Feb 18
To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost that favorably compares Martin Luther with Rush Limbaugh. This appeared in Heidelblog.
Loyalty blinds us. It blinds us to the faults and sins of our objects of loyalty. Clark demonstrates that blindness by minimizing the faults of both Luther and Limbaugh.
First, Luther contributed to the anti-semitism that grew over the ages. That is because though Luther, in the latter part of his life, called for harsh treatment of the Jews who would not believe in Christ, there was often no strict boundary between anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism over the centuries. He basically called for their removal from the country and for people to persecute them. And one cannot simply relegate his anti-Judaism to mere frustration.
Limbaugh greatly contributed to the divisiveness that we see in our nation today. It isn't that he was just occasionally bombastic, he greatly promoted black-white thinking when it comes to viewing one's ideological opponents. His popularity made his promotion of such thinking even more effective. So he deserves much credit for polarization that we see today. If Limbaugh was a Christian, then he very much needed to read the parable of the two men praying.
But Limbaugh not only promoted black-white thinking, he mocked weakness. An example of that was when he mocked Michael J. Fox for how he moved during a interview. We should remember that Fox has Parkinson's disease and Limbaugh expressed doubt as to whether that was the reason for Fox's movements.
We should also mention that not only did Luther and Limbaugh come from similar backgrounds, so does Clark seeing that he also comes from the Midwest. And, unfortunately, Clark weds his theology to his conservative politics which is why he likes Limbaugh so much.
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Feb 23
To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost quote of an article by Edward Feser who used the writings of Eric Voegelin to associate Critical Theory and other liberal leftist belief systems with Gnosticism. This appeared in Heidelblog.
Cited article found at
http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2021/01/the-gnostic-heresys-political-successors.html
Context is to words what location is to real estate. And the context for the article cited by Clark is that it a conservative apologetic that relies on black-white thinking. According the article cited by Clark and written by Feser, those wearing the white hats are conservatives who defend Western Civilization because Western Civilization has its roots in the Christian faith.
The bad guys are those who in the interest of science, social justice and equity have ventured off into liberalism, socialism, communism, scientism, progressivism, globalism, and so on. Fesser calls such apostate projects because they have they emerged from a Christianity Civilization but their 'theological roots' have been taken away.
So while Fesser goes on to count Critical Theory as an offspring of that which was mentioned above, he then uses the writings of Eric Voegelin to try to label it as Gnostic because Critical Theory, like its predecessors. is divorced from natural reason and natural theology and thus imitates Gnosticism in the ways he mentions. But what Voegelin doesn't mention is that what he calls Gnostic descendants do nott share the key belief that Gnostics had: that the physical world was evil and the spiritual world was good. In contrast, all of the Gnostic traits that Voegelin attributes to Critical Theory and its predecessors could also easily be attributed to Christianity and thus Voegelin must spend some time distinguishing Christianity from Gnositicism.
But there is something else that is an important part of the context of Feser's article. It is apparent from the beginning that Feser's complaint about the predecessors to Critical Theory that these movements progressed without the blessing of the Church. So regardless of the appeals to natural reason and natural theology, we are dealing with a Roman Catholic view of the relationship between Church and State. And confirmation of that comes from Feser's own short biography that says he approaches religion from a Roman Catholic point of view.
Now Feser's Roman Catholic perspective neither makes his views right or wrong. But what is surprising is that a Reformed 2K theologian would find no fault with the Roman Catholic approach to politics and ideologies.
The credentials for Critical Theory, along with Critical Race Theory which was mentioned at the beginning of the above quote, wasif found first in observation. Both find significant fault with the fruits of Western or Christian Civilization. And thus the above article serves as an apologetic in a turf battle over who gets to define the reality we currently live in. But also, we should note that a significant portion of Critical Race Theory is based on the experiences of and approaches taken by Martin Luther King Jr who applied the Christian faith to the issues of racism, economic exploitation, and militarism. And here we should note that King's starting point was that of observation.
That last point is important because many Conservative Christian theologians and thinkers tend to reduce reality to what they can deduce from theology. Thus Clark, along with Feser and Voegelin, could possibly be seeing Western Civilization in idealistic terms. And for as much as they do that, they have removed the facts on the ground from their view of Western Civilization.
We should note one other point. That seeing Communism, and my guess is that we could include Socialism too, as being apostate is partially shared by people like Martin Luther King Jr saw them from how William Temple, a former Archbishop of Canterbury, saw them. Temple saw Communism as a 'Christian Heresy' in that it had some essential Christian concerns but it also included tenets that no Christian could accept. But instead of employing black-white thinking, King went on to say that we need a hybrid approach that employed the best of Communism and Capitalism while leaving out the weaknesses of both ideologies (see http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/ows/seminars/aahistory/Pilgrimage.pdf ).
It is the recognition of both the valid points made by another ideology and the weaknesses of either an old status quo or one's personal pet beliefs that allows one to more fairly examine and interpret Critical Theory, Critical Race Theory, and their predecessors along with one's own isms. Unfortunately, that is what Clark, Feser, and Voegelin failed to do.
