July 1
To R. Scott Clark and his article on sex in the Post-Christian era. This article was posted in Heidelblog.
What starts as a mischaracterization about how others, unbelievers that is, view sex ends as an appeal to a Christian's ego. And with the appeal to the Christian's ego comes an invitation to be like the Pharisee from the parable of the two men praying. But in the end, Clark, like many religiously conservative Reformed theologians and thinkers, believe that they can define things in and out of existence without reviewing evidence or listening to others.
First, SCOTUS didn't steal the abortion issue from the legislative bodies. Such a view is not a pro-life view where the humanity of the unborn is relative to one's location. SCOTUS's job is to determine when actions taken against or laws enforced on people violate their Constitutional rights. And the part that SCOTUS got right in the Roe v. Wade case is that the woman has the right to privacy and control over her body. What SCOTUS got wrong was its determination about the human life status of the unborn. That is because, in the end, the abortion issue is about navigating the conflicting rights of the unborn child and those of the mother. For if the unborn child is not a human life, then the debate ends and abortion is only about the right to privacy and the rights a woman has over her own body. But if the unborn child is a human life, then we need to navigate those conflicting rights of the mother and the unborn with the understanding that all humans are created equal.
The Dobbs decision made the Roe v. Wade decision into collateral damage by denying the Constitutional right to privacy. And in so doing, other court cases regarding sexual relations, contraceptives, and same-sex marriages become possible targets.
While Clark calls same-sex marriage an oxymoron because he deduces that there is only one way of having sex and thus there is no other way produces a physical union between two people, one only needs to ask whether an unmarried couple had sex if they engaged in oral or anal intercourse? And if the answer is 'no,' then couples who are not married or couples where at least one of the parties is married to someone else have not engaged in premarital or extramarital sex if they practice those kinds of sex acts.
Next, we have to ask whether pregnancy should just be viewed as being the consequences of having sex making abortion wrong because it is something one does to escape the consequences. That is because if trying to escape the consequence of sex is wrong when it pertains to pregnancy, then is using contraceptives wrong? Is not having a large family wrong? Is deciding not to have children wrong? I am asking these questions as they pertain to married Christian couples.
And, btw, sex is a means of self-fulfillment. There is nothing wrong with that. The problem becomes when sex is only about self-fulfillment. And speaking of Narcissism, telling Christians to shine is a narcissistic appeal.
Finally, why do many people expect 17-year-olds to have already engaged in sex? I can think of two reasons. First, sex is an incredibly strong desire that can greatly control our thoughts, feelings, and actions. And that is true for all of us, believer and unbeliever alike. What should be different for the Christian is the, hopefully, increasing ability to wait in faith that God will provide the right relationship in which sex can be engaged in at the right time. Second, we live in a consumer society where one's significance is largely determined by what we consume and how. Therefore, there is a personal significance to be gained by having sex in such a culture. Those two driving forces have unfortunately made sex a very powerful draw for not only high school kids, but middle school kids as well and for those of us who are of post-high school age.
What do Christians exhibit to the world when we control our sexual urges better than unbeliever do? In the imperfect ways in which we exercise such control, we show a gratitude for what God has already done for us as well as the hope we have that what God will provide is worth more than what we can grab for ourselves now. But we also need to tell the world that our self-control, regardless of how it looks to others, is not perfect. That we struggle with and are vulnerable to the same sins that unbelievers face. The difference between the believer and the unbeliever regarding sex is then that we do, to varying levels, exercise a control that they may not be exercising out of gratitude for the past and a hope that unbelievers cannot have until they believe. And the level of self-control we do exercise is the result of God's mercy and grace.
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July 10
To Heidelblog and Eric Watkins for Heidelblog's partial citing of Watkins's article on Christianity and CRT where Watkins seems to say that the two do not mix. This partial citation can be found in the Heidelblog.
Eric Watkins's full article can be found at
https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/christianity-or-critical-theory
The problem with the article cited is a problem common with how many Reformed theologians approach today's ideologies and issues. The problem is that many Reformed theologians approach to today's issues and ideologies believing that they can define problems and ideologies out of existence regardless of what can be observed. And the general mindset of Watkins's approach to Critical Theory can be see in the following quote from his article:
However, the world’s ways of addressing the realities of sin never work; they only tend to compound problems and create division.
That was said near the beginning of the article and thus since Critical Theory is one of the ways that the world is addressing the realities of sin, Critical Theory has been pronounced guilty from the beginning even before Watkins started to study it.
In addition, the basic tenor of Watkins's approach to Critical Theory or any other theory that comes from secular sources can be illustrated by a Martin Luther King description of the West in his speech that opposed the Vietnam War (see https://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2564.htm) :
The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.
If we substitute a fill-in-the-blank for the word 'Western,' then what Watkins's above quote about the world's approach to problem seems to suggest is that we could substitute the word 'Christianity' for the word 'Western' and we will find the same problem. Thus, Watkins seems to believe that Christianity alone has the cure for the world's problem and thus the world should come running to us for solutions to its problems while we Christians have no need to listen to the world.
And, btw, speaking of Martin Luther King Jr., Watkins, like many conservatives including the ideologues in the Reagan Administration, seem to reduce what King said about racism to his 'colorblind' approach in his <I>I Have A Dream</I> speech. But if we were to continue to listen to or read what King said after that speech, we would be surprised to see how much of what he promoted is being continued in Critical Theory and Critical Race Theory.
For example, in King's interview with Xander Vanocur conducted 11 months before he died (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xsbt3a7K-8), King stated that we have the triplets of evil which are inextricably tied together of racism, economic exploitation, and militarism. By calling those evils triplets that are 'inextricably' tied together, King was saying that we can't get rid of one of those evils without getting rid of the other 2. In addition, in that same interview, what King said about his then present work for a real equality is well in line with Kimberlé Crenshaw's promotion of equality of outcomes, which she placed in sharp contrast to the Reagan Administration's "colorblind" approach to being satisfied with just the equality of process. Along with Watkins's claim that King distanced himself from 'violent instigations of Marxism,' Watkins shows a great selectivity in what he cites from King. For King not only sharply criticized Marxism, he also sharply criticized Capitalism. Also, King recognized valid points made by Marx, he did the same for Capitalism.
Much more could be said but there are two problems with Watkins's seeming suggestion that Christianity alone has the solution to the world's problems. First, Church History provides no support for such a suggestion. The religious wars in Europe and the religious strife in early America are evidence that flies in the face of such a suggestion along with the many times that the Church has sided with wealth and power over against the oppressed.
Second, one of the New Testament's concerns was for how the Church was to remain faithful in a secular society. It did not speak to how to create a just society. And much in the Old Testament concerned itself with maintaining a religiously homogeneous society rather than religiously heterogeneous ones. Thus for Watkins to tell the world that Christianity alone has the solutions to its problems while also suggesting Christianity has no need to listen to the world is supported by neither the Scriptures nor history. Stating that doesn't mean that we can't use the Scriptures to address the world's problems. It just means that we are not the only source for solutions to the world's problems and thus we need to listen as much as we want to share.
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July 13
To Heidelblog and C.S. Lewis and the quote from Lewis on how crime and punishment should be about justice and punishing the criminal according to what they deserve. This appeared in Heidelblog.
How do we know what the criminal deserves, in terms of justice, unless we consider the context of their crime? And how willing will we be to give the criminal what they fully deserve when we realize that God does not treat us, those who visibly keep the law, treat us in the same way?
The context of a crime alone should tell us that the responsibility for the crime does not just rest on the individual perpetrator, but on one's family and the society in which everyone lives. The responsibility for the crime is not an exclusive-or proposition; it is a proposition that employs conjunction. That is imprisonment should consist of both efforts to heal as well as linking justice to punishment. But the degree to which we invoke punishment with justice must be mitigated by our own need for mercy.
So when we combine these notions, perhaps Lewis's approach is not all that humanitarian either. And our reliance solely on a past source to talk about crime and punishment only shows that traditionalism includes the tyrannical rule of the past over the present.
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July 14
To Marcia Chrsitoff Reina and her reposted article that extols the notion of the creation of an aristocratic democracy and claims that it was the intention of our nation's Founders. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.
What Reina seems to miss in describing the intentions of the Founders is the historical context of both the writing of The Constitution and their view of democracy.
Zinn points out that though what the Founders wanted was more democratic than what existed in the political systems of other nations, it was far from a real democracy. Why were they against an egalitarian democracy? The answer could be found in the historical context of The Constitution and the political ideas that those Founders were battling.
The writing of The Constitution was a result of widespread dissent and events like Shays Rebellion. What was happening was that the common folk, especially veterans, were seeing promises broken and were losing what land they had to taxes. Thus, the Founders gathered in Philadelphia to form a new government in which they hoped to remain in charge.
In addition, their condemnation of 'egalitarianism' was not an opposition to egalitarianism per se, but it was a response to proposals made that were being accepted by many common people. Included in those proposals was the elimination of debts and the reliance on paper money. So the Founders, many of them being the new elites of the nation by virtue of their positions in life, such as being bondholders and slaveowners, gathered to form a stronger federal government that would protect them from the demands made by common people. We should note here that according to Yates's notes on the Constitutional debates, Madison adamantly opposed giving the lower classes the right to vote in England. He feared that such would threaten the position enjoyed by wealthy elites there.
And thus, the came authorization of the creation of the militias and they were put under the authority of the President. Before the ratification of The Constitution, the government could not forcefully respond to uprisings.
And thus, with the writing of The Constitution, the Founders became to American democracy what the Bolsheviks of Lenin's day were to Russian Socialists: 'Opportunistic Vanguards,' which is a term Chomsky has used to describe Lenin and the Bolsheviks.
Of course, a religiously conservative Catholic, blog is going to post the above article because us religiously conservative Christians, both Protestant and Catholic, have a penchant for passionately embracing authoritarianism. We should note that the term 'aristocractic democracy,' like the term 'ethnic democracy,' is an oxymoron because democracy is about sharing power rather than trying to hoard it. Unfortunately for what is left of our democracy, there is a forever king-of-the-hill battle for that power and a place of supremacy because there are competing groups that believe they are entitled to have that place of supremacy in our nation. And here, we should note the trend in more modern Church history. That trend is that the predominant branch of the Church sides with wealth and power aver and against the rights and needs of the oppressed. That occurred with the Roman Church's siding with wealth and power in the pre-revolutionary times of France and Spain. And it occurred with the Orthodox Church and its support of the Tsar as well as its current support of Putin. And it is occurring here in the US with Evangelicals, sometimes joined by conservative Catholics, as they offer almost blind support for the Republican Party.
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July 15
To Bradley Birzer and his article on what the Constitutional Convention, what some call the Federal Debates as recorded by Madison's notes, said about slavery. This article appeared in the Imaginative Conservative.
It appears that Birzer didn't adequately represent what was said in the Federal Debates about slavery according to Madison's notes. Whereas Birzer reported that the convention debated slavery from August 8th to August 13th, there is no use of the word 'slave' or any word built on that root in the debates from August 9th to August 13th. It was only on August 8th, of the dates mentioned by Birzer, in which slavery was mentioned. And part of the mentioning of slavery in the Federal Debates on other dates had to do not with the immorality nature of slavery itself, but with whether to include slaves in determining the number of representatives a state has in Congress.
Were there those, like King and Morris, who opposed slavery? Yes. But did the level of debate indicate that slavery was almost put an end to during those debates? The number of days in which slavery was mentioned as an institution that must be eliminated does not support that claim.
But we also have consider the issue of whether opposition to slavery meant that one believed in equality. There, black abolitionists learned from their white counterparts that the answer was a firm 'no.'
Birzer whitewashes the history of the US regarding racism by first reducing it to slavery and then by inaccurately reporting on the Federal Debates as far as we can learn from Madison's notes. In addition, Birzer neglects to report on how Blacks were referred to as being property without being counted as being fully human or how slavery was being discussed in terms of how to determine the number of Representatives a state should have.
Following slavery came a respite of Reconstruction. But that was soon undone in the South by Jim Crow and followed by harsh segregation in the North. And none of that includes how Native Americans were ethnically cleansed from the land because of white supremacy.
The Declaration of Independence used the words 'all men,' but not only were women were not included, the term 'all men' was understood to mean 'all white men.'
The Left is pretty accurate in its depiction of what happened in American History.
