The Christian Counterrevolution

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They Are Not Just Attacking Disney

Josh Abbotoy (click here for a bio), like many of today's conservatives, is mad at Disney. The reason for their anger? It is because they believe that Disney is attacking their children by trying not just to sexualize them, but to groom them for membership into the LGBT community. At least that is his claim in a recent article posted in The American Reformer website. The owners of that website seem have an agenda of their own (click here about the website). Abbotoy has a great deal of angst not just over Disney, but from everything that could be associated with the Left (click here for the article). As a result, Abbotoy wants his fellow Southern Baptists to repeat a boycott of Disney and conduct any ethical means to get Disney to repent.

The beginning of Abbotoy's story about Disney starts with Disney's speaking out against what has been known as DeSantis's "Don't Say Gay" bill. Because Disney's opposition to the bill was delayed, Disney contributed millions of dollars to the pro-gay rights group Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and to engage in a campaign of their own against DeSantis's bill. To show Abbotoy's objectivity here, he called Disney's contribution to HRC and 'indulgence.' And that gives an indication of how Abbotoy was going to refer to the people, actions, and events in his article.

Next, Abbotoy refers to a leaked video showing that Disney now has an agenda for grooming children to become members of the LGBT community. Abbotoy does not provide a link to this video and so one has to do a little research of their own to find this video. The video was provided to the conservative media by Chris Rufo and the problem with his video is this: they are a series of very short clips of Disney officials talking without providing any context for what was said. This video has play quite a few times on the FOX news programs and has been described as 'damning evidence' by some conservatives. But it is the description of these videos by conservatives, including conservative commentators, not the content of the video clips themselves,  which makes the video clips seem more convincing than they are. For example, several of these conservative commentators make a big deal over the fact that Disney employees will welcome guests by referring to them as 'friends' rather than ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. IMO, if Abbotoy and his conservative friends had to rely on these clips  alone to prove their claim about Disney in court, the case would not even be heard. But that doesn't stop Abbotoy and the conservative commentators from using such scant evidence to greatly inflame the issue.

So Abbotoy, using quotes from a Disney official, accuses Disney of 'queering' its stories and characters. And that has led a host of conservatives to accuse Disney of sexualizing children. But don't they understand that Disney has been sexualizing children for decades starting with Mickey and Minnie kissing and has continued with many of their princess stories that end happily ever after for the princess because they found male partners? But such stories do not count as sexualizing children in contrast to when the presence of gays in society is acknowledged through new Disney children's characters.

Abbotoy then discusses whether Disney is merely reflecting society. He adamantly says 'no' to that possibility but he presents evidence that contradicts his claim. That evidence cites the relatively high percentage of Generation Zers (almost 40%) identifying as fitting in with the LGBT community.

Then Abbotoy tries to unveil the hidden agenda in all of this. That agenda is to start a perpetual revolution that tries to undo all previous standard norms. Yes, that starts with sex and gender norms. But then Abbotoy includes in that revolution opposition to bullying, racism, and critical theory. As a result, Abbotoy complains that Generation Zers have been 'stressed-out' about systemic racism, bigotry against those in the LGBT community, climate change, guns among other issues. And that being stressed out has led to psychological problems. Of course, systemic racism, climate change, mass shootings with guns and such by themselves are understandable causes for stress so one has to wonder what Abbotoy's point is. This is especially true when he picks on Greta Thunberg's work.

Then Abbotoy makes an odd turn. After speaking disparagingly about how the left wants to remake the world, he speaks in glowing terms about religiously conservative Christians themselves are working toward their own definition of utopia for the world. Here we should remember how Os Guinness, a Christian philosopher, has warned us against utopian movements. 

And so Abbotoy concludes that Disney presents a 'clear and present danger,' to borrow a Tom Clancey book title, to children. And we are morally obligated to resist the evils that he perceives Disney is visiting on our children.

Abbotoy then recalls the days of the 1997 Southern Baptist boycott of Disney. And though that boycott did not stop conservatives from losing to the LGBT over its issues back then, he does not blame the boycott. And it is here that we might really get to the beef that Abbott and many other of my fellow religiously conservative Christians have. We lost the culture wars to the LGBT community and we are trying to undo the results--I, myself, prefer culture coexistence to culture wars. And that  is the problem. Many of my fellow religiously conservative Christians hate the idea of sharing society with its culture with those from the LGBT community. It isn't that they want to get rid of them. It is that they want society to punish the LGBT community by marginalizing those in the community for their evil and immorality. Anything less is unacceptable and is seen as a capitulation with evil. 

What Abbotoy, and many conservative Christians, want is to refight and win the culture wars--kind of like how some from the South seem to want to refight and finally win the Civil War. And Abbotoy's article, with its hyperbolized descriptions of the current status quo and of Disney's actions, seeks, IMO, to manipulate his readers. He doesn't describe the current situation or Disney's actions in objective terms. He prefers to be accusatory and overstates his case. In the end, he seeks to enrage his fellow Christians against those who have working for change in how we view the LGBT community and other "woke" issues.

Abbotoy's article does not just reflect a tragically sad state of affairs for how many of my fellow religiously conservative Christians are seeking seize the moment and regain control over society. It reflects a hateful and vengeful side of them as people when having to share society with those with whom they disagree.

Same Battle, Different Means: Our Culture Wars And Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine

What first appeared to be merely a political-military move, which is the Russian invasion of Ukraine,  has also shown signs of being a culture war, Russian style. 

Up the until invasion of Ukraine, there were a significant number of my fellow religiously conservative American Christians who looked at Putin as a spiritual hero of another nation's culture wars and saw the relationship between Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church as a template to be followed here only with conservative Evangelicals taking the place of the Orthodox Church. In fact, we were very much going in that direction under President Trump

But while the invasion of Ukraine has put a bad taste in the mouths of many of those previously mentioned Christians, the culture wars go on both here and there. Regarding here, many of my fellow religiously conservative Christians look to either reelect Trump in 2024 or elect a Republican candidate who will pick judges that will rule against  certain rights for the LGBT community and will possibly pick SCOTUS justices who will reverse the Obergefell decision. They are hoping that the current conservative majority SCOTUS will decide on a Mississippi law that will reverse Roe v. Wade.

The culture wars are in full swing there, and by there I mean the Ukraine and Russia too as the Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church has defended the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a battle to stop Western influence, an influence that he believes to be decadent (click here for the source ). He has also said that Russia is battling the Anti-Christ when talking about Russia's invasion of Ukraine (click here for the source).

His references to Russia as being Holy Russia, which would make Russia a New Testament equivalent to Israel, seems to imitate how some of my fellow religiously conservative Christians refer to a former America from the past.

What both culture wars have in common is the seeking of government help to suppress the freedoms of unbelievers when those freedoms are used to enjoy practices, especially sexual ones, that are outside the bounds of the Scriptures. And so I hope that many of my fellow religiously conservative Christians, who complain about having lost the culture war here, take a good hard look at the invasion of Ukraine because that invasion and conflict is in par a culture war to the extent that Putin is following the direction provided by Patriarch Kirill. For just as some religiously conservative Christians believe that they are now surrounded by a culture that is antagonistic to their faith, the Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill has been promoting Putin's domestic policies and his war against Ukraine as a way of preventing Russia from being surrounded by a secular culture.

Neglecting The Log In One's Own Eye: Conservative Christian Culture Imperialism

 In a recent Mortification of Spin podcast, the hosts, Carl Trueman (click here for a bio) and Todd Pruitt (click here for a very brief bio) address the subject of culture wars. In that podcast, Trueman and Pruitt not only engage in some seslf-congratulatory behavior in the conflict, they, Trueman in particular, equate what should be the Christian view of culture wars with conservatism. But more importantly, they show a complete misunderstanding of what a culture war is. And thus they mistakenly equate culture wars with how one or both sides address the other  (click here for a link to the podcast).

In their podcast, Trueman and Pruitt discuss where the term 'culture war' came from. According to them, the first use of the term was made by Pat Buchanan when he was involved in politics. If memory serves, Buchanan, an authoritarian at heart, warned fellow conservatives of the advances that non-conservatives were making in becoming culturally influential. And thus Buchanan was warning his fellow conservatives that conservatives would be losing control over culture and society. Such a warning provides a context necessary for understanding the culture wars that we are experiencing today. That context involves a concept not mentioned in my hearing or reading; that context is Culture Imperialism.

Here we should note that before the culture wars began, conservatives had a certain sway over culture to the extent of not only having laws that would enforce some of the values promoted by religiously conservative Christians, but society was marginalizing some who didn't follow those values. We could call this time period one of Conservative Christian Culture Imperialism. In particular, many of those values had to do with sexual practices. Homosexuals in particular were one of the whipping boys of  Conservative Christian Culture Imperialism.  But we should note that before the end of the Civil Rights Movement, people of color were often targets of this Conservative Christian Imperialism because of some of the ties between religiously conservative Christianity and white supremacy. And, we can use the word 'Imperialism' rather than 'Dominance' because this dominance was once held to throughout Western Civilization.

What justified this Conservative Christian Culture Imperialism was paternalism. Conservative Christianity claimed that the enforcing of its values was what's best for all societies. And thus Conservative Christianity should have some degree of control over the values society was suppose to promote and practice. So, in other words, this Conservative Christian Culture Imperialism was an exercise in Christian paternalism. And though not using the same terminology, this concept of Christian Paternalism was alluded, by Trueman in particular, as he talked about how Christians need to get the message out about what is good for society.

And so while Trueman and Pruitt seem to be singing the Things Ain't What They Use To Be blues about not only the acceptance of homosexuality and the new approaches to gender identity, Thepy seemed to have forgot, or perhaps favored, the context from which this new acceptance emerged. It arose from Conservative Christian Culture Imperialism and the desire to eliminate, and probably forever prevent, a return of that imperialism that has caused so many abuses and atrocities committed against those from the LGBT community and others.

Here we should note that the efforts to address and correct long standing  social injustices often result in a phobic type reaction to the past so that beliefs and practices that which were accidentally associated with those past injustices are grouped to together with those beliefs and practices that actually contributed to the injustices. Thus the proverbial baby is often tossed out with the bathwater approach is taken. And that is because of the past injustices, a great reluctance or even complete refusal to extend any effort to distinguish between those beliefs and behaviors that were accidentally associated with the injustices from those beliefs and behaviors that actually contributed to those injustices.

While Trueman and Pruitt equate the hostility of one's interaction with those who hold to different cultural values as being part of culture wars, such is not necessarily true. Rather, if we understand culture wars as a certain kind of response to culture imperialism, then the way to avoid culture wars is to resist culture imperialism and work for culture coexistence instead. That instead of seeking to dominate, we look to share culture and society with others as equals.

What culture coexistence for my fellow religiously conservative Christians and those in the LBGT community could look like is that while both sides would have the right to fully and publicly express what their values are, both sides would advocate for full equality in society for those from the other side.

Of course that means that some beliefs could not be promoted. Those beliefs would be those that deny equality for those who hold to other beliefs. Generally speaking, we already do this in terms of religion and call it the freedom of religion. And we point to the 1st Amendment as supplying the grounds for the coexistence of faiths in our nation.

In short, Trueman and Pruitt, though having some justified criticisms of the new enforced  'orthodoxy' regarding gender identity, need to take a different approach to the new orthodoxy. For example, both many religiously conservative Christians and those from the LGBT community have oversimplified the biological sex vs. gender identity conflict by conflating one side with the other. For while one side states because they are the same, one's biological sex, a physical entity, should dictate what one's gender identity, a social-psychological entity, must be, the other side reverses that. We need to adequately readdress that conflict so that neither biological sex nor gender identity are used to override the other. 

We religiously conservative Christians in America and those from the LGBT movement should work for each other's full equality in society. For doing so is to promote culture coexistence. And though I dislike reducing complex issues to binary terms, I'm afraid that the only alternative to culture coexistence is to conduct culture war in order to establish or maintain culture imperialism or dominance.

Why Many Religiously Conservative Christians Support Trump

Unfortunately for the Church and the Gospel, Christians in these latter centuries have been repeating certain unbiblical patterns of behaviors.  And here we must be cautious about saying that. We all sin to varying degrees and we are all capable of committing gross sins as individuals. Thus when we see other Christians sin, we need to treat them with the same grace and mercy as we have been and are treated by God when we commit our own sins.

But individual sins is not what is being referenced here. The subject here is the behavior of the dominant branch of the Church in a given country. For example, prior to the respective revolutions in France, Russia, and Spain, the respective dominant branch of the Church sided with wealth and power. And one of the results of that was that when the revolutions came, the Church, along with the state, was seen as an enemy of those revolutions and thus it not only suffered unnecessary persecution, the reputation of the Gospel was significantly harmed. 

One only needs to read Vlad Lenin's words as he described the Christian religion as the opiate of the people. For in saying that, Lenin was speaking from observation, not from any ideological deduction. And, btw, the behavior of Christians that made the Church an enemy of Lenin and his hijacking of the revolution was also observed by Rosa Luxemburg. Only she pleaded with the Church to support the workers rather than to support those who oppressed them.

In this part of the 21st century, the repeated behavior of the Church that we are focusing on here is not the dominant branch of the Church in a given country as it supports wealth and power, even though we could do that. Rather it is the free choice of the Church to support authoritarian rulers because those rulers are offering them protection from  perceived threats. Three places where has been occurring are Syria, Egypt, and the U.S.

Now in Syria and Egypt, the very existence of the Church has been threatened by violent anti-Christian forces who want to eliminate the existence of the Church in their areas.. And thus the Church's support for brutal dictators is somewhat understandable though  problematic. But in the U.S., Church support for the authoritarian leader who is protecting it is even more questionable. That is because the authoritarian leader protecting the Church in the U.S. is not protecting the Church from any violent threat to its existence. Rather, the authoritarian leader who is protecting the Church in the U.S. is protecting the Church from having remained fallen from a place of supremacy in society and culture. This authoritarian leader is promising the Church to be restored to its role of supremacy over society. This kind of protection is evident from William Barr's recent address to the law students at Notre Dame.

In the U.S. the dominant branch of the Church is a coalition of conservative Catholics and conservative evangelicals. And since the legalization of same-sex marriages by decision of the Supreme Court, many leaders in the dominant branch of the American Church has seen that decision as the South saw the loss at Appomattox. These leaders now see the Church as being on the losing side of the culture wars that have been fought in the U.S. since who knows when. For some of us were unaware that there were culture wars being fought here until these leaders complained about that Supreme Court decision.

What was being fought for in the Culture Wars here was the place of supremacy in the culture to have the greatest influence over society. And many of these conservative Christian leaders have described the Church's current plight as hanging on by a thread. Why? Because many of these leaders seem to believe that either the Church has a place of supremacy over society, or the Church's very existence in being threatened by secularists and progressives.

Thus when Donald Trump came, these religiously conservative Christians saw their champion and defender. And because he was their champion and defender, they saw no contradiction between his tough talk and intolerance of others with what is taught in the Christian faith. They see him as defending the Church's existence because he has caused them to believe, whether it is true or not, that he will restore their place of supremacy over culture and society and thus will save the Church from being destroyed.

And so though the Church's support for tyrants in Syria and Egypt is wrong but understandable, the Church's support for the authoritarian leadership of Donald Trump is even more problematic. Why? It is because he is not defending the Church from being violently destroyed and eliminated here, it is because he and the Church are making a deal for the Church to eventually garner the power it once had here in America. Such a deal is contradicted by what is taught in the New Testament.

Unfortunately, in seeking to regain its place of supremacy over American society, the Church has forgotten its past sins when it reigned over society. And by doing so, it has forgotten much of what the New Testament tells us about how to treat others. And forgetting that is the true threat to the Church's existence.

The Post Culture Wars, Conservative Christians' Search For Somthing To Hold On To.

For those who have paid attention, it seems that the Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision has become the Battle of Appomattox for religiously conservative Christians in culture wars they should have never fought. Since then, many of us Christians have been trying to figure out how to fit into the new culture while remaining faithful.

Before the culture wars, religiously conservative Christianity had a dominant place in culture and society by determining many of its values--especially its sexual morals. Yes, society might not have been blatantly sexually free back then, but then again, neither were many minorities. So what we had was not just a conservative Christian culture, we had a racially based conservative Christianity dominate the scene.

But something not so funny for many of us happened on the way to the year 2016. It was the '60s. And in the '60s, we had a spurt of real Democracy. Now such doesn't always bring about the best of decisions, but it does disperse power and involve more people in society and even politics. And part of what the people wanted was more sexual freedom. And considering how those from the LGBT community had been more than just marginalized for centuries in the Europeran version of America, there was a sowing of the seeds for their deliverance from abuse and mistreatment. A partial taste of that deliverance was found in the Obergefell decision, though some other battles must still be fought. For in the majority of American states, a person can be legally harassed and even dismissed from their job due to their sexual orientation. But at least the conservative Christian domination over our culture and society has been broken and this has caused a variety of reactions from conservative Christian leaders. 

One reaction is called the Benedict Option. This is where Christians practice a partial withdraw from society so that they regroup their forces and live lives not corrupted by society's new status quo. Some NeoCalvinists see the battle for culture as not being over. They believe that the ability to communicate the Gospel depends on some degree of Christian control over society's values and morals.

In addition to the above 2 reactions comes a reaction by Russell Moore (click here for a bio) who is an important person in the Southern Baptist Convention. In the article being reviewed here (click here for the article), Moore sees the separation between culture and society from religiously conservative Christianity as being good for Christianity in two ways: it will purify the Church in terms of eliminating nominal members, it will help real conservative Christians find clarity in life and in their sharing in society of  God's Word. Moore acknowledges that this separation between culture and conservative Christianity being counted as a good thing for conservative Christianity as being counterintuitive. But he makes a very valid point in saying that where Christianity was used to 'assimilate people into American values and fight Communism,' real Christianity was lost; it becomes theological liberalism. This is a point he borrows from J. Gresham Machen and it is the most valid point made in the article.

But there is a problem here. The problem is that no governmental system, economic system, or society can sustain itself regardless of the civic moral standards and ethics the people adopt. So while Moore goes on to say how Christians should be more empowered now to interact with cultures and our political world, it is a limited empowerment in that he means it to further the Church. Not that furthering the Church is bad, its the self-imposed limitation that is harmful. For religiously conservative Christians, like myself, have had a difficult time in working and playing well with others when it comes to developing a self-sustaining civic morality and set of ethics with others. The aftermath of the Obergefell v. Hodeges decision showed that domination eventually incurs a debt to society that religiously conservative Christians are unwilling and  unable to pay. For that debt legitimately marginalizes our place in society. However, neither attempts to restore our dominance nor some way of running home with our toys and games because we didn't win is a recipe for hurting our witness to the Gospel.

Though he doesn't say this, what Moore is advocating is a cessation of hostilities on the culture wars front--something with which I fully agree. But what he leaves unexplained is how we should coexist with those who are different.  Again, a certain need for religiously conservative Christians to contribute to a basic, sustainable civic morality and ethics is being bypassed or at least saved for the contents of another article.

What is needed is for us religiously conservative Christians to work with, rather than lord over, others in society in creating this workable civic morality and ethics. This does not mean that Christians must compromise what is taught in the Scriptures in order to contribute. What it does mean is we must learn how to work with those who hold to different values, as well as what values can we reasonably expect nonChristians in society to adhere to, while protecting the equality of other members of society. To be able to contribute to society in this way will open up many doors to sharing the Gospel with others.

ONIM For May 11, 2015

Christian News

• Jeb Bush Praises 'Daring, Untamed' Christian Faith, Defends Religious Freedom -- Christian Today (UK)
• Religious Freedom In China: 'Alarming Increase In Systematic, Ongoing Abuses' -- Christian Today (UK)
• Rick Warren: Government And Church Must Work Together On Foreign Aid -- Christian Today (UK)
• If You See Something, Say Something -- Christianity Today
• Angola Crackdown On Apocalyptic Christians Turns Deadly -- Christianity Today
• The Attempt To Sell Hispanic Evangelicals On Israel -- Christianity Today
• Christians Who Have Avoided The Culture Wars May No Longer Have A Choice -- The Christian Post
• Ben Carson Says God Helped Him Ace College Chemistry Exam By Giving Answers In Dream -- The Christian Post
• Christian Mother Meriam Ibrihim Reveals She Was Heavily Pressured To Deny Christ For Three Days Straight In Prison, But Refused Each Time -- The Christian Post
• Everything Must Change: On Baltimore, Drones, And Resurrection -- Sojourners
• The American War On Christianity -- Huffington Post
• Mike Huckabee: "We're Moving Rapidly Toward The Criminalization Of Christianity" -- Huffington Post
• Student: Professor Gave Me Zeros For Refusing To Condemn Christianity -- Fox News

World News

• Israel Did 'Massive And Unusual Harm' To Civilians In Gaza War, Report Says -- Newsweek
• Israeli Soldiers Reveal They Were Ordered To Shoot To Kill In Gaza--Even If The Targets May Have Been Civilian -- The Independent
• This Day In History: Four Students Killed at Kent State -- History.com
• 14 Things You Should Know About Bernie Sanders -- Newsweek
• Fracking Chemicals Detected In Pennsylvania Drinking Water -- New York Times
• Corporate Media Blacks Out Coverage Of Bill To Overturn Corporate Personhood -- Wall Street On Parade
• US Senate Approves Bill Protecting Israeli Settlements -- Middle East Monitor
• Islamic State Claims Responsibility For Texas Cartoon Attack -- Yahoo News
• Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee Announces White House Bid -- Yahoo News
• California Farmers Are Watering Their Crops With Oil Wastewater, And No One Knows What's In It -- Think Progress
• The Problem With Bernie Sanders -- ZNet
• Drought Kills 12 Million Trees In California's National Forests -- LA Times
• The Edward Snowden Interview The U.S. Media Didn't Want You To Watch -- Truthdig
• GOP Prosecutor Defends Scott Walker Criminal Probe -- Truthout
• "Kill Anything": Israeli Soldiers Say Gaza Atrocities Came From Orders For Indiscriminate Fire -- Democracy Now
• Jails Are A Cash Cow For The Rich -- Truthout
• N.S.A. Collection Of Bulk Call Data Is Ruled Illegal -- New York Times
• Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders: Sheepdogging For Hillary And The Democrats In 2016 -- Black Agenda Report
• Help The Tsleil-Waututh Nation Stop Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain Pipeline -- Sum Of Us
• Kinder Morgan Gas Leak Tops 250,000 Gallons -- Statesboroherald.com
• 80 Percent Of U.S. Adults Face Near Poverty, Unemployment, Survey Finds -- CBS News
• With Support From Liberals, Tories Pass Controversial Bill C-51 -- Macleans
• That's What You Get For Filming The Police -- Truthout
• Supreme Court Allows State To Replace Bedouin Village With Jewish One -- Haaretz
• US Is World Leader In Child Poverty -- Raw Story
• Army Struggles To Cope With Rampant Fraud In The Military -- Mint Press News
• Is The News Behaving More Like Advertising -- Columbia Journalism Review
• Baltimore Probe Into Black Man's Death Fails To Support Charges -- Reuters
• Video Shows White Officer Kicking Black Man In Face -- Yahoo
• U.S. To Launch Federal Probe Into Baltimore Police Practices -- Reuters
• Texas Approves Textbooks With Moses As Honorary Founding Father -- Alternet
• Meet Jeb Bush's New Foreign Policy Advisor: His Brother -- MSNBC
• The Trans-Pacific Partnership Suggests Obama Has No Sense Of Irony -- The Guardian
• Israeli Soldier: We Bombed Civilian Targets In Gaza For Entertainment -- Middle East Monitor
• 2 Slain Police Officers Mourned In Mississippi Town -- Yahoo News
• Why Should Atheists Have To Show Respect For Religion -- Raw Story
• Suppressing Science For Monsanto? Groups Demand Investigation Of USDA -- Mint Press News
• The Real Reason America Dropped The Atomic Bomb -- Collective Evolution
• Clarence Thomas Argues States Can Establish Official Religion -- Progressive Secular Humanist

Pick(s) Of The Litter

• NYPD Officer Remembered For 'Selflessness And Courage' -- CNN
• Countries Around The World Are Revoking Freedom Of Assembly -- Aljazeera
• The Chickens Come Home To Roost In Baltimore -- ZCommentaries
• Science At MIT: From The Cold War To Climate Change -- ZVideos
• Meet The Families Affected By Police Violence Who Are Organizing To Stop The Killing -- Waging NonViolence
• Gloucester Police Chief Leonard Campanello: Addicts Who Surrender Drugs And Ask For Help Won't Be Charged, They'll Be Helped -- Mass Live
• John Cleese Explains The U.K. Elections -- Bloomberg Politics
• Black Faces In High Places Haven't Helped Average Black People -- ZNet
• Private Prisons Suing States For Millions If They Don't Stay Full -- Rollingout

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For May 6, 2015

May 1

To Gavin Ortlund and his blogpost on when a leader falls. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.

Perhaps leaders letting us down is a reminder of how their pedestals should never be higher than a step or two.

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To Joe Carter and his blogpost on how same-sex marriage threatens Christian Schools. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.

There is a broader problem here. The Conservative Christian reaction against same-sex marriage has, for the most part, revolved around how its legalization will affect Conservative Christians. Very little attention is paid to issues of equality and how same-sex marriage has the potential of reducing promiscuity in the LGBT community which, in turn, could reduce the transmissions of STDs. Nor is there any discussion about the religious rights of those in the LGBT community who are not atheists and who believe that God blesses same-sex marriage.

This primary concern for how same-sex marriage affects us does not lead outsiders to want to hear the Gospel more objectively. The stance of many fellow Christians of associating calling homosexuality sin with marginalizing those in the LGBT community in society by not recognizing their equality is what will cause problems for Christians if same-sex marriage deemed constitutional. That is because this marginalization was a push on the pendulum and now the pendulum is returning to swing the other way.

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May 4

To Daniel Darling and his blogpost claiming that we cannot escape from the culture war. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.

Though I wouldn't classify poverty, racial injustice, and the need for prison reform as part of a culture war, at least these issues are being addressed along with same-sex marriage.

A culture war exists when one group's dominance is challenged. Usually, the challenger wants more than just deliverance from oppression, it wants to reverse the direction of the pendulum. And thus, instead of referring to culture war, we might want to itemize the wars around the issues they address and thus call them culture wars. And with some of those wars, we might want to consider engaging in a peaceful coexistence than a war. That, IMO, should be the case with the conflict over same-sex marriage.

But other things can't be tolerated such as racial injustice, prison conditions and incarceration rates, and poverty. And behind those issues are the bigger issues of economic exploitation, destruction of the environment, and war and militarism. On a personal level, it was Martin Luther King Jr who identified a thing oriented society as being behind much of the evil he opposed including racism. And he defined a thing-oriented society as being one where gadgets, profits, and property rights were more important than people. And thus, any culture war has to challenge the dominance of treating things as being more important than people.

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May 5

To Joe Carter and his blogpost about foster care rules restricting the religious freedom of foster parents to discuss the sexual orientation of their foster kids. This appeared in the Acton blog.

There are a number of sides to this issue. One is that the religious views of more than one group should be protected by the state. And the religious views of some people allow for, if they do not embrace, the sexual orientations of those in the LGBT community. And since foster parents have a position of power over foster children, a necessary line must be drawn to prevent the abuse of that power. We could  debate where that line should be drawn, but line's existence is necessary. 

In addition, what we in the religiously Conservative Christian Church need to wake up to is that we have, and continue to do so, relied on marginalization and shame to inhibit people from acting on their own sexual orientations. We have wanted people who have different sexual orientations than ours to not just feel estranged in the Church, we wanted them to be marginalized in society too. And perhaps, that is a reason for why the above mentioned line is drawn where it is. In any case, we can't wash our hands from the current situation because our past actions have helped to create it. 

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To Elise Hilton and her blogpost parsing free trade. This appeared in the Acton blog.

We should note that our choice is not between free trade and no trade. And we should note that free here means that the voices and concerns of the communities involved in the trading have been silenced for the sake of those profiting from free trade. This trade is called "free" because the restrictions that might come about from the hearing of these voices are never considered. We should also note that free trade isn't always free trade. Many times, "free trade" agreements have pitted subsidized goods, such as our agribusiness products, against locally made goods and have thus benefited imports over a region's or nation's ability to provide for themselves.

But what most advocates of free trade fail to acknowledge is that the globalized labor market that comes from free trade has, by increasing supply, held stagnate or lowered wages of many working people. In addition, this expanded global labor market has caused many to lose their jobs and communities to lose their economic base. In the meantime, those controlling the terms of free trade prosper.

Examining the tradeoffs involved in free trade must be able to look out to horizon and see how all of the stakeholders of free trade are affect rather than just ask the political question: What is in it for me?


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To Michael Severance and his blogpost comparing May Day and the feast of St. Joseph the worker. This appeared on the Acton Blog.

Here the question becomes this: If St. Joseph was being exploited for his work, separated from his family because of the need to travel to work, and was being abused by the police, how would he be celebrating May Day/ And why is it that, on this blog, the economic exploitation of both workers and the environment and the abuse of power never comes into consideration?

It seems to me that if one wants to honor Labor Day, one would insist that laborers be treated justly, that immigrants would be welcomed especially when they come here to escape violence and/or deprivation, and that abuse of police power would be challenged.

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To Elise Hilton and her blogpost about how raising the minimum wage will cause unemployment. This appeared on the Acton blog.

What is also priceless is the system that gives you a choice between being paid wages that require you to get gov't assistance and losing your job. Why is it that minimum wage is being challenged rather than the system?