierarchies in the work world and Church. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.

Overall, this post is very good. But some points need to be added. Because one is not gifted in certain disciplines does not mean that one should be given a hall-pass from learning them. Mathematics, for example, is a very important discipline to learn as much as one can. Its lessons can carry over to other disciplines. In addition, we need to push ourselves to learn some of the disciplines we are not prone to learning.

We should also note that what is valued in God's economy and value system is not what is valued in the world's--especially our immediate world--and this is noted in the section on culture. We should know that not only is there disparity in the incomes between both mathematicians and businesspeople and others such as artists, the incomes of many in the arts and other disciplines as well are are at a poverty level. Some of this is due to the economic system we are living under and the values it practices and promotes. Our current economic system teaches us to value things over people and so we will have less motivation to change the economic system in order to help others if that system is providing the things we want.

That the arts help us in many ways is an important point made above. That false hierarchies exist in culture so that the arts and some trade skills are minimized while both mathematics and business skills are magnified is do in part to our economic system. Those sensitive souls in the arts are intuitively perceptive in perceiving the injustices around us. And because of that, many artists can become prophets in society. But such challenges the status quo and disturbs the comfortable state of many.

One more point could have been made here. When the false hierarchies in culture carry over to create false hierarchies in the Church, we should examine the Church to see if it is bowing down too much to culture and too little to God. And noting the false hierarchies that exist in both culture and the Church is important because dismantling them will enable us learn more from each other.

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To Cole Carnesecca and his blogpost about generosity. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.

Once we realize the connection between generosity and compassion, we could add a Martin Luther King Jr. quote to this article in describing generosity:

True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth.

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Dec 2

To R. Scott Clark and his short blogpost on political correctness. This appeared in Heidelblog.

I think that we need to be more specific in defining 'political correctness.' For some points made in political correctness are correct. For example, it is politically incorrect to use the name 'Redskins' such as in the debate about name of Washington's football team. And when one looks up the definition of the word, it is easy to see why using such a name should be considered politically incorrect. At the same time, political correctness sometimes follows the same all-or-nothing thinking patterns that the predecessors it sought to correct used.

So in essence, it just might be politically incorrect to refer to political correctness in such a generalized way.

Finally regarding vanmorrisonfan's note, we need to ask if we should be tolerant of real intolerance.

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To Joe Carter and his blogpost citing of an article by Samuel Gregg on Poverty, Prosperity, and the Rule of Law. Carter's blogpost was posted in the Acton blog. A link to Gregg's article can be found there.

The problem I see with the article cited is that it relies too much on single variable measurements and overly simplistic definitions. Take the reference to poverty for example. It is claimed that despite the Great Recession, poverty has been reduced worldwide because of the markets created by the Global Economy. But what is the definition of poverty and who exactly have been the beneficiaries of this reduction in poverty. And shouldn't we use other measurements to judge the Global Economy such as what has been the increase in or decrease of income and wealth in those not in poverty?

We should also ask that when nations enjoy an influx of foreign capital, what comes with that capital?For example, does an influx of foreign capital result in loss of national sovereignty?

We should also note the emphasis on the rule of law. Because at this point, we need to ask, whose law is ruling. Here in America, we have the rule of law but it is the rich who have more opportunities to determine what laws will be written. In Nazi Germany, which was referred to in the cited article, you had the rule of law--a point with which the author of the cited article disagrees. But in addition to whose law is ruling, we have to also ask if the law is moral.

Likewise, the claim that with the rule of law comes prosperity, realize that prosperity came to Nazi Germany all the way up until they invaded Russia. It is at that point that they began to lose the war. So, from that example, we might want to ask whose prosperity? Yes, lower prices help me maintain my prosperity and enables me to buy more. But who is sacrificing what in order to get me the low prices I enjoy? We should note that with measuring prosperity, those who sacrifice the most become invisible to those doing the measuring. We should also note that the greatest empires produced some of the greatest prosperity of their times. We should also note that, according to the statistics, some of the greatest reductions in poverty is seen in a nation that exercises much control over the global market within its borders. 

We should also note that not all prosperity is a prosperity shared by all.  This claim that the rule of law produces great prosperity is an offshoot of the religious beliefs of early Christian European settlers of America who believed that prosperity was a sign of God's approval of their lives. Those whom they enslaved or drove off the land might have wanted to express opposing views to that belief. Thus this claim needs to be challenged.

And so now we come down to the definition of freedom. For quite often, the definition of freedom is limited to the individual and often denies the voices of those who are most impacted by the exercise of that freedom. Well, there is individual freedom, but there is group freedom as well. Group freedom is the freedom a group has to determine how its members will coexist with each other and how the group will coexist with other groups or nations. A word that best expresses the idea of group freedom is democracy. And here we should note that there is a difference between defining democracy as a state of being for a group from defining it according to the political structures that are in place. And the existence of such group freedom is often denied by those who stress individual liberty and with good reason. Individual liberty will, at times, conflict with how the group wants to exist. This is where the rule of law often intervenes on behalf of the individual provided that the individual has a enough power to write the laws.

So things are a bit more complicated than what the cited article would have us believe. Thus we should ask who benefits the most from the opinions expressed by the article cited?

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For November 19, 2014

Nov 13 

To Joe Carter and his review of the movie Fury. This appeared in the Gospel coalition website.

Some of the points made here by Mr. Carter have been made by former war correspondent Chris Hedges as he has written and talked about his experiences. In particular, the difference between the comradeship experienced during war and friendship experienced in normal life. In addition, both seem to state that war corrupts everyone who is involved. 

We might note that some have seen WW II as a war between empires. The emerging German empire vs the Soviet, British, French, and even America empires. We should note that all of the major participants in WW II were empires. We should also note that it was during that time that America decided to help the French reclaim a part of their empire in Indochina. That attempt was made after the war.

Finally, perhaps the best anti-war movie I've seen is Joyeux Noel. For in that movie, both war and peace, peace displayed through the fraternization of waring troops during Christmas, is put side by side for us to compare. That movie was made to honor those who sought peace and friendship with those on the other side during Christmas of 1914 and even afterwards.

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Nov 14

To R. Scott Clark and his citation of the 6th circuit court of appeals in its statement about same-sex marriages in society. This appeared in Heidelblog.

Quite simply, the courts have one job regarding same-sex marriage. That job is to determine whether laws democratically made violated the constitutionally defined rights of those seeking relief from such laws. One might disagree with some of the decisions made by the courts in these matters, but it is another to say that the courts have no say over the passage of laws.

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Nov 15

To Elise Hilton and her blogpost on how raising the minimum wage hurts the vulnerable. THis appeared in the Acton blog.

Here is the problem with this post, it bases a general conclusion on a small sample of data while not considering the contextual factors involved. It is sad that raising the minimum wage hurt an outreach restaurant like Tastes Of Life. But Tastes Of Life operated within a certain context that might have been unjust to begin with. To consider whether the economic environment in which Tastes Of Life operated, one only needs to read about the government assistance programs on which employees of franchises for big corporations who were possibly receiving equivalent wages to what those in Tastes of Life were receiving who must live on various forms of local to state to federal assistance programs to survive. This dependence on government assistance programs not only helps those employees to survive, it allows these corporations, and we can include banks too, to use tax-funded government assistance programs to subsidize their payrolls (for example see http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-13/how-mcdonald-s-and-wal-mart-became-welfare-queens.html ). And we should note which of these corporations do all they can to avoid paying the taxes required to support the programs they rely on.

So while this blogpost is content to look at a tragic small picture, it neglects the exploitation of not only government assistance programs, but of the people directly involved while claiming that this specific example serves as adequate grounds for making the general statement that raising the minimum wage hurts the vulnerable. Another way to critique this article is that it looks at the localized harm of an instance without asking us to critique the system in which this instance occurs.

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Nov 17

To Collin Hansen and his blogpost on America's Pastor. He identified America's Pastor as Billy Graham but identified Martin Luther King Jr and Pope John Paul II along with Graham has the 3 ministers who had the most influence on America in the 20th century. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website

Just a quick comment about Martin Luther King Jr. He was highly regarded for his work against racism. But we need to remember that he was assassinated while campaigning for economic justice and that his popularity dropped when he spoke out strongly but compassionately about the Vietnam war. In his speech against that war, King talked about America:

I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government.

In that speech, King made reference to the need to change our economic system when he said:

True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say: "This is not just." 

One of the sites that has the speech containing these quotes is http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2564.htm

King opposed materialism, militarism, and racism. But more than that, he saw them as interconnected and that we needed a revolution in values to address all three.

The thing about King which might be true about Pope John Paul II and could become true about Billy Graham is that as time goes on, what is most honored about them becomes a distant memory of them instead of their words and works. Such an honoring shows that some want to have their cake and eat it too.

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To Bethany Jenkins and her blogpost on how Christians should live in a pluralistic culture. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.

There are some good things here but I am not sure if we are recognizing everything that involve with interacting with our culture. Yes, Keller and others put an emphasis on how we approach our vocations in an effort to change culture. But what is glossed over here is how we should try to change culture as citizens. And though we claim to recognize freedom of religion, some issues show that we have not recognized it as fully as we might think. Marriage equality is such an issue where we have been trying to force our religion's view of the institution of marriage on others. Now, I am not sure if this post is suggesting that we change our game plan on marriage equality. If it is, then I agree. 

Two other points must be made. Sometimes, having the Gospel causes us to believe that we only have something to give to others who are different rather than having a give-take relationship with them. We need an emphasis on common grace that effectively tells us that there is much for us to learn from nonChristians. We cannot afford to think that we have everything to teach and nothing to learn. Such an attitude is unjust according to Martin Luther King Jr.

Finally, we just can't work for the betterment of our own culture and society without keeping an eye on how our way of life affects other societies. Nor can we ignore how our culture and way of life here might cause others in our society to suffer injustice. To ignore these two things is to ensure that the Church will lose a significant portion of its prophetic voice in society. Thus, we cannot discard this part of our political side especially if we wish to give nonChristians cause to listen to and honor the Gospel.

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Nov 18

To Gavin Ortlund's blogpost on the new era of seminary education. This appeared in the Gospel Coalltion website.

Having gone to seminary and living in the present, it seems to me that what is most important in a seminary education is this: teaching students to listen to the present while being faithful to what is important from the past. Too many times, in churches claiming to be always reforming, have paid cursory attention to what is asked today while burying our heads in the sand of the past to retrieve the answer. Such is a glorification of the past over the present. What we need to do is to learn to listen to the present for at least a part of our answers to the questions being asked now. But we must balance that with what we have learned from the past which is essential to hold on to.

To give an example, think about determining what is a just war. Are we content to regurgitate what Augustine said or are we going to join that with what the Russell-Einstein Manifesto and what Howard Zinn, Martin Luther King Jr., and Gandhi have said? To ignore what has and is being said now is to tell the Church that the past has everything to teach us and nothing to learn from us--such is an adaptation of a Martin Luther King Jr. statement.

To not include what is being said today tells the rest of the world that we have retired from listening to it. Is that how we want our seminary students who are our future church leaders to be?

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For June 25, 2014

June 18

To Bethany Jenkins and her blogpost on equipping the Church for cultural leadership. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.



I think it is time that we Christians stop feeling compelled to be leaders. Such, of course, implies a hierarchical relationship with others and, because others have less sanctified reasons for being recognized as leaders, there is competition for the role of being a leader. But more than that, being the leader pushes others to the margins and it does so based on a perceived lack of merit.

At Occupy, though we certainly did this imperfectly, we tried at some levels to establish a leaderless/all-are-leaders community. Yes, we were definitely imperfect in doing this. But such called and included those from the margins into the decision making process--something a hierarchical based community cannot do.

In the end, we must decide whether we want Christianity to control the different spheres in our society as leaders or do we want Christians to work with, in give-take relationships, all others in society. So perhaps teaching Christians to be leaders in their spheres of influence is giving us a mindset and putting us into positions that causes us to overreach in our interactions with the world.

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June 21

To Denny Burk and his blogpost on the PCUSA decision on same-sex marriage. This appeared in Denny Burk's blog


For a people who believe that all are sinners and that those who believe that being saved comes from confessing one's sin, we seem to be very accusatory especially when it comes to sexual issues.

Conservative Christians are as much to blame for the Presbyterian Church's recent decision as anyone else. Conservative Christians have, for the most part, worked to marginalize gays in society--that is because they were not content enough with relying on Church discipline. Thus, those who are sensitive to oppression and inequality were implicitly told that the only way to protect gays in society was to determine that homosexuality is biblical.

Certainly the Presbyterian Church USA is wrong in its decision here. But how much more wrong have many of us Conservative Christians been when, in order to control the behavior of others, we have caused so much pain?

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To Dr. Michael Brown and his post urging people to leave the Presbyterian Church USA because of recent General Assembly decisions. This appeared in the blog OneNewsNow.com.


When one looks at all of the positions being objected to in this article, it becomes unclear as to whether the author is opposes the PCUSA because it is unbiblical or because it is liberal.

For example, there are Christians who oppose Israel's treatment of the Palestinians and Modern Zionism. Such opposition has be clearly stated in an article linked to here (http://www.ifamericansknew.org/cur_sit/wdoor.html). One may not agree with their position but their position is backed by Scriptures rather than by "liberal" reasoning. And this is the problem with this article. Certainly the PCUSA was wrong in its decision on same-sex relationships. But divestment from Israel cannot be blamed on liberalism when the Scriptures so clearly against how the Palestinians are treated. And though their violence is wrong, it is just as wrong to condemn it without noting its context. But such is not the conservative view of the Middle East.

Our first allegiance must be to God and His Word, not to some nation or ideology. For a greater allegiance to a nation or ideology is just an example tribalism, an ism that calls for relative morality.

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June 22

To John Couretas and his blogpost on unity liberties. This appeared in the Acton blog.


The defeat of USSR Communism is often sanitized the West. For one thing, Communism and Socialism is stereotyped by using the USSR and Red China as their representatives. The Iron Curtain has been wrongly portrayed as evidence for the Communist desire for empire and rightfully condemned because of the totalitarianism. And we are portrayed as defenders of freedom whose global bases served as our commitment to that freedom.

First, many socialists and communists strongly disagreed with the totalitarian nature of both the USSR and Red China and that goes back to the beginning of Lenin's paid hijacking of the Russian Revolution. That main reason for the Iron Curtain was to provide a buffer between the Soviet Union and the West because of past devastating invasions is quite a reasonable, alternative explanation, but not an excuse, for the Iron Curtain. And that the US exercised its own control over nations around the world from Asia to Europe to Central and South America and that control took away the freedoms of many countries--see works by former CIA consultant and historian Chalmers Johnson and historian William Blum. That Iran, Guatemala, and Chile served as examples where the US replaced democracies with dictatorships for business interests. Okinawa and the Philippines serve as examples of the US exercising control and Asia. And there were a number of actions taken in Europe such as in Greece and Italy where the US stealthly flexed its muscles.

So when we get down to the liberties being celebrated by this post, there seems to be something missing. That missing ingredient is balance and that particularly applies to economic liberty. The more economic liberty given to the individual, the less say the community has in how that liberty is exercised. Here, I am not primarily referring to the government because a government can take on different forms and represent different people. Rather, I am talking about a liberty that defenders of Conservative Libertarianism and Anarcho-Capitalists want to deny: group or social liberty as implemented by democracies. Here, if we recognize economic liberty for the individual as the only liberty, then not only do we allow financial elites to accumulate power because power always follows wealth, we make democracy impotent which destroys any protection that communities would enjoy from financial elites.

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To Elise Hilton and her blogpost claiming that a new Obama proposal designed to protect the rights of those in the LGBT community is a deliberate attack on the Church and religious liberty.


Articles like this have one purpose, that is to stoke the fires of fear and anger. How is it that an effort, regardless of how incorrect, to try to protect the rights of those from the LGBT community can be portrayed as a targeted attack on the liberties of any individual or church is beyond me. That is not to say that Obama's proposal does not need revision, but to view such as a deliberate attack on any church is to pit the liberties of those in the LGBT community vs the religious rights of churches. And thus two fall guys are being edged as enemies of the Church: the LGBT community and the Obama Administration. This is not right.

A Rare Siting On Conservative Blogs

One of Marx's fears of the Bourgeois economy of his day was that the values practiced there would permeate all of life. The result would that all connections between people would revolve around self-interest. We should note that there are only two parties who have received permission to care solely about themselves in today's Free Market Capitalism. Those two parties are the business owners and the customers. Labor must either sacrifice for the good of the other two or be scapegoated when self-interest hurts business.

American Conservative Christianity has, for the most part, wholeheartedly embraced Free Market Capitalism as being a child of its theology. Yes, sometimes American Conservative Christianity will acknowledge and criticize "Crony Capitalism." But it has rarely, if ever, critically examined the regular workings and basic structure of our economic system. Instead, it has all but bragged while enjoying the fruits of our system.

But a disturbance in the conservative force has arisen and it comes from Bethany Jenkins in one of her most recent blogposts on the Gospel Coalition blog. In a post titled, Do You Know Where Your Food Comes From?,  Jenkins tells us that the cost of discipleship demands that we include Gospel ethics when buying our food. BTW, this blogpost review will not be that long in hopes that those who read this will pay more attention to the Jenkins' blogpost. It is simply one of the best blogposts on the Gospel Coalition's blog.

The costs of discipleship in determining where we get our food is a slap in the face of the cherished belief that consumers should act out of self-interest alone. Instead, according to Jenkins, Christian discipleship is saying that our self-interest must be reigned in and directed by other concerns. These concerns include: the human rights of all those involved in the production of our food, the proper respect for and treatment of animals, and concern for the environmental impact that the production of our food has.

Now these concerns are not new for those on the Left for they have written about and acted on these issues before. But what is new, at least to me, is to see these concerns being seriously discussed by any of my fellow American religious Conservative Christians. And to read such a conservative telling us that our food purchases must be made with others in mind provides hope for the future.

Again, instead of reading my review of this blogpost, your time would be better served by reading Jenkins' article (another link to the same article).