Giving And Taking Away Support For Trump.

Trump's presidential campaign has not only caused what some call a "civil war" in the Republican Party, but great turmoil among many evangelicals. Historically speaking, the Republican Party has grown accustomed to taking the evangelical vote for granted. Much of this is due to the abortion issue and the degree to which the Democrats have supported a woman's right to an abortion more than the Republican Party's actual opposition to a woman's right to an elective abortion.

However, there are additional issues that have attracted evangelicals to the Republican Party. They are listed by Wayne Grudem (click here for a bio) as he recants his prior support for Trump, but he does so in an ambiguous way. For though he states that he can no longer 'commend' Trump as a candidate for President, he cannot tell us for whom his vote will toll (click here for his article). But because of the political differences between the Republican and Democratic Parties, it seems that Grudem is still significantly leaning toward voting for the Republican presidential ticket. And it is these other issues that require further scrutiny because of the ties between evangelicalism and conservative politics.

The political issues that are tugging at Grudem's vote despite Trump's repulsive character flaws include:

• Supreme Court issues like abortion, religious liberty, sexual orientation and gender identification laws
• The status of our military
• The threat of 'Islamic terrorism'
• Our nation's borders
• 'Supporting Israel'
• 'Reducing taxes and regulations'
• Obamacare
• Energy concerns
• Racism in our nation
• Size of government

 Now before addressing points of contention with Grudem, we should note that it is under Obama's Administration that racial tensions have at least surfaced if not increased. I should note here that my view of racial tensions is one of a White male. And because of my race and living location, I could very well be unaware of the state of racial tensions in our nation before Obama took office. And this is a weakness in my ability to analyze the current state of affairs.




I should also note that I share Grudem's opposition to abortion. However, having discussed the issue with several of my non Christian friends, I've come to the conclusion that for as long as we are wrecking the world by waging war and destroying the environment, that abortion is a moot issue. That not enough people who support a woman's right to obtain an elective abortion are even willing to hear what we have to say because we have shown neither enough opposition to our nation's wars nor adequate concern for how our way of life hurts the environment.

Should also note that while ambiguous, Grudem's statement on energy at least suggests that there might exist a concern for the environmental impact our use of energy might have. But here is one of the differences between conservatives and nonconservatives, with nonconservatives consisting of Democrats or political liberals and actual leftists. For nonconservatives state their concerns for how our use of energy can harm the environment in unambiguous terms.

Now Grudem expresses a fear that if religiously conservative Christians do not vote for Republican Party candidates, that these Christians will be giving great political leverage to non Christians who are hostile to Christianity. And what is ironic there is that what religiously conservative Christians call religious liberty or freedom, those from the LGBT community experience as hostility. And this brings us to Grudem's first concern: the picking of Supreme Court justices.
 
What many Evangelicals like Grudem want is a Supreme Court that favors, rather is neutral on, their religiously dictated moral values. The Obergefell decision demonstrated this as clearly as anything else could have. Here we should note that while Grudem is worried about the religious freedom of us religiously conservative Christians, he seemed to have no concern for the religious freedom of those from the LGBT community who were being forced to live under conservative Christian standards. So while religiously conservative Christians call laws that either infringe on the freedoms of the LGBT community or allow Christians to discriminate against that community morally right or religious liberty, they call any push back against such laws hostility. And the only explanation for such a double standard is that they expect to maintain a privileged position in determining the laws of our nation. Any resistance to that privileged position is seen as being part of the homosexual agenda of animosity against the Christian faith rather than resistance against domination over one's own group. In Grudem's world, it is as if one group deserves freedom while the other does not.

Second, while Grudem complains that our military needs to be rebuilt, he seems to ignore advances in weaponry, such as the new classes of ships being built for the Navy and the amount the US spends on defense. For even under Obama's decimated armed forces, the US spends more on the military and defense than the next approximately 9 nations combined. How is it then that we need to rebuild our military? That view depends on the news filter one uses to learn about military status. If one reads only conservative sources, then one gets the impression that the sky is falling for the military. But such is not the case. So Grudem reflects a conservative view that is not all that consistent with the facts on the ground but is a reality as it is perceived in conservative circles.

Grudem also expresses concern over the threat of 'Islaimic terrorism.' However, where is his concern for the causes of such terrorism? Where is his concern for how American foreign policies that rely on interventions and support for dictators as well as for Israels' occupation against the Palestinians? We should note that Grudem favors support for Israel. But one must read that statement in a conservative context to understand what that means. For one can support Israel without supporting the Occupation and Israel's constant confiscation of land and expansion of settlements. 

But conservatives take a tribal approach to supporting Israel and defend that by claiming that Israel is the only democracy in the region. If Grudem had read American-Israeli activist Jeff Halper, he would note that Israel consists of an ethnocracy, not a democracy. An ethnocracy is where democratic processes are used for group based on ethnicity, language, or religion to control government and gain a privileged position in determining the laws of a society.  The reason why one could say that conservatives take a tribal approach to supporting Israel is because they rationalize many of the injustices Israel visits on the Palestinians because it is Israel that is performing the injustices. That is what happens when loyalty to a group becomes too high.

In addition, Grudem expresses a concern with securing our nation's borders. At the same time, like the threat of Islamic terrorism, we should note what Grudem does not seem to be aware of. That a significant number of our problems with immigration start with our foreign policies that cause people to have to leave their own homeland.  In fact, 2 of the top 3 nations from which illegal immigrants come are from nations that have had coups that had American support either during or after the coup. Those nations are Guatemala and Honduras. The third nation, Mexico, was part of NAFTA and NAFTA was responsible for much job volatility depending on the economic sector. Where is Grudem's concern for such foreign policies?

We could go on here, but the point should have been made by now. That Grudem ambiguous withdraw of support for Trump is limited by his ties to conservative politics. And he strongly ties his conservative political convictions to evangelicalism. And his strong ties to conservative politics suggests that Grudem's access to news is well filtered and thus he demonstrates self-imposed limitations on understanding the world around him. That limited view is thus associated with Evangelicalism and brings dishonor to the Gospel. So regardless of his condemnation of Trump, Grudem's political views hurt the reputation of the Gospel.

Voting Truth Depends On Perspective

Dr. Wayne Grudem (click here for a brief bio), a rather well-known conservative theologian, has endorsed Trump and has said that is a 'morally good choice' (click here for the article). This has caused more than a few religiously conservative Christian leaders to write rebuttals to his views due to their opposition to Trump. A list of those rebuttals can be found at the end of a Gospel Coalition article (click here). Another critical article regarding Grudem's endorsement was written by Jonathan Merritt (click here).

The short of Grudem's endorsement of Trump is that Trump is not a liberal according to Grudem. The identity of the opposing candidate doesn't matter. The gender of that opposing candidate doesn't matter. What matters to Grudem is that Trump is not campaigning as a liberal and thus Grudem is expecting him to act as a conservative once elected while his opponent is a liberal. Why is Grudem so opposed to liberals? It comes down to two issues: Supreme Court Justices and legislation that would be signed into the law by the President.

Regarding Supreme Court Justices, Grudem is afraid of the number liberal Supreme Court Justices, activist ones at that, who could be appointed. This concerns him because of how a liberal Supreme Court decide on abortion, religious liberties of Christians who own businesses or who professionals who speak out against homosexuality, religious liberty of Christian Schools and even churches that deal with new laws regarding the rights of the LGBT community, freedom of speech of those who would pray public events, and the expectation that 'liberal activists' would work to make political dissent a criminal offense.

In contrast, Grudem expects Trump to nominate conservative judges who would overturn Roe v. Wade, protect Christian religious liberties, and protect Christian ministers from the IRS when they speak about political issues in church.

In terms of legislation, Grudem is afraid of another liberal President because such would lead to the continuation of high taxes on businesses, liberal policies that he says hurt minorities in terms of employment, and the further depletion of the military. In addition, Grudem believes that Hillary and liberals do not properly support Israel, or protect Americans by properly sealing the border, fighting terrorist groups like ISIS or by opposing Russia and China. 

In short Grudem is a conservative political ideologue. But here we should note Jonathan Merritt's criticism of Grudem. For while he regards Grudem as a first rate theologian, he views him as political layman. This puts Grudem on my level in terms of political expertise.

Much of what Grudem claims about Trump is true in the same way that Obi-Wan Kenobi's statement about Darth Vader killing Luke Skywalker's father is true. It is true from a certain perspective. And the most pertinent question to ask Grudem here is not necessarily his views on Trump, but what political resources he has used to form his political perspective. A while back, I reviewed his book on what he regarded was a Biblical approach to politics. As one could guess knowing that Grudem is a conservative theologian, his politics were very conservative and that is his choice. His statements about socialism in his book indicated that he had read nothing about socialism except by its antagonists. In other words, he didn't know what he was talking about when talking about Socialism. 

Here, Grudem sometimes selectively reports on problems liberals cause while at other times he makes some bizarre statements. For example, when discussing the Supreme court and religious liberty, Grudem lists a small number of cases where Christians have been hurt in the business world or in their professional lives because of  court actions or corporate responses to moral convictions. For example, he mentioned how a Christian owner of a Washington pharmacy was going to be put out of business because the Supreme Court would not hear his appeal in his dispute with the Washington State Pharmacy Board. But the reason why they didn't hear his appeal had to do with how federal laws were written and how they didn't apply to Washington state's regulations. He mentioned how a Boston urologist lost his practicing privileges at one hospital because he expressed his unease about the medical dangers of homosexual activities. The problem is that he expressed more than just basic concerns over certain activities. Plus he used intranet resources to express his dissent inappropriate ways according to the intended use of those resources.

Not all of the examples Grudem cited were off-base. Brendan Eich, he former CEO for Mozilla Firefox was dismissed from his responsibilities because of a politically correct reaction to legitimate political activities. But here is the problem, Grudem offers no comment on the 28 states where it is legal for businesses to harass and terminate the employment of people because of their sexual orientation. Nor does he offer comment on how homosexuals were once incarcerated for acting on their sexual orientation. And while he complains about how Christian businesses are put into a tough position of being punished for not serving same-sex weddings while forgetting that allowing businesses to refuse to provide goods and services echos back to the days of Jim Crow when Blacks were denied services by businesses. Such is a very serious problem in an economic system where only private sector provides such goods and services.

In addition, Grudem doesn't mention the lack of religious liberty for those from the LGBT community who, until recently, were denied  the right to marry the person of their choice because of the religious views of conservative Christians were being imposed on them through laws that were passed.

The blaming of the plight of minorities on liberal policies as well as expectation that the right to political dissent might be abolished  under Clinton seemed somewhat bizarre. Minorities have been hurt by a neoliberal economic system that favors private sector elites as they offshore jobs often to places where working and environmental regulations do not protect the people but allow these elites to lower manufacturing costs. Such has led to glut of available employees for low skill jobs in America. And the higher the supply of workers, the lower the wages of low skilled workers of course not dipping below minimum wage. In addition, much manufacturing has moved away from urban areas where there is a great need for employment opportunities.




Likewise, Grudem's complaint about business taxes seems ignorant of the fact that many businesses and corporations either pay no federal income tax or pay an effective tax rate that is on par with other nations. In addition, the corporate tax burden has dropped down to 10%.







When Grudem talks about Obama having depleted the military, Grudem is merely echoing the same conservative complaints made about Presidents Clinton and Carter. However, US military spending still exceeds approximately the next 8 nations combined. In addition, while conservatives note the drop in the number of naval ships, that number is not significantly less than what was seen during part of George W. Bush's presidency and the Navy is developing and building new classes of warships including a newer class of aircraft carriers as well as at least one new class of destroyers.

Many other things could be said about Grudem's views. And it seems that the real issues with Grudem comes from his limited perspective on politics. And that limited perspective suggests that Grudem is not well read in politics. He seems to adhere to the conservative stereotypes made about liberals, and I am saying that as one who is very critical of liberals. His mentioning of liberals and leftists together indicates that he really does not know the difference between them. That much of his political thinking is based on a very limited exposure to different political ideas. And he is not alone here and that is the problem. Conservatives need to break out of their ideological ghettos to read liberal and leftist influences so they can merge their conservative thinking with what is helpful from liberals and those from the left. And liberals and those on the left need to return the favor. Without a breaking out of our favorite ideologies, we will become more and more divided and will look on others with more and more disdain as Grudem does on the thinking of political liberals.




 



References

1. http://townhall.com/columnists/waynegrudem/2016/07/28/why-voting-for-donald-trump-is-a-morally-good-choice-n2199564
2. http://www.waynegrudem.com/about/
3. 
   

Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For September 2, 2015

 The presence of only two comments here is the result of fewer blogs blocking my comments. This is a good thing though it can reduce the content for this blogpost series.

August 26

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost quote of Robert George stating that because of the recent Supreme court decision on marriage, we should expect multiple partner marriages in the future. This appeared on Heidelblog.

The problem with the above assessment is that it reduces marriage, heterosexual or same-sex, to just one facet. Marriage as recognized by the State involves much more. For it involves the complete union of two people including in terms of physical, legal, and property. In addition, marriage between two people involves equality since it is the complete union, not just physical, of what two people have and are. Polygamy and polyamory do not include that kind of union. In fact, laws would have to be rewritten to address the complexity of property ownership and division as well as parental and legal responsibilities.

Now because no complete union by both parties can be undertaken in any kind of multiple partner marriage, the state's legitimate concern with equality comes into play. This concern for equality and the protection of those who would be treated less than equal implies that same-sex marriage has much more in common with heterosexual marriage than multiple partner marriages do.

When marriage is reduced to just its reproductive aspects, then we must ask if the state has the right to regulate any couple's decision to have children? Or should the state prohibit the marriages of those who cannot have children together? Note that with the latter question, both heterosexual and same-sex couples are affected. For example, I cannot reproduce because of cancer surgery. Now suppose I become a widower and then take another wife. If marriage is reduced to its reproductive aspects, should the state have the right to prohibit me from being married? Or if marriage is reduced to its reproductive aspects, then does the state have the right to force me to marry so that I may provide children for society?

Unfortunately,  the above blogpost is simply a slippery slope argument that works only with an oversimplified view of marriage. And the purpose of the oversimplification is to make it appear that same-sex marriages have more in common with marriages involving multiple partners than they do with heterosexual marriages. And, again, that case can only be made when marriage is oversimplified to the sexual-romantic relationship while ignoring the union of a couple in other spheres of life including those which the state must address. Marriage to the state involves much more than the sexual-romantic fulfillment of the couple involved. And proof of that can be seen in its laws that involve marriage.
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Sept 1

To Marc Vander Maas and his blogpost consisting of a video that introduces a book that describes how poverty of the nations can be solved. The comment below addresses the talk given by Wayne Grudem in this video. This appeared in the Acton Blog.

Having read Grudem's book on politics, it is unfortunate that his comments here do not disappoint. That is because just as Grudem did not display any kind of adequate knowledge of the Left in that book. This might be because his book was designed to provide an apologetic for why Christians could continue to be political conservatives. Likewise here, he reduces the Left, without naming them, to that of charitable giving to nations in need as its solution to poverty, but who produce dependency instead. In reality, the Left believes that one of the means by which we can end poverty is found in the redistribution of power, not just wealth.

Now while Grudem warns us not reduce economics to per capita income, something all should agree on, but he virtually performs that reductionism on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as he states that that is the key to bringing nations out of poverty.

In addition, Grudem states that complaining about how exploitation has held a nation back is like crying over spilled milk. One must forget that and move on to focusing on increasing the nations's GDP. But here is a question for Grudem: What if the exploitation is continuing? Should we still regard complaining about it as crying over spilled milk? We could also ask if we should complain if past exploitation has produced such crippling effects that present economic growth is still impossible.

Grudem's reductionism continues as he talks about the haves and have nots of countries. The haves are focusing on increasing their GDP.  He failed to mention how such a focus worked in China. For such a focus has led to sweatshop labor and horrific environmental problems.  See, just focusing on increasing one's GDP without regard to how it is achieved, especially when GDP relies on exploitation, can be misleading. We should note that our economy got its start by relying on exploitation too as we took land from the Indians and then enslaved Blacks both before and after the Civil War. The enslavement after the war occurred during Jim Crow when many Blacks were jailed and their labor in prison was used to increase our nation's GDP.

As Grudem shows a map of the nations that are doing well, his disregard for crying over the spilled milk of history continues as he forgets to mention that many of today's prosperous nations were, and few are still, empires. And that includes the United States. He forgets to mention China's controlled economy when celebrating its economic growth. He mentions India as a positive example, but fails to mention the suicides committed by  hundreds of thousands of Indian farmers. He mentions Chile, but fails to mention how Chile got its start in the Free Market. It did so by the US supporting and enabling a military coup which led to the rule of Pinochet who was a murderous tyrant and was indicted for crimes against humanity. And while he rules out economies that redistribute wealth, such redistribution actually helped Norway become a prosperous nation. He also fails to mention that South Korea used protectionism, which is against Free Market principles, a practice used by many wealthy nations, to enable its industrialization.

At the same time, Grudem briefly describes the plight of poorer nations like many African nations and also Haiti. He states that foreign aid to these nations usually increases governmental corruption. This is true, But he neglects to mention how other nations also increase governmental corruption and even civil wars in Africa by how they are exploited for their natural resources ( BBC on Exploitation and Video Interview on Film About Colonialism  ). Again, what do you say about exploitation when it continues, when it is not just in the past?

And one only needs to read about the history of Haiti to realize that foreign intervention is the real reason why Haiti is so poor today.

As a theologian, Grudem fails because he only sees giving aid to the poor as an act of charity. In reality, giving aid to the poor is both an act of charity and of justice. This is why the Israelites were instructed on how to harvest their crops so that there were left overs for those in need. This says something to us today about what we owe those in need.

Here is the short of it. Grudem's presentation relies heavily on selectivity. That is true of the economies of  poor nations he uses as negative examples as well as the economies of nations he uses as positive examples. Now to be fair, this presentation was to introduce a book he co-authored with Barry Asmus and there might be places in that book that addresses some of the short comings mentioned here. All that can be mentioned here is the presentation. And considering the history of Free Market Fundamentalism and Neoliberal Capitalism, there is something not up front about Grudem's presentation.
 

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

Oct 30

To Wayne Grudem and his blogpost on the value and morality of competition. This appeared in the gospel coalition website


The two questions that best address the morality of competition are: 1) What are we competing at?; 2) Why do we want to win?; and 3) What happens to those who lose? We need to ask these questions today because some competitions are costing jobs, some competition does prohibits a fair allocation of resources for many, trying to win in a world of finite if not dwindling resources is putting others at risk especially when environmental concerns are telling us to cutback if we are to survive. In other words, the world has changed since an economy based on competition was first formed.

In addition, why does the acknowledgement that competition can bring many temptations seem like an addendum while the benefits to competition receive the main focus? Does such an imbalance reflect the way competition can hurt/help us in the real world?

Perhaps Grudem would do better if he tried to develop a hybrid between his love of competition and the emphasis on cooperation and participation called for by Occupy documents such as Principles of Solidarity (click here) and The Declaration of the Occupation of New York City (click here)I say this because rather than providing a legitimate critique of the role competition plays in the world today, Grudem seems content with adamantly defending past values.

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Nov 5

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost on the Colossians passage that deals with Sabbath observance. This appeared in Heidelblog.

There is a problem here. There is no Sabbath pattern commanded of Adam. And that the Sabbath was the day without an morning and evening, as stated above, might suggest that pre fall life in the Garden was a Sabbath and thus the command to observe the 6 days work and 1 day rest is post fall rather than pre fall. Thus, to suggest that this patter was commanded of Adam is implied is to possibly inject into Scriptures what was not commanded.

What we know about pre fall times is that the work was not strenuous like work during post fall times. And that the Sabbath was made for man. And we might ask if the Sabbath commanded in Exodus pointed to something beyond itself rather than this creation narrative to be observed until the 2nd coming. In addition, our living with God during the NT times is more continuous, like the Garden, than during OT times. The worship of God is no longer as restricted in time and place as it was in the NT due to the outpouring of the Spirit.

And we should note that there is nothing in Colossians 2 that rules out the weekly Sabbath. The problem with the fact which Clark determines is decisive is that if Paul wanted to include both the monthly Sabbaths and the weekly Sabbath, he could not use the term used exclusively for the weekly Sabbath. We should also note that there are no NT passages that command the strict observance of a NT Sabbath that parallels the OT observance of the Sabbath. The Lord's Day is there so that we don't forsake our meeting together and its basis is not Creation but the Resurrection. In addition, the Epistles, noting that the NT times start with the passion of Christ, not the intertestamental times of the Gospels and that the Acts and the Epistles are regarded as the authoritative interpretation of Christ's life and mission, that deal with any Sabbath observance do not teach what Christian Sabbatarians teach. These passages include Colossians 2 and Romans 14.

Finally, we should note the irony here. Those who see themselves as champions of the Gospel of Grace and Faith are often the ones who are the most rule oriented over rules whose observance are not followed as recorded in the New Testament. The observance of the Sabbath and exclusive Psalm-singing are examples of the following of rules that are not either commanded or imitated by believers in the times of the apostles.


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Nov 10? (possibly the 11th)

To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost quote complaining about how the state is forcing business people to provide services to same-sex marriages. This appeared in the Heidelblog.

Shouldn't the above depend on what those religious beliefs are? After all, some people used religious beliefs to support Jim Crow and slavery. In addition, haven't some conservative christians tried to prevent those with different religious beliefs about same-sex marriage from participating in that kind of marriage? It seems to me that this declared dependence on religious belief in order to justify denying business services to same-sex couples is rather spurious.

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Nov 11


To Joe Carter and his blogpost defending Fort Lauderdale's laws restricting how groups can feed the homeless. This appeared in the Acton blog.

There is actually more to this story than what Joe Carter wrote about. That is because the laws banning food sharing and feeding the hungry are not the only laws that Fort Lauderdale has passed targeting the homeless. There are laws banning panhandling at busy intersections, sleeping in public buildings in parts of the city, camping on city property, leaving one's personal possession in public places as well as the restrictions on providing food for the hungry such as that one that mandates one must provide portable toilets too. In addition, one must look at all of the motives involved. While Mr. Carter points to how the laws empower churches to help the needy and to provide protective measures, others report that these laws were the result of business owners and their complaints about the presence of homeless people.

In fact, if I had done in Fort Lauderdale what I have done in the occupy camps, that is buying food from a fast  food place and giving that food to a person in need, it is possible that I could have been arrested according to Fort Lauderdale's laws. But instead of going into that, let's look at the law as Mr Carter has described it.  First, you must be 500 feet ( that is 1 and 2/3 football fields) away from residential areas. How can one know that one is the proper distance from residential areas to be able to distribute food? And a bigger question is this, with the allowances made by the city for the giving of food to the homeless, is the food accessible to the vast majority of homeless people? After all, not all churches feed the homeless and there very well can be areas where the homeless congregate which are too far from the churches that provide food.

But perhaps the most important point is this, how did the city use the input it received from the homeless in crafting the various laws that target them? See, people who are ideologues don't need to listen to the people they write about. They have their system of beliefs and logic. Therefore, the facts on the ground don't matter to them because they have already determined what the reality of different situations are.

Perhaps before writing this blogpost, Mr. Carter should have lived with the homeless in Fort Lauderdale to see if the feeding and other laws targeting the homeless make life even more difficult for them.

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To Joseph Sunde and his blogpost containing an interview with SC Republican Senator Tim Scott on how to reduce poverty. This appeared in the Acton blog.

Kind of simplistic to unanalytically focus on one variable, that is which party ruled of Congress and what were the results and this is given by a person from the other party, isn't it? And consider the following that first LBJ's War On Poverty is recognized with have  gained some moderate success against poverty despite the fact that, according to Martin Luther King Jr., it was underfunded because of military spending. That not all of the war on poverty consisted on handouts, but it did include education and training. And that government's response to poverty is not the only  variable involved in what determines poverty. Dependency on others also depends on the availability of opportunities and those opportunities

And what is most disturbing is that while Conservatives as so quick to point out an associate dependency with race and economic class, they are minimalists when associating  dependency with state capitalism. It isn't that they don't acknowledge state capitalism and what they call "crony capitalism," it is that they don't give it its due so that dependency is more associated with  race and the economic class of people than it is with corporations benefitting from government business. And that state capitalism doesn't include tax loopholes and the lack of regulations which come in the form of deregulation or the lack of enforcement. The housing bubble and collapse was due to the lack of regulations.

Finally, we should also note that the Conservative definition of "big government" doesn't include the growth in military spending which is one of the foundational ways by which state capitalism operates. The Conservative definition of "big government" is when there is growth in spending on what Martin Luther King Jr. would call programs of "social uplift." That these programs can't be reduced to a simple transfer of wealth for spending money. And that they were stop gate measures for when jobs could be secured. But how do jobs get secured now? By labor making compromises to please stockholders. So workers work for less and with fewer benefits and fewer rights. Why? Because that puts profits and power in the hands of those who already have both. After all, who benefits the most from the use of sweatshop or trafficked or illegal labor? Is it the consumer who enjoys lower prices or the business owner who pays lower costs? Do we see where the worker fits into that answer? This is especially true when we consider how the new globalization has increased the labor supply. Note that wages are still stagnate. Scott's Conservative answers should surprise no one here.

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The comment below has not yet appeared with the post to which it belongs.


To the video Matt Smethhurst posted on a discussion about what it means to be on the right side of history. Those who were discussing this subject were Don Carson, Tim Keller, and John Piper. The consensus in the video is that whatever side Jesus takes on an issues is what defines the right side of history. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.

Perhaps there is another way to look at being on the wrong side of history than was mentioned in the video. That other way is to ask this question: Did we cause people to unnecessarily curse God or look down on the Gospel by the stand we took? For if the answer is yes, then we definitely were on the on the wrong side of history.

This can pertain to today's sexuality issues in the following ways. Is stating that homosexuality is sin being on the wrong side of history as just defined? Here is where we could use the criteria presented in the video to answer the question. If we are following Jesus in stating that homosexuality is sin, then we will be found to have been on the right side of history when he returns because whatever offense we have caused is not unnecessary. But we also have to ask this: Is working against marriage equality and full equal status for gays in society being on the wrong side of history as defined above? To answer that question requires much meditation and discussion because the answer is not as clear cut as the first question.