The recent hubbub about stimulus plans, socialism vs. capitalism, government takeover of corporations, etc. has got me thinking again about the value of the free market. Milton Friedman was one of the most important economists of the twentieth century. Not only did he think very clearly about the virtues of capitalism, he was a master at articulating those virtues. Here he is taking Phil Donahue to economics school in the '80's:
Key quote: "Is it really true that political self-interest is nobler somehow than economic self-interest?"
On a related note, one of my new favorite bloggers is the MetaLutheran of CЯЦISIИG DOШИ ТНЕ СОДST OF THE HIGH БДЯБДЯEE. He understands economics much better than me. Here is a great example of one of his posts on our current economic situation.
Update: This is actually from 1979. My good friend Trent Hunter has more videos from this interview, along with some commentary.
Here is a fascinating article by Bob Geldof about his time spent with President Bush in Africa. Geldof is a reasonable liberal: he is strongly opposed to the Iraq War but he does not think Bush is evil. He recognizes the good the president has done in the world, even if he holds a fierce opposition to the war. Here is a lesson in wisdom: be charitable to those with whom you disagree, even if you believe they are doing great harm to the world. Do not turn them into a villain in your eyes unless you have no other option. This is a simple principle of prudence that seems impossible for millions of ideologically-blinded Americans to recognize.
Since my last post was (somewhat) about politics, I thought I'd keep the political train moving along here at ChristianThinker.net. Reuters has a story about how much adulation George W. Bush has received on his recent trip to Africa:
Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete poured praise on Bush in Dar es Salaam on Sunday, the second day of his five-nation African tour, each compliment applauded warmly by members of the east African country's cabinet ...
Kikwete told Bush: "The outpouring of warmth and affection from the people of Tanzania that you have witnessed since your arrival is a genuine reflection of what we feel towards you and towards the American people."
In a reference to Bush's domestic problems, Kikwete added: "Different people may have different views about you and your administration and your legacy.
"But we in Tanzania, if we are to speak for ourselves and for Africa, we know for sure that you, Mr. President, and your administration have been good friends of our country and have been good friends of Africa."
Although many Africans, especially Muslims, share negative perceptions of Bush's foreign policy with other parts of the world, there is widespread recognition of his successful humanitarian and health initiatives on the continent.
Bush has spent more money on aid to Africa than his predecessor, Bill Clinton, and is popular for his personal programs to fight AIDS and malaria and to help hospitals and schools ...
Because of the U.S. anti-malaria program, 5 percent of patients tested positive for the disease on the offshore islands of Zanzibar in 2007 compared to 40 percent three years earlier, the Tanzanian leader said.
Bush's legacy in Africa would be saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of mothers and children who would otherwise have died from malaria or AIDS and enabling millions of people to get an education, he said.
"I know you leave office in about 12 months' time. Rest assured that you will be remembered for many generations to come for the good things you've done for Tanzania and the good things you have done for Africa," Kikwete said.
Now wait just a minute! Whenever I read the geniuses at The Huffington Post or Daily Kos, all I hear is that conservatives are selfish, warmongering, fascist, theocratic capitalists who oppress the poor, hate non-whites, and don't give a flip about third world countries. Oh, and by the way, the rest of the world hates us because of George W. Bush!
Apparently not. I've had my problems with the presidency of Bush 43. I voted for him twice, but I've become a bit disillusioned with some of his decisions. Mismanagement of the war, bad picks for senior leadership positions, and a balloon in federal spending during his tenure have contributed to my current Bush malaise. But my biggest beef with ol' W. is the starting of an extremely expensive and deadly conflict that, in hindsight, seems entirely unnecessary.
Still, I am willing to let history judge the merits of the Iraq War. And there are things about Bush that I admire. Whatever his vociferous and rabid detractors may say about him, he is not evil. Neither is he Hitler, a fascist, a theocrat, a liar, or an unthinking ignoramus. He is, by many accounts, a man who has a singular moral vision for the world, a man who - although making mistakes along the way - has set his gaze toward the achievement of that vision in the face of a monstrous and well-organized opposition. It should be clear by now that Bush takes his responsibility as the most powerful man in the world very seriously. His decision to invade Iraq was not due to some geopolitical ambition to expand America's "empire," and neither was it to bolster the bottom line of the oil companies. I think that he firmly believed then (and now) that it was the best thing for the world that the regime of Saddam Hussein be dismantled.
We are now in the last year of the Bush presidency. I can only hope that history will judge him more kindly than the American mob is now judging him. I also hope that, when he lies on his death bed weighing the merits of his life, he will not see the angry faces of those uncharitable fools who suffer from the worst cases of Bush Derangement Syndrome. I hope rather that he sees the smiling faces of the Tanzanian people, thanking him for making their world a better place.
I generally refrain from posting on issues relating to politics or the media on this blog, but some stories are just too odious to ignore. Breitbart ran this piece from the Agence France-Presse. The story portrays itself as an objective report about the U. S. military, but in reality it is little more than a cleverly-constructed theological hit piece. The premise is that there are individuals in the U. S. Armed Forces who feel they have suffered religious discrimination from some overzealous evangelical officers:
Since his last combat deployment in Iraq, Jeremy Hall has had a rough time, getting shoved and threatened by his fellow soldiers. The trouble started there when he would not pray in the mess hall.
"A senior ranking staff sergeant told me to leave and sit somewhere else because I refused to pray," Hall, a 23-year-old US army specialist, told AFP.
Later, Hall was confronted by a major for holding an authorized meeting of "atheists and freethinkers" on his base. The officer threatened to discipline him and block his re-enlistment.
I have no doubt that there are instances of this sort of bad behavior on the part of Christians. Every socio-political-religious group has its fools. The Christian church has them, so do the Muslims, as well as the atheists. Heck, I'd be willing to bet that you could even find a few Unitarians who like to bust heads every now and then. No group is comprised of flawless members, and hence this is not controversial. In an organization as large as the United States Armed Forces (about 2.9 million strong), it is not surprising to find all sorts of unacceptable behavior, even among Christians.
The story portrays this to be a widespread phenomenon. For example, the head of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation claims to have 6,800 accounts of this sort of abuse at the hands of Christians in the military. The MRFF and some of the offended soldiers that are quoted in the piece seem to think that a military coup by evangelical soldiers is close at hand. But a Pentagon spokesperson says that there have been only 100 formal complaints about religious harassment filed over the past two years. Let's crunch the numbers here. If the higher number is correct (and I do not concede for a moment that it is), then of the 2.88 million members of the U. S. military, less than a quarter of 1 percent of them have suffered harassment at the hands of these dastardly fundamentalists. If the lower number is correct, then it's about .0035 percent. You will forgive me if I find incendiary remarks drumming up fears about those who want to "create a fundamentalist Christian theocracy" in the military a bit hyperbolic. Perhaps the MRFF has been studying the Joe McCarthy playbook.
But the AFP story holds its cards until the very last sentence. The unnamed journalist interviews a former chaplain who says he was harassed for not towing a certain theological line. The final quote belongs to the anonymous chaplain:
"As a soldier, many times you want to believe you're fighting on the right side. It's easy to kill someone if you believe that they're going to hell and that they are religiously opposed to you."
Of course! If you hold to the exclusivity of salvation through Christ, you may become a murderer! I'm sure all the evangelicals in the military are constantly engaged in a vicious internal battle, struggling to will themselves not to cut the throats of their unbelieving comrades in their sleep.
I do not give the AFP a pass on this issue simply because the quote comes from a source that was interviewed and not the actual author of the story, just as I would not give them a pass if they were to give the final word to someone who said that holding Jewish beliefs might cause someone to want to drink human blood. That this statement would even be quoted is unconscionable, and it only serves as an illustration of the schizophrenia that surrounds the notion of "tolerance" in contemporary western culture. To the anonymous former chaplain (and to the AFP) I would say: you do not show the dangers of religious intolerance by making equally egregious and inflammatory statements about the beliefs of evangelicals. That's like trying to spread the virtues of pacifism by randomly kicking people in the groin.
Pat Robertson to endorse Giuliani. This news is interesting in itself, but I link to the Washington Post blog above just to highlight the stinking, squalid sewer that makes up contemporary political discourse. Here are a few of the comments aimed at Christian conservatives from their compassionate progressive opponents:
"Oh well, you just lost my potential vote Giuliani!! Having support from Religious [sic] psychopaths like Robertson will hurt your credibility, not help it!!!"
"Blind sheep,(evangelical rank and file) led by deaf goats,(televangelists) owned by hungry wolves (Guiliani) [sic] ..."
"...KICK THE REPUBLICAN'S SOFT TEETH DOWN THEIR WHINEY THROATS!"
"My first inclination is to laugh in the faces of every social conservative who votes for Rudy because of their lack of principles and blatant hypocracy [sic]. However, on further reflection, I believe I'll spit in their faces given the damage the religious right has brought about with its narrow worldview and blind obedience to one failed president and now its support for another."
"Robertson is precisely the kind of Republican extremist nutjob that Guiliani is trying to exploit. Self-conceited, boundlessly hypocritical, manipulative and irrationally fearful hatemongers are Bush's core supporters. They are the lunatic fringe of society still blindly backing the dishonesties, incompetencies and failures of their looney tunes caricature of an embarrassingly dysfunctional, destructive, deadly and shamelessly remorseless immoral president. All they want to do is perpetuate Bush's insanity, and Guiliani is willing to provide them that hope if it will help him get elected."
"White House Spiritual Leader Pastor Ted Haggard also endorsed Giuliani today at a SunCruz prayer breakfast. While sucking down a breakfast sausage, Pastor Ted pointed out "these Regent University grads now running our government have been successful in making America feared around the world, and most of all at home. They never stop thinking of new ways to harm our country and our people. And neither do we." He added, "Amen. There are still American citizens who have not yet been burglarized and beaten by Blackwater-type covert Republican forces. We will not be satisfied until the evangelical special forces burglarizes every American home and all those Americans standing up for freedom and liberty are disappeared by secret rendition."
And here's one just to show that I'm not impartial when it comes to criticizing political filth-spewers: "To all you left liberal jerk offs may Jihad remove your empty heads first---"
And I assure you, this type of language is tame compared to comments often made by some of the wolves that frequent sites like the Huffington Post or Daily Kos (and yes, I know there are conservatives that do it too). But then again, this is the internet, so perhaps a sanitized term like "political discourse" doesn't apply. What will we do about this situation? I can only think of that piece of wisdom an officer in Vietnam gave to a green private about life in that miserable conflict: "Vietnam is like a sea of $h!t. Some people sink, some people swim, and some go on boats."
UPDATE: Of course it isn't just faceless web trolls who like to splash in the sewer. Newspaper columnists do it too, as John at Verum Serum points out this morning.
If the unlikely scenario ever arises that I am commissioned to write an encyclopedia entry on "hyperbole", I think I might include the following words of this atheist blogger as an illustration:
Over the last decade or so, the religious right has exercised virtually untrammeled power in America. They've commanded the allegiance of a majority of the population and have enjoyed tremendous influence and near-unchallenged power in popular culture, in the media, and especially in government. They have had abundant opportunity to make it clear to everyone what they most care about and what principles they advocate, and they have done so. And as their electoral fortunes waned, they have only become louder and more vehement.
There have been times these past few years when it was frustrating to be an American. While the religious right loudly proclaimed their intent to dismantle the Constitution's safeguards and impose their rigid, antiquated views on the rest of us, the traditional media was somnolent, and the populace seemed apathetic. I believe the religious right became so bold, so brazen in announcing their desires, precisely because they assumed the lack of resistance meant no one was paying attention.
Maybe such a statement would better fit in an encyclopedia entry on "howler" or, perhaps, "inscrutable poppycock." But enough of my jibes: let's analyse the above statement for accuracy.
From Joe Carter writing at NRO, I find the ominously named Theocracy Watch, a website associated with Cornell University. As far as I can tell, the nameless authors of TW think that if you (1) are a Christian and (2) let your faith inform your political decisions then you are a supporter of an American "theocracy" and are a "dominionist." One expects a steady stream of howlers when perusing such a site, but I was genuinely shocked by the high number of downright stupidities. Here is one:
Before the midterm elections of 2006, dominionists controlled both houses of the U.S. Congress, the White House and four out of nine seats on the U.S. Supreme Court. They were one seat away from holding a solid majority on the Supreme Court.
And:
Five of the Republican Senators who were unseated on November 7 received whopping scores of 100% from the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family Voter Scorecards. Those Senators are: Conrad Burns (R-MT), George Allen (R-VA), Rick Santorum (R-PA), James Talent (R-MO), and Mike DeWine (R-OH). Rick Santorum was the number three ranking Republican in the party. Santorum and Allen both had Presidential ambitions. (FRC and FOF are the most politically influential of dominionist organizations.)
Now, I have my own issues with groups like FOF and the FRC, but to say that they are "dominionist" organizations is either a whoppingly bad mistake or simply willful deception; if the latter, then it's no more than a cheap attempt to demonize those on the opposite end of the political spectrum in order to score a few ideological points for secular political liberalism. It would be the equivalent of me calling the ACLU a "Marxist" organization and trying to whip up fears that it aims to supplant democratic capitalism in the U. S. with a communist state. So, our question is: are claims like those above made by TW the result of wild-eyed ideological delusion or of willful deception? I don't know for sure, but my gut provides an answer. All I can think of when I ask myself that question is the first line of Browning's "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came":
I've just weighed in to an ongoing discussion at RedBlueChristian.com over the value of human embryos. Rob Asghar proposed a scenario to those who want to protect human embryos: if you were forced to choose between saving a large number of human embryos and saving a few newborns, which would you choose, and why? I've heard this challenge before, and it's supposed to show a flaw in the reasoning of pro-lifers. But it doesn't, and here's why.
Here are a few recent articles on Islamic extremism, one from the right and one from the left. First is this piece by Charles Krauthammer in the Washington Post. Krauthammer argues that many Muslims make fierce calls for tolerance of their own religion, but do not extend the same courtesy to other religions. But worse than this is the western media's complicity in this hypocrisy:
First Salman Rushdie. Then the false Newsweek report about Koran-flushing at Guantanamo Bay. Then the Danish cartoons. And now a line from a scholarly disquisition on rationalism and faith given in German at a German university by the pope.
And the intimidation succeeds: politicians bowing and scraping to the mob over the cartoons; Saturday's craven New York Times editorial telling the pope to apologize; the plague of self-censorship about anything remotely controversial about Islam -- this in a culture in which a half-naked pop star blithely stages a mock crucifixion as the highlight of her latest concert tour.
In today's world, religious sensitivity is a one-way street. The rules of the road are enforced by Islamic mobs and abjectly followed by Western media, politicians and religious leaders.
Second is an article in the L. A. Times by the militant atheist and antitheist Sam Harris, a liberal who argues that the American left, blinded by their ideology, fail to see the real threat posed by militant Islam:
my correspondence with liberals has convinced me that liberalism has grown dangerously out of touch with the realities of our world — specifically with what devout Muslims actually believe about the West, about paradise and about the ultimate ascendance of their faith ...
At its most extreme, liberal denial has found expression in a growing subculture of conspiracy theorists who believe that the atrocities of 9/11 were orchestrated by our own government. A nationwide poll conducted by the Scripps Survey Research Center at Ohio University found that more than a third of Americans suspect that the federal government "assisted in the 9/11 terrorist attacks or took no action to stop them so the United States could go to war in the Middle East;" 16% believe that the twin towers collapsed not because fully-fueled passenger jets smashed into them but because agents of the Bush administration had secretly rigged them to explode.
Such an astonishing eruption of masochistic unreason could well mark the decline of liberalism, if not the decline of Western civilization.
Strong words from a self-avowed liberal atheist. I recommend reading both articles in full.
Gene Edward Veith says that a new movie coming out is based on a science fiction novel that is a "pro-life classic":
P. D. James is a British mystery writer with the skills of a serious novelist. She is also a Christian. In addition to her mysteries, she has written a science fiction dystopia entitled "The Children of Men." In it, the human race becomes infertile. No more children can be conceived or born. The world is just waiting to die out. The novel, which also takes on euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, is a pro-life classic. And now it is being made into a movie, by a top-flight director and with a top-flight cast, to be released September 29.
I'm a huge fan of science fiction novels, but I had never heard of James or her work until I saw the film's trailer. Veith seems confident that the film will merit the term "pro-life" in the end, but I have my doubts. I could be wrong, however; I thought I detected some subtle pro-life themes in last year's The Island, so it is certainly possible that a small sector of Hollywood is undergoing an unexpected flourishing of moral sensibility.
Twice in recent days I have heard the following claim made in an advertisement being run on a local Christian radio station. I didn't take an exact quote, so I'll paraphrase as best as I can remember:
Since the Supreme Court removed prayer from schools in 1962, the crime rate in America has risen by 700 percent! Our traditional moral foundations are being eroded ...
I assume you can imagine the rest. I don't recall what the ad was for, but it was certainly something political: soliciting donations for this Christian group or advertising that politically themed Christian event. Needless to say, both times I heard this claim I cringed so hard I almost pulled a facial muscle. What would cause such a reaction in me? It's simple: bad argumentation. But here we are not dealing simply with a bad argument, but a whoppingly bad argument. The claim made by the ad is a perfect example of the logical fallacy known as post hoc ergo propter hoc ("after the thing, therefore because of the thing"). This fallacy occurs when the arguer assumes that because Event B follows Event A, then Event A was necessarily the cause of Event B. The argument also does a disservice to history, because while it is certainly possible that the Supreme Court decision in Engel v. Vitale contributed to an increase in crime, it is downright fallacious or ignorant to claim certain knowledge of a direct connection. And I'm no expert on the cultural revolution of the sixties, but I think there was more going on in than the removal of prayer from public schools that might have contributed to an increase in the crime rate.
The cultural leftists accuse the politically charged religious rightists with being brainless, myopic ideologues lacking in critical thinking skills who only want to advance their religious worldview by seeking political power. With excruciatingly bad arguments being made like this in order to score political points, can you blame them?
I'd like to announce that Dr. Andrew Jackson has launched RedBlueChristian.com, a group blog devoted to dialogue between Christians of varying political stripes, and I am one of the contributors. I wanted ChristianThinker.net to stay away from politics, but apparently I've been unsuccessful, as I noticed the other day that the Category counter on the left says I've posted more about politics than any other subject! So I'll be moving some of my thoughts on politics over to RBC and keep ChristianThinker focused on philosophy, apologetics, and theology. However, I'll always post a link to my posts at RBC, and here's my first one.
I've added a new category on the left. The Quotes category will be where I post worthwhile words from the wise and the not-so wise. I'll inaugurate this new category with a classic quote by G. K. Chesterton. It's almost a century old, and some of the references are dated, but it still packs quite a punch:
But the new rebel is a Skeptic, and will not entirely trust anything. He has no loyalty; therefore he can never be really a revolutionist. And the fact that he doubts everything really gets in his way when he wants to denounce anything. For all denunciation implies a moral doctrine of some kind; and the modern revolutionist doubts not only the institution he denounces, but the doctrine by which he denounces it.
Thus he writes one book complaining that imperial oppression insults the purity of women, and then he writes another book in which he insults it himself. He curses the Sultan because Christian girls lose their virginity, and then curses Mrs. Grundy because they keep it. As a politician, he will cry out that war is a waste of life, and then, as a philosopher, that all life is waste of time. A Russian pessimist will denounce a policeman for killing a peasant, and then prove by the highest philosophical principles that the peasant ought to have killed himself. A man denounces marriage as a lie, and then denounces aristocratic profligates for treating it as a lie. He calls a flag a bauble, and then blames the oppressors of Poland or Ireland because they take away that bauble. The man of this school goes first to a political meeting, where he complains that savages are treated as if they were beasts; then he takes his hat and umbrella and goes on to a scientific meeting, where he proves that they practically are beasts.
In short, the modern revolutionist, being an infinite skeptic, is always engaged in undermining his own mines. In his book on politics he attacks men for trampling on morality; in his book on ethics he attacks morality for trampling on men. Therefore the modern man in revolt has become practically useless for all purposes of revolt. By rebelling against everything he has lost his right to rebel against anything.
Joe over at Evangelical Outpost hits the nail on the head in this post debunking all this talk about a "theocracy." Here's a snip:
The common thread of those who use the code-word ["theocracy"] is a remarkable ignorance of their subject. Phillips, for instance, believes that the rising dominance of Baptists in American Protestantism is ipso facto evidence of a theocratic trend. What he appears to have missed is that Baptists can’t even tolerate a centralized church government much less a central government controlled by the church. A theocracy led by Baptists makes as much sense as anarchists establishing a centralized government. For Phillips to make such a claim in public exposes a brazen willingness to appear stupid.
So where does this silly theocracy canard come from?
Since even the most pernicious lie (“Jews eat gentile children.”) contains some grain of truth (“Jews eat.”), we can’t dismiss the idea completely. After all, it is true that some conservative Christians in our country do want to establish a theocracy. Their actual numbers, however, are rather negligible and their political influence almost non-existence. As a group they likely outnumber black separatists, though they are dwarfed by the number of liberal secessionists. Their association with the election of President Bush is also rather dubious since they voted for Michael Peroutka.
Go read the whole thing. I couldn't say it any better myself.
I posted last week about my dislike of political discourse because of its tendency to descend into demagoguery since labeling your political opponents as evil people with wicked motives is the easiest way to whip up popular support. Bill Vallicella over at the Maverick Philosopher echoes a similar thought in a post called Pessimistic Thoughts on Political Discourse in America. While not nearly as pessimistic as I am, Bill's pessimism stems from a similar source: the inability of certain liberals to think rationally about the current political situation:
One of the most curious features of Right-Left debate concerns threat assessment. What are the threats, and how seriously are they to be taken? During the Cold War, the Right took the threat of Soviet Communism seriously indeed, whereas the Left spoke disparagingly of a Red Scare, the word 'scare' of course suggesting that the threat was unreal and manufactured by the Right to further its 'fascist' agenda. The same pattern has been repeating itself since 11 September 2001, when the threat posed by militant Islam, which had been building since at least the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis, became impossible to ignore any longer. The Left either refuses to take the threat seriously at all, or else downplays its significance, seeing it as yet another attempt of the Right to impose 'fascism' at home and 'hegemony' abroad. (I could document this with statements from Amy Goodman, Nadine Strossen, et al.)
At the same time that the Left downplays the threat posed by one religious ideology, militant Islam, it exaggerates the threat emanating from the religious ideology of Christian Reconstructionism. Thus we find the Left accusing the Right of not only being 'fascists' but of being 'theocrats' as well. Indeed, some go so far as to claim or imply that we already have in place in the Bush administration a 'fascist theocracy.' This of course is a wild exaggeration bordering on a paranoid delusion, on par with the Bush = Hitler Identity Thesis. I am not denying that Christian Reconstructionism is theocratic; but its influence is slight and hardly representative of American Christianity. And to brand all conservatives as 'theocrats' is irresponsible to put it mildly. There are plenty of conservatives who aren't even theists, let alone theocrats.
It is this alarmist talk of Christian "reconstructionism" and "dominionism" that inspired me to write my initial post on political discourse. One reason I like Bill is that he isn't afraid to call a spade a spade. Thus he calls this sort of thinking "border-line delusional." His pessimism about political discourse stems from the fact that this delusionary behavior is coming from otherwise intelligent, educated people, even academics. He has a point, and it is one that makes me alter my thinking a bit.
In the earlier post, I stated that political discourse in a democracy tends to devolve into demagoguery for purely pragmatic purposes, and that the demagogues themselves often don't even believe what they are saying. This is true, especially of politicians. But I am coming to believe that there are many people who actually believe the exaggerations they make about their political opponents. Mark Crispin Miller, the writer that Vallicella is addressing, is obviously convinced that there is a large, significant group of Reconstructionist boogeymen who are in the process of instituting a Talibanic Christian state where gays are executed and elections are rigged. I've already posted on why this is nonsensical paranoia devoid of any rational value. And yet there are people - even influential people - who believe and spread this very sort of thing, as if being an evangelical who votes Republican means that you are automatically a jack-booted tyrant who wants to forcefeed the world your religion through means of the political system. This political strawman is taking a serious beating in the liberal world, and yet he doesn't even come close to representing the modest goals evangelicals hope to achieve through the political system. Why is this happening? There could be a thousand reasons, and I don't have the time to think about what those reasons might be at the moment. Nevertheless, the fact that this sort of widespread paranoid delusion is happening is cause for both surprise and alarm.
I am an orthodox Christian. I hold to the great doctrines of the classical Christian faith. I am also a Republican. The difference in importance that I ascribe to these two identities is immeasurable. I am only a Republican insofar as it relates to my vocation as a servant of God. I vote for Republican candidates and legislation only if by doing so I believe I am contributing to more good in the world than evil, according to the Christian understanding of "good" and "evil."
The relationship between these two identities, however, is tenuous at best. Certain aspects of my Christian belief system support certain elements of a broadly conservative worldview, which in turn falls in line with at least some of the goals and aims of the Republican party. The problem with any political endeavor is the same as the problem with any human endeavor: its goals, purposes, and motivations are a mixture of good and evil. Thus in picking a political party the Christian often feels that he has to pick from the lesser of two evils. In our current political situation, I feel as if I am at a dance and am forced to pick between the least revolting of two ugly girls as my partner.
Although I hold no disdain for the involvement of Christians in political affairs, I am also very suspicious of all political discourse, as I think it is often reduced to sheer demagoguery. Democratic systems are particularly vulnerable to this problem. Let me explain what I mean. In a democracy, the aim of each competing political faction is to get votes. You must get a majority of voting minds to come to your view, to pull that lever for your candidate or your piece of legislation, and you must do it in as quickly and as decisive a way possible. Now, in getting your message across and showing how it is better than your opponent's message, you have two options. Call the first one the argumentative option and the second the demagogic option.
If you and your faction take the argumentative option, your primary method of discourse will be reasoning, logical arguments, facts, statistics, etc. On the other hand, if you take the demagogic option, your primary method will be emotional tirades against your opponents in an attempt to show that they are really evil folks, etc. In other words, your discourse will be highly ad hominem. Another way of thinking about this is that you judge your opponent's intent rather than his ideas.
Now, a question: which method is the surest way to get people to your side? The patient, deliberative formulation of arguments? Or the quick and easy condemnation of your opponents as evil? I think the demagogic option is clearly the most effective method. Thus when the aim is to change minds, I think demagoguery is almost essential to successful politicking in a democracy. This becomes even more clear when you consider what your opponent is doing. He is either using the argumentative option, in which case you can easily beat him by switching to ad hominem attacks on his character or his motives, or he is using the demagogic option, in which you have no choice but to use it yourself if you want to win.
As an example, suppose you are a far left antiwar activist. You can either (1) argue that Bush's decision to invade Iraq was - while made with good and honest motives - flatly wrong and based on bad information or (2) you can argue that he is the spawn of Satan, the mustache-twirling stepson of Hitler, and/or a wicked, self-serving, money-hungry, fascist chimp who only went to war to line the pockets of the oil industry and to expand the imperial power of the capitalist American war machine. Admittedly, these two are extreme examples, and it could be argued that those who take route (2) are doing more harm to the overall success of their ideology than good. But move the slider on the scale over a notch and you will see what I am trying to get across.
By no means am I saying that this phenomena is limited to Democrats or liberals, although they may at present provide the best example of it. I am saying that all democratic discourse - by its very nature - has a tendency to turn into demagogic tirades against the opposing side, simply because that approach is the most politically effective. One question to ask is this: do the people that engage in this kind of rhetoric actually believe what they are saying? If so, then they are generally stupid. Or do they use this sort of attack simply because they know it will work, regardless of whether it is true or not? If so, then they are liars and demagogues in the most literal sense. I think it's obvious that many activists who take route (2) above, are actually convinced that what they say is true. But I'm not so sure about those in elected office. I think that Congressmen, Senators, Presidents, and the like, are fully aware of the merit of their opponents' ideas and their commitment to doing what they think is right, but they also know that to make such a claim in public would be tantamount to giving them support. So they say that Republicans are rich fatcats who only want to make the rich richer, or that Democrats want to see the terrorists win, or something like that.
Now I'm not saying that all politicians do this, but many certainly do. Neither am I saying that politically active evangelicals are immune from this demagoguery syndrome. Witness claims that the true motive of the homosexual agenda is to achieve the legalization of man-boy love or that the attempt to take nativity scenes off public property comes from an inherent hatred of anything related to Christianity. Now it's certainly true that these kinds of claims can be true, but the nature of demagogic discourse is that the truth of the statement doesn't matter. Only election results matter, and the surest way to help your side win is through the manipulation of emotions and the fomenting of ideological hatred.
One final point: by no means am I saying that I don't support democracy. It's the best political system possible in this fallen world, but I am saying that it isn't without its problems.
Phillip Longman has an opinion piece in USA Today called "The Liberal Baby Bust." Here's a quote, emphasis mine:
What's the difference between Seattle and Salt Lake City? There are many differences, of course, but here's one you might not know. In Seattle, there are nearly 45% more dogs than children. In Salt Lake City, there are nearly 19% more kids than dogs.
This curious fact might at first seem trivial, but it reflects a much broader and little-noticed demographic trend that has deep implications for the future of global culture and politics. It's not that people in a progressive city such as Seattle are so much fonder of dogs than are people in a conservative city such as Salt Lake City. It's that progressives are so much less likely to have children.
It's a pattern found throughout the world, and it augers a far more conservative future — one in which patriarchy and other traditional values make a comeback, if only by default. Childlessness and small families are increasingly the norm today among progressive secularists. As a consequence, an increasing share of all children born into the world are descended from a share of the population whose conservative values have led them to raise large families.
I posted extensively on this phenomenon back in January, particularly as it affects the future of Europe. See those posts here, here, here, and here. The fact is that not only do the more conservative strata of society have children at a faster rate, societies that accept secularism wholesale - like Europe - actually achieve birth rates that will lead to rapid population decrease, simply because there aren't enough babies being born to replace the current population. America's rate is currently at replacement level, but the more liberal we get, the less babies we will have, and we'll be the next Europe: a dying husk of a once great society, simply because we like our rugged individuality more than we like having the responsibility of a family.
The interesting thing about Longman's article is in the last paragraph, emphasis mine:
Many will celebrate these developments. Others will view them as the death of the Enlightenment. Either way, they will find themselves living through another great cycle of history.
I posted in January about how these developments in Europe could portend the failure of the Enlightenment. I guess that idea has occurred to Longman as well, or else he's been reading my blog. I highly doubt the latter is the case.
This issue is barely mentioned in discussions of the "culture wars," but I think it may be the most important factor in determining the future direction of a society's cultural makeup. The real winner of the culture wars may not be the side that outthinks, outworks, or outvotes its ideological opponents. It may simply have to outbreed them.
Michael Hamblin has a must-read post over at Evangelical Resources debunking all this talk about the "Dominionist" goal of the "Religious Right" to institute a theocracy. Here's a quote:
Second, Dominionism is nothing short of a massive conspiracy theory, on par with the belief that the Tri-lateral Commission or Council on Foreign Relations is working behind the scenes to pull all the strings to control world governments. For people who want to believe that the conspiracy is real, it is impossible to convince them that their notions are often false or at least wildly overblown. The theory is so convincing to some people that no evidence can be brought to bear that would convince them that it is false (i.e., the theory is not falsifiable). People who today are given to believe Dominionism would in the last generation been given to Lyndon LaRouche, or the Protocols of the Elders of Zion two generations ago. The scare today is that these Fundamentalist Dominionist Reconstructionist Theocrat Boogey-men are nefariously trying to take over government, and if left unchecked will lead to a new McCarthyism or possibly something worse. Whipping people up into a fear frenzy is a favorite tactic of propaganda, something which people who promote the Dominionism conspiracy theory have mastered.
This makes sense to me. Whenever I hear someone equate evangelical political involvement with some sinister agenda to form a fascist Christian state, I have to confess that I get quite confused. This is simply because no evangelical I know comes even close to supporting any such thing. I know I certainly don't.
The film may spark interesting debates—about the nature of terrorism and governments, about the inalienable right of artists to shock and provoke—but what we're dealing with is a lackluster comic-book movie that thinks terrorist is a synonym for revolutionary ...
... the movie plays like a clumsy assault on post-9/11 paranoia ...
... uses imagery direct from Abu Ghraib and contains dialogue likely to offend anyone who's not, say, a suicide bomber ...
... the screenplay is full of clichéd caricatures of power-hungry Christians and government-controlled TV anchors.
Is it any surprise that such political philosophy comes from a screenwriter who exhibits this kind of behavior?
Either deconstructionists are among the dumbest people ever to get university teaching positions, or there is something sinister going on. But deconstructionists are not dumb, though at times they can put on a convincing act. So what are they really up to? As we learn from the hermeneutics of suspicion, whatever a text is hiding has to do with power, never with truth. It hardly seems a coincidence that many deconstructionists are Marxists. Naturally, this does not mean they are Marxists in any sense that the historic Marx or even Lenin would approve. Marxian deconstructionists recognize that most nontrivial sentences in the writings of Marx and Lenin have been falsified. They know that Marxian economics is a fraud. After years of watching Russian and Chinese and Cuban leaders impoverish every citizen in their nations, except the rich and powerful people at the top, we know that no Marxist cares about poor and oppressed people. Their entire program is keeping the power they have and smuggling as many American dollars as they can into their Swiss bank accounts.
As for Marxian intellectuals in America, the name of their game is also power. They know that deconstructionism is bunk. The real purpose of the deconstructionist power brokers is to separate as many Americans as possible from their families and from their literature and traditions. If we cannot know the meaning of any text, then we cannot know the meaning of the Bible, including the Ten Commandments. Neither can we know the meaning of the United States Constitution or any other text that might sustain social order or provide meaning and direction to life. Once students become alienated from their families, their religion, their values, and their traditions, they will be like lambs prepared for the slaughter. And when that day comes, who do you suppose all the people with empty heads and empty chests will look to for their orders? They will look to their deconstructionist, Marxian, power-seeking professors who introduced them to the mysteries of a world without meaning. The real name of the deconstructionist game is not meaning or truth; it is power, raw political power.
Deconstructionism, while difficult to define, can be viewed as postmodernism's literary interpretation wing. Proponents of deconstructionism claim (often through ways that are very roundabout and difficult to make sense of), that written texts have no authoritative meaning, not least of all the alleged meaning given by the writer of that text. The reader has authority to deconstruct the text, finding the hidden and often cryptic structures in the writer's language that reveals his or her true agenda: the gaining of power. This is the so-called "hermeneutics of suspicion" that looks not at what a text says but at how the author is supposedly using his or her truth claims as vehicles for achieving dominance over the reader. On this view (and following Foucault, to some extent), all claims of absolute or monolithic truth are only veiled attempts to give the truth-claimer more power. We see this often today in how the far left treats Christian truth claims. The claim that Jesus is the only way to salvation, for example, is characterized as an ingenious ploy to assert dominance over non-Christians, nothing more than a version of spiritual imperialism aimed at giving Christian leaders more control over political and economic resources. The above quote is an example of how turning the hermeneutics of suspicion back on the deconstructionists might work. It is at once both tongue-in-cheek and utterly terrifying.
[UPDATE - 2/9/06: Joe Carter has a post that backs up my skeptical hunch about the doomsday scenarios. But I'll say the verdict is still out.]
"Evangelical Leaders Join Global Warming Initiative" is a story in the New York Times about a group of prominent Christian leaders who are calling for more robust action about climate change. Here's a quote:
Despite opposition from some of their colleagues, 86 evangelical Christian leaders have decided to back a major initiative to fight global warming, saying "millions of people could die in this century because of climate change, most of them our poorest global neighbors."
Among signers of the statement, which will be released in Washington on Wednesday, are the presidents of 39 evangelical colleges, leaders of aid groups and churches, like the Salvation Army, and pastors of megachurches, including Rick Warren, author of the best seller "The Purpose-Driven Life."
"For most of us, until recently this has not been treated as a pressing issue or major priority," the statement said. "Indeed, many of us have required considerable convincing before becoming persuaded that climate change is a real problem and that it ought to matter to us as Christians. But now we have seen and heard enough."
The statement calls for federal legislation that would require reductions in carbon dioxide emissions through "cost-effective, market-based mechanisms" — a phrase lifted from a Senate resolution last year and one that could appeal to evangelicals, who tend to be pro-business. The statement, to be announced in Washington, is only the first stage of an "Evangelical Climate Initiative" including television and radio spots in states with influential legislators, informational campaigns in churches, and educational events at Christian colleges.
I am not a scientist, and I have better things to read than scientific data about the effect of human industry on the climate. So I suspend judgment on the issue of global warming and climate change. I know that there are many people who believe it is real and that fixing the problem is vital to the future well-being of humanity. This may be true. I tend to look unfavorably on such gloom and doom environmental scenarios as being due to the overactive imaginations of environmental activists, but I have to admit that I haven't looked into the scientific evidence either way.
So I don't know if this evangelical group is right or wrong. But I want to make the point that, at the very least, this sort of thing can be good for evangelicals in that it shows the world that we are not tied to every single point of the Republican agenda. Many Americans rightly fault a certain block of evangelicalism for falling lock-step in line with Republican talking points. The criticism that we equate conservative political ideals with the ideals of the kingdom of God is probably not legitimate, but when referring to some evangelicals it's not far off the mark.
Is it any surprise then, that the evangelical opposition group cited in the above story consists of some of the most politically active evangelicals? One of the individuals mentioned was my Biblical Ethics teacher at seminary and one of the smartest guys I've ever known, but I don't think he's ever met a piece of Republican legislation he didn't like.
I vote Republican and support conservative ideals because I believe that by and large they are the best for humanity. However, I am wary of making some sort of strict one-to-one correspondence between the goals of the GOP and the goals of GOD. Evangelicals should certainly play a part in the political process, but we should also maintain our own identity so that evangelical does not automatically equal Republican. Evangelicals should serve a prophetic function not just to Democrats but to Republicans as well. That is, we should be just as quick to point out to Republican leaders where they are not promoting a Christian sense of justice as we are to Democratic leaders. This prophetic criticism may pertain to environmental issues, social justice issues, or whatever. But the point is that our political goals should come a very distant second to our advancement of the spiritual kingdom of God through the proclamation of the Gospel, and we should guard ourselves against being associated so much with one political tribe that we overlook where that tribe is hostile to the aims of authentic Christian faith.
One of the great faults of the marriage between evangelicals and Republicans is that the former camp is often blinded to issues it should rightly claim for its own. For example, the Republican party has a very different approach to the environment than Democrats, so stewardship over the earth - a biblical duty - has been put on the back burner. That's why it's good for this group of evangelicals to press this sort of initiative, assuming that global warming is as big a problem as the environmentalists tell us it is.
My friends tell me that I need to blog more on current events, and I retort that at ChristianThinker.net I don't want to be the kind of blogger that feels he absolutely must say something about every major news story, chiming in with every other blog out there so it doesn't seem like I'm missing the current blog-boat. Thus I've been mum on the whole Muslim cartoon controversy thing, but now I think I'd like to make a few points. So this is me chiming in:
Pop quiz: Do you know the original date the Danish newspaper printed the cartoons? "Mid-January," you say? Try September 30th! There's a good post on this topic, and a "the Saudis are behind the whole thing" conspiracy theory over at the Daily Kos. (ChristianThinker's note: I know that many of my readers would just as soon stick a spork up their nose as go to the Daily Kos. But trust me on this one, it's a pretty good post.)
The European newspapers are in the wrong. It was stated by a French newspaper early on that the main impetus for printing the cartoons was to "show that 'religious dogma' had no place in a secular society." That statement was later retracted, but it exemplifies the leftist idea that a vital role for a free press is its offensive power for social transformation. This is the free press as a weapon against worldviews that those in charge of the press don't like.
The Islamic reaction in the form of violence is even more wrong. This goes without saying, but the important thing to notice is that the reaction of the Muslim world may be waking Europeans from their dogmatic slumber to the truth that there is a (very) large portion of humanity that doesn't agree with the whole democratic freedom thing. There is a significant block of the Islamic world that is as interested in Enlightenment ideals about as much as it is into the latest gossip about Britney Spears.
Help me try to figure this one out: Since 9/11, the progressive liberal types, especially in the academic world, have ramped up their programs, speeches, classes, sensitivity seminars, etc. that aim to portray Muslims in a positive light and minimize anti-Islamic sentiment. This is all well and good. But the same does not go for when a "Christian" does or says something crazy. When an anti-abortion activist kills an abortion doctor or bombs a clinic, for example, there are no sensitivity training seminars on how everyone ought to stay calm and not become bigoted toward Christians. In fact the opposite seems to be true. Those anecdotal examples become poster-children for why the tyrannical "religious right" is destroying America. In short: Muslim terrorists cause the secular left to become more sensitive and respectful of Muslims, but Christian terrorists only reinforce them in their antagonism toward orthodox Christianity. Please note that I'm not making this claim about all liberals, or Democrats, or whatever. But I do think there is a certain block on the left - particularly within academia - of which this is true.
[Christian Thinker's note: I do not post this letter to show either support or disapproval for the Iraq War. I only want it to emphasize the extraordinary mindset and religious conviction of this young man.]
Thanks to Marine Corps Moms, here is the full text of the letter from the slain Marine that the president read from in his State of the Union speech:
MOM, DAD, KRISTIE, JODIE, KIMBERLY, ROBERT, KATY, RICHARD, AND MY LISA:
Boy do I love each and every one of you. This letter being read means that I have been deemed worthy of being with Christ. With MaMa Jo, MaMa Clay, Jennifer .... all those we have been without for our time during the race. This is not a bad thing. It is what we hope for. The secret it out. He lives and His promises are real! It is not faith that supports this .... but fact and I now am a part of the promise. Here is notice! Wake up! All that we hope for is Real. Not a hope. But Real.
But here is something tangible. What we have done in Iraq is worth any sacrifice. Why? Because it was our duty. That sounds simple. But all of us have a duty. Duty is defined as a God given task. Without duty life is worthless. It holds no type of fulfillment. The simple fact that our bodies are built for work has to lead us to the conclusion that God (who made us) put us together to do His work. His work is different for each of us.
Mom, yours was to be the glue of our family, to be a pillar for those women (all women around you), Dad, yours was to train and build us (like a Platoon Sgt) to better serve Him. Kristie, Kim, Katy you are the five team leaders who support your Squad ldrs, Jodie, Robert and Richard. Lisa you too. You are my XO and you did a hell of a job. You all have your duties. Be thankful that God in His wisdom gives us work. Mine was to ensure that you did not have to experience what it takes to protect what we have as a family. This I am so thankful for. I know what honor is. It is not a word to be thrown around. It has been an Honor to protect and serve all of you. I faced death with the secure knowledge that you would not have to. This is as close to Christ-like I can be. That emulation is where all honor lies. I thank you for making it worthwhile.
As a Marine this is not the last Chapter. I have the privilege of being one who has finished the race. I have been in the company of heroes. I now am counted among them. Never falter! Don't hesitate to honor and support those of us who have the honor of protecting that which is worth protecting.
Now here are my final wishes. Do not cry! To do so is to not realize what we have placed all our hope and faith in. We should not fear. We should not be sad. Be thankful. Be so thankful. All we hoped for is true. Celebrate! My race is over, my time in war zone is over. My trials are done. A short time separates all of us from His reality. So laugh. Enjoy the moments and your duty. God is wonderful.
I love each and every one of you.
Spread the word .... Christ lives and He is Real.
Semper Fidelis
The slain Marine was SSGT Daniel Clay. He was killed on December 1 by a roadside bomb near Fallujah.
For some reason I just can't get this issue of the potential Islamization of Europe out of my head. Well now it seems that the Pope may be predicting the same thing. Check out this transcript of a conversation between Hugh Hewitt and Father Joseph Fessio about the Pope's opinion on the matter.
While we're on the subject of the war on terror, I thought I'd post a link to the much ballyhooed appearance of Bill O'Reilly on The Late Show this week. Letterman is clearly outmatched as a thinker (and pretty much admits it), and yet the audience applauds him much more than O'Reilly. But O'Reilly's positions - even if you disagree with him - are much more well thought out than Letterman could ever dream of. Peculiar. [HT: Relevant Magazine].
I try to avoid the Huffington Post like a plague. The writers there, when they descend from the high horse of progressive liberal righteousness to speak about "fundamentalists," tend to misunderstand and therefore misrepresent everything that evangelicals believe in or stand for. But I stumbled across an opinion piece from the Post by Tony Campolo that I found very interesting. It's called "Is Christianity a Casualty of War?" and the gist of the piece is this: American evangelicals have actually harmed the cause of Christ by wedding themselves to the conservative Republican agenda, specifically as it relates to the war.
Now let's set the issue of Campolo's theology aside for a moment, as well as the issue of whether the Republican agenda matches the caricature of it as it is daily portrayed in the Huffington Post. Rather, I want to examine the argument that Campolo is making, and more importantly, how he is making that argument. I also want to be as gentle to Rev. Campolo as I can, as the progressive wolves at Huffington are ripping him to shreds in the comments section of his post for even calling himself "evangelical" and implying that missionaries might actually be doing valuable work for humanity.
Let's begin with a quote:
Recently, I sat in dismay as I watched a television show that featured a prominent Christian author defending the use of torture in the war against terrorism. I was outraged that this man could try to make a case for followers of Jesus condoning such an immoral practice. I shared my feelings with a group of fellow Evangelicals and was stunned when the consensus that emerged from this group of Christians was in agreement with this author ...
I came away from that discussion with a sense that many of us Evangelicals have given up our moral compasses and wandered into an ethical wasteland where we are not only losing our souls, but also losing our testimonies as good people. Checking around, I found very little condemnation of America's use of torture from those pundits of Christian Fundamentalism who usually can be counted on to speak out with righteous indignation whenever our government provides even the appearance of evil.
What I want to say here is that the way Campolo makes his case here doesn't seem to be very fair. That's because he is simply saying, "These people calling themselves Christians believe in torture. Can you believe that?" This is a common ploy to use when one wants to make some assertion but doesn't really want any discussion on it. It's akin to me saying, "Kenny thinks raping children is morally acceptable. Can you believe that?" We really wouldn't have to have any discussion on the matter, and I think I would be justified in saying that without hearing Kenny's side of the story. So I'll grant that there is a class of moral statements with which we can do this, the aforementioned one being a good example.
But the case is far from closed on the issue of the security of sovereign nations. I should first point out that I agree with Campolo in principle. It isn't very Christian or self-sacrificial or loving to tortue someone. But I should also point out that the word "torture" conjures up images of emaciated people being stretched out on the rack or of a religious infidel having his tongue cut out, and that is not what the contemporary discussion of torture is about. It is above all an issue of national safety and security, and that is a very different thing.
Campolo makes the following statement, "The question is would Jesus ask, 'What doth it profit if you gain information from a tortured terrorist and lose your own soul?'" Now in the way he frames it he's exactly right. Suppose someone says to you, "We may be able to get some info from Mr. Jones here about a potential link from Mr. Smith to the known terrorist Mr. Johnson who has ties to Al-Qaeda, but we can only do it if we rip out his fingernails." No one who follows Christ or who seriously reads the New Testament would ever do or support such a thing, or at least I don't think they would.
But we also have to present another scenario. Suppose someone says to you, "Mr. Johnson here knows the whereabouts of a nuclear bomb that is going to level Chicago tomorrow, but he won't give up the info. But if we deprive him of sleep then he'll squeal like a stuck pig." This is quite a different matter. The real issue is how Christians are to handle clear ethical dilemmas. Campolo might say, "No, absolutely not! It isn't Christlike to deprive someone of sleep!" And then of course, because of his inaction - BOOM! - 3 million people die. Well, is that very Christlike? My point here is not to answer these questions, but to show that the case is most definitely not closed on this issue or on many others involving the war.
There is a very simple way that some people have of quoting Jesus' sayings, "Turn the other cheek," or "Blessed are the peacemakers," and then making the leap from there to a total unmitigated pacifistic position. These folks often act as if Jesus didn't also say, "I have not come to bring peace but a sword," and "Let him who has no sword sell his cloak and buy one." That's not even to mention Paul's explanation that the state does not "bear the sword for nothing," and is a minister of God in its capacity to execute justice (all of these quotes are my paraphrases, by the way). It is not a simple matter, even for the New Testament Christian, to determine how to conduct matters of defense, justice, and safety. But I don't think it's right to assert a total pacifistic position any more than I think it's right to assert a total war-mongering position.
I don't mean to imply here that I hold unqualified support for the Iraq War, or that I "support" torture, or anything like that. The fact is that I supported the war in its function of ridding the world of Saddam's capability to produce weapons of mass destruction. But now that its function has morphed into one of creating democracy in Iraq, the verdict is still out. Campolo is certainly serious about his convictions, and I respect his concern for the world's "image" of the Gospel. I only want to point out that the issue is not as clear-cut as he makes it out to be.
As a follow-up to the post I made earlier today, Mark Steyn states the case a little more boldly in a Wall Street Journal editorial. If you have a bone in your body that cares about western civilization and the future of your children, you'll probably want to read this. Here's how he starts:
Most people reading this have strong stomachs, so let me lay it out as baldly as I can: Much of what we loosely call the Western world will not survive this century, and much of it will effectively disappear within our lifetimes, including many if not most Western European countries. There'll probably still be a geographical area on the map marked as Italy or the Netherlands--probably--just as in Istanbul there's still a building called St. Sophia's Cathedral. But it's not a cathedral; it's merely a designation for a piece of real estate. Likewise, Italy and the Netherlands will merely be designations for real estate. The challenge for those who reckon Western civilization is on balance better than the alternatives is to figure out a way to save at least some parts of the West.
And on the low western birth rate:
The design flaw of the secular social-democratic state is that it requires a religious-society birthrate to sustain it. Post-Christian hyperrationalism is, in the objective sense, a lot less rational than Catholicism or Mormonism. Indeed, in its reliance on immigration to ensure its future, the European Union has adopted a 21st-century variation on the strategy of the Shakers, who were forbidden from reproducing and thus could increase their numbers only by conversion.
Since my last post was (somewhat) about politics, I thought I'd keep the political train moving along here at ChristianThinker.net. Reuters has a story about how much adulation George W. Bush has received on his recent trip to Africa:
I generally refrain from posting on issues relating to politics or the media on this blog, but some stories are just too odious to ignore. Breitbart ran this piece from the Agence France-Presse. The story portrays itself as an objective report about the U. S. military, but in reality it is little more than a cleverly-constructed theological hit piece. The premise is that there are individuals in the U. S. Armed Forces who feel they have suffered religious discrimination from some overzealous evangelical officers:
I am an orthodox Christian. I hold to the great doctrines of the classical Christian faith. I am also a Republican. The difference in importance that I ascribe to these two identities is immeasurable. I am only a Republican insofar as it relates to my vocation as a servant of God. I vote for Republican candidates and legislation only if by doing so I believe I am contributing to more good in the world than evil, according to the Christian understanding of "good" and "evil."
Although I hold no disdain for the involvement of Christians in political affairs, I am also very suspicious of all political discourse, as I think it is often reduced to sheer demagoguery. Democratic systems are particularly vulnerable to this problem. Let me explain what I mean. In a democracy, the aim of each competing political faction is to get votes. You must get a majority of voting minds to come to your view, to pull that lever for your candidate or your piece of legislation, and you must do it in as quickly and as decisive a way possible. Now, in getting your message across and showing how it is better than your opponent's message, you have two options. Call the first one the argumentative option and the second the demagogic option.
