Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For September 6, 2023

 August 30

To R. Scott Clark and his article on how the current direction of the Church is affected by some of the same problems and troublemakers that so bothered the Church in the past. This appeared in Heidelblog.

I welcome the collapse of Christendom with open arms. Why? It is because now the Gospel cannot be blamed for atrocities committed by the state or tolerated by society. That doesn't mean that we should be satisfied with the injustices that we see today. Rather, the justice concerns held under Christendom tolerated gross corporate sins while using shame and punishment to reign in people's individual sexual sins.

Though Clark reminds us of how some things from the past will continue to haunt us, there is an important omission in his list of troubles. What Clark forgot to mention is that for at least the past few centuries, the dominant branch of the Church in various nations have thrown their support behind wealth and power. That most noticeably occurred in the pre revolutionary times of France, Russia, and Spain. And the results of that misplaced support were that the reputation of the Gospel suffered great harm while the Church suffered unnecessary persecution after those revolutions succeeded. 

That same siding with wealth and power has been occurring here for quite a while. It is demonstrated by the margin by which the Church has been supporting the Republican Party--even when Donald Trump was the Republican Presidential candidate. It's not that the Democratic Party offers that many incentives for the Church to support it. And I am not downplaying the significance of the abortion issue. But the Republican Party's candidates provide the most morally questionable positions on how businesses should be allowed to operate. 

Cuts in regulations that protect workers and the environment as well as cuts in taxes promote social injustices as well as both threaten government programs for the vulnerable and continually shift the tax burden from the wealthy to the lower economic classes. Here we should note that the form of Capitalism employed now is not the same form employed from WW II to around the 1970s and 1980s. And none of that mentions the religiously conservative Christian support for militarism and hegemony.

Many of my fellow religiously conservative Christians are rightly critical of Critical Theory and Post Modernism. But what they neglect to notice is that both are, in part, responses to Christendom. And so both Critical Theory and Post Modernism, despite their flaws, still speak prophetically against the Church for as long as the Church continues with some of the same sins it practiced during Christendom.

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August 31

To Heidelblog for the title it gave to the portion of Harrison Perkins's  article on Signs, Seals, and Means of Grace. Since Perkins's article cites the Augustinian traction of the sacraments, the title that Heidelblog gave this post was Augustine Contra The Postmodernists.

Harrison Perkins's full article can be found at:

https://issuu.com/modernreformation/docs/sola-359-2023_05_mr_final_2_singles/s/23257929

Before we condemn Post Modernism's response to the past, we need to see what it is reacting to. Seeing that won't justify Post Modernism's response. But understanding what Post Modernism is reacting to just very might make us look at a non-magic mirror to see some of what we need to repent of.

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Sept 5

To Adrian Walker and the reposting of his article on how liberal economics have failed and how that could be remedied through changes in ideology and the size of businesses. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog. 

 

Though Walker's criticisms of Liberal economics were mostly on target, his proposed solutions could be beneficially altered by Socialistic approaches. 

How could that be if Socialism is what Walker said it was? It is because Walker's views on Socialism are based on faulty models. Let's take the former Soviet Union for example.

From its beginning Lenin did not take a socialistic approach to governing the Soviet Union. That is because, unknown to conservatives, it takes more than just centralized planning to make socialism. 

Socialism, as pointed out by Rosa Luxemburg's criticisms of Lenin, is where workers are in charge and structure of the government is more horizontal than what Lenin employed. Luxemburg called Lenin's regime a dictatorship based on a 'bourgeois model.' She said that because of the structure of Lenin's government.

Now Marx's main error in analyzing and proposing a solution to the bourgeois economy and political situation of his day was his binary thinking. According to him, there were two classes and that the proletariat should be the rulers of the nation rather than bourgeoisie.

What binary thinking prohibits in Marx's case here was a collaborative structure such as what they have in Germany with their codetermination laws. Working in collaboration could also put an end to the oppression of the bourgeoisie. In other words, what we need is a redistribution of power so that power, whether in a small or large government or business, isn't centralized in one economic class. Rather, we need business and governmental structures that redistribute power to the other economic classes with the hope that the heterogenous class structures would force those from all classes to work not only for their own interests, but for the interests of others.

Walker's solution is to both reduce the size of businesses so that they become more localized and promote a Christian economic ideology among those in charge. But outside of a centralized mandated effort, which he opposes, Walker's solution is not feasible here in America especially because of the diversity in our nation.

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For June 30, 2021

 June 29

To R. Scott Clark and Peter Jones and Jone's criticisms of the PCA as they discuss the Church and LGBT issues. Clark quotes from an article written by Jones. Clark's article appeared in Heidelblog.

The link for Jone's article is

    https://truthxchange.com/2020/06/what-the-pca-study-committee-did-not-study/

The above quotation and the article from which it came proclaim that important binaries along with lessons from creation are being ignored when it comes to the Church and LGBT issues. In addition, it calls on our nation's past heritage with its claim that our nation is 'one nation under God' and that we have inalienable rights from the Creator to guide the Church today with those issues.

There are significant problems with with what has been proclaimed above. For example, the saying 'one nation under God' was more of a political statement inserted into the pledge in the 1950s as a way of canonizing Capitalist America and demonizing Communist Soviet Union. Of course, Jim Crow was still the rage during that time and thus, we need to question the validity of the claim that we were one nation under God back then. 

And the reference to Jefferson's 'inalienable rights' given by the creator needs further examination too. For we need to ask who was Jefferson referring to when he referred to the creator when his version of the Gospel failed to include the supernatural side of Jesus. In addition, we might ask R. Scott Clark and Peter Jones, the latter who wrote the original article, about what is guaranteed in the 1st Amendment. We should also ask them about the end of I Cor 5 where Paul explicitly states that his concern is only for the purity of the Church, not society. 

We need to do this because the above article and its source isn't just about LGBT issues with regard to the Church, it is in regard to society as well. 

In terms of the Church, we cannot bring up the creational context without also mentioning the effects to nature as a result of the Fall. For with Adam's sin, nature becomes corrupted and thus any reference to people justifying homosexuality or gender dysphoria as being due to nature making them that way becomes moot. But we should also ask about what similarities and differences there are in the struggles that celibate Christian homosexuals have in terms of desires and those of heterosexual Christians who sexually desire those from the opposite sex outside of marriage before judging the former.

As for gender identity, not everything is a twoism. For example, some Native American tribes recognized up to 5 different genders and they honored those whose gender identity differed to varying degrees from their biological sex. Though the genders recognized by those Native American tribes do not always correspond to the gender identity practices seen in today's society, one thing is certain. Gender identity is not a simple twoism. That both the religiously conservative Christian response to gender dysphoria and the LGBT claims make the same mistake from different sides of the same coin. Both equate gender identity with one's biological sex. While the conservative Christian response reduces gender identity to one's biological sex, the LGBT response has one's gender identity override and deny one's biological sex. The problem with both approaches is that while one's biological sex is physical, gender identity can involve far more variables than one's biological sex and we even see that in the Scriptures where women have sometimes taken the roles of men such as with Deborah.

The real crux of the Biblical response to the challenges made by the LGBT community is seen in the failure of a previously unmentioned twoism: the differences between what we should allow society to accept/prohibit from what the Church should preach and accept/prohibit. Again, the 1st Amendment on the freedom of religion and Paul's words from the end of I Cor 5 play significant roles not acknowledged by either Clark or Jones. The conservative Church's failures in recognizing those differences is at the heart of many sincere Christians who feel like they are forced to choose between promoting and supporting the conservative Church's efforts to have society marginalize those in the LGBT community and compromising Biblical standards on sexuality.

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To R. Scott Clark and his two articles, the one links to the other, on Christianity and Post Modernism. This appeared in Heidel Blog.

Clark's 2nd article

    https://heidelblog.net/2008/11/on-being-truly-postmodern/

The article cited presents selectively filtered view of Church history, especially of Calvin, so as to imply that Modernism was Post Modernism's only foe. Post Modernism had rejected Pre Modern faiths that claimed to have exclusive ownership of the truth.

As for Church history, one only needs to look at the religious wars, the persecution of heretics and witches, the blatant anti-Semitism, the Inquisition, and religion's roles in colonialism, imperialism, and wars to see why an outcome-based truth system of Post Modernism led it to reject Pre Modernism with faith being its meta narrative along with Modernism. BTW, Clark's defense of Calvin is disingenuous. 

The Church also has had run ins with science in both the past and present such as with its insistence on geocentrism, scapegoating ethnic groups for diseases, denying certain aspects of evolution, and denying climate change. Also, latter Church history shows the Church's penchant for aligning itself with wealth and power as it had done in the pre-revolutionary times of France, Russia, and Spain and along with its current support of Neoliberal Capitalism.

In America, we could add to the list of sins committed by the Protestant branch of the Church. They would include the promotion of the belief in white supremacy as evidenced in its support of slavery and Jim Crow, and its current partial denial of systemic racism, its defense of the ethnic cleansing of Native Americans from the land, and its persecution of the LGBT community.

How ironic it is that those religious faiths that brag the most about God's mercy and forgiveness are the most reluctant to acknowledge the blatant sins of its own troubled past.

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For July 17, 2019

June 25

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost of a mass murderer and how the government is to respond to crime. This appeared in heidelblog.

It is the line below that captures the conservative weakness when it comes to how it expects the state to respond to crime:

The state is not essentially an agency of therapy, of healing. Doctors heal. The state punishes

Why can't the state also try to  rehabilitate those who are criminals and perhaps employ doctors to do so? Is it because of Romans 13? Did  Romans 13 exhaustively describe the state's response to crime? Shouldn't the goal of the criminal justice system include that of reducing recidivism? Or in order to fulfill the Romans 13 description of the state, should the single focus of the state in terms of its response to crime be to punish, punish, punish.

There is a word that describes the reduction of justice to that of just punishment; that word is 'revenge.' When the state's only response to crime is to punish, then what we end up with is a vengeful society. And that becomes evident in the civil courts where people file legal lawsuits against those who offended them in order to get as much as they can out of the offending party.

Romans 13 describes the government's response to crime as imitating God's response to sin. And so yes, the government is called to punish those who do evil. And yet, what else have we read in both the Old and New Testaments regarding those who sin? Haven't we read that God does not treat us according to our sins? And isn't one of the reasons because of our own weaknesses and another reason is because if He did, none of us could stand? And aren't our lives suppose to reflect how God has treated us?

How tragically ironic it is for a New Testament teacher to limit the government's response to crime to that of punishment. Certainly the subject of the above blogpost needed to be removed from society in order to protect society. And some, not all, criminals must be removed from society in order to protect us. And it is right for the government to punish those who do wrong and to sometimes, perhaps often, remove criminals in order to protect society. But when the government's response to crime is reduced to punishment, we have a government that no longer reflects how God approaches us when we sin.

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July 2

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost that contains a part of an article as well as a link to that whole article  where he sharply criticizes the Therapeutic Revolution as well as the term 'Gay Christian.' This apeared in Heidelblog.

Clark's blogpost is based on

https://www.agradio.org/revoice-nashville-and-the-therapeutic-revolution.html

The Therapeutic Revolution seems to be paired with post modernism through its rejection of objective truth. We should note that two self-proclaimed champions of objective truth are pre modernism and modernism. And yet, despite their proclaimed  monopolopistic hold on objective truth, terrible atrocities have been committed under the banners of pre modernism and modernism. And failing to acknowledge that is the fatal flaw in any logical attack on post modernism and the Therapeutic Revolution.

In addition, what pre modern, religiously conservative Christians should note is that the more they rant an rail againts the Therapeutic Revolution, the more they sabotage their case. That is because the more they rant and rail against that revolution, the more they fit the personality types that the Therapeutic Revolution uses to understand people. For example, the post above shows Clark's tendency toward exhibiting an authoritarian personality type. For not only is he hostile to challenges to traditional ideas, his overly simplistic, black-white  view of how the Scriptures portray government is another indicator of his personality type.

It's not that Clark should embrace the Therapeutic Revolution or post modernism, it is that the Therapeutic Revolution and  post modernism have made valid observations and thus present valid concerns. Thus, any valid critiism of either one must account for those valid observations and concerns.  But one would never know that from Clark's article.
Likewise, if one goes to the article on which the above post is based, he states that the 'pastoral is not therapeutic.' Such is stated in all-or-nothing terms as if the Pastoral can never have a part to it that is therapeutic.
The issue behind the above post, which becomes clear once one reads the whole article on which the above post is based, is the what to do about Christians who might lean toward homosexuality. Clark is clear, just as there are no 'thief Christians,' 'murderer Christians' and so forth, there are no 'gay Christians.' And yet, is it impossible for any Christian to commit theft or murder or some other serious crime? And once they commit that crime, don't they wear the label of that crime? Again, Clark's overly simplistic world view indicates the kind of personality type he has passionately embraced.

It isn't that Clark has no valid complaints or concerns. It is that neither he nor those behind the Therapeutic Revolution have a monopoly on the truth. And thus we need to read the specifics of both what the Therapeutic Revolution  proposes as well as what Clark promotes to see if we can recognize glimpses of truth each side has. That is what we should do unless we want to totally reject the Therapeutic Revolution because Clark says we should.


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To Gene Veith and his blogpost on the role Post Modernism has played in questioning of rationality and reason by academics. The comment below has been pending for at least 14 days. The blogpost appeared on Patheos's Cranach


The below is a trend not just for Veith but for some other conservatives:

In the academic establishment today, much of the knowledge they convey to their students really is a construction of those in power–namely, the leftists who currently hold power in academia and who use their privilege to impose their ideology on students, colleagues, their professions, and their institutions.

Note how leftists are described negatively as a monolith. And that is a rather convenient thing to do when one wishes to demonize or scapegoat or silence their target by descrediting them. And doing so is no more accurate and no more morally right to do than to do that against people of a particular race or religion or nation.
And that practice of demonizing others is done by some in all ideologies: in conservative ideologies, liberal ideologies, and leftist ideologies. It is all part of tribalism and the authoritarianism that comes with it. And such demonizing has its ties to post modernism

As for post modernism, realize that the many reactions to the immoral treatment of others are often over reactions that employ all-or-nothing, also called black-white, thinking. This over reaction is similar to the reactions that create phobias. In addition, post modernism employs an outcome-based truth system that says if a belief or group of beliefs were used to justify oppression, exploitation, or marginalization, that belief or group of beliefs are false. And that goes for even those times when a belief or group of beliefs are misused or not correctly interpreted. There is no distinction made in post modernism. Thus part of post modernism includes a phobic-like reaction to legitimate sources of fear or disgust.

However, we need to give post modernism its due. It correctly identifies the immorality of imperialism, colonialism and other forms of exploiting and marginalizing others have been justified by religion, science, and/or reason. That is something pre modernism and modernism does not own up to. So just like pre modernism and modernism, though post modernism has its faults, it also has its contributions to make especially once we get past the black-white thinking and outcome-based truth system.

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July 14

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost that partially quotes one articles that complains about how, beginning with Modernism, we have become more subjective rather than figure out how we can conform what we objectively know about God. This appeared in Heidelblog.

Article cited:  https://www.agradio.org/therapy-sin-and-shame.html

The way the Pre Modern era is described, one would think that expulsion from the Garden of Eden occurred just after the advent of Modernism. It is failure to grasp and confess the mass atrocities, sins, and errors conducted in the name God during the Pre Modern era that has led to a Pharisaical and self-sabotaging understanding of Modernism and Post Modernism by many religiously conservative Christians. For what has been associated with the Gospel during much of Church history? Hasn't it been a rejection of science, [while practicing*] racism, wars, economic classism, imperialism, colonialism, and the exploitation and marginalization of many outside of European Christianity? So how is it that none of that is mentioned as R. Scott Clark contemplates the changes that have occurred with the transition from the Pre Modern era to Modern and Post Modern eras?

[...*] was not part of the original comment but should have been.

Understanding Ourselves For Religiously Conservative Christians, Part 2

I grew up in a very religious home. Back in the 1950s and 1960s, that most probably meant a conservative Christian home. Mom kind of directed the religion part of the home and her religion spilled into her political views. She was staunchly Republican, as was here twin sister, and it seemed that her political views were conflated with her Christian faith.

Another feature of our home is that we were sheltered--that came from growing up in the suburbs. The only thing I knew about Democrats is that we didn't want them elected. And while protests of the 1960s and 1970s were spreading throughout America, we didn't talk about them at home.

From an early age I learned to conflate conservative politics with my Christian faith too. I was patriotic and believed that America stood for what was good in the world. I believed that Communism was bad without knowing what Communism was. Not knowing what it was didn't stop me from calling people with whom I strongly disagreed a 'Communist.'

And because I was raised a Christian and Republican, I held to conservative politics for much of my life. I was a strong religiously conservative Christian and a Republican voter when I voted. I believed in Capitalism, a militarily strong America, a defender of American Exceptionalism, a hater of Communism, and so forth. And I could be pretty arrogant in expressing either my conservative religious beliefs or my political beliefs.

But I began to change during the summer of 2001. My best friend, who is a nominal Roman Catholic and a registered Democrat, showed an example of caring for others that I had not seen except in one or two of the religiously and political conservative people I knew. So I reckoned, 'reckoned' is a word I learned to use while going to college in Oklahoma, that maybe there are things I can learn from non-conservatives. So on a whim, I picked up two books by two leftists: Noam Chomsky and Martin Luther King Jr.

Chomsky had a passion for fairness. By that I mean that the same standards the US used to judge other nations must be used to judge the US too. Martin Luther King Jr. had a passion for winning people over. Instead of trying to conquer them or defeat them, he wanted to convert them to supporting full equality for people of all races. And as I read their material, I found that their passions were very Biblical. Thus I read more and more people on the Left. I have even read some of Karl Marx's works. And I continued to find more and more Leftist views that I perceived as being Biblical.

However, if, like my mom, I conflated my political views with my Christian faith, what happened to my faith? My religious views stayed the same. But it was a very deep tearing process because the changes in my political views meant that I had to separate my religious views from my political views

Thus, even though I had very much conflated my political views with my religious views, my political disillusionment with conservative political beliefs did not result in a disillusionment with conservative Christian beliefs. However, that has not been the story for many a Christian Millennial. We will have to see if Christian Generation Z and Christian Generation AA believers suffer the same fate.

Going on my own data sample, political disillusionment for Millennials who grew up like I did often leads to religious disillusionment. But why them and not me? I really don't know for sure but I think one possible cause has to do with Post Modernism. Post Modernism is a view that rejects the notion of using the metanarratives, which are systems of beliefs used to interpret the world. Past metanarratives consisted of faith along with science and reason. The reason for Post Modernism's rejection of religion and both science and reason is because Post Modernism has seen the historical failures of religion and both science and reason to work for a just world.

Post Modernism has had a stronger influence on the most recent generations than on the older ones. And thus, the dynamics of religious disillusionment are rather simple. Political disillusionment in a person who has conflated their conservative political views with conservative religious views most often results in a rejection of past religious beliefs as well. After all, if two sets of beliefs are strongly associated with each other, rejection of one set of beliefs can very easily trigger a rejection in the other. And that is the price that many religiously conservative Christian parents are now paying for conflating their conservative political views with their religious views. Post Modernism points out how many of those conservative political views have led to oppression, war, exploitation, marginalization and so forth. And thus rejecting conservative political views often leads to rejecting conservative religious views.

But what about those religiously conservative Christians who have conflated their conservative political views with their faith and who have not been politically disillusioned? They are causing those who disagree with their political views to unnecessarily criticize their Christianity. That criticism is not necessarily a persecution of religiously conservative Christianity per se, it is fallout criticism that stems from a rejection of conservative Christians' political views.

The moral of the story for religiously conservative Christians like myself is this, it's fine to base your politics on your religious beliefs. It is fine to be a political conservative. Just don't conflate the two. Learn how to use your faith to criticize at least some your political positions. Understand that you can learn from political liberals and leftists. Don't shut yourself off from the outside. Church history tells us that we can bring unnecessary shame to and/or persecution of the Gospel when we do that. Remember that the Roman Church, along with Calvin and Luther, use to sharply criticize Galileo for claiming that the sun was the center of our solar system. 




 

Why Does Social Justice Make Some Conservative Christians Afraid

Well-known evangelical leader John MacArthur (click here for a short bio) has, along with some friends, spoken out to what they view as a great threat to the Church today: the Post Modern ideologies and its social justice movement. Their statement consists of an introduction (click here for the intro) and 14 parts covering various topics including the Scriptures, justice, God's law, the Gospel, Salvation, the Church, heresy, and racism, along with the history of the formation of the group (click here for the statement). Though one could easily react to those statements individually, sometimes a broader response is needed to better frame the issue. And that will be attempted in this response. Another response can be found at the website TheWitness; A Black Christian Collective (click here for that response).

To get an overview of the discussion initiated by MacArthur et al., one only needs to read the introduction and the statement on the Scriptures to ascertain their main concern. In that introduction, MacArthur and friends write the following:

Specifically, we are deeply concerned that values borrowed from secular culture are currently undermining Scripture in the areas of race and ethnicity, manhood and womanhood, and human sexuality. The Bible’s teaching on each of these subjects is being challenged under the broad and somewhat nebulous rubric of concern for “social justice.” If the doctrines of God’s Word are not uncompromisingly reasserted and defended at these points, there is every reason to anticipate that these dangerous ideas and corrupted moral values will spread their influence into other realms of biblical doctrines and principles.

We submit these affirmations and denials for public consideration, not with any pretense of ecclesiastical authority, but with an urgency that is mixed with deep joy and sincere sorrow. The rapidity with which these deadly ideas have spread from the culture at large into churches and Christian organizations—including some that are evangelical and Reformed—necessitates the issuing of this statement now.

Note that the concern expressed by MacArthur and others is over the impact that new cultural influences have had on the even religiously conservative Christians in America. Now when we add the following statement from the part on the Scriptures, we get a fuller idea of their concern, and even fear, MacArthur and friends are existentially experiencing:

WE DENY that Christian belief, character, or conduct can be dictated by any other authority, and we deny that the postmodern ideologies derived from intersectionality, radical feminism, and critical race theory are consistent with biblical teaching.

  
When we put these two quotes together, the first part of a broad picture becomes clearer. MacArthur et al. are worried about any impact that today's new cultural influences will have on the Church because these new influences can only act as a detriment the Church and the Gospel. In other words, MacArthur & friend are employing an all-or-nothing approach to their analysis of Post Modern ideologies. Thus, nothing from the new set of cultural values are to be accepted since they can only poison the minds of Christians first and all others second. What MacArthur and others are saying is that we already have all that we need to clearly see ourselves, our society, and our civilization.

What we should note from a Christian perspective is this: it's not that we should totally accept these new cultural influences, it is that we should not disagree with everything taught by these ideologies when these ideologies point out injustices being forced on people. For we know that the last of the Scriptures were written in the 1st century AD. Therefore, we have no specific authoritative teaching on how we should interpret Western Civilization, American History, and today's society. Instead, we have general principles that teach us how to see and react to the present and past worlds. But Romans 2 teaches us that some unbelievers can perform acts that are more righteous than what some believers are doing. So how is MacArthur biblically correct in rejecting everything that comes from Post Modernism and its social justice warriors?

Here it might be wise to adapt a Martin Luther King, Jr. statement made when he spoke against the Vietnam War when evaluating the approach taken by MacArthur and his brothers in arms (click here for the source):

The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

Now what if we replaced the word 'Western' with a fill-in-the-blank. We could then play a multi-way game in which we put each group to the same test. Do those writing Post Modern ideologies believe that they have everything to teach today's traditionalists and those from those traditionalists or the past? Do MacArthur and his writing partners believe that they have everything to teach Post Modernists and social justice warriors while having nothing to learn from them? And if the answer to this last question is 'yes,' how should MacArthur and friends react to Post Modernists who oppose racism, imperialism, colonialism, and sexism? Should they say that Post Modernists have no clue to what oppression and exploitation are, or should they carefully pay attention to see where Post Modernists might be making valid observations even if they disagree with the solutions they put forth.

If we believe in the Scriptures, then why not use the Scriptures to find where we can agree as well as disagree with points made by  Post Modernists and social justice warriors?

The next thing we should note is that while many of the concerns expressed by MacArthur and associates have to do with the definition of a Christian, a Christian's salvation, and life in the Church, Post Modern ideologies are talking about the life we share with unbelievers in society. For MacArthur and others write the following in the part on Salvation we have:

WE DENY  that salvation can be received in any other way. We also deny that salvation renders any Christian free from all remaining sin or immune from even grievous sin in this life. We further deny that ethnicity excludes anyone from understanding the gospel, nor does anyone’s ethnic or cultural heritage mitigate or remove the duty to repent and believe.

And in the part on the Church they wrote:

WE DENY that political or social activism should be viewed as integral components of the gospel or primary to the mission of the church. Though believers can and should utilize all lawful means that God has providentially established to have some effect on the laws of a society, we deny that these activities are either evidence of saving faith or constitute a central part of the church’s mission given to her by Jesus Christ, her head. We deny that laws or regulations possess any inherent power to change sinful hearts.

And finally, from the part on heresy we have:

WE DENY that the charge of heresy can be legitimately brought against every failure to achieve perfect conformity to all that is implied in sincere faith in the gospel.

For the most part, not completely, MacArthur is dealing with an eternal setting as seen in our salvation or the overall message of the Gospel. But Post Modernism's social justice concerns have to do with how we act in the here and now as well as how our anscestors did the same--which is minimally addressed by MacArthur and his comrades when they talk about sin:

WE DENY that, other than the previously stated connection to Adam, any person is morally culpable for another person’s sin. Although families, groups, and nations can sin collectively, and cultures can be predisposed to particular sins, subsequent generations share the collective guilt of their ancestors only if they approve and embrace (or attempt to justify) those sins.

When we read this last quote, isn't the main difference between MacArthur's and Post Modernism's views on collective guilt about the stopping point of collective guilt. And thus MacArthur and social justice warriors share areas of agreement on collective guilt.

But we also need to challenge MacArthur's scope of collective guilt here. For doesn't the person who is silent and thus complicit with the sins of past and present generations share guilt with those who 'embrace' corporate sins of the past or present. Doesn't the person who could have learned about the sins of their government and/or society also share some guilt with those who were deliberately silent? The answers to those questions are 'yes' according to a talk given by a Reformed and fellow evangelical theologian of MacArthur, Tim Keller. He illustrated why the answer to those questions were 'yes' when he talked about selected passages from the Scriptures along with how General Eisenhower reacted to the discovery of German extermination and slave camps during WW II.

However temporal social justice issues are, they can also become spiritual issues for the Christian. Why? It is because treating others justly is a part of our sanctification whether we act as individuals or whether we go along as members of a group. Here we should note that murder is murder whether it is committed by an individual or by groups as large as the state. In addition, social justice issues can can also become spiritual issues when we consider that part of being a social justice warrior can include calling the oppressor to repent.

More could be written, such as MacArthur's apparent obliviousness to the privilege enjoyed by some and the marginalization suffered by others, but I am going to close on the following. There seems to be either a lack of awareness of the corrupting impact of old cultural values on the Church. Yes, MacArthur writes against racism. But he never says that the embracing of Jim Crow, White Supremacy, and slavery  by many of our Christian ancestors was the result of cultural corrupting influence on the Church. And if we include imperialism and colonialism, we have covered most of Post Modernism's critique of times past. So where is MacArthur's admission that he could partially agree with what Post Modern social justice warriors are saying and crusading against? And where is MacArthur's total rejection of sets of past cultural values?

Neglecting to mention the past corruption of the Church by older cultural influences suggests to me that MacArthur's fear that the Church is being corrupted by a new world with its own set of cultural values is not the only burr in his seat. In addition, my guess is that MacArthur & Friends are just as upset about the changes that this new world is bringing. Those who enjoyed privilege in the old war, can only see the new world a threat. They have no connection with those who were marginalized in the old world who can only react to the new world with hope. Thus MacArthur and those who agree with him are reacting in a similar way in which other privileged people have been reacting. And that MacArthur and others are being dragged kicking and screaming into a new world should not be a surprise. What is a surprise is that with the oppression and exploitation that the old world practiced, why are MacArthur and others so upset about change besides the fact that the change has more than its share of imperfections?

The State Of The Conservative Church In America

To my longtime friends, Steve and Caroline. You will have to settle for this blogpost since we didn't have time to discuss things in person during our last visit.

Religiously conservative Christianity is roughly facing the same fate that the Republican challengers to Trump's Republican and  Hillary Clinton's campaigns suffered. That fate is failure and the reason will be the same. As guardians for the old status quo, status quo Republicans and Democrats found it too difficult to acknowledge their own failures and sins. That failure to admit their faults was why Mitt Romney's well stated opposition to Trump was translated into 'WAH WA WA WAH WA WA' to Trump's supporters and others who knew that the status quo had failed them. The same occurred for many people when Hillary Clinton campaigned.

Since religiously conservative Christianity has been a strong supporter of the old status quo in the West, especially in America, it is now facing the same challenges that the old status quo is facing. And those who are challenging it, are listening for confessions of wrongdoing before pronouncing their verdict and punitive sentences.

Such has occurred before in Church history. In the pre-revolutionary times of France, Russia, and Spain when the dominant branch of the Church supported those with wealth and power, the Church, and the Gospel itself, was understandably portrayed as the enemy of the people. Thus when those respective revolutions came, the Church and the Gospel unnecessarily suffered for having aligned itself with wealth and power.

Now instead of national revolutions, the Church is being held accountable by Post Modernism. Post Modernism holds to an outcome-based truth system that says if the tenets of a group lead to abuse, those tenets must be false. And since Christianity has so strongly aligned itself with Western Civilization and a dominant part of that civilization visited exploitation and oppression over other peoples via colonialism and imperialism, Christianity is being given one more chance to distance itself from the Western Civilization. But it is not.

In America, religiously conservative Christianity has become strong supporters of patriotism and business--again, power and wealth. We should note that that patriotism expresses great fondness for the past, especially America's founding. But that fondness strongly interferes with people experiencing a full, emotional connection to America's atrocities of ethnically cleansing Native Americans from the land and of teaching and practicing white supremacy as seen in slavery and Jim Crow. Thus, though America's faults are acknowledged, they are not given their full due by those adhering to patriotism. And by not distancing itself from past sins, Christianity's teachings are being heard as 'WAH WA WA WAH WA WA' by more and more people.

In addition, religiously conservative Christianity has not owned up to its history of marginalizing the LGBT community. Unfortunately, too many religiously conservative Christian leaders have conflated correctly promoting Biblical Christian morals on Church members with doing the same on all members of society regardless of their religious beliefs. That caused those leaders to marginalize the LGBT community in society for centuries in our nation's history. For those younger Christians who know decent and trustworthy people from the LGBT community and have them as friends, that marginalization has created so much dissonance that more and more younger Christians feel compelled to believe that homosexuality is an biblically acceptable sexual orientation.

In short, religiously conservative Christianity suffers from misplaced loyalties and a misplaced spirituality. The misplaced loyalties can be ascertained, for the most part, from what was written above. Those misplaced loyalties include patriotism, Capitalism, political conservatism, economic conservatism, social conservatism, and white supremacy. That is not to say that all religiously conservative Christians will hold to all of those loyalties, but they do experience a tendency to hold to the loyalties from that list to varying degrees.

When, for the religiously conservative Christian, those loyalties become strong enough, syncretisms are produced. A syncretism is what we get when we pound a square peg into a round hole as one attempts to merge two or more ideas that do not fit together. Neither the peg nor the the hole escape change from the violence of the pounding. And so as the peg of those loyalties appear, and 'appear' is the operative word here, to come more in line with what the hole of the Scriptures teach, what is often overlooked is that the hole of what the Scriptures teach has also changed and it resembles less and less what they originally taught. In the mean time, the shapes of the peg and the hole develop a closer resemblance. And if we add our natural tendency to want to be flattered, we see a natural tendency to conflate what the Scriptures teach with how we were raised and taught while we were children.




So much for the misplaced loyalties. There is another problem that religiously conservative Christianity faces that has yet to be mentioned. That is the misplaced spirituality found in many  religiously conservative Christian circles. For it seems, at least to me, what has been often identified as the religiously conservative Christian response to changes in the old status quo, in actuality, is evidence of an authoritarian personality type epidemic in the conservative Church.

Now we should note that we religiously conservative Christians are very vulnerable to embracing an authoritarian personality type. Why? It is because of all of the authority structures we are taught to accept. With those multiple structures comes a growing inability to turn off the authority switch as we relate to society. When we can't turn off that authority switch, we look to either rule over others or to submit to them. And since we share society with many unbelievers, many of whom we look at as being a moral threat, we look to rule over society rather than to share society with others as equals.

And so, in line with those who fall prey to an authoritarian personality type, we become hostile and aggressive toward those who challenge the traditions of the old status quo as we expect others to submit to what we submit to. We also hold on to an overly negative of view of those who don't hold to our religious convictions. We also look for strong leaders who can exercise power over those who do not want to conform. We hold to overly simple, black-white views of the world despite the complexities that many issues we face in the world contain. And we generally don't like new lifestyles or creative responses to new situations because we look too much to the past for our understanding of current life and how to solve today's problems.

Simply adhering to and defending Biblical and other familiar traditions and questioning what is new does not mean that we have embraced an authoritarian personality type. Instead, it  is how we respond to challenges and defend Biblical and other traditions. When we respond with hostility and aggression, we are looking to suppress changes practiced by others and thus to rule over them. On he other hand, when we respond to challenges with questions, we are looking to see what in the new can help as well as hurt us. We are not looking to either accept or reject all that is new. Instead, we are often looking to pursue wisdom by combining what is valid from what is new along with what is valid from what is old in terms of how we should navigate an ever changing world. In other words, we are pursuing wisdom.

Our misplaced loyalties as well as misplaced spirituality has hurt our witness before the world. It has understandably caused many outside the faith to not even want to listen to those of us who hold to the faith. Thus, religiously conservative Christianity is going the way of the old status quo simply because it has identified itself with it too strongly. And all of that has contributed significantly to the decline of religiously conservative Christianity in America and in the West.




 

Christian Fundamentalism And Culture

In a very short article on the Gospel Coalition blog about evangelical history, the contributors to the article contend that Christian Fundamentalists have consistently engaged with culture rather than have withdrawn from it (click here for the blogpost). They quote from a book by Matthew Avery Sutton to make their point. And for as long as they don't try to pin a percentage of those Fundamentalists who are trying to shape culture, the statement is correct. The results of their efforts, however, are mixed.

A recent Washington Post article (click here) claimed that conservative Evangelicals, which certainly includes at least some, if not all, Christian Fundamentalists, are proving the criticisms of their opponents to be correct. What are those criticisms? That conservative Evangelicals want a theocracy in America. One piece of proof of their criticisms is found in the support of Trump by many of these same conservative Evangelicals. Though the article really overstates the reality there, support for Trump is a cultural engagement. In my view, it isn't an welcomed one.

And yet, if we believe in Democracy, we shouldn't wish that the voice of any group to be silenced. So while the support for Trump of some, certainly not all, Christian Fundamentalists is reprehensible, their participation in culture via their political participation is necessary in a functioning Democracy. 

At the same time, every group that participates in a functioning Democracy must ask itself this question: How are we going to share society with others? The right answer to the question is "as equals." Unfortunately, values from our economic system which put a premium on competition oppose that answer. In fact, many Christian Fundamentalists also disagree with that answer but for a different reason. And because many, but not all, Christian Fundamentalists are not working to share society with others as equals, their participation in culture is becoming more and more an object of scorn. At the same time, Christian Fundamentalists can rightly charge members of other groups of being guilty of making the same mistake.

The Post Modernism reaction to the attempts at controlling culture made by Christian Fundamentalists is to deny what Christian Fundamentalists believe about God. Why? Because Post Modernism employs an outcome-based truth system where if people who hold to a belief or system of beliefs do something that is clearly wrong or disapproved of, then their beliefs must also be wrong. Thus, because of how religion in general has contributed to the starting and continuing of wars and the marginalization of others, Post Modernism says that religion can't be true. What follows is the dread of the participation in culture, especially in politics. of many who hold to religions beliefs, such as Christian Fundamentalists, by those who have been significantly influenced by Post Modernism.

And so such is our dilemma. On the one hand we oppose how certain groups want to influence culture, especially how they push for certain political positions, while we must be enthusiastic supporters of their participation in the system if we believe in Democracy on the other.



 

Conservative Christianity's Three-Front War

It seems that we have multiple wars inside the United States. The  War on Christmas and the War on Women are two of the most well known wars that "exist." Of course they are not official wars, they are simply descriptions of cultural conflicts in society. However, I would like to add one more to the list of wars in American society. That war is the religiously conservative Christian War Against Change. Considering that many of us religiously conservative Christians (a.k.a., flaming fundamentalists with flaming referring to being passionate about the tenets of Christian Fundamentalism) view America as very our own special homeland. It is our homeland because we view America as starting as a Christian nation being built on biblical principles. And what we have seen is a spiritual societal coup by secularism so that many of us feel that we have lost our rightful place in society. That place is that of being privileged in exercising some degree of control over society's laws and its culture. But in the words of a famous piece of Jazz music, 'things ain't what they use to be.'

From my experiences on the Christian blogfront, my fellow religiously conservative Christians understandably see current changes as threats and are fighting a three front war against change. I should note here my political views differ quite a bit from most of my fellow religiously conservative Christians. I am a socialist and they tend to be either Republicans or Conservative Libertarians. Because of the differences in our politics, I can't agree with their war against change. And that tells us something right there. That perhaps, this war against change is more naturally driven than spiritually driven.

The fronts on which many of my fellow flaming fundamentalists are the Modernism front, the Post Modernism front, and a historical front where the historical subject of front is our nation's past.

What are meant by Modernism and Post Modernism? One way of understanding human time periods is to break them up by what metanarratives are predominantly used by people to understand the world around them. Metanarratives themselves refer to beliefs and stories people used to interpret the world. There are three time periods using the predominant metanarrative of the time to distinguish each division of time. They are Pre Modern, Modern, and Post Modern. With Pre Modernism, people used some kind of faith or belief in the supernatural to interpret the world around them. In other words, one's faith or belief in the supernatural served the metanarrative that most people relied on. With Modernism, people rely mostly on science and reason to interpret the world around them. Thus here, science and reason served as the metanarrative for most people. Post Modernism is the odd child of the three. For with Post Modernism, the metanarratives of both Pre Modernism and Post Modernism are rejected. What serves as a basis for truth then? It is kind of a mixture between relativity and an outcome-based truth system. With the latter, the truth of a belief or set of beliefs depends on whether they have produced oppression or exploitation, Since history is replete with many examples of people using their faith or science as a justification for dominating over others, both are rejected as having any ability to provide a metanarrative. Thus, Post Modernism is the most reactionary of the three time periods.

So now we can discuss the first front on the Christians War Against Change: the fight against Modernism. Now what will be said here are general statements that apply to the majority of religiously conservative Christians I have encountered or observed. They are not absolute statements applying to all religiously conservative Christians.

Now it isn't the case that religiously conservative Christians who are fighting against Modernism reject all that science and reason have to offer. Rather, there are two specific areas where these Christians see themselves in a battle. These areas are climate change and the social sciences. What is the Christian beef against the science of climate change? It is that if the claims made by climate change scientists are true, then we Christians must make changes to our way of life here in America. In addition, many businesses which serve America must also make changes.

In other words, there isn't anything about climate change science that directly challenges Christian belief. And yet, climate change science has spurred a tribal response from many religiously conservative Christians. And by tribal response, I mean that Christians tend not to accept what unbelieving climate change scientists say about what is happening and our future. They will sometimes listen to fellow believers who talk about climate change. But outside of that, there is real skepticism experienced by my fellow religiously conservative Christians toward climate change science. 

And this tells us something that perhaps we Christians may not want to admit. That the reason why we are skeptical is because of what we have so tightly associated with our Christian faith: our nation's status quo and business interests. Of course, there is another factor involved in the Christian opposition to climate change science. That other factor is that of a turf war. Who can best describe the world around us? Is is secular science with its rejection of Creation and belief in evolution, or is it the Bible with its Creation account?

Psychology is another battle front where religiously conservative Christianity is fighting against Modernism. And though the battle lines are not as sharply defined as they are in Christianity's fight against climate change science, what we see is still a turf battle for who can best describe the world around us. What we do see here is more intermixing between Christianity and psychology than we see with climate change. But the more conservative the Christian, the more suspicious they are toward what can be learned from psychologists.

The second front religiously conservative Christians are fighting on is the one against Post Modernism. And the particular battle where most of the fighting takes place centers on LGBT issues. The current battle over same-sex marriage served as the Waterloo for Christian control over culture according to many of the religiously conservative Christians I have read. And when we add transgenderism to the mix, what many of my fellow religiously conservative Christians have concluded is that American society has rejected belief in absolutes and objective truth.

But why did so many religiously conservative Christians feel the need to oppose the legalization of practices like Same-Sex Marriage (SSM)? Many of the Christians bloggers I have read felt that it was an attack on marriage and that society's future revolves on the health of marriage. But such doesn't provide a complete answer because the state of marriage without SSM was not good anyway. Divorce rates and the number of single parents were way too high to say that marriage was doing well. My intuition says that much of the religiously conservative opposition to SSM was a look at who is moving into the neighborhood argument. Basically, this refers to neighborhoods in the past whose property values might have fallen once minorities moved into homes. Unfortunately, such reveals just a sliver of nation's deep historical problem with racism.

So here, many religiously conservative Christians argued that marriage would no longer be valued as it was if same sex couples were allowed to be married too. This in-your-face cultural change of having to see same sex couples' marriages being put on an equal status with heterosexual marriages signaled a 'sky is falling' response by many a Christian. Rod Dreher's Benedict Option was in response to changing sexual mores, especially the acceptance of homosexuality in society, such as seen in SSM.

The final front is more historic in nature. It is the belief, despite the rampant racism in our nation's history, that this nation was founded on biblical principles and thus was created as a Christian nation. And that nation was not only Christian, it believed in limited government. And thus the belief in limited government has become strongly associated with religiously conservative Christianity. So here we see the political front of the War Against Change. And many religiously conservative Christians seem to believe that conservative political ideology, especially when it emphasizes limited government, is wedded to their faith.

But why would this be the case? The only answer I can come up with revolves around tribalism and the resulting turf battles between secular liberals when they are in charge of government and the Church over who knows what is best for the American people. Many religiously conservative Christians who believe in limited government believe so because they see the Church as being solely responsible for helping those in need. Of course for that to happen, government would have to support the Church and that would give the Church a privileged position in society. While for others, they simply want as little interference by the government as possible.
 
But the tribalism itself is another key to understanding why many religiously conservative Christians believe in limited government. For that tribalism tells many of us religiously conservative Christians that we have everything to teach these secular liberals and nothing to learn from them.

It is unfortunate that many of us religiously conservative Christians are fighting on any of these 3 fronts, let alone all of them. It is totally unnecessary. For many of us, the fear of compromising or even losing our faith by benefiting from unbelievers drives us to fight this war. Ironically, this doesn't stop many of us religiously conservative Christians from wedding our faith to conservative political ideology. In addition, intolerance and fear of those who are different is also a contributing factor. In the end, our War Against Change not only hurts us and not only hurts those around us who would benefit from change, it dishonors the Gospel which has been sent by God to save those who believe.

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For April 12, 2017

April 8

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost on the rejection of objective reality in today’s universities. This appeared in Heidelblog.

I'm sorry but this is just an intellectual form of the parable of the two men praying. The similarities between the above article and that parable is that, again, it is the religious expert who claims to be above all others and thankful that they are not like the poor souls who reject o objective reality. However, like the pharisee from the parable, the religious expert here makes similar mistakes.

First, basically we have 3 time periods that have dealt with reality and the world around us: Pre Modernism, Modernism, and Post Modernism. Of those 3, only Post Modernism rejects the necessary metanarratives that allow for objective reality. That means that modernity, as represented by modernism, did not reject objective reality. It merely said that it isn't found in the faith narratives.

But why did Post Modernism reject the metanarratives that provide a basis for objective reality? It was because of what those from both periods associated with their metanarratives: conquest, imperialism, colonialism, marginalization of others, false claims of superiority, and major wars. And just as those establishment figures who lost to Trump in the election because they failed to be up front with their failures, so too does the religious figure here refuse to see what is apparent to everyone else. That those who adopted his particular metanarrative associated that metanarrative with horrendous acts. It is because of those atrocities that many Post Modernists have embraced an outcome-based truth system because they honestly want to correct past abuses.

Yes, the Post Modernists are wrong, but at least they are concerned about past abuses. The Pre Modernists and Modernists are only more than happy to deny their part in past atrocities, that is if they care to admit to their existence. So we see that the Post Modernists might have virtues that are absent in Pre Modernists and Modernists.

Finally, having taught in different colleges for 19 and 1/2 years, I see no evidence for the claim that our universities are full of people who reject objective reality. Then again, if you hang around engineers, computer scientists, information tech people, and mathematicians, one can't afford to deny objective reality.

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April 10

To Joseph Pearce and his blogpost lamenting the demise of the West through an ever increasing number of immigrants and a decreasing birth rate for Europeans. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.

This article kind of mirrors articles and statements that lament the good old days when America was a Christian nation under God. That is because of what we see and don't see when we look back at those days. We see one set of problems and faults being replaced by another. Only those who reminisce seem to have a greater tolerance for the older problems and faults than the newer ones. And thus, they see the current trends and run around yelling that the sky is falling.

We need to remember that it was the associations that were made with Christianity in Europe's past that have caused people to reject much of the past. For when Europe was at its strongest, there were multiple empires and these empires not only waged wars against and even partially exterminated non-Europeans on their own continents, they fought each other often in the name of God. WW I, according to Karl Barth, saw the reshaping of God into a tribal god with each participant demonizing others while canonizing themselves. And though WW II did not see the making of God into a tribal god as was done in WW I, it saw almost unprecedented destruction and cruelty. And now we are to mourn the loss of the West?

We also need to remember that part of what is called the biggest threat to the West, the increased immigration of people from the Middle East, is the result of Western foreign policies. It takes Westerners to adopt a bull in a china shop mentality not to see this.

In addition, Pearce's math does not make sense. For, according to Pearce, the survival of a civilization must be seen in bipolar terms. Either survival is guaranteed with an ever increasing population growth or it is about to cause its own demise by an ever decreasing population. Never has Pearce considered that  there can be an ebb and flow of population increase and decrease from one time period to another.

To mourn the demise of the West and link it to Europe's population, shows a fear that one's race will disappear. But if one's religion is multiracial and one's religion is more important to one than one's race, why is this such a significant fear? And aren't their components of the West, such as its imperialism and lack of self-awareness, that should be allowed to become extinct?
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To Donald Devine and his blogpost citing  Allan C. Carlson as he states that crony capitalism is the enemy of families while a free market capitalism that relies on small businesses are every family’s friend. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.

When one sees a title like the one for the above article, one anticipates an either deductive or inductive approach to proving what was said. In this article both approaches are used but not on the same objects. For a somewhat inductive approach is used to show that crony capitalism is not only bad for families, but exploits family dysfunctions. However, there is hope because of the assertion that a family friendly, small is beautiful approach to free markets provides the relative utopia we are all looking for. That such a system works is assumed.


 The next partial paragraph is the result of a lack of adequately editing the comment

http://www.theimaginativeconservative.org/2017/04/capitalism-enemy-family-donald-devine.html population that came from centering society on the family, comes the need to for bigger and bigger businesses that have the resources to provide for people's needs. In addition, whether one is talking about 'crony capitalism' or the ever idyllic free markets for small businesses, the fuel that feeds the economy is greed. And so even without the population explosion, comes the drive to build bigger and bigger businesses.

In addition,  the free market approach above favors the mass number of small self-sustaining units because the free markets of people like Hayek join Cain in asking his rhetorical question: 'Am I my brother's keeper?' That is the purpose of joining the free market with small businesses as its participants. Such a mindset is really only embraced by those who want their own personal growth to not be infringed on by notions of solidarity or social responsibilities. In addition, this mindset also includes a modern and restricted definition of the term 'stakeholder.' For in the past, stakeholders were all who were impacted by a business. Without government regulations to protect the environment, workers, and consumers, the new definition of stakeholder is reduced to the owner(s) either of a business or in an economic system.

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April 11

To Joe Carter and his blogpost stating that the gender gap in pay is a myth because of the kind of jobs generally taken by men vs those taken by women. This appeared in the Acton blog.

If only Carter would continue to research the gender gap in pay after he found what is to him a satisfactory answer, perhaps this article would be more educational.

A valid point that Carter makes is that one cannot just look at the big picture to see if their is a problem in gender gap pay. And certainly, a partial explanation can be seen in the ones provided by the article he cited. But that doesn't fully explain the gender gap pay we have. Two other factors can be added from documentation provided by the Pew Research Center (see http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/03/gender-pay-gap-facts/ ). Another reason for the gender gap in pay, according to women surveyed in 2013, was taking time off to raise a family affected long-term earnings. In addition, the same 2013 survey saw a majority of both men and women reporting that discrimination also exists against women in the workplace. Finally, the same Pew Research Article states that the gender gap in pay is decreasing. One source of the discrimination is found in the leadership opportunities not given to quallified women in the workplace (see http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/01/14/women-and-leadership/  ).

The reason for just citing one source is rather obvious. There is no need, according free market supporters, to pass and enforce regulations that ensure equal pay. However, this view is more concerned about the place of regulations than gender pay gap.

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To Bruce Walker and his blogpost warning against intellectuals and tyrants. In particular, he attempts to group all together as belonging to the Left. This appeared in the Acton Blog.

In the list of leaders who oversaw mass killings of people, those who were left off that list include American Presidents who saw to it that Native Americans were removed from their land or who oversaw mass killings from American invasions such as those of the Philippines (1899 to 1902) where hundreds of thousands of people were killed and Vietnam, where millions of people were killed. Nor would murderous leaders whom the US either installed or supported included in the list. Here, examples include Pinochet in Chile, The Shah in Iran, and Saddam Hussein in Iraq. And, of course, what was also not included was the violence we supported in Latin America nor the Cuban leader whom we supported who preceded Castro.

In addition, the tendency to label the leaders listed as being non conservatives also seems puzzling and forgets the leading distinction between the Soviet failed experiment and Fascism. In the former, government elites sought control with a pretense of support from the workers even though these elites were seeking their own power over all. In Fascism, the supporting force behind the tyrannical governments came from business elites. To read Marx and assume that a central government is socialism regardless of who is supporting central control is the same as falling asleep during most of a movie and yet pretending to be able to comment on it. In addition, if we take Hitler for example, we should note that part of his party's campaign platform was to make Germany First, to bring back traditional values, and to oppose Marxism.

As for Hugo Chavez, why are we listing him with the likes of people who favored using violence to silence dissidents? And to discredit Chomsky because he and Chavez agreed on a couple of issues is beyond the pale of being overly simplistic. Perhaps, Walker did not see Chomsky's criticisms of Latin America's Leftist governments to build sustainable economies (see https://www.democracynow.org/2017/4/5/chomsky_leftist_latin_american_governments_have ). Had Walker listened to or read Chomsky on Latin America's Leftist leaders, he would have found Chomsky criticizing them for basing their economies on commodity prices rather than on manufacturing and agriculture. The former is more volatile in terms of its contribution to a nation's economy. As a result, Venezuela suffered the same problems under Chavez's leftist government as it did under a Capitalist supporting government in the 90s. But we should also note something else about Chavez. He was criticized by the Left for not advancing participation by the workers in decision making positions. Certainly Chavez had to deal with an always present threat of American subversion. However, he chose to run Venezuela under elite-centered rule. We should note that with America being more classified as an oligarchy than a democracy (see  http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746), we now live under elite-centered rule as well.

As for West, I think he took a too simplistic approach to Chavez and criticism of him on his support of Chavez is warranted.

And though we should group Lenin on the Left, a fellow Socialist and contemporary Rosa Luxemburg criticized him for establishing a bourgeoisie dictatorship rather than a Socialist government that relies on the rule of elected members from the proletariat. In fact, the above article gives evidence to this point in citing Lenin as he refers to those to the left of him. We don't have to take the quote from the above article for it, we can read it (see https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/may/09.htm ). So how much of a Socialist was Lenin? You will get a mixed response.

Some of the others whom Walker mentioned merited his criticisms though his criticisms don't tell the whole story.

As Walker rants and rails against intellectuals and tries to scapegoat those on the Left, we should note that he is in infamous company in doing so. That company includes Adolf Hitler. And we should note that the Roman Church signed a Konkordat with the Nazi government because the Church then saw an ally in Hitler because Hitler opposed the Bolshviks. However, if Walker is concerned about elite-centered rule, he needs to be concerned about this kind of rule whether it comes from the left, liberalism, or conservatism. And if he is concerned about all elite-centered rule, then perhaps he would prefer to stand with the Menshoviks, who were  Socialists, as opposed to the Bolsheviks and their descendants or the Bourgeoisie. And that would suite me fine.

Is Our Problem Exclusivity Or Inclusivity?

If one bothers to visit conservative blogs and read what they have to say about the latest PC purges, one would realize that we have battle going on for the hearts and mind of not just our young people in college, but for the rest of us too. So it would be appropriate to introduce the fighters in this contest. In the one corner, we have authoritarian defenders of the traditional study of Western Civilization. In the other corner, we have the narcissistic Post Modernists with their blanket and complete rejection of all previously existing metanarratives. In the end, what we really have are two sides of the same coin. But such a statement would be strongly resented by members of both groups.

A number of articles have been written on the conservative blogs defending the traditional study of Western Civilization as well as Western Civilization itself. The expressed fear is that our changing times will take away all that unites us and made Western Civilization so great. The article that will be reviewed here is one of the better ones because it makes some very legitimate points. It is written by Carl Trueman from Westminster Theological Seminary (click here for a short bio).  

In the article being reviewed here (click here for the article), Trueman very appropriately laments the reduction in the legitimate study of the humanities in colleges today. This is especially true when it comes to his specialty: history. For it is through the study of history that has helped Trueman know himself better and we would do well to imitate him here. And both his lament and his experience with history are well worth noting. For what we see in Post Modernism is a wholesale rejection of the driving forces from the past. And if I remember Christopher Lasch's book The Culture Of Narcissism correctly, the cutting of of all ties from the past results in the elevation of the present and, eventually, the self and one's experiences and insights over  those of those who lived then.

So while what Trueman is saying has much legitimacy, there is a problem. The problem is illustrated in the following line:

We should not be fooled by the fads of the new educational order. The rebarbative and impenetrable language of deconstruction, post-colonialism, and critical theory may offer a veneer of sophistication, but the fruits of these are remarkably simple-minded...

 Trueman's  total rejection of Post Modernism as seen in his attacks on deconstruction and post-colonialism shows, a filtering of what he considers to be legitimate analysis of Western Civilization. For in his wholesale rejection of Post Modernism, he not only imitates Post Modernists with their cutting of all ties from a given time period, he is limiting his study of Western Civilization to that which is from the inside. For we should note, and at least partially agree with, Post Modernism's rejection of the use of past metanarratives to support imperialism, post-colonialism, oppression, and, citing one of Jesus's warnings, lording it over others. Just as with Marx, we can legitimately not like most or all of Post Modernism's solution to the problem, but to reject its analysis of the problems that stem from the past is to say that those who ruled in the past have no sin that we should pay attention to today. And to deny their sin involves a denial that there were any tradeoffs involved in securing the "greatness" from the past. And, ironically for Trueman, to reject Post Modernism's analysis is to deny oneself from a source that can teach us about our humanity just as much as his traditional approach to studying history can.
 
We should also note the authoritarian nature of Trueman's rejection of the parts of Post Modernism that he so spitefully rejects. First, his rejection is a blanket rejection. which is an example of black-white thinking. Second, his rejection is aggressive because Post Modernism challenges what is accepted tradition for him.

So we should note how authoritarian defenders of the traditional study of Western Civilization and the narcissistic PC Post Modernists resemble each other. Each side exalts their favorite time period over that of the other side in black-white terms. Thus, each side does what Martin Luther King Jr. described the West as doing when it used military intervention in Vietnam (click here for the source):

The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

Here we should note that we can substitute the names of either of these two groups for the word Western and King's quote would still fit like a glove. So we should note ,for future growth, that both authoritarianism and narcissism are not just bad for us and thus traits or ways of being to avoid, but that they can produce very similar results.

Two more points should be made. First, while Trueman seems to attribute all attacks on the humanities in college to that of his nemesis, the narcissistic, PC Post Modernists, my experience in teaching tells me something else. My experience and observation told me that colleges were being businessfied in many ways with the result of turning many institutions of higher education into high priced, advanced tech schools. With that comes a higher emphasis on what one's job and salary are after graduation over what one learned about what it means to be human. Here, we should repeat and emphasize that Trueman's concern with learning what it means to be human and understand one's self is very legitimate. And by so easily businessfying our colleges, we are embracing the loss of what it means to be human in order to make more money after graduation.

The second point that should be made is this: since we used one of Martin Luther King's statements to illustrate what was happening, we would do well to take an approach that King would take to any conflict between opposing sides. What King so often tried to do was to synthesize the best parts of each side. Since he did that when comparing Capitalism and Communism, there is no reason why we can't seek to synthesize the concerns of the traditional study of Western Civilization with that of Post Modernism. Such a synthesis would help us to learn more about ourselves and each other than what either Post Modernism or what a traditional study of Western Civilization could teach us by themselves.

What The Reformed Church Needs To Do To Be Heard Again

In the presentation below given (click here for your own link) by Tim Keller, the head pastor of Redeemer Church in New York City, Keller attempts to tell us how we should evangelize in a Post Modern world. He starts with mentioning how evangelism needed to change in order to more effectively present the Gospel in the Modern age, but then he focuses on a multistep process by which we can share the Gospel to a wider audience in our current Post Modern world.

We should note that Keller is not saying that we can't use previous approaches to evangelizing. He is saying that in order to speak to the needs produced by a wider audience in today's world, we need address the effects that Post Modernism has had on many of today's people, especially those who live in a city.

Though Keller makes some important and wonderful points on not just evangelism, but on the Christian life as well, he misses a couple of key points. First, however, lets visit some of the excellent points he makes.

For example, Keller makes an excellent point when trying to talk about how being saved by grace through faith needs to be more existentially real to us. Otherwise, yes we are saved by faith, but we don't live as consistently by that as we could because, to be honest, we personally rely on other means of justification as well--we should note here that justification and vindication for one's existence seem to be used interchangeably. For him, he states that he sometimes struggles with feeling saved by preaching. That is, he feels vindicated when he does well in the pulpit or lectern. And if we are honest, we all have our false reliances on our own sources of justification and vindication. We are simply not consistent in relying on grace through faith to be accepted by God. 

In addition, Keller adds how it is important to 'walk with a limp.' That is it is essential to be humbled by a growing realization of our own sinfulness. That walking uprightly, or proudly, indicates that we have not had more than superficial realization of the depths of our sin and how much we realize we depend on God's grace.

Another among several excellent points which Keller makes is when he likens Jonah sleeping in the boat while the storm rages and the sailors are in danger with how the Church ignores the world's problems. That is, just as Jonah showed no concern for welfare of the sailors while he slept and was fleeing from God, so the Church shows no compassion for the world when it pays no attention to the world's problems. This is especially true when those in the Church retreat into their spiritual bubbles and interact only with those who ask about the bubble.

There are other very good points Keller makes but let's focus on the problems with the talk. And the problems with the talk are partially due to what Keller refrained from mentioning and partially due to the problems outside of what he said.  And in this blogpost, when we mention the Church, we are referring to the Reformed Church in general noting that there are individual Reformed churches to which some of the criticisms stated here will not apply.

The first problem with Keller's talk is that he does not mention the Church's problem with listening to the world except for, perhaps, a quick reference to Acts 17. The Church seems reluctant to learn about the world by listening to it more because the Church tends to favor authoritarianism. And in authoritarianism, truth is determined by the credentials of the source more than logic and facts on the ground. So what we in the Church tend to do is to learn about the world from approved sources of authority, our theological heros. In fact, for some of us, there seems to be a significant fear to learning about the world by listening to the world. Rather, we strongly prefer to rely on our approved sources of authority to tell us what those in the world are saying.

For example, I have more than one Christian friend whose only knowledge of Socialism comes from Christian critiques of it. This person doesn't feel the need to read Marx or other Socialists to learn about Socialism because learning about it from their trusted sources not only seems sufficient, it is safe. Now in the talk being reviewed here, Keller briefly mentioned our problems with Modernism and spent most of his time talking about Post Modernism, not Socialism. But how many of us who belong to the Church are learning about Modernism or Post Modernism by reading those who adhere to them? By not reading proponents of Modernism and Post Modernism and by not listening to the people in the world who live out these approaches, we will only get antagonists' views of these different ways of thinking. And thus, we might overlook or throw out important concerns and insights from both Modernism and Post Modernism which we can either learn from or use to change how we present the Gospel.

There is another reason why we tend not to listen to those outside of the Church. It comes from badly applying a sound principle. That sound principle is that we believe that the Scriptures trumps experience when it comes to understanding reality. And how we wrongly apply that principle is when we extend that principle to our own pet ideas and favorite theologies because we are overly confident in how accurately they depict the Scriptures. It seems that sometimes we are like theological mathematicians on steroids. In the end, not only will we use the Scriptures to interpret reality more than personal experience, we will do the same with our own pet ideas and theologies. 

So when we start to interpret the problems that people have in the world, we, at least partially, have already made up our minds about how they are experiencing the world. And the more we have our minds made up beforehand, the less we will be inclined to learn from themon how they see their own situations. 

And what we see and hear in Keller's talk, is a somewhat intricate six-step program on how to make the Gospel relevant to Post Modernists. This is done without Keller properly emphasizing that we listen to those who are Post Modern or with him even trying to interpret how Post Modernists think. 

While not listening is our first problem, not understanding why Post Modernism rejects the metanarratives of Pre Modernism and Modernism is one of our other problems. By metanarrative, we mean the overall structure of thought used to interpret the world. For Pre Modernism, faith had primacy in interpreting the world. With Modernism, the scientific enterprise rules in terms of understanding the world. But Post Modernism has rejected both of these metanarratives.

The reason why Post Modernism has rejected both the rule of faith and the rule of science is that both have been used to justify colonialism and domination. And because Post Modernism has righteously found both to morally abhorrent, what was used to justify them must be rejected as well. At this point, we need to see how absolute values from God's Word and how God judges us  can sound all too similar to past human attempts to colonize and dominate. It seems that for many followers of Post Modernism, if God is a loving God, then he can't act toward us as those who colonized and dominated others did. And if He can't act toward us as they did, then He could not have possibly said what they believed. 

And this is one of our big problems in preaching the Gospel to Post Modernists; we need to distinguish God's absolute rule over us from the plethora of historical examples of how man has unjustly ruled over his fellow man. And until we can adequately make that distinction, we have little hope in persuading others to believe in God's laws and His Gospel. Though Keller possibly alludes to this when he mentions how truth has been linked to power plays, his brief mention of that does little to inform us of how Post Modernists associate man's tyranny with how Reformed Christians define God's rule over us.

Certainly much of what Keller says in this video can be very helpful to us just in terms of our own personal piety let alone in our evangelism. However, we must add to that our need to listen to nonChristians to learn how they are experiencing life and our need to learn how to distinguish God's sovereign rule over us from man's past and present tyrannies over his fellow man in order to have any hope that God's Word will be seen as being the main source of absolute truth in the world.