Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For May 25, 2022

May 24

To Tony Phelps and his article on how Luther helped him, a Calvinist, learn about the Gospel. This article appeared in Heidelblog.

There are many things to love and appreciate that came from Luther. There are also things to like from the Westminster Standards and the Heidelberg Catechism. But I have to disagree with mandating subscriptions to any set of confessions. Why? It is because those standards often cover too much material and thus become unnecessarily divisive in the Church.

But there is another reason to be leery of subscriptions. Subscriptions lure people into traditionalism and traditionalism is just a mirror image of narcissism.

How are traditionalism and narcissism related? Both put a set of time periods on a pedestal that is way too high. Thus traditionalism claims that those from its favorite periods of time have everything to teach and nothing to learn from those who live in the here and now. Narcissism simply states the converse. Thus both are shutting their ears to the wisdom that the Church fallibly speaks both throughout history and today.

Do traditionalists mean to say that Martin Luther, John Calvin, Zacharias Ursinus, and the Westminster Devines had nothing to learn from today's social justice warriors.? The answer is a resounding 'YES!' Do narcissists mean to say that social justice warriors have nothing to learn from Martin Luther, John Calvin, Zacharias Ursinus and the Westminster Devines? Again, the answer is a resounding 'YES!'  So traditionalism and narcissism share the same problem. Both display much arrogance over their favorite set of time periods against all other time periods. And arrogance is a real spiritual problem for the Church.

And so what do we do with a quote from Luther like the one below:

Although the works of man always seem attractive and good, they are nevertheless likely to be    mortal sins.

Certainly our works cannot not merit any favorable standing before God. But does that imply that working against racism, the polluting of the environment, economic classism, war, patriarchy, and other injustices are mortal sins? Was working against the Nazis in Bonhoeffer's time a mortal sin? Does this quote from Luther give a possible explanation as to why Vladimir Lenin observed what he did in 1905?

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. 

Are quotes like the above one from Luther, not Lenin, a contributing factor as to why predominant branch of the Church has often sided with wealth and power of a given country  over the past few centuries and have thus contributed to the above quote from Lenin?

Does Tony point out many contributions that Martin Luther makes to our understanding of the Gospel? Most certainly. Luther's Bondage Of The Will and his Commentary On The Epistle To The Galatians are two of my favorite books. But should we also see that laxity in subscription to a set of confessions which allows for responding to social injustices as signs of not making Christ the center of our faith? The answer is a resounding 'YES!' if we want to be like those Christians whom Lenin observed and became stumbling blocks to his listening to the Gospel. 

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To Michael De Sapio and his article that explores the question of whether music has progressed. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.

What I would like to add here is that, from what I've seen, music is listened to for one of two reasons. One reason why people listen to music is for music to act like a drug and make them feel a certain way. So they listen for music that expresses how they want to feel. Another reason why people listen to music is to listen to music that expresses how they already feel from experiencing life. In the first instance, people are using music like they use drugs. In the second case people are using music to express how they experiencing life

So which music will be listened to depends on why people are listening to music. Thus the length of time a particular kind of music remains listened to is not necessarily an indicator of its quality as it is a measure of the audience over time

Now as much as De Sapio likes classical music, music has advanced since the classical time period. Only the some of the sources for that progress come from outside of Western sources. Rhythmic  development from Eastern Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa go well beyond what is heard in classical music. The added influence of Africa to classical music create Jazz. Jazz developed in many ways beyond Classical music both in rhythm, harmonies, and virtuosity. Modern music has added a host of rhythmic developments that call for more percussion instruments and a greater prominence of those instruments in the playing of the music along with odd and irregular meters, and polyrhythms. In terms of harmony, chord substitutions and polytonality have been more common place in music and we have the quarter-tone system from India--Western music relies on half-tones.

But the real issue here is whether musical tastes have progressed or digressed. And again, this goes back to why people listen to music. People who use music like they would use a recreational drug to make them feel the way they want to feel will tend to prefer simplicity in their music. Simplicity  in music is fine as long as there is variation.  That is because not all of life is simple. But when simplicity in music rules the day, music digresses and loses the ability to be expressive The loss of expression in music only causes music to digress and that is because music is first about communication. Music is meant to communicate what life is about. And life is, at times, very complex and complicated.

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For October 14, 2020

 Sept 18

To Andrew Latham and his blogpost that accuses Marx and Engels as being racists and of early founders of Marx as embracing slavery. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.

I cannot speak much to racism in Marx except to say that what is written above does not make him stand out from either most leaders in America or from people like Tocqueville. Whereas Marx saw in Germany the hope for the future, Tocqueville saw in Great Britain the superior society. In addition, Tocqueville wrote about Blacks and Native Americans in similar ways as is being attributed to Marx and Engels above. And yet that seems to not have been important enough for Latham to mention. And unlike Tocqueville, Marx did not get to witness what was going on in the United States.

But as for slavery, Latham fails to mention Marx's relationship with Abraham Lincoln. It has been summarized as one where they communicated and Lincoln learned from Marx without becoming a Marxist (see  https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/07/27/you-know-who-was-into-karl-marx-no-not-aoc-abraham-lincoln/  ). Marx spoke against American slavery in class terms. He corrected the perception that London's media presented of our Civil War which was that of a battle between protectionism vs free trade. Marx said that it was about slavery (see  'The North American Civil War (October, 1961) in   https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/internationalist/pamphlets/MARX-on-Slavery-OptV5.pdf  ). In Marx's congratulatory letter to Lincoln for winning a second term, he criticized the South by calling it an 'oligarchy of 300,000 slave holders and described the Southern cause as 'property against labor' (see   https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/iwma/documents/1864/lincoln-letter.htm ). In 1861, Marx called slavery a horror (see  https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1861/10/11.htm ).

Yes, Marx made more than just mistakes with some of his views, though it is very debatable whether those who committed great atrocities while claiming to represent him were actually following what he  wrote. Rosa Luxemburg, a socialist contemporary of Vladimir Lenin criticized Lenin's regime as imitating a bourgeoisie dictatorship in its structure and operation. Why she said that is the real issue. For Lenin did everything to ensure that proletariat rule would not be his way of governing Russia (see  https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1918/russian-revolution/ch08.htm ). In fact, none of the big 3 leaders of the Russian Revolution were Proletariats. Rather, they led a vanguard movement equating themselves with Marx's revolution. We should note that it was their vanguardism, not Marx's teaching, that led to their tyrannical rule in Russia and we could say the same of Mao in China. We should note that because our 2 major political parties portray themselves as vanguards as well.

So why was the above article written. My guess is that it was written to inspire people to view Marx in all-or-nothing terms and thus to reject anything associated with Marx. And if I am correct, by doing so, Latham is speaking as an authoritarian which is something for which we should all condemn Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao, and Castro for ruling like one.

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Sept 24

To Sir Roger Scruton and his article that heavily criticizes the replacement of classical music with avant-garde. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.

The only problem that occurs when discussing the classical tradition and avant-garde is when we try to force a false dichotomy between the two onto the listener. Just because avant-garde might, in many cases, better express the world in which we have been living doesn't mean that we can dispose of all of the music from the past. Likewise, just because of the magnificent contributions and works of the classical period doesn't mean that we should disregard boundaries crossed by avant-garde music.

While Scruton uses the views of the music critic Robert Reilly to make his case. And while Scruton tries to establish Reilly's musical authority to speak on such matters by presenting him as a kind of Renaissance man, I would like to think that Leonard Bernstein also possesses significant enough credentials to speak about music. He talks favorably about Schoenberg's explorations and achievements while telling us that we cannot escape the past (see  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olwVvbWd-tg  ).

We see 12-tone scales and other more exploratory approaches to music in some Jazz artists. Why? it is because they believe that the rules and new boundaries set are tools rather than goals. After all, music is first about communication rather than about techniques and tools. Music, like all of the arts, are to reflect life rather than try to meet some idealistic standard.

And in reflecting life, music is a barometer for where we are as a people. Rather than criticize avant-garde, I would hope that Scruton would spend his time on what the overly simplistic approach to music that we see in pop music tells us about people in general. How the rejection of complexity in music indicates that we have a population that believes that life must simple. And in so believing, we see more and more people becoming unable to see reality for what it is because they cannot tolerate complexity. And that is where avant-garde comes in.  It has simply introduced more complexity and is overly criticized by some because they cannot accept that complexity.

Thus, there is no reason to either reject classical music or avant-garde or any other approach to music that tries to adequately reflect the the complexity that is so much a part of life in every age.

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Sept 24

To G. Shane Morris and his blogpost that claims that it is progressives, not evangelicals who are obsessed with sex. This appeared in the Troubler of Israel blog on Patheos.

IMO, the above article indicates that Morris is too defensive to understand the complaints made about us religiously conservative Christians. Here is the complaint, that in terms of legislation and politics, many religiously religiously conservative Christians are obsessed with controlling the sexual practices of fellow citizens, especially those who are unbelievers, while we say nothing about America's immoral wars and support the cutting of social safety nets by the government.

If we can disagree with other religions while fully supporting their right to meet and practice, how is it that we are unable to to disagree with the sexual practices of unbelievers while allowing them the freedom to follow their own sexual mores? The concern from many unbelievers isn't about us agreeing with their sexual practices and relationships. Rather it is about us imposing our sexual mores on them. For the most part, religiously conservative Christians have fought tooth and nail against full equality for the LGBT community. And we have done so partly because such equality would cause us to have more contact with them than we care to.

At the same time, many of us religiously conservative Christians express no qualms when our nation separates kids from parents and locks everyone up. Many of us show no concern about the cutting or reducing of social safety nets nor do we want to admit that there is systemic racism in our nation. We even cheer the sending of our troops into harm's way while sharply condemning as being unpatriotic those who oppose, or even question, our wars.

Certainly some of us believe that the Church should be in charge of helping the needy. But America's conservative Church has no such interest in helping everyone. Don't we understand why many conservative churches move out of urban areas into the suburbs? And yet some of us want the conservative Church to take care of all who are in need.

In addition, the note by Iain Lovejoy noted the problem with the field hospital.

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Oct 6

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost that accuses CRT of suppressing dissent. This appeared in Heidelblog.

Odd that Clark would take one school's attempt to accommodate CRT and attribute that to CRT as a whole. I suspect that Clark's real objection is the basic tenet of CRT: that this nation was founded on and still revolves around white supremacy. I think that Clark denies that the nation is still based on white supremacy, as well as some other supremacies. The inclusion of other supremacies comes with the addition of Intersectionality.

In addition, CRT says that because of the current systemic racism that exists in this nation, we do have to review and even redefine some of our basic institutions.

Part of CRT is based on the works of Martin Luther King Jr. And here we should note that  King battled against a large white supremacist culture that, with the help of laws, enforced that white supremacy on this nation. Thus, racism wasn't only an individual sin, it was a corporate, societal sin. The response of color blindness forgets the disadvantages that systemic racism brought to many people of color. Thus color-blindness and meritocracy only furthered those disadvantages and inspired those who hold to hyperindividualism to continue to believe in white supremacy because they overlooked the disadvantages from which many people of color were performing with. Many liken all of that to a race where the starting line for those with privilege is significantly closer to the finish line than the starting line for those who have been marginalized. To then judge people based on when they cross the finish line might seem fair, but it is far from fair.

Thus, one has to question whether a person who opposes racism as an individual but does not oppose systemic or institutional racism is still adequately opposed to racism.

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Oct 13

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost that celebrates the removing of the Pulitzer Prize from and criticism of the 1619 Project. This appeared in Heidelblog.

The key problem with  the 1619 Project was not with facts but the interpretation of the facts. It employed all-or-nothing thinking by reducing the founding of America to the issue of slavery.

The conservative reaction to the 1619 Project by some religiously conservative Christians often employs the same type of thinking. And the reason for that is partial conflation of Christianity with American Patriotism. This is seen in their use of the parallel of America's founding fathers to America with the Apostles to the Church. And in doing so, they put America's founding fathers, and America itself, on too high a pedestal.

As for why the American Revolution was fought, there was no one single issue. That the British were interfering with the colonialists westward expansion that would take land from the Native Americans is certainly  one reason. Defense of slavery was another reason why some of our founding fathers sought independence from England. How the Sommerset case was reported, especially with how the judges words about how slavery was not consistent with English law was taken out of context. Thus,, many wrongly thought that his decision spelled the end of slavery in England and the colonies. So it is quite reasonable to see that continued belonging to the UK posed a threat to slavery and thus provided another, but not the only, reason why some of the founding fathers, many of whom were slave owners, wanted to break away from England.

Of course those two reasons alone break the idealistic parallel that many religiously conservative American Christians want to maintain between the role that our nation's founding fathers played with the creation of American and the Apostles' role in establishing the Church.

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For October 26, 2016

Oct 19

To Roger Scruton and his blogpost which pits Classical music against Avant-Garde music. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.

Unfortunately, this article speaks in an authoritarian manner telling us that the only music worth listening to is that which strives for order and beauty. Thus, the only music worth listening to, according to the writer of this article, is that music that expresses the ideal. And so we have an exclusive-or choice between modern Avant-Garde and what is considered to be classical music. Twelve tone music is thus condemned because it fits outside the boundaries set by classical music and the use of music to express the ideal.

However, without having to throw out classical, which to my knowledge is done by no one, we should note that music is not just for expressing the what we regard as what is beautiful and the ideal, but to express reality as it appears in all of its ways. And this is really the basic rub here. Is music to be limited to painting  beautiful pictures with sound or is music there to help us communicate what all of life is about.

That we do not have to choose both approaches to music is demonstrated by many musicians, but I will pick one in particular. Dave Brubeck incorporated many musical forms in his writing and performing. And this included forms from all sorts of Jazz to Bach to religious music to 12 tone. And which ones were used in any particular piece depended on what Brubeck wanted the piece to express. And here we should note that he felt that music should express the gamut of emotions.

Thus, the real conflict here is between the ideal and reality, between authoritarianism and freedom. The authoritarian view tells us that the choice of music we have before us should be limited to only that which expresses beauty. The choosing to be free says that music should fit the message it is trying to communicate whether that message is one about beauty or one about the realities of life. So we see that even in music, those who are authoritarian are always fighting against freedom.


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Oct 22

To Joe Carter and his use of the Love Gov film series to discourage any government oversight into a nation’s economy and to promote free market economies in his blogpost. This appeared in the Acton Blog.

Free market economies do not promote charity, selflessness, and kindness. Such a claim is nothing more than a sales line. What a free market economy does is to promote elite-centered rule and independence. Free market economies promote elite-centered rule because such economies provide the fewest obstacles for the consolidation of wealth. And where we have the consolidation of wealth, we have the consolidation of power. And such economies tell those at the top that their business operations are to be free the demands of any government including those governments that are working democracies. That is another way of saying that business owners are more and more free from their social responsibilities. And in every nation whose government is a working democracy, then a free market economy tells the business owners that their business is free from the demands made on them by the people represented by their government.

We should note that human flourishing uses as a bottom-line measurement by at least some who promote free market economies. For their claim is that free market economies remove the most people from abject poverty. But there are three problems with the claim. First, the standard of living that exists above the abject poverty level is still a poverty level of living especially depending on where one lives. Second, what produced the jobs for people from those nations that saw the greatest reduction in abject poverty was the removal of jobs from people from other nations. And the motive for the moving of those jobs was to benefit the investors who owned the businesses rather than to benefit the people in the nation that would receive the jobs. In the meantime, many who lost those jobs now flood the job market for certain skills and that keeps the wages for those jobs down because of the law of supply and demand. And third, many of the jobs in nations where people are escaping abject poverty are set in sweatshop conditions. In addition, in the two nations where the most people have been removed from abject poverty, slavery is either stagnant or increasing.

Free market economies are investor-oriented economies with less and less government oversight over the markets. Thus investors, even foreign investors, will have more to say about any nation's economy where the economy is a free market economy than the people of that nation will. Thus, the drive for free market economies are establishing a new governmental organization that lies outside of national boundaries and the reach of elected government officials, especially in those nations whose governments are working democracies. And here we should note that governments that are working democracies are not the kind of governments that are depicted in the film series above. Governments with working democracies are those that truly represent what their people want. The drive for free market economies is a drive for a new way for money to rule the world.

Recently, the US had to rescind laws that required the labeling of the origin of meat because the WTO, of which the US is a member, threatened serious economic sanctions if it didn't. And it did so because other nations were concerned that their businesses would lose money if the people in our nation knew from which nation the meat they were buying was. With the proposed TPP, corporations can sue governments for laws passed, but governments cannot sue those corporations. And those lawsuits would be heard in TPP tribunals that have no concern for any US law, even The Constitution. Thus, investors will have more say over laws protecting the environments or workers' rights and pay than the people of a given nations will. Other nations, such as Canada and Costa Rica, have felt the bite from these free market economies. We need to look at the whole package of what a free market economy offers while noting that the above film series does not depict the only alternative to a free market economy.

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Oct 23

To Joseph Sunde and his blogpost that claims that flourishing occurs when we act authoritatively while making ourselves vulnerable. This appears in the Acton blog.

It seems that the current emphasis on always flourishing is just another prosperity gospel. We live in a fallen world that is an alien place for believers so that to think of flourishing as a natural state is to believe that this world can be our home. Such denies what the NT says. For how does what Jesus says about where we should lay up treasure impact our view of flourishing? The same goes for when the writer of the book of Hebrews tells us that we have no home on earth.

It isn't that we should not celebrate times when we do flourish. But we should also look at those times and examine plight of all the stakeholders involved including the environment to ensure that our flourishing isn't at least partially because of exploitation. When expecting to flourish, we should also note that infinite growth on a finite planet is impossible. And our world is telling us that perhaps we have been seeking flourishing a bit too much with the rising temperatures in the troposphere and the rising sea levels that have already been hurting people.

Again, this emphasis on forever flourishing is just another prosperity gospel. It uses flattery and visions of sugar plums dancing in our heads to appeal to us. But it denies the costs all of us must pay either now or later for how we have been flourishing today.

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Oct 24

To Peter Lawler and his blogpost asking if we should venerate The Constitution. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.

I don't know how we can determine whether we should venerate The Constitution without talking about the context in which the document was written. After all, it was written during a time of widespread dissent and soon after Shays Rebellion. As we observe from all of the Constitutional references to the Militia, one of the purposes of The Constitution was to strengthen the Federal Government so that it could better respond to insurrections. And when we look at Madison's view of one of the purposes of government, which is to 'protect the minority of the opulent against the majority' and that Senators were immune to public opinion by not just the length of their terms, but by being appointed rather than elected, we see the disdain that many of the framers of The Constitution had for direct democracy. We should also note that Federalists pejoratively referred to those with whom they disagreed with as belonging to 'factions.'

And many conservatives carry on that traditional disdain by equating democracy with 'mob rule,' as if the majority rule by elites (a.k.a., a republic) is more virtuous than majority rule by all the people. For if democracy is mob rule, then how can majority rule by elites be referred to in any other way than 'the mob rules'? Here we should note that The Constitution was written in an effort to maintain the status quo for the sake of domestic elites. And, as Federalists 10 pointed out, it is the union that is more important than the states. So how in the world can we see The Constitution as promoting limited government and states rights unless, from an apriori commitment, we perform eisegesis by reading it into the document?

Sure, if some want to put The Constitution on a pedestal and venerate it, they are free to do so. But all of us should remember that the higher that pedestal and the greater the veneration, the more we have the tyranny of tradition and thus a form of authoritarianism. This isn't to say that we should easily replace The Constitution by today's popular views. That would be the result of narcissism. It is to say that just as conservatives want government to be limited, so we should want the size of the pedestal on which we place The Constitution and its veneration to be limited as well. After all, we should remember that both The Constitution and the founding and expanding of our nation was racially based.