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

March 15

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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March 16

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

 

 

 

The U.S. Of Chick-fil-A

Chick-fil-a's President, Dan Cathy, started another episode of Stereotypes Gone Wild with his comments on gay marriage. By decrying the national acceptance of gay marriage as both rejecting God and inviting judgment, and then by proudly describing himself and his partners as still being married to their first wives as well as supporting the traditional definition of marriage, Cathy did more than just call homosexuality a sin. He both invited the nation to scapegoat gays and he prayed a version of the Pharisees' prayer saying, "I thank God that I am not like those sinners over there." In doing all of this, Dan Cathy did more than meet the minimum requirements for what gays have sadly come to expect from their Christian opponents.

The response of who were offended also did more than enough to reinforce what many Conservative Christians' have come to expect from gays and their supporters. The response showed the typical recalcitrant sinner who is rejecting the message. Such Christians are happily oblivious to the fact that the messenger has deliberately become more offensive than the actual Biblical message.

The result is that these stereotypes continue to live happily ever after as co-dependents. That is each stereotype needs the other to be brought back to life.

To my fellow Christians who believe that homosexuality is a sin, we must ask if Cathy's original statement shows more concern for gays or for himself. Note that within Cathy's statement is a concern that he might be a victim of God's collective punishment on the nation. In addition, there is Cathy's boasting of his marital accomplishments as well as that of his associates.

But not only that, there is Cathy's unawareness of his country's sins.  Cathy's statement shows an assumption that our nation's current state of blessedness is deserved and that our past actions such as the ethnic cleansing of American Indians from the land, slavery, the days of Jim Crow I & II, our military and economic empire, and whatever other sufferings we have caused were, at the most, tolerable sins that did not merit God's judgment. And here is the heart of Christian Fundamentalism's failure in preaching the Gospel; it shows gross selectivity in determining which sins to rebuke. Killing, maiming, and oppressing others, especially when done by those in uniform, get a free pass from the righteous indignation of the Conservative Christian but the sexual sin does not.

So what the above shows is a cold-heartedness by Conservative Christians. For they seem unconcerned by the suffering gays might experience if they are held responsible for future tragedies by their fellow citizens and unfazed by the destruction caused by violence Conservative Christians support. This cold-heartedness could be because the ultimate concern of Conservative Christians is their own individual selves. We might call their theology a Meology. And here, Cathy is concerned about paying for the sins of others, especially when he is doing what is right, than he is about the sinners he singles out.

Thus, what gays sense when they hear people like Cathy speak is more than just a call to repentance; it is antagonism. He uses the language of intolerance to preach repentance.  So when gays and others point this out, Christians like Cathy chalk it up to sin and rebellion. At the same time, Cathy, and others like him, are unable to see their own faults. They are too busy showing off their own righteousness to feel good about themselves.

Certainly, not all Christians who preach repentance to gays follow Cathy's example. But it does seem that all who have a public forum do. And it is wrong. We need more dialog than paternalistic finger pointing.

On the other hand, not all reactions against Cathy's remarks are do solely to the speaker. None of us, Christian or nonChristian, like to be told that we are sinning. So some of the reaction is simply because people are rebelling against God's Word. But this does not let Cathy off the hook. When he did not identify with gays as a sinner, not as a gay, then Cathy is telling gays that rebelling against God is their problem only, not his. Such a message is a lie and is just as sinful, if not more, as being gay.

In the end, Cathy is to gays what the U.S. has become to the world. Both Cathy and the U.S. are forever pointing out the faults of others in ways that indicate they are above reproach. Both Cathy and the U.S. blame others for rejecting accepted an authority that brings judgment. And both are oblivious to their own sins, even if their sins are far worse. While Cathy wants laws to control the behavior of those who, because they merit God's judgment, threaten him, the U.S uses force to control the behaviors of those countries that do not benefit it. In a sense, Cathy's hyperbolizing of sin and his intolerance of others is a microcosm of America's relationships with other countries. For neither one wants to relate to others as equals. Rather, they think that they deserve to call the shots.