When Will We Ever Learn?

 The issue of politics has been a thorny one for many a Christian. Why? Because all too often, it tries to pull both of our feet down to earth while we meditate on  what it means to be a dual citizen of both heaven and earth. And all too often, politics wants our full attention when it only merits less than half of it.

But that doesn't mean that politics is not important, especially while living in a Western Democracy. For we have a stewardship in how we live on earth regardless of where we live. And democracies have ways of increasing our stewardship role in terms of politics.

The latest venture into this tempest is an article posted on the Gospel Coalition website written by Dr. Steven Bryan who is a member of the faculty at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (click here for a bio). In that article, Bryan tries to discover a third way between conservatives and progressives in how we interact in a political world. He is looking for this 3rd way because he is writing to Christians (click here for a link to the article).

In commenting on the conservative and progressive political worlds, Bryan tries to do what Fox News only claims to do: that is to be fair and balanced with both conservatives and progressives. And I think he is fairly successful in his attempts. But he first starts of with comparing the confessional evangelical with those in the white social group voting block. In that comparison, Bryan states that while the former is an ethnically diverse group that is always trying to change for the better, the latter is not necessarily that way. He continues by comparing confessional evangelicals with the progressivist agenda. That agenda stands in contrast with what the Reformers wrote about the Church because that agenda is seeking to get the Church to compromise itself by fitting in with the world standards and ideas. That serves as a warning that we should selectively heed.

Bryan notes that sometimes there are similarities in the agendas of progressives and conservatives with what confessing evangelicals work for. Of course confessional evangelicals can hold to those similarities for different reasons than progressives and we could add conservatives as well. Bryan also repeats what G.K. Chesterton wrote about conservatives and progressives. Chesterton wrote that while 'progressives go on making mistakes,' conservatives 'prevent mistakes from being corrected.' Bryan also noted that in the US, confessing evangelicals align themselves with political conservatism.

This could lead one into thinking that Bryan wants us Christians to be centrists. To think that would be a mistake according to Bryan. Rather, Christians should take on a gadfly in relating to both groups.  The term that Bryan used was 'prophets' who come from  the wilderness. And as prophets, we are to try to bring both conservatives and progressives in line with what the Scriptures say. And that we should do this with unwavering clarity and conviction. He then says that the greatest threat to the Church and the Gospel are 'overt antagonists.' He then quotes II Timothy 3:5 in warning us to stay away from such people.

So Bryan's article is a so far a mix between some good stuff to agree with and a lot left to the imagination.

What should we say about this article? For one thing, Bryan seems to stress that the Church should stand not only above the fray between conservatives and progressives, but in judging them. What else can we conclude from him telling us to act toward and speak [down] to them as if we are prophets from the wilderness. And it is at this point, it becomes evident that Bryan might be too heavenly minded to be aware of the context in which he is speaking.

Politics deals only with a part of our horizontal lives, our lives with the State and society. It does not deal with the vertical, nor should it. It is ill-equipped to do so. So we need to carefully think what it means to be a prophet from the wilderness in the political continuum that has conservatives on one side and progressives on the other. And, at this point, we should note the binary thinking Bryan is employing.

That taking on the role of the prophet carries with it some dangers and hazards. One is, to borrow the phraseology of Martin Luther King Jr. as he spoke against the Vietnam War, that start to believe that we have everything to teach politically minded unbelievers and nothing to learn from them. And while Bryan cites II Timothy 3:5 to warn us about the antagonists from both groups, I would see that and raise him Romans 2 where it talks about how the unbeliever sometimes acts more righteously than those who believe, or claim to, in God. So that when we consider Romans 2, we should start cooling, not turning off,  our prophetic jets. To combine lessons from the cited parts of  II Timothy 3 and Romans 2, we should learn when to ignore unbelievers and when to learn from them. That last part is underemphasized in much of the religiously conservative Christian world.

But something else calls on us to learn when to learn from unbelievers when exploring issues in the political world. We are suppose to live in a democracy. And if we consider what a democracy is in terms of a state of being and in terms of what Jefferson warned us about, we should work for a society where we don't use majority rule to oppress any minorities. That we should use our democratic processes to ensure that all different ethnic groups have an equal share in and of the state regardless of their size. What is inferred from that is that we Christians should not gather in our spiritually ideological ghettos apart from where the rest of the world thinks about and discusses politics. Rather, we should collaborate. And the proper word there is 'collaborate' rather than try to control. For as collaborators, we become equal participants with unbelievers. As those seeking control, we try to claim a place of supremacy over them.

Does Bryan disagree with what is written in the last few paragraphs here? I really can't say and that is because in writing his article, he left too much to the imagination.

Necessary Splits

 Should things hold as they are now, then the following separations are necessary.

First, should Trump retain control of the Republican Party after Biden is inaugurated, then regular Republicans must leave the party.  They must leave the Republican Party in the hands of the Trumpublicans and form their own party.

Why must they leave? It is for the sake of integrity. Under Trump and the Trumpublicans, reality has been under constant assault. And what the Trumpublicans consider to be real today depends on what serves the needs of the President. This assault on reality started early during Trump Administration with the resorting to 'alternative facts' by a Trump spokesperson. It has continued throughout his Administration down to what is true about the Covid-19 virus and the election. 

The attack on reality has been aided by cults. By cult, I am referring to any pro-Trump group that has its members believing that the only news sources they can go to are those that support Trump. Certainly Trump has his own cult. But there seems to be a multitude of Trump supporting religiously conservative Christian groups that operate as cults as well. As a result, we have a number of Trumpublicans, both rank-and-file members as well as office holders, who cannot accept any reality that does not favor Trump in some way shape or form. Such people easily and passionately latch onto conspiracy theories and false individual claims about a number of subjects especially the election.

Should Trump retain control over the Republican Party after Biden becomes President, Republicans with integrity must leave their party and form their own political party so that their conservatism can be heard by the public and be represented in government with integrity. I say that not as a fan of political conservatism, but as someone who wants people who hold to political conservatism to be well represented in government.

On the flip side, Biden's nomination to be the Democratic Party's Presidential candidate should tell the progressives of that Party that the Democratic Party establishment is far more interested in the votes provided by progressives than their ideas.

Like the Republican Party, the Democratic Party is controlled by the wealth of business interests, especially those of Wall Street. That reality should have become clear by now since Clinton was President with his repeal of Glass-Steagall and promotion of NAFTA. That should have been clear by now by Obama's refusal to criminally prosecute the Wall Street execs whose fraud significantly contributed to the economic collapse of 2008 and his attempt to fast track the TPP. And that should have been clear by the Democratic Party's treatment of Bernie Sanders's attempts to earn the Party's Presidential nominee.

Progressives in the Democratic Party cannot hope to fight the influence that money has over the Democratic Party. While progressives could easily protest and oppose Trump's appointments of corporate lobbyists and executives to important government positions, they should also be significantly riled by Biden's corporate appointments. After all, wasn't it credibly reported that Biden told Wall Street supporters that 'nothing would change' should he be elected?

Certainly there will be some cosmetic changes in policies with the Biden Presidency. And we will be relieved from Trump's attempts at strongman rule over the nation once Biden is inaugurated. But what won't change is the general direction of the nation under a Biden Presidency. That general direction's destination is that of furthering corporate rule over the nation. With a Biden Presidency, that general direction will undergo a major facelift. The new facade will be more appealing, more attractive to look at. But the direction will not be any different than that of direction pursued by President Trump.

Again, should Trump retain control of the Republican Party, we need splits in both parties. We need exoduses of those who are more purist in their ideologies from our two major political parties. Without those separations from the two major parties, we will can only be assured of worse and worse major party candidates for President.

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For February 1, 2017

Jan 26

To Tim Keller and his blogpost article on people preferring chosen faiths over the churches of their fathers. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.

Certainly, the Church has, at times, challenged the status quo in some ways. But I fail to see the evidence that it has done this across the board. This is especially true when it comes to economics and politics. Regarding economics, religiously conservative Christianity has more often than not supported the rule of wealth and that often comes with supporting tyranny. One only needs to note the prerevolutionary times of France, Spain, and Russia along with the coups in in Guatemala (1954) and Chile (1973) to see a positive correlation between religiously conservative Christianity and support for wealth and the acceptance of tyranny. Then we should note that religiously conservative Protestants in America have aligned themselves with private sector wealth for a while. This can be seen in their voting patterns especially with the election of Donald Trump.

While religiously conservative Christians have come around in greater and greater numbers to confront racism, it wasn't always that way. But it is more in vogue now. And for that part of the status quo, what Keller writes about the Church challenging the status quo has some degree of truth to it. However, there is no challenge to the economic structures on which the status quo in America rests by large numbers of religiously conservative Christians. So now, conservative Protestants in America are doing what their brothers and sisters have done in the Orthodox and Roman churches in other parts of the world.

As Keller isolates the variable for church growth to chosen faith over inherited faith, as the two swap places, then we should expect a vacillation in growth between established protestant denominations and the less liturgical evangelicalism and pentacostal denominations as time goes on.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jan 27

To Kyle Hanby and his blogpost that reviews an article by Samuel Gregg on the history of the progressive movement. This appeared in the Acton blog.

Certainly progressives have their dark places in history. But how does that distinguish them from other groups? Don't all groups have their own skeletons in the closet?

But also, though stated, there is a lack of emphasis distinguishing today's progressives from yesteryear. This allows for people to conflate the two.

And finally, there should be a distinction made between the Left and progressives. For we should note that the Left has had their share complaints about progressives as well. And those complaints started with then President Wilson's jailing of Eugene Debs for his opposition to  the US entering WW I. In the meantime, the Left has also complained about how progressives, like conservatives, preferred elite-centered rule and how progressives have abandoned representing the working class.

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To Rev Ben Johnson and his blogpost that defends high CEO pay because it gives CEOs incentive to work harder. This appeared in the Acton blog.

If we want to look at disincentives to work, we should look at the exorbitantly large salaries and severance packages CEOs are offered before they start working. Regardless of performance, CEOs are so well paid that any additional pay related to performance begins to become meaningless or is meaningful only in terms of some CEOs keeping up with other CEOs. In the meantime, if the defense for unlimited CEO pay was applied to all workers, we wouldn't need a minimum wage. But we need a minimum wage because businesses can't always offer pay incentive for all workers because of what is paid to CEOs and investors. If all workers were given pay incentives, the overhead costs would take away from CEO pay the investors' desired ROI.

This article is nothing more than a rationalization for maintaining or even increasing the disparity between the highest paid employees and the lowest paid employees. We should note that CEOs often make hundreds of percent more pay than the lowest paid employee. In the meantime, what the lowest paid employees do often brings in the actual cash into the business. Food service companies, for example, are an excellent example where the lowest paid employees are the ones whose work brings money into the company through their labor but are some of the lowest paid of employees.

It seems that this article wants to deny the reality that many low paid workers live through because the sky is the limit for the highest paid employees and investors. And it seems that this article celebrates what the scriptures warn against: the love of money.

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Jan 28

To Stephen Turley and his blogpost claiming that there are “alternative facts.” This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.

The jeering response to 'alternative facts' is the result of an accumulation of times when Trump and his campaign have denied what was recorded and observable. Whether it is Trump's demeaning comments made about and even to women along with his claim that no one respects women more than he does or his criticisms about the intelligence community with similar claims about how he regards them. Then he speaks quite a bit about himself while addressing the intelligence community in front of the wall that remembers those agents who were killed in the line of  duty.

What we should notice while observing Trump is how not only does he deny what is observable, but that he too often claims to excel beyond all others in either a character or personal trait or in how he acts toward others as our nation has done about itself too. We might compare that bragging with traits we see in narcissism (see https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evolution-the-self/201311/6-signs-narcissism-you-may-not-know-about  ). Or Trump's aggression toward those who disagree with him as an authority figure could be compared with what we see in authoritarianism (see  https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sideways-view/201502/the-mind-the-authoritarian ).

It isn't that Trump is the only authoritarian in today's political scene; it is that he and his party have have a tremendous amount of governmental power while displaying too many narcissistic and authoritarian traits for comfort. And what goes for Trump also goes for some of his apologists as they suffer from collective narcissism and authoritarianism. These traits rule out both listening to those who see things differently and collaborating with others. But I guess when one demonizes those from other groups, there is no need to listen to or collaborate with them.

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Jan 29

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost noting that page Assyrians regarded abortion to be murder. This appeared in Heidelblog.

Having argued for the pro-life position on social media a number of times, I realize that we have do more than just say that abortion is murder. We have to show why that is the case. And while Pro-Choice supporters will focus on who has the right to talk the human status of a a pregnant woman's unborn, I found it useful to respond by trying to focus on the criteria we use to define what is human life. For in focusing on the criteria alone, one could legitimately answer that all of us should be involved in the discussion of what is human life but that discussion involves all of us.

In addition, to allow the pregnant woman who does not want to be pregnant and bear a child to be the sole person who determines what is the human status of the unborn inside her, I point out that there exists a conflict of interest for the pregnant women to decide since what she may want can be at odds with the result of determining the human status of her unborn.

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Jan 30

To Joe Carter and his blogpost that provides some overall information on Trump’s ban on immigrants and refugees who come from certain nations. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.

And yet the nations involved in the ban were not the nations from which those in some terrorist attacks on the US have come. Not on the list are the nations from which the 9/11 attackers came nor the foreign born San Bernardino shooter. As for whether Muslims were targeted by the ban, we might ask if Trump had banned Israelis from entering the US, would that would be considered a ban on Jews from entering our country?

There is no problem with reviewing previous immigration and refugee limits. But one does not need to ban people from so many Muslim nations to do so. And though I disagree with the ban Obama established in 2011, it was sparked by the discovery  of 2 Al Qaeda members who emigrated to the US from the nation banned, Iraq. Was there any  such discovery on Trump's part of people who had entered our country?

There is one more point to make. Most of the nations listed in Trump's ban are nations that have been on the receiving end of US military attacks. Should we consider whether there is a link between our foreign policies and terrorism?

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For October 22, 2014

Oct 15

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost containing a quote about Modernity and its exclusion of God from its view of the world. This appeared in Heidelblog

Yes, movements like the Modernity are reactions against God, but they are also reactions against Christians as they try to represent God. To deny that is to deny history and, in a sense, to externalize sin.

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Oct 20

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost quoting R.R. Reno and his lament over the intolerance of progressives. This appeared in the Heidelblog

Let me ask, who was tolerant during the times when Christianity held sway over our laws and culture so that we had blue laws or laws criminalizing homosexuality? How tolerant were those laws? And it wasn't progressives who supported Jim Crow. So how tolerant were those conservatives, note that not everyone did, who did support Jim Crow?

And how tolerant is of Christians who wanted to prohibit gays from marrying or the right to deny gays access to public goods and services provided as provided in a capitalist system?

The overgeneralizations made about an undefined group only shows a certain degree of intolerance. In fact, having just retired from a university system I can tell you that there no "progressive" domination over conservatives at least from what I saw.

Yes, Christians can have concerns over some events that seem to threaten religious liberties. But considering the intolerance showed by some conservative christians in the past, isn't the new growing intolerance a display of the pendulum swinging in the other direction? And if that is the case, then before wringing our hands in anxiety over an anticipated loss in religious liberties, perhaps we should show contrition for our role in placing or maintaining the pendulum when it was in our favor. Besides, the spread of Ebola, new wars, increasing damage to the environment, growing wealth disparities and so on are not enough to make the future seem dark. We needed this particular pendulum swing to tell us to "abandon hope all ye who enter"? The good news is that angst only over this pendulum swing is not intolerance. It is, however, evidence of self-absorption.

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Oct 21

To Elise Hilton and her blogpost on human trafficking. This appeared in the Acton blog.

Perhaps we should consider another factor that contributes to human trafficking; it is the free market. After all, trafficking supplies a cheap source of labor which, in turn, holds down costs that are passed on to the consumer--sweatshop is supported by the free market too and for the same reason. And we have trafficked labor right here in the US some of whom pick our produce. So a question we might want to ask is, is the free market too free to eliminate trafficked labor?

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To Bruce Edward Walker and his blogpost on the failures of "left-leaning" religious shareholder activists. This appeared in the Acton Blog

That "left-leaning" religious shareholder proposals are rejected and that such religious shareholders suffer a disconnect, presumedly from the other shareholders, imply what? That people favored profit over principle?  And if so, are we bragging or complaining about that? Do we ask if shareholder priorities are dominated by the love of money? 

Finally, couldn't we ask if those shareholders so easily sacrifice workers' jobs and the environment for the sake of an increase in the ROI also  suffer a disconnect?