Oct 19
To Roger Scruton and his blogpost which pits Classical music against Avant-Garde music. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.
Unfortunately, this article speaks in an authoritarian manner telling us that the only music worth listening to is that which strives for order and beauty. Thus, the only music worth listening to, according to the writer of this article, is that music that expresses the ideal. And so we have an exclusive-or choice between modern Avant-Garde and what is considered to be classical music. Twelve tone music is thus condemned because it fits outside the boundaries set by classical music and the use of music to express the ideal.
However, without having to throw out classical, which to my knowledge is done by no one, we should note that music is not just for expressing the what we regard as what is beautiful and the ideal, but to express reality as it appears in all of its ways. And this is really the basic rub here. Is music to be limited to painting beautiful pictures with sound or is music there to help us communicate what all of life is about.
That we do not have to choose both approaches to music is demonstrated by many musicians, but I will pick one in particular. Dave Brubeck incorporated many musical forms in his writing and performing. And this included forms from all sorts of Jazz to Bach to religious music to 12 tone. And which ones were used in any particular piece depended on what Brubeck wanted the piece to express. And here we should note that he felt that music should express the gamut of emotions.
Thus, the real conflict here is between the ideal and reality, between authoritarianism and freedom. The authoritarian view tells us that the choice of music we have before us should be limited to only that which expresses beauty. The choosing to be free says that music should fit the message it is trying to communicate whether that message is one about beauty or one about the realities of life. So we see that even in music, those who are authoritarian are always fighting against freedom.
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Oct 22
To Joe Carter and his use of the Love Gov film series to discourage any government oversight into a nation’s economy and to promote free market economies in his blogpost. This appeared in the Acton Blog.
Free market economies do not promote charity, selflessness, and kindness. Such a claim is nothing more than a sales line. What a free market economy does is to promote elite-centered rule and independence. Free market economies promote elite-centered rule because such economies provide the fewest obstacles for the consolidation of wealth. And where we have the consolidation of wealth, we have the consolidation of power. And such economies tell those at the top that their business operations are to be free the demands of any government including those governments that are working democracies. That is another way of saying that business owners are more and more free from their social responsibilities. And in every nation whose government is a working democracy, then a free market economy tells the business owners that their business is free from the demands made on them by the people represented by their government.
We should note that human flourishing uses as a bottom-line measurement by at least some who promote free market economies. For their claim is that free market economies remove the most people from abject poverty. But there are three problems with the claim. First, the standard of living that exists above the abject poverty level is still a poverty level of living especially depending on where one lives. Second, what produced the jobs for people from those nations that saw the greatest reduction in abject poverty was the removal of jobs from people from other nations. And the motive for the moving of those jobs was to benefit the investors who owned the businesses rather than to benefit the people in the nation that would receive the jobs. In the meantime, many who lost those jobs now flood the job market for certain skills and that keeps the wages for those jobs down because of the law of supply and demand. And third, many of the jobs in nations where people are escaping abject poverty are set in sweatshop conditions. In addition, in the two nations where the most people have been removed from abject poverty, slavery is either stagnant or increasing.
Free market economies are investor-oriented economies with less and less government oversight over the markets. Thus investors, even foreign investors, will have more to say about any nation's economy where the economy is a free market economy than the people of that nation will. Thus, the drive for free market economies are establishing a new governmental organization that lies outside of national boundaries and the reach of elected government officials, especially in those nations whose governments are working democracies. And here we should note that governments that are working democracies are not the kind of governments that are depicted in the film series above. Governments with working democracies are those that truly represent what their people want. The drive for free market economies is a drive for a new way for money to rule the world.
Recently, the US had to rescind laws that required the labeling of the origin of meat because the WTO, of which the US is a member, threatened serious economic sanctions if it didn't. And it did so because other nations were concerned that their businesses would lose money if the people in our nation knew from which nation the meat they were buying was. With the proposed TPP, corporations can sue governments for laws passed, but governments cannot sue those corporations. And those lawsuits would be heard in TPP tribunals that have no concern for any US law, even The Constitution. Thus, investors will have more say over laws protecting the environments or workers' rights and pay than the people of a given nations will. Other nations, such as Canada and Costa Rica, have felt the bite from these free market economies. We need to look at the whole package of what a free market economy offers while noting that the above film series does not depict the only alternative to a free market economy.
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Oct 23
To Joseph Sunde and his blogpost that claims that flourishing occurs when we act authoritatively while making ourselves vulnerable. This appears in the Acton blog.
It seems that the current emphasis on always flourishing is just another prosperity gospel. We live in a fallen world that is an alien place for believers so that to think of flourishing as a natural state is to believe that this world can be our home. Such denies what the NT says. For how does what Jesus says about where we should lay up treasure impact our view of flourishing? The same goes for when the writer of the book of Hebrews tells us that we have no home on earth.
It isn't that we should not celebrate times when we do flourish. But we should also look at those times and examine plight of all the stakeholders involved including the environment to ensure that our flourishing isn't at least partially because of exploitation. When expecting to flourish, we should also note that infinite growth on a finite planet is impossible. And our world is telling us that perhaps we have been seeking flourishing a bit too much with the rising temperatures in the troposphere and the rising sea levels that have already been hurting people.
Again, this emphasis on forever flourishing is just another prosperity gospel. It uses flattery and visions of sugar plums dancing in our heads to appeal to us. But it denies the costs all of us must pay either now or later for how we have been flourishing today.
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Oct 24
To Peter Lawler and his blogpost asking if we should venerate The Constitution. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.
I don't know how we can determine whether we should venerate The Constitution without talking about the context in which the document was written. After all, it was written during a time of widespread dissent and soon after Shays Rebellion. As we observe from all of the Constitutional references to the Militia, one of the purposes of The Constitution was to strengthen the Federal Government so that it could better respond to insurrections. And when we look at Madison's view of one of the purposes of government, which is to 'protect the minority of the opulent against the majority' and that Senators were immune to public opinion by not just the length of their terms, but by being appointed rather than elected, we see the disdain that many of the framers of The Constitution had for direct democracy. We should also note that Federalists pejoratively referred to those with whom they disagreed with as belonging to 'factions.'
And many conservatives carry on that traditional disdain by equating democracy with 'mob rule,' as if the majority rule by elites (a.k.a., a republic) is more virtuous than majority rule by all the people. For if democracy is mob rule, then how can majority rule by elites be referred to in any other way than 'the mob rules'? Here we should note that The Constitution was written in an effort to maintain the status quo for the sake of domestic elites. And, as Federalists 10 pointed out, it is the union that is more important than the states. So how in the world can we see The Constitution as promoting limited government and states rights unless, from an apriori commitment, we perform eisegesis by reading it into the document?
Sure, if some want to put The Constitution on a pedestal and venerate it, they are free to do so. But all of us should remember that the higher that pedestal and the greater the veneration, the more we have the tyranny of tradition and thus a form of authoritarianism. This isn't to say that we should easily replace The Constitution by today's popular views. That would be the result of narcissism. It is to say that just as conservatives want government to be limited, so we should want the size of the pedestal on which we place The Constitution and its veneration to be limited as well. After all, we should remember that both The Constitution and the founding and expanding of our nation was racially based.
www.flamingfundamentalist.blogspot.com
(Only one person pictured is a Christian Fundamentalist. And so which one pictured is not like the others)
Showing posts with label authority. Show all posts
Showing posts with label authority. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 26, 2016
Wednesday, November 25, 2015
Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For November 25, 2015
A preface for this edition of Comments Which Conservative Block...
Nov 17
To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost about a 2-Kingdom approach to the law. This appeared in hiedelblog.
Let's be honest, though what the Westminster divines said about the godhead and soteriology could be adequately described as being less influenced by culture and more influenced by the Scriptures, the same cannot necessarily be said about the second table of the law. For example, what is missed in the quoting of the Westminster divines is Chapter 23:3 of the Westminster confession are the statements saying that kings were to punish blasphemies, heresies, and corruptions. The end effect was so that all of the 'ordinances of God' be observed. The above contains a modern adjustment to WCF 23:3 not what the divines wrote..
We should also note how Calvin implemented the 2 kingdoms. For he had no qualms about finding, prosecuting, and persucting to the point of death those who were witches or heretics. So the question is how much do we want to use Calvin as a guide for what the Church should expect from or demand of the state. We should also note in his writings against the Jews, Luther, a 2ker in his own right, called on German society and princesses to punish the Jews for their continued unbelief.
We should note that regarding the law, Acts 15:10 makes a general statement about the whole law within the historical context of the Church determining whether a ceremonial part of the law requiring circumcision should be practiced. Vs 10 clearly states that the Church should not require its members to follow a law that nobody had kept up until that time including the apostles with the exception of Jesus of course. Thus we saw a letting go of the ceremonial law because of how it foreshadowed Christ's passion and an adjusted version of the civil law that was made far more flexible than what was stated in the Torah, rather than total elimination of it, as well as the requirement of the 10 commandments. Here we should note that some reformers, such as Martin Luther, believed that keeping the law concerning the Sabbath was not in effect in the literal way that other reformers who were following Calvin believed.
But such brings us to the Christian "theonomists" some who are said to be on the left and others on the right. The problem here is that not all Christians on the left who call for justices are theonomists nor are they looking for some Messianic age. Some are merely looking for how we can improve life on this earth and thus take a more flexible approach to the civil laws, much like the NT Church did only the Left focuses on societal sins rather than personal sins. We should note that some of those civl laws were applications of God's moral laws especially laws that prohibited murder and theft. So what many on the Christian left did was to extract principles inherent in many of the civil laws that revolved around the prohibition against murder and theft and applied them to their respective societies rather than enforce them completely and literally.
Now it is true that Marx and many of his earlier followers, especially those who lived in the early to mid 20th century and before believed in Marx's utopian dreams. Those Christians who mixed Marx with their faith could be accurately described as hodling to state-Messianism. But it would a gross overgeneralization and oversimplification to say that all Christians on the political left expect a state-Messianism. Why? While early Marxists attributed deprivation to the distribution of goods to the bourgeoisie, others focused on the building of community within the state as well as holding to what Chomsky calls the principle of universality. That principle states that how we judge others is how we should judge ourselves and vice-versa. This applied to what we gave ourselves license to in how we treated others as well as what we prohibited others from doing to us.
Martin Luther King Jr., a person who opposed Marx but recognized the legitimat issues he was bringing to the table did well in describing the basic fault that could be applied to both socialist and capitalist approaches to society. King stated that if we are going to be on the correct side of the 'moral revolution,' our society must be a 'person-oriented society' rather than a 'thing-oriented society.' We should note her that King's move away from materialism is more consistent on socialism than capitalism. And such should raise red flags for Christians living in Capitalist economies.
Finally, we should note the serious flaw that exists in reformed 2KT. That serious flaw is that while the Church is free to beat up on the consciences of individual believers for their personal sins, the Church has no right to correct society torcorporate sins sins. And with the conservative Church's obsession with sexual sins, the Reformed Church dishonors the Gospel not by trying to legally prohibit some new sexual sins while remaining mute over issues of slavery and imperialism with some empires being at least partially build on human exploitation and theft of land.
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Nov 18
To Russell Moore and his blogpost asking if whether we should pray that ISIS be converted or defeated. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website
Can we pray for both? The article above is correct in answering with a yes. As a group, we should want ISIS to be defeated. But since ISIS consists of individual people, shouldn't we want these people to believe in Jesus? That we should is an excellent point made in the article above. We should note that Martin Luther King Jr took a two-prong approach to his enemies. He wanted to win them over. But for those who refused to be won over King wanted their behavior to be controlled to be controlled by the law.
At the same time, we can never afford to forget about the Wests's legacy of practicing its own evil in order to gain oil, profits, and strategic advantages.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost on Christians being called exiles and strangers in this world. This appeared in Heidelblog
I think most of what was written above was good. But the following line needs more refinement:
Our most ultimate citizenship is in heaven but our citizenship in this world is truly important.
Some have used that important worldly citizenship as a justification for treating people who share their own ethnic or national identity with preference over those who don't.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nov 19
To Gaye Clark and her blogpost of when they helped an African-American woman with some problems by having the woman live with them. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website
One of the most important lines written in this article is below:
Racism is better understood when experienced than when explained.
That is especially true when we have a stake in having racism no longer being an issue. The other parts of the article are important to but in a different way. One of the things we must constantly draw people's attention to is the continued existence of racism.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nov 20
To Benjamin Watson and his blogpost about racism. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.
We should note that racism is nothing more than another form of tribalism. Other forms of tribalism include nationalism, classism, ideological tribalism, and religious tribalism. Tribalism includes believing that one's own group is superior. Watson mentions this above with regard to race. But we should oppose the other forms of tribalism as much as we oppose racism. And racism must be opposed as strongly as possible.
According to Martin Luther King Jr., there is one more part of racism that was not included above. In speaking against the Vietnam War, King said the following:
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.
So according to King, we will have racism for as long as we count things as being more important than people. That is something for a consumer society to think about.
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To Joe Carter and his blogpost on what we should know about Syrian refugees in the light of the attacks on Paris. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.
There is something else we should note about the Syrian refugee problem and it has to do with the attacks on Paris. According to a recent Washington Post article, not one of the known attackers were from Syria. Rather, they were all citizens of Europe.
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To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost quote of William Buckley Jr as he criticized Yale’s economics education for not glorifying the individual. This appeared in the Heidelblog
So is Buckley saying that it is less idolatrous to glorify the individual, disparage government and community for that matter, play in the hunger games, and to encourage self-reliance while denying the interdependencies that are inherent in the system?
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Nov 21
To Caleb Greggsen and his blogpost that comments on terrorism and its effects. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.
There is one more response to terrorism that is necessary, but not mentioned. That response is when it is your own country that is practicing terrorism against others. What about our drone missile attacks that either cause collateral damage or, perhaps, target innocent civilians? What should a Christian's response be to those?
And if we are going to include Christians being beaten or robbed as acts of terrorism, why not include when our own government supports brutal dictators who beat and imprison their citizens for political reasons?
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Nov 23
To John Courts and his blogpost associating the Syrian Refugee problem with the Arab Spring movement in that nation and quoting an Orthodox Church official who stated that Arab Spring was the result of misguided American foreign policies. This appeared in the Acton blog.
Misguided American policies caused the Arab Spring? That is difficult to believe since American policies backed those with power with whom they were doing lucrative foreign aid business. That was certainly true in Egypt and in Tunisia. It wasn't true in Syria since Russia cornered the military aid market there. And American policies didn't start the Arab Spring in Tunisia. That started with self-immolation of one of its citizens and that was precipitated by living conditions.
The Arab Spring in Syria was inspired by successes in Tunisia and Egypt, but became violent in response to the government's violent response including the conducting of a massacre. Other groups joined including some in the military that took the original peaceful movement into a violent reactionary direction.
Btw, we should note that the Ocuupy Movement started in places like Tunisia and Egypt and that includes Occupy Wall Street (OWS). The preparation for OWS on Sept 17, 2011 occurred prior to the event when activisits from places like the Middle East and Spain came over here to teach activists how to make decisions and run meetings. I remember my first participation in the Global Justice Working group of OWS because of what seemed then to be almost a majority of people having come from other nations, particularly Middle East nations.
But here, we should also consider the source. As in Egypt, except when the Muslim Brotherhood was in control, the state Church, that is the Orthodox Church, has supported a strong-arm dictator simply because that dictator provided protection for the Church. Thus, out of self-interest, the Church in Syria, that is another Orthodox Church, has supported a tyranical regime because that regime kept it safe from religious extremism. Perhaps, this is just one of the reasons why some in Syria's civil war want to target Christians. With the help of these Christians, they have associated the Church with a brutal tyrant.
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To Joe Carter and his article about what we should know about the Syrian refugee controversy. This appeared in the Acton Blog.
Perhaps Carter should update his sources. According to a Washington Post article, an article that is more recent than the one Carter cited regarding the refugee-attacker with the Syrian Passport, all known participants in the Paris attack were Europeans. A fake Syrian passport was found and its appearance is now believed to be the result of the attackers's attempt to throw off the investigators regarding their identity. A link to the Washington Post article I am referring to is below:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/11/17/were-syrian-refugees-involved-in-the-paris-attacks-what-we-know-and-dont-know/
Editor's note: Please see more recent news articles than the one linked to above to see if any Syrian refugees have been implicated in the Paris Attacks. The date of the article linked to above is November 17
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To Matt Smethurst and his blogpost on how Christian history can benefit us. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.
What is missing in this blogpost is the obvious that Church history can also disillusion us. Yes, this article is about how Church history can benefit us. But a warning label about how it can also disillusion us or, at best, teach us that we are all sinners must be attached to any legitimate church history study. When we consider the political maneuvering, intolerance, and violence practiced by Church leaders and heros throughout the history of the Church, it is sometimes more difficult to be inspired by them than to be repulsed. I experienced this reaction as I occasionally taught a World Religions class when I use to teach.
And there doesn't seem to be much difference in the Church's behavior today as the Church latches on to political parties leaders that show them favoritism even though the same visits violence and injustice on its own citizens and abroad.
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To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost telling us to silently submit to the civil authorities regardless of how unjust they are. This appeared in Heidelblog.
Besides the gross generalizations made about student protesters and Islamists (a.k.a., Muslims), I've protested with both and found your descriptions to be wanting in even the majority of instances I've been involved in, you given contradictory insturctions regarding our submission to the civile authorities. See, on the one hand you tell us to silently submit to even the most unrighteous authorities and yet you tell us to lell us to love everyone, including those who are suffering even gross injustices at the hands of the same authorities. And you do so forgetting the different historical context in which we find ourselves from the time of the apostles.
I know there is an exception to your rule here. That exception would be if the authorities told us to disobey God. And we have the examples of Daniel, Meshack, Shadrack, Abendigo, as well as the Apostles, to name a few, to thank for that.
But what about when we see a civil authority practicing injustice. Are we to silently submit to that injustice and let others be harmed and abused? See, how is it that we can silently submit to authorities unrighteously oppress our neighbors while loving our neighbors at the same time? After all, you did tell us to love others. And how is it that we can honor the government and not tell them that they are practicing injustice?
Now you have already stated that Paul and Peter gave us these instructions under some of the worse circumstances and there is no argument there. But if honoring the Lord is an important reason for the Christians to obey the Civil Authorities back then regardless of how horrible they were, does doing the same today honor the Lord or does it cause outsiders to not want to listen to the Gospel or even want to persecute Christians? If you don't believe the latter situation, please realize that one of the reasons why Christians have been persecuted in places like Syria and Egypt is because they support tryanical leaders in exchange for security. Here, Christians invite those in the Middle East to oppose them for their support for Israel. And in the old South, remember that Christians not only supported slavery at one time, they supported Jim Crow and it was civil disobedience that helped eliminate the latter.
If we were to never disobey the civil authorities as they practiced injustice, how would Moses have survived childhood? How would the OT prophets have challenged their kings and their nation about the injustices they were practicing?
And what about the change in historical context between then and now? After all, were not the Apostles first concerned about the spreading of what was to the world then an unknown Gospel. So Paul used his impriosnment to go to Rome to preach. And Peter told people to submit so as to not bring dishonor to the Gospel. Well, hasn't the Gospel been spread throughout the world? And aren't we living in democracies now so that we are at least partially responsible for the sins of the state officials we elected? And since when has remaining silent in the face of gross injustices brought honor to the Gospel or has been a way of loving one's neighbor who is being unjustly treated?
It seems to me that the hermeneutic that says we are silently submit to unjust gov'ts today is one that reduces God's description of our relationship to gov't to that which was preached by Peter and Paul while forgetting the rest of the Scriptures as well as not applying all of the Scriptures to new historical contexts to both the state of the Gospel in the world as well as the new responsibilities Christians have in democratic societies.
On the other hand, we have some nonChristians who, out of love for neighbor, challenge the government when it oppresses others and thus risks the consequences of so doing. This leads to two questions. First, how is it that our neighbor will, under these circumstances, not perceive the nonChristians as being more loving and outer-directed than the Christian? And how is it that Conservative Christianity, for the most part, has fashioned a practical theology that tells its followers to support status quos that benefit those with wealth and power while remaining silent about their sins? In other words, and in the words of some of my liberal and leftist friends, how is it that the Conservative Church has become anything else than an institution of indoctrination to maintain the status quo for the benefit of those with wealth and power? Perhaps if you just loved your neighbor, you would have interpreted Scriptures more accurately than what is done in the article above.
- Please note that the same amount of editing that goes into a regular blogpost is not put into the comments. Thus there will be more errors in the posts of this series than the other posts on this blog. So please be patient when coming across those errors.
- The size of the posts in this series will gradually get larger because I am blocked from commenting on more blogs now by administrators. I inquired as why the latest website blocked my comments but received no answer. So judge for yourself why I would be blocked.
Nov 17
To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost about a 2-Kingdom approach to the law. This appeared in hiedelblog.
Let's be honest, though what the Westminster divines said about the godhead and soteriology could be adequately described as being less influenced by culture and more influenced by the Scriptures, the same cannot necessarily be said about the second table of the law. For example, what is missed in the quoting of the Westminster divines is Chapter 23:3 of the Westminster confession are the statements saying that kings were to punish blasphemies, heresies, and corruptions. The end effect was so that all of the 'ordinances of God' be observed. The above contains a modern adjustment to WCF 23:3 not what the divines wrote..
We should also note how Calvin implemented the 2 kingdoms. For he had no qualms about finding, prosecuting, and persucting to the point of death those who were witches or heretics. So the question is how much do we want to use Calvin as a guide for what the Church should expect from or demand of the state. We should also note in his writings against the Jews, Luther, a 2ker in his own right, called on German society and princesses to punish the Jews for their continued unbelief.
We should note that regarding the law, Acts 15:10 makes a general statement about the whole law within the historical context of the Church determining whether a ceremonial part of the law requiring circumcision should be practiced. Vs 10 clearly states that the Church should not require its members to follow a law that nobody had kept up until that time including the apostles with the exception of Jesus of course. Thus we saw a letting go of the ceremonial law because of how it foreshadowed Christ's passion and an adjusted version of the civil law that was made far more flexible than what was stated in the Torah, rather than total elimination of it, as well as the requirement of the 10 commandments. Here we should note that some reformers, such as Martin Luther, believed that keeping the law concerning the Sabbath was not in effect in the literal way that other reformers who were following Calvin believed.
But such brings us to the Christian "theonomists" some who are said to be on the left and others on the right. The problem here is that not all Christians on the left who call for justices are theonomists nor are they looking for some Messianic age. Some are merely looking for how we can improve life on this earth and thus take a more flexible approach to the civil laws, much like the NT Church did only the Left focuses on societal sins rather than personal sins. We should note that some of those civl laws were applications of God's moral laws especially laws that prohibited murder and theft. So what many on the Christian left did was to extract principles inherent in many of the civil laws that revolved around the prohibition against murder and theft and applied them to their respective societies rather than enforce them completely and literally.
Now it is true that Marx and many of his earlier followers, especially those who lived in the early to mid 20th century and before believed in Marx's utopian dreams. Those Christians who mixed Marx with their faith could be accurately described as hodling to state-Messianism. But it would a gross overgeneralization and oversimplification to say that all Christians on the political left expect a state-Messianism. Why? While early Marxists attributed deprivation to the distribution of goods to the bourgeoisie, others focused on the building of community within the state as well as holding to what Chomsky calls the principle of universality. That principle states that how we judge others is how we should judge ourselves and vice-versa. This applied to what we gave ourselves license to in how we treated others as well as what we prohibited others from doing to us.
Martin Luther King Jr., a person who opposed Marx but recognized the legitimat issues he was bringing to the table did well in describing the basic fault that could be applied to both socialist and capitalist approaches to society. King stated that if we are going to be on the correct side of the 'moral revolution,' our society must be a 'person-oriented society' rather than a 'thing-oriented society.' We should note her that King's move away from materialism is more consistent on socialism than capitalism. And such should raise red flags for Christians living in Capitalist economies.
Finally, we should note the serious flaw that exists in reformed 2KT. That serious flaw is that while the Church is free to beat up on the consciences of individual believers for their personal sins, the Church has no right to correct society torcorporate sins sins. And with the conservative Church's obsession with sexual sins, the Reformed Church dishonors the Gospel not by trying to legally prohibit some new sexual sins while remaining mute over issues of slavery and imperialism with some empires being at least partially build on human exploitation and theft of land.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nov 18
To Russell Moore and his blogpost asking if whether we should pray that ISIS be converted or defeated. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website
Can we pray for both? The article above is correct in answering with a yes. As a group, we should want ISIS to be defeated. But since ISIS consists of individual people, shouldn't we want these people to believe in Jesus? That we should is an excellent point made in the article above. We should note that Martin Luther King Jr took a two-prong approach to his enemies. He wanted to win them over. But for those who refused to be won over King wanted their behavior to be controlled to be controlled by the law.
At the same time, we can never afford to forget about the Wests's legacy of practicing its own evil in order to gain oil, profits, and strategic advantages.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost on Christians being called exiles and strangers in this world. This appeared in Heidelblog
I think most of what was written above was good. But the following line needs more refinement:
Our most ultimate citizenship is in heaven but our citizenship in this world is truly important.
Some have used that important worldly citizenship as a justification for treating people who share their own ethnic or national identity with preference over those who don't.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nov 19
To Gaye Clark and her blogpost of when they helped an African-American woman with some problems by having the woman live with them. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website
One of the most important lines written in this article is below:
Racism is better understood when experienced than when explained.
That is especially true when we have a stake in having racism no longer being an issue. The other parts of the article are important to but in a different way. One of the things we must constantly draw people's attention to is the continued existence of racism.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nov 20
To Benjamin Watson and his blogpost about racism. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.
We should note that racism is nothing more than another form of tribalism. Other forms of tribalism include nationalism, classism, ideological tribalism, and religious tribalism. Tribalism includes believing that one's own group is superior. Watson mentions this above with regard to race. But we should oppose the other forms of tribalism as much as we oppose racism. And racism must be opposed as strongly as possible.
According to Martin Luther King Jr., there is one more part of racism that was not included above. In speaking against the Vietnam War, King said the following:
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.
So according to King, we will have racism for as long as we count things as being more important than people. That is something for a consumer society to think about.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To Joe Carter and his blogpost on what we should know about Syrian refugees in the light of the attacks on Paris. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.
There is something else we should note about the Syrian refugee problem and it has to do with the attacks on Paris. According to a recent Washington Post article, not one of the known attackers were from Syria. Rather, they were all citizens of Europe.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost quote of William Buckley Jr as he criticized Yale’s economics education for not glorifying the individual. This appeared in the Heidelblog
So is Buckley saying that it is less idolatrous to glorify the individual, disparage government and community for that matter, play in the hunger games, and to encourage self-reliance while denying the interdependencies that are inherent in the system?
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Nov 21
To Caleb Greggsen and his blogpost that comments on terrorism and its effects. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.
There is one more response to terrorism that is necessary, but not mentioned. That response is when it is your own country that is practicing terrorism against others. What about our drone missile attacks that either cause collateral damage or, perhaps, target innocent civilians? What should a Christian's response be to those?
And if we are going to include Christians being beaten or robbed as acts of terrorism, why not include when our own government supports brutal dictators who beat and imprison their citizens for political reasons?
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Nov 23
To John Courts and his blogpost associating the Syrian Refugee problem with the Arab Spring movement in that nation and quoting an Orthodox Church official who stated that Arab Spring was the result of misguided American foreign policies. This appeared in the Acton blog.
Misguided American policies caused the Arab Spring? That is difficult to believe since American policies backed those with power with whom they were doing lucrative foreign aid business. That was certainly true in Egypt and in Tunisia. It wasn't true in Syria since Russia cornered the military aid market there. And American policies didn't start the Arab Spring in Tunisia. That started with self-immolation of one of its citizens and that was precipitated by living conditions.
The Arab Spring in Syria was inspired by successes in Tunisia and Egypt, but became violent in response to the government's violent response including the conducting of a massacre. Other groups joined including some in the military that took the original peaceful movement into a violent reactionary direction.
Btw, we should note that the Ocuupy Movement started in places like Tunisia and Egypt and that includes Occupy Wall Street (OWS). The preparation for OWS on Sept 17, 2011 occurred prior to the event when activisits from places like the Middle East and Spain came over here to teach activists how to make decisions and run meetings. I remember my first participation in the Global Justice Working group of OWS because of what seemed then to be almost a majority of people having come from other nations, particularly Middle East nations.
But here, we should also consider the source. As in Egypt, except when the Muslim Brotherhood was in control, the state Church, that is the Orthodox Church, has supported a strong-arm dictator simply because that dictator provided protection for the Church. Thus, out of self-interest, the Church in Syria, that is another Orthodox Church, has supported a tyranical regime because that regime kept it safe from religious extremism. Perhaps, this is just one of the reasons why some in Syria's civil war want to target Christians. With the help of these Christians, they have associated the Church with a brutal tyrant.
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To Joe Carter and his article about what we should know about the Syrian refugee controversy. This appeared in the Acton Blog.
Perhaps Carter should update his sources. According to a Washington Post article, an article that is more recent than the one Carter cited regarding the refugee-attacker with the Syrian Passport, all known participants in the Paris attack were Europeans. A fake Syrian passport was found and its appearance is now believed to be the result of the attackers's attempt to throw off the investigators regarding their identity. A link to the Washington Post article I am referring to is below:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/11/17/were-syrian-refugees-involved-in-the-paris-attacks-what-we-know-and-dont-know/
Editor's note: Please see more recent news articles than the one linked to above to see if any Syrian refugees have been implicated in the Paris Attacks. The date of the article linked to above is November 17
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To Matt Smethurst and his blogpost on how Christian history can benefit us. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.
What is missing in this blogpost is the obvious that Church history can also disillusion us. Yes, this article is about how Church history can benefit us. But a warning label about how it can also disillusion us or, at best, teach us that we are all sinners must be attached to any legitimate church history study. When we consider the political maneuvering, intolerance, and violence practiced by Church leaders and heros throughout the history of the Church, it is sometimes more difficult to be inspired by them than to be repulsed. I experienced this reaction as I occasionally taught a World Religions class when I use to teach.
And there doesn't seem to be much difference in the Church's behavior today as the Church latches on to political parties leaders that show them favoritism even though the same visits violence and injustice on its own citizens and abroad.
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To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost telling us to silently submit to the civil authorities regardless of how unjust they are. This appeared in Heidelblog.
Besides the gross generalizations made about student protesters and Islamists (a.k.a., Muslims), I've protested with both and found your descriptions to be wanting in even the majority of instances I've been involved in, you given contradictory insturctions regarding our submission to the civile authorities. See, on the one hand you tell us to silently submit to even the most unrighteous authorities and yet you tell us to lell us to love everyone, including those who are suffering even gross injustices at the hands of the same authorities. And you do so forgetting the different historical context in which we find ourselves from the time of the apostles.
I know there is an exception to your rule here. That exception would be if the authorities told us to disobey God. And we have the examples of Daniel, Meshack, Shadrack, Abendigo, as well as the Apostles, to name a few, to thank for that.
But what about when we see a civil authority practicing injustice. Are we to silently submit to that injustice and let others be harmed and abused? See, how is it that we can silently submit to authorities unrighteously oppress our neighbors while loving our neighbors at the same time? After all, you did tell us to love others. And how is it that we can honor the government and not tell them that they are practicing injustice?
Now you have already stated that Paul and Peter gave us these instructions under some of the worse circumstances and there is no argument there. But if honoring the Lord is an important reason for the Christians to obey the Civil Authorities back then regardless of how horrible they were, does doing the same today honor the Lord or does it cause outsiders to not want to listen to the Gospel or even want to persecute Christians? If you don't believe the latter situation, please realize that one of the reasons why Christians have been persecuted in places like Syria and Egypt is because they support tryanical leaders in exchange for security. Here, Christians invite those in the Middle East to oppose them for their support for Israel. And in the old South, remember that Christians not only supported slavery at one time, they supported Jim Crow and it was civil disobedience that helped eliminate the latter.
If we were to never disobey the civil authorities as they practiced injustice, how would Moses have survived childhood? How would the OT prophets have challenged their kings and their nation about the injustices they were practicing?
And what about the change in historical context between then and now? After all, were not the Apostles first concerned about the spreading of what was to the world then an unknown Gospel. So Paul used his impriosnment to go to Rome to preach. And Peter told people to submit so as to not bring dishonor to the Gospel. Well, hasn't the Gospel been spread throughout the world? And aren't we living in democracies now so that we are at least partially responsible for the sins of the state officials we elected? And since when has remaining silent in the face of gross injustices brought honor to the Gospel or has been a way of loving one's neighbor who is being unjustly treated?
It seems to me that the hermeneutic that says we are silently submit to unjust gov'ts today is one that reduces God's description of our relationship to gov't to that which was preached by Peter and Paul while forgetting the rest of the Scriptures as well as not applying all of the Scriptures to new historical contexts to both the state of the Gospel in the world as well as the new responsibilities Christians have in democratic societies.
On the other hand, we have some nonChristians who, out of love for neighbor, challenge the government when it oppresses others and thus risks the consequences of so doing. This leads to two questions. First, how is it that our neighbor will, under these circumstances, not perceive the nonChristians as being more loving and outer-directed than the Christian? And how is it that Conservative Christianity, for the most part, has fashioned a practical theology that tells its followers to support status quos that benefit those with wealth and power while remaining silent about their sins? In other words, and in the words of some of my liberal and leftist friends, how is it that the Conservative Church has become anything else than an institution of indoctrination to maintain the status quo for the benefit of those with wealth and power? Perhaps if you just loved your neighbor, you would have interpreted Scriptures more accurately than what is done in the article above.
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Has Israel Become America's Pope?
Perhaps the article from the Atlantic Wire, Israel Is OK with Hagel as Secretary of Defense, was the last straw. After all, all through the election, Republicans used how Israel views Obama as a campaign ploy to wrestle votes away from Obama. Also, those speaking before the media in America have less freedom to criticize Israel than their Israeli counterparts. And finally, us Christian Fundamentalists are told that we should never criticize Israel or we will merit the judgment of God and the label of anti-Semite. I have had enough with those who tell us that from all of America's foreign policies to every attitude should be judged by the question, "What would Israel say?" This is such a paradoxical situation for the land of the free.
Though what grabs our attention are issues dealing with Israel and a selected use of anti-Semitism, Palestinians are Semites too but nobody ever cries "anti-Semitism" when they are denigrated, the real issues are much broader. The real issues include tribalism and blind obedience to propped up authorities and the ramifications of such not being challenged. One such possible consequence should we continue in our current tribalism addicition is that, in combination with an ever advancing and accessible technology, our very existence is being threatened (see article).
We should note that a Get Out Of Hell Card Free makes the end of human life on earth, as well as massive human suffering, seem trivial to the "real" Christian. And the more we embrace tribalism, such as the tribalism we see by both those who support Palestinian terrorism or carte-blanche use of the Israeli military, the more we embrace moral relativity. Though the word tribalism is a bit archaic, it has us cling to gang warfare in the name of survival.
All of this should make all Christians stop dead in their tracks and reconsider what they are doing when they offer unconditional support for any nation let alone Israel, but it doesn't. We have been conditioned to see tribalism as part of our spiritual heritage. We read of God lending some support for tribalism in the Old Testament and because of that, we assumed that He also supported a similar tribalism as European settlers began to practice ethnic cleansing here in America.
But we should note that nowhere in the New Testament is tribalism spoken of positively. The reasons for the difference from one testament to the other is not important here, but that such a change has taken place is. Whereas in the Old Testament, belonging to God's chosen people was determined by lineage and ceremony, it is decided by faith in the New Testament (Galations 3:6-10). And we should add here that God does not show partiality to those who do either good or bad (Romans 2:11). So with the New Testament, the age of tribalism has been vanquished. To continue to cling to it is to practice an aggrandizement that leads to idolatry.
But, as one believer said to me right before Church one time, our own cultural bias often overrides any objective attempt to understand the Bible. And so tribalism lives, though it does so unrighteously and as an affront to God. Thus to feel confident in a nation's decisions simply because another nation, in this case Israel, condones it leads us to boldly entwine oneself to sin.
But tribalism is not the only problem here, blind submission to authority figures also comes into play. We should note that Christian Fundamentalists are suckers for anyone with authority. We are always told to, almost, unquestionably submit to every authority figure. And what could be a more fitting example of this addiction to submission than to be pleased that one's own sovereign nation's decisions are to be judged by reactions of another nation? Such a devotion to authority reminds us of past Church failings when adherence to authority made it deaf and blind to reason. History tells us how that the overemphasis on authority and the minimizing of reason discredited the Gospel rather than glorified God.
In addition, there is no human authority figure or institution that merits blind obedience. Only God's Word does. And that Word is replete with examples of how human authorities had to be respectfully corrected rather than unconditionally obeyed. To do the latter, just to practice tribalism, is to engage in idolatry. And that is the most basic issue here. Blind obedience to human authorities can lead to a multitude of sins and a plethora of suffering. And such is the case in the world today.
Though what grabs our attention are issues dealing with Israel and a selected use of anti-Semitism, Palestinians are Semites too but nobody ever cries "anti-Semitism" when they are denigrated, the real issues are much broader. The real issues include tribalism and blind obedience to propped up authorities and the ramifications of such not being challenged. One such possible consequence should we continue in our current tribalism addicition is that, in combination with an ever advancing and accessible technology, our very existence is being threatened (see article).
We should note that a Get Out Of Hell Card Free makes the end of human life on earth, as well as massive human suffering, seem trivial to the "real" Christian. And the more we embrace tribalism, such as the tribalism we see by both those who support Palestinian terrorism or carte-blanche use of the Israeli military, the more we embrace moral relativity. Though the word tribalism is a bit archaic, it has us cling to gang warfare in the name of survival.
All of this should make all Christians stop dead in their tracks and reconsider what they are doing when they offer unconditional support for any nation let alone Israel, but it doesn't. We have been conditioned to see tribalism as part of our spiritual heritage. We read of God lending some support for tribalism in the Old Testament and because of that, we assumed that He also supported a similar tribalism as European settlers began to practice ethnic cleansing here in America.
But we should note that nowhere in the New Testament is tribalism spoken of positively. The reasons for the difference from one testament to the other is not important here, but that such a change has taken place is. Whereas in the Old Testament, belonging to God's chosen people was determined by lineage and ceremony, it is decided by faith in the New Testament (Galations 3:6-10). And we should add here that God does not show partiality to those who do either good or bad (Romans 2:11). So with the New Testament, the age of tribalism has been vanquished. To continue to cling to it is to practice an aggrandizement that leads to idolatry.
But, as one believer said to me right before Church one time, our own cultural bias often overrides any objective attempt to understand the Bible. And so tribalism lives, though it does so unrighteously and as an affront to God. Thus to feel confident in a nation's decisions simply because another nation, in this case Israel, condones it leads us to boldly entwine oneself to sin.
But tribalism is not the only problem here, blind submission to authority figures also comes into play. We should note that Christian Fundamentalists are suckers for anyone with authority. We are always told to, almost, unquestionably submit to every authority figure. And what could be a more fitting example of this addiction to submission than to be pleased that one's own sovereign nation's decisions are to be judged by reactions of another nation? Such a devotion to authority reminds us of past Church failings when adherence to authority made it deaf and blind to reason. History tells us how that the overemphasis on authority and the minimizing of reason discredited the Gospel rather than glorified God.
In addition, there is no human authority figure or institution that merits blind obedience. Only God's Word does. And that Word is replete with examples of how human authorities had to be respectfully corrected rather than unconditionally obeyed. To do the latter, just to practice tribalism, is to engage in idolatry. And that is the most basic issue here. Blind obedience to human authorities can lead to a multitude of sins and a plethora of suffering. And such is the case in the world today.
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