The question of how we Christians are to live as citizens of both a future heaven and present earth has plagued us for much of Church history. A recent article in the online Tabletalk magazine by Justin Taylor (click here for a brief bio) provides part of another attempt to discuss the issue (click here for the article being reviewed). Taylor's article is part of a series of articles published in the 2018 edition of Tabletalk on how should live in two worlds at the same time (click here for that series).
We should note that in trying to answer the question of how Christians should live a dual citizenship, Taylor touches on two pertinent ideas. The first idea is an attempt to correct a common misunderstanding about Augustine's City of God where Augustine describes every Christian's plight of having to live in the city of the world while living in the City of God. The common misunderstanding Taylor is correcting is that Christians are simultaneously members of both worlds and thus have a dual citizenship. Taylor's interpretation of Augustine here states that Augustine was at that point talking about an exclusive-or choice of living in the sin-dominated city of this world with all of its traps vs living under God's rule to a significant extent. I cannot comment on the validity of Taylor's interpretation of Augustine here because I have not read enough of his City of God to grade Taylor's interpretation. But nonetheless, Taylor makes a significant point that is made in the beginning of Romans 12. Either we are to be transformed by God's grace or we are to let ourselves go by conforming to the world.
Regardless of his interpretation of Augustine, Taylor notes that we have a dual citizenship. We are both citizens in this world who are to have a godly care for temporal events and we are citizens of a coming heaven. As Taylor uses the Scriptures to point out, we live as exiles in this world because our true home is in heaven. But such does not negate the fact that we live as citizens here on earth. And thus comes Taylor's second interesting point. He states that we are citizens in this world, not subjects. The difference between the two lie in how and the degree to which one participates in this world. As citizens we are called to participate in the political system and mechanisms to help maintain 'civic order.' Subjects are denied the rights or privileges of such participation, but citizens are not. So not only do we have a right to participate in the political system, we have a responsibility to do so.
So far, I fully agree with what Taylor has said. My problem is found in what he has left unsaid. For while he describes our earthly citizenship in terms of how we interact with the government, and while he later on states that we are to work on solving temporal problems, he never mentions how we are to regard unbelievers with whom we share this world. Are we to recognizes them as fellow citizens or are we to recognize them as subjects? How we answer that question is revealed in what kind of governmental legislation we support and promote.
For example, those Christians who use to support Jim Crow laws were saying that Blacks were to be regarded as subjects while Whites, especially White Christians, were to be counted as citizens. Similarly, we could easily say that those Christians who oppose full equality for the LGBT community want to relegate those in that community to being either partial citizens or subjects of the state while Christians are counted as full citizens. Those Christians who support and promote full equality for the LGBT community are at the same time supporting full citizenship for both those from that community and themselves.
The basic point here is that our participation as citizens in this world should not be reduced to just our acceptance of the government and how it rules; our participation also involves our interaction with unbelievers. And our recognition of God's common grace is not just seen in how our government rules over us, it is seen in how all work together to help our communities.
So while Taylor says some worthwhile things in his article on the Christian's dual citizenship, because it is so oriented on what is political and our relationship with our government, he misses an important subject: how Christians should live as fellow citizens in this world with unbelievers. Will we Christians live in such a way and promote legislation that recognizes the full citizenship of all sorts of unbelievers? And we find ourselves working for such a full citizenship when we promote equality for all different groups of unbelievers. But when we impose many of our Christian values on unbelievers, we find ourselves working to demote unbelievers from being citizens to being subjects of this world and our own nation.
But something else should be added here. while we Christians are to be citizens in this world in more involved ways than what Taylor has suggested, these ways of involvement must be approached with a certain vigilance. Why? Because in collaborating with unbelievers, we want to ensure that we are not conforming to the world. We are to continue to be transformed by God's grace while we both work side by side with unbelievers for the benefit of all as well as enjoy the benefits of God's common grace on unbelievers. And that, perhaps, is the most difficult challenge of recognizing unbelievers as full citizens in the world. And, perhaps, the reason why many of us Christians feel uneasy in recognizing unbelievers as full fellow citizens in this world is that we both feel threatened by the dangers of being conformed to the world and we underestimate the common grace gifts God gives our unbelieving fellow citizens of this world.
Showing posts with label Justin Taylor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Justin Taylor. Show all posts
Friday, September 7, 2018
Friday, February 10, 2017
Are We Christians Trying Too Hard To Fit A Stereotype? Part IV
For the
near future, some of the articles posted on Fridays will consist of reviews of
Christian writings from 2 perspectives. The first perspective will be
that of the view of the role of the Church in America as described by
the report, The Crisis Of Democracy. This report is a view of the
role of the Church from a liberal viewpoint. This perspective is an
observation of the past which was interrupted during the protest years
of the 1960s. That time was described by the report as having an 'excess
of democracy.' And that view says the following (click here for the source):
The second perspective is an observation, not an ideological declaration, about the Church made from the Left in Russia prior to its October, 1917 Revolution--we should note that Russia also underwent a February, 1917 Revolution. This perspective was written by Vlad (a.k.a., Vladimir Lenin) and it went like this (click here for the source):
The reason for reviewing Christian writings from these two perspectives is to determine whether today's writings show that the Church has changed since the times in which those observations were made. And for the record, I just want to say that I am not a fan of Lenin regardless of how I refer to him.
Today's review will consist of applying the above quotes to the end of a sermon preached by B.B. Warfield (click here for bio) and quoted in a blogpost by Justin Taylor on the Gospel Coalition website (click here for the blogpost). Note that what is being evaluated is what is being quoted from Warfield, not Warfield himself and what he said at other times.
In the part of the sermon being quoted, Warfield is describing the kind of self-sacrificial attitude Christians must have when they serve those in need and involve themselves in the world. Please click the above link to the blogpost to read how Warfield describes a very laudible kind of humble and sacrificial attitude that serves as an imitation of Christ in how He came into the world to serve. What is ironic here is that regardless of how worthy the kind of attitude Warfield describes is to have, by itself that attitude is a siren song that ends on the rocks of social injustice and thus the possible dishonoring of the Gospel. In other words, unless what Warfield describes lies in conjunction with other concerns, it will only compound the problems people face rather than help them.
First, we should look at least part of what Warfield said--that is for those who did not click the link. What Warfield said includes the following:
Certainly the above describes the ideal Christian on his/her best days of imitating Christ. But the question becomes how does what Warfield said address Vlad's concerns? In other words, though the Christian, in imitating Christ, might be an ideal example of life to those around him/her, in the end, if all we do is to both encourage those who succeed and help and comfort those who are victims of the system employed by the status quo, will we not merely resemble the street sweepers who clean up after a parade? And yes, we will be helping those who are suffering, but we will not be working for the prevention of future pain and abuse. This is the value of Vlad's statement as well as the statement from The Crisis Of Democracy. For it challenges us Christians in being willing to sacrifice ourselves to prevent others from suffering the same problems we are cleaning up after today.
In fact, unless we challenge those who oppress others to repent, not only might we be securing praise from others for our noble efforts, we are costing those who oppress others opportunities to change.
With that being said, if we do not challenge an abusive system and those who maintain it to repent without having the same self-sacrificial attitude that Warfield describes above, then we risk sabotaging our efforts at affecting change. For challenging those with wealth and power to repent with anger and self-righteousness not only further hardens the hearts of those who are well rewarded in this life for their shrewdness, it does the same to those who ride in on their coattails. Thus, just as the self-sacrificial attitude that Warfield implores us Christians to have is insufficient by itself for us to live out our faith, it is essential to the living out our of faith.
But if how Warfield calls us to be is imitating Christ, then aren't we saying that imitating Christ is insufficient to follow Him if we so criticize Warfield's quote above ? Not at all. Why? Because we don't imitate Christ in everything He did. Though we are called to sacrifice ourselves for others as Christ came to sacrifice Himself for others, we can never make the sacrifice He made. Our sacrifice is not to atone for sins, but it is to reflect Christ's love for us to others. For while Christ knew that the end of His ministry culminated in His sacrifice on the cross, we do not know when the end of our ministry will come regardless of any sacrifice we are making at the time. In addition, our job is to make disciples of others and those others include those with wealth and power whose position in life is the result of exploiting others. Just as we are called to help the oppressed, we are also called to preach repentance to the oppressor. And here we might want to consider how it dishonors the Gospel when only nonChristians are calling on those who oppress and exploit others to repent.
In the past, those institutions which have played the major role in the indoctrination of the young in their rights and obligations as members of society have been the family, the church, the school, and the army. The effectiveness of all these institutions as a means of socialization has declined severely. The stress has been increasingly on individuals and their rights, interests, and needs, and not on the community and its rights, interests, and needs.
The second perspective is an observation, not an ideological declaration, about the Church made from the Left in Russia prior to its October, 1917 Revolution--we should note that Russia also underwent a February, 1917 Revolution. This perspective was written by Vlad (a.k.a., Vladimir Lenin) and it went like this (click here for the source):
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. Impotence of the exploited classes in their struggle against the exploiters just as inevitably gives rise to the belief in a better life after death as impotence of the savage in his battle with nature gives rise to belief in gods, devils, miracles, and the like. Those who toil and live in want all their lives are taught by religion to be submissive and patient while here on earth, and to take comfort in the hope of a heavenly reward. 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.
The reason for reviewing Christian writings from these two perspectives is to determine whether today's writings show that the Church has changed since the times in which those observations were made. And for the record, I just want to say that I am not a fan of Lenin regardless of how I refer to him.
Today's review will consist of applying the above quotes to the end of a sermon preached by B.B. Warfield (click here for bio) and quoted in a blogpost by Justin Taylor on the Gospel Coalition website (click here for the blogpost). Note that what is being evaluated is what is being quoted from Warfield, not Warfield himself and what he said at other times.
In the part of the sermon being quoted, Warfield is describing the kind of self-sacrificial attitude Christians must have when they serve those in need and involve themselves in the world. Please click the above link to the blogpost to read how Warfield describes a very laudible kind of humble and sacrificial attitude that serves as an imitation of Christ in how He came into the world to serve. What is ironic here is that regardless of how worthy the kind of attitude Warfield describes is to have, by itself that attitude is a siren song that ends on the rocks of social injustice and thus the possible dishonoring of the Gospel. In other words, unless what Warfield describes lies in conjunction with other concerns, it will only compound the problems people face rather than help them.
First, we should look at least part of what Warfield said--that is for those who did not click the link. What Warfield said includes the following:
Wherever men suffer, there will we be to comfort.
Wherever men strive, there will we be to help.
Wherever men fail, there will be we to uplift.
Wherever men succeed, there will we be to rejoice.
Self-sacrifice means not indifference to our times and our fellows: it means absorption in them.
It means forgetfulness of self in others.
Certainly the above describes the ideal Christian on his/her best days of imitating Christ. But the question becomes how does what Warfield said address Vlad's concerns? In other words, though the Christian, in imitating Christ, might be an ideal example of life to those around him/her, in the end, if all we do is to both encourage those who succeed and help and comfort those who are victims of the system employed by the status quo, will we not merely resemble the street sweepers who clean up after a parade? And yes, we will be helping those who are suffering, but we will not be working for the prevention of future pain and abuse. This is the value of Vlad's statement as well as the statement from The Crisis Of Democracy. For it challenges us Christians in being willing to sacrifice ourselves to prevent others from suffering the same problems we are cleaning up after today.
In fact, unless we challenge those who oppress others to repent, not only might we be securing praise from others for our noble efforts, we are costing those who oppress others opportunities to change.
With that being said, if we do not challenge an abusive system and those who maintain it to repent without having the same self-sacrificial attitude that Warfield describes above, then we risk sabotaging our efforts at affecting change. For challenging those with wealth and power to repent with anger and self-righteousness not only further hardens the hearts of those who are well rewarded in this life for their shrewdness, it does the same to those who ride in on their coattails. Thus, just as the self-sacrificial attitude that Warfield implores us Christians to have is insufficient by itself for us to live out our faith, it is essential to the living out our of faith.
But if how Warfield calls us to be is imitating Christ, then aren't we saying that imitating Christ is insufficient to follow Him if we so criticize Warfield's quote above ? Not at all. Why? Because we don't imitate Christ in everything He did. Though we are called to sacrifice ourselves for others as Christ came to sacrifice Himself for others, we can never make the sacrifice He made. Our sacrifice is not to atone for sins, but it is to reflect Christ's love for us to others. For while Christ knew that the end of His ministry culminated in His sacrifice on the cross, we do not know when the end of our ministry will come regardless of any sacrifice we are making at the time. In addition, our job is to make disciples of others and those others include those with wealth and power whose position in life is the result of exploiting others. Just as we are called to help the oppressed, we are also called to preach repentance to the oppressor. And here we might want to consider how it dishonors the Gospel when only nonChristians are calling on those who oppress and exploit others to repent.
Wednesday, January 25, 2017
Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For January 25, 2017
Jan 17
To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost that opposes a state church. This appeared in the Heidelblog.
I fully agree that there should be no state church and that God's people are the elect from every nation who believe in Jesus Christ. But we would be fooling ourselves if we believed that there is no Christian meddling or privilege in the state outside of some kind of theocracy or Christendom. That is because Christian control over and privilege in the state exists on a continuum where control over and privilege can still exist outside of a state church. I call one form of Christian control over and privilege in the state Christian Paternalism where there is a broader mix of laws based on secular values and Christian values. Indeed, the controversy over same-sex marriage (SSM) brought this to light as many of my fellow religiously conservative Christians tried to draw a line in the sand justifying their opposition to SSM on natural law or on what is best for human flourishing. The problem with those justifications was that we see homosexuality in 1,500 species in nature on the one hand and the flourishing argument allowed for law to be based on what is the best case scenario while ignoring what is an acceptable scenario. Of course there were those who used the what is happening to the property values because of who is moving into the neighborhood argument.
In the end, opposition to SSM ignored the religious rights of those whose religion allowed for homosexuality whose view of natural law includes what is observed in nature. So though the previous state prohibition against SSM was not Christendom, it was due to Church control over the state and thus there existed a privileged place for Christians in society in determining certain laws. Here we should note that the opposition to SSM is just one example of an attempt to establish Christian Paternalism over our society.
BTW, it is ironic that Clark should be citing Calvin here because of how the religious persecution that existed in Geneva under his influence resulted in heretics and witches being put to death for religious reasons. And we certainly could not bring Luther in as an example either seeing how he called on German society and princes to punish the Jews for their unbelief lest they be complicit in that unbelief.
The concern for the freedom of the Church and the definition of who God's people are expressed in the article above are very sound and they serve as good reasons to reject not just Christendom and state churches, but Christian Paternalism as well. But in addition, we should note another reason why we should reject state churches and any form of Christian Paternalism. That reason has to do with determining how we should share society with unbelievers. If we don't share society with unbelievers as equals, then we need to take into account the blowback to our Christian witness. That any form of Christian control over society can result in people not wanting to hear the Gospel not because of the content of the Gospel but because of the offense some unbelievers have taken to having their lives governed by Christian control over society.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The following comment is still awaiting moderation though it has been over a week since it was posted and the author of the blogpost has posted another article. Please visit the blogpost by clicking its link to see if the status of this comment has been changed.
To Justin Taylor and his blogpost republishing Martin Luther King Jr.’s letter from a Birmingham jail. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.
Just as racism was not King’s only core concern, neither is the letter from a Birmingham jail the only document one should read when remembering King. Two other documents that are as equally important are his speech against the Vietnam War (see http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2564.htm ) and his last speech given in support of the striking garbage collectors in Memphis (see http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkivebeentothemountaintop.htm ).
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jan 20
To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost quote of Romans 13, a passage that tells us to both obey the civil authorities and to love one’s neighbors. This appeared in Heidelblog.
Martin Luther King Jr had to ask the inconvenient question of what happens when loving one's neighbor comes into conflict with following unjust laws? Another question before us is how should one implement Romans 13 in a vastly different historical context than what existed in the First Century.
It seems that when celebrating the American Revolution, citations of Romans 13 are not in sight. But when regarding a government that is controlled by the political party that is most favored by religiously conservative Christians and their leaders, we quote Romans 13 implying how it should be carried out.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jan 24
To Matt Carter and his talk on how his church started to practice “social justice” by how it learned how to help the vulnerable in his city. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.
On one hand, Carter is talking about very admirable actions taken by his church and those actions are done in humility. Other churches should pay attention to what Carter's church is doing.
On the other hand, Carter is missing a foundational part of social justice that was practiced by both the OT prophets and the Apostle James. According to model of though Carter's employing, they also preached 'against the city.' In other words they cited others, especially those with wealth and power, for their sins of oppression against the vulnerable. Without this part of social justice, then one of Vladimir Lenin's criticisms of Christianity rings true. That criticism was that Christianity provided a cheap form of grace for those with wealth and power who were oppressing the vulnerable. It was cheap because those who oppressed only had to add to their repertoire acts of kindness and charity toward those they were exploiting. They were not required to change from exploiting others. In a sense, it is as if Lenin viewed those acts of charity without repenting from exploiting others as indulgences (see https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1905/dec/03.htm ).
In The Crisis Of Democracy the complaint was made that the Church had failed to fulfill its role as an institution of indoctrination during the 1960s. How was the Church to function as such an institution? It, along with educational institutions, the military, and the family, was to teach its people how to fit into society and respect the authority those elites from both the public and private sectors. However, we should note that the 1960s saw a great rebellion against injustice. Instances of injustice were seen in the immoral war in Vietnam as well as the Jim Crow society we had constructed. It could also been in the inequitable treatment of women. If the Church had fulfilled its role of indoctrinating the young rather than failing in that role, then those injustices would have been accepted rather than challenged.
Again, what Carter speaks about churches coming alongside of those who were there to help the vulnerable in the city is very admirable and should be highly valued. Other churches would do well to imitate what his church has done. But social justice isn't putting bandaids on wounds, it consists of challenging those institutions and those with wealth and power to repent from exploiting and oppressing others. Instead of talking about the Church and Social Justice, Carter would have been better to talk about the Church and the Social Gospel of which helping others is an indispensable part. But we should note that Social Justice is the calling of institutions and those with wealth and power to repent from harming others (see http://flamingfundamentalist.blogspot.com/2013/05/is-social-gospel-biblical-enough-for.html ).
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To Pat Buchanan and his blogpost commending Trump’s ‘America First’ inaugural address. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.
'America First!' without any mention of moral obligations to those in and out of America gives an eerie reminder of what was promised in Germany in the early 1930s. And for all nations to take this our nation first attitude without reference to any universal moral standards by which nations would restrain their behavior can serve as an invitation to a giant king-of-the-hill battle where the rule of force by the strongest nations reigns.
Certainly America has tried two basic approaches in responding to the world around it. It has tried isolationism, such as just prior to WW I, and imperialism. And both have failed. While isolationism inevitably draws us into conflicts because other nations are vying for more wealth and power, imperialism has proved to be neither feasible nor moral.
There is another approach. It was an approach that was promised by the creation of the UN but never carried out because the most powerful nations would have nothing to do with being restrained. And the worst culprit at refusing international restraint is the US because it was seeking an 'America First' foreign policy through the creation of empire. The UN offered a hope for alternate ways at resolving conflicts because it allowed for some measure of democracy to be used in forming resolutions. However, the existence of the Security Council ensured that only the weaker nations that were not supported by the most powerful would be subject to international law. And as for as long as we practice either isolationism or imperialism, we continue in rejecting international law from controlling our actions and we head for the cliff of self-destruction.
To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost that opposes a state church. This appeared in the Heidelblog.
I fully agree that there should be no state church and that God's people are the elect from every nation who believe in Jesus Christ. But we would be fooling ourselves if we believed that there is no Christian meddling or privilege in the state outside of some kind of theocracy or Christendom. That is because Christian control over and privilege in the state exists on a continuum where control over and privilege can still exist outside of a state church. I call one form of Christian control over and privilege in the state Christian Paternalism where there is a broader mix of laws based on secular values and Christian values. Indeed, the controversy over same-sex marriage (SSM) brought this to light as many of my fellow religiously conservative Christians tried to draw a line in the sand justifying their opposition to SSM on natural law or on what is best for human flourishing. The problem with those justifications was that we see homosexuality in 1,500 species in nature on the one hand and the flourishing argument allowed for law to be based on what is the best case scenario while ignoring what is an acceptable scenario. Of course there were those who used the what is happening to the property values because of who is moving into the neighborhood argument.
In the end, opposition to SSM ignored the religious rights of those whose religion allowed for homosexuality whose view of natural law includes what is observed in nature. So though the previous state prohibition against SSM was not Christendom, it was due to Church control over the state and thus there existed a privileged place for Christians in society in determining certain laws. Here we should note that the opposition to SSM is just one example of an attempt to establish Christian Paternalism over our society.
BTW, it is ironic that Clark should be citing Calvin here because of how the religious persecution that existed in Geneva under his influence resulted in heretics and witches being put to death for religious reasons. And we certainly could not bring Luther in as an example either seeing how he called on German society and princes to punish the Jews for their unbelief lest they be complicit in that unbelief.
The concern for the freedom of the Church and the definition of who God's people are expressed in the article above are very sound and they serve as good reasons to reject not just Christendom and state churches, but Christian Paternalism as well. But in addition, we should note another reason why we should reject state churches and any form of Christian Paternalism. That reason has to do with determining how we should share society with unbelievers. If we don't share society with unbelievers as equals, then we need to take into account the blowback to our Christian witness. That any form of Christian control over society can result in people not wanting to hear the Gospel not because of the content of the Gospel but because of the offense some unbelievers have taken to having their lives governed by Christian control over society.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The following comment is still awaiting moderation though it has been over a week since it was posted and the author of the blogpost has posted another article. Please visit the blogpost by clicking its link to see if the status of this comment has been changed.
To Justin Taylor and his blogpost republishing Martin Luther King Jr.’s letter from a Birmingham jail. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.
Just as racism was not King’s only core concern, neither is the letter from a Birmingham jail the only document one should read when remembering King. Two other documents that are as equally important are his speech against the Vietnam War (see http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2564.htm ) and his last speech given in support of the striking garbage collectors in Memphis (see http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkivebeentothemountaintop.htm ).
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jan 20
To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost quote of Romans 13, a passage that tells us to both obey the civil authorities and to love one’s neighbors. This appeared in Heidelblog.
Martin Luther King Jr had to ask the inconvenient question of what happens when loving one's neighbor comes into conflict with following unjust laws? Another question before us is how should one implement Romans 13 in a vastly different historical context than what existed in the First Century.
It seems that when celebrating the American Revolution, citations of Romans 13 are not in sight. But when regarding a government that is controlled by the political party that is most favored by religiously conservative Christians and their leaders, we quote Romans 13 implying how it should be carried out.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jan 24
To Matt Carter and his talk on how his church started to practice “social justice” by how it learned how to help the vulnerable in his city. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.
On one hand, Carter is talking about very admirable actions taken by his church and those actions are done in humility. Other churches should pay attention to what Carter's church is doing.
On the other hand, Carter is missing a foundational part of social justice that was practiced by both the OT prophets and the Apostle James. According to model of though Carter's employing, they also preached 'against the city.' In other words they cited others, especially those with wealth and power, for their sins of oppression against the vulnerable. Without this part of social justice, then one of Vladimir Lenin's criticisms of Christianity rings true. That criticism was that Christianity provided a cheap form of grace for those with wealth and power who were oppressing the vulnerable. It was cheap because those who oppressed only had to add to their repertoire acts of kindness and charity toward those they were exploiting. They were not required to change from exploiting others. In a sense, it is as if Lenin viewed those acts of charity without repenting from exploiting others as indulgences (see https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1905/dec/03.htm ).
In The Crisis Of Democracy the complaint was made that the Church had failed to fulfill its role as an institution of indoctrination during the 1960s. How was the Church to function as such an institution? It, along with educational institutions, the military, and the family, was to teach its people how to fit into society and respect the authority those elites from both the public and private sectors. However, we should note that the 1960s saw a great rebellion against injustice. Instances of injustice were seen in the immoral war in Vietnam as well as the Jim Crow society we had constructed. It could also been in the inequitable treatment of women. If the Church had fulfilled its role of indoctrinating the young rather than failing in that role, then those injustices would have been accepted rather than challenged.
Again, what Carter speaks about churches coming alongside of those who were there to help the vulnerable in the city is very admirable and should be highly valued. Other churches would do well to imitate what his church has done. But social justice isn't putting bandaids on wounds, it consists of challenging those institutions and those with wealth and power to repent from exploiting and oppressing others. Instead of talking about the Church and Social Justice, Carter would have been better to talk about the Church and the Social Gospel of which helping others is an indispensable part. But we should note that Social Justice is the calling of institutions and those with wealth and power to repent from harming others (see http://flamingfundamentalist.blogspot.com/2013/05/is-social-gospel-biblical-enough-for.html ).
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To Pat Buchanan and his blogpost commending Trump’s ‘America First’ inaugural address. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.
'America First!' without any mention of moral obligations to those in and out of America gives an eerie reminder of what was promised in Germany in the early 1930s. And for all nations to take this our nation first attitude without reference to any universal moral standards by which nations would restrain their behavior can serve as an invitation to a giant king-of-the-hill battle where the rule of force by the strongest nations reigns.
Certainly America has tried two basic approaches in responding to the world around it. It has tried isolationism, such as just prior to WW I, and imperialism. And both have failed. While isolationism inevitably draws us into conflicts because other nations are vying for more wealth and power, imperialism has proved to be neither feasible nor moral.
There is another approach. It was an approach that was promised by the creation of the UN but never carried out because the most powerful nations would have nothing to do with being restrained. And the worst culprit at refusing international restraint is the US because it was seeking an 'America First' foreign policy through the creation of empire. The UN offered a hope for alternate ways at resolving conflicts because it allowed for some measure of democracy to be used in forming resolutions. However, the existence of the Security Council ensured that only the weaker nations that were not supported by the most powerful would be subject to international law. And as for as long as we practice either isolationism or imperialism, we continue in rejecting international law from controlling our actions and we head for the cliff of self-destruction.
Friday, December 5, 2014
What Responses To Ferguson Can Reveal
Quite often, how people really feel about the status quo can be seen in how they react to a crisis. For those who are content with the status quo, the problems that stem from any crisis are always someone else's fault, for it cannot be the fault of the current systems that maintain the status quo. There are some who are discontent with the status quo but who act and think as if it were a natural disaster or a fixed cost rather than being a social problem--we should note that a social problem, by definition, must be problem about which we can do something. People from either group will then respond to the crisis by stressing individual responsibility. Of course, there are other responses made by those who are not happy with the status quo. These people will either exclusively blame the systems for people's problems or they will see the status quo as a contributor to the struggles people have.
It is with all of that in mind that this blog will review some blogposts about Ferguson and racism posted in the Gospel Coalition website. These blogposts appeared in the Gospel Coalition website. The guest articles were written by Benjamin Watson (click here for his article) and Voddie Baucham (click there for his article) as they gave their responses to what occurred in Ferguson.
Both men downplay external systemic factors only in different ways. Baucham acknowledges systemic problems plaguing the Black community but these problems are, according to him, within the community itself. Baucham especially wants to avoid giving any credibility to a Marxian 'White privilege' explanation for what has happened to the Black community. 'fatherlessness' and 'immorality' are root causes for what plagues Blacks. In addition, he does not see racism against Blacks allegedly practiced by police as being a problem. Rather, citing the disparity between the number of Blacks killed by Blacks vs the number of Blacks killed by the police, he believes that the Blacks have far more to fear from fellow Blacks than from the police. He gives personal experiences, though, of what Blacks do suffer from. And yet, he attributes all of this to personal sin and gives no credit to unjust, external systems.
Watson also emphasizes individual responsibility over problems caused by external systems, but he does so in a different way. First, Watson is deeply troubled by generations of injustice as well as some of the response such as rioting and looting. He's worried about an us vs them attitude and the prejudice it can produce, he's frustrated over the lack of change and yet thinks things are better now than before. And he is confused over why it is so hard to do what the police say. Here, we might want to remind Watson of the history of the struggle for Civil Rights.
But most telling is where he finds his hope. His hope is in the Gospel because the root problem is due to sin--that is individual sin. Though, unlike Baucham, he doesn't write off the systemic racism, he still sees the solution solely in terms of changing individuals through preaching the Gospel. And in so thinking, he joins Baucham in affirming the status quo. Only here, the status quo isn't state of being that Blacks have in our society, it is in the current systems that maintain everyone's state of being.
So what we have is a, though not the only, typical Conservative Christian response. That response says that we only need to work on individuals by preaching the Gospel and thus we leave the systems on which the status quo rests alone. This is why preaching the Gospel is seen as the only solution. Of course, Christians who believe this have their counterparts, especially on the Left, who believe that all we need to do is to change the systems, there is more than one system, that maintain the status quo and we can eliminate injustice. What both sides have in common is that they think in all-or-nothing terms which leads to making exclusive-or choices between converting individuals and changing the systems. And thus, trying both approaches is impossible because they are seen as being antithetical.
Now this exclusive-or approach isn't taken by all Christians nor of all who post on the Gospel Coalition. Trevin Wax challenged Baucham's dismissal of White Privilege as a cause for racial problems (click here) as he should. For one of Baucham's key mistakes is that he fails to look behind the curtain of Black fatherlessness and immorality. He doesn't consider whether political, economic, and other systems contribute to Black fatherlessness and immorality. And here, shouldn't we challenge Baucham for suggesting that Blacks have a greater problem with immorality than Whites?
Justin Taylor just wrote a blogpost quoting Martin Luther King on the need to change legislation in order to curb racism (click here). And though he and Wax are presenting different approaches than Baucham and Watson, we would be making the same exclusive-or thinking mistake as Baucham and Watson made have if we replaced what Baucham and Watson wrote with just the corrections which Wax and Taylor suggested. That is because there is no need to think in exclusive-or terms here. Yes, we need to preach the Gospel and convert individuals. Here, we should note that there are other messages besides the Gospel which promote racial equality. And yes, we also need to change the systems that maintain the status quo. And there is no reason not to do both unless one is seeking control for one's own group. That is when Christians say that the only solution to a significant social problem is to have everybody believe the Gospel, they are in effect saying that Christianity should rule society for it to have any hope. Such people have an inadequate knowledge of our history. The same goes for those who believe that if society would only employ the systems they are advocating, our problems would be solved.
We should note one final problem in our attempts to solve our society's problem with continued systemic racism. That problem is that though there were political advances made in terms of gaining equal rights for minorities, wealth disparity either remains unchanged or it grew. And anyone who knows anything about politics will tell you that power follows wealth and thus the failure to change the wealth disparity problem might be, or is in reality, a significant contributing factor to our society's failure to overcome racism.
Though the Conservative Christian Church will sometimes address racism and try to work to change the political system to advance equality, it has utterly failed to address an economic system that is based on the love of money and contributes to our ongoing problem with racism. As I remember Noam Chomsky stating in a DVD I have that while King went after racism, he was applauded; but he was denounced when he worked for economic justice and opposed the Vietnam War and militarism. So at best, the Conservative Christian Church has followed what gained King applause and has avoided to do what caused him criticism.
Thus, our current economic system, which plays just as big a role in maintaining racism as any unjust political system could, has been treated either as a sacred cow or a fixed cost. And so there is no prophetic word challenging our economic system coming from the Conservative Christian Church. Thus, we can only conclude that it is content with that part of our society. And this is what we see in all of the writers cited here.
It is with all of that in mind that this blog will review some blogposts about Ferguson and racism posted in the Gospel Coalition website. These blogposts appeared in the Gospel Coalition website. The guest articles were written by Benjamin Watson (click here for his article) and Voddie Baucham (click there for his article) as they gave their responses to what occurred in Ferguson.
Both men downplay external systemic factors only in different ways. Baucham acknowledges systemic problems plaguing the Black community but these problems are, according to him, within the community itself. Baucham especially wants to avoid giving any credibility to a Marxian 'White privilege' explanation for what has happened to the Black community. 'fatherlessness' and 'immorality' are root causes for what plagues Blacks. In addition, he does not see racism against Blacks allegedly practiced by police as being a problem. Rather, citing the disparity between the number of Blacks killed by Blacks vs the number of Blacks killed by the police, he believes that the Blacks have far more to fear from fellow Blacks than from the police. He gives personal experiences, though, of what Blacks do suffer from. And yet, he attributes all of this to personal sin and gives no credit to unjust, external systems.
Watson also emphasizes individual responsibility over problems caused by external systems, but he does so in a different way. First, Watson is deeply troubled by generations of injustice as well as some of the response such as rioting and looting. He's worried about an us vs them attitude and the prejudice it can produce, he's frustrated over the lack of change and yet thinks things are better now than before. And he is confused over why it is so hard to do what the police say. Here, we might want to remind Watson of the history of the struggle for Civil Rights.
But most telling is where he finds his hope. His hope is in the Gospel because the root problem is due to sin--that is individual sin. Though, unlike Baucham, he doesn't write off the systemic racism, he still sees the solution solely in terms of changing individuals through preaching the Gospel. And in so thinking, he joins Baucham in affirming the status quo. Only here, the status quo isn't state of being that Blacks have in our society, it is in the current systems that maintain everyone's state of being.
So what we have is a, though not the only, typical Conservative Christian response. That response says that we only need to work on individuals by preaching the Gospel and thus we leave the systems on which the status quo rests alone. This is why preaching the Gospel is seen as the only solution. Of course, Christians who believe this have their counterparts, especially on the Left, who believe that all we need to do is to change the systems, there is more than one system, that maintain the status quo and we can eliminate injustice. What both sides have in common is that they think in all-or-nothing terms which leads to making exclusive-or choices between converting individuals and changing the systems. And thus, trying both approaches is impossible because they are seen as being antithetical.
Now this exclusive-or approach isn't taken by all Christians nor of all who post on the Gospel Coalition. Trevin Wax challenged Baucham's dismissal of White Privilege as a cause for racial problems (click here) as he should. For one of Baucham's key mistakes is that he fails to look behind the curtain of Black fatherlessness and immorality. He doesn't consider whether political, economic, and other systems contribute to Black fatherlessness and immorality. And here, shouldn't we challenge Baucham for suggesting that Blacks have a greater problem with immorality than Whites?
Justin Taylor just wrote a blogpost quoting Martin Luther King on the need to change legislation in order to curb racism (click here). And though he and Wax are presenting different approaches than Baucham and Watson, we would be making the same exclusive-or thinking mistake as Baucham and Watson made have if we replaced what Baucham and Watson wrote with just the corrections which Wax and Taylor suggested. That is because there is no need to think in exclusive-or terms here. Yes, we need to preach the Gospel and convert individuals. Here, we should note that there are other messages besides the Gospel which promote racial equality. And yes, we also need to change the systems that maintain the status quo. And there is no reason not to do both unless one is seeking control for one's own group. That is when Christians say that the only solution to a significant social problem is to have everybody believe the Gospel, they are in effect saying that Christianity should rule society for it to have any hope. Such people have an inadequate knowledge of our history. The same goes for those who believe that if society would only employ the systems they are advocating, our problems would be solved.
We should note one final problem in our attempts to solve our society's problem with continued systemic racism. That problem is that though there were political advances made in terms of gaining equal rights for minorities, wealth disparity either remains unchanged or it grew. And anyone who knows anything about politics will tell you that power follows wealth and thus the failure to change the wealth disparity problem might be, or is in reality, a significant contributing factor to our society's failure to overcome racism.
Though the Conservative Christian Church will sometimes address racism and try to work to change the political system to advance equality, it has utterly failed to address an economic system that is based on the love of money and contributes to our ongoing problem with racism. As I remember Noam Chomsky stating in a DVD I have that while King went after racism, he was applauded; but he was denounced when he worked for economic justice and opposed the Vietnam War and militarism. So at best, the Conservative Christian Church has followed what gained King applause and has avoided to do what caused him criticism.
Thus, our current economic system, which plays just as big a role in maintaining racism as any unjust political system could, has been treated either as a sacred cow or a fixed cost. And so there is no prophetic word challenging our economic system coming from the Conservative Christian Church. Thus, we can only conclude that it is content with that part of our society. And this is what we see in all of the writers cited here.
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