Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For September 5, 2018

August 31

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost on how our reliance on technology is hurting who we are as people. This appeared in Heidelblog.

We should note that it isn't just our gadgets that undermine how we value work, so does our economic system. It is those with wealth who are recognized as the sole owners of business, not those whose labor has built that wealth. And what follows is that power follows wealth, it doesn't follow work. Those who work are regarded and treated as being disposable objects by those with wealth. And even our political system shows that it exists to serve wealth rather than the people as a whole (see  https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B/core-reader ). It seems that we have an indirect democracy at best. Our elected officials are there to represent the wealthy while we are left to depend on the pleasure of the wealthy for our existence.

Now the above is not as unrelated to the gist of the above article as some might think. For the results of our society's unconditional embracing of gadgets is correctly described as weakening our work ethic. But we need to realize that our over use of gadgets is the second attack on the value of work in our society, not the first.

In addition, the above article is more than correct in asserting that our uncritical use of gadgets weakens not just our work ethic, but many of our other human characteristics. It does so by how we relate to each other as well as how we relate to ourselves. Our passionate acceptance of gadgets shows that things have grown to be more important to us than people, just as our love of profits have been so regarded.

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To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost citation from Machen’s message on fighting the good fight. Clark called his blogpost: Machen Was Not Nice. That suggests a defense for when Christians are not nice in how they discuss religion. This appeared in Heidelblog.

Link to message quoted in Clark’s article:
    http://www.pcahistory.org/findingaids/machen/good-fight-of-faith.html

With the title Machen Was Not Nice, one wonders if Clark is bragging or complaining. The answer to that is found is his prolific use of the word 'fight.' According to Clark, Machen talks about how Paul fought against paganism as well as human pride that came from the Judaizers. Clark's citing of Machen's use of the word fight is meant to imply that Paul was aggressive and antagonistic to the people whose positions he opposed.

Machen goes on, as cited by Clark, to urge students to fight against personal sins of both themselves and others. But the word 'fight' in all of Machen's message is partially ambiguous. While the word does mean that we must strongly oppose certain things, it doesn't imply that all opposition must include being personally combative against others.

What is odd is that while Machen talks about the necessity of fighting the good fight and warns against being tolerant of the wrong things, Clark summarizes Machen's message by saying Machen was not nice. Here, we must first find some fault with Machen. For when he cites Paul's examples, he forgets that none of us are Paul. So we need to be careful in how we follow his examples of speaking harshly against others.

A possible fault with Machen, which Clark neglects to mention, is the context from which Machen spoke. Machen had a very combative relationship with higher-ups in the United Presbyterian Church. Here, we must consider whether Machen's necessary stands for truth were at least somewhat tainted by the antagonism he faced. Here, Machen's possible fault concerns whether the personal antagonism Machen faced in his battles with denominational authorities at least partially rubbed off on him.

If one accesses the link to Machen's message, one reads about how Machen also warned fellow Christians against accepting half-truths. And perhaps by selectively quoting Machen and titling his blogpost Machen Was Not Nice, Clark himself is promoting a half-truth. That half-truth consists of correctly opposing false doctrines and challenges to God's Truth while neglecting what Paul said about the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5. For the fruit of the Spirit includes: 'love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,' ... To neglect that other truth could result in our defense of God's truths could becoming more based on our sinful flesh than from God's Spirit working in us. Such would be ironic unless one remembers that we are sinners who are saved only by God's grace.

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Sept 4

To Bruce Edward Walker and his blogpost on protecting currency and the moral aspects of money. This appeared in the Acton blog.

When we look at what Copernicus listed as the four scourges of any kingdom or nation, one would think that he has the cart before the horse. For none of his scourges include the abuse or neglect of others which would suggest that he either doesn't care about those who are abused or neglected or that abuse and neglect follow those scourges. The former seems to be the most likely reason since Copernicus's first concern is the undermining of the state--note also that he listed dissension as a scourge. Copernicus's main concern here is the maintaining of authority or of power in the status quo. And then Walker adds that Aquinas follows Copernicus in terms of his view that the 'debasement' of money is one of the 4 scourges that exist in a kingdom or nation.

Thus the above sets the tone for the whole article. Money must be protected while people can be relegated to a second class status.

In addition, there is no questioning as to whether the wealth of an individual was fairly obtained. For example, did James Madison's wealth belong exclusively to himself even though a significant amount of that wealth was obtained through the exploitation of others? If the answer to that question is no, then does the government have the right to readdress the initial distribution of wealth? Or what if a person's wealth was gained through the help of others, such as through the provision of infrastructure by the government or the participation of those in society? Does the government have a right to part of that wealth in order to pay for the services it has provided or to redistribute to those who participated in the garnering of that wealth? And what about those in need? Should either the government or the person of wealth be allowed to ignore the vulnerable who are suffering?

In all of this writing about wealth and the scourges of a nation listed and described in the article above, what the Bible says about the love of money being the root of all kinds of evil was never mentioned. The reason for that omission could be that Walker forgot what Martin Luther King, Jr. said about racism and the other sourges of society:

 I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For January 20, 2016

This is just a periodic reminder that the comments published here will tend to have more errors than the blogposts due to the difference in time spending editing the two.


Jan 12

To Josh Wester and his review of the book One Nation Under God by Bruce Ashford and Chris Pappalardo. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.

I can only comment on the subject of the book being reviewed and the review itself. The interjections of religion into politics has not always been rejected even by those on the Left. Martin Luther King Jr., for example, easily mixed the two in an acceptable way. But it seems that many of the attempts made by conservative Christians to act in the public square do not approach the public square in the same way King did. For when King approached the public square, he was not seeking a privileged position for his faith in society. Rather, he was seeking equality for those who were being marginalized either because of race or economic class. Thus his use of faith-based morals was widely accepted except by some conservative Christians who emphasized the rights of the individual.

So one way to critique the book One Nation Under God might be examined is whether or not the attempt to apply religious faith in the public square includes Christians, especially conservative ones, attempting to gain a priviieged position in society.

There are hints in this review that some degree of privilege for Christians is being sought despite the rejection of establishing a theocracy. First, when the review states the following:

In the first chapter, Ashford and Pappalardo skillfully locate the role of politics within the Bible’s master narrative. Following the tradition of Abraham Kuyper (1837–1920), they draw motivation for political action from the promise of restoration

we need to ask whose definition of restoration is being used. If it is a Christian definition of restoration, then those promoting this motivation are, in the end, seeking some kind of privileged position for Christianity in society.

Also, when the review states:

Recognizing the disastrous consequences of this trajectory, they argue that the church should retain its influence, albeit organically, over the state.

the word 'over' implies a hierarchical relationship between the Church and the state. Here we should note that the absence of theocracy does not imply the absence of privilege for Christianity in society. Theocracy is simply an extreme level of privielge for Christianity in society. So the absence of theocracy does not imply that Christians are not seeking any privileged position in society.

All of the above points to the current debate concerning the Church and state of how will the Church share society with others? Will it selectively seek a paternalistic relationship with the state where once society crossses certain lines in the sand, the Church attempts to regain control? This is part of what the debate around the legalization of Same-Sex Marriage was about. Or will conservative Christians seek to share society with others as equals while the Church, both as individuals and the organization, reserves the right to preach repentance in social justice issues--that was what Martin Luther King Jr. did. All of this points to just one of several ways by which the book referenced above could be critiqued.

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Though the comment below was blocked on the Gospel Coalition website, it was not blocked on the website of the author of the article being responded to.  The author's blog is the following: 

http://whatswrongwiththeworld.net/2016/01/islam_and_the_same_god_questio.html

Jan 16

To Lydia McGrew and her blogpost contradicting Wheaton professor’ Hawkins’ statement claiming that Christians and Muslims worship the same God. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.

If one reads the theological statement made by Hawkins regarding this question, one is forced to ask why Wheaton College finds her statement to be beyond what should be allowable for a Christian faculty member who teaches political science. With regard to whether we, that is Christians and Muslims, worship the same God, Hawkins response is that it depends on the context. If the context involves the trinity, the answer is obviously a 'no.' But if the context involves the nature of God being one and the historical God of Abraham, the answer is 'yes' (see http://drlaryciahawkins.org/2016/01/06/theological-statement-by-dr-hawkins/  )

Now McGrew challenges, whether knowingly or not, this division by asking why are some parts of God are necessary for His proper identification and others are not. But what if we take her approach and ask if Calvinists and Arminians worship the same God. If the answer is yes, then we must ask why the Calvinist conception of God's sovereignty is not a necessary part of believing in God while other parts are. And this is the dilemma we face in terms of being classified as a Christian. For we could ask how could Calvinists who see God  as knowing the future because it is based on His decree be the  same God as the one worshipped by Arminians who see God as knowing all things because he is like a weather forecaster who never errs. Doesn't this example both touch on a critical part of God and thus meet the Superman/Clark Kent analogy used by McGrew here?

The answer to the question of whether all people are our brothers and sisters poses the same kind of problem. If the context focuses on Adam as being the father of all people, then the answer is 'yes.' But if we are talking about being born again, then the answer is 'no.'

So the question is this: does the context of Hawkins' theological statement make her beliefs acceptable? Here acceptable does not have to mean that her beliefs are inerrant. All acceptable has to mean is that we, despite disagreements or errors we could find in her statement, consider her to be a sister in Christ. After all, the overall context of her actions and statements was that of showing solidarity with Muslims here as a way of supporting those who are being persecuted because of bigotry. And so all she was doing was trying to show ties that we Christians have with Muslism in order to give reasons for fellow Christians not to  attack Muslims. And she is giving reasons why Christians should defend Muslims. McGrew's article here attempts to minimize the significance of the context of Hawkins' statement. McGrew's article is an attempt to decontextualize Hawkins' statements.

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Jan 18

To Tim Keller and his article on how legalism and antinomianism affect our understanding of sanctification. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.

Besides the Marrow controversy, there is another point of conflict we need to weigh through when settling the legalism vs antinomian issue. That point of conflict is between Matthew 5:17-20 and Acts 15:10.  For inthe former we see the necessity of the law; in the latter you see the Apostles declaring that the law was impossible to follow. And another interesting comparison is to compare some of Jesus' teaching with some of the instructions written by the Apostles. For example, Paul contrasts being in the Spirit with trying to follow the law. All of this tells me that there is something we're missing in the discussion about legalism and antinomianism.


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Jan 19

To Bruce Edward Walker and his blogpost using a CBS news video to criticize the demand for labeling GMOs. This appeared in the Acton Blog.

The video relies on an all-or-nothing approach to GMOs. Show one case where GMOs have been helpful does tell us that to ban all GMOs would be wrong. But that one case does not imply that all GMOs are safe.

In addition, while the video asks if any person has lost their life due to the consumption of GMOs, no research is listed. So we don't know if how long or how that question has been studied if it has been studeied at all. However, I do believe that consumption of GMOs by rats has been somewhat researched and it is controversial. The study did show that the growth of tumors followed the consumption of GMOs (see http://www.naturalnews.com/037249_GMO_study_cancer_tumors_organ_damage.html). However, the journal that pubished the study retracted it because of problems with the data sample used ( see  http://www.nature.com/news/study-linking-gm-maize-to-rat-tumours-is-retracted-1.14268).

Likewise, the list of the percentages of scientists and organizations that approve the use of GMOs suggests that GMOs are safe. However, no listing of research articles was provided.

Finally, one of the key complaints about the use of GMOs has been the increased use of pesticides which translates into the increased use of pesticides in our food supply. These pesticides can be divided into herbicides and insecticides. And though the results are not always consistent across all kinds of crops, the use of GMOs has shown to increase the use of pesticides (see http://www.enveurope.com/content/24/1/24  and http://ecowatch.com/2014/09/29/gmo-crops-accelerate-herbicide-insecticide/). Apparently this issue was passed over by the video.

So what we are being told here is that the labeling of GMO products is not only unnecessary, it is harmful to business because we consumer scannot be trusted to make responsible decisions for ourselves with that information. And we are being told that despite the fact that specific research work and articles on the subject were never cited by the video and despite the fact that research on the health benefits of GMOs is relatively young.

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To Joe Carter and his blogpost on 5 facts about Martin Luther King Jr. This appeared in the Acton blog.

5 additional facts about Martin Luther King are worthy mentioning.

1. He stated that materialism seen in the West's Capitalism was as dangerous as the materialism seen in the USSR's Communism. (see bage 95 of this link: http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/ows/seminars/aahistory/Pilgrimage.pdf )

2. He saw changing the structure of the American society and economy as a necessary part of compassion to those in need (in his speech against the Vietnam War, see http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2564.htm ).

3. He opposed American Capitalism because of how it distributed wealth (see page 213 of Tavis Smiley's biography of Martin Luther King Jr., Death Of A King).

4. King opposed racism, economic exploitation and poverty, and war and militarism. In his speech against the Vietnam War, he described them as being inseperably linked in a 'thing-oriented' society where gadgets, profits, and property rights were more important than people (see http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2564.htm ).

5. he believed in a guaranteed income for all Americans (see http://www.wealthandwant.com/docs/King_Where.htm ).


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To Joe Carter and his blogpost on how growth rates explain the wealth disparity between nations. This appeared in the Acton Blog.

Overall growth that is based on what Chris Hedges calls 'sacrifice zones' so that not only does the economy grow, but so does wealth disparity, is not flourishing. And if we go to many of our cities, identifying those parts of the city, if not the whole city itself, that have been abandoned to pursue growth elsewhere is all too obvious, but not trivial. This wealth disparity isn't between nations; it is in the same nation. And the US has one of the greatest wealth disparities among developed nations in the world. Such disparity does not help even the richest citizen to flourish because growing at someone else's expense shows a poverty of spirit.

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To Joe Carter and his blogpost on the effects of the Great Awakening on The Constitution. This appeared in the Acton Blog.


What drove the need for The Constitution was both similar and different from what drove the need for the Revolution. For whereas both involved a reaction against the rule of elites. the Revolution was a rebellion against foreign elites while The Constitution was an elite reaction to a rebellion against themselves.The 2nd Amendment and Constitutional references to the militia, as well as Knox's letter to George Washington, Federalist 10, and Yates' notes on the Constitutional debates provide evidence to this contention.

If we take the 2nd Amendment and other Constitutional references to the militia, we see that our 2nd Amendment rights were written in the context of the need for a militia. And, according to The Constitution, Congress was to provide for arming and training the militia while the President was its commander and chief. And the purpose of the militia was to both repel enemy invasions and put down insurrections. At least that is what a strict Constitutionalist should say.

Federalist #10 as well as the Constitutional debates speak against innovation, that is that they speak against changing the status quo, and seek to promote a government that protects 'the minority of the opulent against the majority' (see Madison's June 26th comments in the debates at  http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/yates.asp ).

And of course the historical event that triggered the writing of The Constitution was Shays Rebellion along with the widespread dissent that existed at that time.

If the Great Awakening played a role in the writing of The Constitution, then it was to protect the current status of American elites. BTW, as for the First Amendment, that came after the writing of the first edition of The Constitution And we should note that the reason for joining the "Civic Evangelicals" with the "Free Church Evangelicals" came during the Revolutionary War where the number of people needed to serve as soldiers was critical.

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For January 12, 2016

Jan 8

To Joe Carter and his blogpost opposing the legalization of prostitution. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website

This is an article with which I am in full agreement. And yet, how we implement the criminalization of prostitution targets the women more than the men who support it as customers and the men who provide the women. If we legalize any part of prostitution, we should make it legal for the actual prostitutes and criminalize the men who use the prostitutes and those who manage them.

But in addition, we need to increase the job market for jobs that pay liveable wages so that there are fewer women who find themselves in such desparate situations that they see prostitution as a way to support themselves.

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To Joe Carter and his blogpost criticizing Powerball and other state-run gambling games. This appeared on the Acton blog.

As right as this article is on powerball and state-run gambling, it misses a point. That point is the question of why there is state-run gambling. My guess is that it is to keep the people at bay because the state will not tax those who are wealthy in order fund certain programs. And thus, people who are desparate to win the big prizes to make in life are depended on to foot the bill of some necessary government programs. But I guess that is the price of ensuring economic "freedom" for those to whom that "freedom" applies.

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To Bruce Edward Walker and his blogpost criticizing those who work to reduce our reliance on fossile fuels. This appeared in the Acton blog.

First, let's take a look at what the poverty level is. It is $1.25 per day. And the only reason why we know that that removes people from poverty is that we are told so. But suppose it is true, what else is true? We know that most of the improvement in world poverty came from nations like China and India. But China is also experiencing severe enviornmental problems and a significant number of workers there work in sweatshop factories. And while there has been some statistica progress reported in India, hundreds of thousands of farmers from India have committed suicide because of financial debt stemming from the "free market" that exists there. 

In addition, we need to remember that some gains in jobs in both India and China have come through the loss of jobs here. This is because the minimum wage requirements and other regulatory enforcements that exist here do not exist in many of the Asian nations cited above. So employment gains in Asia have come at the expense of jobs here. This increases the labor pool which, according to the law of supply and demand, keeps wages down here.

But besides all of that, this article is telling us that to do something about damage to the environment by reducing our use of fossile fuels, we are told that we mush sacrifice gains made elsewhere. Basically, this article tells us that we must pick our poison. And yet this article never once does such a choice inspire supporters of the global economy to question the system.

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Jan 11

To  Joe Carter and his blogpost claiming that raising minimum wage does not target poverty. This appeared in the Acton blog.

One of the problems with the article above is that the research is cherry-pioked. For example, Arindrajit Dubeú's work on raising the minimum wage and poverty show different results (see https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/15038936/Dube_MinimumWagesFamilyIncomes.pdf ). And, in fact, in reviewing other research, Dubeú references Neumark's work, Neumark is the author of the first work cited, and and states that some of his work is unconventional as well as having flaws in its methodology. We should note here that Dubeú disagrees with Neumark's assessment of the data.  It wouldn't hurt Carter to cite evidence from different perspectives than the one he favors.

Second, that raising the minimum wage has no effect on the unemployed is a rather trivial statement. What he misses is that the number of low wage workers who would benefit from a raise in the minimum wage includes more than just minimum wage workers, it includes at least those who are paid one to several steps above minimum wage since this is how employers who want to be fair to their many of their employees who are paid more than minimum wage would react to a raise in the minimum wage. In addition, we should note that the reduction in poverty must include a number of tools, not just one. That is because the poor are not a monolith.

Third, my sources who work with sheltering the homeless tell me that a number of homeless people are actually employed. Thus, raising the wages of all low-income workers could reduce the number of working homeless people.

Fourth, the last statistics I've seen from Seattle's raising the minimum wage in the food industry business is that after an initial drop in employment has come an increase in employment. The increase in employment can come from more people having expendible income, However, suppose there is a decrease in employment with an increase in the minimum wage. How is it that the choice between having low paying jobs or higher employment rates does not cause us to question the current economic system we employ. Yes, some business leaders can tell us how to work the current system. But they can't always step outside our current system to tell us whether the system itself is flawed. 

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For December 2, 2015

Nov 26

To Hunter Baker and his blogpost on how Christians should live their faith after the Obergefell decision. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition

I think there is a fourth option. What was listed above included two ways to coexist with the LGBT community in particular and society in general and one way to keep fighting the fight to control culture. There is another way to approach this subject that would seem to be another way to coexist but is more aggressively friendly than that. Rather than looking to control or to refrain from offending, we need to look to share society with those who are different as equals. This is more than just coexisting. This involves actively guarding the rights of those with whom we have great disagreement because we want them to have an equal place and voice in society.

With this way of sharing society with others as equals, we could still keep the orthodoxy and orthopraxy of the Benedict Option as well as be aggressive in sharing the Gospel and what God's Word says about sex as in the Gagnon option. However, our orthodox beliefs and actions will not interfere with our defending the equal rights of those from the LGBT community especially those who want to practice same-sex marriage in society. Our only stipulation should be that such marriage should not be allowed in any Bible believing church. 

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To Joseph Sunde and his blog about Christian hospitality for the Syrian refugees. This appeared in the Acton blog

Though there are good things said in the article above about how we should approach the refugee problem, we should not be impressed with ourselves when we risk caring for Syrian refugees. Why? We should remember that with few people and resources than we have, Syrians  took in 1,000,000+ refugees from Iraq as they fled both our invasion and its aftermath. In fact, we might also want to personally investigate any connection between our interventions and refugees coming from where we intervene.

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Nov 30

To Andrew Spencer and his review of a book on business ethics by Michael Cafferky. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.

Certainly, my comment here is going to be grounded in some ignorance having not seen the book at all, but it seems to me that Christian books that tell us how to act and think in the current business world would be like a Christian book that tells us how to own slaves in the pre Civil War South. Yes, one can treat one's own slaves back then or one's own stakeholders today nicer and even humanely, but the basic economic structure that allows one person to own another goes unchallenged.

So my hope is that this book does challenge the basic structure of our capitalist economic system. In particular, I hope this book challenges the way that Capitalism objectifies and thus makes workers disposable. I hope that this book challenges the notion that a business owner by virtue of wealth has no obligation to make one's employees owners  by virture of work. I hope that this book challenges the notion that a business owner by virtue of wealth has no obligation to give some power over the business to the community in which the business resides. For if all this book does is to tell the business owner how to own one's business, then the structural flaws of our economic system that cause so many wrong decisions by business owners will remain untouched. And the end result will be that this book will allow Christians involved with business to have their cake and eat it too.

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To Bruce Edward Walker and his blogpost on how new IRS rules will allow nonprofits the option of recording the identity of any giver of donations over $250 by Social Security Number. Walker blamed this on Shareholder Activist trying to curb the power of dark money, something Walker denies is a problem. This appeared in the Acton Blog

The IRS proposal is less rediculous as denying our problem of how money controls politics. But why blame shareholder activists for IRS policies targeting all nonprofits? And when the proposed rules cite the option of a nonprofit filing Social Security numbers with the IRS, why be bothered? After all, if it is an option, then both the nonprofit and the donor have choices. That is certainly different from proposing the identification by Social Security number as a  requirement.

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Dec 1

To Joe Carter and his blogpost describing how the effective marginal tax rate is hurts the motivation of people taking low wage jobs. In the blogpost, Carter uses a hypothetical example of a single family of two who go from the parent having no stated income besides gov’t assistance to a full-time $15/hr job

First, The calculation of the effective marginal tax rate is individual. It is only the median tax rate that is 31%. Picking a hypothetical case of a person without any explicitly stated income with a child dependent might significantly alter how much of that 31% effective marginal tax rate would apply to the case. The table in figure 1 from the CBO report cited above does not support Carter's particular hypothetical case. We should note here that the 31% is an estimate based on a simulation. 

Second, the purpose of the article is confusing. Is the purpose to argue for a higher minimum wage or for lower taxes or for fewer benefits? If it is an argument for lower taxes, where do we make up the difference seeing that our deficit spending increases and services are cut or threatened? If it is an argument for fewer benefits, what happens to those who do not get offered the $15/hr job? If it is an argument for a higher minimum wage than $15/hr, why not state that explicitly?

Third, the other benefits of having a job are not mentioned in the article. That starting a job that pays enough for people to support themselves which can lead to better jobs and higher pay in the future could an incentive for taking the $15/hr job. Here, we might want to point out that how people weigh the current monetary benefits of staying dependent over future benefits, both monetary and nonmonetary ones, that come from being employed will partially depend on the values taught by the economic system employed by the society. An economic system that places a higher value on maximizing one's personal profit will cause more people to weigh the difference between being dependent and working strictly by a 'what's in it for me' mindset. After all why should those in the lower economic classes have a different value system than the wealthiest in society?

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For November 11, 2015

To Joe Carter and his blogpost on a survey of Capitalism that included people from around the globe. This appeared in the Acton blog.

Perhaps those who criticize Capitalism see its abuses more than those who support it. Abuses such as control of gov't (see the TPP), the undeniable growing disparity of wealth, and the ever present exploitation of both the environment and employees.  

In addition, what is reported by many who support capitalism is heavily filtered. For example, while citing statistics that claim that the free enterprise system has lifted more people out of poverty than ever before, most of those gains have come in China where there is more gov't control than free enterprise in their economy. In addition, what is defined at poverty is really abject poverty and would be unliveable in the West. Also, the tradeoffs involved with China bringing more people out of abject poverty include sweatshop labor conditions and environmental degradation. Of course, none of that included the militarism needed to keep certain nations in line.

In the end, what we see with capitalism is what we see with any empire. Life is good for those living in the Capitol while life in the Districts is abusive and exploitive--to use Hunger Games terminology.

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To Bruce Edward Walker and his blogpost lamenting how  different conferences are directing nations and economies to ‘de-carbonize’ because of how such a process would kill our economy. This appeared in the Acton blog.

What is sadly assumed in this article is that our economy and way of life is not harming the environment. Thus, the changes proposed by those who want to decarbonize the economy are easily interpreted as lunacy because why destroy by trying to fix what is not broken.

The problem with this article is that once one removes the tragic assumption cited above, one sees that our economy is putting a gun to our head by telling us to choose between future survival or present economic collapse. That the signs of how our way of life and economy are destroying the environment can been seen in other ways than future predictions of what the increasing CO2 level in the atmosphere. One such way is just to look at the increasing dead zones and acidification that is occurring to our oceans. What is sad here is that pointing to the increasing number of species that are becoming extinct is not enough to cause people to question the direction of the status quo. 

Perhaps our problem, and possible cause of death, is that we are too thing-oriented, to use a Martin Luther King Jr. term. to care about how our way of life and economy are destroying the environment.

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Joe Carter and his blogpost declaring that unemployment is a spiritual problem. This appeared in the Acton blog.

There are two points to make about the article above. First, it seems mistitled. All we have here are some basic statistics with only one mention of spirituality. That mention is the naked assertion that unemployment is a spiritual problem. This is said to motivate Christians to pay attention to what is being reported.

The second problem is that calling unemployment a spiritual problem is done from one perspective only: that of the person looking for work. Unemployment, in this series, has never been described as a spiritual problem from the perspective of the employer and business owners. And considering how many jobs were offshored in America especially to places where manufactures can exploit workers and/or the environment, one would think that unemployment, if described as a spiritual problem, would involve talking about the spirituaiity of those with wealth who either caused or increased it.

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For April 1, 2015

This is a periodic disclaimer regarding the "unusual" grammar and spelling that will occur in these comments because these comments are edited less than the regular blogposts.

March 24

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost on the "fundamentalism" of some of America's founding fathers. This appeared in Heidelblog.

I findi it historically inaccurate to use the Declaration of Independence as a backdrop for understanding The Constitution. Many conservatives would like to think that these two documents were like twins who were separated at birth, but their historical contexts were significantly different.

The Declaration of Independence was written as a initiator of the American Revolution. It was written to protest the rule of British elites and the "unfair" demands that some interpreted as tyranny. Of course, the British tyranny against which Jefferson and friends rebelled was not quite equal to the American tyranny cited by Frederick Douglas (http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/douglassjuly4.html ), but still it was tyranny, I guess.

The Constitution was written with tyranny as a context only it was written to help strengthen the position of elites who were still practicing tyranny and were facing widespread dissent having also been confronted with rebellion. However, the elites in this case were Americans and the rebellion was Shays Rebellion, not the American Revolution. We should also note the switch in language between the two documents. Whereas the Declaration of Independence talked about 'life liberty and the pursuit of happiness,' The Constitution was more concerned about protecting property ownership because, property was one of the concerns of both the dissent back then and Shays Rebellion. BTW, those whose trouble inspired the writing of The Constitution wanted to know why, when they sacrificed so much to gain independence from England, they were shafted when it came to owning property while American elites weren't.

At this point, referring back to Frederick Douglas' comments on America and the Declaration of Independence, people could be included as property back then. So defending the owning of property also included defending the ownership of people. We should also note that in defending property ownership, nothing was said about what enabled people to own and accumulate property. Take James Madison for example, he was born into wealth and what should be asked about his property is this: How much of his property, this includes wealth, morally belonged to the slaves who worked his land? See, the Constitution's protection of owning property would recognize his wealth as belonging to himself only. But since he obtained wealth from the work his slaves did, how much of that wealth morally belonged to them?

And though we don't have slaves today, that is the issue regarding the protection of property ownership especially business property--and business property includes the wealth generated by it. With all of the interdependencies that contribute to the property owned by a business, how much of that property morally belongs to the business. Note that the issue of moral ownership is raised because those businesses that are rich enough can buy laws that define who owns what property.

Certainly, this comment is not a conservative comment. Conservatives see themselves as defenders of a selective part of the past that relate to the present. And thus, part of Conservatism involves a celebration of oneself as natural result of celebrating that past. For those Conservatives who want to know the context of the writing of The Constitution, they should read Federalist #10, Henry Knox's Letter To George Washington, and the Constitutional debates. These documents, not the Declaration of Independence, provide a better backdrop and context for The Constitution.

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March 26

This particular comment is in a state of limbo meaning that it is awaiting being moderated. But since the moderating has taken a while, this comment will be posted until its status changes to being published.

To David Robertson and his blogpost claiming that to not believe in God is to become less human. This appeared in the Wee Flea blog.

Though logically speaking, I agree with the basic message of this article, history says something else--and that doesn't include the atrocities done in the name of Christ. Sometimes, all one has to do is to try to answer a question from a conservative theological position. For example, take one of John Frame's writings on the Jews taking back part of Palestine in the 1948 war:

This is the time-honored way of establishing sovereignty throughout human history. Modern observers should not be scandalized at the thought of such issues being settled by military force, nor should we refuse to recognize a regime simply because it was established through force.

See http://www.frame-poythress.org/who-owns-palestine/    for the quote above.

If John and his family had lived in Palestine then or the Occupied Territories now and seen the violence up close and personal, would he so dispassionately refer to war as being a 'time-honored way' of establishing borders? Yes, John has written other things about war and has said that it is 'a terrible thing.' and he has also said the following about war: ' agony of having to administer death or pain to others' and  the 'sheer terror of the situation' (see http://www.frame-poythress.org/response-to-what-was-it-like/). But if those are his real sentiments, where is his passion in wanting to avoid or even speaking against war?  It is with his trust in the civil magistrate (see http://reformedanswers.org/answer.asp/file/40093). As to who is more human about war, one should compare Frame's writings on it with that of Erasmus or Howard Zinn.

History tells us that the Church can act less than what is ideally considered to be human: the burning of witches and heretics in Geneva, Luther's writing against the Jews, the Puritan's persecution of Quakers along with their participation in the ethnic cleansing of America's indigenous people from the land, and slavery along with Jim Crow in America all of which was, according to some Christians, supported by the Bible. Of course, that doesn't include the American conservative churches' attempts to marginalize homosexuals in society.

The short of it is this, we in the Church need to do a better job of being human, as it is ideally thought of, if we want people to see the logic of our argument that to not believe in God is to lose some of our humanity.

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March 29

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost disputing the claim that businesses that deny public services and goods for same-sex marriage for religious reasons are hiding behind the cross. This appeared on his Heidelblog

I have to agree with the LGBT advocate here. Yes, those of us who want the legal right to discriminate against SSM are hiding behind cross for the reasons that the LGBT are saying.

The problem is how we frame the issue. For example, when  Dr. Clark writes the following:

The debate about homosexual marriage has become increasingly heated because, in part, advocates of homosexual marriage have succeeded in persuading legislatures and the courts that marriage is defined not by nature but by affection and consent.1 Now Christians are being coerced to act against conscience informed by God’s moral law, by natural law, to support and/or endorse same-sex marriage (SSM) under threat of civil and financial penalties.

No one is asking us to support or endorse SSM let alone threatening us with civil and financial penalties. I am 100% sure that my belief that SSM is sin will never be punished by the law, either criminally or civilly, in this country. So the issue here is about neither support nor condoning the practice. The issue is about businesses using religion as a reason to withhold public services and goods from a group of people who are doing something legal. Please note that in our economic system, it is private business that provides public goods and services. And such goods and services are often provided to a person or a group without regard to support or the condoning of an activity. Thus to allow businesses to withhold those services sets up the potential for some to be totally deprived of those goods and services either at a particular time or for an extended period of time. The position held by some fellow Christians that businesses should have the right to withhold their services from those in LGBT community, from services provided to the general public is nothing more than a belief in a variation of the Jim Crow laws only the target has been changed. We should also ask when has the Christian community requested for businesses to be able to withhold public services and goods before.


And if you want to bring nature into this argument, realize that people have different understandings as to what is moral law and natural law. Should the gov't recognize the Christian view of natural law and disregard the views of all others?  Should Christians have a privileged position in society in determining its laws? See, unless you want to make the Romans 1 argument for natural where even unbelief could be seen as going against nature and thus should be punished by any gov't that is charge of upholding natural law.

We know that sex outside a monogamous, heterosexual marriage between two consenting adults is wrong. In fact, some remarriages between two consenting adults who are of different genders is wrong too.  And yet, where was the public made by Christians to have the right to refrain from providing public goods and services.

This post saddens me in two ways. The first is in the lack of self-awareness regarding the effects of how what it supports is discriminatory. And second, the blog's silence regarding national and societal sins or, in other words, the sins of those with wealth and power.

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March 30

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost quote of a person defending the right of florists and bakers to not provide their goods and services to same-sex weddings. This appeared in the Heidelblog.

This is the problem. Since businesses are the only institutions that provide many of our publicly needed goods and services, to allow one business to refuse to provide those goods and services to any legal group for a legal activity, gives permission to all businesses to do the same. Such creates a potential for that group to be deprived of publicly needed goods and services either at a critical time or for a prolonged period. That deprivation not only can cause distress for those group as they attempt to obtain the same stuff everyone else gets, it marginalizes them in society.

In addition, should we allow one business to discriminate against Blacks because there are a plethora of businesses that won't? If not, why should we allow some to treat homosexuals that way? Is it because we think that Blacks do not deserve to be discriminated against but homosexuals do? Shouldn't we be against the discrimination of all?

The reference to Mississippi is an unfortunate one because it minimizes the suffering that occurred then. It does so by making what happened there and then the minimal standard of the evil of discrimination. And the reference also is an attempt to sweep one's own acts of discrimination under the carpet of another's.

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To Johnny Mason's comment responding to my comment criticizing Indiana's new RFRA law. In his comment, Mason states that before the RFRA, businesses [in Indiana?] could refuse to serve gays without penalty. He also stated that no RFRA has been successfully used to defend people who practice discrimination against gays. This appeared in Denny Burk's blog.

Johnny,
If there is ‘no law protecting gay people from discrimination,’ why is opposing this law a freak-out? In addition, I can’t say that there has been no outcry of this kind of discrimination in Indiana since I am not privy to enough news sources to confirm that.

And, again, it isn’t the not mentioning sexual orientation that is the issue, it is how the law can be used. And though it is too early to see how it will be used, that it can be used to discriminate is the issue.

One other point, suppose someone proves that providing publicly-needed goods and services to Blacks, Hispanics, or some other race caused the same religious distress to them that serving homosexuals do to others? And suppose they appealed to this law for relief and won. Would this law be discriminatory? What many of my fellow Christians don’t see is that businesses are the only outlet for many publicly needed goods and services. And thus owning one’s own business includes some outside claims on how that business will operate.

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To Joe Carter and his blogpost on the need to keep local governments small. This appeared on the Acton blog.

By reducing the problems caused by government to size only, conservatives are not only oversimplifying the matter, they weaken democracy and open the door for private sector elite rule. This is where government is like love, size isn't the issue, fidelity is.

What good is a government that is too small to protect us from domestic or local predators? Is it any better than a government whose size allows it to be a predator? With either case, we have to deal with predators and we have to do that alone.

Certainly the size of government can be an issue. But a more important issue is the fidelity of our government. How faithful is the government in representing the welfare of all of the people? Generally speaking, it will be as faithful as citizens are participants in democracy. The more we participate in terms of educating ourselves about the issues and events, voting according to conviction rather than convention, protesting, boycotting, and publishing the actions of our government, the better chance that our government will be forced to be faithful.

But if we are too busy with our own lives and making our fortune in the world to adequately participate in government, then government will look to cheat with another lover.

The question here is this: Are we willing to spend less time on careers and pursuits of pleasure to pay the attention needed to keep government faithful?

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To Bruce Edward Walker and his blogpost claiming that using fossil fuels provide the hope against world poverty. This appeared in the Acton blog.

This blogpost proves that the devil isn't always in the details, it is sometimes in being vague. For example, what has caused the drop in the 'six major air pollutants'? It is government for one thing. The Clean Air Act has caused companies to invest in the needed technology that is reducing air pollution.

But we should also note that CO2 was not included in the list of six major air pollutants. And it is the increasing amount of CO2 in the atmosphere that is still the issue especially when other nations, such as China, are increasing the amount of CO2 they are releasing. Since 1980--didn't find the figures from 1970--the emission of CO2, despite its decline starting in around 2007, is still 14% higher than it was in 1980. And combined with the increase in CO2 from other nations that want to expand economically, that rise is still a problem. In addition, the start of the decline in CO2 emissions is around the same time when a drop in miles traveled here began. This supports the work of people like Naomi Klein who states that if we want to limit the effects of the damage we have caused to the environment, we will have to consume less. See http://www.epa.gov/airtrends/aqtrends.html. BTW, have we noticed that water pollution was not mentioned while claiming that our environment is cleaner? Do we not realize that a significant amount of  CO2 that is released into the atmosphere settles in the ocean?

Finally, referencing China here is problematic for what this post is promoting. That is because in China, there are massive problems with air pollution in their major cities. And that air pollution does not just stay there. Through the use of weather, China is exporting one-fifth of its air pollution to other countries in the world (see http://articles.latimes.com/2014/jan/20/science/la-sci-sn-china-exports-air-pollution-united-states-20140120 ). So while what's done in Vegas, stays in Vegas; the same cannot be said in China.

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For December 24, 2014

Dec 17

To Lindsey Carlson and her blogpost about the pitfalls of Christmas for parents. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website

Perhaps the most insidious hijacking of Christmas exercised by the world is not the one that replaces Gospel with the world's materialism in the celebration of Christmas, it is the one that tries to create a synthesis between the two. And all one has to do to see the corrupting power of this synthesis is to determine which would upset our loved ones the most. Would it upset them more to go through Christmas without worshipping God or would it be more bothered by going without the giving and receiving of gifts?

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To Jeff Robinson and his blogpost on the discussion/debate amongst some Christian evangelicals about racism. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.

If we go back to Martin Luther King Jr. on racism, we will find a perspective that is no longer used today. According to King, the evils of racism, materialism, and militarism are inextricably linked. And that means that we cannot subdue just one of these evils. Rather, we have address all three if we hope to make a dent into any of them. So if preachers were to follow Piper's charge to address social issues, the issues they will also have to address include materialism and the economic system on which it depends as well as militarism and American Imperialism as well as government spending that goes to the military industrial complex.

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Dec 20

To R. Scott Clark and his short blog quote criticizing Political Correctness. This appeared in Heidelblog.

Didn't PC come in response to prejudice? And if that is so in at least in some cases, to condemn PC without condemning the prejudice it is responding too results in maintaining the polarization that already existed.

Furthermore, isn't condemning PC efforts itself an imitation of PC and thus doing what PC is being accused of here?

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Dec 21

To Bruce Edward Walker and his blogpost on how Fossil Fuels are the solution for poverty. This appeared in the Acton blog.

Unfortunately, the arguments supporting the continued level of use of fossil fuels assume two things: that the current level of use does not threaten the our future; and that the current economic system in which we live has no structural flaws. That our current level of fossil fuel use does significant harm to the environment is beyond dispute. One only needs to check objective data such as the environmental problems suffered in places like China or the rising level of CO2 in the atmosphere along with the rising level of CO2 in the oceans to see how our future is becoming ominous.

At the same time, we have an economic system that revolves around the love of money and the denial of all else. That love of money system might be lifting more people out of poverty but more statistics are needed before claiming that such a system is not causing more harm than good. This is especially true as wealth around the world is consolidating and authoritarianism is on the rise, especially in the West. In addition, while more people are being lifted out of a bare standard of poverty, many people are beginning to approach that level of poverty as well. What is most important here is not a snapshot of where we are, but having the ability to see where we are going. And where we are going with the current system is the continued valuing of money over people and the consolidation of wealth and power.

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For October 22, 2014

Oct 15

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost containing a quote about Modernity and its exclusion of God from its view of the world. This appeared in Heidelblog

Yes, movements like the Modernity are reactions against God, but they are also reactions against Christians as they try to represent God. To deny that is to deny history and, in a sense, to externalize sin.

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Oct 20

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost quoting R.R. Reno and his lament over the intolerance of progressives. This appeared in the Heidelblog

Let me ask, who was tolerant during the times when Christianity held sway over our laws and culture so that we had blue laws or laws criminalizing homosexuality? How tolerant were those laws? And it wasn't progressives who supported Jim Crow. So how tolerant were those conservatives, note that not everyone did, who did support Jim Crow?

And how tolerant is of Christians who wanted to prohibit gays from marrying or the right to deny gays access to public goods and services provided as provided in a capitalist system?

The overgeneralizations made about an undefined group only shows a certain degree of intolerance. In fact, having just retired from a university system I can tell you that there no "progressive" domination over conservatives at least from what I saw.

Yes, Christians can have concerns over some events that seem to threaten religious liberties. But considering the intolerance showed by some conservative christians in the past, isn't the new growing intolerance a display of the pendulum swinging in the other direction? And if that is the case, then before wringing our hands in anxiety over an anticipated loss in religious liberties, perhaps we should show contrition for our role in placing or maintaining the pendulum when it was in our favor. Besides, the spread of Ebola, new wars, increasing damage to the environment, growing wealth disparities and so on are not enough to make the future seem dark. We needed this particular pendulum swing to tell us to "abandon hope all ye who enter"? The good news is that angst only over this pendulum swing is not intolerance. It is, however, evidence of self-absorption.

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Oct 21

To Elise Hilton and her blogpost on human trafficking. This appeared in the Acton blog.

Perhaps we should consider another factor that contributes to human trafficking; it is the free market. After all, trafficking supplies a cheap source of labor which, in turn, holds down costs that are passed on to the consumer--sweatshop is supported by the free market too and for the same reason. And we have trafficked labor right here in the US some of whom pick our produce. So a question we might want to ask is, is the free market too free to eliminate trafficked labor?

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To Bruce Edward Walker and his blogpost on the failures of "left-leaning" religious shareholder activists. This appeared in the Acton Blog

That "left-leaning" religious shareholder proposals are rejected and that such religious shareholders suffer a disconnect, presumedly from the other shareholders, imply what? That people favored profit over principle?  And if so, are we bragging or complaining about that? Do we ask if shareholder priorities are dominated by the love of money? 

Finally, couldn't we ask if those shareholders so easily sacrifice workers' jobs and the environment for the sake of an increase in the ROI also  suffer a disconnect?

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For September 24, 2014

Sept 19

To R.Scott Clark and his blogpost celebrating Constitution Day. This appeared on Heidelblog.

We are often told about the Constitution from idyllic perspectives. But if we want a fuller perspective of what the Constitution is about, we need to read the historical documents that provide some of the context for the Constitution. Those documents include Henry Knox's Letter to George Washington, the Constitutional Debates, and Federalist Paper #10. There are others as well as there are events that also help provide context for the Constitution such as Shays Rebellion.

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Sept 23

Please note that at the time of the posting of this blogpost, the comment below was still unpublished. The comment below will be deleted from this post should it be published in the imaginative conservative blogpost to which it was posted.

To Patrick Deneen and his blogpost associating democracy with materialism and other enemies of democracy. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative.

Where should one start with this? Attributing to democracy materialism and privatism seems the opposite of what we observe in history. And it isn't that we can't have materialism in democracy, but such really rests with our economic system rather than political system.

What democracy does is to redistribute power so that the more democratic a society is, the more that power is shared equally amongst the people. The less democratic society is, the society leans toward elite-centered rule and thus the more likely that society will be ruled by tyrants. 

But democracy alone does not determine the degree of materialism that will exist or whether individualism will reign too strongly. Economic systems that emphasize a variable level of collective ownership would limit the individualism that exists in society while economic systems that emphasize individual rights and ownership regardless of the interdependencies that exist in the system.

Democratic socialism leans toward recognizes a variable standard of collective ownership while it expands democracy. Whatever materialism it produces will be a shared rather than a hoarded materialism. There is a certain solidarity with those in need that is present in democratic socialism.

Neoliberal Capitalism denies collectivism and emphasizes profit. Thus, we should expect to see a great deal of individualism exercised by the financial elites in this form of capitalism as well as hoarding kind of materialism. After all, don't American capitalists try to prove American capitalism by saying that it has produced the greatest level of prosperity in history? How can one get more materialistic than that? We should also note here that that is the claim of every greatest empire of its time. And the push of advocates of neoliberal capitalism is to loosen the chains of social responsibilities so one can keep more for themselves. Again, here is more materialism and individualism.

One more point, should we really read de Tocqueville and his comments about America uncritically? After all, America at that time was a highly racist country that ethnically cleansed the land of its indigenous people and either enslaved or treated as second class citizens African-Americans. de Tocqueville used British society as the measure of the highest society on earth despite the abuses that came with running an empire. To not read him critically would be to submit to some form of authoritarianism. And we should note that authoritarianism goes hand in hand with elite-centered rule, not democracy. And we should finally note that those who wrote the Constitution opposed what was referred to as "democracy" back then. Rather, they favored a lite elite-centered rule seeing that the Constitution was written in response to widespread dissent and Shays Rebellion rather than as an afterthought to the American Revolution. And the writers of of our Constitution were very economically class minded.

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To Joe Carter and his blogpost on the survey that showed that more Americans want religion to have an influence on politics. This appeared in the Acton Blog.

I don't think that the importance of religion in politics has really waned as much as the kind of religious influence that has been influencing politics. We've seen a push back against religious influence on politics in personal morality issues such as same-sex marriage. On the other hand, Martin Luther King Jr. demonstrated that religious influence on politics could not only be accepted, it could be embraced. So we need to distinguish between religion's influence on politics in personal moral issues from its influence in social justice issues.

In addition, we need to distinguish religion having influence on politics from certain religions having a privileged position in society. This is a distinction that has been lost on some evangelicals who feel pain from their religion's loss of a privileged position.

Finally, it seems that what Americans in the study are most alarmed by is change rather than  religion losing its place.

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To Bruce Edward Walker and his blogpost on how religious groups are attacking fossil fuel and energy companies. This appeared in the Acton Blog

If groups are not concerned enough for shareholder value for the taste expressed in the post, realize that turnabout is also true. Shareholder interest in the environmental impact that fossil fuels have is not sufficient enough to spur trust by those in environmental groups in oil giants like Exxon. It also seems that when profits blind shareholders to the science of climate change, shareholders are simply being post modern in that their desired results determine what is truth to them.

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To Joe Carter and his blogpost on what it means to be a free person in a free society. This appeared in the Acton blog.

Did we ever consider that it is the market place that is causing us to destroy ourselves? The pursuit of individual riches and the avoidance of social responsibilities might make some wealthy but are unjustly hurting others.

In addition, there are two kinds of freedoms. There are individual freedoms and group freedoms and they sometimes oppose each other. We see group freedom when we see a properly function democracy where the group, or society, freely determines how those in the group will live with each other and how the group will interact with other groups. And thus group freedom and can infringe on individual freedom.  The converse is also true. In fact, when individual freedom is the only freedom, then we have ellite-centered rule by either those in the private sector or those in the public sector.