Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For April 27, 2022

April 19

To Chris Gehrz and his article that compares Lindbergh's 1939 isolationism and his failure to condemn the Nazis with today's Republicans who oppose involvement in Ukraine and their failure to condemn Putin for his invasion. This appeared in the Anxious Bench blog on Patheos.

There are a few points to make here:

1. Lindbergh's accomplishments along with some of his political views illustrate something that is true about all of us: that each one of us is a mixed bag of good and bad. Some will have and display more good qualities while others will have and display more bad ones. That is not to write off the horrible thinking that Lindbergh was promoting. But it should put a temper on any self-righteous indignation. His ideas of callous isolationism and white-centric thinking have to be clearly rejected and opposed.

2. Some have called WW II a war between empires. Germany and Japan were seeking to establish their own empires while the Soviet Union, France, Great Britain, and the US already had empires. So here we should note why it might be understandable, but still horribly wrong, for Lindbergh to draw false equivalencies between Germany and Great Britain. Yes, Great Britain's empire was based on racial superiority and controlled much of the world. But Great Britain's empire didn't come close to committing the number of horrific atrocities that Germany was committing. But Great Britain had already committed enough atrocities for Lindbergh to somewhat plausibly make the comparison between Germany and England. We should note here that when questioned about the atrocities committed by some nation, I can't remember the name of the country, Trump responded, perhaps in partial Lindbergh fashion, by saying that the US isn't innocent either.

3. After WW II, the US sought to establish a different kind of empire, one in which the regional leaders had a lot of autonomy. And what we have discovered since then is that imperialism, like isolationism, is not a solution to the world's problems of emerging tyrants. It is not a solution because not only do empires destroy the republics of nation s that run those empires, but they provide role models for tyrants to aspire to. And so what empires do is to establish a forever king-of-the-hill battle between empires and other empires or emerging empires. That is part of what we have with Russia today.

4. To avoid unnecessarily antagonizing Russia and give any credibility to its feeling threatened, NATO should not be adding members that are located so close to Russia's border.

Yes, we have to oppose Russia's invasion of Ukraine whether that opposition will be successful or not--my feeling is that time is on Russia's side but we can't afford to overuse sanctions and try to rush Russia's defeat through other than military means. But also we have to practice what we preach to the world. Because the world will be far more willing to listen to our actions than our words.

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April 21

To Jack Lee and his article  that lists and briefly describes 6 misconceptions about Calvinism. My comment was directed to the first misconception that said that Calvinists worship Calvin and the sixth misconception that claims that Calvin murder Servetus because Calvin turned Servetus in to the Geneva authorities because of heresy. This appeared in The Chorus In The Chaos blog on Patheos.

I will mildly disagree with #1 and thoroughly disagree with #6.

When Calvin becomes the guide for how to read the Bible, then Calvin has become a canon above the canon and thus Calvin himself has been placed on too high a pedestal. Such a pedestal starts bordering on worshiping Calvin.

Regarding #6, the New Testament never states that denying the Trinity--though the word is not in the New Testament, the concept is--merits the death penalty. In fact, the strongest form of discipline the Church has is excommunication. Once the Church uses physical punishments, especially on those who are or should not be members, either directly or through proxies, such as the government, the Church has gone way beyond what the New Testament allows. To say that death was an appropriate penalty because of the time in history and place is to imply that there could be other times, such as in the future, and places, such as here, when such a penalty is justified. The execution of Servetus serves as an indictment on Calvin and Geneva. We can apply a relative moral view to what happened in Geneva back then. And let's not forget the number of witches who were given the death penalty as well. Calvin was an accessory to the murder of Servetus.

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April 26

To George Stanciu and his article that attempts to distinguish patriotism from nationalism. This article appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.

While Stanciu would like to create an infinite chasm between patriotism and nationalism with definitions, I don't believe we can separate patriotism from nationalism. Instead, we need to recognize that patriotism is the opiate of nationalism.

Defining Patriotism as 'the love of place, countrymen, and local traditions' shows that it is simply the basis for nationalism. For what is that love based on? Is it not based on the same perception of goodness, including delusions of grandeur and denial of sins, that nationalism is based on. Inserting the Nation-State isn't a game changer here because tribalism is involved and nationalism is a form of tribalism. And we should note that tribalism existed before the emergence of the Nation-State. 

Here we should note that one of the working definitions of tribalism is a high degree of loyalty to a group regardless of what unifies a group. Well what does real love of place, countrymen and local traditions evoke but a high degree of loyalty.  And with tribalism, that high degree of loyalty eventually creates a moral relativity that defines what is right and wrong depends on who does what to whom. Attempts at localizing one's object of affection by introducing  'local traditions' as an object of love does not change the dynamics here.

If the Civil War provides an example of the difference between patriotism and nationalism, how is the Southerner singing about Dixie any less delusional than the  Messianic mission of the North? Those good times in Dixie were built on the backs of slaves. And while Stanciu rightfully acknowledges the atrocities suffered by Native Americans, somehow the sufferings of Blacks, who were on a good day in the South then were only counted as being inferior, did not merit the same recognition Stanciu gave to Native Americans. Here, Stanciu is exhibiting a similar disregard for Blacks that Tocqueville showed.

There isn't the chasm between Patriotism and Nationalism as Stanciu proposes. Rather, it is patriotism that feed nationalism and both are manifestations of tribalism.

 

A Reformed Theological View Of Neoliberal Capitalism

 Either through explicitl statements or silent complicity, many American Christian leaders and laypeople from the Reformed Faith have provided support for our current economic system of Neoliberal Capitalism. Some of them think that our current form of Capitalism has not changed significantly from the past and thus today's Capitalism is part of the American way of life. Others also see significant connections between Capitalism and past Reformed believers all the way back to John Calvin. And thus a continued Church tradition of supporting those with wealth and power is being played out again.

Monica Schaap Pierce (click here for a bio), who is now teaching at Calvin University, has written a Reformed criticism of Neoliberal Capitalism in an effort to put distance between both the Reformed Faith and theology of John Calvin and Neoliberal Capitalism (click here).

What is Neoliberal Capitalism? To be clear, it is not the form of Capitalism embraced after WW II up through the 1970a. That was called the Bretton Woods system (click here and see the abstract and introduction to get familiarized with the two systems).

With Neoliberal Capitalism, we have a severe cutting of  social responsibility for businesses and the markets. That cutting of social responsibility involves the cutting of taxes and regulations. And the point is to have an economic system that is designed to maximize profits for all participants. We should note that maximizing profits is a cannibalizing ethic that devours all other ethics. What isn't discussed in the review is how Neoliberal Capitalism is perhaps the most anti-Democracy forms of  Capitalism. Why that is the case is because in a working democracy, the cutting of regulations and taxes to the bare minimum means that business and the markets are the least answerable to the people.

There is a global side of Neoliberal Capitalism and a domestic side. The global side emphasizes trade pacts that makes government policies answerable to trade pacts while protecting foreign businesses from national government scrutiny. The domestic side of  Neoliberal Capitalism looks to cut regulations that protect workers, consumers, and the environment as well as cutting taxes as much as possible. Both President Obama and Hillary Clinton pursued the global side of Neoliberal Capitalism, President Trump pursued the domestic side. We will have to wait to see how Biden's policies fit in here.

Pierce wants to first distance Calvinism from Neoliberal Capitalism. They have been closely tied together by some since John Calvin is seen as the originator of the Protestant work ethic. Pierce objects to Calvinism being so closely associated with Neoliberal Capitalism for two reasons. The first reason was that doing so only prescribes a single source for Neoliberal Capitalism. But more importantly, Pierce notes that Calvin was for sharing, helping the needy, and was more egalitarian so that people would have neither too little nor too much.

Pierce then describes how the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) addressed Neoliberal Capitalism in its Accra Confession that was adopted by WARC in 2004. 

Accra's problems with Neoliberal Capitalism include its overemphasis on consumerism, its destruction of the environment, and the ever widening wealth disparity between the different economic classes. Pierce mentions that the pandemic only amplified the problems that arise from growing wealth disparities.

Pierce goes on to mention how people of color suffer disproportionately from those effects. An example here is that problems with air pollution disproportionately affect people of color because it is the urban areas that are most affected by problems with air pollution.

Besides the physical problems that Neoliberal Capitalism visits on us, the Pierce says that the Accra Confession says that Neoliberal Capitalism teaches the following falsehoods:

1. Unrestrained competition, consumerism, and unlimited economic growth and accumulation of wealth are best for the whole world.
   
   
2.  Ownership of private property has no social obligation.
   
   
3. Capital speculation, liberalization, and deregulation of the market, privatization of public utilities and national resources, unrestricted access for foreign investments and imports, lower taxes and the unrestricted movement of capital will achieve wealth for all.
   
   
4. Social obligations, protection of the poor and the weak, trade unions, and relationships between people are subordinate to the processes of economic growth and capital accumulation.
   

Some of the above points reminds one of something Martin Luther King Jr. said during his speech against the Vietnam War (click here for the source):

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies... 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."

Pierce goes on to make the point that Neoliberal Capitalism hurts us both spiritually as well as physically. It hurts us spiritually in terms of the kind of consumers we become, it attacks our concern for the poor and those whose labor is exploited in Neoliberal economic systems, and it feeds or greed and selfishness. It also invades many parts of our lives with advertising.

Reporting on the Accra Confession, Pierce states that Neoliberal Capitalism not only corrupts our understanding of Doctrine of Creation, it hurts our theological understanding of people. Then Pierce continues with how the Accra Confession ends with hope by reminding us of how we are tied to both God and each other.

Now I have tried to give a brief summary of Piece's article because I want people to read for themselves what she has written. What is welcomed here with Pierce's article and its reporting on the Accra Confession. It should be welcomed especially by those who have ties to the Reformed Faith. It should be welcomed unless, of course, other ideologies and loyalties have obscured the damage the Neoliberal Capitalism is doing not just to one's own nation, but to the whole world.