Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For August 5, 2020

Aug 1

To R. Sott Clark and Mary Harrington on Clark’s blogpost that extensively quotes Harrington’s article the she claims that Wokeness is a religion that is competing with Christianity for the minds and souls of the people. This appeared in Heidelblog

Unfortunately, what was cited above as well as the article it was cited from is nothing more than an ad hominem attack against wokeness. It speaks of wokeness as a monolith. It calls wokeness a religion without knowing what it means to each person what it means to be woke. The article seems to imply that wokeness is a significant awareness of leftist or liberal issues and concerns. And by calling it a religion, it is suppose to be a conversation stopper for religiously conservative Christians.

Thus religiously conservative Christians need not ask about the concerns of and observations made by those who are woke. And that is done on an a priori basis. Such implies an adequate level of innocence in the outgoing status quo. Thus, issues like climate change, systemic racism, ever increasing wealth disparity and the problems that come with it, as well as American Imperialism are dismissed with a wave of the hand by the same people who want unbelievers to listen seriously to the Gospel.

The concern of both Clark and Harrington, who is the author of the article from which Clark is quoting, is to reframe the culture war battle between religiously conservative Christianity with its conservative political and ideological commitments and liberal and leftists political and ideological tenets especially as it comes to currently addressed social justice issues. For what some might have thought as a battle between faith narratives of some pre-modernists vs the rational world view of modernists is in reality a faith vs faith king of the hill battle according to Clark and Harrington. And by portraying wokeness as a faith, it is meant to portray wokeness as one religious faith contending against the other. Thus, religiously conservative Christians would automatically turn a deaf ear to what would be considered to be a competitor to the Christian faith.

That begs the question of it being impossible to be both Christian and woke. Such associates Christianity with the outgoing status quo with all of its social injustice warts. And so the above serves as a sheepdog article to keep religiously conservative Christians in the conservative political and ideological fold. But why is it impossible to be both a faithful Christian and be woke? That is a question whose answer is assumed but while the question is never asked by Clark and Harrington.
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Aug 4

To Josh Buice and his blogpost on when it is necessary to not submit to the government. His article was primarily about when the Church should not submit because its activities are being infringed on. Josh speaks from a Reformed Theological perspective. This appeared in the Delivered By Grace blog.

The above article seems to indicate a self-absorption by some Christians when it comes to resisting the government. It starts with the 2nd paragraph:

However, it is quite possible for the government to become a burden for the church of Jesus—and at whatever point the ruling authorities demand something from God’s people that would cause us to actively or passively disobey God—we must obey God rather than man.

Basically, the article talks about when it is ok to not submit to the government. And most of the time, that occurs when the Church is infringed on. But how should the Church react when the government unjustly persecutes citizens in ways that does not require Church participation? Is it to not submit to the government then, as Martin Luther King Jr. and the part of the Civil Rights Movement that followed him did in part. They participated in peaceful civil disobedience.

Or should King have told his fellow black citizens that since the Church is not participating in the discrimination against blacks in society, the Church should just submit to the government and tell its black members to be spiritual Spartans for Christ?

See, this article's only indicator that social injustice is a reason to not obey the government is found in the example of the Hebrew midwives not killing male newborns. But everything else points to how the Church and its members are infringed on by the government.

The above seems to have justified rebellions here based in the pursuit of religious liberty. But didn't the Puritans persecute the Quakers with physical abuse and even martyring some of them? Did the Quakers have the right to resist them? Or was that something not worth mentioning?

And what about the right of slaves to rebel against their owners and our government back then? Wasn't their treatment far more horrendous than how the British treated the colonies?

And, btw, the militia wasn't formed to rebel against the government. Rather, the militia was formed to put down insurrections and invasions. Dependence on the militia, rather than a standing army, was thought to have a preventive effect on government tyranny. But that doesn't erase the fact that the militia was under the command of the President and was there to put down insurrections.

The above article seems reveal a certain self-absorption in that it justifies when one's own group rebels because its special concerns are infringed on, but there seems to be little interest in resisting the government for social justice issues affecting others. If the above article had a wider scope of concern for not submitting to the government, then why didn't speak to today's protests that oppose the systemic racism in our nation? Is the silence due to the fact that the Church is not required to participate in that injustice and thus the injustice is not an important enough issue?

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To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost that quotes a James Lindsay article claiming that promoters of Critical Social Justice Theory do not want to debate for a number of reasons. This appeared in Heidelblog.

What all the above points to is a fear of what neo-Marxism is saying. And, as often occurs, fear leads to all-or-nothing thinking. That kind of thinking says that one must accept or reject everything that neo-Marxism is saying. Such thinking is part and parcel to authoritarianism.

That we have oppressors and the oppressed is simply a confirmation of both depth of sin and the observation of man's inhumanity to man. We could easily add to that that groups could serve as both oppressors for it is not hard for those in oppressed groups to learn from their oppressors than from the experiences of being oppressed--to borrow the wording of a friend and fellow activist.

In America, it is not difficult to understand that Blacks have been oppressed throughout the history of their presence in the U.S. Native Americans have also been sorely oppressed as have others. Labor history in our nation points to past state oppression against workers who protested and went on strike for better conditions and pay. With the demise of unions since Reagan's attack on them, workers are becoming more and more subject to exploitation. Women in this nation did not have the right to vote until around 1920 and their status as 2nd class citizens went unchallenged until the late 1960s and early 1970s. And none of that includes the plight of the LGBT community in America. For homosexuality had been criminalized for most of the history of the US.

So while Lindsay presses an ad hominem attack a theory that attempts, however imperfectly, to show the continuity between those groups that have been oppressed for most of the history of the US, neither Lindsay nor Clark can find anything positive to say about Critical Social Justice Theory? Do Clark and Lindsay assume that there is no connection that different oppressed groups in America have?

Again, here, and in the article cited, we have the all-or-nothing thinking that exists in authoritarianism nothing here that no group has a monopoly on authoritarianism.

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For July 8, 2020

July 3

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost that critiques the iconoclasm that is part of today’s protest movement. This appeared in Heidelblog.

First, Marx, with all of his faults and sins, isn't responsible for the deaths that came with either the Bolshevik or Mao's revolutions. It is clear from reading Marx that neither Lenin, and those who followed, nor Mao were really following what Marx said.

Second, one of the most pronounced flaws of conservative Christian leaders and teachers is that they look too much to the past to understand and deal the present. And that produces a certain blindness and deafness to what we must learn from the present. Just because Marx was utopian, it does not imply that all who lean toward his teachings are. In any case citing a faulty eschatology model for Marx serves more as a distraction than an analytical tool in addressing social injustice problems of the day.

Also citing Paul's letter to Philemon as providing the only way to deal with social injustices shows the weakness of conservative Christian leaders and teachers previously mentioned.. Doing so assumes that there are no contextual differences, either historical or situational, between today and the issue with Philemon which  require a different response than Paul's. Clark's use of Paul's letter to Philemon would declare as  being totally wrong the actions and approach taken by Civil Rights Movement during the 1960s.

Finally, while Clark complains that the tearing down of statues of icons, like Columbus and past Confederate war heroes, ignores the feelings of those who honor them, he shows how out of touch he is with others as well as the present. Columbus showed himself to be a monster to the natives in Hispaniola. So what kind of pride is being promoted by paying tribute to him with statues and holidays? As for Confederate war heroes, do all Southerners look at those statues as celebrating nobility?

Certainly today's protest movement has its faults in both actions and perspectives. But some of the iconoclasm, or tipping of sacred cows, that we see today is long overdue. In fact, we might want to ask why our government didn't tear down these statues earlier in our history.

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July 4

To Josh Buice and his blogpost that features a video of him speaking against the social justice movement because he views it as promoting Marxism and victimology. This appeared in the deliveredbygrace.com blog.
I see 3 problems with the presentation.

First, we must ask  when was America great? Was it when America was ethnically cleansing Native Americans from the land and when people could be treated as property and enslaved simply because of their race? Or was America great after slavery when Blacks in the South were terrorized by  groups like the KKK and there was Jim Crow in the South and segregation in the North? Was America great when it invaded Vietnam or replaced democracies with dictators in Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), Greece (1967), and Chile (1973) to name some of the interventions? Didn't we have strong churches from 1620 to the 1960s? And if so, then was America great with all of those atrocities? Here we should remember the words of Jesus as he commanded us to love our enemies because even the heathen love their own.

Second, movements and ideas are  denounced not by logical arguments that address individual tenets and points, but by labeling. Buice's use of labels, such as Marxist and victimology, begs the question of their validity. His use of labels assumes that every practice and belief associated with those labels is wrong without having to go point by point to show why those practices and beliefs are completely wrong. Such is logically lazy and avoids using the Scriptures to examine those beliefs and practices.

Third, Buice seems to conflate American conservatism with Christianity. And what is American conservatism? Part of it holds to what are considered to be traditional American values that came from a time when white supremacy in America was more pronounced than it is now. So we might ask if American conservatism with its emphasis on traditional values  is related in any significant degree to racism.

But regardless of the possible racism tie, American conservatism does promote American nationalism. And we should note that because of the pedestal that nationalism puts one's nation, that American nationalism is a competitor and, perhaps for some Christians, co-opter of American Christianity.
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July 5

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost that cites a portion of an article that deals with   the narcissism involved in some offshoots of the social justice movement. This appeared in Heidelblog.

Reading through the article cited one discovers that, unlike what the title here implies, what is discussed pertains to a small group of people involved in social justice. But at least they are involved in social justice. Where is the Church when it comes to working for social justice?

In the Reformed churches, we have the transformationalists, such as the people at the Gospel Coalition, and the 2Kers, Clark is an example of a 2Ker as is D.G. Hart (his blog is oldlife.org). While transformationalists, with all of their faults, speak out on social justice, 2Kers are for the most part silent--that is unless they want to criticize the social justice movement. One more point about 2Kers is that with their denial of corporate sin, they reduce all social justice issues to that of the individual's choice of actions and attitudes. And that is right where they want people because they chant the age-old that only the Gospel can change people's hearts. And they chant that regardless of how that denies the effects of Common Grace.

And that leads us to Narcissism. How many times have 2Kers complained about the narcissism that is encouraged  by the belief in American Exceptionalism? How many times do 2Kers acknowledge that the over reliance on traditions and a selected past to analyze and even solve current problems is at least similar to narcissism? Or what about the belief that America's conservative way of doing things is how God wants society to operate? And for those who are authoritarian, how many times do they acknowledge that narcissism and authoritarianism share several traits?

Yes, transformationalists have their faults, but at least they, like the people mentioned in the article, are in the game unlike many 2Kers who sit on the sidelines talking like Monday morning quarterbacks.

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For July 1, 2020

June 27

To Gene Veith and his blogpost on how we can orchestrate we should honor the flag at sporting events and such. His proposal is that we should say the Pledge of Allegiance so that the words of the pledge are used to show what the flag is about. He also states that our saluting the flag should be about our common commitment to God, fellow citizens, and to principles like liberty and justice. This appeared in Cranach.

There is often a problem when we try to answer questions by reducing the issues involved to one issue. Such reductionism invites an oversimplification of the question as well as black-white thinking.

While Veith wants us to determine how we should name forts by whether the people whose name we would use fought for or against the flag, there are far more important criteria than that to use. For example, did those confederate soldiers fight to defend not just slavery, but the white supremacy that was the basis for slavery? If we use Veith's criteria, aren't we making a symbol more important than people minimizing the significance of that question?

And, btw, lest someone challenge the fact that white supremacy was the basis for slavery, one only needs to read what the Cornerstone Speech says about the Confederate government: 'Our new government is founded on exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition.'

As for his suggestion about saying the pledge and how it should be said at sporting events, isn't there a bit too much conformity being suggested? If such conformity is expected, then how different will our Pledge of Allegiance be different from the Nazi's 'Zieg Heil'? Should we have such conformity in a nation based on freedom?

My own basic problem with reciting the Pledge of Allegiance is the first sentence: 'I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.' Why object to that if the pledge ends with 'with liberty and justice for all'? One reason is because while I believe in a general submission to the governing authorities, allegiances to other groups or things unnecessarily divides the Church. When we pledge allegiance to something, especially when that something is placed on a high pedestal, it becomes a possible competitor with our allegiance to God. And that is seen especially in our reactions to fellow Christians who don't share our allegiances. We start treating those who share our allegiance with preference over those, and that can include fellow believers, who don't. We see that in ideological tribalism.

Plus, if my first allegiance is to God, then isn't my responsibilities as a citizen already spelled out in God's Word?

Finally there is the problem with whether people agree that our nation, symbolized by the flag, is one with liberty and justice for all. Do we have a consensus in this nation as to whether there is systemic racism, significant police abuse problems, fairness in wealth distribution, among other issues that many associate with justice? So if we did the pledge the way that Veith suggests, how should those from marginalized groups act during the reciting of The Pledge and how will privileged groups respond to them? We have some of the answers to that question already.
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To Josh Buice and his article on reasons why Christians should reject Black Lives Matter. This appeared in the Deliverance by Grace blog.

As a Christian Fundamentalist, I have no problems with working with Black Lives Matter (BLM). I've seen their peaceful protests in person. I've seen one of the presentations at the Left Forum in NYC. I've conversed with at least one of their people a couple of times. How can I do that as a Christian?

It is quite easy. In fact, linking up with BLM is in certain ways similar to working side by side with Republicans and Democrats. In working with them, we are dealing with issues revolving around how do we share society with others. And here, whereas Marx is accused of making everything political, we religiously conservative Christians are in danger of making everything religious. And when doing that, we make it more difficult to work with unbelievers on political and social issues. And the more we do that, the more we enter our own virtual monastery.

The question we must address here is this, how should we Christians share society with others? Do we want to share society with others as equals, or do we want a place of privilege and supremacy over others? Before answering that question, we need to remember Jesus's warning against 'lording it over others.' Though that warning was addressing how we should relate to fellow believers, it has its applications to the question being addressed.

Do we want to share society with Blacks and people from other races as equals? Do we want to share society with those from the LGBT community as equals? Here we need to exercise caution when answering those questions because once we call ourselves Christians, everything we do or say, as well as much of what we don't do or don't say becomes associated with the Gospel. And what people associate with the Gospel by what we do or say as well as don't do or say either hurts or builds up the reputation of the Gospel. When what we do hurts the reputation of the Gospel, we are sometimes providing stumbling blocks to the listening of the Gospel. And that fact should frighten us to the core because of our struggles with sin.

If we don't want to share society with people from other races as equals, what will they associate with the Gospel? If we don't want to share society with people from the LGBT community as equals, what will unbelieving observers associate with the Gospel?

Social and political movements aren't suppose to be concerned with conversion to Christ, that is our concern. When we insist that they must be so concerned, we're in danger of making everything religious. But because what others associate with the Gospel is our concern, then shouldn't we look for where we can work with different groups, like Black Lives Matter.  It isn't that we can do whatever their members do without regard for sin. It is that we should look for opportunities to join and work with groups like BLM  so that by working on political and societal issues, we are building up the reputation of the Gospel.
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June 28

To Gene Veith and his blogpost that cited a poll that, among other things, showed that 79% of liberals wanted a new Constitution. This appeared in the Cranach blog on Patheos

Those who care when citing polls, look at the source of the polls and see what repetition exists. The source of the poll cited is Quillete.com which is a fairly conservative website that has a mixed factual reporting rating and called a questionable source by Mediabiasfactcheck (see https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/quillette/ ). [blog correction: the next point made here was in error because  I misread Veith's post. He actually stated the full line in his article] In addition, Veith neglects to include an important detail in the survey statement on changing our constitution. The full statement that was asked is below:

Move, after public consultation, to a new American constitution that better reflects our diversity as a people.

I am sure that the added detail does not lessen the blow that many conservatives feel from the statement. But that full statement does take the edge that Liberals are going to ramrod a new set of laws down our throats.

As for the name change, our official name is the United States of America. America is our presumptuous self-designated, nickname that seems to forget the other nations that exist on the western hemisphere.

There are two points to consider as we see the protests and calls for change continue. First, what see going on today fits in with the often used approach to addressing long-term social injustices.That is that a phobic reaction occurs in order to prevent all future repetitions of the social injustices being addressed. With that phobic reaction is proverbial the throwing out of the baby with the bath water because there is a fear of not being able to distinguish what should continued from the past from that which caused the social injustices.

On the other hand, many of those who resist the core changes called for by the protesters either don't know or don't care about how the status quo oppresses others.