Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs for May 3, 2023

 April 28

To Heidelblog and Rosaria Butterfield for the segment of Butterfield's article that acts as a public repentance for using the preferred pronouns of those who changed their gender identity due to gender dysphoria.

Butterfield's full article can be found at:

    https://www.reformation21.org/blog/why-i-no-longer-use-transgender-pronouns-and-why-you-shouldnt-either

Besides the fact that Butterfield hardline approach to pronouns and gender identity shows that she currently uses the same kind of thinking which she used as a radical feminist only on the other side of coin, there is a real problem with her whole article. What she said about Transgenderism being satanic can be said about any religion outside of the Christian faith. And yet we rightfully publicly call followers of Islam 'Muslims' rather than 'Satanists.' We call those who don't believe in God 'Atheists' rather than 'Satanists.' And it goes on down the line with other religions. We use those names respectfully because of where those people stand in society. We use those names because we recognize their equal standing with us in society.

Of course, there is another problem with Butterfield's approach here. She seems to be conflating biological sex with gender identity--something that the LGBT community does only from the other side of the coin. Biological sex deals with the physical while gender identity deals with the psychological. And so using preferred pronouns can be respectful of someone's adopted gender identity without denying what the Scriptures say about us being made male and female. 

Also, quoting Genesis 1:27 the way she does shows that she forgets that that passage occurred before the Fall when both man and nature suffered corruption because of Adam's sin. So now, we have 3 biological sexes: male, female, and intersex. And now we have people identifying as a different gender than their biological sex at birth would indicate. We have others who identify as being gender fluid. We should note that gender dysphoria and identifying as a different gender than the biological sex at one's birth existed well before the recent controversy about gender identity came about. We've had cross dressers and men who identified as women in America even before the beginning of the 20th century. But more telling than that, some Native American tribes recognized up to 5 different genders and they honored such people attributing their gender identity to the triumph of the spirt over the flesh. Though their approach to gender identities are different in certain ways than the current approach by the LGBT community, what we see is that adopting a different gender identity than if one was cisgendered is not a new phenomenon that just started in our current time.

Finally, though gender identity is a psychological concept, there are possible biological factors that can influence one's gender identity. For example, the following from a plain language summary on gender dysphoria from an article posted in the National Library of Medicine says the following. (see  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7415463/   ):

'<b>When research has been conducted in people with Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, a condition where the testosterone receptor is mutated and faulty, and thus cannot function, gender dysphoria is observed as the body is genetically male but anatomically female. It is known that the structure of male and female brains differs; it is found that people with gender dysphoria have a brain structure more comparable to the gender to which they identify. The review of the literature suggests that there is a disparity between the brains of those who identify differently to their assigned gender at birth, highlighting a multifactorial underpinning of the gender identity.</b>'

We simply don't know all of the factors involved in gender dysphoria and the identifying of being a gender different from one biological sex that occurred at birth. And so for as long as we distinguish, rather than conflate,  biological sex and gender identity, it would be wise for the reputation of the Gospel that we Christians use a person's preferred pronouns when referring to them lest further research on the subject makes us look like some past Christian leaders, such as Calvin and Luther, when they openly mocked those who promoted Heliocentrism, which was later proven to be true.

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April 29

To Michael Weiner and the reposting of his article on Religion's role in America's founding and preservation. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.

Perhaps we should realize that America's religions have failed to provide what religion was tasked with in the above article. And we should note that if religion is the glue that binds society, then the religion that does just that cannot be an exclusive religion unless that exclusive religion becomes the state religion. But such a state of affairs provides a major reason why American religion has failed to deliver the goods promised in the above article.

The above provides some descriptions of America that lack adequate context. The government formed by our Constitution was one that, though providing a more free situation than the aristocracies that existed in Europe at the time, it was written because of and for the protection of America's new elites. The Senate was formed as a hedge against populism. The Constitution itself took a hands off approach to voting rights though few could vote when the document was being written. 

We should note that back then, many people were protesting the economic times in which America's new elites were benefiting from. And these elites looked down on democracy back then because many people want certain practices that would benefit ordinary people. In fact, the writing of The Constitution was written in response to widespread dissent and Shays Rebellion.

If we want to know what should restrain us from exploiting each other, it is found in the meaning of the words 'freedom' or 'liberty,' not in religion. For the formula below goes a long way in telling us how to prevent ourselves from exploiting others:

    Freedom - equality = privilege

With that formula, if we pursue our own freedom, we will also try to avoid being privileged and having a supremacy over others. And with that we will go a long way in not just being free, but in being virtuous as well. Perhaps we will go farther in pursuing freedom and virtue than our nation's forefathers. Then again, regarding our nation's forefathers, if they didn't favor slavery, they definitely believed in white supremacy. Thus they provided a much lower bar than we give them credit for in the pursuit of freedom and virtue.

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For December 15, 2021

 Dec 7

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost quotation of an article that celebrates the successful court challenge to the Biden Administration's vaccine mandates. This appears in the Heidelblog.

Clark needs to really vet his sources, or perhaps he has in a tragic way. The inflammatory reference, in the article he quotes from, to a 'federal mandate regime' is most unfortunate seeing that the mandates are based on the findings and advise of medical experts in the midst of a pandemic that has killed over 750k Americans  in less than 2 years

The celebration to the successful court challenges to mandates based on advice from medical experts shows how narrow the vision is becoming for more and more Christians. Thus, complaints about American society made by Christian scholars like Carl Trueman in his book about the modern self appear to involve more projection than analysis.

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Dec 11

To W. Robert Godfrey and his Church School lesson on the effects of the end of Christendom on history and the present. This appeared in the Abounding Grace Radio blog (see  https://agradio.org/ )

Godfrey presents a Christian-centric, not to be confused with a Christo-centric, view of the changing times. Consider some of what he said in this presentation:

Why are people angry? 

     It's because Christendom has ended.

    The Enlightenment's ideas of freedom and democracy were borrowed from the best of Christianity.

    The Enlightenment wanted to free people from superstitions and ignorance that was seen in Christianity. And those things existed because Christians are sinners.

    An Enlightenment complaint was that Christianity taught people to go along with suffering and oppression. And yet the best of Christianity has always worked for positive change.

The above statements put a real damper on how Christianity is suppose to own its mistakes and sins. Godfrey would have done better to say that there are two presentations  of Christianity: the Christianity of the Scriptures and the Christianity portrayed by Christians.

At the same time, while admitting that the Church sided with corruption and wealth, he only mentioned the Roman Church as doing so. During that same time period here in America, many Protestants believed in and promoted white supremacy as exhibited in the ethic cleansing of Native Americans from the land and embracing a race-based chattel slavery. I presumed he was including the 17th and 18th centuries here since he noted the failures of the Enlightenment demonstrated in the French Revolution and its Reign of Terror.

And what do we have today which relates to the Enlightenment according to Godfrey? We have Wokeness where either people are aware or not aware--that is comparable, according to Godfrey, to the Enlightenment where people were either enlightened or in the dark. And we should note that with battle over Wokeness, we are talking about how serious and pervasive are our past and current sins.

Yes, Godfrey does give some compliments to the Enlightenment. Godfrey also lays some criticism s at the feet of Christianity. But he does the latter in a guarded way so as to not to admit too much about our faults and sins while having reason to be proud because the best parts of the Enlightenment came from us and what our ancestors said and did.

Perhaps we Christians should note that people are angry, in part, because of the past existence of Christendom, not its end. We should note that we didn't supply the Enlightenment with its best parts. That there are times when what the best of Christians did in the past to implement positive change was insignificant because there were so few of those best Christians that they became outliers to their time and place.

To share the Gospel, we need to preach Christ and Him crucified rather than to argue over what blame and credit Christians deserve to receive for what they did in the past. Fortunately for all of us, our faith rests in Christ, not in each other.

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Dec 14

To Jerry Saylor and his article whose title protests against a totalitarian democracy but spends offers a more detailed critique against the "Heresy of Equality.' This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative Blog.

When one condemns anti-racists for being pro-equality, then we should see a flurry of red flags raising. The same when we see the condemnation of those protesting for full equality for the LGBT community. Who else doesn't deserve equality according to those who condemn?

Certainly equality trumps the intentions of those who participating in the writing of The Constitution. But if law is based on equality, then how can equality trump the rule of law? 

That the above article appeared on a religiously conservative website should surprise no one. Religious conservatives have a strong penchant for hierarchy in society and authoritarian rule. History demonstrates that. That is the case because there is a great deal of stress on authoirty figures and structures within most conservative religions. But here, it seems that we see an example of a conservative who wants the outside world to suffer from or enjoy, take your pick, what is experienced by those inside a conservative religion.

For all of Saylor's complaints, with some false accusations, what equality does is to trump tribalism with its moral relativity and its inherent group authoritarianism. And in doing so, promoting equality can provide a firm basis for  more just and fair laws. I don't know anyone who promotes equality who expects an egalitarian utopia. But we do expect improvement. And considering our nation's history, it is far better to work for improvement by correcting past and present mistakes and even atrocities than to be a right-wing dissident who promotes an old and very flawed former status quo. 

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For March 17, 2021

March 15

To R. Scott Clark and his article that goes out of its way to state that homosexual desire, like homosexual behavior, is sin. This appeared in Heidelblog

I fully agree with Dr Clark that homosexual desire is sin. But, according to Jesus, so too is lusting for a woman outside of a heterosexual marriage. So the question becomes whether Clark is putting an extra burden on Christians who battle homosexual desires that he is not that he is not putting on those battling heterosexual sinful desires.

We should note that Clark is not shy in citing Ursinus in saying that those with homosexual desires should be punished by the Civil Magistrates. So how dare young people think that what Clark and others say about homosexuality is hateful.

Clark makes a big deal about homosexual desire is against nature. But when we realize that we see varying levels of homosexuality in around 1,500 species, we have to ask: Whose nature is it against?

And Clark also quotes part of I Cor 6:11 to refer to the Christians who were homosexual of Paul's day: 'such were some of you.' But that passage deals with a number of sins in addition to homosexuality including adultery. Is Clark saying that believers with homosexual desires but did not act on them are not Christians? What about the other sins in I Cor 6 that were listed with homosexuality? Adultery is one such sin. Does that mean that Christians don't struggle with adulterous desires?

While Clark questions whether students know what Paul said in I Cor 6:11, we might ask if Clark has read Romans 2:1ff. For after listing sins that were the result of unbelief, Paul starts Romans 2:1 off with a serious warning against judging others. Who are those others? Aren't they the people whose sins were highlighted in Romans 1? And while Clark, in one of his responses, indicates, if not implies, that since homosexuality violates God's moral and biological laws, that they are worse sinners than those who do not violate biological law, Romans 3:9 begs to differ:

What shall we conclude then? Do we have any advantage? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin.

While Clark correctly says that homosexual students should be loved, again he cited Ursinus who said that those with such desires should be arrested. And he says that real Christians were such sinners. Clark needs to find other ways to state why homosexual desire is also sin without giving such mixed messages and putting burdens on homosexuals who would become Christians which he doesn't put on Christians who struggle with other sins.

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March 16

To Stephen Klugewicz and his article on some of the principles used to write The Constitution. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.

In giving accolades to the principles that drove the writing of The Constitution, Stephen Klugewicz fails to mention a more full context of the drafting of that document.  The impetus for the drafting of that document was Shays Rebellion. That rebellion moved Henry Knox to write a letter to George Washington telling him something needs to be done before the American experiment failed.

The context of the rebellion revolved around the farmers who had served as soldiers in the Revolutionary War and were never compensated as promised for their service. This contributed to their economic hardships. In addition, taxes were high and businesses in Boston started to change so that payment was expected at the time of sale. This was a change from farmers using the barter system to pay off debts. There was no paper currency at the time which people could use to make payment. In addition,  neither was there gold nor silver available to the farmers.

The term 'faction' was used more as a pejorative by America's new elite to describe those who were in need of some kind of relief so they could continue to survive economically. It was used by Henry Knox in his letter to George Washington and James Madison in Federalist #10, both of whom regarded the rebelling farmers as many today's conservatives regard BLM. What the faction wanted was a paper currency, the cancellation of debts, and an equal distribution of property. So on one hand, what the rebelling farmers wanted  what they thought was needed for them to survive. What the elites wanted was protection for their current status.

What we see with The Constitution is a consolidation of federal powers in order to be able to put down rebellions. In addition, that document was written to protect America's new elites from popular opinion, as Yates's notes on the Constitutional debates records Madison as saying:

Landholders ought to have a share in the government, to support these invaluable interests, and to balance and check the other. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority.

What is more telling is what Madison feared if elections were open to call classes in England:

The landed interest, at present, is prevalent; but in process of time, when we approximate to the states and kingdoms of Europe; when the number of landholders shall be comparatively small, through the various means of trade and manufactures, will not the landed interest be overbalanced in future elections, and unless wisely provided against, what will become of your government? In England, at this day, if elections were open to all classes of people, the property of the landed proprietors would be insecure. An agrarian law would soon take place. If these observations be jsut, our government ought to secure the permanent interests of the country against innovation.

Innovation, of course would  include any changes to the current status quo.

One can also see the one of the main concerns in The Constitution when the references to the militia.

The short of all of this is is that  the writing of The Constitution was not driven by principles as much as described in the above article. A significant part The Constitution was written in order to preserve the status of America's elite at that time.

 

 

 

 

 

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For January 27, 2021

 Jan 22

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost that quotes Orwell as saying that intellectuals support totalitarianism. This appeared in the Heidelblog.

Orwell citation is from
    https://www.openculture.com/2014/01/george-orwell-explains-in-a-revealing-1944-letter-why-hed-write-1984.html

Intellectuals are totalitarian according to Orwell?

I think that the follow quotes from the article cited finds a different culprit about which Orwell is warning us:

All the national movements everywhere, even those that originate in resistance to German domination, seem to take non-democratic forms, to group themselves round some superhuman fuhrer (Hitler, Stalin, Salazar, Franco, Gandhi, De Valera are all varying examples) and to adopt the theory that the end justifies the means.

and

With this go the horrors of emotional nationalism and a tendency to disbelieve in the existence of objective truth because all the facts have to fit in with the words and prophecies of some infallible fuhrer.

In essence, Orwell was warning against tribalism. Because with tribalism comes group authoritarianism.

Opposed to the above is democracy. Orwell writes the following about democracy:

But one must remember that Britain and the USA haven’t been really tried, they haven’t known defeat or severe suffering, and there are some bad symptoms to balance the good ones. To begin with there is the general indifference to the decay of democracy. Do you realise, for instance, that no one in England under 26 now has a vote and that so far as one can see the great mass of people of that age don’t give a damn for this?

It is after the above statement that the above quote in Clark's article comes. So it seems that Clark somehow missed the context of what he quoted from Orwell.

One more point, Clark may have overlooked the fact that theologians are intellectuals too.

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Jan 26

To Barbara Elliot and her article that define what conservatism is in idealistic terms. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative

Attempts at describing one's ideology in idealistic terms, as done above, does nothing more than claim that one's ideology has a monopoly on virtue and implies that it is omniscient. Thus, to adapt the words of Martin Luther King Jr., it proclaims that it has everything to teach other ideologies and nothing to learn from them. And in that we have a centralization of power.

Do conservatives really understand what it means to oppose the centralization of power? After all, they want to limit government as a way of decentralizing power. But that assumes that the centralization of power cannot occur in the private sector. What our nation has seen now and before is that the centralization of power occurs in the private sector and thus for gov't to be able to defend its people from such a centralization of power, it must be big enough to battle it.

Furthermore, when only one class is represented by gov't, which is quite the case in our current situation, you have a centralization of power. The way to decentralize power is to have all classes of people well represented in government and in the power structures in the workplace. Thus, relying on the soviets as they existed prior to Lenin's hijacking of the Russian Revolution or employing a variation of Germany's codetermination laws redistributes power to the working class at the workplace.  Perhaps restructuring our House of Representatives so that people are represented by vocation rather than location is a way of decentralizing power in government.

What we should note is this. That for working democracies, to limit the power of the government too much is to weaken that democracy.

So should the government take care of those in need? That depends on how conservatives plan to motivate people to take care of their families and neighbors. For if they are either unwilling or unable to do that, it is not love that prohibits the government from doing that.

Do conservatives have contributions to make? Certainly. But they are not the only ones and a significant amount of what is written above is highly problematic.

Is Demouncing Revoution The Epitome Of Iconoclasm?

Neyeli Riano has recently written a post that aggressively attacks America's current protest movement (click here for introductory information on her and her list of articles written). Riano has taken an authoritarian approach by using quotes from Nicolás Gómez Dávila to bolster her case. She builds Dávila as a credible authority figure by describing him as a speaker and representative for the common man. Unfortunately, she assumes the absolute truth of each quote when she argues against today's revolution and iconoclasm.

What is iconoclasm? It is what we see in some of the protests when statues of past heroes are torn down. That is especially true when the statues being attacked are past American heroes who did not fight for the Confederacy such as Ulysses S. Grant and George Washington. Iconoclasm is the attack on 'settled beliefs and institutions' according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary. Of course that extends to the defacing or pulling down of statues of heroes. Of course Riano is complains about more than what happens to statues in her article on iconoclasm that was posted in the Imaginative Conservative blog (click here for the article). For she talks about the violence of the protests and the 'destruction replacing care,' in the protests' recent condemnation and reframing of our 'culture and history.'

In short she calls the current happenings a revolution of sorts. And with that label continues her quoting of Dávila and her selective application of those quotes. On revolutions, she quotes Dávila as saying the following:

Every revolution exacerbates the evils against which it breaks out.

The problem with that quote is that it is an overgeneralization that can be proved wrong with one simple counterexample. And while Riano applies that quote to what she sees is a current revolution, we should ask about the American Revolution if that statement is always true. Would those conservatives who agree with her attacks on the current protest movement then be consistent in condemning the American Revolution? If not, why not?

In fact, Riano's article starts with a quote from Dávila on revolutions:

Those who defend revolutions cite speeches; those who accuse them cite facts.

Now if we asked Riano to prove that claim by Dávila, how would she answer. Would she refuse to make a case in supporting the statement? Would she go through history and cite every statement made to defend or attack revolutions and show that Dávila's statement  is based on inductive study and observation? And again, how would she apply that statement to the American Revolution.

My favorite quote she drops from Dávila is:

A civilization’s memory resides in the continuity of its institutions. The revolution that interrupts a civilization’s memory, by destroying those institutions, does not relieve society of a bothersome weight that is paralyzing it, but merely forces it to start over.

In essence, Dávila is talking about the iconoclasm of the current "revolution." But we should note that iconoclasm shares a characteristic with history revisionism in that its value depends on the faults and problems that belong to the original. If a people's cherished institutions, beliefs, and heroes promoted significant injustice on others,  then why is iconoclasm portrayed as something that is destructive and bad? For example, was the dismantling of slavery and Jim Crow destructive? Didn't the actual overthrow of the Soviet Union give an opportunity to the Russian people to choose a better path? Suppose the Nazi's  quest for empire succeeded for hundreds of years, would a revolution be looked at as a bad thing?

At this point, some would complain about my comparing America with the old Soviet Union and the Nazis. But how do we think many minorities think about the comparison?

Then Riano goes on to attack another target: the government. For she says that both the tolerance to the current protests and the violence and government's quarantine approach to the pandemic shows a high disregard for regular working folks. Really? Using successful strategies to previous pandemics shows a disregard for working people? Has she paid attention to the effects of the Pandemic around the world and around our nation?

She then returns to iconoclasm and complains about the 'intellectual defense' of the violence in the protests. And yet, when she talks about past atrocities and violence, she says that such belongs to our history and tells us who we are while denouncing all violence that comes with the protests.

She then goes onto a couple of other subjects, but in the end she does this. She takes an authoritarian, traditionalist approach whose biggest complaint is that the wrong team is stealing the show. And she does so solely through a deductive approach taking care to mention what is happening in general without dealing with the specifics. And such is the way of the ideologue who deduces what life should be without having to deal with the facts on the ground as Ted Koppel so concisely expressed to Sean Hannity on Hannity's tv show.







References

1. https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2020/06/secular-iconoclasm-peasant-indignation-nayeli-riano.html
2. https://theimaginativeconservative.org/author/nayeli-riano

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For November 4, 2015

Oct 28

To Russell Moore and his blogpost on the myths of religious freedom. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition.

Unfortunately, theory doesn't always meet practice. Both myths #1&2 showed this concerning the same-sex marriage crisis that faced our country. For while Christians opposed such marriages partly because they were concerned about the ramifications such marriages would have to their own faith, they paid little attention to the religious beliefs of those who believed that same-sex marriages were legitimate. In addition, when a business sells goods and/or services to a person or activity, no support for the person or activity is implied. And those who believe that Christian businesses should be able to discriminate forget both the context in which they are operating their businesses and our history. In a capitalist economy, goods and services are, for the most part, supplied solely through privately owned businesses. In addition, we saw such discrimination during Jim Crow and if we listened to what those who experienced such discrimination said, you would find that the refusal to provide services because of the group one belongs to, and this includes the weddings of one's group, to be significantly humiliating and marginalizing.

Myth #3 was supported by some who felt that Kim Davis should not have been sent to jail for her refusal to follow her legal obligations.

Regarding Myth #4, we have to admit that Christianity had a privileged place in our nation. And some conservative Christians want that privileged position to be continued as they demonize multiculturalism. In fact, the arguments made against same-sex marriage partly depended on Christian privilege in this nation.

It isn't that I believe that Christians should not be allowed to press their demands based on their religious convictions in society. It is that Christians should not press demands that give them a privileged place in society. In other words, Christians should use their religious convictions to press the demands of all who are being marginalized whether the marginalized are Christian or not. This is what Martin Luther King Jr. did.

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Oct 29

To Ian Shaw’s comment stating that some Christians believe Trump and his claims to being a ‘great Christian.’ This was part of the discussion on the blogpost reporting Trump’s quote. This appeared in Denny Burk’s blog

There is a reason for why people are buying what Trump has to say. The reason is that they are looking for a hero and it is difficult for some Christians to believe that nonChristians can be heroes. 

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Oct 31

To Gordon Lloyd and his lengthy blogpost claiming that justice was the guide for the writing of The Constitution. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.


Let's suppose that the writer's basic premise regarding the writing of The Constitution is true, should we ask the Rocky J. Squirrel question of: Is it a freindly justice.

Of course, in answering question, a significant amount of information was included in the above testimony. Some of that information includes Shays Rebellion and the widespread dissent that  had been occurring at the time, Henry Knox's letter to George Washington, Yates' notes, and post-Constitution conditions. Those conditions included the fact that only a very small percentage of Amercians could vote, Blacks were slaves, and Native Americans were being ethnically cleansed. In addition, some of the most troubling evidence regards Madiosn's view of where power should rest: by his own testimony in other writings,  he believed that it should rest with the wealthy.

So to go back to Rocky J. Squirrel's question: Did The Constitution produce a friendly justice? The answer to that question depended on which economic class and race one belonged to.

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Nov 3

To Joe Carter and his blogpost, answering criticism from a New York Times article, stating that Christians who have disputes with each other should submit to Christian aribitration rather than go before secular courts. This appeared in the Acton blog.


There are a few issues that immediately come to mind. First, should Christians be the only ones who judge disputes between Christians. What if the dispute involves the violating of criminal law rather than a civil matter? Should such a dispute only be decided by a Christian arbitrator? Or what if there is a civil matter between a nonChristian and a Christian? After all, Carter mentioned two examples where a nonChristian party could be involved, Must a nonChristian be required to have his dispute settled by a Christian arbitrator?

But there is one other issue. That issue is calling for Christians to suffer loss than have arbitration decide the matter in the first place for the sake of the Gospel. At least, this is what Paul stated starting in vs 7, a verse that follows what was quoted above:

But instead, one brother takes another to court—and this in front of unbelievers!

7 The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? 8 Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers and sisters

What was at stake here is the reputation of the Gospel. And what Paul was suggesting was that it was better fo us to suffer loss than for the Gospel to suffer loss in reputation. 

So here, things aren't as clear both in the original article or in the issue being brought up.

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To Gabriel Zanotti and his blogpost that either attempts to defend true Capitalism from or reconcile it to the statements made by Pope Francis about today's Capitalism. This appeared in the Acton blog.


The problem with this article is simple. It assumes that an economic system can be created in the same way that we can create machines that will never breakdown. Of course, the first problem with that assertion is that all of the machines we've created eventually breakdown. But let's go on. That this machine will coordinate market activities so that fairness and prospertiy will prevail. However, when one understands that the fuel used by this machine is greed and that competition makes up the innerworkings of the machine, coordination can only be achieved if this machine can compensate for the fact that the intention of many of the participants is not for coordination, but for maximizing private gain. 

And let's not kid ourselves about the invisible hand. Why? Because the invisible hand, according to Adam Smith revolved around the idea that a businessman's decisions would be guided by his selfish concern for the welfare of his own nation. The invisible hand did not concern itself with this machine and the guarantee of fair prices. And even Adam Smith's invisible hand was shown to not always exist.

So while this article rightly protests against the problems of monopolies and crony capitalism, it assumes that we can make an economic system that, despite its dependence on greed and competition, can avoid either problem. 

In addition, while Hayek's first condition concerns itself with equality under the law. That means nothing when laws can be bought. It also means nothing when the common good and concern of the community is forced on the market, the market is counted as a hampered market.

Also, we need to realize under the current ethic of maximizing one's profits to the extent of denying that one is one's brother's keeper, no economic sytem can work. And that is regardless of the lack of economies being hampered. For Martin Luther King Jr. stated the following in his speech against the Vietnam War:

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

See, King's statement challenges the fuel on which the economic system from the ASE depends.

Finally, every defender of Capitalism I know can adequately defend it from a small-picture perspective. But once the picture grows to include more stakeholders and complexities, Capitalism falls apart and becomes a private sector tyranny. And that is regardless of the size of the gov'ts involved and their intervention/interference or lack thereof.

What the defenders of the ASE or any capitalist system assumes is that we, a sinful and limited people, can create an infallible machine that can work around our sinful nature. Besides the Scriptural references that talk about how some of our property rightfully belongs to the poor so they can survive and for that to be implemented, the national gov't must be involved, such an assumption must be seen as another attempt to build a Tower of Bable. After all, history and current events should teach us that the pursuit of profits that produces new demands for labor neither always produced friendly conditions for new labor nor does it protect established labor. The above is nothing more than a plea for allowing an undemocratic rule of those with wealth over the rest.

Why Some In The Church Are Hard Of Hearing

In an article entitled The Obergefell  Decision & The Triumph Of The Therapeutic (click here), Theaddus Kozinski (short bio included in the article) does more than to just discuss the possible current ramifications of the both Obergefell decision and the inclusion of contraceptive and abortion services in health insurance plans, he wants 'Conservative Catholics to rethink the "religious liberty" strategy' (see his Aug 31st comment to me). 

Why does he want Conservative Catholics to reconsider how they think about religious liberty? Consider the following statement from the article:

If religion is private, idiosyncratic, and otherworldly, not public, truth-embodying, and world-implicated, it cannot have an authoritative, public role in ordering common life.

Also consider the following statement from his Aug 31st to my Aug 31st comment:

The Church is privileged in society, every society, due to her divine mandate, and her liberty is absolute, as distinct from all other groups. Justice requires that the state recognize this, and even institutionalize it, when it is possible and prudent. This goes against the John Courtney Murray/Maritain, pluralistic project, a project that has failed, and was doomed to fail...It is not humble and compassionate to promote the religious neutrality of the state towards the truths of the natural law and the divine authority of the Catholic Church

  
But the above is not the kicker. His following Sept 1st to my Sept 1st comment is:

Your comment indicates ignorance of the perennial and infallible Catholic magisterial teaching on the proper ordering of Church and state.

Now, let's be fair, Kozinski was very gracious in responding to my comments and, at the time, I was not thinking of using either the article or the comments in a blogpost. But the claim of 'infallibility' to Church teaching is a bit more than the previous quotes. And fairness dictates that we mention this claim of infallibility is not made by the Roman Catholic Church alone. Some conservative synods of the Lutheran Church claim that their Lutheran Confessions are without error.

In fact, explicit claims of the Kozinski's position of the Roman Catholic Church in society and the infallibility of Roman Catholic Church teaching in certain areas were mentioned in the comments, not the article. In other words, the issue of Church authority in society and infallibility provides the background for what is written in the article.

So rather than focusing on Konzinski, his article, or even the Lutherans,  we might want to focus on how belief in the infallibility of the teachings of one's own church or denomination can affect believers in how they both think about today's issues and discuss them with others. Of course, we could find that we might not want to.

Konzinski's article shows little, if any, evidence of having any dialog with those outside the Church. The article itself sounds a warning for Christians, particularly Catholics, of what might happen in the future in the light of current events and the state's acceptance of religious neutrality. But more telling is in the dialog in the comments section between Kozinski and myself. I asked 4 specific questions in my Sept 1st comment and Kozinski provides a direct answer to none of them. Rather, he favors responding to my comments and questions by retelling his church's view about its relationship to the state and the infallibility of its teachings.

Again, the Roman Catholic Church has no monopoly on claims to infallibility. My experience in discussing current issues with Lutherans who claim that their confessions are without error somewhat follows the same track but without the reference to Church teaching. There is no need to listen to those who have been marginalized, many of my Lutheran friends seem to say. Rather, during our discussions they give the indication that they already know enough about current issues without listening to the vulnerable. In fact, some even the deny that certain groups have been marginalized. This is especially true regarding what some conservative Lutherans say about the LGBT community. We should note here that some of their views, such as about economics or American Exceptionalism, are the result of a syncretism between Western Civilization and the Christian faith. And it is that syncretism that replaces Church teaching.

The behavior demonstrated by some of my Lutheran friends is also imitated by my fellow Reformed Christians only without the explicit claim to the infallibility of Church teachings. But there are times in how my fellow Reformed Christians  refer to their confessions in ways which they imply infallibility though. This is particularly true in how they use the confessions only or with the Scriptures to address today's issues and problems. 

Though claims that the teachings of one's Church/denomination are infallible are the most noticeable and outrageous of what conservative Christians say; but such does not explain the unwillingness to listen to others regarding today's issues. It doesn't explain why Konzinski in his gracious attempts to respond to my comments, did not answer specific questions. 

What does explain the unwillingness to listen or the neglecting to answer questions is the strong tendency of my fellow conservative Christians to restrict our research in thinking about today's issue by looking to our respective confessions and teachings only which, in most cases, causes us to look backwards only. For too many of us, we must exclusively go back to the past to find our answers. When that is the case, listening to others outside the Church is not an option because such might us to hear something different which has mot been approved. Such is the mindset of authoritarianism. And it is that which is the culprit to our collective deafness. But not only that, it causes us to speak down to the world.

Certainly Konzinski and the rest of us conservative Christians have a message to share with the world. We want the world to listen to us. Because we can't expect the world to do so when we aren't willing to listen to the world. And for as long as we embrace authoritarianism, we will sabotage our own efforts at sharing with the world what we do know.

How To Market One's Own Society

Not too long ago, law professor and contributor to the website The Imaginative Conservative, Bruce Frohnen, wrote a blogpost for that website called What Is An Opportunity Society?  In that blogpost Frohnen made strong efforts at fairly comparing what he called the 'Security Society' of Iceland where people are taken care of by government with America's former 'Opportunity Society.'

Frohnen defines an Opportunity Society by what it is not. And what it is not is a society like Iceland's. Nor is it a society where the government passes regulations requiring what many would regard as the fair treatment of employees with benefits such as overtime and health insurance--Frohnen mentions high wages too, but some corporations use government assistance programs to subsidize their payroll by paying some employees poverty wages. 

Frohnen continues to define what an Opportunity Society is not. It isn't a society where small business owners fear the legal repercussions from refusing to provide goods and services for same-sex weddings. An Opportunity Society is not one where businesses are hassled by the government for not appearing to be racially fair by falling short of some bureaucrat's expectations.

An Opportunity society does not help with healthcare when it isn't provided at work especially when the healthcare policy punishes the middle class and rewards the rich. So when one sums up all of the ways by which a society is not an Opportunity Society, we must agree with Frohnen's conclusion that America is no longer an Opportunity Society. 

Now, the point here is not to examine Frohnen's comparison between Iceland and America. Nor is it to test the claims that Frohnen makes about what Opportunity Societies are or whether what he sees as the obstacles of such societies act as real obstacles to such societies. Rather, the purpose of this post is to examine Frohnen's methodology.  For not only does Frohnen uses a single word to describe all of American society, he comes to such a description by considering only one group, his favorite American child, business.

The problem with Frohnen's methodology is that it employs oversimplifications. To describe all of American society by focusing on only one group suggests that that group is the most important group in America. It suggests that that group is the most privileged group and it might suggest that it is the group we must depend on the most. So it matters not how regular citizens fare in America or how healthy and safe our children are. It doesn't matter to Frohnen how people of different races are getting along or how people who need healthcare are coping. To Frohnen, the only group that can be used to define American society is business. 

But we need to proceed from there. Regardless of the complexity of our economic system and how some businesses are performing. For regardless of how some businesses are offshoring jobs or how some businesses might be harming the environment or how some businesses are finding ways not to pay their fair share of taxes, our society would be called an Opportunity Society if government would just get out of business' way.

Because Frohnen's analysis of what America was depends solely on the life experiences of one group and because he can sum up the ideal arrangement for that group using a single word,  Frohnen is flirting with using dichotomous thinking. With dichotomous thinking, the state of any person, group, or venture is looked at in black-and-white terms. Things are going either good or bad, there is no continuum that provides in between measurements. Thus, the interpretation of one's status depends on a self-limiting set of inputs. 

With Frohnen's methodology, our infrastructure could be crumbling, racism could still be thriving, our incarceration rate could be the highest in the world, and there could be more empty houses than homeless families. But as long as the business restrictions Frohnen was complaining about were absent, he could classify our society as an Opportunity Society.

The oversimplification employed by Frohnen moves us to deliberately work and make decisions with an inadequate amount of information. To be an Opportunity Society, we only need to worry about our businesses and what restrictions or responsibilities they have to face.

If we as Americans are going to either work our way out of the current hole we have dug for ourselves or advance as a nation, we can't afford to make decisions based on inadequate information. We can't afford to make decisions based only on how one group is affected or whether we meet the criteria imposed by one label. For example, in 2016, we can't afford to cast our votes for candidates solely because of political party affiliation or only because they will favor our pet group. And the same applies for deciding to favor trade agreements that will cost jobs here or weaken our sovereignty.

We have to be concerned with all groups in America and we must resist the temptation to use single labels to describe the status of our complex society, economic system, our healthcare system, our education system, or whatever systems remain. The more we we oversimplify issues or statuses, the more we choose to make ignorant decisions. And that is simply the result of considering only one group or using single labels to describe how our society works.