Good Company – “He Chooses You”

March 16, 2014 Leave a comment

“Will to do His will”

“Bridges Get Walked On”

“He chooses you.”

Grab some Starbucks and enjoy this incredible Interview with Rosaria Butterfield; January 11, 2013

 

The Collect For the Second Sunday of Lent (and my prayer):

 O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy:  Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your way, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ your Son; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God for ever and ever. Amen

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Apotheosis: “Laying Aside” Yourself for the Gospel – Saeed Abedini

March 16, 2014 Leave a comment

Remember the Scripture’s account of the boy Samuel from 1 Samuel Chapter 3?

One night after young Samuel had gone to bed, he heard a voice calling his name. Quickly he ran to Eli’s side, saying, “Here am I; for you called me.”

“I called not,” Eli responded; “lie down again.”

Samuel obeyed Eli and returned to his bed. When he lay down again, he heard the same voice call his name.

Samuel hurried back to Eli’s side, but Eli again denied calling him. Puzzled, Samuel returned to his room. A third time he clearly heard his name called, and again he returned to Eli.

This time Eli realized that it must be the Lord who was calling Samuel. He said, “Go and lie down, and if he calls you, say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’”

Samuel returned to bed and waited. Once more the Lord came and called, “Samuel, Samuel.”

This time Samuel responded, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”

The Lord then told Samuel that because Eli’s sons were disobedient and because Eli did not control them, they would be punished and Samuel would become the new prophet.

Because of his diligence and obedience, Samuel continued to learn and grow. The Lord was with him, and all Israel knew that Samuel had been called to be a prophet of the Lord. (emphasis mine)

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Tear Down That Anthropocentricity

March 8, 2014 Leave a comment

 Solzhenitsyn

 

It may have been in the later 1970s that I became aware of Alexander Solzhenitsyn.  I don’t recall exactly what brought him to my attention. It may have been news reports of the Soviet Union’s exiled dissident. Solzhenitsyn had been deported from the USSR and stripped of Soviet citizenship in 1974. He later came to live in the US for almost twenty years.

 With the admixture of the Cold War, the horror stories coming out of the USSR, reports of Solzhenitsyn’s moral courage and my youthful desire to make a difference in the world I soon became enthralled by Russia and Solzhenitsyn.

 During the 1980s I read Solzhenitsyn.  I read all three volumes of The Gulag Archipelago, an eye-opening history of the Soviet police state and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, a novella.  These works forever etched on my mind the Stolypin cars used to resettle passenger and livestock together; Stalin’s Cult of Personality, his purges, his deportations, his gulags and his murder of tens of millions of people.

 In addition to media reports about Soviet atrocities in the 1980s I traveled to Poland for business purposes.  I used a polish translator.  It turned out that the translator, a Pole, was once a CIA agent who worked inside Russia. He told me about the atrocities done to the Poles by the USSR and the KGB.  He hated what the Soviets had done to his people. From my perspective, except for the occasional flower stands on the streets, Warsaw and Bialystok looked gray and depleted of life from the effects of Communism.

 Solzhenitsyn, an author who documented life under Stalin with short stories, novels and poems that included harsh critiques of Stalin and totalitarianism, survived prison camps – the gulags – and assassination attempts by the KGB. But, Solzhenitsyn kept writing, speaking out against the evil being done to the Russian people.  This is why Solzhenitsyn is a hero to me unlike any ‘hero’ regarded today.  This man suffered for the truth he did not hesitate to speak.

 Born the month that Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected to the presidency, I was raised during the Cold War days (1947-1991). I recall the election of John F. Kennedy and the US ‘cold shoulder’ standoffs with the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc.

 The two superpowers, the US and the USSR, stood diametrically opposed politically, economically and ideologically. Solzhenitsyn would speak to one of those powers when he gave his Harvard commencement address on June 8, 1978 – A World Split Apart. For some context, the speech was made the summer after Jimmy Carter was sworn in as President on January 20, 1977.

 I came across the speech again yesterday.  I reread it on the train last night, on my way home from work.

 Though I prefer shorter posts I would like to share the power of these words with you plus some poignant commentary about Solzhenitsyn’s works and words from the book The Conservative Foundations of the Liberal Order by Daniel J. Mahoney.

 First, from the book, Chapter 7, The Totalitarian Subversion of Modernity:  Solzhenitsyn on the Self-deification of Man and the Origins of the Modern Crisis are some words of warning for any democratic impulse:

 “The experience of totalitarianism, that “twentieth-century invention,” as Alexander Solzhenitsyn once called it, ought to have permanently discredited all facile or naïve progressivism. But as the previous chapter attests, too many in the West mistakenly identified the fall of Communism in the East-central Europe and the Soviet Union with “the overflowing triumph of an all-democratic bliss.”  The writings of Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008) provide unique resources for understanding both the evils of totalitarianism and the limits of democratic euphoria.”…

 Regarding Solzhenitsyn publishing of August 1914 in 1972:

“If August 1914 provided a devastating critique of the sclerotic character of the old Russian regime, of the unwillingness of its purblind bureaucrats and courtiers to adjust thoughtfully to conditions of modernity, it is also clear that Solzhenitsyn had no sympathy for those left-liberals then or in his time who flirted with nihilism, apologized for terrorism, and showed contempt for the best spiritual and cultural traditions of the Russian nation. The luminous essays by Solzhenitsyn and his collaborators in From Under the Rubble contemplate a Russian future freed from evils of ideological despotism.  At the same time, its contributors warned against the slavish imitation of the worst features of contemporary Western democracy, including its scientism, subjectivism, and rejection of the classical and Christian resources of the Western tradition.” (emphasis mine)

 The chapter then goes on to speak of Solzhenitsyn’s indictment of Marxism and collectivism, as well, his “Augustinian defense of freedom – but no special privileges – for religious believers.”

 Under the chapter’s section The Fragility of Modern Liberty:

 “Solzhenitsyn, though, remains what has always been – an eloquent and principled defender of liberty and human dignity.  Yet, Solzhenitsyn is acutely aware of the fragility of the Enlightenment principles that under gird the regime of modern liberty… Solzhenitsyn’s refusal to sever freedom from an order of truth sets him apart from every radically modern articulation of human liberty and makes him suspicious in the eyes of those who identify liberty with the rejection of all natural or divine limits.” (emphasis mine)

 There is way too much depth about Solzhenitsyn and the weakness of our modern democracy in The Conservative Foundations of the Liberal Order for me to relate here and now.  I highly recommend the book to you.

 Now to Solzhenitsyn’s words:

 Intro: The Soviet and Russian novelist, dramatist, and historian during his commencement address delivered at Harvard University, June 8, 1978, without wavering, noted that the problems of the two superpowers were not the military strengths and ideological differences of each turned against each other but rather their lack of a moral center and moral courage.

Because Solzhenitsyn was addressing a western audience, an elite Western audience at Harvard, his speech was decidedly a stinging indictment of the West – its materialism and it’s almost “unlimited freedom of choice of pleasures, its self-serving, inbred media and its disavowal of its spiritual roots:

 “However, in early democracies, as in the American democracy at the time of its birth, all individual human rights were granted because man is God’s creature. That is, freedom was given to the individual conditionally, in the assumption of his constant religious responsibility. Such was the heritage of the preceding thousand years. Two hundred or even fifty years ago, it would have seemed quite impossible, in America, that an individual could be granted boundless freedom simply for the satisfaction of his instincts or whims. Subsequently, however, all such limitations were discarded everywhere in the West; a total liberation occurred from the moral heritage of Christian centuries with their great reserves of mercy and sacrifice. … State systems were becoming increasingly and totally materialistic. The West ended up by truly enforcing human rights, sometimes even excessively, but man’s sense of responsibility to God and society grew dimmer and dimmer.” (emphasis mine)

 And…

“If humanism were right in declaring that man is born only to be happy, he would not be born to die. Since his body is doomed to die, his task on earth evidently must be of a more spiritual nature. It cannot be unrestrained enjoyment of everyday life. It cannot be the search for the best ways to obtain material goods and then cheerfully get the most of them. It has to be the fulfillment of a permanent, earnest duty so that one’s life journey may become an experience of moral growth, so that one may leave life a better human being than one started it. It is imperative to review the table of widespread human values. Its present incorrectness is astounding. It is not possible that assessment of the President’s performance be reduced to the question how much money one makes or of unlimited availability of gasoline. Only voluntary, inspired self-restraint can raise man above the world stream of materialism.” (emphasis mine)

And…

“It would be retrogression to attach oneself today to the ossified formulas of the Enlightenment. Social dogmatism leaves us completely helpless in front of the trials of our times. Even if we are spared destruction by war, our lives will have to change if we want to save life from self-destruction. We cannot avoid revising the fundamental definitions of human life and human society. Is it true that man is above everything? Is there no Superior Spirit above him? Is it right that man’s life and society’s activities have to be determined by material expansion in the first place? Is it permissible to promote such expansion to the detriment of our spiritual integrity?” (emphasis mine)

 In the speech Solzhenitsyn speaks of “…our Earth – divided against itself;” “…all of a sudden the twentieth century brought the clear realization of this society’s fragility.;” ”…the persisting blindness of superiority;” “A decline in courage may be the most striking feature that an outside observer notices in the West today.;” “…and the decline of courage, at times attaining what could be termed a lack of manhood, is ironically emphasized by the occasional outbursts and inflexibility on the part of those same functionaries when dealing with weak governments and with countries that lack support, or with doomed currents which clearly cannot offer resistance..  But they get tongue-tied and paralyzed when they deal with powerful government and threatening forces, with aggressors and international terrorists.”

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?  Even when echoed from the distance of 1978.

 Take a look at what drives you and perhaps you will see why America is no longer a nation under God, no longer a nation of civil courage, of moral decency.  As Solzhenitsyn points out in his address the West has become humanist anthropocentric:  “the proclaimed and practiced autonomy of man from any higher force above him…with a willful denial of a “Supreme Complete Entity.”

Liberty and the rule of law is not enough to keep us right side up. “Whenever the tissue of life is woven of legalistic relationships, this creates an atmosphere of spiritual mediocrity that paralyzes man’s noblest impulses.”

And, perhaps you will now understand why people would vote for a president who uses class warfare rhetoric to promote the sands of material security as foundational to life’s happiness and not the bedrock of spiritual fortitude.

Please read the speech in its entirety. You will be better for it. Solzhenitsyn’s Harvard Address 6-8-1978

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America’s ‘DeValued’ Moral Currency

February 12, 2014 Leave a comment

Pervasive throughout our land is the avoidance of asking the hard questions.  We shun the real questions about life and death and about God.  We do not want to talk “good and evil.”  We glibly talk about body and soul, about reason and revelation, about eternity and time. 

 The other day I happened to watch The Lord of the Rings (LTR):  The Return of the King.  Putting the above statement into LTR terms, we want to live peaceably in the shire without ever having to venture out and deal with the Ring, a Ring which has consequential power over us. We may say to ourselves, “Why destroy the ring when we don’t know for sure it exists? We may have thoughts that all that the shire presents to us is all there is to life. We will go on with our quietude in order to avoid conflict and to live peaceably. We choose society’s ‘safe’ surroundings and its costly ‘insurance’ policies to avoid the dangerous quest that truth demands of us. We fear what it might take to make the journey.  We fear we will lose ourselves on the way and never return to the shire. We fear, we fear and we fear again.

   We fear conflict.  And this is because inherent in conflict are the morals or ethics that each of the disparate parties brings with them. Conflict is the evil we most want to avoid.  Our “dialectics” begin with opposites and often end in synthesis or in the exclusion (or boycott) of the ‘other’.  We will seek out the ‘no-fault divorce’ of our language from its historical meaning. We give a pass to “Political-Correctness” (PC) because PC talk bypasses truth and goes straight to a word originally devoid of any value in and of itself but now given full political power: “diversity.”  

With the acceptance of “diversity,” also a code-word for “whatever” or “it-depends,” moral relativity’s child, lawlessness, increasingly becomes a de facto way to govern and self-govern. Yet, “Wisdom shouts in the street, She lifts her voice in the square; At the head of the noisy streets she cries out; At the entrance of the gates in the city She utters her sayings…”

As we go on and find more and more moral conflicts and in order to avoid angst we find it easier to believe nothing of import so that we do not have to fear disagreement, ostracism or even death for what one believes. And because we do not believe in anything then we cannot be responsible for outcomes. Nihilism’s union with materialism begets the DNA of nihilism – lives drained of any meaning other than the moment. In fact, we are told duplicitously “to live in the moment.”

 To choose to believe nothing means that absolute truth is discharged from our lives.  Its voice is no longer heeded.  In fact its voice is now being drowned out.  The commotion that you hear daily is man’s raucous resistance to leaving the shire ~ his tweeting and texting of empty words, the ever streaming pop/rock music filling the void, the Surround sound of ubiquitous blaring entertainment.  It is as if men and women were walking around in the dark calling out to each other and never finding the light switch. They have chosen to stay in the purgatory of their fears.

 The avoidance of pain and conflict has become our primary goal in life.  This is seen in the young voter’s desire for Obamacare.  The health care reform is seen by them as in line with their “values”.  The reform is also seen as providing a sense of self-esteem in that it affirms the young voters wish to avoid pain and insecurity at all costs. On the surface Obamacare appears to provide security for themselves and for others while in truth it is a compromise of what is good and what is evil – the good being the desire for your well-being and the well-being of others and the evil which is the lie that Obama and the government will somehow provide self-esteem and security for you and others and do it with altruism. Remember, God has now been replaced by social science, social science based on rationalism and egalitarianism (think John Rawls, Laurence Tribe, etc.) all under the banner of “Social Justice.”  Rationalism’s,’ “Social Justice” trumps God every time.  Social science is now becoming the creator of society’s values, e.g., God is not to be talked about in public but homosexuality must be.  All of this in spite of the fact that rationalism without revelation could never create value. As Benedict XVI said in 1969:

“What is essential is that reason shut in on itself does not remain reasonable or rational, just as the state that aims at being perfect becomes tyrannical. Reason needs revelation in order to be able to be effective as reason.”

 The avoidance of truth with its inherent conflicts with other than the truth affects our relationships, our sexuality, our creativity, our culture. In place of absolute truth Americans, as mentioned, have latched on to “values.” And our new “value” system has a new way of talking:  “lifestyle”, “Be Yourself;” “Be original;” “Let go and be;”  diversity;” “I have my rights.” But now “rights” are no longer the natural inalienable God-given rights “of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”  Now “rights” have morphed into feelings worn on our sleeve.  We demand that others accept what we feel and that others be open and tolerant. This is what we value above all else. Right and wrong (and love (read not sex)) no longer have a place in our psyche. “Values” – a synthesis of good and evil dominates our diseased culture. And when we ignore serious questions we create words with synthetic meanings to describe our lives.

 “Charisma” is one of those words often heard today. Charisma was once considered a God-given grace but has been used as cover for the “banality of evil” as Hannah Arendt, political philosopher, notes when talking about Hitler’s appeal.

  Allan Bloom, another political philosopher, notes in his 1987 book The Closing of the American Mind:  How Higher Education Has failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today’s Students, “Charisma both justifies leaders and excuses followers.  The very word gives a positive twist to rabble-rousing qualities and activities treated as negative in our constitutional tradition.  And it s vagueness makes it a tool for frauds and advertising men adept at manipulating images.” Consider that both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama have both been called charismatic leaders.

 In the introduction to his book, Bloom writes about what he sees in the classrooms of higher education: 

“There is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of:  almost every student entering the university believes, or says he believes that truth is relative….They are unified only in their relativism and their allegiance to equality….They have been equipped with this framework early on, and it is the modern replacement for the inalienable rights that used to be the traditional American grounds for a free society…The danger they have been taught to fear from absolutism is not error but intolerance.  Relativism is necessary to openness; and this is virtue, the only virtue, which all primary education for more than fifty years has dedicated itself to inculcating.  Openness ~ and the relativism that makes it only plausible stance in the face of various claims to truth and various ways of life and kinds of human beings ~ is the great insight of our times. The true believer is the real danger.  The study of history and culture teaches that all the world was mad in the past; men always thought they were right, and that led to wars, persecutions, slavery, xenophobia, racism, and chauvinism.  The point (now) is not to correct the mistakes and really be right; rather it is not to think you are right at all.”  (emphasis mine)

  In a later chapter titled The German Connection, Bloom relates how Nietzsche, Heidegger, Hegel, Weber, Freud have influenced American thinking.  Americans, within a “pro-choice” democracy, have assimilated this German thinking sometimes turning it on its head.   Bloom writes, 

“…there is now an entirely new language of good and evil, originating in an attempt to get “beyond good and evil” and preventing us from talking with any conviction about good and evil anymore.  Even those who deplore our current moral condition do so in the very language that exemplifies that condition.”

“The new language is that of value relativism and it constitutes a change in our view of things moral and political as great as the one that took place when Christianity replaced Greek and Roman paganism.” (empahsis mine) …

“Value relativism can be taken to be a great release from the perpetual tyranny of good and evil, with its cargo and shame and guilt, and the endless efforts that the pursuit of the one and the avoidance of the other enjoin. Intractable good and evil cause infinite distress – like war and sexual repression – which is almost instantly relieved when more flexible values are introduced.  One need not feel bad about or uncomfortable with oneself when just a little value adjustment is necessary.  And this longing to shuck off constraints and have one peaceful, happy world is the first of the affinities between our real American world and that of German philosophy in its most advanced form, given expression by the critics of the President’s speech.”

 Here Bloom is referring to the clamor arising when President Reagan referred to the Soviet Union as the “evil empire.”  When yet at another time Reagan said that the Soviets had “different values,” this statement was met “at worst with silence and frequently with approval,” thus revealing our loathing of absolutism in the former statement.

 At the beginning of the chapter Values, Bloom, relates, “We have come back to the point where we began (in the book), where values take the place of good and evil.” (emphasis mine)

And so like Gollum we place the utmost value on the ring of power, becoming blind to its tyranny over us. Along with the ring we call our values “My Precious.”  Under the yolk of temporal “values” and without facing the serious questions of life we lose ourselves, we lose the real.  We lose love, romance, culture, art ~ everything that gives meaning to life.

 Love or charity, a virtue which must be constantly worked at, is replaced with ‘sexual rights.’ Consider that in our culture sexual activity is not to be repressed or self-controlled but rather it is to be given preeminent unrestrained “value.” Think Sandra Fluke and contraception. Think in-your-face homosexuality. Does America “confirm her soul in self-control” or not?

 Romance, apart from truth is portrayed in movie after movie as just a response to nihilism. Nowhere to be found is the expectation, the unrequited desire and the hoped-for revelation of real romance. Without absolutes there can be no true romance.

 We are a culture that seeks therapeutic counseling.  Yet modern psychology, the sworn enemy of shame and guilt, refuses to talk about good and evil and therefore offers nothing for the soul. Freudian psychology only brings the patient back to repressed sex.

 Modern art has nothing of consequence to offer. Consider the pop art of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein.

 Deafening music, pop or rock, pummels our ear drums daily evoking barbaric passions and depriving the soul of its senses.

 Tattoos deface our bodies so as to reveal our disdain for the discipline that purity of mind and body requires. Inking is given the (non-)value of counter-culture and rabble-rousing.

 Religion, wherein serious questions are faced, is being replaced by positive thinking as preached from the temples of TV.

 In view of the fact that our nation is becoming increasingly devoid of absolutes and truth while at the same time becoming increasingly laced with relativism and sliding scale “values” consider this:

 Jesus, the Son of the Living God and The Way, the Truth and the Life says, “You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free.” Free from what? Free from fear.  All fear:  the fear of the unknown, the fear of facing ultimate accountability, the fear of death, the fear of loss and personal suffering, the fear of evil.  Jesus’ perfect love casts out all fear. Because of this we can face the serious questions of life head-on knowing that God ~ Father, Son and Holy Spirit love us, that They stand with us and that Jesus has gone before us through the same difficult places. Seek Him and He will be found.

 Going back to the LTR analogy do you remember how Frodo and Sam and the rest rejoiced that the ring had been destroyed, that their arduous life and death journey had been accomplished? Their courage and resoluteness saved the shire, themselves and Middle Earth even while the others in the shire had no clue as to what was going on.  You and I must do the same.

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Three Atheists I Listen To

January 5, 2014 1 Comment

Becoming a follower of Jesus Christ and an heir of the King and a fellow servant in the Kingdom of God began when I first believed that God existed. What followed was the understanding that God not only existed but that He is an Infinite-Personal God who, though having created the vast universe ex nihilo using the Big Bang and evolution, loves me.

 Beyond my own personal encounters with God through my reason and through the testimony of others, there are the historical facts supporting the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. There is also astounding supporting evidence in nature. God exists.

But there are some who say otherwise: “Atheism exists, this I know, for my reason tells me so.” These would be the angry atheists Richard Dawkins, the former Christopher Hitchens (Hitch) and others.

 I have at one time or another heard these atheists give their arguments of disbelief and I have found their words wanting for any real substance. They often come across as superior and snobbish.  And, their arguments are certainly unfettered by the factual account of the resurrection or of the fine tuning of the universe that makes life and thought and argument possible at all. Their anger exists.

 There are three atheists I pay attention to.  I tune in to them because what they often say through words or music reveals the truth about God in a way they may not even realize. The three atheists are Thomas Sowell, Dr. Theodore Dalrymple and Frederick Delius

Thomas SowellFirst, Thomas Sowell.  Start at his web page Thomas Sowell. And, here is a short bio from the Townhall.com web page: http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/

“…writing for the general public enables him to address the heart of issues without the smoke and mirrors that so often accompany academic writing.”

  Sowell is an economist, a common sense economist.  You will get that sense as you read his books and articles.  Of late, I have read The Thomas Sowell Reader (start with this book for short articles addressing current issues both economic and social) and A Conflict of Visions.

  The Thomas Sowell Reader, a compilation of articles and essays written by Thomas Sowell, economist:

 “From an early age, I have been convinced with trying to understand the social problems that abound in any society.  First and foremost, this was an attempt to try to grasp some explanation of the puzzling and disturbing things going on around me.  This was all for my own personal clarification, since I neither had political ambitions nor the political talents required for either elective or appointed office.  But, one having achieved some sense of understanding of particular issues ~ a process that sometimes took years – I wanted to share that understanding with others.  That is the reason for the things that appear in this book.”

 A Conflict of Visions, also written by Thomas Sowell:

 “What are the underlying assumptions behind the very different ideological visions of the world being contested in modern times?  The purpose here will not be to determine which of these visions is more valid but rather to reveal the inherent logic behind each of these sets of views and the ramifications of the assumptions which lead not only to different conclusions on particular issues but also to wholly different meanings to such fundamental words as “justice,” “equality,” and “power.”

 A sample article by Thomas Sowell:  The Fallacy of Redistribution

 519px-TheodoredalrympleRegarding Dr. Theodore Dalrymple and some of his recurring themes from books and articles note the following from his Wikipedia entry.  I confirm these themes having read his book Life at the bottom. The Worldview that makes the Underclass:

 -The cause of much contemporary misery in Western countries ~ criminality, domestic violence, drug addiction, aggressive youths, hooliganism, broken families ~ is the nihilistic, decadent, and/or self-destructive behavior of people who do not know how to live. Both the smoothing over of this behavior, and the lexicalization of the problems that emerge as a corollary of this behavior, are forms of indifference. Someone has to tell those people, patiently and with understanding for the particulars of the case, that they have to live differently. (Life at the bottom. The Worldview that makes the Underclass)

-Moral relativism can easily be a trick of an egotistical mind to silence the voice of conscience. (‘The Uses of Metaphysical Skepticism’, in: In Praise of Prejudice. The Necessity of Preconceived Ideas, p. 6 (chapter 2).

-Multiculturalism and cultural relativism are at odds with common sense. (“Multiculturalism Starts Losing Its Luster”. City Journal. Retrieved 12 July 2009)

-The decline of civilized behavior ~ self-restraint, modesty, zeal, humility, irony, detachment – ruins social and personal life. (Not with a Bang but a Whimper)

-The root cause of our contemporary cultural poverty is intellectual dishonesty. First, the intellectuals (more specifically, left-wing ones) have destroyed the foundation of culture, and second, they refuse to acknowledge it by resorting to the caves of political correctness.

deliusLastly, Frederick Delius.  I don’t recall when I first heard his compositions. It may have been in my thirties at a Chicago Symphony concert.  The first piece I remember is the symphonic poem The Song Of Summer.  I was overwhelmed by its simple beauty.

 From The Delius Collection, Vol. 2 CD liner notes:

 “Many have written of Delius’ ‘moods’ or ‘feelings’, views which reflect only the ‘impression’ his music has made on the writers (read music critics).

Such Romantic or rather Impressionistic ~ notions of his art are only concerned with its surface appeal, as if that is all that is valuable in it, and ignore wholly his unique technical and structural mastery.  In such ways, Delius is more of an anti-Romantic, for the sentimentality or self-projection of Romanticism are alien to his music.  Delius hymned Nature, not himself as did Sebelius; such sentimentality as may condemn his art stems from a performing style wherein expressive beauty is stressed at the cost of his music’s intellectual power.” Robert Matthew-Walker

 For starters I would recommend listening to Irmelin Prelude, Song of Summer, A Late Lark, the orchestral interlude A Walk to Paradise Garden from his opera A Village Romeo and Juliet and On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring.

 An avowed atheist, Delius embraced nature for his inspiration.  He also embraced Nietzsche’s philosophy which produced Delius’ loud and unattractive A Mass of Life.

 “A Mass of Life is an attack upon Christian doctrine and the Christian way of life as Nietzsche and Delius saw it. They both wanted to correct what they called the “slave morality” of Christianity.  Their great emphasis was upon the will, not bowing to anyone, and living and dying fearlessly though death be total extinction.

Death, when it came to Delius, was terrible, and within a few months his steadfast wife was dead too.

In speaking about Delius, Eric Fenby (Delius’ composition scribe after Delius became blind) observes, “Given those great natural musical gifts and that nature of his, so full of feeling, and which at its finest inclined to that exalted end of man which is contemplation, there is no knowing to what sublime heights he would have risen had he chosen to look upwards to God instead of downward to man!”  From the Gift of Music by Jane Stuart Smith and Betty Carlson, Crossway Books

 What the first two atheists have in common is their ability to speak truth, wisdom and common sense ~ God’s law within each of us – simply. As Richard Feynman, Nobel laureate of physics said, “You can recognize truth by its beauty and simplicity.”

 Both men, from their lifetime of experiences, have seen reality and tell us that there are values that a man must embrace to be civilized, to be ‘right side up’, so to speak.  They tell us that Man must draw the line somewhere. 

Now, I believe that it is the God of Creation who has created the line ~ the natural law written on our hearts ~ and He has exposed our crossing it. But, He did not leave us on our own, to remake ourselves as Nietzsche’s ideal human, the Übermensch, who would be able to channel passions creatively (but to what end?). He gave us the only way possible, through His Son, to regain our humanity.

 Frederick Delius revealed truth through his music’s contemplative moments of rhapsodic beauty as inspired by God’s creation.

 All three have seen things (even the eventually blind Delius) that others often willfully ignore. They are honest with themselves about what they see and they repeat it back.  And, there is knowledge of reality in their words and works that can only find its genesis in God’s created order and His law written on our hearts.

 “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” Ecclesiastes 3:11

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The New/Old Jesus People Speak

December 21, 2013 Leave a comment

Years ago, in the 60’s and 70’s, I was part of the Jesus People Movement.  It was during those days that I heard street-wise preachers like Phil in school auditoriums and in public parks.  Hundreds of us teenagers attended. 

We brought our school friends with us and many believed.  And after they believed we took them down to the lake and baptized them right then and there. I baptized my best friend Carl.

Those are times I will never forget.  Phil Robertson’s words reminded me once more of God’s love towards us, then and now and forever. 

And don’t forget! Christmas ~ the birth of the Messiah King ~ is the start of the Kingdom of God on earth.

  “Mary will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” the gospel of Matthew 1:21

(Jesus is the Greek form of Joshua, which means the Lord saves.)

Regarding the uproar over Phil’s A&E show comments, know this:  at the heart of the problem of sin is “the persistent refusal to tolerate a sense of sin.” Alvin. Plantinga

Filed under Christianity, Christmas Tagged with , , , ,

We Thirst …For God’s Love

November 24, 2013 4 Comments

St. Patrick’s Prayer within Henryk Górecki’s Symphony No.3 “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs,” within Terrence Malick’s “to The Wonder.”

We are mortal. God’s Love is inexhaustible, eternal.

****

“You can recognize truth by its beauty and simplicity.”  – Richard Feynman Nobel laureate in physics from Part One of ‘Tthe Evidential Power of Beauty: Science and Theology Meet by Thomas Dubay, S. M.

Filed under Christianity, media Tagged with , , , , ,

The Road Less Traveled By – To The Solidification Zone

November 17, 2013 Leave a comment

The Great Divorce

You are about to take a bus ride into another dimension.  No, not a trip to the Twilight Zone. Or, maybe it IS to the Real Twilight Zone!

 Despite the nonsense that comes from Oprah’s benign (?) pulpit, all roads are not radii that lead to God and Heaven.  Instead there will be a Fork in the road.  It is this bus ride that will take you to that juncture, albeit through fantasy.

 I learned about this bus ride from a recent series of classes I attended at a nearby church.  The topic of the class was C.S. Lewis’ book The Great Divorce.  The discussion was led by a retired Wheaton College professor, Dr. Rolland Hein, Professor Emeritus, English. Dr. Rolland also teaches a class on Saturday mornings at the Wade Center which is located near the college.

 The title page of The Great Divorce, “A Dream” has this quote from George MacDonald:

 “No, there is no escape.  There is no heaven with a little of hell in it ~ no plan to retain this or that of the devil in our hearts or our pockets. Our Satan must go, every hair and feather.”

 The Preface to The Great Divorce lets us know that Lewis will be endeavoring with his dream story to break up the marriage of Heaven and Hell (a response of sorts to William Blakes’ book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell), a marriage that many in our lifetime wish for. He writes to inform us of their necessary divorce.

 In an age of moral relativity and subjectivism many want to synthesize good with evil in hopes of redeeming evil. But as Lewis reveals, the choices we make take us down divergent pathways.  We either choose a path of good that becomes an even greater good as we continue to make good choices and stay on its narrow way or we choose a broad path that leads towards ever greater evil.

 The Great Divorce offers us a bus ride from “grey town” with its “continued hope of morning” to the “High Country,” a place of contrasts and a place where God honors the choices we make.

 You will meet many characters, many perhaps like someone you know.  There will be those who cannot fathom Heaven as any place they would want to stay and there are others who fear losing what they had on earth in “grey town”. There will be the proud, the stubborn, the willful and the angry.  There will be those who demand their rights and also the ego-unchallenged.  There will be those whose feet hurt them as they walk on solid ground for the first time and there will also be the “bright solid people” who move about the “High Country” without effort.  And finally, there will be those who reject Joy and solid Reality to return to “grey town” on the same bus. 

 The passengers are all phantoms or ghosts.  When they arrive in the High Country they are almost completely transparent – you can see right through them in every way:  there is the well-dressed (and very self-conscious woman); there is the broad-minded man, the artist, the Tousle-Headed poet, the mother who has lost a son, the golden apple stealing materialist, Sarah Smith and the Dwarf and Tragedian.  You will also meet George MacDonald: 

 Lewis, the main character in the dream and a phantom, meets up with George MacDonald, one of the solid people.  (MacDonald, forerunner of the “Inklings,” was a good friend and mentor to Lewis.).  Together they discuss what they see the phantoms choose.  At one point Lewis hears MacDonald say, “Milton was right, said my Teacher, “The choice of every lost soul can be expressed in the words, “Better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven…There is always something they prefer to joy— that is, to reality.”

 The bus ride ends with the choice you make.  God honors your choice:

 “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’

 Lewis’ The Great Divorce is the bus ticket; the Choice is before you.

Filed under C.S. Lewis, Christianity Tagged with , , , , , ,

What’s “Biblical” About It?

November 2, 2013 Leave a comment

Whenever I see the word “Biblical” in front of a title or a statement I pause as anyone should who cares about what the Bible really does or does not say.

Recently this word caught my eye:  a local Evangelical church, a church of great size, advertised a Biblical Masculinity and Femininity Conference.  I thought this rather odd since the Bible does not tell men how to behave as men or women how to behave as women.  Stereotyping?  Why?

Regarding male and female behavior I’ve come to the conclusion that masculinity and femininity are social contrivances or social regulators which help us navigate our relationships.  Again, the Bible does not tell men how to behave like a man or a woman how to behave like a woman.  The Bible does tell us in very simple general statements how we as men and women are to relate to the opposite sex and to each other.  The Bible also provides us with examples of what men find attractive in a woman (e.g., the Shulammite woman of The Song of Solomon & the industrious woman in Proverbs 31) and what women find attractive in men (the Ruth/Boaz story). Masculine or feminine qualities, if there are such things, are worked out between each man and woman in the give and take of relationship. They certainly are not the rubber stamping of contrived gender roles promoted by such “Let’s-Get-This~Nailed-Down” Conferences.

Without a whole lot of fanfare the Bible commands men to love their wives and women to respect their husbands. Beyond this the Bible only gives us some storied examples of men and women in action. Masculinity and femininity if Biblically revealed at all is the plain and simple romantic dance of the male and female psyches within the narrative of relationship.  As mentioned above we can see this dance in the lives of the Bible’s men and women.  Another example:  the love story of Jacob and Rachel.

So, the impetus of this post is to hopefully negate the misinformation doled out by those who feel the need to conform everyone to certain gender defined roles and who also seek to make others abide by the same gender templates, templates created extra-Biblically and more decidedly culturally derived. Hopefully, I can set the record straight.  You decide.

First-things:  raised in a Baptist/Evangelical church I understand that the word “Biblical” connotes a God-given standard that you are expected to honor, to follow and to conform to. Over the years, though, I have had to disentangle my understanding of what the Bible really says from the “Biblical” fishing nets tossed out by commercializing fishers-of-men who believe they have captured what the Bible says and then can sell it back to you in the market place of ideas as truth.

Let’s look at one of their “marketable Biblical items”.  A common passage of Scripture used to define Biblical Womanhood is Proverbs 31.

In this passage the writer Lemuel or Anonymous describes the attributes he likes in a woman.  Proverbs 31 is the writer’s description of what he thinks is noble character for a woman.  Now, if women want to aspire to these same traits they may find similar recognition. The word “Biblical”, though, as in “Proverbs 31 is an example of Biblical Womanhood” often implies a kind of warrant of a personal guarantee of outcome (if a, then b follows). If you do these same things then you are Biblically feminine.  But is that true?

The industrious “woman” in Proverbs 31 works to fulfill the needs of her family as do men.  But, as you know, men and women do different things to maintain the household and will often overlap in the household duties required.  Does the example of this woman’s qualities and behavior mean Biblical femininity? If you as a woman do not do all the things listed in Proverbs 31 are you less feminine? Or, if a man did the same things is he being feminine? Or worse, are you being less Biblical if you are not matching up to these same traits?  I hope you can see where this type of “Biblical womanhood” typecasting leads.

In the Song of Solomon, a lyric poem in dialogue form, King Solomon describes marked physical attributes of the woman he loves. Is what he describing Biblical femininity? Or, is what he describing what he likes about the woman he loves, the Shulammite?

Now most Christian scholars, most trusted Christian scholars, would tell you that the biblical canon is closed ~ there is no further written revelation from God. Yet, we are told that there is Biblical Masculinity and Biblical Femininity – a continuum of a more codified and concise version of the Bible which informs us as to how a twenty-first century man or woman behaves. To me, though, this extra-biblical and apocryphal “decoded” addition of Scripture’s text sounds a lot more like a Pharisee’s laundry list of dos and don’ts than the Bible’s simple and direct statements:  “Husband love your wives. Wives see to it that you respect your husbands.”

The church conference I am referring to was directed at the youth – junior and senior high school kids.  I have no doubt that the parents are concerned about what the LGBT community is doing to pervert gender relationship “norms” in the local public schools.  To be sure the LGBT community is misguided and has no concern whatsoever about seeking the Kingdom of God.  I, like these parents, am concerned about the LGBT lies and the nonsense being promulgated in our schools as normative and, in effect, morally OK. At the same time I do not want the church to overreact to the same degree by narrowly defining gender into masculine and feminine stereotypes, supplying false “Biblical” alternatives to the LGBT community’s errors. The church, like the members of the LGBT community, wants to take control of the “masculine” and “feminine” in order to achieve codification of certain behavior in our society

Homosexuals take what God has pronounced “Good” – males and females created for intimate relationship with each other ~ and pervert that relationship into an evil substitute.  I do not call it evil.  Scripture calls it evil. And, it is no secret that the LGBT community despises the Christian community for wanting to maintain what God created.  Homosexuality, the flagstone of the LGBT community, is the ego’s defiance of God. Hence, defiance, anger and “Pride” exist wherever the LGBT community is. For most people, though, gender confusion does not exist apart from the false narratives promoted by the LGBT community. Gender dysphoria, does exist in some individuals and is not homosexuality.

The searching for where you fit in as male or female comes and goes naturally during youth.  Confusion usually comes from culture or misguided parents.  Beyond this Scripture has nothing to say about maleness or femaleness even though people create sermons and seminars about it.  Scripture records history as it happened.

During the child’s gender adapting process we as parents need to know what the LGBT community is saying about gender’s relationships ~ relationships to themselves and to others – and then be able to discount any of LGBT’s false notions along with false “Biblical” ones. A child will eventually define him or herself by their sexed body and will respond according to what those around them are telling them about their gender.

The parents who are very concerned about the LGBT community’s activism should be careful to not define masculine and feminine as having “Biblical” attributes.  Masculine and feminine are culturally defined ‘romantic notions’ of male and female attributes. The Bible has only a few things to say specifically about a man’s or woman’s ‘behavior’ and, starting in Genesis, it is in the context of relationships.

“In the beginning…” God saw that it was not good for man to be alone so God created woman and human relationship began.  It was obvious from the start that male and female bodies looked different ~ diverse.  Within that relationship God let men and women work out their masculine and feminine qualities. God did not prescribe what masculinity and femininity meant before or after the fall.  God only mentioned pragmatic matters:  what men and women will do as a result of their Garden disobedience and what relationships they should absolutely have no part in.

As a result of Adam and Eve’s fall God said that men would work hard to make a living from the earth and that women will labor hard to give birth to a child.  And later, in the Old Testament book of Leviticus, God provided some practical laws or boundaries regarding men and women and their physical relationships.  These Levitical issues in particular dealt with the exchange of bodily fluids (do not commit incest or homosexuality or bestiality, avoid sex during a woman’s menstrual flow, etc.).  In the New Testament the Apostle Paul, in a strongly worded letter to the members of the church in Corinth, told them to “Flee from sexual immorality.  All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body…your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit…”  What defiles (and confuses) your personhood and the context for working out “masculinity” or “femininity” are the sinful relationships which the Holy Spirit will have no part in..

Now can one boy be more masculine than another?  No.  (Now, you may think that a boy who hangs around with his mother is more feminine than a boy who hangs around with his father.  In reality, each boy is sharing things they enjoy in common with the respective parent. Should it be demanded of the boy to act more like his father? Your anxiety might demand it but Scripture doesn’t. The answer, I believe, is “No.”) I have little doubt that shaming a child into submitting to a certain gender stereotype can be part of the personality pathology of homosexuality.

A boy is more masculine than a girl, of course. Just as in the Garden of Eden before Eve came along, masculine and feminine were meaningless terms (The conference gods may strike me down, now.) They were meaningless until Eve stood in contrast to Eve as a separate gender.    Masculinity and femininity basically are the features in the opposite sex that we are attracted to.  This sounds rather unspiritual, too down to earth, but is what God had intended – the simple elemental attraction of opposites.

Parents certainly are desirous to shoehorn their kids into society’s norms and into their own ideation of gender.  They do so because they do not want their child to be an outcast of society.  They want their child to be accepted.  In doing so they may restrict a child to a certain prescribed behavior and manner of presentation.  This need to conform their child to a certain delineation of a gender role may lead to post traumatic stress disorder in the child. (See this recent article:  Gender nonconformity linked to child abuse:  Uncomfortable adults often compel strict role presentation)

I realize that backing off on gender stereotyping may sound more like fuzzy math, more like the probability nature of quantum physics and not at all like rock-solid classical Newtonian physics that people more readily grasp but the facts proves otherwise.  An example would be my parents.

My parents had been married for 64 years (My father died recently). To my knowledge there has never been any talk between my mother and father about who was the masculine and who was the feminine counterpart.  They simply followed Christ and let gender find its way within in the context of their relationship to each other and to Christ.  They attended no seminars about “Biblical Masculinity or Biblical Femininity.”

Healthy males and females are drawn to the other gender.  You are attracted to gender-derived differences, to those features that are reciprocal (the roller-skates-and-key principle, if you will).

Now regarding binary gender, the analogy may apply:  men are from Mars and women are from Venus.  As two distinct sexes we relate to each other differently, the differences being derived from basic biology (physical sexed body and hormones) and cultural adaptations. Beyond this, there are no such things as the True Masculine or the True Feminine.

In fact, when we elevate certain aspects or attributes of men or women that we perceive to be quality masculine or feminine specimens to the position of the “True Masculine” or the True Feminine” we make idols of man~made aspirations (and, perhaps, of Freudian psychology).  The church mentioned above, as shown by the conference ad, wanted to package masculinity and femininity and resell certain accepted features of it as “Biblical”.  They would even super~size the issue with book sales, heated sermons and biopic posts giving us what they see as the jot and tittle of masculine and feminine as viewed through their myopic lens of socially normative “Biblical truth.”

Concerning this topic, the book Exclusion and Embrace by Miroslav Volf was of special interest to me, especially the chapter titled Gender Identity. The primary focus of the chapter as I read it was to rightly describe the basis of gender identity and to show how the ideas about masculinity and femininity, described in “essence” forms, are often used to exclude rather than to embrace the other.

In this chapter Miroslav Volf says regarding his argument about gender identity:  “I have claimed that (1) the content of gender identity is rooted in the sexed body and negotiated in the social exchange between men and women within a given cultural context, and that (2) the portrayals of God in no way provide models of what it means to be male or female. I suggested, instead, that the relations between the Trinitarian persons serve as a model for how the content of “masculinity” and “femininity” ought to be negotiated in the social process.” (emphasis mine)

He further states neutrally:

“The content of gender identity is left unspecified; anything seems to go.”

Also:

“Biblical “woman” and “manhood” ~ if there are such things at all, given the diversity of male and female characters and roles that we encounter in the Bible – are not divinely sanctioned models but culturally situated examples.” (emphasis mine)

And:

“If neither models of God nor the explicit statements of the Bible about femininity and masculinity are normative for the content of gender identities, what is?  Does anything really go?  My proposal is that we locate the normativity in the formal features of identity and the character of relations of divine person. Instead of setting up ideals of femininity and masculinity, we should root each in the sexed body and let the social construction of gender play itself out guided by the vision of the identity of and relations between divine persons. What is normative is not some ‘essence” of femininity and masculinity, but the procedures, modeled on the life of the triune God, through which women and men in specific cultural settings should negotiate.” (emphasis mine)

Further thoughts from the chapter:

  •  Father figure imagery has become sacrosanct in Christian circles.
  •  Psychology attempts to use the father figure imagery to decipher…
  •  Freud: we create god as a need for a father figure or oedipal complex
  •  Man’s projection of a father figure into the heavens due to an oedipal complex

If you as a man or you as a woman want to be all that you can be (to borrow an advertising phrase from the Army) then be in relationship with Christ.  Period. Don’t fashion your life around the drivel described as “Biblical” masculinity and femininity.  Put on Christ and walk in the Spirit instead. (I realize that many people want self-help books, tweets and conferences to tell them what to think.  Forget these things. Put on Christ and get walking.)

Now, you can always parse or stretch Scripture to make it mean what you want to say regarding masculine and feminine attributes.  Instead, it would be better to not focus on these things, on whether you or someone else is more or less masculine or feminine. The Evil One will always stir up comparisons.  Just look at the media and you can, hopefully, see that the Evil One’s world view is one of comparing yourself to celebs, to physical attributes, to images of macho men and sexy babes, to myriads of false idols. Walk in the Spirit and you will not fill up the flesh with its pretense of the masculine or feminine.

And by far the best antidote to the confused and de-humanizing misogyny and misandria issues that the LGBT community brings with it is the solid mutually beneficial relationship of a man and a woman.  The spectrums, the God designed “diversity,” of masculine and feminine can be fully explored within a committed marriage relationship. In such a relationship there should be no threat to your perceived masculinity or femininity.  These ‘things’ just are.  And as such, the two will become one with no thought or time given to someone’s canonized version of “Biblical Masculinity or Femininity.”

From N.T. Wright’s commentary on the book of Romans, Paul For Everyone, Chapter 4:18-25 Abraham’s Faith – and Ours:

“This is how it (faith) works.  Humans ignored God, the creator (1:20, 25); Abraham believed in God as creator and life-giver (4:17).  Humans knew about God’s power, and trusted him to use it (4:21). Human beings did not give God the glory he was due (1:21); Abraham gave God the glory (4:20). Human beings dishonored their own bodies by worshiping beings that were not divine (1:24); Abraham, through worshipping  the God who gives new life, found that his own body regained its power even though he was long past the age of fathering children.

The result in each case is telling. Humans dishonor their bodies by females and males turning away from one another into same-sex relationships (1:26-27); Abraham and Sarah, through their trust in God’s promises, are given power to conceive a child (4:19).  Deep within the heart of God’s covenant promise lies the fulfillment of the basic command which goes with the creation of male and female in God’s image:  be fruitful and multiply.  As Romans 4 comes towards its end, we realize that Paul is saying that Paul is saying, on a large-scale, that the ancient Jewish dream has been fulfilled.  God called Abraham to undo the sin of the human race, and this is how it happened. God is the God of new hope, of new fruitfulness, because he is the God of new starts, of fresh creation.”

Now for some context:  Do you think that those Kingdom Venturers imprisoned for Christ around the world are concerned about “Biblical Masculinity or Femininity?”

Filed under gender, gender dysphoria, GLBT Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

The Good News and Capitalism All Under One Tent

October 26, 2013 Leave a comment

tent-making

Over the past several months I have been reading several of the Apostle Paul’s letters. He wrote to churches he had planted and to those he intended to visit such as the one in Rome. 

 His two letters to the Christians in Thessalonica struck me, especially in light of the terms “social justice” and “fair share” being pandered today by so~called Christian groups (Sojourners & Jim Wallis, etc.) under the guise of helping others.

 What struck me within these particular letters is that Paul, without healthcare, without government subsidies, without insurance of any kind went about the business of the Kingdom of God, working with his own hands, as he states, making tents, paying his own way. 

 Paul said that he could have “entitled” himself to share in their “wealth” because he was a hard-working minister of the good news.  Instead, he chose to not become a burden to the people he was talking to and therefore not a burden or an impedance to the freely offered Good News of the Kingdom of God.

 “Here is a command we have for you, my dear family, in the name of our Lord Jesus the Messiah.  Keep away from any member of the family who is stepping out of line, and not behaving according to the tradition that you received from us.

You yourselves know, after all, how you should copy us. We didn’t step out of line, nor did we eat anyone’s food without paying for it.  We worked night and day, with labor and struggle, so as to not place a burden on any of you.  It wasn’t that we don’t have a right; it was so that we could give you an example, for you to copy us. And indeed, when we were with you, we gave you this command:  those who won’t work shouldn’t eat!”  II Thess. 3:6-10

  

From a provocative post by R.J. Moeller:  “Hayek on Socialism,”  American Spectator

 “For my fellow Christians who are skeptical of free-market capitalism, I’m all in favor of having those internal discussions about the most God-honoring, effective ways to help the least among us. But if you’re a believer who takes the Bible seriously and you actively (or even passively) endorse government~enforced and funded “social justice,” you’re wrong. You may mean well, but you’re wrong.”

Today I see many young people wanting to help others “socially.” Social media impacts and drives a lot of this desire and also a lot of misinformation about Capitalism and the Free-market. One only has to look at the Occupy Wall Street “movement” to see that there are some who have angst and anger about Capitalism, angst and anger revved up by the main stream media pushing Progressivism’s socialist agenda.

But we need Capitalism more than ever to restore human flourishing to our country.  More importantly, we need Capitalism to help us Christians increase the Kingdom of God here on planet earth. Think fishermen, disciples, non-union community and fellowship, image-of-God creativity, Jerusalem~Christian-like charity, sparrow~like dependence on God ~ agape love feasts and more.

 Capitalism combined with a knowledge of God and the freedom to act, can enable an individual to freely share the Kingdom of God with others and to do this without the middleman of government and apart from the propaganda of the main stream media. Why else would the Evil One so push for a centralized government where he can consolidate his power?

 Here are some authoritative thoughts about capitalism’s creativity and information sharing that could have a positive impact on the Kingdom of God: 

In a recent book by George Gilder “Knowledge and Power:  Information Theory of Capitalism and How It Is Revolutionizing Our World,”  he writes, 

 “In order for the entrepreneur to succeed, he must know that, if his creation generates an upside surprise, the related profits will not be confiscated or taxed away.  If they may be confiscated, his entire project will not be able to attract the necessary resources to bring it to market.” 

 “The successful entrepreneur has found a creative way to serve his fellow-man, and his profits are the measure of the extent to which he has been of service.  He needs to be able to keep those profits in order to be able to use what he has learned to bring other creative ideas to market to further serve his fellow-man.  When a government takes away the entrepreneur’s profits, it essentially takes away his creative lifeblood.”

 Also,

 “A leftward administration can destroy the value of the 1 percent’s property, but cannot seize it or pass it on….Under capitalism, wealth is less a stock of goods than a flow of ideas and entropy….Capitalism is a system that begins not with taking but with giving to others.”

 And,

 “All economic growth ultimately stems from innovations. …Innovation is always a product of individual innovators, a rare and dynamic breed not always appealing to the millions who depend on their creativity for their own comfort, health, and security.”

“In capitalism, “the givers or investors must be willing to focus on others’ needs more than on their own.  The difference between the value of an item to the giver and its value to the recipient is the profit.  Profit is thus an index of the altruism of an investment.”

“Capitalism is the most effective way of expanding wealth, not because it offers the most powerful incentives…but because it links knowledge with power.  It gives control over resources and over the future flow of investment not to political bureaucracies of certified experts or to the most avidly self-loving pursuers of leisure and luxury, but to the particular entrepreneurs who manage successful experiments of enterprise.  It grants riches to those very individuals who have proved their ability to forgo immediate gratification in pursuit of larger goals, and who refuse to waste or to hedonistically consume their incomes.  …Under capitalism, economic power flows not to the intellectual, who manipulates ideas and basks in their light, but to the man who gives himself to his ideas and tests them with his own wealth and work…The greatest damage inflicted by state systems of redistribution and industrial policy is not the ‘distortion of markets,’ the ‘misallocation of resources’, or the ‘discoordination’ of producer and consumers, but the deflation of capitalist energy, the repression of new entrepreneurial ideas, and the stultification of wealth.” (emphasis mine)

  

And remember, there are those who seek to profit by selling the Kingdom of God message in exchange for “social justice:” 

 Judas held the disciples’ money bag. The other disciples suspected that Judas stole coins from the purse.  Judas likely decided that his “fair share” should come out of the donations received.  And then, horrifically, Judas decides that he would sell out the Kingdom of God for the “good” of his nation ~ for his take on “social justice.” 

 Judas received thirty pieces of silver for his socially “conscientious” efforts.  He then hanged himself (because you can’t invest blood money in good conscience).  And finally like all revolutionaries, a public site ~ Akeldama ~ was named after Judas to memorialize his “social work.” Now that is “social justice.”

********

Recommended reading for those who need help understanding capitalism and the free- market:

 Defending The Free Market:  The Moral Case For a Free Economy

 Books by George Gilder:

 Knowledge and Power:  Information Theory of Capitalism and How It Is Revolutionizing Our World, copyright 2013 (see above reference)

 Wealth and Poverty, 21st century edition

Recommended website:

The Acton Institute

*****

“Play is the exultation of the possible.” theologian Martin Buber

 

Filed under Christianity, Economics Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

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