What Kind Of Wall Should Separate Church And State?

In examining the role of religion in politics, we need to acknowledge not just the Establishment Clause of the 1st Amendment, we should also look at conversation between the Danbury Church and Thomas Jefferson, The Constitution, and a line from Jefferson's 1801 inaugural speech. We will look at the conversation first. In 2nd paragraph of its letter to Thomas Jefferson after he became President, the letter from the Danbury Church said the following (click here for the source):

'Our sentiments are uniformly on the side of religious liberty: that Religion is at all times and places a matter between God and individuals, that no man ought to suffer in name, person, or effects on account of his religious opinions, [and] that the legitimate power of civil government extends no further than to punish the man who works ill to his neighbor. But sir, our constitution of government is not specific. Our ancient charter, together with the laws made coincident therewith, were adapted as the basis of our government at the time of our revolution. And such has been our laws and usages, and such still are, [so] that Religion is considered as the first object of Legislation, and therefore what religious privileges we enjoy (as a minor part of the State) we enjoy as favors granted, and not as inalienable rights. And these favors we receive at the expense of such degrading acknowledgments, as are inconsistent with the rights of freemen. It is not to be wondered at therefore, if those who seek after power and gain, under the pretense of government and Religion, should reproach their fellow men, [or] should reproach their Chief Magistrate, as an enemy of religion, law, and good order, because he will not, dares not, assume the prerogative of Jehovah and make laws to govern the Kingdom of Christ.'

The 2nd paragraph of Jefferson's response is most pertinent here (the link to the this source is the same as the above link):

'Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature would “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church and State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.'

The Establishment clause from the 1st Amendment is displayed below (click here to see the source)

'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof'

Before discussing the issue, we should note that the very end of the Danbury letter seems to be at least a little prophetic to what has been happening in America today. 

We should note that the Danbury letter expressed a concern that the  then current legislation seemed, to them, that one's ability to practice a  religion was relegated to be a 'favor' rather than an 'inalienable right.' This provides the context for Jefferson's response. 

Similar to what was expressed in the letter,  Jefferson acknowledged that the government can only target 'actions' and not 'opinions.' So we see that with both the Danbury letter and Jefferson's response government could address actions. But the question becomes what, or perhaps whose, criteria is the government using to determine when to intervene in human affairs. That is the question on which our government's past response to slavery and Jim Crow laws and practices was responding to. It is also the question on which government's duty to respond to abortion revolves around. And what or whose criteria is the question that the debate over Christian Nationalism is concerned with. 

At this point, enter the work of Martin Luther King Jr. and his SCLC. in the 1950s and 1960s. They spoke of and worked for equality for all people. And they did so from their religious beliefs. But it wasn't just political equality that they promoted; it was an equality in outcomes. That latter point was made by King in his 1967 interview with Xander Vanocur (click here to see that interview).

Now when we look back at those days, how many people complained about the Church influencing the government? The answer to that question is complicated because the American Church has always been divided about racial equality and was on both sides of the racial divide. But we should note that because King and the SCLC spoke and worked for equality rather than a privileged place for themselves and their religion, their work was not seen as a violation of the separation between Chuch and State

We should note that the mission of King and the SCLC is supported by Section 1 of the 14th Amendment. Thus, equality, that is 'equal protection of the laws,' became the measuring stick that the government could use to intervene or be prevented from acting was equality. So we should not just note, but emphasize too, that King and the SCLC were working for the welfare themselves and some other marginalized groups.

That brings us to today and the desire of many of my fellow religiously conservative Christians to be the sole provider of rules that determine when the government can either intervene or be prevented from doing so. Many of those Christians are called Christian Nationalists. But there are also some Christians who are not Christian Nationalists who, to a lesser degree, want to provide rules to determine government intervention.

Christian Nationalists tend to argue that because they hold to the same faith that many of the founders had of America, they deserve a greater voice in determining what laws the government should pass. They also say that America was founded to be a Christian nation.  And so, again, they should have a greater, or perhaps the only, voice in determining the laws of the nation. And that brings up the question of whom the government should be representing. Should the government represent only Christians or Christians more than unbelievers or should the government represent all of its citizens?

The problem with the Christian Nationalist views is that citizenship in America is not defined by one's beliefs but by federal laws and The Constitution. Citizenship is determined by the location of one's birth, the citizenship of one's parents, or meeting requirements for becoming citizens. The Constitution gives no leeway for ranking American citizens except that only those born in the U.S. can become President.

Yes, Christians influenced the culture of America greatly during its early days. And many states, as stipulated in their state constitutions, favored Christian leadership over their states. But The Constitution did not do so. In fact, as can be ascertained from the Constitutional debates, religion played little to no role in the Constitutional definition of America. In fact, a deliberate distancing of the Federal government from religion was a feature both in The Constitution and in the debates that helped determine its contents.

But something else should be noted about America's early days that was heavily influenced by Christianity. That influence was determined by demographics. Because Christendom existed throughout America's early until around half of the 20th century, many people who saw themselves as being Christians though lifestyles or beliefs may not have confirmed that conviction. And so the biggest factor that determined America's past direction was demographics. Thus we have to ask why should Christians have the dominant voice over our government today when the demographics have changed. Should past demographics mean that those who  meet the legal definition of citizenship are not real citizens because they hold to different values and beliefs than our founders had?

Those who hold to Christian Nationalism would answer that last question with a firm 'yes.' And that is because, with their definition of what it means to be an American, the definition of America is fixed throughout time regardless of any changes in the values and beliefs of the people. And so those who do not hold to what Americans from the past hold to are not American enough to matter in terms of influencing the government.

What we have with the Christian Nationalist viewpoint is the tyranny of past demographics. According to them, it isn't what our founding documents said that defines us and determines our path, it is compliance with dominant religious views from the past.

We also need to pay attention to those non Christian Nationalists who use terms like 'moral law' or 'natural law' to obligate those in government to pass laws that are based on a unique Christian view. In particular, laws that would marginalize those from the LGBT community should be  based on the moral and natural laws. We should note here is that there are multiple versions of natural law. And so, to a lesser degree, we see the Church having undue influence on government's making of laws. And their justification for pursuing this undue influence is the view of the role of government officials that was held to in the past during Christendom.

And so we've seen two kinds of Christian influences on our government. One kind saw a Christian influence that advocated for the marginalized, others, as well as themselves. It attempted to lift up themselves and others to an equal place in society. The other kind of sees a Christian influence that is self-promoting while arguing for hierarchy. They want to lift themselves up above all others in society. And that brings us to our final quote. In his 1801 Inaugural Address, Thomas Jefferson said the following (click here for the source):

'All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression'

And so the one kind of Christian influence, which consists of Martin Luther King Jr. and the SCLC, was working for justice and the other kind while the current kind, of Christian influence, which consists of Christian Nationalists and some other authoritarian Christisns, is working for Jefferson's view of oppression. This latter influence is telling us that the State cannot properly function unless it is in control. Is it any wonder then that, today, many are arguing for a separation of Church and State in response to the latter kind's influence?

On Soros's Payroll?

I spend a lot of time participating on Christian blogs. All of those blogs are religiously conservative Christian blogs and all but one of them are politically conservative blogs too. 

I participated on those blogs despite my now past health problems because it is less taxing to respond to an article than it is to write one from scratch.

One of the best religiously conservative blogs I've seen is Roger Olson's My Evangelical Arminian Theological Musings (click here for the blog). Though we do have some differences of opinion on a couple of important topics, such as I'm a Calvinist and he isn't, his articles are well thought out and I have learned much from them and appreciate how he manages his blog. In addition, Olson is very much an independent thinker both theologically and politically.  Olson's blog is a safe blog to comment on because it is tightly moderated. He does not allow personal attacks to appear in the comments. If only all religiously conservative Christian blogs would follow that example.

On one of the politically conservative blogs on which I comment on, I have received a few comments FALSELY claiming that I am being paid by George Soros. Those comments are derisive and so I am not sure how literal they are being in their accusations. But such comments are directed at me because I have expressed many political views that are not conservative on that blog. I have found that to share non-conservative political views on most religiously conservative Christian blogs invites personal attacks and accusations. Some of the attacks can be described in no other way than abusive. 

Soros seems to be a favorite whipping boy and scapegoat for most of my politically conservative Christian friends. A lot of that is due to Soros's political leanings and philanthropic efforts. Soros believes in democracy with an open society while almost all of my religiously conservative Christian friends are politically conservative. And we should stop here and note the contrast: democracy with an open society vs political conservatism. Btw, his pairing of democracy with an open society is similar to my pairing of democracy with equality except that my pairing sees equality as being inextricably linked to democracy. That is you can't have democracy without equality.

I found that many of the claims about Soros made by my fellow religiously conservative Christian friends are nothing more than false accusations that often stem from conspiracy theories. And so when I saw the documentary Soros on the list of Tube movies, I decided to watch it (click here to see the movie).

The way that Soros has made his fortune did not impress me. Why? It is because he made his fortune as a hedge fund manager. Such an occupation and the values that come with it often, if not always, practice and promote what Martin Luther King Jr. associated with a choosing a thing-oriented society rather than a person-oriented society. A thing-oriented society is where the people value gadgets, profit motives and property rights more than they value people.

However, the combination of Soros's life growing up in Hungary, which included the time of Nazi occupation, and his current approach to philanthropy has given me a great respect for the man. So that the next time I am accused of being on Soros's payroll, I'll take it as a very high compliment, but one that I don't deserve. For his philanthropy consists of more than just charity to relieve an immediate survival needs, it also includes projects that promote education and democracy with an open society. And those projects are designed to produce lasting results.

But here, we need to return to King's statement that was quoted in my last post. In his speech against the Vietnam War, along with his 1967 interview with Xander Vanocur, King said that we need to change from being a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society so that people are more important than our gadgets, profit motives, and property rights. For, according to King, it is only then that we can eliminate racism, economic exploitation, and militarism (click here and proceed to around the 21:17 point in that interview). And though Soros has so generously donated money to financially help groups and communities out of poverty and to promote an open society, we need to change from being a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society for Soros's donations to have lasting effects. 

Though Soros's donations has done much to restore freedom and equality to parts of the world that had been oppressed with tyranny, and though His donations have also helped to improve those nations that claim to lean toward democracy with equality, there is a new threat to Soros's projects, among other things, that has emerged in Europe and the U.S. For just as Putin has undone almost all of Gorbachev's work to establish openness in Russia, so today's Nationalist movements in Europe and America are threatening not just to undo much of what Soros's donations have helped to enable, they are threatening to reverse any nation's leaning toward building a democracy with equality.

Here we should note that those nationalist movements are nothing more than authoritarian ethnocratic movements. Here we should note that the term 'authoritarian ethnocratic' is repetitive. That is because all ethnocracies are authoritarian to varying degrees. For with an ethnocracy, a particular ethnic group, whether the ethnicity of that group is based on race, national origin or language, descent, or religion, has a greater claim to and control over the nation and its society of a multiethnic nation than the people from the other ethnic groups--btw, the list of the ethnic categories comes from from Jeff Halper's book, An Israeli In Palestine: Resisting Dispossession, Redeeming Israel. And that greater claim to and level of control over a multiethnic nation denies, to varying degrees, the equal rights and status of people from the other ethnic groups.

And so it should come as no surprise that authoritarianism in the guise of ethnocratic conservative movements in Europe and here in the U.S. are threatening to undo whatever portion of openness we have as well. That a significant contributing factor to those movements has to do with the distribution of wealth especially in the face of growing refugee problems. 

But those authoritarian ethnocratic movements have cultural concerns to when it comes to refugees. People in those movements are scared that the culture of their society will change with an influx of foreign refugees. Here we should note that there is only one way for a nation to protect its culture from changing: DON'T HAVE CHILDREN. Maybe it is because I am a child of the 1960s when the young people radically changed the culture, but it seems that each new generation here in America has made significant changes to our own culture. And regarding accepting immigrants who are refugees trying to escape poverty and violence, we must ask ourselves if we care more about whatever comfort we have with our culture than we care about human life?

In addition, we Westerners need to admit that much, if not most, of our refugee immigrants problems are due to Western economic and/or militaristic foreign policies. Those authoritarian ethnocratic movements either support or do not oppose those policies that made messes in other parts of the world. They only care about not having to deal with the aftermath of those messes when that aftermath emigrates to where those movements live. And there is often racism in the refusal to deal with those messes. Here note the different response that Ukrainian refugees receive from their European neighbors in contrast to how Middle East refugees are received in Europe and how refugees from south of the border are received here in America.

Soros is understandably troubled and concerned over the rise of these authoritarian ethonocratic movements for at least a couple of reasons. First, he escaped the clutches of such a movement in Hungary during WW II because of his father's daring and wisdom. But he still saw its horrific effects on friends, family, and others. Also, as mentioned before, those authoritarian ethnocratic movements are threatening to undo some of the projects that promote domocracy with open societies which he started and so heavily invested in. 

It is so deeply tragic to acknowledge that most of those in America's religiously conservative Christian community embrace authoritarian ethnocratic movements. Their embracement of those movements  promote varying levels of authoritarianism. And the lower the degree of authoritarianism promoted by a given movement, the more that ethnocratic movement can disguise its character and goals in plain site.

For those of us who want Soros's projects to experience more and  lasting success, we must look to change society. As King said, we need to change from being a thing-oriented society to being a person-oriented society. To do that we must learn to value people over our gadgets and machines, our profit motives, and our proper rights. That does not mean that we can't appreciate our gadgets and machines or that we believe that profit motives and property rights are not important. It means that we must continue to learn to value people, especially those who are vulnerable, more than we value those things. 

Even though America is leaning a little more toward democracy with equality thanks to a not infallible wokeism, there is still more work to be done. There is still a revolution in values that our nation needs to undergo and our structures still need changing. And that revolution and needed change will not occur without everyone's participation.

A Partial Return Of The Blog

I had to shutdown the blog for health concerns. I spent part of that time trying to get in the best shape for surgery, and now I am spending time recovering from surgery with which there were complications.

Last year, I spent quite a bit of time talking about the threat of the other pandemic: authoritarianism. That time was spent on this blog as well as in my comments on other blogs. The threat of authoritarianism around the world is real and growing. In the U.S., it is politically most pronounced in today's Republican Party, especially in its leaders like Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis. It is also exhibited in groups like Moms For Liberty and results in many of the state laws passed regarding voting and gender transitioning. Religiously, it is most pronounced in those fellow religiously conservative Christians who are Christian Nationalists. Those working for such a nation are being driven by authoritarian sentiments more than by biblical concerns as seen in the sources they use to prove their claims.

In discussing authoritarianism, we can further define it by its alternative: democracy. For with authoritarianism comes hierarchy while with democracy comes equality. The hierarchy that comes with authoritarianism can manifest itself in terms of the power of a single leader, the power of a small group of elites, or the power of an ethnicity and/or an economic class. With the last classification comes the notion of a shadow nation. A shadow nation is where a given nation is seen as belonging more to one ethnicity and/or economic class than it belongs to the rest of its citizens. Evidence of a shadow nation can be seen in the laws passed by a nation's government. Do they favor a specific economic class more than the other economic classes? If so, and they do so here in America (click here and there), then we could classify a nation as a classocracy. If the laws passed by a nation give a privileged position to a given ethnicity in a multi-ethnic nation so that there is a diminishing of the equal rights of other ethnic groups, there is an ethnocracy. Totalitarian regimes can also be ethnocracies and/or classocracies. There are at least two ethnic groups vying to establish an ethnocracy in America or parts of it: whites and every form of Christian Nationalism. And what makes every form of Christian Nationalism a Biblical problem is that it puts all of us Christians in the inevitable position of 'lording it over others.' And it puts all of us Christians in the inevitable position having privilege and supremacy over the group to which we are to preach the Gospel. Is it unreasonable to suppose that many to whom we preach the Gospel will have already stopped listening because they first noticed the inferior position in society they have to us?

Starting this year, I will try to focus on the Martin Luther King Jr. quote below even with a partial return of the blog. It is partial because I will be posting at the most one article per week except for the first week. On the first week I will also post one article showing comments that were blocked on conservative blogs that same week. I will provide other posts like the one on blocked comments on a regular basis when I am able to.The King quote is below (click here for the source):

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. 

If we were to apply King's statement, we find that it speaks to us as individuals, to our institutions, to our businesses, financial institutions, and corporations, and to the nation as a whole. As consumers, we are so easily sold on the latest technological gadgets. We are also hyper aware of what our expenses, including taxes, are compared to our income. We are even more conscious of what others get, especially from the government, in comparison to what we receive. But we are not a monolith.

Some know all of the above from the perspective of deprivation. Others know it from a treading water status. While others know all of the above as the results of having done well  and some of them have succeeded by exploiting others. It is natural and right for those from the first two categories to speak out because they are doing so for survival. 

But what about those who done well? What about those including both individuals and businesses of all kinds who are wealthy? Do they have the right to complain when their taxes pay to assist those who are from the first two categories? Do they have the right to complain about paying taxes that would benefit the education of the children whose parents are from those first two categories? Do they have a right to complain when some fellow citizens work to change our economic structure so that there are fewer people who are either living in deprivation or are just treading water?

And for those who have done well, do they really think that their own charitable giving is enough? If they do, then they should read the next two quotes.

The first quote is from King. It is a continuation of the quote given above. King said (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. n the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life's roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say: "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

Now below is a quote from Vlad Lenin. Generally, I don't like Lenin. He acted as a prototype to Stalin and the structure of his government, as Rosa Luxemburg noted, was based on a bourgeoisie dictatorship model rather than a socialist one. But the following quote from Lenin coincides significantly with was just quoted from King (click here for the quote):

Religion is one of the forms of spiritual oppression which everywhere weighs down heavily upon the masses of the people, over burdened by their perpetual work for others, by want and isolation...But those who live by the labour of others are taught by religion to practise charity while on earth, thus offering them a very cheap way of justifying their entire existence as exploiters and selling them at a moderate price tickets to well-being in heaven. Religion is opium for the people. Religion is a sort of spiritual booze,   in which the slaves of capital drown their human image, their demand for a life more or less worthy of man.

Another way of saying what Lenin said is that, for many of the wealthy, charity can become an indulgence that removes the guilt that comes from either directly exploiting others or a system in which people are economically exploited. Again, charity is a bandaid used to cover the wounds of a the disease of economic exploitation. And so for the wealthy who would believe that giving charity is all that is morally required, they must realize that they need to go farther. They need to remove the structures and policies by which their abundance of wealth is due to taking advantage of others. 

And isn't that what King is saying too? It isn't enough to give charity and to help individuals or even groups. We need to change the structure of our economy so that there are fewer and fewer victims and beggars on the road on which we all travel in life. 

We should note that our current form of Capitalism, is not the form of Capitalism that was employed in America and around the world after WW II. That form was called the Bretton-Woods System. The Bretton-Woods System was a form of economics that, while employing a significant measure of Capitalism, gave national governments more control over their economies. And in a democracy, that translates giving the people, who elected those leaders, more control of their own economy.

Our current form of Capitalism, which was introduced to some nations through manufactured crises, is called Neoliberalism. Neoliberalism eliminated many of the powers that were reserved for the government. As a result, private investors, sometimes even those who are from other nations, gained more power in determining a given nation's economy. And many of those private investors religiously followed the maximize profit ethic, which is a cannibalizing ethic that devours all of its peers. And as a result, disparities in wealth and income, both between the economic classes and the races, have continued to increase for the past few decades. Can we now see how the economic road on which we all travel needs to be changed so that there are fewer people in need? 

BTW, we also need to see that Neoliberalism has both a domestic side and a foreign side. That distinction was made in the 2016 election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. While Clinton favored trade agreements that would give more control of our economy to foreign investors, Trump favored tax and regulation cuts that gave American corporations and financial institutions more control over our economy. Only Trump successfully obscured the fact that he was still promoting a Neoliberal capitalism.

Not all in our society have preferred to be part of a thing-oriented society rather than a person-oriented society. And not all who have preferred to be part of a thing-oriented society do so to the same degree.  Certainly the Democratic Party is a mixed bag in terms of caring more about people than it does about profits and property rights. Some third parties and individuals try to promote a person-oriented society to varying degrees.

In contrast to those who are working to advance a person-oriented society, there is Wall Street. Clearly, Wall Street favors profit motives and property rights over people as do many from corporate America. And here we should note that the "wokism" promoted by many in corporate America does not imply that a corporation is promoting a person-oriented society over a thing-oriented society. That is because many in corporate America can favor certain woke causes that do not interfere with the economic policies they lobby for that make profits and property rights more important than people's need to be able to earn livable wages, the needs that people have for government assistance, and/or regulations that protect people and the need to protect the environment.

The Republican Party under Trump has cared and continues to care much more about profits and property rights than it does about people. That was shown by the policies of Trump that decreased the financial and social responsibilities of corporations and financial institutions in order to increase their immediate profits. And their increase in profits also contributed to a spike in the deficit.

Today's Republican Party under Trump has become the political home for Cain when he rhetorically asked God, 'am I my brother's keeper'?Of course, one could retort that at least that such a question is Biblical, but it is Biblical in the same way of how Pharaoh treated the Hebrews who were being led by Moses. Despite that, today's Evangelical support for the Republican Party under Trump is continuing a conservative Church tradition over the past few centuries of siding with wealth and power. Such was done in France, Russia, and Spain before their respective revolutions. 

We should note that the Church paid dearly both during and after those revolutions. And the reputation of the Gospel has been harmed because of the oppression and abuses that were logical consequences of Christendom. Both Critical Theory and Post Modernism have accurately pointed out the failures that came with Christendom and other sources. That oppression from and brutal treatment by those who claim to have an exclusive knowledge of the truth is part of the history that Critical Theory and Post Modernism is directing our attention too. Sadly, neither Critical Theory nor Post Modernism have provided viable solutions to what Christendom wrought. And worse, those who want to bring back Christendom, with the promise that they can do domination right, are speaking louder and louder and are stirring up a growing audience because the Christians in that audience are in fear from anticipating the coming of a real persecution as secularism becomes more pervasive.

The New Testament tells us that 'the love of money is a root for all sorts of evil' (click I Timothy 6:10 for the source). That is true not just for the individual Christian, it is true for everyone. And it is true not just for individual people, it is true for businesses, corporations, financial institutions, society, and the nation. It's not that profits and property rights are not important, they are necessary for economic survival. It is that when gadgets, profit motives, and property rights are more important than people to our institutions, businesses, society, and nation, we are all forced to merge onto a highway leading to self-destruction.

At the same time, it is not enough to point out the failures of others. James 3 tells us that 'we all stumble in many ways.' Paul tells us in Romans 3:9 that both the person who denies the existence of God and the religious person are equal in sin and are thus in the same boat. And so to the best of our ability we need to point out those failures in the same way that we want others to point out our own failures. We need to point out those failures as fellow sinners. We need to point out those failures not as those who are morally superior to sinners or as a way of tearing others down, but as a way of offering an alternative way to live. We need to point out those failures not as authoritarians who are virtue-signaling by seeking to punish others. Instead, we need to point out those failures as peers in sin who want people to change for their own benefit so that they can be better than ourselves. I have not mastered that way of pointing out the faults of others. In fact I am still trying to begin to learn how to do that. At the same time, some things must be immediately pointed out.

So, hopefully, the importance of not just distinguishing a person-oriented society from a thing-oriented society will be the focus of this blog during this year, but the importance of promoting the former society over the latter one will also be emphasized.

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For October 12, 2022

 October 7

To Heidelblog and Mark David Hall for the portion of Hall's article that is quoted in a Heidelblog post. The blog title asks if Christian Nationalists are the same as Christians who invest in their country. The title of Hall's article asks if Christian Nationalism poses and existential threat to the nation. Hall's article is a review of a book by Paul D. Miller titled The Religion Of American Greatness.' Hall says that Miller fails to prove that Christian Nationalism poses an 'existential threat' to America. 

Mark David Hall's full article can be found at:

    https://lawliberty.org/book-review/christian-nationalism-an-existential-threat/

There are two problems with the religiously conservative Christian response to reports on Christian Nationalism. The first problem is that many religiously conservative Christians wish to minimize the existence of and threat posed by Christian Nationalism. They do that by denying  its existence, relativizing the efforts made by and goals held by Christian Nationalists, or equating Christian Nationalism with part of being Christian.

The second problem is that Christian Nationalism is merely one threat that many religiously conservative Christians pose to our nation and its democracy. That is because many, if not promoting Christian Nationalism, promote some level of a Christian Ethnocracy in America. The concept of Christian Ethnocracy is mentioned in the article cited though not by name. A religious ethnocracy is when, in a multi-religious society, one particular religion seizes a privileged place in government  where it has a significant degree of control over the government's making of laws and uses that control to secure its privileged place in society.

Regarding the first problem, Mark David Hall, the writer of the article quoted from above, tries to minimize the reports of Christian Nationalism by discrediting with a generalized accusation about motives of the sources that report on it. Never mind that many of those sources are Christian sources of which some are for Christian Nationalism and others are opposed. But with a wave of his hand, he simply tells us to pay no attention to the reporters of Christian Nationalism.

But Hall does not deny its existence. And so what he does with the rest of his article that reviews Miller's book is to minimize the influence that real Christian Nationalists have. But the problem here is that there is an increasing number of politicians who either identify themselves as Christian Nationalists or promote Christian Nationalists themes is a bit larger than Hall acknowledged. These politicians include Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Mary Miller, Kris Kobach, Ron DeSantis, and Doug Mastriano. Former Attorney General, William Barr, has been identified as a Christian Nationalist by some. Prominent theologian Albert Mohler has identified himself as a Christian Nationalist. If I read Franklin Graham correctly, we could classify him as a Christian Nationalists. And there are those who are following in the footsteps of  Rousas Rushdoony, such as Doug Wilson, who carry, in varying ways, the flag of Dominionism which promotes a kind of Christian Nationalism. There is David Barton and his organization, WallBuilders. And the above listing doesn't include past promoters of Christian Nationalism themes like D. James Kennedy, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, all of whom were mentioned in Hall's book. We should note that Liberty University and the ACLJ have survived their founders though we need to add that not every student attending Liberty University subscribes to the ideas promoted by Christian Nationalism.

But what has really sounded the alarm of Christian Nationalism's threat to America was January 6th. The significant presence of Christians with Christian symbols and their support for Donald Trump and Trump's political favoring of certain popular Evangelical people, popular in some Evangelical circles, provided additional evidence of the significance of the presence of Christian Nationalism. I would hasten to add here that Trump was not a supporter of Christian Nationalism as much as he was an exploiter of Christian Nationalists.

But even with the above list, there are many Christian Nationalists whom were not mentioned by either myself or Hall's article. But we should note that there is a battle in the Republican Party over whether that Party should should identify itself as a promoter of Christian Nationalism. And so do we need to urgently respond with drastic measures to mitigate the efforts of Christian Nationalists here? The answer is 'No.' But does Christian Nationalism pose significant presence in various sectors of our society? The answer has to be 'CERTAINLY.' That is despite the fact that Hall uses some issues promoted by Christian Nationalists to say that support for those issues does not imply that one is a Christian Nationalist. But implication is not the same as indication. Does support for those issues indicate that one could be a Christian Nationalist is a question not addressed by Hall.

Now outside of Christian Nationalism, which merges America's Identity with a Christian Identity and wants its government to pass laws that reflect that merging, there exists another Christian threat to our nation. That threat is posed by those who want America to become a Christian Ethnocracy. A religious ethnocracy is when, in a multireligous nation, one religion seizes a privileged place in government so that the laws reflect what values of that religious group as well as secure a privilege place in government for that religious group

Those favoring a religious ethnocracy would include all Christian Nationalists. But it would also include Christians who do not fit the definition of Christian Nationalists but want such a privileged position for Christianity in American government and society. An objection to that definition has been to say that don't all groups, including the Republicans and Democrats, want a privileged position that would allow them to determine the laws of our nation? The answer to that for Republicans and Democrats would be to say 'No.'

Here we should note that Republicans, with the exception of MAGA followers, and Democrats are not looking to legally establish a permanent privilege position. Rather, Republicans and Democrats rely on elections to establish their position and power in government. So that if either party has a dominant influence, that influence is subject to change at any election rather than be secured for a foreseeable future by laws.

Among those who are looking to establish a Christian Ethnocracy are those who want to base our laws on the Judeo-Christian Heritage. Others proponents of an American Christian Ethnocracy want to base our laws on  the 2nd Table of the Ten Commandments, which consists of Commandments from the Fifth Commandment to the Tenth Commandment according to how the Reformed Faith regards the Commandments.

Finally, to answer the  question posed by the title of this blogpost, the answer is 'No.' Why? Because Christians can be invested in America without the trappings of Christian Nationalism or other forms of Christian Ethnocracy. And what determines whether we Christians are invested in our nation without promoting any kind of Christian Ethnocracy includes supporting democracy including the egalitarianism that is so much a part of democracy. Martin Luther King Jr and the SCLC provide a wonderful example of how to use Christianity to promote equality rather than some religious privilege.

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Oct 11

To José Maria J. Yulo and his article that uses a book by Eva Brann about how the quest for equality has led to the committing of atrocities. The example of the uprising by the democrats in Corcyra was used as an example. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.

Some who comment on revolutions that are meant to be liberating sometimes attribute the abuses committed in that struggle on the quest for liberation. That was done with the French Revolution when the atrocities committed during that revolution were attributed to the quest for liberty, equality, and fraternity. 

It was done with the October 1917 Revolution in Russia. Those who opposed the socialism blamed the tyranny that followed on the quest for socialism. We should note that not even socialism was pursued after that revolution.

And so the same goes with the example cited from the book referred to. What is hardly ever considered in this matter are the effects that the previous oppression had on the the people rebelling.  There is no consideration of the possibility that the oppression by tyrants and the suffering of those who rebelled led to atrocities committed in the struggle for liberation.

On an individual basis, it is often acknowledged that abuse leads to abuse. That the abuse suffered by an individual, especially when they were young, contributed to  them abusing others. So why didn't the author of the book referred to consider that what led to the atrocities by the democrats of Corcyra against the cities oligarchs was in large part a response to the abuse that the oligarchs had been visiting on those democrats. In fact, not only was the abuse by the oligarchs not considered to be a reason for the atrocities committed by the democrats there, the old status quo is hardly ever considered to be unjust. The same goes for the conditions that preceded the French and Russian Revolutions. The conditions of the old status quos are normalized when they are not commented on and/or not considered to be a major factor in atrocities committed during rebellions. 

Such shows a bias in those reporting on those atrocities. 

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For December 15, 2021

 Dec 7

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost quotation of an article that celebrates the successful court challenge to the Biden Administration's vaccine mandates. This appears in the Heidelblog.

Clark needs to really vet his sources, or perhaps he has in a tragic way. The inflammatory reference, in the article he quotes from, to a 'federal mandate regime' is most unfortunate seeing that the mandates are based on the findings and advise of medical experts in the midst of a pandemic that has killed over 750k Americans  in less than 2 years

The celebration to the successful court challenges to mandates based on advice from medical experts shows how narrow the vision is becoming for more and more Christians. Thus, complaints about American society made by Christian scholars like Carl Trueman in his book about the modern self appear to involve more projection than analysis.

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Dec 11

To W. Robert Godfrey and his Church School lesson on the effects of the end of Christendom on history and the present. This appeared in the Abounding Grace Radio blog (see  https://agradio.org/ )

Godfrey presents a Christian-centric, not to be confused with a Christo-centric, view of the changing times. Consider some of what he said in this presentation:

Why are people angry? 

     It's because Christendom has ended.

    The Enlightenment's ideas of freedom and democracy were borrowed from the best of Christianity.

    The Enlightenment wanted to free people from superstitions and ignorance that was seen in Christianity. And those things existed because Christians are sinners.

    An Enlightenment complaint was that Christianity taught people to go along with suffering and oppression. And yet the best of Christianity has always worked for positive change.

The above statements put a real damper on how Christianity is suppose to own its mistakes and sins. Godfrey would have done better to say that there are two presentations  of Christianity: the Christianity of the Scriptures and the Christianity portrayed by Christians.

At the same time, while admitting that the Church sided with corruption and wealth, he only mentioned the Roman Church as doing so. During that same time period here in America, many Protestants believed in and promoted white supremacy as exhibited in the ethic cleansing of Native Americans from the land and embracing a race-based chattel slavery. I presumed he was including the 17th and 18th centuries here since he noted the failures of the Enlightenment demonstrated in the French Revolution and its Reign of Terror.

And what do we have today which relates to the Enlightenment according to Godfrey? We have Wokeness where either people are aware or not aware--that is comparable, according to Godfrey, to the Enlightenment where people were either enlightened or in the dark. And we should note that with battle over Wokeness, we are talking about how serious and pervasive are our past and current sins.

Yes, Godfrey does give some compliments to the Enlightenment. Godfrey also lays some criticism s at the feet of Christianity. But he does the latter in a guarded way so as to not to admit too much about our faults and sins while having reason to be proud because the best parts of the Enlightenment came from us and what our ancestors said and did.

Perhaps we Christians should note that people are angry, in part, because of the past existence of Christendom, not its end. We should note that we didn't supply the Enlightenment with its best parts. That there are times when what the best of Christians did in the past to implement positive change was insignificant because there were so few of those best Christians that they became outliers to their time and place.

To share the Gospel, we need to preach Christ and Him crucified rather than to argue over what blame and credit Christians deserve to receive for what they did in the past. Fortunately for all of us, our faith rests in Christ, not in each other.

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Dec 14

To Jerry Saylor and his article whose title protests against a totalitarian democracy but spends offers a more detailed critique against the "Heresy of Equality.' This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative Blog.

When one condemns anti-racists for being pro-equality, then we should see a flurry of red flags raising. The same when we see the condemnation of those protesting for full equality for the LGBT community. Who else doesn't deserve equality according to those who condemn?

Certainly equality trumps the intentions of those who participating in the writing of The Constitution. But if law is based on equality, then how can equality trump the rule of law? 

That the above article appeared on a religiously conservative website should surprise no one. Religious conservatives have a strong penchant for hierarchy in society and authoritarian rule. History demonstrates that. That is the case because there is a great deal of stress on authoirty figures and structures within most conservative religions. But here, it seems that we see an example of a conservative who wants the outside world to suffer from or enjoy, take your pick, what is experienced by those inside a conservative religion.

For all of Saylor's complaints, with some false accusations, what equality does is to trump tribalism with its moral relativity and its inherent group authoritarianism. And in doing so, promoting equality can provide a firm basis for  more just and fair laws. I don't know anyone who promotes equality who expects an egalitarian utopia. But we do expect improvement. And considering our nation's history, it is far better to work for improvement by correcting past and present mistakes and even atrocities than to be a right-wing dissident who promotes an old and very flawed former status quo. 

Patriotism Or Equality

In an article about former Steelers' great and veteran Rocky Bleier and his view of the National Anthem protests, Bleier states that the situation should have 'never gotten to this point' (click here for the article). The point that Bleier is lamenting over is that players are protesting during the playing of the National Anthem. In his opinion, this should not be the case because players do not have a free speech right to protest then because they are at work. And while Bleier also sees fault with the owners, I have to say that I agree with him but for different reasons.

The National Anthem protests should have never become such a big controversy. Why? It is because the patriotic fervor that causes people to react so strongly against the kneeling protest should have never reached such a high level. That fervor transforms patriotism into a religion. And that is occurring in a nation where people are fond of wearing their religion on their sleeves.. All that makes the attempts to punish those players who don't show patriotism in the same way as Bleier or even don't feel patriotic at all, the latter includes me, into an inquisition based on nationalism. That makes it a secular inquisition.

But even much more important than the patriotism turned religion problem, things should have never gotten to where they are today in terms of the racism that so doggedly persists in our nation. And what Bleier thinks should have never gotten this far indicates, in both Bleier and those who agree with him, that too many privileged people in our nation, and by privileged people I mean whites especially those who are part of the middle or high economic class, live in a well insulated bubble. Why is it that so many of us white people are too eager to change the subject of the National Anthem protests to that of disrespecting the flag and those who fought waving it? Why does nonconformity in how some react to the playing of the National Anthem cause us more concern and, perhaps, makes us feel more threatened than the varying significant levels of racism that has plagued our nation from the beginning?

Why do so many of us think that it is far more virtuous to stand for the playing of the National Anthem than it is to care about those fellow Americans who are being systemically oppressed and even persecuted? Is being patriotic opposed to working for equality? That seems to be the message we communicate when we express more concern about protesting the flag than we say about the racism being opposed during the playing of the National Anthem. In fact, American history shows that equality has always played, at best, 2nd fiddle to patriotism in our nation.



 


references

1. https://sports.yahoo.com/steelers-icon-vietnam-vet-rocky-bleier-nfl-protests-never-gotten-point-182928379.html
2. 
   

How We Have Failed Our Democracy

In 2014, an academic study clearly said what many had been thinking before, that America is no longer functions as a democracy (click here and there).  Before that study was released, we had Noam Chomsky's book Failed States that told us the same thing (click here). Or we could simply look at the current list of Presidential candidates to learn the same lesson. While the Democrats have been telling us that the Rich are in control, the Republicans are acting as if that isn't a problem.

We've lost our democracy in the sense that people are no longer in control of the government. The last time they were was during the '60s when people took to the streets. The government was forced to respond to that activism on a number of issues from Civil Rights to women's rights to war. But when people take to the streets today, the government seems to pay little attention. After all, our government worked quickly to breakup the Occupy encampments while the big banks that helped cause the 2008 collapse are still as big as ever. And while many an Occupy protester went to jail, only one member of Wall Street did the same and that was only because he confessed. In addition, though we have had some changes in our laws, we are constantly told that we again facing the same kind of collapse we experienced in 2008 and for many of the same reasons. In the meantime, as with the Pentagon and Defense Industry, there exists a revolving door between appointed government positions and high paying positions either in the financial sector or with big corporations. For example, one of the key people who constructed Obamacare was a former employee of the largest health insurance company, WellPoint. And now that person has left her government position to work for a pharmaceutical company that supported Obamacare (click here).

And for all of the shenanigans we see in this revolving door between the private and public sectors, we the people are to blame. That is because our apathy-enabled ignorance and passivity has given those who are selling out our democracy a free rein to do what they want.  So what has led to we the people allowing the sellingout of our democracy?

This blog will note that there are three values on which a true democracy rests. And a failure to hold to these values results in the death of a democracy. That's right, we have failed our democracy instead of our democracy having failed us. This assertion that we have failed our democracy points to the fact that democratic processes alone do not a democracy make. The people in that democracy must hold to certain values in order to create a true democracy when using democratic processes. Otherwise, these processes will be used to serve a limited number of elites, which is what we have today.

What are those three values? The first value is to count people, regardless of who they are, as being more important than things. Martin Luther King Jr. said it this way (click here for the source of the quote):

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.

What is great about King's quote is that he was very specific regarding the identity of the things that are so highly valued in a thing-oriented society. We could summarize what he said to this, when gadgets, profits, and property rights are more important than people... And currently, we are inundated with gadgets, especially social and entertainment media gadgets. And each time a new gadget comes out, we are told that we must have it to be further connected or anesthetized, I mean entertained. For where would we be without our entertainment?

 MIT sociologist Sherry Turkle has offered some sane criticisms of our all too easy passionate embrace of every new social media and other technology in her books Alone Together and Reclaiming Conversation (click here and there). What she has written is very important since we are in a consumer society and thus we place more value on collecting things than on collecting and improving human connections. For many of us, we are content with the world so long as we have enough desired things. And thus, any change we would commit ourselves to working for is for the purpose collecting more things. If we read this month's quote of the month for this blog, we get an idea of what a thing-oriented society leads us to personally (click here for the source):

He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves abundance with its income. This too is vanity.

When we are thing-oriented, more of us become like how the 1% are characterized: we are always looking for our new thing fix because we are never satisfied with what we have. And as we become more thing-oriented, the more people become mere objects to us as their only value rests in their willingness and ability to help us accumulate more things. And whereas King saw the growing war effort as competition for national resources that could have been used to  help the poor, the more thing-oriented society becomes the more that gadgets, profits, and property rights compete for people's commitments and concerns over their desires to help the vulnerable and do what is right.

The next value we need to look into is that of looking out for other people's interests as well as our own. One of the mistakes that both Marx and the Occupy Movement made was that, in the end, both saw the fix to the main problem in life is to being playing the same game but with different players. For Marx, he wanted the Proletariat to replace the Bourgeoisie as the ruling class. So while he wanted the position of the Proletariat improved, he still wanted to play a class-rule game. As for my Occupy Movement, again, scapegoating the 1% meant that others would take their place so that the 99% would flourish. But what would happen to the 1%? And how would we convince the people who so heavily rely on the 1% for their living to let the 99% rule?

Martin Luther King Jr. took a different approach. He wanted to persuade his opponents to join his side. And those who wouldn't be persuaded he wanted them to be controlled by the rule of law. This is one of the reasons why he so opposed both inner and outer violence. It was because the more violence one uses to force change, the less chance there is for reconciliation afterwards.

But we could also take a different approach to understand the need for looking out for others as well as ourselves. That approach is to draw an analogy between what Adam Smith said about the effects that the specialization of labor had on workers to the effects that the reduction of interest to self-interest has on any group. That just as labor becomes more specialized, the laborer becomes more stupid, so does working for the interests of one's own group only tends to limit the vision of those working for change. In both instances, a person's world is reduced to what they, and not others, experience. Thus, the more we focus solely on what happens to us and neglect what happens to others, the more likely we will oversimplify both our problems and solutions. That is because the more we think solely about ourselves, the fewer factors we have to include in our thinking. This principle is at work both within a nation and outside of it.

Now in most cases, our need to care about other groups comes in response to the suffering and marginalization of other groups. But our concern for other groups should also be extended for those we see as our opponents. For what we should be telling the 1%, which consists of those who are rich enough to have the government's ear, is that we all need to care for each other. That instead of scapegoating them for public scorn and punishment, we need to persuade them to end their economic apartheid. And for those who will not be persuaded, we can use our democracy to control the harm they would inflict on others. But here, we should realize that when the privileged cause others to suffer, it is usually because those privileged are thing-oriented rather than person-oriented.

Finally, we need to look at how we want to share society with others. The battle over same-sex marriage serves as a perfect example here. For when many of my fellow religiously conservative Christians fought to prevent same-sex marriage from being legally allowed in society, what we were saying to those from the LGBT community was that we believed that we should share society with them in a hierarchical fashion. And we identified that fashion as being one where we held a degree of privilege over them in determining what they could and could not experience and enjoy. The negative way of saying that was that we were refusing to share society with those from the LGBT community as equals. And that was our sin.

Unless we are willing to share society with others as equals, what will occur is that the values of competition and conquest that come from our economic system will become the values of our democracy. And thus, we will look at our democratic processes as tools to be used to compete and gain a superior place in society over others. Thus, instead of enjoying joint rule where we work together and protect each others' rights, we use our democratic processes as tools to gain supremacy for ourselves. And as long as the majority agree with us, we claim to have a democracy. But  in essence, it is a tyranny.

The drivers that work against the values that produce a working democracy are easy to spot. Materialism drives us to be thing-oriented rather than person-oriented. Christians should never surrender to materialism seeing how the Scriptures clearly speak against valuing wealth and things over people. Meanwhile, tribalism blinds us to the concerns of others as well as tells us that we are entitled to rule over other groups.

Now while many of my fellow religiously conservative Christians have tried to tell me that our nation and society can only properly operate when the majority of people are Christians and hold to Christian values, experience begs to differ. For we see many Christians who suffer from affluenza as well as those who are intent on ruling over others. As a result, many religiuosly conservative Christans fail to look out for the welfare of those who hold to different views. The same-sex marriage debate showed this to be true. And such is a tragedy for Christianity because the desire for power over others is antithetical to what the New Testament taught.

So while 3 values have been identified as being essential to democracy, democracy has 2 enemies. The more materialistic we are, and the more tribal we become, the more we sabotage our own democracy and give way to the rule of some elite group who promises to take care of us by giving us what we want. 

Democracy's Enemies

This blogpost is an attempt to restate and then go beyond what was said in last Tuesday's, December 9 post (click here). In that post this blog made a distinction between democracy as a state of being for society from democracy being a description of a set of political processes followed by the government. In the former, a democracy is where all of the people in society rule. There is an equality implied in this definition. For if only certain groups rule, then not all of the people can participate in the making of society's rules.

In the latter definition, democracy is where people vote for or against certain legislation as well as for the candidates of their choice. Here, democracy isn't describing an end result, but a process that is practiced by its members.

Now we should note that we can't have a democracy in terms of the state of being for a society without democratic processes. But the converse is not true. The employment of democratic processes by a political structure does not guarantee that all of the people will have an equal place in society. We only need to look at our own nation, state, city, and so forth for proof. 

Thus, if we are seeking a democratic state of being for society, not only will we use democratic processes to press our own demands, we will use them to protect the rights and status of others, especially those who are battling marginalization.  And this is where our nation's notion and practice of democracy are most deficient. While too many of us have seen democracy as a set of tools to use to raise our own position, we have forgotten our responsibilities and obligations to others. Why is this the case?

We have 3 personal motivations that work against wanting a democracy where everybody shares society as equals. These motivations are a sense of entitlement, ambition, and greed. We should note that we can work against democracy for more than one reason--there is no quota here.

A sense of entitlement comes into play when a group feels that it has a right to dominate over other groups. This domination has been based on racial differences, economic class differences, ideological differences, and delusions of one's own moral superiority. For Christians, the most recent exhibition of our desire to share society with others as being their superiors is seen in the same-sex marriage debate. After all, not only do we view ourselves as being morally superior to homosexuals, by opposing same-sex marriage, we believe that we are protecting society from sliding down the slippery slope of sexual moral decay. This is why we have opposed the "judicial activism" that has reversed democratically decided legislation banning same-sex marriage. And in many places where we have lost the court battle, we have pushed for Jim Crow type laws that would allow us to stigmatize homosexuals by refusing to provide goods and services to either them or their ceremonies. 

This refusal to share society with homosexuals as equals is an indicator that our claims to being spiritually superior are delusional. Romans 3:9 proves our claims to be false.

The above shows an example of entitlement. Many of us Christians believe that we have not only the right definition of marriage, we have the necessary definition for the benefit of the nation. Thus, we feel justified in pushing our agenda at the expense of equality for homosexuals.

And though there are other examples of where other groups feel entitled to push to the margins those to whom they feel superior, the striving of Conservative Christians to maintain a privileged position in society for themselves and pushing of homosexuals to the margins of society provides the epitome of one group feeling entitled to dominate over another group.  The attitude of many of us Conservative Christians regarding same-sex marriage is that not only are we are right and they are wrong, we are protecting society from hurting itself. Therefore we have the right, and even responsibility, to prohibit homosexuals from enjoying what we enjoy, being married to the person of their choice. Such an approach does not work for a democratic state of being in society. 

Another personal motivation that works against a democratic society is ambition. This ambition could be paired with a sense of entitlement or could consist solely of the desire to conquer. To give an example, I was talking to one group about my experiences at Occupy Wall Street and how we used consensus as a democratic process in reaching decisions. One of the women in the group strongly disagreed with me. Why did she disagree? It was because she lived in poverty and was powerless and thus her goal was to gain as much power as she could so she control society as much as possible. This is an example of ambition. It is the desire to conquer and reign over others. And what was sad in this case was that the implications of this person winning control over others in society did not stir any kind of reaction from the rest of the group.

And when we look at our political landscape, because of the ambitions of the people in the two major political parties, we find that many of the people we vote for look at winning elections as a way to get their way in politics and government. Some do this for the glory--that is for the sense of significance that comes from winning and getting some kind or recognition from others. To them, it is merely a competition, another game to win. Others simply want to rule and dominate over the rest because they felt that it was their turn. In either case, ambition drove their striving to win. And perhaps, the democracy label from our democratic processes eased any misgivings over the new control over others which they obtained. Such is the problem with reducing democracy to the set of political processes that involve elections. For we should note that such people are not easy to work or negotiate with.

The final personal motivation that works against a democratic society is greed. With greed, we are focused on the goods and wealth we can obtain and we start to care less and less about the welfare and equality of others because we look at those others as objects. If these objects can help us get wealthy, we feign respect for them in order to use them. If they cannot help us get rich, we count them as disposable. When companies offshore their work in order to maximize profits for shareholders, the welfare of the employees who lose their jobs is not considered. In fact, these employees have no voice in publicly owned companies because the only ones whose voice is heard there are those who own stock and the executives. All others can be let go at a moment's notice. 

And if we think that this only happens in business, we need to look again. Bill after bill, in this country, are written by lobbyists whose chief concern is how much revenue their employers can gain from their work. No one else matters. That is why the chief beneficiaries of Obamacare are Health Insurance companies and corporate medical facilities. Energy companies benefit from relaxed environmental regulations. The big banks and other financial sector companies have benefited from relaxed regulations in the past and from the lack of criminal prosecutions even when some of our financial institutions laundered drug money today. And how many companies benefit from our foreign policies and the use of our military.

Martin Luther King Jr described our society as being a 'thing-oriented' oriented society. What he meant was that gadgets, profits, and property rights were counted as more important than people and taking care of them. And those who are so thing-oriented will be too concerned with the latest technology, making the most money, and using property rights to excuse themselves from responsibilities to care about whether all have an equal place in society. Such an equal place does not imply that everyone would have the same income level. Rather, an equal place in society means that the welfare of all is counted as equally important so that none are either exploited or marginalized.

We could learn what a democratic state of being for society means by studying the decision making processes used at Occupy Wall Street. It isn't that their way of making decisions was without flaw or that it wouldn't have to be modified for society at large. But the basic aim in how Occupy made decisions protected the equal status of those in the group. One block could table a proposal. Such a process prevents a tyranny of the majority. But more importantly, it caused people to listen to others who had different concerns and so proposals and procedures received revision after revision until there were no blocks. 

Here, it isn't the exact procedures that we should carry over from Occupy to society that is important. It isn't the methods that we can learn from, it is the intention and the spirit that existed there that we would do well to imitate. For there, there was a sincere desire to craft statements that everyone could agree with. Everyone was listened to. Yes, Occupy Wall Street did not carry out their decision making processes perfectly. But the idea that we legislated through cooperation and listening rather than competing for support made a more democratic state of being for the Occupy encampments.

All of the above points to a dilemma for America. For the values from our economic system which are most highly valued, greed and competitiveness, are two traits that work against creating a democratic state of being for society. Thus, if we want an equality that comes from a true democracy, we have a choice to make.

Today's Conservative Christian Crisis Has Been America's Problem All Along

Conservative Christianity is facing a crisis. What is the crisis? If you read Conservative Christian blogs, you would think that its biggest threat is sexual: that is same-sex marriage. There is even some concern about the increased attention being given to transgenderism. For not only have Conservative Christians found the judgments of the Federal Appeals Courts on same-sex marriage to be disappointing to say the least, the Conservative Christian fight against such marriages is suffering too many defeats in popular opinion polls.

And yet, how to react to the acceptance of same-sex marriage in society isn't the crossroads we are facing. Society's growing acceptance of same-sex marriage serves as but a single instance of our current critical point. We should note that we've faced other such instances and we have not fared well there either. 

What is the real challenge that is facing Conservative Christianity today? The challenge is this: How will Conservative Christianity share society with others? There are only 3 possible answers to this question and one is nonstarter. So either Conservative Christians can look to either share society as equals with nonChristians or seek a privileged position to rule over them. 

If the first option is chosen, then Conservative Christians will not use democratic procedures to force some subset of their beliefs on unbelievers through legislation. Not only that, they will protect more groups of nonChristians from being discriminated against by the law than they currently do. 

If the second option is pursued, then Conservative Christians will use legislation to some degree to either force unbelievers to practice, observe, or endure some Conservative Christian held belief or prohibit some behaviors or actions of nonChristians which we consider to be taboo. In either case, with the second option Conservative Christians seek a superior position over others because they feel entitled, if not also obligated, to that place in society. This feeling of entitlement is based on a sense of superiority over unbelievers which must be recognized for the future well-being of society. That sense of superiority can revolve around the knowledge we have or our character .

The same-sex marriage debate will illustrate how some Conservative Christians feel they have a superior knowledge to nonChristians. There are three reasons why Conservative Christians oppose the legalizing of same-sex marriage: because of what it says in the Scriptures and because of what natural law says. In either case, Conservative Christians act as if their definition of marriage is as much a part of reality as gravity. Obviously, those who don't accept the Scriptures as God's Word will receive scorn from some Conservative Christians because they have rejected what is clearly God's Word.

But some other Conservative Christians understand the problems with forcing God's Word on society. They believe in religious freedom and they understand that the society is not the Church. But at the same time, they will work to prohibit same-sex marriage in society because of how they view natural law. Natural law, according to these other Conservative Christians, is based on how we were physically created to be--note the religious slant that already exists. Some of us believe that one of government's responsibilities is to enforce natural law. The problem here is that these Conservative Christians deny that there can be multiple versions of natural law. And we fail to recognize that our view of natural law comes from the Scriptures. So when we push government to legislate some portions of their view of natural law, especially with laws controlling sexual behaviors and marital relationships, we are seeking a backdoor way of controlling society and reaching a superior status to nonChristians in society.

It's not that I disagree with my fellow Conservative Christians' views of natural law. It is that both I don't see any Scriptural mandates for governments to enforce every aspect of natural law and I don't think it is fair that we assume we have the right to control the lives of unbelievers. Rather, what is legislated should result from Christians and nonChristians collaborating that our laws would both protect society from those who would do us harm and prevent most groups of Christians and nonChristians from being marginalized. Obviously, there should be some marginalization for those who would do harm to others.

Finally, other Conservative Christians oppose same-sex marriage because of how it violates the tradition definition of marriage. The adherence to tradition is always selective. If nation's forefathers clung to tradition, there would be no American Revolution. If those in the Civil Rights Movement were more loyal to tradition, we would still have segregation and Jim Crow. Such examples should not be used to imply that we should have no regard for tradition. These examples merely point out that tradition by itself is not an adequate reason to maintain a certain practice. In addition, the traditional view of marriage is based on the Scriptures or the Christian view of natural law. And so those who use tradition to defend their opposition to same-sex marriage in society also struggle with seeking a privileged position in society in terms of determining its laws.

So the crisis facing Conservative Christianity is not about changing sexual mores or changing definitions of marriage. Neither is it about past issues such as public monuments created to honor God's Word. The Church has every tool necessary to handle those challenges in evangelism. The crisis we face is whether or not we will share society with nonChristians as equals. Our crisis is whether or not we will work side by side with unbelievers in determining what laws are fair and necessary so that fewer groups are marginalized. We should note that marginalization of most groups comes only when some groups obtain a privileged position in society. 

The acquiring of a privileged position by some groups starts a pendulum swing. Again, most groups are marginalized when some groups become privileged. This establishes a societal version of the game King of the Hill. Some of the marginalized groups eventually turn the tables and scapegoat the previously privileged groups for their troubles. When this occurs, the same game continues only a switch occurs in the standings. Those who were last are now first and those who were first are now last. And if we are committed to morals and principles, our chief complaint will be against the game itself rather than who's in first place today.

But what could be said about seeking a privileged place in society by some Conservative Christians  can also be applied to America's role in the world. For too long, we have been uncritical of America's leadership position in the world. Too many of us have been so proud of the fact that America is the leader of the Free World that we have been blind to the apparent oxymoron that is a part of the above statement.  For here, we should ask the following questions: How can a part of the world be free if it submits to a leader? Also, why does any part of the world that is free need a leader? These questions undo the notion that America is the leader of the Free World.

But what is more important than the oxymoron is this, if we regard ourselves as being the leader of any part of the world, will our reactions to challenges presented by other nations or groups be controlled by absolute moral standards and principles or will such reactions revolve more around maintaining our leadership position and prestige? For history shows that we've all too often sacrificed absolute moral standards in how we react to nations that don't follow our lead. These sacrifices can be seen in how we have sponsored and/or conducted terrorist attacks in countries like Cuba, Nicaragua, and Afghanistan (we sponsored Bin Laden when a Russian approved government was in control there) or when we have supplanted democracies or democratic procedures with tyrants such as in Iran, Chile, Vietnam, and Greece just to name a few examples. 

Why do we seek to be a strong leader in the world? Is it not because we feel entitled, due to some perceived superiority, to control the world or parts of it? Again, the same King of Hill Scenario is in effect as it is in a nation when some group gains a privileged position.  The only difference between playing a domestic version of King of the Hill from a global one is found in the toys used by the players. In the global version, more of the toys used are weapons. And in an age when the proliferation of WMDs is inevitable, continuing that game does not bode well for anyone's future.