tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-51023458064820659592024-02-20T12:07:41.895-08:00Tom ShetlerThoughts on life.Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02083511689909853826noreply@blogger.comBlogger62125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5102345806482065959.post-59550677434531045472015-07-02T21:13:00.001-07:002015-07-02T21:13:55.386-07:00What About Natural Law?I'm probably the world's most inconsistent blogger. It's been almost a year since my last post. Yet, here I am composing a new article. Part of what has inspired me to start writing again is my exposure to a very important book by Robert George entitled <em>Conscience and Its Enemies</em>. George is considered one of the foremost Christian intellectuals of our day, and this book reinforces that claim. In the book, he uses natural law theory to point out the importance of traditional marriage and the defense of the unborn. As far as I'm concerned this is a must-read book for all of us who are concerned about the direction of our culture.<br />
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A further inspiration is the Supreme Court decision at the end of last week to legalize gay marriage. It is amazing to me that of all the commentators enlisted to explain the ruling and its significance, Robert George was not among them. Even Fox focused primarily on the short-term impact of the ruling, giving one of the premier architects of the political argument for gay marriage, Ted Olson, a significant platform to "celebrate" this victory for "civil rights." Olson is correct to this extent, the gay marriage decision will not directly harm my marriage or prohibit heterosexual couples from marrying. But this is a very short-sighted view of culture and the unintended consequences of cultural change. There may not be immediate harm now, but there will be serious damage to come. As the old advertisement put it, "It's not nice to fool mother nature." In essence, she won't be fooled. Nature (by God's design) has built in a series of blessings and curses (to use a biblical metaphor). These blessings and curses flow directly from choices and behaviors, and mankind has often had to learn the lessons of natural law the hard way. We are about to embark on another failed experiment in social engineering based on the presumption that we "know better" than all the millennia of human beings that have gone before us (not to mention the God who has graciously revealed himself to us). Like every other society that has tried to "change" human nature or ignore the reality of natural law, we will pay a heavy price for our arrogance and ignorance.<br />
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The problem is not the acceptance of gay marriage per se. It is, rather, that this is just the latest renunciation of traditional values and one more step in the direction of an "anything goes" view of permissible behavior with no thought of the adverse consequences it may produce. George points out that this permissiveness is inherent in our current approach to moral questions. "It has become a matter of dogma that the traditional norms and structures are irrational-they are the vestiges of superstition and phobia that impede the free development of personalities by restricting people's capacities to act on their desires." (George, 28) Gay marriage is just the latest vestige of this emphasis on personal "liberation," and rejection of the older notions of morality and human well-being. It is where this road leads that is the real problem. For, while the same-sex decision will not affect my marriage today, it will profoundly affect the institution of marriage in the future. We are already seeing the effects of this in the dramatic increase in the percentages of births to unwed mothers. In many communities of our society, marriage is already a thing of the past, especially in regard to the birth of children. The number of out of wedlock births among African Americans exceeds 75%, among Hispanics it exceeds 50%, and for all Americans it approaches 40%. Without intact families many, if not most, of these children will suffer the adversity of childhood poverty and all the hardships related to being raised in single-parent households. If we are truly concerned about income inequality it would seem that we should be concerned about the forces that are undermining the traditional family.<br />
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Looking at this question from the perspective of the state and its concern for the well-being of its citizens one would assume that government officials would want to protect this traditional view of marriage and the family. This institution, after all, is the means by which the next generation arises and is prepared for life in society. Nothing, in fact, is more important to the long-term health of our culture than this necessary institution of marriage. In even more practical terms, many studies have shown that the most significant factor leading to childhood poverty and an ongoing cycle of poverty is children being raised in single-parent households. This is not to deny that single parents can be good parents and have success in raising their children, but statistics show that these successful outcomes are the exception and not the rule.<br />
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But that is not a question that is even being asked by the ruling elites in our culture. Only a handful of scholars and leaders are thinking that far ahead, and those that do are ostracized, marginalized, and ignored. Robert George is just one of many who is considered "out of touch" or worse. The present Supreme Court is a clear example of a lack of a historic and ultimately moral perspective. The impetus for the current decision was the immediate needs and demands of the gay community in the United States. As Kennedy wrote in his majority opinion, the decision was about providing "dignity" and state sanctioned support for the demands of an oppressed community. But we must ask, is this the best way to meet the needs of gay couples while still promoting the best interests of the larger society? Ultimately, this is nothing short of an attempt to shape American culture according to a secular progressive agenda with little regard for the ensuing consequences. So, why are we engaging in this process of social engineering without asking what will be the long-range impact of the decision? And by the way, how is it that the Left (the driving force behind the marriage equality movement) can get away with forcing this decision upon the nation, when they often accuse Christians of "seeking to impose their values on the rest of us?" Isn't that profoundly hypocritical? If imposing values is bad, it must be bad for everyone who does it. The bottom line is that based on the expected damage to the institution of marriage and the family, and considering the reality of natural law, we can fully to expect that this experiment in "progress" will be anything but progressive. We will, in fact, move further down the path of decadence and decline. Heaven help us all.Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02083511689909853826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5102345806482065959.post-9268310309809407642014-08-03T09:12:00.001-07:002014-08-25T11:22:01.839-07:00Our Confusing TimesWe live in a time of great moral and intellectual confusion. At the risk of being misunderstood, I have come to the conclusion that this confusion results from the inordinate influence of the philosophers and intellectuals of the last two centuries. I say this after spending the last months trying to understand postmodernism and in particular the writings of Jacque Derrida and his opposition to metaphysics. While philosophy means "love of wisdom" (<u>philos</u> + s<u>ophia</u>), it has not always produced wisdom. Too often, and in our generation particularly, philosophy and philosophers have contributed to folly and confusion.<br />
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One would think that scholars, who build their careers on using the rules of logic would be able to think clearly, but sadly, they do not. Philosophers excel at obfuscation. They use difficult terms (which they often invent) in order to argue for things that if clearly understood would be revealed to be false or contradictory or simply devoid of common sense.<br />
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For example Immanuel Kant is considered the most influential philosopher of the last 300 years. In his famous book, <em>The Critique of Pure Reason</em>, he argued that we, human beings, have only a partial and ultimately inadequate knowledge of the world in which we live. He said that we are only capable of perceptions of the objects in the world (phenomena) and have no access to the "thing-in-itself" (noumena). In other words, when we touch an object, the nerves in our fingers activate a region of our brain to give us the sensation of touching the object, but that does not give us direct knowledge of the object, it only gives us the "sensation" of touching it. Kant went further in his writings to claim that our minds are the ordering principle of the world. In other words, we "see" order in the world because that is how our brains are wired. According to Kant, order may or may not actually be there. Thus, our knowledge of the world is indirect and occurs mainly in our heads.<br />
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If you think about it (which we often don't do because we're intimidated by the philosophical language), we would see that this is a very cynical and even distorted way of describing how we use our senses to navigate through the world in which we live. Our eyes are like video cameras, they are taking pictures of the objects around us. Their function can be explained using the laws of physics, and we are well within our logical rights to believe that we are obtaining an accurate "picture" of the world we see. While our "knowledge" of the object we are seeing is not absolute, it is adequate. We are able to corroborate what we are seeing by asking the person standing next to us if they see it too. We can even ask them to describe the color, shape, and size. In our everyday lives, we rely on our senses and have nearly complete confidence that they are accurately seeing, hearing, smelling, and touching the real objects that inhabit our world. We prove their reliability and accuracy every day as we use them to safely cross a street, handle the everyday objects of life, and observe our surroundings. Each of our senses are independent means of detecting the real objects and phenomenon that make up the reality of the world we live in, and we clearly rely on them every moment of our lives. Only a philosopher could question the reliability of our senses and their capacity to give us knowledge of our world.<br />
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Kant opened the philosophical door to the profound skepticism of the present postmodern culture. Kevin Vanhoozer in his important book, <em>Is There a Meaning in This Text?</em> points out that several of the most significant postmodern writers, Richard Rorty, Jacque Derrida, and Stanley Fisch, believe that there is <u>no</u> determinate meaning in any written text, and that, in essence, we can interpret any written document according to our personal, ideological, cultural, or political preferences. This means, of course, that nothing is really true, and that everything is relative to our condition, desires, or needs. It is the modern equivalence of "everyone did what was right in their own eyes." But even worse, it is a complete offense to common sense. To claim that a written text doesn't have an inherent meaning is to deny the very act of written communication. <br />
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We have to ask why several generations of intellectuals have embraced assumptions about the world and our capacity for knowledge that are so clearly at odds with common sense and practical experience? Some of it is peer pressure and the power of the shared worldview of the academic community. But, as I have argued in my book and elsewhere, there is another force at work in modern culture: the desire to escape the rules and restrictions of traditional Christian values. It is Dostoyevsky's famous quotation, "If God does not exist, then everything is permitted." Whether they are conscious of it or not, these men are anti-authoritarian as much or more than they are intellectually skeptical. But there has been a very dark side to this pursuit of libertarian freedom. It has given rise to the kinds of moral confusion that we see all around us. As was famously said (Chesterton, I think), if we cease believing in God we do not end up believing in <em>nothing</em>, we end up believing in <em>anything</em>. In many ways, postmodernism is a Pandora's box that has unleashed moral and spiritual chaos. Who would have thought that the heirs of Plato and Aristotle, the professional thinkers and logicians, would lead us into such a wasteland? I believe it is because they have ulterior motives (conscious or unconscious) to reject the moral restrictions that accompany Christianity. They are the fulfillment of David's description of the world rulers in Psalm 2: "Let us tear their fetters apart and cast away their cords from us!" What are these "fetters," what are these "cords?" Are they not the moral restrictions that we have spent the last several decades "liberating" ourselves from? The problem is that this process has not given us liberty but rather resulted in moral and social dysfunction. One could rightly ask how many lives have been damaged or destroyed by their ideas? This is a truly serious problem and, those of us who follow Jesus must work to counter this terrible assault on reason and truth. We must live out our faith and show by word and deed what is good and right and true. The only way to push back the darkness is to shine the light.Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02083511689909853826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5102345806482065959.post-55037580117780134242014-07-30T18:32:00.000-07:002014-07-30T18:32:09.287-07:00Are We Enlightened Yet?In this post I want to segue back to our previous topic of defending the faith. In the last two posts I tried to argue for an Islamic enlightenment. The problem for Islam is that such a process will expose some truly serious historical and factual contradictions that have the potential to destroy it as a viable belief system. But many would say in our day that this is exactly what happened with Christianity. They believe that the Enlightenment destroyed Christianity as a valid worldview/philosophy option for any educated person. For example, the famous neo-orthodox theologian Rudolf Bultmann wrote, "It is impossible to use electric light and the wireless and to avail ourselves of modern medical and surgical discoveries, and at the same time to believe in the New Testament world of spirits and miracles." (<u>New Testament and Mythology</u>, 5)<br />
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While there is no question that the Enlightenment was the attempt to expose what its leaders believed was a religious myth called Christianity, we must remember that both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries saw the greatest numerical expansion of the global Christian church in human history, and that even in the West, the church has survived and in many places, thrived. Yet, we must ask, who is right? Are the skeptics correct that our scientific age has made religious belief impossible, or are the Christians right in saying that God is not dead? Could it be that the rapid growth of Christianity worldwide is just the death throws of a dying religion as it still holds sway over the superstitious who inhabit the Third World? After all, isn't the church shrinking in the West?<br />
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This is a huge question, too large for a single blog post, so I want to pare it down to look in very general terms at how the Christian church responded and continues to respond to the forces of the Enlightenment.<br />
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In the early years of the Enlightenment, the age of Voltaire, Rousseau, Hume, and Kant, the Evangelical church mostly ignored the world of philosophy and simply went about their business of preaching the Gospel. It is worth noting that the time of the revolutions (America, 1776 & French, 1789) and the heyday of philosophy (Hume & Kant), was also the time of the Great Awakening in both England and America. One of the significant results of these revivals was the birth and expansion of missions. A case can be made that one of the characteristics of all revivals is that they result in an increased involvement in missions both in numbers of missionaries and in support and engagement by the affected churches. For example, pietism (a revival in its own right) resulted in the Danish-Halle mission and the Moravians, and the Great Awakening gave us William Carey and the first American missionaries (sent around 1812) as part of the great wave of evangelical missions that marked the nineteenth century. In other words, while philosophers were attempting to deny the possibility of miracles and to debunk natural theology (nature reveals the existence of God), God was performing miracles in people's lives, calling them to take the Gospel to the ends of the earth, and enabling the incredible growth of the global church that continues to this day.<br />
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These two dramatic and historic movements almost literally were "like two ships passing in the night." Each one nearly oblivious to the other. At the time, the Great Awakening was more momentous and impacted the general population to a far greater extent that the Enlightenment. The Great Awakening produced dramatic social change in England and America, bringing prison reform, education and social reform, and the abolition of slavery to England, while dramatically shaping American culture and laying the ground work for the civil war and the end of slavery in America. Yet, the Enlightenment, born of philosophers and intellectuals, gained an ever increasing foothold in the academic institutions of the West. And, those who control the educational system, ultimately control the culture. Whether it was intentional or not, the forces of the Enlightenment were playing the long game.<br />
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By the middle of the twentieth century, all of the major Protestant denominations (Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist, & Episcopalian) had been coopted by theological liberalism and the majority of their churches ceased giving a clear and intentional proclamation of the gospel. They instead became centers of the "Social Gospel" as they advocated for an end to the social ills of racism, poverty, and inequality. This move toward liberalism created a strong backlash among the committed Christians within and outside these denominations. Many split off from the parent denominations to create conservative alternatives, such as the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). Others moved to the remaining conservative denominations such as the Baptists, various evangelical denominations, and the growing numbers of independent/interdenominational churches that were being established at this time. This was also the time of the Bible college movement as an alternative to secular universities and seminaries, along with the development of Christian radio, publishing, and other alternative institutions to serve the conservative Christian community. This was all part of a strategy of separation that has served to disenfranchise biblical Christianity from the larger society. And, whether we realized it or not, left evangelical Christianity an increasingly marginalized counter-culture with little or no voice in the larger American society.<br />
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One of the reasons for this strategy of separation was the belief that the solution to the growing secularism in America was revival. This view was actually founded on a good deal of historical evidence. American culture, literally from its founding had been periodically transformed and shaped by a series of significant revivals. As we already mentioned, the Great Awakening had a clear American component beginning with Jonathan Edwards, the preaching of George Whitefield in Boston, and the spread of the Methodist circuit riders across the frontier. A second major revival originated with Charles Finney in New England and the camp meetings in the South. Both of these movements had a visible impact on American culture, and were seen as examples of how important revival was to the spiritual and material well being of the society. It was to encourage, pray for, and work for revival that caused the church of this generation to separate from the larger culture.<br />
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There is certainly merit to this approach. In my lifetime, there have been at least two significant identifiable moves of God that impacted thousands of individuals and families. The first was the Jesus Movement of the 60s which profoundly impacted my generation. Many of my classmates at Bethany came to the Lord in this move of God. The second, that greatly impacted my family was the Charismatic movement in the Catholic, Lutheran, and Episcopal churches. The movement spread out beyond these denominations to have a significant impact on that generation. By this means, whole churches, families, and even communities were transformed.<br />
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But there is a fundamental difference between these recent revivals and those of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the older revivals affected the whole culture, while these later movements only affected some of the people in the culture while leaving the larger culture unchanged. There are several reasons for this reduced impact, but one of root causes was the dominance of secularism in the larger society. As a result, many of the beliefs and values that were held in common by Christians and non-Christians alike in previous generations we no longer held in common, and this disconnect makes it increasingly difficult to share the Gospel with people today. As James Davison Hunter has argued the grass-roots approach to cultural change is very difficult and ineffective, and that recent history shows that the groups that made the effort to dominate the institutions of influence (education, law, media, and politics) have come to hold sway over American society. We already cited the control of American seminaries by liberal theologians. We also see the ways that the leftist student radicals (who were radicalized by the leftist professors of that generation such as Herbert Marcuse) of the 60s earned their Ph.D.s, thus leftist politics came to dominate our colleges and law schools for the past several generations. This is part of the reason there is such a large disconnect between our Christian values and the values of the larger society in our day.<br />
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I wish there was an easy answer to this serious problem. There is not. We certainly need to pray. We also need to recognize that we are a counter-culture, and act accordingly (and unappolgetically) in defending and living out our values. And we need to share our faith whenever and wherever we can, knowing that Jesus' call to be salt and light surely applies to our dark and thirsty time.<br />
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<br />Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02083511689909853826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5102345806482065959.post-40544853904681898802014-07-13T20:01:00.000-07:002014-07-15T06:10:28.903-07:00The Islamic Reformation IIIn my last post I examined the development of the current state of affairs in the Muslim world with the intent of asking what might bring about a change for the better, and how they might be willing to lay down their animosity and violence toward the non-Muslim world. Many who have looked at this problem concluded that Islam needs a "Reformation." But those who say this, are thinking of the Protestant Reformation that not only changed the Christian church, it changed Western civilization, and opened the door to many of the blessings of freedom, equality, rule of law, and prosperity that we enjoy today. No less an authority than Max Weber, who coined the phrase "Protestant work-ethic" has described the positive impact that Reformation teaching had upon Northern Europe and the United States. As Ibrahim stated in his article, "How Christianity and Islam can follow similar patterns of reform but with antithetical results rests in the fact that their scriptures are often antithetical to one another." (Front Page Magazine, "Islam's Protestant Reformation") The reason that the Protestant Reformation brought about so many of the blessings of modern culture is that is was based on the principles of scripture: the rule of law, all men equal before God, the importance of personal integrity, the sanctity of marriage, and the sanctity of human life. Not to mention the need for checks and balances on governmental power (because of human sin) and the call to the use of wealth and power for compassionate, charitable purposes. We could also add universal education and the end of feudalism to this list of contributions. Many have assumed that the modern West is the result of the Enlightenment, when, in fact, it was the product of the Reformation. This is not to say the Enlightenment didn't have a role, it did. For instance we got our emphasis on the "consent of the governed" from Rousseau as well as the clause about the necessity of revolution in the affairs of a state. But our emphasis on God given rights (natural rights) and the need for checks and balances in the division of our branches of government, along with our understanding that freedom can only be granted to self-governing men, thus the founders emphasized the freedom of religion. All one need to do to establish that the United States did not originate from the Enlightenment is to compare the American Revolution and its documents with the French Revolution and its documents (and results).<br />
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Islam had nothing like this. In going back to its roots, it had to reject what Ibrahim describes as the "medieval synthesis" (developed in an attempt to make Islam compatible with practical society). He writes, "While the medieval synthesis worked over the centuries, it never overcame a fundamental weakness: It was not comprehensively rooted in or derived from the foundational texts of Islam. Based on compromises and half-measures, it always remained vulnerable to challenge by the purists." (Ibrahim is quoting Daniel Pipes here) Islam's original documents take it back to Sharia Law and Jihad.<br />
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So what might bring about a transformation of the Islamic world? First, it will not come from outside of Islam. While attempts in significant academic circles to present historical, philosophical, and theological criticism of Islam by Western scholars would be helpful. Its assistance would be to give reason and voice to intellectuals within the Islamic world.<br />
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It seems to me that Islam needs to face, not a reformation but an enlightenment. I have often wondered where is the Islamic Voltaire, Hobbes, Spinoza, or Diderot? In the current environment within the Muslim world, they are in hiding. They dare not speak for fear of certain death. There are some voices, we have already mentioned them, Salmon Rushdie and Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Yet even in the West, they must live in seclusion. The world will need many more of these brave souls, and we must support and encourage them as we can.<br />
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It is guaranteed that this process will be bloody. It will require exposing the texts and teachings of Islam to the kind of brutal criticism that was directed at the Bible in the late nineteenth century. It will seek to separate fact from fiction, and include something like the search for the historical Jesus only directed at the Prophet. As we might imagine, entire societies would be up in arms at such questioning of their fundamental teachings. Just look at what happened when a series of cartoons depicting the Prophet were published. It will take a monumental shift within Islam for such a process to even be contemplated. But in some ways, the current crisis with its terrible brutality and now the desecration of churches, mosques, and holy sites has the potential of turning many in the general population away from this terrible extremism, and cause some to even question the tenets of their faith.<br />
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A natural question that arises from my two posts is where is the Sunni-Shia divide in this description of the Islamic revival. Both of these factions have contributed to the revival, and in many ways, the revival has deepened the animosity between them. One of the notable elements of the recent Iraq war was the amount of Sunni and Shia violence against each other, not to mention the increased persecution of the ancient Christian communities in the region. It is part of what is disconcerting about this so called revival of Islam, it has deepened ancient animosities and produced unprecedented violence.<br />
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We must say that our concern is for the Muslim people along with all the peoples living in the Middle East. Our hope must be that the Muslim world itself will rise up and oppose the brutality and evil that is being perpetrated in the name of Islam. We must remember that one of the factors that contributed to the Enlightenment was the deep revulsion among European intellectuals at the terrible bloodshed in the post-Reformation wars that devastated Europe. Our hope must be that the awful violence that we see today will invoke a similar reaction in the Muslim world. Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02083511689909853826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5102345806482065959.post-25444917052508278242014-07-06T14:41:00.000-07:002014-07-06T14:41:38.088-07:00ISIS and the Islamic ReformationIn this post I want to change the subject a bit. I have been talking about the misuse of science in our political debates, and now I want to talk about what is happening in the Muslim world. The reason for the change of topic is a recent article published on the Front Page website by Raymond Ibrahim (June 30, 2014) entitled, "Islam's 'Protestant Reformation.'" Mr. Ibrahim makes the very important point that contrary to popular opinion, Islam <u>does not</u> need a "reformation" such as that which transformed the Christian church in the 16th century. Islam has, in fact, undergone just this process of reform, of returning to its original documents and taking them literally in theory and in practice. It is just this return to the Koran and the Hadiths that explains the difference between the two "reformations," one was a return to the truths of the Bible and the other to the warrior religion of Islam. It is just this return to its original beliefs and practices that has led to the current crisis we face today.<br />
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Mr. Ibrahim is right, of course. By the end of the nineteenth century, there were two competing forces at work in the Islamic world which at the time was dominated by the Ottoman Empire. One impulse was a desire to modernize Islamic societies and take advantage of the tremendous benefits of industrialization, modern education, and representative democratic governance. A significant number of Muslim academics and political leaders held to this point of view in the first half of the twentieth century. But there was also a very powerful reactionary movement that rejected what it considered the anti-Islamic forces of secularism and decadence. At first, the reactionary movement was small but it amassed a deeply loyal following. It produced the salafist movement, Wahhabi Islam (Saudi Arabia), and the Muslim Brotherhood (Egypt). These all began as protest movements which opposed the rapprochement with the West expressed by the many governments in the Islamic world who were trying to advance their nations into the developed world.<br />
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History as we know it might have been different except for three very important events. First, in the very core of Islam, in the land of Mohammed and of Mecca and Medina, came the discovery of the largest petroleum reserve the world had ever known. Saudi Arabia had already separated itself from both the Ottoman Empire and Western colonial rule, and existed as a tribal monarchy defined in no small part by its embrace of wahhabism. As the protector of the holy sites and the destination for the Haj (pilgrimage to Mecca), which is an obligation for all Muslims, it needed to be the champion of Islamic purity and so the embrace of a return to the Koran and the beliefs and practices of the Prophet clearly fit Saudi Arabia's role in global Islam. But with its vast oil revenues, it possessed wealth and power that enabled it to influence the rest of the Islamic world, to build mosques, and fund wahhabist madrassas around the world.<br />
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Even this would not have been enough to produce the global resurgence of Islam that we see today, were it not for two more extremely significant events: the overthrow of the Shah in Iran. The Shah was one of the most prominent examples of an Islamic leader who desired to modernize and industrialize his nation. Like Ataturk in Turkey before him, he was trying to model his vision for Iran after the Western powers. No one should argue that he was an enlightened monarch, he attempted to use repression in imposing his will on the Iranian people, but neither should we lose sight of the fact that he wanted to move ancient Persia into the twentieth century.<br />
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The changes that the Shah wanted to make to Iranian society were bitterly opposed by a group of conservative clerics led by the Ayatollah Khomeini who was sent off into exile in France. In exile, he developed his manifesto for an Islamic revolution and an Islamic state. His sermons in exile were smuggled back into Iran, and he became the leader of a large revolutionary movement that ended in the overthrow of the Shah and the establishment of an Islamic government ruled by the leading clerics of Iran with Khomeini as the "Grand Ayatollah."<br />
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This momentous event had a profound affect on the rest of the Muslim world. It, in effect, demonstrated that "it could be done," that is a nation leaning toward the West could be transformed by a popular uprising and restored to Islamic purity. I remember the rhetoric of the mostly young radicals of the 80s who had been captivated by the "revolution." They clearly saw the possibility of a "pure" Islamic society ruled by Sharia Law, and that became their dream. Even though the revolution had produced the terrible hostage crisis at the American embassy in Tehran, many in the West were, at least, supportive of the goal of the revolution: the overthrow of Western influence in the Islamic world. They saw this influence as a form of colonialism, and while they didn't necessarily support (or even understand) the underlying ideology/theology, they supported the ends. This is why you see so many Western academics (Orientalists, anti-colonialists, etc.) who either openly support or are silent about groups like Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, or Hamas. They see them through revolutionary eyes, and for many of them, the end justifies the means, just as they tacitly supported the Viet Cong and the PLO in the sixties.<br />
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The other event that shaped today's movement was the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. It marked the restoration of the "mujahedeen," the holy warriors and became a modern example of Jihad, and a successful Jihad at that. It also contributed to the sense that the restoration of the glory of Islam was possible. It further enabled all of the skills necessary for global recruitment, training, equipping, and funding of Holy War. It was in Afghanistan that Bin Laden learned what was needed to create Al Qaeda and to attack the United States. These skills have produced all the vast terror networks that we confront across the world today.<br />
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If we add all these things together, we see that what has produced all of the "movements" that we see today, Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, Boko Haram, Al Shabab, and now ISIS, are a product of a deeply reactionary desire to return to the purity of Islam as it was originally practiced, and with the vast amount of wealth and influence that has arisen at the very core of the Islamic world, they have the resources to do it. This turn of events is the Islamic version of the Reformation. Muslims, however, do not call it that, to them this is nothing less than an Islamic revival and many of them see it as a great re-awakening of Islam. This is why so many of the people on the so-called "Arab street" considered Osama Ben Laden a hero. His vision of Islam on the rise has captured the imagination of many in the Muslim world, and while many don't support the means, most agree with the ends.<br />
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This raises two related questions: where do "moderate" Muslims fit into this equation and if this is "reformed" Islam, how can we hope to see an end to the radicalism and violence that predominates in the Muslim world? In other words, if a reformation hasn't been able to bring the Islamic world into the larger family of nations, what will?<br />
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The Islamic revival of the past forty years has overwhelmed all or most of the moderate voices within the Muslim world. Only in the West do you see Muslims or former Muslims willing and able to criticize the current drive toward Islamic purity. There have been some statements opposing some aspects of Islamic terrorism by journalists and clerics in the Muslim world, but they are relatively mild and ineffective. In the instances where politicians have taken steps toward social and educational reform, they have often paid with their lives (as in Pakistan in the past few years). Even for those living in the West, it is dangerous to criticize Islam. The first, and most famous, example was Salman Rushdie whose heretical writings put a literal price on his head. Recently we have seen the forced exile of Ayaan Hirsi Ali for her cooperation on the film critical of Islam that resulted in the assassination of Theodore Van Gough in Holland. After Van Gough's death, she was forced to flee to the United States in order to escape the same fate. If these critics of Islam don't feel safe in Western nations, imagine how difficult it must be to criticize Islam in Africa or the Middle East. But, and this is what I want to discuss in my next post (next week), how, apart from this type of criticism from within, will Islam be able to change, develop pluralistic and tolerant societies, or just even co-exist with the modern world?Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02083511689909853826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5102345806482065959.post-26667393160086857352014-06-22T20:06:00.001-07:002014-06-22T20:06:54.014-07:00Political ScienceAnthropological Global Warming (AGW) is the current cause celeb of the environmental movement. It is the new acid rain or urban smog, something that must be remedied no matter what the cost. As a result, the rhetoric and tactics used to defend the anti-carbon agenda betray a definite "the-end-justifies-the-means" agenda. We live in an era when science has been politicized and made to support a specific ideological agenda. Whatever one's view about global warming or climate change, the way the issue has been "debated" in the various public forums should be of great concern. When supporters of active intervention to reduce carbon emissions call their opponents "climate deniers," or accuse them of being "anti-science," we recognize that we are not watching a reasoned discussion. Rather, we are watching a political brawl and a fight for power and control.<br />
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Steven Hayward's recent article in the Weekly Standard gives an example of this politicized "debate." He tells of the trials of a Swedish climate scientist who had the temerity to join the board of an organization that was willing to question the science behind AGW. Once his decision became public, he was inundated with denunciations which included threats to his career. Hayward quotes Lin-Art Bergtsson as he reflected on this experience. "In response to a query about the pressure campaign, Bengtsson declined to offer more detail, emailing only that 'the field of climate change has been politically distorted to a degree that I was not aware of. I very much regret this, as I am afraid that this is harming the scientific independence of climate research and perhaps for science in general.'"<a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/climate-cultists_794401.html?page=3">http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/climate-cultists_794401.html?page=3</a> <br />
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Bergtsson's statement expresses the current state of the argument over AGW, it is without question "politically distorted" and stands as a powerful example of the ways that "science" can be used to further a political agenda. But global warming is not the first time that science has been enlisted in a political and ideological cause. Science was marshaled to support eugenics, racial superiority (Nazis), and dialectical materialism (Marxism). While the proper use of science and technology has been of great benefit to mankind, the political use of science has been, at best, counter productive. This is the reason that I am, in the main, suspicious of the alarmism associated with global warming (a.k.a. "Climate Change"), it is attempting to use "science" in order to silence its critics and achieve its political agenda.<br />
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The "great grand-daddy" of politicized science is the theory of evolution. It may not have been the first instance, but it certainly has been one of the most pronounced and prolonged efforts to silent opponents and sustain the political influence necessary to maintain its centrality to the modern secular worldview. As a I said in my last post, evolution is essential to the secular-naturalistic explanation of the universe and life. If evolution were ever seriously questioned and abandoned, we would be required by sheer logic to return to the argument from design. The great appeal of evolution to its proponents has always been that it explains the appearance of design in the world without having to say that this design requires a supernatural designer. If we take away evolution, we are left with the necessity of a supernatural designer. This is the reason the theory is so tenaciously defended, and the reason its counterpart, creationism and intelligent design, are not allowed to be taught in our public schools. It also explains why important critics and their books are denigrated as being "anti-science" or "religious" (meaning anti-intellectual and anti-modern).<br />
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This all appears to be the result of the influence of postmodern thought among our academics. Evolution precedes postmodernism by at least a century, yet it anticipated many of the uses of propaganda and the manipulation of evidence that we see in the global warming debate today. I would like to say more about postmodernism in the future, but for now I will just cite a statement given by Roger Kimball in the New Criterion (The essay is entitled "The Contemporary Sophist.") He writes, the postmodern project is, "a deliberate attempt to supplant reason by rhetoric, truth by persuasion. This would be bad enough if it were confined to literary texts; extended to legal texts and basic political concepts like justice, it is nothing short of disastrous." In making "truth" political (the postmodern project), it becomes a tool of manipulation for the maintenance of power and influence. The problem is that there is such a thing as truth without quotation marks, and if the "truth" is not actually true, then we can expect the disastrous results that Mr. Kimball speaks of. In the very long run of things, the folly of these ideologies are ultimately exposed, but in the mean time they are capable of terrible amounts of damage. We must, those of us who know the truth, expose the fallacies and deceptive arguments that are used to foist these beliefs and the political agenda that goes with them upon our society. We live in a dangerous age, when one of the most respected sources for the advancement of knowledge; science, has been co-opted and misused for political and ideological purposes. We must recognize this for what it is, an attempt to intimidate and to impose a set of ideological agendas upon us, and we must not stand for it. Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02083511689909853826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5102345806482065959.post-57808559544732506462014-05-24T20:10:00.000-07:002014-05-24T20:10:23.370-07:00The Root of Our Secular TreeIn spite of the recent Supreme Court ruling allowing the use of sectarian prayer at the opening of public meetings, we clearly remain a secular society. In many ways the case accentuates how deeply secularism rules our culture. First, it expresses the extent to which the opponents of any public religious activity hold sway over even minor, largely token events such as prayers in local council meetings. Remember, this ruling was to overturn a ruling in a lower court that outlawed the prayers. Second, this was a split decision with 5 justices for and 4 justices opposed. This fact, coupled with the large number of lower court rulings that have so deeply entrenched secularism into our legal understanding, is an expression of how many of the best and the brightest of our lawyers, judges, and legal scholars view secularism as the default position of our constitutional republic. Even those who were part of the majority in this decision, hold to the validity of the current Supreme Court precedent that restricts public religious displays, the so-called, "Lemmon Test." To the secularists, this was just a small bump on the road to the elimination of all public expressions of religion.<br />
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In my book, I give s short summary of how secularism has come to dominate the academic and intellectual fields in the West. We are a secular nation, because the colleges and universities that teach each generation of teachers, lawyers, scholars, engineers, and scientists promote an entirely naturalistic worldview. One of the central motivations for writing my book was the need to give a reasonable answer to the two most influential philosophers of the Enlightenment; David Hume (miracles are impossible) and Immanuel Kant (human reason can't be used to answer the ultimate questions of life). And yes, these two are often sited by current intellectuals as the final authorities in regard to the existence of God and whether there are absolute moral values.<br />
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While these two thinkers have been very influential, there is another who has been even more significant to the cause of secularism. In fact, without his central idea, secularism could never have become the dominant worldview in Western society. I am referring, of course, to Charles Darwin and the theory of evolution. As I wrote in my book, "It would be Darwin's books that finally made the difference in the battle of ideologies. His theory on the origin of species seemed to provide a natural explanation for the biological world's complexity and order. He gave a purely cause-and-effect explanation for the appearance of design and he implied that design does not necessitate a designer." (Shetler, 46) By this means he provided a non-supernatural explanation for what could previously only be explained by divine creation. It is no wonder, then, that his theory is the linchpin to a secular worldview. And because of its importance to secularism, it is tenaciously defended from any and all challenges.<br />
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In 1966 at the Wistar Institute at the University of Pennsylvania a group of mathematicians, engineers, and a computer scientist debated some of the leading biologists of the day concerning the mathematical and scientific problems with the theory of evolution. One of the truly remarkable aspects of the debate was the level to which the biologists ignored or denied the data and questions raised by the mathematicians and engineers. They were philosophically and even ideologically dedicated to the theory of evolution, and were not even open to the questions being raised by the mathematicians and engineers. For example, when one of the engineers pointed out the extremely low probability, and therefore, the unlikely prospect for the chance development of some of the complex systems seen in many organisms such as eyesight, one of the biologists said, "The problem is that you have left out evolution." For this scientist, evolution was not a theory to tested and examined to see if it is true or not. It is, rather, a dogma to be believed, because really, there is no naturalistic alternative to this theory. It is evolution or nothing, or rather something even more unthinkable, creation.<br />
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It is very important that we recognize the place that the theory of evolution holds in our society. It is the central myth of secularism. It is why nothing that contradicts it can be taught in our public schools. It is why even degreed scientists who hold to intelligent design are called "pseudo-scientists" or "creationists" and their writings are ignored or denigrated. Evolution must be protected from all opponents and opposition. It must prevail lest we open the door to faith.<br />
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In the next few posts I plan to "take on" the theory of evolution and to deal not just with the arguments for and against, but to look at methods that evolutionists going back to Darwin himself have used to defend the theory. I think that we will see that for all the claims of being based on science, evolution has a number of serious fallacies that are either denied or ignored. They are denied or ignored because evolution is the only way to explain the world and life without having to say that God made it.Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02083511689909853826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5102345806482065959.post-34029123231941529622014-04-30T19:41:00.000-07:002014-04-30T19:41:59.715-07:00So How Do We Take A Stand?As I said in my last post, we Christians must defend our faith in this deeply secular age, not just for the sake of the church but for the sake of the society. As an example, Charles Murray has a wonderful article in the Wall Street Journal today (3/30/2014) in which he gives young people some practical advice for living a happy life. Murray is well aware of the widespread unbelief that infects the millennial generation. His advice to this group includes getting married and staying married because you found your soul mate. In other words, the road to a happy life follows the ancient path of love and marriage, not the modern path of the "hook-up" culture. Even more radical than his advice about love is his advice to this generation to consider the religious path. In this regard, he advises young men and women who have been socialized into a secular worldview to give religion a serious look, implying that there is something legitimate and beneficial to be found there. He is actually in the process of taking his own advice. His wife began attending Quaker meetings a few years ago and he, a skeptic, has joined her. He's right, of course, faith is one of the unheralded secrets to a happy life and he is beginning the process of considering the claims of Christ himself. In giving this advice, he is not engaging in theology or apologetics, he is merely appealing to common sense.<br />
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Murray is a good example of how we, as Christians, can stand up for our faith in Christ in this postmodern age. First, we can and should appeal to traditional wisdom; it is not as out of favor as we think. Even if common sense isn't politically correct, it still has the power of human reason and experience behind it. There is also an intuitive element involved in this process. We "know" these things are true even if we cannot always rationally explain why they are true.<br />
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Francis Schaeffer often pointed out the contradiction between the beliefs of many of the leaders of modern thought and the choices they made in their lives and relationships. For instance, they may believe there are no moral absolutes or that mankind is just a species of animal, but they love and care for their children, teaching them to be polite, honest, and caring, and would never think of equating those children with their household pets. In other words, there is a part of our lives where the so called traditional values are assumed to be true. They are, in fact, a profound part of our humanity. It is the reason that secularists deeply oppose racism or child abuse without so much as a thought that this might contradict their philosophy. Their anger at injustice is not an expression of their philosophy, it is an expression of their humanity.<br />
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Second, we do not always need to engage in a deep and formal argument with those who deny the faith. In part, because those who reject Christian beliefs often don't base their rejection on those philosophical arguments. Those arguments primarily serve as rationalizations or excuses for their unbelief. Their "beef" with Christianity is usually more personal than philosophical.<br />
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An example of a good "answer" to skeptics is Jesus response to the cynicism of the Saducees in Mark 12. The Sadducees were the "skeptics" of that era, they denied a resurrection on philosophical grounds, thus their mockery of the teaching of the resurrection in their question about the widow of seven brothers. What is interesting is that Jesus didn't indulge their skepticism and engage their specific question, at least as his first response. He simply asked a rhetorical question, "Is this not the reason you are mistaken..." There is a sense that even they knew that they were wrong. Jesus was not being dismissive or engaging in ad hominem, he was appealing to common sense and common wisdom. God exists and there is life after death. I remember reading a written debate on the existence of God in which Kai Nielsen argued the atheist position. Nielsen attempted to say that the burden of proof was on the Theistic side because empiricism made atheism the default conclusion of human experience. It was a novel approach considering that the complexity of human experience has led a majority of the human race to the opposite conclusion. And this is spite of the fact that God can't be seen, felt, or heard with the physical senses. The wonder of creation and the complexity of the human soul have, throughout history, placed the burden of proof on atheism. As Mircea Eliade, the famous scholar of world religions said, "Mankind is incurably religious."<br />
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Jesus went on to explain why the Sadducees were mistaken, "You do not understand the Scriptures or the power of God." As our culture demonstrates, with its dismissal of the Bible, it is possible to profoundly underestimate the wisdom found in the Word of God. In the case of the Sadducees, it was a superficial view of the resurrection, while in our era it is a loss of the awareness of moral responsibility (sin) and the holiness of God. In other words, it is not that the skeptics of the past and of today criticize Scripture from an intimate knowledge of its content, but rather from a shallow and often distorted understanding of its teachings. One of the points that Murray makes in his appeal to the youth of today is that they must give religion a serious examination. He encourages them to read Aquinas, Augustine, or C.S. Lewis. I would add that they should read the Gospel of John and continue on into the rest of the New Testament. We can be assured, the word of God contains the wisdom of God.<br />
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As skeptics, the Sadducees lacked faith. For them, and the same could be said of skeptics today, God was an abstraction. They had no sense of His personal involvement in the world and much less in their lives. Dr. Craig Keener has written an incredible two-volume study of the evidence for miracles. The book is a powerful description of the very real power of God to heal and to save. One of the stated intentions of the book is to contradict the anti-supernatural bias that we see in many Western intellectuals. And while he presents many of the logical fallacies that underlie the argument against miracles, the strength of the book is the vast number of documented miracles substantiated by eyewitness testimony and actual medical evidence. His book stands as a modern testimony to the power of God.<br />
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So, what is my point? It seems to me that we don't always have to go into a detailed explanation of what we believe and why we believe it. I sometimes wonder if that is not the reason that for all of the many books on apologetics and theology, we appear to have so little impact on our culture. There are times when we should not be afraid to simply state the obvious and call men to simple faith. In the same way, it is appropriate for us to appeal to the better impulses in people, as well as their innate and often unconscious longing for God, as Charles Murray did. This does not mean that there is no need for apologetics or theology, they are very important for the process of deepening our understanding after we've made our first steps toward God. In other words, we must appeal to a man's heart before we will have the opportunity to reach his head. Often, a few simple truths spoken with conviction can be the means by which we let our light shine in this dark world.<br />
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<br />Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02083511689909853826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5102345806482065959.post-3308580823010117242014-03-10T18:55:00.000-07:002014-03-12T18:14:54.544-07:00Are We Becoming Nihilists?In my first years of teaching at BCOM I wrote a letter to the Minneapolis Star and Tribune (which they did not publish) expressing a concern that has only increased over the years and has, in many ways, become a life cause. It certainly stands as one of the central motivations for the writing of my book. The concern is that we in the West, whether we know it or not, are rejecting God and embracing nihilism. The consequences will be disastrous for our culture.<br />
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At the time I wrote the letter (1992) I chose the word "nihilism" for its shock value, and to confront my generation with the ultimate consequences of the secularism that had come to dominate our society. In thinking of the present state of our culture one is reminded of Nietzsche's "Parable of the Madman" (quoted on page 55 of my book) in which the madman attempts to warn his audience of the perils of their unspeakable crime: they have murdered God. As the madman sees that his warnings are falling on deaf ears, he laments that he has come too early, before the consequences of the loss of God are evident to all. We are just like Nietzsche's fictitious audience. We have tossed God off the stage of our culture and have no idea of the terrible price we will have to pay for this crime. We consider ourselves "educated" and "scientific," and all the while we are planting the seeds of our own destruction. What we fail to see are the damages directly tied to our rejection of religious influence. We fail to see that we are undermining our values and culture, and that we are planting the seeds of the destruction of Western civilization. Contrary to our perceptions, we are not embracing a scientific and humane worldview, but rather a deeply nihilistic philosophy that has the power to take us into an age of darkness.<br />
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Historically the word "nihilism" arose with the agnosticism that marked the later phases of the enlightenment. It is often associated with the German philosopher Fredrick Nietzsche because of his reference to the death of God in Western thought and his emphasis on the will to power. He actually recognized the nihilistic problem and sought to solve it by creating a powerful philosopher king, the superman, who would give stability and order to the world. As a philosophy, nihilism is the belief in nothing; no God and no purpose, value, or significance of anyone or anything. In nihilism, life is a meaningless absurdity. Albert Camus was a French existentialist (existentialism was also an attempt to escape the nihilist dilemma) but he described nihilism perfectly, "If we believe in nothing, if nothing has any meaning and if we can affirm no values whatsoever, then everything is possible and nothing has any importance. There is not pro or con: the murderer is neither right nor wrong. We are free to stoke the crematory fires or to devote ourselves to the care of lepers. Evil and virtue are mere chance or caprice" (see page 60 of my book).<br />
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When we look at this definition, we can understand why most observers of our culture would disagree with calling Western culture nihilistic. We, after all, believe in values and meaning. Our politicians repeatedly speak of right and wrong, of our moral obligation to the poor, and our responsibility to future generations. But as I said in my letter to the editor over twenty years ago, there is another definition of nihilism. It was stated by Dostoyevsky in <em>The Brothers Karamozov, </em>"If God does not exist, then everything is permitted." It is this definition of nihilism that describes our culture, and stands as the means by which we are undermining the foundations upon which it stands.<br />
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The goal of our culture, founded on our official creed of secularism, is to allow everything to be permitted. We consider this approach "tolerant" and modern without ever asking what will be the long term effects of the "hook-up" culture and the continuing degradation of our public and private moral standards. We are already seeing the devastation caused by the rise in single parent families which is the single greatest determinant for lack of achievement in school, drug use, gang membership, criminal behavior, and inter-generational poverty for the children born in those households. This problem is already at crisis levels, and yet we see our culture becoming more and more coarse. One need only look at the tragic saga of Mylie Cyrus to see how we are progressively pushing the envelope of decency and decorum. And, we must ask, to what end? Are we not moving ever closer to the day when "everything is permitted?<br />
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Here's the great irony in all of this. America is still one of most religious nations in the world. The vast majority of Americans tell survey takers that they believe in God, yet our society grows ever more decadent. One can only assume that our faith has been separated from our actions, and while we profess belief in God, many people live as if He does not exist. It is important, therefore, for those of us who do take our faith seriously to take a stand, not just for moral values, but for the God who gave us those values. As I wrote in my letter long ago, "Belief in God - the personal, redemptive God of Christianity- formed the foundation of our civilization. Our belief in God is directly related to our fundamental belief in goodness. We simply cannot have the good without God." Christians, therefore, must defend their faith in this secular age not just for the sake of the church but even more for the sake of our nation.Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02083511689909853826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5102345806482065959.post-36490042607572211432013-12-25T10:32:00.001-08:002013-12-25T10:32:56.305-08:00A Christmas Manifesto<br />
It's that special time of year when we again feel the heat (but alas, not the light) of the "War on Christmas." Far be it from me to jump into the middle of that grudge match. But, I do want to talk about the larger issue the controversy raises. With the rising concern about income inequality, we often hear of "two Americas." And while this phrase is normally used to describe the separation between rich and poor, it can also be used to express the growing gulf between the religious and the non-religious in our society. Since the 1960's the non-religious minority has become more aggressive in asserting its "right" to not be exposed to the symbols, prayers, and scriptures of the majority religion in America: Christianity.<br />
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In my book, I discuss the influence of this growing minority. Beginning in the 1960's, they took legal action, demanding the right to not be exposed to religious messages. These cases went all the way to the Supreme Court, and were decided in their favor. The immediate result was the prohibition of prayer and Bible reading in American public schools. Further cases have resulted in the elimination of any religious messages or displays on public property. And the present standard that is considered constitutional precedent is what is called, "the Lemmon Test," based on the Supreme Court decision to order the removal of a public display of the Ten Commandments at a county courthouse. As I described the thinking behind this decision in my book, "The judicial standard for American courts is no longer the <em>establishment</em> of a state religion. It has now become a vague accusation of <em>encouragement</em> or <em>endorsement</em> of religion. The state, according to this new definition must be completely secular-that is, there cannot be a religious bone in the body politic of society. We must be clear<em>: this is not what our constitution </em>says. We have put words in its mouth, or, worse yet, changed its wording altogether. Establishment and encouragement are two very different things. Establishment is the creation of a state-supported institution: encouragement is simply approving of a practice, idea, or activity" (Shetler, 128).<br />
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If we examine the writings of many of the founders of our nation, they were profoundly on the side of the encouragement of religion. One of the most famous examples is the statement made by John Adams in 1798, "We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." In all honesty, these words describe perfectly the present condition of our society, and clarify what is actually at stake in the controversy.<br />
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There is another, distinctly American aspect to this approach to the influence of religion on society. Patrick Henry gave a speech in 1765 in which he said, "This nation was founded, not by religionists but by Christians; not on religion but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this reason, peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here." We might add, that the freedom of worship also implies the freedom to not worship, and to hold a non-religious view of the world. We are a nation built on the principle of freedom of conscience, and we must continue to honor that ideal. However, we cannot, for the sake of our children and grandchildren, allow a non-religious minority to impose its view upon a nation whose freedoms and values have been shaped by the influence of very religious worldview they oppose. Note, that this is not a call to impose religion on the non-religious, nor to dis-respect their freedom to believe and express those beliefs in the marketplace of ideas. It is rather a call to recognize what is at stake in this controversy, and to see that very values and freedoms we cherish are at risk in allowing a strict secularism to be imposed on American society.<br />
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In future posts, I intend to examine this cultural shift more closely in the hope that by understanding how we got into this mess, we can see a pathway out. America has been a unique experiment in human freedom and prosperity. It is built upon an ideal, and like all societies, has often not lived up to that ideal. But in its more than two hundred years of history, it has been more effective at delivering the goods of individual freedom and prosperity than any nation in history. We would be wise, therefore, to carefully consider the consequences before making wholesale changes to the fundamental assumptions upon which this nation was built, and to allow religion and specifically Christianity a place of continuing influence upon our society.<br />
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Merry Christmas to all, and may God bless this coming New Year. Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02083511689909853826noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5102345806482065959.post-66566272684761091012012-08-11T07:26:00.000-07:002012-08-11T07:37:37.231-07:00The "Crazy" MemeOne of the strategies of the Left in this election cycle is to paint their opponents, whether the Tea Party or social conservatives, as "crazy." So what are the specifics of this charge? Are we really off our rocker in our desire for smaller, more effective, and less intrusive government? And, does wanting to see our deeply held values reflected in our nation's policies make us certifiably insane?<br />
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First, they seem to be saying that we're crazy because we want to reduce taxes. Conservatives are accused of following the insane demands of Grover Norquist, and thus are really and truly nuts. The irony is that it would be hard to find, in the land of poltics, a more soft-spoken, articulate, and rational defender of his positions than Grover Norquist. As he says repeatedly, the problem with our economy is not that taxes are too low, but that government spending is too high. And he has the statistics and facts to back it up. Listening to the man you see that he is anything but a raving demagogue, he is a man devoted to solving one of the greatest problems facing our society: excessive government spending that will produce deficits and debts that will be all consuming and destroy our economy.<br />
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The essence of the Democratic argument against the Republicans and the Tea Party is that they only want to reduce taxes for the rich and thus increase the deficit while destroying the middle class. But those of us on the conservative side of this argument don't see lowering taxes as our primary purpose, our concern is out of control government spending and utterly ineffective government bureauracracy. We are sick of seeing our taxes wasted on programs and projects that don't work. We really want some measure of accountability and the possiblity of reforming or eliminating counter-productive government programs.<br />
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Call me crazy, but which of the competing political parties is addressing the existential threat facing our econmy, and which is living in the denial of "business as usual"? For over a decade, David Walker, the former comptroller of the U.S., has been warning us of the dangers of our ballooning deficits and growing entitlement obligations. The only party that is seeking to find a workable solution to this pending disaster are those wacky Republicans.<br />
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So many of the impediments to economic growth that we are facing today are tied to the size and scope of government, as well as with how much money our government spends (40% of which is borrowed). From George W. Bush's attempt to reform Social Security to Paul Ryan's plan to bring Medicare and Medicaid costs under control, it is the Democrats who are refusing to cooperate in finding a way out of our debt and deficit crisis. They claim, of course, that they want a "balanced" approach to deficit reduction, which means they want to raise taxes on wealthy Americans. The problem is, they have no plan, or even intention, for reducing spending and reforming entitlements. There is no equivalent to a Paul Ryan or David Walker on the Left. In past years, we had serious statemen such a Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Evan Bayh among the Democrats willing to tackle the serious social and economic problems we face. Even Bill Clinton demonstrated an understanding of these serious problems and was willing to work with the Republican congress in his second term to make progress in balancing the budget, reducing investment taxes, and enabling economic growth. I see no one on the blue side of the aisle that is willing to propose a serious solution to our debt, deficit, and unsustainable entitlements. Just look at what the Democratic governors of California and Illinois are doing in response the terrible economic condition of their states, they seem to have no capacity for thinking outside the progressive box.<br />
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The crazy meme is part of the strategy of the Left to demagogue its oponents rather than engage in a real debate over the issues of the day. It's almost as if, the liberal mindset assumes that anything the Right is concerned about can't actually be a problem. It is a symptom of the level of disregard liberalism shows toward anyone and anything Conservative. The Left really is convinced that its intentions are so noble and egalitarian that to oppose them means you no sense of decency. It is this sense, that their opponents are evil and not just wrong, that justifies their desire to silence, outlaw, and eliminate those on the other side. Chick-fil-A is just the latest rendition of this strategy. It also contributes to their unwillingness to seriously engage with Conservatives on the issues of the day, after all, those Republicans are crazy.<br />
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We heard lots of talk about bi-partisanship in the 2008 election season, but now, not so much. It still stands as an important part of the process, we really must find solutions that have broad political and public support. There is a reason the Affordable Care Act received no Republican support, it included nothing that expressed their deeply held concerns about rising health care costs nor were any of their proposals such as tort reform, health savings accounts, and true insurance reform included in the legislation.<br />
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We have become so polarized that the only way for a political party to get its agenda passed, is to gain control of both houses of Congress and the Presidency. The Democrats set this pace beginning in 2006 and culminating with the election of Barak Obama in 2008. I believe they squandered their opportunity by being so overtly ideological in pushing the major item on the progressive agenda, universal health care. In this election, we see many Conservatives pushing for the completion of the 2010 Tea Party Revolution with a truly conservative Congress and a Republican President in 2012. Only then will we be able to acheive the major goals (tax reform, reduced spending, and efforts toward a balanced budget). The question for the American people will be, do these pet projects of the Republican party really work to solve the terrible economic problems we face? As a conservative, I believe they will, but I also understand that we cannot ignore many of the legitimate concerns of our fellow Americans on the Left. With the selection of Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney's running mate, there is a chance that the conservative approach to our problems can be presented in an articulate and coherent manner, and thus win the support of a broad spectrum of the country. What we cannot do is call each other "crazy."Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02083511689909853826noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5102345806482065959.post-11598365087295800632012-07-21T08:16:00.001-07:002012-07-21T08:23:50.958-07:00Contending for the FaithWe are instructed in I Timothy 2:1-3 to pray for all those in authority, "that we may live peaceable lives" and so that the gospel may be proclaimed and God may be honored. Prayer is an important responsiblity of the church, and as we see the peril of these days, it should become even more of a pressing need. For example, many have written that a large percentage of evangelical youth lose their faith in college, and that with so much secular influence, the Evangelical church is expected to shrink by 1/2 in the next decades<a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2009/0310/p09s01-coop.html">http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2009/0310/p09s01-coop.html</a>. But for this problem in particular, prayer is not our only responsibility, we are also called to "contend for the faith," (Jude 3) which implies a willingness to engage in the cultural and even political battles that shape our time. A church that is not "always ready to make a defense" (<u>apologia</u>) of its hope (I Peter 3:14) is in trouble, and a case can be made that we are losing our kids precisely because we have not taught them the reasons for believing in Jesus, and the capacity of reasoning itself. We have left them unarmed in the battle of ideas that is raging in our culture today.<br />
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As an apologetics teacher I've heard all the arguments. "You can't reason someone into the kingdom," "No one was ever converted by an argument," amd a personal favorite, "People don't care how much you know, until you show them how much you care." At a superficial level, all these staements are true, the problem is, they have become excuses for not dealing with the destructive beliefs and ideas that have taken control of our culture. We have thought that we can wrap ourselves in the protective cocoon of the faith, without recognizing the very real connection between faith and reason. As Clark Pinnock famously said, "The heart cannot embrace what the mind is not convinced is true." As we are discovering with this generation, we are losing our kids, not because we are neglecting their feelings and experiences, but because we are neglecting their minds.<br />
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This is not to say that we should read William Lane Craig or J.P. Moreland to our kids at bedtime. I will be the first to admit that a great deal of our apologetics is too intellectual, and thus irrelevant. I understand why this is the case, the attacks of the last 200 years arose from the philosophers, naturalists, and theologians of the enlightenment era, and the defense of the faith was assumed to require a response at the same level. In fact, it doesn't.<br />
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In the 1950's, the BBC commissioned C.S. Lewis to create a series of radio "talks" on the Christian faith. Lewis clearly understood that he was not speaking to his fellow scholars, but to the general population of Great Britain. The result was one of the most effective works of apologetics and evangelism ever done. In its book form, <u>Mere Christianity</u>, has led to the conversion of more people than almost any book in history, outside the Bible itself.<br />
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What makes the book so powerful is that it is a masterpiece of observation and common sense. This, it seems to me, must become the model for how we contend for the faith in this unbelieving age. We must talk about the things that people know from experience that point them to belief in God. We must also teach ourselves, our children, and all who will listen, the ways that common sense point us in the direction of faith. In essence we need to point out the ways that the law has been written on human hearts (Rom. 2: 15) and the correlation between a beneficial and successful life and living that life in obedience to the teachings of the Bible. We believe in a very real thing called "truth," and truth is that which corresponds to reality. In this relativistic age, when people accuse us of imposing our beliefs on other people, we can respond by saying that we are not imposing a set of beliefs, we are enabling people to discover life as it was meant to be lived, and thus we are giving them the opportunity to discover the truth. The foundation of this, of course, is that we have gone through this process ourselves, and we are simply sharing the steps that we ourselves have taken to enter into a real relationship with the True and Living God.<br />
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One of the great battles in the history of the church, if not Western civilization, is the dispute between faith and reason. I believe this has been a harmful mis-understanding of both faith and reason. We are people of the God who calls to us, "Come, let us reason together." (Isaiah 1:18) The greatest act of faith, recorded in the Bible, Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Isaac, was grounded in Abraham's using his reason to sustain his faith (Hebrews 11:19). One of the greatest mistakes the church can make is to abandon reason in a futile attempt to defend faith, to abandon reason is to abandon faith. It seems to me that the 20th century and now the 21st century demonstrate this sad fact. It is time for us, the followers of Jesus, to recover the capacity to defend the faith; our kids and grandkids will thank us.Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02083511689909853826noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5102345806482065959.post-14073795978901837292012-06-16T09:17:00.000-07:002012-06-16T09:17:08.835-07:00Our Postmodern PresidentPolitics has always been the realm of hyperbole and the distortion of truth, but I can't remember a politician who is as disingenuous as Barak Obama. I have wondered for some time if he should not be considered the first postmodern president. In 2008 he tapped into the felt need of many Americans for a leader who transcends politics and who will take a pragmatic and long range approach to solving the complex problems we faced as a nation. Now, in 2012, we see that it was all just a cover for his own deeply progressive ideology. His words did not mean what we thought they did, and he was very intentional in the choice of those words. I do not say this out of partisanship, but out of a concern for truth and the negative effects of the extreme relativism at the fouindation of postmodernism. The problem, in fact, is not President Obama, it is the forces that have shaped him.<br />
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Our universities, including graduate programs and law schools, are dominated by postmodern thought. As an example, I would point out Sonya Sotamayor's comment about a "wise latina" compared to an older white male. And President Obama is a product of these institutions, being engaged in the Harvard Law Review and lecturing at the University of Chicago Law School. The irony is that for all its emphasis on tolerance and diversity, postmodernism divides the world by ethnicity, gender, class, and culture. But its worst influence lies in its view of words and ideas. In the postmodern view, words and ideas have been used to justify the oppression of women and minorities, thus turning the tables and using words for the sake of these select groups is perfectly reasonable. In postmodernism, the battle of ideas becomes all out war, and in war the end justifies the means.<br />
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This cynical view of "truth," while it may provide a form of success in the short term, in the end is exposed by the harsh light of reality. To claim that something is true does not guarantee that it is actually true. Postmodernism because of its extreme relativism doesn't even believe in truth, it only believes in words. In that light, it is very important for us to look at what the Bible means by the word. I have taught for years a principle I learned from Watchman Nee and from my own life experience. The principle is, "For every doctrine (teaching) of the Bible, there is a reality. God is not as concerned for us to know the doctrine as He is for us to enter into the reality which the doctrine represents." It is not enough for us to know about salvation, or even to know the steps to take, we must enter in, by faith, and experience the reality of salvation.<br />
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When John wrote, "In the Beginning was the Word..." He was referring to the widely held belief of his day, that the universe was the product of the vast eternal wisdom of the <em>logos</em>. Men have always recognized that must be some great ordering principle and, indeed, intlligence behind the order and structure of the universe. Before we ever knew of genetics and DNA, men understood that the development of a beautiful flower from a tiny dark seed required a profound design and design required intelligence. They called this design and designer the <em>logos.</em>or the wisdom that produced the world (both material and immaterial). The apparent condition of the world is that it is built upon objective truth and that objective truth governs all aspects of life, including human behavior and society. To deny this obvious fact is to live in delusion or, to put it in contemporary terms, "denial." The postmodern attempt to make reality whatever we want it to be, is the ultimate fools errand. It is the act of creating a fantasy that will eventually come crashing down.<br />
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My point is that, in this election season, we must be looking for leaders who will not only tell us what we want to hear, but what we need to hear. Politics today is such that honesty and difficult choices get punished, thus the common understanding that Social Security is the "third rail" of public policy, touching it guarantees unelection. We must get beyond this kind of selfish, "what's-in-it-for-me" approach to whom we elect. We live in a time when truth is under attack, and yet I have never seen a time when we need to face the truth of our situation more than today. Therefore, we must be people of truth, confident of our Lord's promise, "You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free." (John 8:32)Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02083511689909853826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5102345806482065959.post-87726413397637146712012-05-24T17:42:00.002-07:002012-05-24T17:43:56.577-07:00The Laws of NatureI had the privilege of teaching a basics of physics course for Rivendell Sanctuary this winter. It was great fun to again journey through the fundamental laws that stand behind the phenomena of nature. But, as I was teaching Newton's laws and the principles of gravity, motion, and heat, it occurred to me that these truths stand as a meta-narrative that describes the physical world. We rely on these "truths" every day of our lives as we fly on airplanes, drive our cars, use our computers, and just generally go about our lives. Our safety and survival, in fact, depends upon an implicit understanding and utilization of the principles that govern the physical world.. In fact, these regulations have been confirmed so many times and in so many ways that they are deemed to be "laws" of nature; that is they always operate at every time and place on this planet.<br />
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No one would dare jump off a ten story building, thinking that gravity is just a convention invented by old white men to keep us from experiencing the joy of flying. And just as these laws govern nature so there is a set of moral principles that govern the human experience. These principles have also been confirmed countless times in human experience. And in like manner, only the foolish set them aside as mere conventions of culture or society.<br />
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With all the talk about marriage today, let us look at its "evolution" and the impact these changes have had upon our society. Marriage was one of the first targets of the enlightenment and its attack upon traditional values. Going all the way back to Freud, sexual repression was seen as one of the worst impediments to human happiness. And, restricting sex to marriage only was the first thing that had to go, in the pursuit of "freedom." <br />
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But where has this taken us? And, are we better off as a society as a result? The obvious answer is, "no." We see the carnage all around us of broken marriages, single-parent households that produce children living in poverty, failing in school, and experiencing the horrors of drugs, gangs, and crime. The problem will only get worse as fewer and fewer young people choose marriage as an important stage in their lives. We are already seeing the dramatic increase in percentages of births among unmarried women and in the declining numbers of young couples that are choosing to marry, particularly among the non-college educated. We are looking at a disaster in the making as this generation, led by the pied pipers of the enlightenment, jump off buildings under the delusion that they can fly.<br />
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As much as the Bible is discredited and ignored in our culture, its principles have stood the test of time and of life. Contrary to what our culture tells us, traditional morals are the path to contentment, freedom, and happiness. As Proverbs 10:16 tells us, "The wages of the righteous is life." This is not just a life in the here-after, it is life here and now. Just as their are physical laws that govern the natural order, so there are moral laws the \govern the human experience. We would do well to pay attention to the principles of life that God has given us in His word.Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02083511689909853826noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5102345806482065959.post-70128198628388623932012-04-27T08:44:00.000-07:002012-04-27T09:39:14.649-07:00Relativism Revisited<div>
I am reading Paul Johnson's book, <em>Intellectuals</em>, for a second time (Johnson is viewed as the most important historian and social commentator of our day). The point of his book is that the modern West has been shaped by men and women with enormous egos who suffered no compulsions about telling the rest of us how we ought to live our lives. What he also documents in this book are the levels to which they utterly failed to live up to their own standards.</div>
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In describing Leo Tolstoy, the famous Russian novelist, Johnson writes, "He wanted to lead, for which he had no capacity at all, other than will, to prophesy, to found a religion, and to transform the world, tasks for which he was morally and intellectually disqualified." (Intellectuals, p. 114) In other words, he wanted to be like God.</div>
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This is what is ultimately wrong with relativism; it is frail human beings assuming the godlike capacity of determining right from wrong, and of defining the good from the bad. It is exactly the same sin of our forefathers in the Garden of Eden, "You shall be like gods, knowing good and evil." (Genesis 3:4) The temptation presented to Eve was to assume moral knowledge (of good and evil) in order to possess moral authority (the responsiblity to define good and evil and thus judge behavior and circumstance). The problem is, we are not God, we aren't even gods. We are frail, temporal, and self-focused creatures who have little capacity to know the end from the beginning. We thus define good and evil, not for the larger good, but for the much smaller "good" of our own comfort and convenience.</div>
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As a result, the last several decades have been a time of serious moral decline. Relativism has allowed us to call evil "good" and good "evil." We have turned the traditional code of moral values on its head, but sadly, changing the labels doesn't change the reality. The statistics tell the tale, out-of-wedlock births have sky- rocketed across all the demographic categories; it stands at 40% among caucasian women, 50% among Latinos, and over 70% among African-Americans. This category matters because at the core of conventional moral values has always been a society's view of marriage and the family. The problem is not just the vastly increased levels of sexual activity among young people, it is the rejection of marriage as the end goal of dating and relationship along with the establishment of a stable home-life centered in the nuclear family. <br />
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Charles Murray has just written an important book that essentially deposits the increasing separation between rich and poor as a consequence of the loss of moral convictions regarding marriage and family among working class young people. In other words, the gap between the 1% and the 99% is not primarily a tax problem or a political problem, it is a moral and spiritual issue. We have faced a serious decline in our sense of personal moral responsibility which has profoundly affected our sense of social and economic responsiblity. <br />
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Max Weber, a German sociologist, philosopher and economist, was correct in his connection between Protestant moral values and the economic growth and prosperity of Northern Europe and it's direct descendant, the United States. The shared prosperity that has defined the American experiment is a direct consequence of our values. The abandonment of those values has led to a weakening of our economic prospects and will eventually produce a very different America. Bottom line is that relativism is a fools errand, born of the arrogance of the founders of the enlightenment, and now wreaking havoc on the generations who followed its teachings.<br />
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</div>Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02083511689909853826noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5102345806482065959.post-31211530576823741772011-12-20T20:07:00.000-08:002012-02-02T19:29:50.449-08:00Is Faith Obsolete?I teach the Hermeneutics course at Bethany. It's always gratifying to see the students deepen their understanding, not only of the Word but of how to more effectively study the Word. Hermeneutics are the methods and principles of properly interpreting the meaning of a text. It is not a strictly theological discipline, all literature must be interpreted, and thus rules of intepretation (hermeneutics) are required. When I was a freshman at the University of Colorado I quickly figured out who the English majors were, they all carried around copies of E.D. Hirsch, <em>The Validity of Interpretation</em>, probably the most important hermeneutics text written in the last 100 years.<br /><br />I'm going on about hermeneutics because literary analysis lies at the heart of the philosophical revolution we call postmodernism. The battle for truth in the Western world is centered in the interpretation of the major documents that have shaped our civilization. The leaders of the postmodern movement took an entirely relativistic approach to our most important writings. And based on their postmodern beliefs, "deconstructed" them. That is they interpreted them as tools for the oppression of women and minorities. In addition, they based their conclusions on two principles. First, the winners get to write the history books, and second, the powerful use their "history" for suppression of minorities and for personal gain. Because postmodernists are deeply relativistic, they deny the very idea of truth, and are left with the cynical view that everything boils down to propaganda.<br /><br />Postmodernism is nothing less than radical skepticism. And while this is bad enough, it seeks to justify a "might makes right" approach to politics and governance. If the winners get to write the history books, then it is legitimate to pursue positions of power to enable the advancement of one's agenda. After all, our society was constructed to maintain the authority and privilege of white European males. This distorted and deeply cynical understanding of "power" is the reason our major universities have all the studies programs (Gender Studies, LGBT Studies, Native American Studies, etc.). This distortion in the concept of truth (and of political power) does not bode well for the future of American education and thus for American society.<br /><br />We are already seeing the effect of postmodern thought on law and politics. On law, it is the sense that the law should change with changing social and cultural conditions, thus the acceptance of abortion as a constitutionally protected right and the growing number of judicial decisions favoring gay marriage. In politics it is the emphasis on creating the "narrative" that will enable the party to maintain its hold on power. Because postmodernism denies the concept of absolute truth, it views words not as conveyors of truth but as tools of manipulation and power. In one sense, Barak Obama is the first truly postmodern president. He, and those who support him, believe that if they craft the right message with the most compelling words they can gain and maintain their power. Thus, when the President spoke of "hope," "change," "fairness," and "American values," those words were just expressions of postmodern constructivism (the capacity to construct the meaning of "truth"), and the desire to use words, not to speak truth but to gain and keep power.<br /><br />I have felt for some time that while existentialism took its cue from the French philosophers, Camus and Sartre, postmodernism is an expression of Nietzsche's will to power. Gene Edward Veith, Jr. in his book, <em>Postmodern Times</em>, describes the difference.<br /><br /><em>Whereas modern existentialism teaches that meaning is created by the individual, postmodern existentialism teaches that meaning is created by a social group and its language. ..The old existentialists stressed the alienated individual, dignified in lonliness and nonconformity; postmodern existentialism stresses social identity, group-think, and fashion sense</em>. <em>Postmodern existentialism goes back to Nietzsche to emphasize not only will, but power.</em><br /><br />The frightening thing about postmodernism is its social dimension; its emphasis on speech codes and politically correct behavior which is unashamedly imposed on the faculty and students of an entire American university. Gene Veith explains<em>, Those who do not believe in truth are more likely, I believe, to lie. Those who believe that moral values are nothing more than the imposition of power may be more likely to use power to suppress thier opposition, whether in politically correct academia or, when they have political power, in acts of tyrrany.</em><br /><br />We must be ever vigilant in the defense of truth, God's truth. The great power of the Bible and the reason so many millions have built their lives upon its teachings is that it corresponds to the realities of life and the human condition. The Bible lays out the path to a full and fulfilling life, and protects from destructive behaviors and attitudes. A significant reason that our society has become increasingly dysfunctional is that we have moved so far away from the influence of biblical teaching.<br /><br />We must regain confidence in truth, and the best definition of truth describes it as that which corresponds with reality. The Bible points us to God and His life changing grace, and every day millions of Christians around the world demonstrate the absolute validity of its teachings. As we walk in faith and obedience we find the truth of the Bible confirmed in our personal experience. As Paul writes, we then become "a letter from Christ"," written not with ink but with the Spirit of the Living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of the human heart." (2 Cor. 3:3) The time in which we live demands that we not only declare the truth but that we live the truth.Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02083511689909853826noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5102345806482065959.post-60263056822062248542011-12-14T17:59:00.000-08:002011-12-19T18:54:54.406-08:00Is Income Inequality the Problem?This will probably get me into trouble but it's just too funny to pass up. In the comments to an article on President Obama's speech in Kansas was this terse statement: "Under Teddy Roosevelt we got the Square Deal, while Franklin Roosevelt gave us the New Deal, and now, with Barak Obama we're getting the Raw Deal."<br /><br />On a more serious note, it is important that we take a look at what the President was saying to us in his speech in Osawatomie, Kansas last week. First he was attempting to make income inequality and the lack of income growth among the middle class, "the central issue of our time." Realizing that we are borrowing 40 cents of every dollar our government spends and that we are facing a 15 trillion dollar deficit, I'm not convinced that income inequality is our most pressing problem.<br /><br />So, what difference does it make if we say income inequality is our biggest challenge? The simple answer is to look at what is happening in Europe. European societies have for many decades pursued egalitarian policies that are today bringing them to the brink of bankruptcy. If we ignore our deficits in the pursuit of a more "just" society we will end up in the same sorry state. In addition, when we examine the actual income levels of the middle class in Europe, we find that their median family income is much lower than ours. Median income in America is $31,000, in France it is $21,000 and in Greece it is $16,000 (Just google, "median family income in the world"). Thus, while Europe has less income disparity, it also has just plain less income. I would submit that there is a direct connection in these statistics, the pursuit of income equality by government policy results in reduced growth and economic vitality and thus lower family incomes. To be honest, I don't think the American people really want to go there.<br /><br />For the sake for fairness, we need to dig down into the specifics of what the President was proposing to fix the economic problems we face. In his own words, "The future will be bleaker unless we raise taxes on the wealthy and invest in education, science, and infrastructure." His solution begins with collecting more revenue from a tax increase on the top 1%. But notice, the money will not be used to directly reduce the deficit. It will be used to "invest" in three things that he believes will expand the income opportunities of the middle class.<br /><br />As we can see from these three "investments," the president certainly has a long term view of things, because the first two elements will take a decade before they make an appreciable difference. In the President's scheme of things, this means an increased emphasis on math, science, and training in green technology within our educational system. If this were the 1960's with a much smaller educational burearacracy and a basic curriculum focused on the three "R's" then maybe we could make these changes, today not so much. Notice, in fact, that the President humself understands this because his vehicle for training in green technology are local community colleges, the least politicized of any of our educational institutions. The very idea of giving more money to the financial black hole that is our educational system makes no sense. We spend too much already with no positive results.<br /><br />His second investment is in science. With Solyndra, Light-Squared, and Solazyne we are seeing this administration's approach to technological and scientific investment. This kind of crony capitalism is a far cry from the traditional use of government funding for basic research. Research which gave us solid state electronics, the laser, and computer chips by the way. This attempt to fund specific projects and companies has simply not worked, from wind farms in Hawaii and California in the 70's to the latest attempts to fund electric car companies. My fear is that the President has many more Solyndras in store for us, and that they will do very little to acheive the desired goal of job creation and a growing economy.<br /><br />Finally, he wants to invest in infrastructure. Of the three parts this has the most realistic chance of increasing jobs and even median incomes. Like everything else in our culture, it requires specialized labor. The days of handing an out of work retail clerk a shovel as part of a WPA construction project are long gone. Construction work today is contracted and reqires particular skills and training. Take the Keystone pipeline as an example, it will provide great jobs for experienced pipefitters and welders. I heard recently that the average job will pay $70,000. I don't deny that there will be opportunities for welder's helpers and apprentice pipefitters to get a start in the field, but most of the jobs will be for those with the training and experience required to do the work.<br /><br />In the end, the President's plan won't do much to grow the middle class or reduce the gap between rich and poor. His approach is part of the progressive nostalgia for the New Deal and the space race of the 60's. We face very different challenges today. We must find a solution for the massive unfunded pension and Medicare liabilities we face at the state and federal level. The President, as our leader, is attempting to change the subject and act as if there is no long term deficit problem and we can operate as if government must plan, tax, and "invest" to solve social problems. Well, we can't.<br /><br />The recession of 2007 and the subsequent slow recovery we are still experiencing four years later, is part of an economic wake-up call that we really can't afford to ignore. Robert Samuelson wrote an important article today in the Washington Post on the dangers of a bond crisis in the face of our massive deficit spending. Remember, we are in a debt crisis. So the only way to end the crisis is to start getting out of debt. We must not allow the President and his party to change the subject and pursue "business as usual" tax and spend policies, particularly for the sake of an invented problem called "income inequality." I'm really not trying to be partisan in saying this. We are facing the gravest economic downturn of our lifetimes, and we need real solutions not populist hyperbole. There is some real hope for answers, just look at what Canada has done in the last 10 years, Sweden as well. We don't have to just take the word of our favorite pundit, countries of the world have actually cut spending, reduced their debt, and restored their economies, and we can too.Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02083511689909853826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5102345806482065959.post-21250331752863262242011-12-01T19:51:00.000-08:002011-12-13T18:38:09.956-08:00Being an OvercomerI am currently reading Walter Wink's book, <em>The Powers That Be, </em>and it has me thinking about how we live in this world while not being ruled by it. Wink's main point is that the structures and institutions of any and all societies are part of a system of domination, what the Bible calls, "The world." And of course, the apostle John commands us to, "love not the world (<em>cosmos</em>), neither the things of the world..." (I John 2:15)<br /><br />The first question is what does the Bible mean by the "world?" After all, our homes, our communities, and even our families are part of the world in which we live. How do we not love many of the things that are precious to us? Of course, we are assured by pastors and teachers, that those are not the things referred to by the term the "world." John was referring to the world system with its temptations and sins; what would be the equivalent to Christ's warning about "Mammon." The picture they bring to mind is the glitz of Hollywood or the wealth of Wall Street. But is this really what the word means?<br /><br /><br />Anyone who has read Wink is aware of his political orientation; he is deeply left wing. Despite his politics, his basic point is extremely important. There lies a "power" behind the institutions and structures of society that stands in opposition to God and which seeks to keep us all under its control. And yes, a large part of the world's "control" are the powerful rewards it offers to those who submit to its power. That the Powers have contolled men is undeniable, the only variable is the means they use.<br /><br /><br />And this brings me to an important related principle. The reason the world has such power over us is related to our nature. We are deeply needy. Years ago, Winkie Pratney gave a wonderful message on the four basic human needs: the need for love, the need for wisdom, the need for significance, and the need to belong. Ultimately those needs can only be fully met by God in our lives. Yet, because of sin we are alienated from God we "look for love (wisdom, etc.) in all the wrong places." The tragic stories of so many people is the result of their seeking to fulfill the deepest needs of their lives by illegitimate means.<br /><br />The world stands ready to meet and even create needs. In our modern age, such a strategy is seen as the pathway to success. We, thus, "need" the latest product or service that is flashed before our eyes on a daily basis. And we are fed a set of values that justifies the consumer oriented, materistic culture in which we live. It is all, ultimately, a set-up, and that which parades as the source of happiness is really the house of pain and disappointment if we make those things the center of our lives.<br /><br />To Wink's point, this domination of values and culture is the way the "Powers" rule over the peoples of the earth. It is why we must guard our hearts and keep our minds instructed by the teachings of the word of God. Proverbs 2 speaks of the pursuit of wisdom and understanding that enables discernment. Discernment is the capacity to see beyond the surface of things to be aware of the hidden dangers, both in seeing where it leads and in seeing its true colors. When it comes to the claims of the world upon our lives, all of us desperately need greater discernment.<br /><br />There is a very real sense in which the world is not a nice place. It is filled with "idols," things that substitute for God and which ultimately lead us far from Him. In Deuteronomy, Moses commanded Israel to "choose life" (Deut. 30:19) and if you read the entire passage, the way they were to choose life is by choosing God, "For the Lord is your life." (Deut. 30:20) To seek life in the things the world promises is to miss life for as Jesus said, "your life does not consist in your possessions."<br /><br />So how do we choose God rather than "choosing" the world? The Apostle Paul tells us that God ordained the place and habitation of men, "that they might seek for him, though He is not far from any of us." (Acts 17) In other words, we choose God by seeking him, with this caveat, diligently and persistently. With this in mind, I would encourage us all, this Christmas season, to get alone somewhere and think about the meaning and message of Christmas. Considering that God loved you so much that He gave the ultimate Christmas present: His Son, so that you would be rescued from sin and given the gift of eternal life. I can just about guarantee that in that process it will be very clear to you that God really is near. And as the song says, "The things of earth will go strangely dim..." as you commune with God. Doing this on a regular basis is one of the means by which we put the world in its place and keep our focus on God.<br /><br />It would seem to me that we must keep our needs and the rewards of the world in their proper perspective. Looking at what Jesus said in Matthew 7, "For your Father knows that you need all these things..." Our first priority must be to pursue God, and allow Him to add all the other things.<br /><br />Have a wonderful Christmas and a blessed New Year.Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02083511689909853826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5102345806482065959.post-12135991308138551782011-10-22T06:15:00.000-07:002011-11-15T18:13:02.189-08:00Is Wall Street the Problem?I don't want to sound like a political crazy person, but we are in deep trouble as a society. Just on the economic level, we are facing massive debt that includes unfunded liabilities in the trillions of dollars, and worse, we lack the political will to do anything significant about it. The rhetoric surrounding the growing income <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">disparity</span> in our society is a case in point. According to many, it is the result of a vast conspiracy on the part of the wealthy 1% of our society to accumulate all the wealth and leave the rest of us destitute. For example, Barbara <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-error">Ehrenreich</span> wrote <em>in The Progressive</em>, "They (the rich) have systematically hollowed out the space around them: destroying the individual working class with the outsourcing and plant closings of the 80's, turning on white collar managers in the downsizing wave of the 90's, clearing large swathes of the middle class with the credit schemes of the 00's-trick mortgages and til-death-do-us-part student loans."<br /><br /><br /><p>Don't get me wrong, there is a growing gap between rich and poor in our society, and the middle class is losing ground<strong>,</strong> but <strong>it is not</strong> a vast conspiracy of the super rich to take all our money. The problem with these types of populist fantasies is that they <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-error">mis-</span>diagnose the problem with the result that we apply the wrong solutions that not only don't solve the problem, they in many cases, make it worse.</p><br /><p>In the context of the challenges we face, and in particular, the need for deficit reduction, the Occupy Wall Street controversy is a massive distraction. In terms of the long term needs of our society, income disparity is way down the list of things we need to change. Some would argue that <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" class="blsp-spelling-error">OWS</span> <strong>is</strong> dealing with the deficit problem because it wants to increase the taxes the wealthy pay and thus reduce the gap in income between rich and poor while also reducing the budget deficit.</p><br /><p>The problem with this option is that it doesn't actually solve the central problem. We are <strong>borrowing</strong> 40% of what our government presently spends, thus we are dramatically increasing our deficit with every passing day. We are increasing our <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">deficit</span> by 1.4 <strong>trillion</strong> dollars this year alone. Trying to bring the rich down a notch by reducing the amount of their earned income, will not even begin to address the problem we face.</p><br /><p>In addition, this recession has hurt everyone, rich included. Veronique <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_5" class="blsp-spelling-error">de</span> <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_6" class="blsp-spelling-error">Rugy</span>, an economist at George Mason University, gleaned from IRS statistics that there were 392,220 people in America who earned over one million dollars in 2007 (<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_7" class="blsp-spelling-error">pre</span>-recession) and they paid 27.8% of all U.S. income taxes (they were 0.1% of the population). By 2009 (height of the recession) there were 233,435 people who earned over one million dollars. That is a 40% decrease in the number of people who would be considered the "super-rich" Worse, and because their numbers were reduced, they only paid 20.3% of the nation's income taxes. In other words, a great deal of the rhetoric associated with <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_8" class="blsp-spelling-error">OWS</span> does not reflect the reality of our economic crisis. And, a 40% decrease in the number of millionaires implies that the recession has done a pretty good job, all by itself, in bringing the rich down a notch or two. </p><br /><p>Further, this reduction in the number of people in the highest income brackets is a consequence of the shrinking and continued stagnation of our economy. If we do not figure out how to get our economy growing again, we can only expect that there will be fewer ultra-wealthy for us to raise taxes on, and our problems will only get worse. They will get worse because we have one of the most progressive tax policies in the world. The upper-middle class (those earning 10% of the nation's income) pay 70% of all income taxes. The lower-middle class and below) either pay no income taxes (47% of American income earners pay no income taxes) and for many of the working poor, with tax credits they receive unearned income from the federal government amounting to a negative income tax.</p><br /><p>We need to get brutally honest with ourselves. We cannot continue to operate our government on borrowed money, especially since we have reduced our tax base to 53% of earners. In addition, we cannot put the burden of the majority of government funding on only 10% of the population. We will end up creating one of the situations that produced the economic crisis in Greece; tax avoidance. To be honest, it is already going on here. Many small businesses and individuals are practicing different tax avoidance methods such as barter and cash only transactions. For the super-wealthy and corporations, tax avoidance is easy. They just off-shore the money, they put the money in tax shelters, or they find clever ways to avoid having to declare the income as income. It is this capacity for tax avoidance that accounts for the fact that even when the highest income tax bracket exceeded 70% of declared income, the government never took in more than 19% of annual GDP in taxes. This 19% of GDP is the historic norm for annual income tax revenue in the U.S. for the last 50 years. We are fooling ourselves if we think we can tax the rich to reduce our deficits and solve our economic problems, including the problem of increasing income inequality.<br /><br />We must deal with the long-term liabilities we face as a nation. We are not far away from the day when all of our tax revenues will go to pensions and health care for retirees particularly on the local level. When Bob <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_9" class="blsp-spelling-error">Frum</span>, as partisan a Democrat as I know of, cautions his party to not be overly excited about the overturn of the law in Ohio to end public sector union bargaining rights because the problem of unfunded public pension funds still exists, and the most <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_10" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">egregious</span> examples of pension abuse arise with the groups garnering the most sympathy, the public safety workers (police, fire fighters, and prison guards). In other words, the day of reckoning will soon be upon us and the party that has ignored and even worsened the problem will face the ire of the voting public (as they should).<br /><br />The long-term liability problem is the main reason why we are borrowing 40 cents of every dollar we spend in government. Our first priority must be to reduce and eventually eliminate our deficit spending, and there is only one realistic way to do that. We must reduce overall government spending. Even in the best of economic times, even with the highest conceivable tax rates (income, <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_11" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">capital</span> gains, & inheritance taxes), we have never <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_12" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">received</span> more than 20% of our GDP in tax revenues. Logic tells us, that the only realistic answer to the deficit problem is to bring federal spending in line with federal tax revenues. Since we only take in an historic average of 19% of GDP in revenue, we must design our government programs so we only spend 19% of GDP to sustain them (We are presently spending 24% of GDP while the recession has dramatically reduced tax revenues to 15% of GDP).</p><br /><p>The counter argument is always that we need to spend this much and more to care for the poor and the elderly, to improve our infrastructure, to invest in green technology, and to create a public health care system that is comparable to the other nations in the developed world. The conservative response cannot be that we don't need to do those things, but that we need to do them in such a way they actually <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_13" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">achieve</span> the goal, and are affordable and sustainable.</p><br /><p>Many of the problems we face are deep and systemic, and have little to do with the amount of money we spend on them. Take my pet peeve, education in America. We spend more per <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_14" class="blsp-spelling-error">capita</span> on education than almost any society on earth, yet we are well down the list in the rankings of educational results. We are spending obscene amounts of money for a system of public schools that are failing our children. Worse, we have been aware of this problem for several decades and nothing gets fixed. For example, the solution of the 90's and into the 00's was accountability and <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_15" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">measurable</span> results - thus No Child Left Behind and standardized test scores for grade levels. The results have been less than helpful. We must acknowledge that these problems don't lend themselves to bureaucratic solutions, and so, we are wasting vast amounts of money to maintain an ineffective educational bureaucracy. It should not surprise us to hear large numbers of Americans calling for the abolition of the Department of Education. </p><br /><p>Many of us on the conservative side of the ledger see reducing government spending as a no-<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_16" class="blsp-spelling-error">brainer</span>. The standard argument of the other side is to emphasize all the well intentioned purposes of government programs, not only to justify the continued investment but to prevent any and all reductions. The question will only finally be resolved, when <strong>all </strong>of us, liberal and conservative, come to see the perils we face, and arrive at some level of agreement as to the sacrifices we will need to make to escape them. In many ways, this recession is a foretaste of the time when we all must face up to the consequences of our reckless economic policies. We speak of kicking the can down the road, there will come a day when we no longer face a can, but the edge of a cliff. </p>Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02083511689909853826noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5102345806482065959.post-46788440491090448592011-08-22T19:27:00.000-07:002011-10-07T21:13:36.808-07:00Are we Headed for Trouble?Several years ago I sent a letter to the editor of the Minneapolis Star & Tribune in which I expressed my conern about the unintended consequences of our unquestioning commitment to secularism. Two recent events reminded me of the point I was trying to make in the letter. The first event were the riots in London, Philadelphia, and Chicago, while the second was the brouhaha created by Gov. Perry's remarks about evolution and global warming. Now what, pray tell, could riots have to do with a politician's controversial opinions, and beyond that, with secularism?<br /><br />While it's not readily apparent, they are connected, they both arise from our current view of our world and of ourselves. The legacy of the Enlightenment is that a large number of people in the Western world believe we live in a world shaped entirely by natural forces. The famous British philosopher Bertrand Russell explained where this belief takes us,<br /><em></em><br /><br /><em>That man is the product of causes which had no provision of the end they were achieving that his origin, his growth, his hopes, his fears, his loves, and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve individual life beyond the grave; that all the labors of the ages, all devotions, all inspiration, all the noon day brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and the whole temple of Man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins-all these things, if not beyond dispute, are, yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the foundation of unyielding despair can the soul's habitation henceforth be safely built. (Bertrand Russell, A Free Man's </em>Worship)<br /><br /><br />Ideas affect the way we live, and this idea has deeply impacted modern Western culture. Russell is expressing the logical conclusion of the enlightenment. If the religious beliefs of mankind are the product of the superstitious imagination of pre-scientific men, and the assured result of 300 years of scientific research is that matter and material forces are the only reality, then we are left with the world that Bertrand Russell describes. It is a world devoid of significance and meaning. Russell is not alone in his deductions, most of the art, philosophy, and music of the twentieth century were a reflection of his "unyielding despair." All one has to do is read Arthur Miller's <em>Death of a Salesman</em> or visit a modern art gallery or listen to a composition by John Cage to see the loss of hope and faith in the modern world.<br /><br />There is a term for this philosophy of nothingness, it is called <em>nihilism</em>. The goal of the enlightenment was unlimited human freedom. But to achieve this end it had to kick God off the stage of human history, the unintended consequence of this rebellion is the elimination of every sustaining influence for good, including freedom, in the world. We are left with (according to Richard Dawkins) only the illusion of a human soul and so, "free will," our sense of control over our thoughts, actions, goals, and our conscience is only our brain playing tricks on us. We are, thus, reduced to a short life span in a meaningless universe, in which all of our thoughts and acts are attributed to stimulus-response mechanisms. A more cynical view of human nature could hardly be imagined.<br /><br />It seems to me that nihilism has arisen as the unintended consequence of the desire for purely secular societies. In a nihilist world, there are only two options: pure hedonism or existentialism. The vast majority, and that includes those who have no idea of the philosophical principles behind it, have embraced hedonism. The riots in London and Philadelphia are part of the breakdown of decency, honesty, and concern for others (and their property) that accompany an "anything goes" culture. The world of <em>Jersey Shore</em> is a classic example of the nihilism of modern youth culture. It is "eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we may die," lived out for all to see. This is essentially cultural child abuse, as we leave our children without faith and therefore without hope.<br /><br /><p>There is no future for a generation that embraces the non-values of nihilism. It is definitely one of my fears that as the "nones" grow more numerous (15% of our youth now mark "none" for any religious affiliation and it is projected to become 20-25% in the next decades) we will be ill prepared as a nation for the many challenges we will face in this new century. The response to austerity by the youth of London (Europe is way ahead of us in the influence of secularism) was definitely not re-assuring.</p><br /><p>We talk a great deal about the importance of education, but if we aren't teaching our kids the right things then education is not the solution, it becomes part of the problem. So, if our goal is to promote secularism through education then we are really promoting the worldview of "unyielding despair" that Russell describes. By the way, Christians are often accused of seeking to "impose" their values on society. But whose values are actually being forced upon us through the classroom, in the media, through the courts, and by legislation? Just look at what is deemed illegal; prayer, Bible reading, the posting of the Ten Commandments, even Christmas trees, and then tell us what is being imposed upon whom. A high school calculus teacher was recently ordered to remove banners from the classroom that declared, "In God we trust," and "All men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with these inalienable rights..." We are sending a very loud message to our children, religion is illegal, even harmful. We are no longer neutral, we have made secularism the politically correct worldview of Western culture.</p>This is where evolution comes into the picture. I argue in my book that naturalism and therefore secularism are built upon the theory of evolution. Without evolution they can not have a naturalistic and atheistic explanation of life and mankind. The approach the educators, judges, and leaders of our society have taken is that the science is "settled" and the only acceptable answer to our origin is evolution. But what if the science isn't "settled," and this is another example of the abuse of science for the sake of ideology and poltical control?<br /><br /><br /><p>At the heart of the secular worldview is the philosophy of naturalism. Naturalism, the way it has come to be defined today, excludes any and all spiritual forces or causes. God is eliminated from any explanation of the universe <em>by definition</em>. According to Naturalism, if you say that God created the world you are being unscientific and by implication irrational and superstitious. This is the central argument used to justify the exclusion of any alternative to the teaching of evolution in our classrooms. This is primarily a political strategy rather than an attempt to promote science and scientific education. And this brings us to Gov. Perry's comments about global warming and the teaching of evolution.</p><br /><p>We live in an era in which science has been politicized, because science is used to support ideological (political) agendas. Evolution is the first and foremost example of this phenomena. A naturalistic explanation of the world in which we live is impossible without the theory of evolution. I wondered for years why evolution was so irrationally defended, why so many scientists would ignore or deny the weaknesses in the theory and the lack of any direct evidence of the types of macroevolutionary change that should be crucial to establish the theory. Instead they rely upon hypothetical explanations, and establishing the cause (evolution) by observing its effects (geological column, fosil record, and DNA patterns). But none of these things come close to answering the crucial questions that would normally be required of a scientific theory. We have no realistic explanation for most, if not all, of the great mysteries of the origin of life, of DNA, or of the internal structure of the cell. So why is evolution so fiercely defended? It is because without evolution the only option is God and creation. And, more importantly, without evolution there is no justification for imposing a purely secular ideology upon society.</p><br /><p>This brings us back to Bertrand Russell, and the fact that this is not a "so what" question, this goes to the core of who we are as human beings. And, I am not arguing that we should adopt a religious view of reality in order to "feel good" about ourselves and our place in the world. I do not want us to believe in fairy tales. My belief in God is based in both reason and experience. I have a bachelor's degree in physics and my scientific education has only strengthened my conviction that a personal creator God is the only reasonable explanation for the clear evidence of design in nature. I am convinced, based on probability theory and other relevant facts, that all the billions of creatures, organs, and organisms on earth could not have developed by a purely accidental process. In my book, I cite the example given by David Attenborough of the development of flight in insects. But flight would require at least three things to all occur at the same time: wings (with proper weight, shape, and strucure), fatigue resistant muscles, and pattern of wing movement that provided lift and didn't just fan the air. I know, evolutionists claim all these things developed slowly over thousands of years. But it seems hard to imagine how all those crucial elements could have developed gradually and added to the survival capability of the creatures involved.</p>Stephen Jay Gould, one of the most well known biologists of our time, wrote a book in which he attempted to deal with the inordinate probability of life arising by accident. His point was that, as low as the probability is for the accidental development of life, earth "won the lottery." His argument would be valid if the origin of life and evolution were a single event, and in this single instance we got incredibly lucky. However, we must account for billions of events that are restrained by levels of probability so low they each make the odds of winning the powerball look like a sure thing. In other words, evolution requires that we get "lucky" not just once but billions of times.<br /><br /><br /><p>My career has also taken me into the realm of theology and philosophy, and here I find God the only reasonable explanation for human personality and conscience. Naturalism is, of necessity, reductionistic. It must reduce everything to chemical processes and stimulus-response mechanisms. But this leaves no room for the personal and there is nothing more obvious to human observation than that we are personal beings. All attempts to see human beings as machines to be programmed or animals to be trained has rightly been rejected as de-humanizing. A major part of the counter-culture of the 60's was a rejection of this mechanistic and reductionistic view of mankind. For this reason I am convinced that the only rational explanation for human nature is that we are the creation of a personal God.</p><br /><p>Finally, I became a Christian in my sophomore year in college. I had a personally undeniable conversion experience. In all the years since, my belief has only been strengthened by the answers to prayer and the ways that God has made Himself known to me. And, I am not alone in my experience. As a teacher in a Christian college, I have heard the stories and seen the fruit of God's work in hundreds of people's lives. It is the undeniable reality of His presence in the world that accounts for the fact that the vast majority of Americans believe in a personal God.</p><br /><p>The bottom line is that we must acknowledge that the enlightenment picture of reality is incorrect. Part of the reason we can assume it is not true is that it must operate in denial and intimidation in order to maintain its dominance of Western society. Further, secularism doesn't work. I am not calling for a theocracy or imposing religious education on our kids. What I am asking for is the simple common sense approach taken by American society prior to the 1960's and an end to the war against Christianity being waged in the name of secularism. Our nation was founded in the pursuit of both faith and freedom, what we have proven in our 200 years of existence is that the two are related. If we would continue to be a free people we must leave room for faith. </p>Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02083511689909853826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5102345806482065959.post-79684015099689357852011-07-04T07:00:00.000-07:002011-07-30T06:18:50.308-07:00Postmodern IntellectualsI know, only Christians use "postmodern" as a perjorative, but as I considered so many of the public intellectuals of today, I realized how deeply this philosophy has influenced the world of academics and education. Postmodernism is supposed to be a rejection of "modernism" which was the enlightenment emphasis on rationalism and scientific objectivity in the pursuit of truth. Going back to at least Immanuel Kant, philosophers of the last 250 years have understood the limits of unaided human reason to answer the really big questions of life. The philosophy we call postmodernism is the latest rendition of this lack of confidence in human reason, and is born out of the influence of French existentialism and the will to power as described by Fredrick Nietzsche.<br /><br /><p>The problem with postmodernism is that it is taking us to places we were never meant to go, such as the redefinition of marriage, of gender roles, and even of gender and personal identity. We are left with a situation where people, and most often the younger among us, must decide who or even what they are at an entirely unprecedented level. It was hard enough being a teenager in my generation, but I cannot imagine what so many kids face today. They must not only decide on a career path and the education required, they have to figure out if they are gay or straight, a man or a woman. And in case you think I'm making this up, the website Mercatornet.com posted an article this May by Mary Hasson about the growing level of gender confusion in the Western world. Boston Children's Hospital has a "Gender Management Clinic" where they give children as young as 9 years old hormones to prevent normal sexual development in puberty. The perverse reason for this is so that their subsequent sex change operation will be less difficult. As the article reported, these clinics (there are several in the world) aren't there to help confused kids and their parents but to advance their transsexual agenda. The victims of this agenda will pay a terrible price in this attempt to redefine human nature. Ms. Hasson makes the important point that an adolescent or pre-adolescent is in no place to decide on something so catastrophic to their future, such as, everyone who undergoes these kinds of sex change operations are rendered sterile. The door of family and offspring are closed to them. Not to mention the emotional damage of reaching an adult perspective on their teen or pre-teen emotions.<br /><br />This tragedy is a consequence of the loss of the moral compass and standards of the Judeo-Christian system and the belief in Natural Law. In reality, these principles are built in to human nature and human society and to ignore them is to invite diaster. In the 1950's Dr. Spock wrote his famous book on child raising. My parents along with millions of other parents raised the 60's generation following his advice. His advice then; go easy on discipline, it will only stifle the child's creativity and development. In the 70's, as he looked on the consequences of his advice, he recanted and admitted that he had been wrong. As he put it, "I have helped to raise a generation of spoiled brats." In other words, we ignore Biblical values at our peril. In many ways, the Bible is "owners manual" for humanity, and in rejecting its teachings we are endangering people's lives. </p>How did we get to this terrible place? Jean Paul Sartre is the most famous of the French existentialists, and his philosophy was built upon the principle of personal responsibility for our existential status in this world. Sartre turned the classic philosophical principle, <em>Essence precedes Existence,</em> on its head. Thus instead of saying that a person's nature determines their characteristics, he taught that people by their choices and intentions can shape their destiny. Postmodernism has taken this even further, postulating that we can change our very nature, thus women can be men and men can be women. This has, in fact, become the politically correct dogma of the feminist and GLBT world.<br /><br />We have come to believe that we can change our very natures because we have lost our moral and rational moorings. As the Bible says, "Professing to be wise, we have become fools." We have abandonded much of the wisdom of the ages, wisdom that protected human happiness and fostered the values of peaceful and prosperous societies. We have abandonded wisdom because we followed the pied pipers of academia, whose postmodern assumptions led them to abandon wisdom and truth in the process of "deconstructing" Western values. One of the great dangers of the intellectual life is the belief that one's learning gives one the authority to impose one's obviously correct views on everyone else. Our universities are filled with large numbers of agenda driven intellectuals (To be fair, there are also many fine teachers, who truly seek to pass on the accurate and relevant understanding of their field to their students).<br /><br />The bottom line is that we must take what comes out of the intellectual centers of our society with a grain of salt. Because of the influence of postmodernism, I expect that a professor from Yale or Berkley will be spouting dangerous nonsense. We must ground our own thinking in the Word of God and in the moral and spiritual wisdom that is being so quickly abandoned by our society. This is what Jesus meant by describing us as the light of the world. My fear is that as the influence of postmodernism grows it will envelop more and more of the church, and more and more of the "dangerous nonsense" that emenates from it will be brought into the church. It is already happening, "Christian" books are already being written that promote the nonsense. We, as followers of Jesus, must stand our ground.Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02083511689909853826noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5102345806482065959.post-75338360569966352852011-06-12T08:00:00.000-07:002011-07-01T13:30:58.458-07:00What about the Middle Class?For the sake of full disclosure, this post is a reaction to the television ad that is currently being run by Gov. Mark Dayton and his party to gain public support for their approach to the budget deficit and the problems with our economy. What I'm most concerned about is their assertion that these policies are all about protecting the middle class. I recognize that this has been the strategy of the Democratic Party in the last two elections: that they are the party concerned about protecting the middle class. As a child of middle class parents and someone who is a member of the class myself, I disagree strongly with the claims that these policies will "preserve" the middle class. In my view, the ideology and policies of the party of FDR, LBJ, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barak Obama oppose the values, needs, and aspirations of the middle class.<br /><br />I begin with the central fallacy behind their claim that they are the party of the middle class. Writers on their side such as Frank Rich and Robert Reich claim that Republican tax policy is responsible for the growing separation between rich and poor in our society and thus for the financial set back suffered by the middle class. Matt Taibi of <em>Rolling Stone Magazine</em> wrote, "The last ten years or so you have seen the government send massive amounts of money to people in the top tax brackets, mainly through two methods: huge tax cuts and financial bailouts."<br /><br /><p>Notice the chosen word "send" in regard to government activities. First, the government doesn't send money through taxation, it takes it. Taxation is legal confiscation that we agree to for the common good and the rule of law. One of the significant problems in Greece today is that the level of taxation has risen to such an outrageous level that a vast number of wealthy Greeks feel justified practicing tax evasion. At some point, raising taxes in any nation is counter productive as people take steps to protect what they have earned. In our own society, the use of tax shelters, off-shore investments, and other forms of legal tax evasion have been the means by which tax revenues rarely rise above 19% of GDP no matter the tax rate. </p><br /><p>Why is the left so concerned about how much the wealthy pay in taxes? Is it merely an issue of "that's where the money is" or is something else behind this concern? Notice that when they speak of the issue they often appeal to "fairness." The rich must pay their fair share or raising the capital gains tax is the fair thing to do. But the wealthiest 1% provide 40% (they earn 24% of the nation's income) of the revenue from income taxes now. They are already paying far more than their "share" of the expenses of government. Looking at this statistic one must ask, what does the left mean by the word "fair?"<br /><br />Closely related to fairness is the notion of leveling. We often hear of the need to "level the playing field," what they appear to mean by that is the profits and incomes of the top earners need to be brought down so the incomes of the poor and middle class can be brought up. But if we expect the government to do the "leveling" we asking for the redistribution of income and a process that contradicts traditional American economic values. So, it mystifies me how tax policy can have anything significant to do with restoring the middle class. It seems, rather, an act of class warfare and an attempt to bring rich people down a notch or two.</p><br /><p>To relate this to middle class values, both my father and my grandfather were small business men. They reflected one of the central values of the middle class; self-reliance. They literally hated the idea of getting something they didn't earn or deserve, and government charity was at the top of the list. The very idea that we should sustain the income level of the middle class by redistribution of income from the wealthy, the "spread the wealth around" statement by President Obama, is an utter contradiction of middle class values. </p><br /><p>Further, while government does have an important role in society, much of what is does is counterproductive. One of the great frustrations of the middle class is that their taxes are squandered for programs that don't work, for an educational system that never seems to improve, and for a welfare system that is incapable of dealing with the root causes of poverty and thus only perpetuates the problem. It is the middle class, by the way that pays the tax bills, they and the wealthy provide 97% of government revenues. So explain to me again, how the party of big government is also the party of the middle class.<br /><br />The irony is that enlightenment philosophy, the philosophy that drives so much of liberal ideology today, is radically opposed to what many call, "middle class values." Among those values are life-long marriage, the work ethic, the traditional family, the importance of religious faith, the moral and spiritual education of children, thrift and savings, and charitable giving. Just about every one of those values (except possibly savings and charitable giving) are under attack today from the very party that claims to be the party of the middle class. Because of this obvious animosity to what are core values for my family and I it is very difficult for me to take the claims of the Democratic Party seriously. They may be concerned about income inequality and the economic difficulties facing the middle class, but their solutions and policies end up not helping because they end up weakening the very principles and freedoms that produced the American middle class in the first place. For the middle class, with friends like the democrats, they don't need enemies.</p>Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02083511689909853826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5102345806482065959.post-7644253646059080112011-05-02T18:58:00.000-07:002011-06-04T21:25:32.007-07:00A Time of Great Moral ConfusionSam Harris, one of the group of secular intellectuals who call themselves "the new atheists," has written a new book to present a rational and scientific basis for morality. <em>The Moral Landscape</em> is the latest attempt to provide a unchanging and unchangeable set of moral values to govern human behavior while also denying the existence of God. From the time of Charles Darwin, leaders of the enlightenment have understood the need to find a secular and rational replacement for the moral values provided by Christianity. Thomas Huxley (called "Darwin's bulldog") advocated for Bible classes in the British school system to teach morality. They recognized that in seeking to destroy religion, in this case Christianity, they were also, as an unintended consequence, greatly weakening morality, and how can we have a healthy society without moral values? They were right, by the way, and we have watched a serious deterioration of moral consciousness and behavior in the last 50 years.<br /><br />Dr. Harris, as a member of the new atheists, is deeply antagonistic toward organized religion. His organization, Project Reason is established to spread secular values and oppose organized religion. His book on morality is an attempt to both provide a secular, scientific, and rational basis for moral values and to refute the view that religion is necessary to provide morals and give meaning to human life.<br /><br />He actually creates something of a strawman argument when he speaks of the issue. He states that Christians teach that a person can't be moral without belief in God. Actually the Bible says the opposite. Paul tells us that Gentiles (those with a wrong concept of God or no concept of God) instinctively follow the moral principles of God's law, because it is "written on their hearts." (Rom. 3:16) This notion, that morality is built-in to human nature, lies at the foundation of the principle of natural law and Christian ethics. For this reason, an atheist not only can be moral, he/she actually wants to be moral. It is one of the ironies that escapes Dr. Harris, his argument against God and Christianity is grounded in his moral sensibility (Religion is the source of war, evil, and oppression in the world), yet he has no explanation for how an entirely amoral, natural process such as evolution could have produced these moral inclinations in man. It's not that they don't try, which explains much of what the book is really about.<br /><br />The moral system of the book is built upon classical utilitarianism, which holds that morals is about creating or protecting well being for the largest number and likewise, avoiding pain and suffering for as many as possible. Utilitarianism has two serious problems that has been demonstrated in its use in human history. The first is that it's logic tends to de-value the individual in the debate over good and evil. The well being of an individual (or a few individuals) is not as important as the well being of the larger community. This results in two problems, first, if you are not one of the lucky ones who is part of the "larger community" you get to be the sufferer. In other words, it leads to justifying the elimination or exclusion of those not fortunate enough to be the greater number. Second, it endorses a moral reductionism. Immorality is bad for very pragmatic reasons, it harms society or makes it difficult for people to trust one another, rather than because it is just wrong. So, in the extreme, drugs might be considered wrong because of the harm they do to communities but not because of the harm they inflict on the individuals who take them.<br /><br /><br /><p>The danger in any attempt to create a rational foundation for morality is that human beings are much too good at rationalization. We are wonderful excuse makers and at using our minds for all types of self-justification. Look at the response of most politicians when they are exposed and accused of wrong doing. It is always some form of "I'm innocent of all charges." The larger problem with utilitarianism is that it is too easily set aside and rationalized or worse, twisted into the justification of actions that are both evil and deeply harmful. As a case in point, I would simply direct you to eugenics and the forced sterilization of thousands of people in the 1930's in the name of science and utilitarian moral principles.</p><br /><br /><p>The danger in invoking science and reason in morality is that these have no transcendent foundation. They are based on limited human knowledge and experience. We are too short sighted to understand the good or the bad of chosen behaviors or lifestyles. Only decades later, after we have weakened the institution of marriage, do we discover the damage the arises from no-fault divorce and single parent households.</p><br /><br /><p>Worse, since the enlightenment, we have rejected much of what human society assumed to know from history and thousands of years of human experience. We think we can change the rules about marriage and the family simply because we are so advanced, but in doing so, we are not acting reasonably, we are rationalizing. I believe that later generations will look back at our time as a time of outrageous arrogance. As we have sought to create a "new" morality that is really the old immorality, and that will, in the end, not acheive the greatest good for the greatest number, but will produce massive damage to the majority that always ends up following the cultural pied pipers.</p><br /><p><br />Our own society was not founded on utilitarianism, even though it was a powerful concept that emerged from the enlightenment. We value the individual and we seek to protect minority rights. As we state in the Declaration of Independence, "All men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights..." Many have argued that we were not (or were) established as a "Christian" nation, and I would be one who would say that we were not in the direct and intentional sense. The founders understood that we were religiously diverse, even at the end of the eighteenth century. They wanted a free and just society open to all<strong>, but founded upon Christian principles</strong>. There is no question that in regard to the value of individual and the importance of a transcendent moral structure for society, that they were influenced by Christianity and not by the enlightenment thinking of their day. For not only do they invoke the importance of the individual, they invoke "inalienable rights" these rights are not given by the state or by society at large, they are inherent rights based upon an inate structure of right and wrong built into the universe itself.<br /></p><br /><p>Based on the success of the great American experiment, one could assume that a transcendent view of morality gives better results and fits human nature far better than the innovations of utilitarianism. Like so many attempts to create a secular and rational morality this latest attempt by Dr. Harris crashes into the rocks of human fallibility. We are Romans 7 creatures, "For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out." (Rom. 7:18) Not only do we need a set of transcendent moral values, we need the grace of God to keep them.<br /></p>Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02083511689909853826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5102345806482065959.post-84833639471482462272011-04-06T19:33:00.000-07:002011-04-19T13:55:32.570-07:00What's at Stake in the Budget CrisisWith Paul Ryan's budget proposal we are seeing the beginning of a serious discussion on entitlements and the size and scope of government. I would refer you to two articles that reveal what is at stake in the national debate over the budget and deficits. The first was written by Yuval Levin at National Affairs. You can read it<a href="http://nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/beyond-the-welfare-state"> here</a>. The second is from Walter Russel Mead at the American Spectator which you can read <a href="http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2011/04/05/life-beyond-blue-faith-and-the-inner-city/">here</a>. Mr. Levin's article should be read by every politician and voter in this country. He presents the tragedy of the American welfare state. We have spent trillions of dollars to create a nearly permanent underclass. The reason for this sorry state of affairs is that the political left, which drove the welfare agenda, possessed a distorted view of the central institutions of American culture; marriage, the family, and the church. As a result, policies were developed that undermined the "glue" that held communities together, and provided the means for sky rocketing numbers of single parent households, which led inevitably to the increase in family poverty and cyclic welfare dependency. In other words, the mis-distribution of wealth between the economic classes and the differences between the educational and social achievements of the races is not primarily because of de-regulation and the excesses of capitalism, it is one of the consequences of the social welfare policies of the American government.<br /><br /><em>The collapse of the family among the poor-powerfully propelled by the ethic</em> <em>of social democracy and by a horrendously designed welfare system that was</em> <em>not improved until the 1990's-has vastly worsened social and economic inequality</em> <em>in America, and the capacity of generations to rise out of poverty.</em><br /><em></em><br />Walter Russell Mead puts it in even more graphic terms.<br /><br /><em>The failure of the blue social model to solve the problems of the underclass in American inner cities was one of the great tragedies of the last thirty years. Hundreds of billions of dollars were spent; tens of millions of lives remained blighted, and a culture of violence, degradation, and despair has taken hold among some of our society's most vulnerable and needy people.</em><br /><br />We have spent vast amounts of money on programs and policies that simply have not worked as we had hoped. Mead, who is a self-declared Democrat, believes that there have certainly been benefit from all that money and effort. In other words, the "blue social model" was not a total waste of money and effort. The anti-poverty programs and affirmative action has helped produced a large and increasing Black middle class and beyond. One need only read Barak and Michelle Obama's stories to see the positive effect he is talking about.<br /><br /><br /><br /><p>But the tragedy of the story is that these individuals are the exception to our approach to social progress. Looking closely, in fact, we see many of the influences of family and friends that kept the Obamas from being swallowed up by the vast malaise that accompanied the welfare world.</p><br /><br /><br /><br /><p>So, why are we spending yet <em>more </em>trillions to perpetuate this failed model of public assistance? In the debate over the budget, can we begin to talk about results and not just about intentions. Part of the reason we are in this mess is that the politicians have told us we need this or that program for the "poor," for "children," or for "education," without telling us how it was going to actually solve the underlying problems. Worse, there has been no accountability for the failure of these programs, nor a demand that they be fundamentally changed from within the political class. Criticism and demand for change have come from outside government, and thus have little power to change the model. And political correctness prevents the types of faith based, family and church oriented approaches from even being considered.</p><br /><br /><br /><br /><p>The problem extends to our assumptions about health care (we forget that the current health insurance connected to employment model is the result of government intervention), taxation, and entitlements. We claim to be caring for the middle class and the elderly while never asking if what we are doing will actually help based on real life example and experience. This becomes particularly important because Europe has already operated on many of the same assumptions we are using with horrendous results. Whether we look at Greece, Spain, or even Great Britain, we see that the social democratic welfare model cannot be sustained. To solve this problem, Sweden, for example, has already adopted some of the elements included in the Ryan budget plan, such as vouchers for education and health care and stands as a real time demonstration that they actually work. And Canada has dramatically improved its economy by a strong commitment to deficit elimination and ongoing fiscal responsibility.</p><br /><br /><br /><br /><p>As we face the upcoming battle over the budget and as we approach the 2012 elections, we must keep in mind that business as usual and the old political assumptions cannot be allowed to continue. This is not just about deficit reduction, it is about ending failed policies and approaches. It will not be easy, there are a great many entrenched interests that will fight to maintain their positions of power and priviledge. Just look at what happened to Michelle Rhee and Gov. Scott Walker when they attacked the status quo. We must prepare ourselves for a long and difficult battle, but we must also keep before us that we are fighting for the very future of our society as a bastion of prosperity, freedom, and goodness. May we declare with our patriot forefathers, "We have only begun to fight."</p>Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02083511689909853826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5102345806482065959.post-77177747195685596302011-01-14T06:48:00.000-08:002011-02-01T19:24:26.594-08:00Tucson: Evil ExposedMoral relativism breaks down when it encounters the kind of monstrous evil we saw in Tucson a few weeks ago. This type of evil is not a "mistake" nor is it a matter of taste or preference, it is dark and cruel and destructive. There can be no possible justification for such a heinous act. None. There are no mitigating circumstances to explain it, no moral dilemma to be resolved. In this act, we saw evil in all its ugliness.<br /><br />Roger Simon on the Politico blog states the dilemma for moral relativism. On January 18 he wrote, "In modern times, are we embarassed by the term 'evil?' To some it seems too primitive or too religious or both." Yet, what else can we call the heinous acts of that day? And yes, evil is a religous issue.<br /><br />This act reveals the monstrous capacity for evil in the human heart. While the murderer appears to have been severely mentally disturbed, insanity does not adequately explain the cruel inhumanity of his actions. As the facts of the case unfolded, I was often comparing this act of murder by a madman with the similar mass murder of men, women, and children in a public place by a suicide bomber. Mass murder can be rational or irrational, it is still murder.<br /><br />Evil exists as a fearful reality in our world. We are confronted with its horrors every day. The death of a child at the hands of a molestor, death and dis-memberment of rivals by drug war lords in Mexico, or a car bomb blowing up a church in Baghdad are just some examples of the tragic events that fill our daily news broadcasts. There is no escaping the awareness of this monstrous reality.<br /><br />The murders in Tucson were different in one aspect however. They gave us a glimpse of the sinister nature of evil. Who can forget the look on Jared Loughner's mug shot. It is almost enough to convince one of evil as a transcendent or metaphysical reality. Or to put it in biblical terms, to convince one of the demonic. The kind of evil displayed by these murders is inhuman, as beyond human. Dostoyevsky is said to have described the transcendent nature of human evil. It is un-natural, in that it cannot be explained just by the fulfillment of natural appetites, it goes beyond nature. As he wrote, "To call human evil 'bestial' is to insult the beasts, for no beast was ever as cruel as a man."<br /><br />The existence of evil in the world is often used as an argument against God. Yet no system of thought or belief whether religious or non-religious deals as clearly and honestly with the existence of evil as Christianity. I would put Isaiah 59 up against any explanation for the existence of evil in the world. Particularly since it declares that our God does not just "explain" evil, He has acted to end its reign. "Now the Lord saw, and it was displeasing in His sight that there was no justice. And He saw that there was no man, and he was astonished that there was no one to intercede; then his own arm brought salvation to Him, and His righteousness upheld Him." God was not only disturbed by the evil in the world, He sent His Son and did something about it. Christ came, He bore our evil in all its monstrous cruelty on the cross, and by His death and resurrection liberated us from its power.<br /><br />In the midst of the terrible evil of that day, there shone the light of faith. I was deeply moved by testimony of the parents of Christina-Taylor Green, as they expressed their conviction that their daughter was in heaven. And of Dorwan Stoddard who shielded his wife and died protecting her, confident of the reality of everlasting life through faith in Christ.<br /><br />Evil is real but it will not have the final say. Even in the midst of such a tragedy we saw another transcendent presence: faith, hope, and love. May we display some measure of the courage, the faith, and love that were manifested on that day of infamy. And may we draw near to the God whose grace was present on that day and whose love is available to all who who will put their trust in Him.Tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02083511689909853826noreply@blogger.com0