Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For December 10, 2014

Dec 4

To Dylan Pahman and his commentary on the movie The Hunger Games. This appeared on the Acton blog.


It's rather ironic that a site that puts in juxtaposition Judeo-Christian values with the free-market might look for some deeper meaning in any Hunger Games movie. Here are at least two reasons why. We should note that the more extreme the competition that exists in our capitalist economy, the more the actual Huger Games in the movie serves as a metaphor for our economy where one's survival relies on how one wins the games. 

But even more than that, the idea of dividing people in the differing districts where each district has its own function in feeding the Capital directly mirrors the practice of 'comparative advantage' that has been both used to serve the global market economy and extolled by this website (see http://blog.acton.org/archives/70406-christians-know-comparative-advantage.html). Note that for the poorer countries, this division of labor, which should be celebrated as reflecting God's diversity according to the just cited website, is both outside of their own choice and robs them of the ability to be self-sufficient. 

One more item, how is the empty lives of those living in the Capital not drawing our attention to our consumerism that leads to a thing-oriented, rather than a person-oriented, society? And yet consumerism is a result of the kind of Capitalist economic system so celebrated by this website. Again, thus the irony of this website drawing attention to the deeper meanings imbedded in the movie The Hunger Games


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Dec 6

To Chelsea Patterson and her blogpost on how suffering is for God's glory and our good. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.

I think that a post like this needs both expansion and nuance. I say this because sometimes this teaching on suffering, which has a validity, is sometimes used by us Christians to decide to be passive in face of the different kinds of injustices we and nonChristians face on earth.

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Dec 8

To Joe Carter and his blogpost on the spiritual and economic indicators of unemployment. This appeared in the Acton blog.

Two items that are missing here are:

1.    Average and median pay of new jobs
2.    How underpaying employees or offshoring jobs to increase net profit reflects on the spirituality of the job creators/providers.

In the article linked by this post, the definition of under-employment is faulty. For being underemployed not only refers to the number of hours one is working, it also refers to the number of employees who work at jobs for which they are overqualified.

So it seems here that with regards to employment problems, not enough focus is being placed on the job creators/providers.


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To R. Scott Clark and his short blogpost quote on the current changes occurring in colleges. This appeared on the Heidelblog.

Using some different terminology, what is described above has already been commented on by Noam Chomsky in the article below:

https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/corporate-business-models-are-hurting-american-universities/

What we should note is that the terminology used to describe the growing authoritarianism of our colleges and universities will differ according to whether one sees big government or corporations as posing the greatest threat, the move from any kind of democratization of educational institutions to elite-centered control is obvious to the faculty and some others. Before retiring, I remember having conversations with colleagues over this. And this was combined with the influx of not-ready-for-college-time students in order to meet some enrollment goal. IMO and that of some others, we believe that education is being deemphasized and is being replaced by a focus on the college experience. In the meantime, students are being more and more viewed as customers.

And if we follow the money, we will easily observe our educational institutions are putting their priorities.


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Dec 9

To Brian Stanley and his blogpost on 10 myths about World Christianity. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.

If memory serves from a world religions course as well as some internet sources, not only is Christianity a Western religion, so is Judaism and Islam. This has to do with distinguishing these religions from the religions prevalent in East Asia. Christianity, Judaism, and Islam had their start in West Asia. These three religions are monotheistic religions and who claim Abraham as a key figure. Calling these three religions western does not necessarily mean that they began in Europe.

Regarding point #2, I believe Marx protested Western Colonialism and Imperialism as did those who followed him in some shape or form. In addition, victims of Western Colonialism and Imperialism protested it well before the late 20th Century. The question of who protested colonialism before the late 20th century seems very Eurocentric.

Regarding point #3, Western religion was certainly imposed on the indigenous people of the Western Hemisphere. The writings of Bartolomé de Las Casas, in his The Devastation Of The Indies documents how Western religion, as well as servitude, was forced on the indigenous people there even to the point of death. The Puritans looked at their portion of America as a new Canaan and themselves as the new Israel and thus participated in the ethnic cleansing of the land.

Regarding point #7, Christianity actually had a mixed record with regard to slavery in America. But not only that, it had a mixed record with regard to Jim Crow too. There were Christians who used the Bible to justify both sides of the fence in both of those practices. And that just is with regard to America. I cannot speak to how missionaries conducted themselves in other parts of the world. In addition, we have to remember that the merging of Church & State came from the same place where almost all Western Imperial powers came from: Europe.

Points #9 and 10 are very good points, however.

Creating Stepford Believers

The new and slightly improved kerfuffle on the evangelical blogs revolves around a blogpost written by Jen Wilkin over at the Gospel Coalition blog. Her post brought about a challenge from fellow Gospel Coalition blogger, who is a minister and a Billy Graham grandson, Tullian Tchividjian. In his response, Tchividjian questioned whether the boundary between God's law and the Gospel had been crossed-- a very important Christian life and theological concern (click here)--by Wilkin's post. Since then, a number of people have suggested a debate which can be Conservative Christianity's version of a professional tag team wrestling match.

But there is another issue that does contribute to the issue Tchividjian is concerned with which has apparently flown under the radar. That issue comes from the following line:

Earnest Christians look to their church leaders and ask, "Teach me to walk in his ways." We owe them an answer beyond, "Fail and repent." We owe them, "This is the way, walk in it." This way is often delineated by lists—a list of ten don'ts in Exodus 20, a list of eight do's in Matthew 5, a list of works of the flesh (Galatians 5:22-23) and spiritual fruit (Galatians 5:22-23) in Galatians 5, and so on. These lists crush the unbeliever but give life to the believer.

Of course though the intent is to be appreciated, there are errors. According to Paul in Galatians, one doesn't appeal to the law and lists to bear the fruit of the Spirit. But the problem being focused on here is that Wilkin seems to suggest that we should approach our ministers and elders as people who have everything to teach and nothing to learn from us. Well, I know my minister and elders. And they have gifts and positions of authority. But they are not people who have everything to teach and nothing to learn and they are the first to admit that.

Now if that attitude stopped at this point, then the damage to the Conservative Christian psyche would have been somewhat limited. But it hasn't. For it is not just the people in the pews who have embraced Wilkin's attitude here, but our leaders have too especially with regard to Church leaders from the past. And thus we have created a mentality where our thinking stops once we understand what we have just read. 

An example of this process can be found in Christians use of Augustine's Just War Theory. When many of us Christians want to read about how to know when a war is just, we read Augustine and that finishes the matter. We don't consider whether Augustine made mistakes or whether his theory needs adjustment. That is because we read without questioning--the attitude Wilkin suggests above. We read him and our thinking stops once we feel comfortable with our understanding of what he has written. And when we add the differences in historical context between Augustine's time and ours to Augustine's fallibility, such an attitude is wholly inadequate. Such an attitude makes our leaders, past and present, Catholic priests who take an intermediary position between us and God. We don't know God outside of what our leaders teach.

Don't think that this Stepford type of Christianity has escaped the attention of unbelievers. I heard Noam Chomsky negatively refer to this mentality when discussing war and Augustine's view on it. Here, he was complaining about how unhelpful it is when asking us Christians about it because once we quote Augustine, we act like the conversation has ended.

What we communicate to unbelievers when we adopt the above attitude suggested by Wilkin is that we lean toward anti-intellectualism and authoritarianism. These are traits that act as unnecessary stumbling blocks for adherents of Modernism who would hear us share the Gospel. That is because we show that, in terms of thinking, we are content with just understanding what was said before rather than thinking through things biblically for ourselves. 

Thus, when we intellectually engage with nonChristians, we all too often are interacting with their views by merely citing the opinions of others. We talk to others as if we were wearing buttons that say, "How would Calvin respond?" or "What would Luther say?" or "How would my minister and elders answer this question?" And though it is not that we should never consult these people for advice, it is that our thinking must attempt to go beyond theirs if we are to be good witnesses for Christ let alone if we are to fully understand the people we are citing.

Wilkin's suggestion here ignores the fact that we best know a concept when we can criticize it. And though nobody can criticize God's Word, we can safely assume that neither our ministers nor elders are infallible. At least the ones in my church are not and they are the first ones to admit it.

Certainly, Wilkin demonstrates an attitude which can be appreciated here; she wants to be more conformed to the image of Christ. But sometimes the process that appears to be most sincere and righteous in achieving that goal leads us into unforeseen problems. And those problems are unforeseen because we haven't taken the time to think them through. 

A Rare Siting On Conservative Blogs

One of Marx's fears of the Bourgeois economy of his day was that the values practiced there would permeate all of life. The result would that all connections between people would revolve around self-interest. We should note that there are only two parties who have received permission to care solely about themselves in today's Free Market Capitalism. Those two parties are the business owners and the customers. Labor must either sacrifice for the good of the other two or be scapegoated when self-interest hurts business.

American Conservative Christianity has, for the most part, wholeheartedly embraced Free Market Capitalism as being a child of its theology. Yes, sometimes American Conservative Christianity will acknowledge and criticize "Crony Capitalism." But it has rarely, if ever, critically examined the regular workings and basic structure of our economic system. Instead, it has all but bragged while enjoying the fruits of our system.

But a disturbance in the conservative force has arisen and it comes from Bethany Jenkins in one of her most recent blogposts on the Gospel Coalition blog. In a post titled, Do You Know Where Your Food Comes From?,  Jenkins tells us that the cost of discipleship demands that we include Gospel ethics when buying our food. BTW, this blogpost review will not be that long in hopes that those who read this will pay more attention to the Jenkins' blogpost. It is simply one of the best blogposts on the Gospel Coalition's blog.

The costs of discipleship in determining where we get our food is a slap in the face of the cherished belief that consumers should act out of self-interest alone. Instead, according to Jenkins, Christian discipleship is saying that our self-interest must be reigned in and directed by other concerns. These concerns include: the human rights of all those involved in the production of our food, the proper respect for and treatment of animals, and concern for the environmental impact that the production of our food has.

Now these concerns are not new for those on the Left for they have written about and acted on these issues before. But what is new, at least to me, is to see these concerns being seriously discussed by any of my fellow American religious Conservative Christians. And to read such a conservative telling us that our food purchases must be made with others in mind provides hope for the future.

Again, instead of reading my review of this blogpost, your time would be better served by reading Jenkins' article (another link to the same article).

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For Feb 12, 2014

This is a new category of posts. It is dedicated to those conservative blogs that have blocked my comments for various reasons. The blogpost of blocked comments will appear every Wednesday when the blog is not taking a break.

Feb 6

To Anthony Bradley's and Sean Spurlock's Acton commentary titled, It Is Not Only The Poor Who Need Moral Leadership



Though the title of this article invited hope, the content dashed it. Again, what is displayed is a preoccupation and utter fixation on private social morals while neglecting or relegating social sins and system failures to being derivative. Such simply protects the status quo while giving the appearance of being a moral crusader.

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Feb 7

To J Mack Stiles on his blogpost on How To Create A Culture Of Evangelism on The Gospel Coalition Blog

It seems to me that our current culture of consumerism along with the self-absorption it nourishes is at odds with a culture of evangelism. Perhaps we should acknowledge that the Church is not big enough for the both of them.

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Feb 8

To Joe Carter's continuing series on sharing the economics of  conservative evangelicals with liberal evangelicals. This segment  is Part II. Part III will be addressed next week. All three parts are on the Acton Blog


When I read an article like this on Acton, two thoughts come to mind. First, I think of what Lewis Black once complained about when he described Americans who had never been out of the country but proudly bragged that their country was the best in the world. This is what point #5 reminds me of. Meanwhile, point #6 is rather ironic because one of the reasons why I was kicked off this blog was because I said that conservatives blame the poor for their poverty. And what happens in this post? Point 6 declares that in this not perfect but best of all systems, those who are poor are most probably that way because of their own personal choices. So why was there so much anger at me when I said that conservatives blame the poor for their poverty?

As for point #5, I am not sure if it is clear. On the one hand, there is the declaration that our current system is not a 'zero-sum' gain where one person's gain is another's person's loss while the sum total equals 0. Now such a statement could indicate a belief in some infinite source of resources but we live in a finite world. We have no infinite resources. But then comes the assertion that this limitation of our finite world does not apply to the free market. Why? Because if you pay x amount of dollars for the building of the house, and you sell it for greater than x dollars, everybody gains. The buyer gets a house, the supplies and labor needed for building the house are paid for, and the seller gets a profit. 

And if this illustration exhaustively explained the whole free market and not just some individual transactions, then there is a point. But where did the buyer get the money to buy the house? Will the buyer have to sacrifice necessities to pay the selling price? And what if there was no buyer for even the costs of building the house, would the supplies and labor be fully paid? And who had to do without in order for the buyer to come up with the money? See, the illustration is too small to show even an adequate explanation of all that is involved with the free market.

But then that point is followed by an interesting statement. This statement attempts to be honest by acknowledging that some competitions provide losers, However, Carter cites Jay W. Richards in saying that this provides more 'win-win encounters' than any other system. This is where Lewis Black's comment comes into play. How many different economic systems has Richards lived so that he can claim that the free-market system is the best of all alternatives? 

But suppose that that our current economic system provides the most win-win encounters of all present and past systems, does that still justify the current system. For it is not just the quantity of win-win encounters, it is also the quality. When we experienced all of the win-win encounters in the economy from the beginning our country to the Civil War, wasn't slavery so egregious that it didn't matter how many win-win encounters there were, slavery had to be eliminated? What about today when workers here lose jobs to sweatshop labor abroad or what about the low prices we pay in part because trafficked labor was involved either here or some other place? Shouldn't we consider even trying a new system because the  few win-lose encounters are such horrible atrocities?

In point #5, we are asked to accept an unproven statement as the basis for tolerating the abuses of our current system. The one line declaring that our system has the most win-win encounters of all systems tried is nothing more than a thought stopper. That is, once we here how great our system is, regardless of the drawbacks, we need not consider another system because of how it compares with all else.

Point #6 is another matter. Though Carter acknowledges that the current system is not perfect, he asserts that there are not as many injustices that exist today as before. But of course, the existence of injustices varies from location to location. For example, all of us in this country benefit from products made in sweatshop factories whether they be textile or high-tech factories. There appears to be no injustices here while there are sweatshops located in other places. But the fact that our manufacturers can rely more and more on sweatshop labor means that the chickens of unemployment injustices come home to roost in the form of unemployment and/or reduced wages and benefits.

Are personal choices also involved in poverty? Yes. But there are several problems here prior coming to conclusions. First, a positive correlation, which is what we have between wrong personal choices and poverty, does not show cause and effect. Also, do injustices cause people to make bad choices? But people make bad choices in the absence of injustices as well and some, because of their financial status, can do so with impunity. Third, do personal choices put or keep people in poverty? Yes, but again, we should note that those who have fewer resources have a smaller margin for error. We should also note that those social injustices could have played a role in the making of those bad choices. 

Some of this explains why Carter's "North Dakota" test is not all that reliable--his North Dakota Test says move a person to North Dakota with a fresh start to see how they fare. Basically, Carter's test says that if you can't make it there, you can't make it anywhere. And if you can't make it there, it is because of your personal choices because, according to Carter, North Dakota has minimal structural impediments to living above poverty. He makes that assessment of North Dakota because both its poverty rate and unemployment rate falls below national averages and what some are paid for their jobs beats what others are paid elsewhere

Is Carter's North Dakota test valid? No. Why does one have to take a person out of their home to give them a job and clean slate to see if personal choice is the issue? Why not give such a person a non-poverty wage job and clean slate where they live to see if the personal choices determined their current poverty, that is if it is possible to do so? In addition, since tests used on a single group under the same condition establish no worthwhile results, why not move some successful conservatives into a poor neighborhood where there is little to no economic opportunity or hope to see if, over a significant period of time, their personal choices are significantly affected by the unjust structure that surrounds them?

See, as in point #5 where Carter borrows an analogy that is too simplistic to explain the free market, here, Carter uses an overly simplistic to describe the relationship between personal choices and poverty. His test leaves out the current level of social injustices that affect people's personal choices. 

Now, though Carter wants to believe that our system's number of injustices are not like they were in the Jim Crow days, perhaps he should read OWS's Declaration Of The Occupation Of New York City (click here) to see how accurate his assessment is. In addition, Carter should consider the current incarceration rate of Blacks and the exploitation of their labor through the gov't and growing private prison systems. In fact, the incarceration rates and abuse of Black prison labor is being called Jim Crow II by some. 

Perhaps Carter would do better to first live with those who live in poverty. Perhaps he should learn what obstacles the poor must overcome to survive or even change their lot.

This is what Chilean economist Manfred Max-Neef did. His book, From The Outside Looking In: Experiences In 'Barefoot Economics' was a result of him realizing that though he was a trained economist who taught at Cal Berkley, he was ignorant of the language of economics spoken by the poor. So he went to live with them to find their take on life and the economy.

Though Carter does not take a hardline, all-or-nothing approach by saying the system is perfect and all one has to do is to apply themselves, he says it strongly enough so that he seems to blame the majority of the poor for their current economic straights. And in so doing, he is merely speaking to the poor from above and about the poor from the outside. Why? It is because though the system is not perfect, it is, it seems in his opinion, adequate enough to lift the person who makes good choices and really tries to get out of poverty and it is the best system there has even been. And he seems to say all of that from being in the position of a have without having to reflect on the privileges he has enjoyed from his race and the economic class he grew up in.

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Feb 11


To R. Scott Clark on his blogpost on the college football player who came out of the closet posted on Heidelblog

BTW, I mistakenly used a double negative in the second paragraph when I start the sentence with, "First, Romans 1"

The issue here is a societal one, not a church or doctrinal one. And the issue isn't whether  homosexual behavior and attraction is a choice or is a condition one is born with.  The issue is whether we should treat homosexuals as equals in society. We see an extreme case where the answer is no in Russia.  And lest Christians are too quick to distance themselves from that, we should note that some countries, under the influence of Christian missionaries, have made homosexuality a capital offense.

Obviously we will go back to the beginning of Romans here because of what is written in the first chapter. But when Romans 1 is read along with the chapters 2 and 3, we see that Paul does not focus on homosexuality to the extent that many Christians do today. For Paul, homosexuality is part of the sinful mix. Some homosexuals are that way because they have traded in what could be known about God for what is not true about parts of creation. But two points should be made here. First, Roman 1 does not say that that is not the only cause of homosexuality. Second, there are other sins, along with homosexuality, that are the result of one making the same trade of knowledge which homosexuals have made. Some of these sins are very serious with regard to how a person functions in society while others are common household sins. Thus, the fact that homosexuality is mentioned in Romans 1 does not imply that there must be societal sanctions against it.

Since homosexuality is a behavior rather than a state of being, such as being of a particular race, we might want to use religion as a basis of comparison with homosexuality rather than race. After all, practicing a religion is a behavior and comes from making a choice. In addition, practicing the wrong religion can be the result of making the same mistaken trade of information about God which homosexuals make. So the question is, why should we allow for the freedom of religion in society if we don't allow equality for gays?

Now if we read Romans 1 consistently, we see a parallelism between Romans 1:21-27 and Romans 1:28-32. So why the focus on homosexuality? And we should note how Romans 1 ends. It ends with the beginning of Romans 2 that tells us not to judge others lest we condemn ourselves. In addition, if we want to talk about what is natural, then we should temper that without minimizing what is said in Romans 1 with the fact that homosexuality is seen in around 1,500 species and that it serves a beneficial service to the animals involved. 

So the question becomes, should we treat homosexuals as equals in society or should we become Russia-lite about it? To answer this question we need to ask ourselves how, was sexual sin accommodated in society during New Testament times? And we could then ask what reasons do we have for either following that example or doing things differently?


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Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For Jan 15, 2014

This is a new category of posts. It is dedicated to those conservative blogs that have blocked my comments for various reasons. The blogpost of blocked comments will appear every Wednesday when the blog is not taking a break


Jan 9

to Jennifer Marshall on her blogpost in gospel coalition blogpost on helping the poor

Certainly, some of what is written in this article is important in helping the poor. Family and church as well as business and government participation is important. Programs to connect people who are successful with those in prison or poverty are important.

But it is also important to be specific as to where we have seen failures. And while Conservative Christians who write about poverty have had no problems associating poverty with families headed by single parents, we do have problems highlighting the roles that business and government play in producing poor people. For example, businesses that pay poverty wages should listen to what Martin Luther King Jr. said when speaking to the strikers in Memphis, Tennessee:

"it is criminal to have people working on a full-time basis and a full-time job getting part-time income." (click here for source). 

Or perhaps we can talk about poverty from the cost of living side. Today's food speculation, which unnecessarily increases the cost of food and thus the cost of living and predatory loans from the past which along with the fraud involved with the housing bubble caused many families to lose their homes contribute to poverty. 

Or perhaps we can talk about businesses that outsource their jobs to other countries because those countries allow these companies to abuse and underpay their employees. Paying poverty wages and the outsourcing of jobs to other countries are significant factors that play a role in poverty on the personal income side of the problem. 

And we have to remember government's role in letting businesses treat people this way. 

All of this leads to something else Martin Luther King Jr. said about showing compassion to the poor, 

"True compassion is more than just flipping a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring." (click here for source).

So while businesses defend their part in creating and maintaining poverty by saying that they must cut pay, in one way or another, to stay competitive or to be responsible to their stockholders, we need to ask if such a system is unjust. The same goes for those businesses that benefit from causing unnecessary increases in the cost of living. Because if it is, we must demand that the system repents and change so that a few don't grow rich at the expense of the many. And those in the middle class must use additional criteria to how the wealthiest among us are doing to determine if we have a  successful and prosperous economy.

So far, the Conservative Church has offered suggestions on how to alleviate poverty while keeping the current system as it is. Thus the necessary challenges that those in business and government need to hear of often muted, and this is especially true for those in business. And though what was suggested above is good, especially that which entail personal involvement with those who are poor, these suggestions will only be responding to rather than also eliminating what causes poverty. And as important and well thought out as these suggestions are, they will only tell us how to put better bandaids on a person than how to also remove a person from harm's way.

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Jan 11


To Robert Royal's blogpost on Western Civilization on the Imaginative Conservative blog


What is the purpose for all of this rambling about Western Civilization? Is it to have a measuring contest between our contributions vs the death and destruction we've wrought? And who is going to determine the winner of this measuring contest? Should it be those who are on the Western Civilization team or should outsiders be asked whether the good we've done outweighs the bad? And if Westerners are the ones determining the tradeoffs, how honest can us be about ourselves? Does what we say about our own civilization and history reflect more on who we are today or who we have been over time? And what would be the purpose of such a contest? Would it be to decide whether Western Civilization should cease or how it should continue its journey? 

My struggle with this reflecting on Western Civilization is that it somewhat separates us from other civilizations and what we can learn from them. It lessens the connections we could have with those outside of our own group. And if we have any degree of loyalty for and pride in belonging to Western Civilization, it makes us defensive and less honest about the winner of the previously mentioned measuring contest.

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