tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53289931333976498382024-03-13T23:31:39.964-04:00The Politics of the Cross Resurrected"Even the cross . . . was a judgment seat. For the Judge was set up in the middle with the thief who believed and was pardoned on the one side and the thief who mocked and was damned on the other. Already then he signified what he would do with the living and the dead: some he will place on his right hand, others on his left."
- St. Augustine (Tractates on the Gospel of John 31:11) "For as the Son was judged as a man, he shall also judge in human form." - St. Augustine (City of God, 20.30)Craig Carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10209954891388905090noreply@blogger.comBlogger1535125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328993133397649838.post-31122655197701631942012-07-14T12:55:00.002-04:002012-07-14T12:55:39.296-04:00Busy, Busy, BusySorry for the light blogging around here lately. I have been sick (bronchitis in June) and away (to visit my brand new grandson in Alberta) and now I'm going canoeing for the next week. When I haven't been sick or preoccupied with cute grandchildren, I've been madly trying to finish this book, <i>The Triune God and the Acids of Modernity</i>, before the end of sabbatical (Sept.). <br />
<br />
I've been knee deep in fourth century Trinitarian debates and re-reading Lewis Ayres has confirmed how utterly without foundation the popular myth is that there is a fundamental difference between the Eastern (Cappadocian) Fathers and the West (Augustine) in that the East starts from the Three and the West starts from the One. Anyone who reads Gregory of Nyssa's, <i>To Abladius: On Not Three Gods,</i> could never swallow this interpretive scheme. This narrative is used to justify modern social Trinitarianism even though the Cappadocians explicitly and firmly reject it as heresy. It is also used as the basis for accusing Augustine of modalism even though he is just rejecting tritheism and saying exactly what the Cappadocians say: that the three persons simply are the one God and this is the mystery of the Divine Being. So much mischief is wrought by this innocent and technical-sounding narrative. People today think their tritheism is orthodox and grounded in the Greek Fathers when it is really closer to the theology of Eunomius the Heteroousian. The record has been set straight by Ayres, Michel R. Barnes, R. Williams and others, but the truth must be pounded in repeatedly if it is to have the needed effect. <br />
<br />
Helping out in this regard is Keith E. Johnson's <i>Rethinking the Trinity and Religious Pluralism: An Augustinian Assessement </i>(IVP, 2011), which is a wonderful example of <i>Ressourcement</i> combined with polemic. It is a sign of hope that not all Evangelicalism is being led astray by bad Trinitarian theology. It has a great appendix refuting Gunton's attacks on Augustine and a commendation by Ayres (as does Green's book). Wonderful to see. This is really what Catholics and Evangelicals Together is all about - defending the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity. <br />
<br />
Now I'm focused on Augustine and his doctrine of the Trinity. I've just read Brad Green's book on Colin Gunton's over-the-top attacks on Augustine; Green is very kind to Gunton and gently corrects him. Such patience! <br />
<br />
I'm just now reading Stuart Caldecott's <i>Beauty for Truth's Sake: On the Re-enchantment of Education</i>. The first 50 pages are excellent. Apparently I've discovered another kindred spirit. I need to read his <i>The Power of the Ring: The Spiritual Vision Behind the Lord of the Rings</i>.<br />
<br />
So many good books; so little time. But I'm off to experience God in the beauty of nature. Have a nice summer!<br />
<br />
<br />Craig Carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10209954891388905090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328993133397649838.post-11955918334015800612012-06-12T12:20:00.000-04:002012-06-12T12:20:14.530-04:00What Bad Teachers Can't Be Fired: Union Power<a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/why-bad-teachers-dont-get-fired-in-ontario/article4249405/" target="_blank">Margaret Wente</a> has a column in today's Globe and Mail, which identifies the problem with the Canadian public education system as the teacher's unions, as I argued in a post the other day. She offers no solutions: apparently the obvious cannot be said out loud in the mainstream media yet. But the fact remains that no significant improvement to the public school system will be possible until the teacher's unions are broken. <br />
<br />
She writes:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Bad teachers are well defended by their unions, which makes it so
hard to get rid of them that powerless school administrators generally
give up. Instead, they try to get the bad eggs to move on – a process
widely known as “passing the trash.” The regulators are captives of the
unions, too. The OCT is dominated by former union executives who caucus
together before meetings to hammer out the party line. In theory, their
job is to serve the public. In reality, they serve their own. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The
Star’s embarrassing revelations prompted the OCT to hire a distinguished
retired judge, Patrick LeSage, to tell it how to reform itself. His
sensible suggestions, released last week, are a laundry list of the
obvious: Disclose the names of all teachers found guilty of misconduct,
hold formal public hearings for the most serious cases and revoke the
licences of teachers found guilty of sexual misconduct. He also
recommended that more non-teachers should sit on the panels that hear
misconduct cases. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
But these measures don’t go far enough. So long
as the unions are allowed to dominate the regulator, “no procedural
overhaul, no matter how ingenious or rigorous, is likely to lead to
increased effectiveness or public confidence,” writes Doretta Wilson of
the Society for Quality Education.</blockquote>
Why she cannot draw the obvious conclusion is that left-wing ideology is so powerful in this country that we cannot even talk about the necessary steps we need to take to promote educational reform. This is a sad commentary on late modern Canada. <br />
<br />
Cross-posted at The Bayview ReviewCraig Carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10209954891388905090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328993133397649838.post-22624984871708605662012-06-12T11:55:00.001-04:002012-06-12T12:01:44.299-04:00The Orwellian "Human Rights Code" is Finally Being Amended - Though a Free People Would Abolish it AltogetherFile this one under "Let's be thankful for small mercies." The odious section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Code is finally being repealed. It is a good day for liberty and liberalism in Canada. The Socialists, of course, are in mourning. <a href="http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/06/07/jonathan-kay-good-riddance-to-section-13-of-the-canadian-human-rights-act/" target="_blank">Jonathan Kay</a> of The National Post writes:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<br />
Five years ago, during testimony in the case of Warman v. Lemire,
Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) investigator Dean Steacy was
asked “What value do you give freedom of speech when you investigate?”
His response: “Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don’t give
it any value.” </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Those words produced outrage. But there was a grain of truth to what
Mr. Steacy said: For decades, Canadians had meekly submitted to a system
of administrative law that potentially made de facto criminals out of
anyone with politically incorrect views about women, gays, or racial and
religious minority groups. All that was required was a complainant
(often someone with professional ties to the CHRC itself) willing to
sign his name to a piece of paper, claim he was offended, and then
collect his cash winnings at the end of the process. The system was
bogus and corrupt. But very few Canadians wanted to be seen as posturing
against policies that were branded under the aegis of “human rights.” </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
That was then. Now, Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, the
enabling legislation that permits federal human-rights complaints
regarding “the communication of hate messages by telephone or on the
Internet,” is doomed. On Wednesday, the <a href="http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/06/07/tories-repeal-sections-of-human-rights-act-banning-hate-speech-over-telephone-or-internet/" target="_blank" title="Tories repeal sections of Human Rights Act banning hate speech over telephone or Internet">federal Conservatives voted to repeal it on a largely party-line vote</a>
— by a margin of 153 to 136 — through a private member’s bill
introduced by Alberta Conservative MP Brian Storseth. Following royal
assent, and a one-year phase-in period, Section 13 will be history.</blockquote>
Freedom of speech is an "American concept"? I have news for Mr. Steacy: freedom of speech is a human right guaranteed by God, not the American constitution. Mr. Steacy can take it up with God if he wishes, although it is likely he is as anti-God as he is anti-American. People like him prefer to worship the State.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/302086/re-education-camp-mark-steyn" target="_blank">Mark Steyn </a>adds his two cents worth and in the process has a go at a Socialist is disappointed at outbreak of freedom and who wants the government to be have the power to "educate" us:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
This twit from Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition is a good example of <a href="http://www.fivefeetoffury.com/2012/06/07/bill-to-strip-hate-speech-provisions-from-human-rights-act-passes-third-reading/">what we’ve been up against</a>:
<br />
<blockquote>
New Democrat public safety critic Randall Garrison said Wednesday
that, due to the large number of hate crimes, the human rights
commission needs to have the power to combat the issue online and force
individuals and groups to remove websites containing hateful speech.<br />
Removing the sections from the human rights code will effectively
strip the commission of its power to educate Canadians and shut down
inappropriate websites, he said.<br />
“We do have a serious problem,” Garrison said. “If you take away the
power to take (websites) down, it’s not clear they have any mandate to
even to talk to people about it and educate them about it.”</blockquote>
Clear off, you twerp. I don’t want the state to have a “mandate” to
“educate” the citizenry about their thought-crimes. Even if I did not
object on principle, one thing I’ve learned during this five-year
campaign is that the statist hacks Canada’s official opposition is so
eager to empower are, almost to a man, woman and pre-op transsexual,
either too stupid or bullying to be entrusted with the task. Mr Garrison
himself would appear to be a fine example of the former, at least. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
If it’s a choice between an unlovely citizenry with all its flaws or
an overbearing state policing their opinions, I know which is the lesser
evil. What a shame a “progressive” “liberal” “socialist” like Randall
Garrison has such a low opinion of his fellow citizens.</blockquote>
The State is not the guarantor of our freedoms; it is the chief danger to the theft of our freedoms. Instead of "freedom from religion," which secularists are always pushing, we need "freedom from soft totalitarianism in the country.Craig Carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10209954891388905090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328993133397649838.post-28038219572794656412012-06-07T12:16:00.000-04:002012-06-07T12:16:52.580-04:00It is Time for Educational Reform: Don't Privatize It - Parentize ItBill 13 passed the Ontario Legislature this week. The bill requires all schools, even Catholic ones, to set up "Gay-Straight Alliance" clubs to propagandize for the homosexual acts as natural and good purportedly so that children and teens who experience any signs of gender confusion will be encouraged to be proud of their "sexual identity." Of course, the real purpose is to silence opposition to the agenda of the pansexualist revolution that seeks to undermine traditional marriage and family as structures of oppression. <br />
<br />
Last year the Ontario government implemented JK-12 sex education programs designed to teach that sex is good as long as you use contraception at various points in the curriculum so that parents cannot remove children from specific sex education classes. The purpose here is to break down natural and normal shame and embarrassment about sex so that sex can become just another bodily function like taking a drink of water. For 3000 years (or more) civilization as surrounded sex with taboos and mystery because it is so important to society and to the individual but all this "superstition" is now to be swept away. The point is to talk about it endlessly so as to make it seem coarse, physical and trivial. <br />
<br />
The government is so infiltrated by the new neo-pagan religion of secularism that is is no longer even making a pretense of recognizing the natural right of parents to raise their own children as they see fit within their own culture and religion. This same government covers up its cultural imperialism and denial of religious liberty with the facade of "multiculturalism," which in modern-speak is just another word for moral relativism. Make no mistake, this is not liberal democracy. It is the totalitarianism of the progressive state with its myth of progress by the rule of experts.<br />
<i></i> <br />
Many Canadians, even Christians, have been brainwashed into accepting the nationalization of education by the government as normal. But it is not; it is tyranny. <br />
<br />
But there is hope and it comes from the Republican candidate for president, who is running on education reform. See Mitt Romney's "<a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/94576248/A-Chance-for-Every-Child" target="_blank">Plan for Restoring the Promise of American Education</a>." It is 34 pages of common sense and it exudes the air of liberal democracy, toleration and reason. It is not the theocratic imposition of Christianity on society as a whole; irrational Canadian prejudices against Republicans notwithstanding. Far from it. It reverses the top-down, bureaucratic, State controlled, union-directed nature of contemporary American education. It is anti-totalitarian and parent-centered. The goal is not to "privatize" education, but to "parentize" it. <br />
<br />
Peter Ferrara has an excellent three page summary of the plan here in <i>American Spectator</i> entitled "<a href="http://spectator.org/archives/2012/06/06/romneys-education-choice" target="_blank">Romney's Education Choice</a>." He summarizes the problem as Romney sees it:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Romney's 34-page white paper explaining the reform proposals, "A
Chance for Every Child," begins by explaining what is at stake:
"Only 2 percent of those who graduate from high school, get a full
time job, and wait until age 21 and get married before having
children end up in poverty. By comparison, that figure is 76
percent for those who fail to do all three." </blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<br />
And it explained the problem, saying:<br />
<blockquote>
Across the nation, our school system is a world leader in
spending yet lags on virtually every measure of results…. On the
latest international PISA test, American high school students
ranked 14th out of 34 developed countries in reading, 17th in
science, and 25th in math. China's Shanghai province led the world
in all three subjects, outperforming the United States by multiple
grade levels in each."<br />
</blockquote>
Performance of our current public school system is so bad, it's
a civil rights problem:<br />
<blockquote>
Our K-12 system also poses one of the foremost civil rights
challenges of our time: the achievement gap facing many minority
groups. The average African American or Hispanic student performs
at the same level in 12th grade that the average white student
achieves in 8<sup>th</sup> grade. More than one in three African
American and Hispanic students fails to graduate from high school
within four years of entering…. The tragic result is that instead
of providing an escape from the cycle of poverty, our educational
system is reinforcing it. </blockquote>
</blockquote>
Schools are failing. That is not news. So what is the solution? The Teacher's unions always tell you the same old tired story: higher taxes and more spending on education is needed. But this has been tried, both in the US and Canada for 50 years with worsening results. Ferrara writes:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<br />
The root of the problem is not lack of resources: "The cause is
not a lack of public investment: as a nation we spend over $11,000
annually on each student enrolled in K-12 education, more than
almost any other country." Romney's White Paper adds:<br />
<blockquote>
We spend two and a half times as much per pupil today, in real
terms, as in 1970, but high school achievement and graduation rates
have stagnated. Higher spending rarely correlates with better
results. Even the liberal Center for American Progress acknowledged
in a recent study that "the literature strongly calls into question
the notion that simply investing more money in schools will result
in better outcomes," and reported from its own research that most
states showed "no clear relationship between spending and
achievement."<br />
</blockquote>
Romney adds further: "<em>Despite spending more than twice as
much per student as other developed countries</em>, our degree
attainment lags behind.</blockquote>
No, the real problem is not too little spending on education; the real problem is teacher's unions. The system is set up for the benefit of the adults, not for the benefit of the kids. <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Romney commendably did not shrink from identifying the real root
of the problem -- teachers unions. The campaign White Paper
says:<br />
<blockquote>
Unfortunately, rather than embracing reform and innovation,
America remains gridlocked in an antiquated system controlled to a
disturbing degree by the unions representing teachers. The teachers
unions spend millions of dollars to influence the debate in favor
of the entrenched interests of adults, not the students our system
should serve. The efforts of teachers will be central to any
successful reform, but their unions have a very different agenda:
opposing innovation that might disrupt the status quo while
insulating even the least effective teachers from
accountability….[T]eachers unions are consistently on the front
lines fighting against initiatives to attract and retain the best
teachers, measure performance, provide accountability, or offer
choices to parents.<br />
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
Public sector employees should never have been unionized and they should not have collective bargaining privileges. Those are fine for the private sector where there is a built-in incentive to be reasonable; if the unions demand too much the company goes bankrupt and they lose their jobs. There workers need protection against exploitation and unions create a balance of competing interests. <br />
<br />
But public sector unions collect large amounts of money from the rank and file (often involuntarily) and then give it to political candidates who promise to give the unions higher and higher wages and benefits. This is a scam. Since it is the public purse, everyone thinks there is no end to the money tree. <br />
<br />
So working class parents pay higher taxes so that teachers can retire early with fat pensions AND at the same time are haughtily told that they have no say in how their children are educated even to the point where the school system is teaching against their religious faith. Unions and government bureaucracy insulate school administrators from the wishes of parents and thus doubly oppress ordinary people by exploiting them financially and denying them their human rights as parents.<br />
<br />
How would Romney's plan work?<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The
federal government spends more than $25 billion a year, two-thirds
of its funding for K-12 education, through Title I of the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) focused on students
from low income families and the Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act (IDEA). Romney proposes to change the law to provide
this funding to the schools that the low income and special needs
children and their families choose, tying the dollars to each child
rather than to each school. They can choose any public or charter
school anywhere in the state, as they prefer, or any private school
in the state if permitted by state law. States would have to adopt
these choice policies to receive the federal funds.
<br />
States would also have to remove all caps on charter schools,
and provide funding to charter schools under the same formula that
applies to all other publicly supported schools, including access
to capital funds. This ensures that low income and special needs
children will have a full scope of choices available to them.</blockquote>
The government would provide equal funding for every child; parents would decide where this funding would be spent. Schools would need to compete or go under. The incentives would shift away from the priorities of adults to the priorities of educating children effectively. <br />
<br />
It is shocking to realize that big unions and left-wing interest groups are determined to everything in their power to prevent this from happening. The prefer to spout noble-sounding rhetoric while exploiting poor children and parents. They have a deep incentive to protect the status quo; but they simply must be defeated for the sake of the common good.<br />
<br />
What would be some of the benefits of such a system? Ferrara writes:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In this new environment, the combined choices of parents,
students and families would automatically work school reform.
Funding would automatically and immediately flow to the schools
that best satisfied parents and students with the best teaching
methods, materials, and subject matter. Schools that failed to
change and serve would automatically lose funding. If they
persisted in failing, they would ultimately lose their students to
other, better performing schools, and have to close.<br />
<br />
This system would also promote decentralized experimentation and
innovation, allowing more scope and opportunity for the
demonstration of the virtue of new ideas and innovations.
Experienced teachers with better ideas for instruction could more
easily start their own schools to demonstrate the superiority and
appeal of their innovations. The system would also allow for
decentralized flexibility, with different schools striving to
maximize the cultivation and flourishing of different talents and
abilities, whether in math, science, music, the arts, or other
disciplines. Competing schools would be tailored to the needs and
skills of children, not one size fits all from a government
monopoly that leaves many behind because the material is too easy
or too hard.<br />
<br />
Every child is different. Some kids have learning disabilities.
Some boys need strict discipline and should not be in coed schools.
Some kids have a special talent for music, talent,
entrepreneurship, sports, vocational skills. Some families want
religious education, others don't. Some need individualized
attention. Some have severe behavior problems that can be overcome
with the right stylized program. With school choice as Romney has
proposed, parents and students could then each pick the school that
best served their particular needs and preferences.</blockquote>
It is breathtaking to imagine the wonderful benefits such a system would provide. It would strengthen families, empower parents, provide opportunities to children stuck in failing schools and it would permit appropriate diversity in the educational system. The one-size-fits-all model of socialized education is a relic of the industrial era and needs to be abandoned. For heaven's sake: the Berlin Wall fell 23 years ago! It is time to let our children go! <br />
<br />
I pray that Mitt Romney is elected in November and that he is successful in implementing this vision. It this happens, I predict it will be wildly successful and popular. And that will give us, who desire educational reform here in Ontario a working model to point to as the better way. The union dinosaurs will undoubtedly fight real progress because their perks are at stake, so it will require perseverance and determination to bring about real, democratic reform. But the future of our country and the liberty of our people is at stake.<br />
<br />
(See also Keith Fournier's take on the Romney plan.)<br />
<br />
Cross-posted at <i>The Bayview Review</i>.Craig Carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10209954891388905090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328993133397649838.post-54573404470796573002012-06-06T13:40:00.000-04:002012-06-06T13:40:07.968-04:00Christianity Under Attack from the Neo-Pagan Religion of SecularismSolzhenitsyn predicted it. In his famous 1978 Commencement Address at Harvard,<a data-mce-href="http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/arch/solzhenitsyn/harvard1978.html" href="http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/arch/solzhenitsyn/harvard1978.html" target="_blank"> A World Split Apart</a>,
he chose not to pander but to tell the truth that a secularized,
left-leaning intellectual elite did not wish to hear. He assessed the
spiritual and moral health of the West and found it wanting. <br />
<br />
He
told us that, while the Western democracies opposed the political and
economic systems of tyranny that held sway in the USSR, the conditions
that undermined the moral foundations of the Communist world and made it
possible for governments to enslave their populations were being
recklessly replicated in the West: materialism, legalism, a false view
of freedom as will-to-power, and, most important of all, atheism. For
Solzhenitsyn, the tragedy of Soviet totalitarianism is not caused by
misguided men choosing to implement a flawed economic or political
model, as if a few tweaks could rectify the situation. No, the source
of tyranny lies deeper and on this deeper level the West is sliding
toward the materialistic humanism that always trends left. <br />
<br />
This analysis explains why the Christian Church in Europe and North America is under attack today. <img alt="" class="mceWPmore mceItemNoResize" data-mce-src="http://www.thebayviewreview.com/wp-includes/js/tinymce/plugins/wordpress/img/trans.gif" src="http://www.thebayviewreview.com/wp-includes/js/tinymce/plugins/wordpress/img/trans.gif" title="More..." />
The Church, along with the Family, are obstacles to the total rule of
the "progressive state." The Church impedes the full triumph of the
neo-Pagan religion of Secularism and the enshrinement of the
All-Powerful Leviathan as the source of law, value and power. <br />
<br />
<strong>In the United States,</strong>
the Obama administration is trying to force Catholic (and Evangelical)
colleges, hospitals and social service agencies to dispense
contraceptives, including abortion poisons, to its employees. Is the
reason a desperate lack of access to contraception in the United
States? No, hardly, it is rather an attempt to break the will of the
Church hierarchy and to send the message that Caesar decides doctrinal
issues, not the Bishops. No one should doubt that if they get away with
it, sometime in the near future they will be forced to pay for
abortions. They may stop at forcing bishops into abortion clinics to
personally assist in late-term abortions, but in principle there is no
limit on their power to do so, from their point of view. <a data-mce-href="http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/forty-three-catholic-organizations-file-lawsuits-against-hhs-mandate/" href="http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/forty-three-catholic-organizations-file-lawsuits-against-hhs-mandate/" target="_blank">Forty-three Catholic organizations</a> are suing the federal government and stand a good chance of winning. <br />
<br />
<br />
<strong>In Ontario</strong>, <a data-mce-href="http://life.nationalpost.com/2012/06/05/analysis-ontario-catholic-church-chooses-quiet-diplomacy-to-fight-gay-straight-alliances/" href="http://life.nationalpost.com/2012/06/05/analysis-ontario-catholic-church-chooses-quiet-diplomacy-to-fight-gay-straight-alliances/" target="_blank">Catholic schools are being forced to allow student clubs</a>
celebrating the glories of sodomizing one another in plain
contravention of Church teaching. Why? Because the forces of
secularism wish to provoke the Catholic bishops to either capitulate to
the principle that the State now decides what doctrine may be taught in
what context or else provoke the Church to fight back, which will
provide a pretext for defunding Catholic schools and bringing all
education under Caesar's control. It is thus a win-win for secularism. <br />
<br />
<strong>In New Brunswick,</strong>
Crandall University is under attack for holding to 3000 years of
Judeo-Christian moral teaching on sexuality by making it a condition of
employment that faculty not engage in adultery, fornication and, oh yes,
homosexual acts. As I predicted years ago, <a data-mce-href="http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1204607--new-brunswick-university-under-fire-for-anti-gay-hiring-policy" href="http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1204607--new-brunswick-university-under-fire-for-anti-gay-hiring-policy" target="_blank">the attack is coming from the students</a>,
who, shaped by 12 years of pro-sexual revolution, secular humanist
education, expect the university to conform slavishly to its secular
environment because, well, dissenting from the majority is just so
inconsistent with critical thinking . . . or something like that.<br />
<br />
<strong>In Great Britain</strong>, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, is warning that Christians are being <a data-mce-href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9203953/Britains-Christians-are-being-vilified-warns-Lord-Carey.html" href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9203953/Britains-Christians-are-being-vilified-warns-Lord-Carey.html" target="_blank">"vilified" and "driven underground" </a>by
secularist forces intent on removing the right of Christians to express
their long-standing, orthodox beliefs in public. A specific list of
cases can be found <a data-mce-href="http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/former-archbishop-of-canterbury-christians-in-uk-being-persecuted-the-way-h" href="http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/former-archbishop-of-canterbury-christians-in-uk-being-persecuted-the-way-h" target="_blank">here</a>,
which is far from exhaustive. As one example, a counselor was fired
from her job for failing to give two homosexuals "sex advice." Who knew
that homosexuals were actually dying for sex advice from up-tight,
traditionalist Victorian prudes? You don't suppose it might have been
political, do you? <br />
<br />
If Christianity is under assault all over the
Anglosphere, you can be sure that is not because people want more
religious freedom. They want the same amount of religious freedom but
with Christians on the receiving end of persecution, which is to say
that they want the neo-Pagan religion of Secularism to be the State
religion instead of Christianity. The shift that occurred in the fourth
century under Constantine and later Theodosius is being reversed. The
pagan morality of ancient Greco-Roman civilization is making a comeback
as humane, just, merciful Christian laws are reversed one by one.
Christian Pregnancy Help Centers are the contemporary equivalent of
first century Christians going out to the garbage dump of Rome to rescue
unwanted infants abandoned to death by pagan parents.<br />
<br />
<br />
This suggests that liberal toleration does not work when leftist,
secular, materialistic, atheistic activists are concerned. They don't
want toleration; they want to stamp out Christianity. But Solzhenitsyn
told us this was the case. To reject God is not the same as being
neutral toward God; those who reject God crave social approval to
replace the Divine approval they have forfeited. They need their false
god - the State - to smile on their lifestyle choices and the emphasis
is on the word "need." This makes secularism dangerously intolerant -
like a number of other threats the free peoples of the world have had to
face including Islam, Communism and Fascism. <br />
<br />
We managed to see
off Fascism in 1945 and Communism in 1989, but Islam is a perpetual
external threat as it has been for 1400 years. It is not difficult,
however, to see a spiritually healthy West continuing to stand up to
Islamic terror. But the internal threat from Secularism is more serious
than all the other ones combined. This is how vibrant civilizations
die: by a thousand self-inflicted wounds from within, not by external
conquest. Solzhenitsyn was prophetic about our plight; our fate,
however, is still undecided. May God, if it be His will, grant a
revival of Christian faith in the West that puts atheism and secularism
in the shade. If not, God will still be God regardless of what happens
to the West.<br />
<br />
Cross-posted at <em>The Bayview Review</em>Craig Carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10209954891388905090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328993133397649838.post-33663115173932272022012-05-18T08:00:00.000-04:002012-05-18T08:00:13.453-04:00The End of Evangelicalism or the Failure of Anabaptism to Take Over Evangelicalism? Part IIIs isolationism and withdrawal better? Do the Amish have it right? <br />
<br />
I
ask because Fitch puts forward a neo-anabaptist alternative to
conservative politics as the better way for Evangelicals in chapter 6.<br />
<br />
Sometimes
Catholics say that Evangelicals have no ecclesiology and by that they
mean that Evangelicals do not believe that God's grace is mediated to
the world via the institutional church centered in a sacramental
priesthood and ruled by a hierarchy. Fitch's neo-anabaptism amounts to a
protestant version of the Catholic concept of the Church as the
extension of Christ's incarnation. He writes:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"The
church, then, becomes an extension of the Trinity into the world as a
participant in this sending, the missio Dei. By articulating the
evangelical belief in Scripture in the terms set forth above - our one
true story of God for the whole world, infallible in and through Jesus
Christ our Lord - we in essence have the basis for becoming the church
Bosch speaks about. . . . The politic of the church is shaped by
Scripture as the very real incarnational presence of Christ extended by
the Spirit into the world - a politic of fulness in the world. (p. 141)</blockquote>
In
this chapter (chapter 6) Fitch argues for replacing an inerrant Bible
with a divine Church. It is not a hierarchical church that he envisions
and it has the priesthood of all believers instead of a sacramental
priesthood. But it is a view of the Church as the mode of Christ's
presence in the world. (Maybe his language is just loose here - maybe
he does not really mean that the Church is a continuation of the
incarnation. That is the impression I got from one quick read and it
could be wrong. I'll argue against the idea anyway though because the
idea is wrong no matter who proposes it in whatever context.)<br />
<br />
<br />
Evangelicalism must resist this theological proposal
because the role of the Church is not to be an extension of the
incarnation or the presence of God in mission in the world. The role of
the Church is to be a witness to the coming kingdom by preaching
salvation through the King - Jesus Christ. The Church points away from
itself to something greater and better. The mission of the Church is to
bear the message of the Gospel to a world in need of the good news of
salvation. If we were to accept (what I think I understand to be)
Fitch's proposal we would be abandoning the valid insights of the
Reformers of the 16th century. This presumably would not bother Fitch as
a neo-anabaptist, but it ought bother Evangelicals who wish to keep
faith with their heritage of Biblical doctrine.<br />
<br />
Next,
Fitch recommends N. T. Wright's challenge to the Reformation doctrine of
justification as the way to avoid cheap grace. He writes:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Wright's
reformulation in essence makes justification impossible for the
believer apart from his/her wider participation in the work of God in
Christ by the Spirit to set the world right. I cannot possess this
salvation as my own. I am justified only as I am a participant 'in
Christ,' in the righteousness God is working in the world. There can be
no distancing of myself from Christ in accepting God's pardon from sin
made possible in Christ. . . . We enter into salvation by entering into
the entire work of God in Christ by the Spirit for the mission of God in
the world." (p. 144)</blockquote>
I find it difficult
to believe that anyone could believe that Evangelical theology has never
heard of the clear teaching in the book of James. We know that
justification by faith is true, but we also know that true saving faith
results in good works being done by the person who is truly regenerated
by the Spirit of God. So what is Fitch driving at here with his call to
move away from the Reformation doctrine of forensic justification?<br />
<br />
It
seems that he is again moving in a Catholic direction and embracing
synergism instead of monergism thus turning salvation into a joint
effort in which God and man cooperate. Maybe he does not mean this.
But why advocate a New Perspective view on justification instead of
using the many resources within Evangelical theology that can be
deployed to fight anti-nomianism? It is not like this is a new
problem. Monergism is fully capable of resisting anti-nomianism and has
done so for five centuries. This is why Evangelicalism needs the Gospel Coalition and more good, sound, biblical teaching. But it is not like we had no reply to anti-nomianism until the New Perspective came along.<br />
<br />
<br />
In the third section of chapter six, Fitch makes his
Catholic theological direction clearer. Here he makes use of the
Catholic theologians De Lubac and Cavanaugh to argue for a doctrine of
the visible Church as the body of Christ. He writes:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"A
politic is thus born. Christ's reign becomes visible as we embody the
infinite gifting of forgiveness, faithfulness, and love. Yet this way
of being together births the Kingdom not only among 'us.' It enables us
to resist alternatives politics of violence and isolation, to subvert
them, and indeed to draw the world into the restoration of all things,
i.e. the Kingdom of God." (p. 157)</blockquote>
Here we see an
over-realized eschatology in which the Kingdom is here in the corporate
life of the church and is visible for all to see. It is Roman Catholic
ecclesiology radicalized. I remember David Burrell saying once that if
he was not going to continue to be a Catholic he would become a
Mennonite, which makes a lot of sense. In place of the sacramental
priesthood mediating God's grace to humankind we have the "community of
character" (Hauerwas), the incipient kingdom of God made visible in the
quality of moral relationships between members of the church.<br />
<br />
What
direction is Fitch pushing Evangelicalism? It is obvious to me, having
read this book, why he has such a strong animus toward Reformed
theology. It embodies everything he finds distasteful: justification by
faith alone, expository preaching, mission as evangelism, and personal
repentance and faith as the lynch pin of salvation. He has clearly
detached himself emotionally from Evangelicalism as a tradition and from
the theology that undergirds it in both its Reformed and Arminian
branches. <br />
<br />
He wants a liberal form of Roman Catholicism:
the church as divine presence in the world, salvation as synergism, and
mission as moral action in and by the faith community. <br />
<br />
Fitch
never considers the possibility that Evangelicals might have a
political theology in which the mission of the church is evangelizing
the lost and nurturing its members, while individual church members
might be responsible to engage in politics in a fallen world as part of
their own Christian discipleship rather than as part of the church's
mission per se. Christians are pilgrims in this world; our true home is
heaven. But while we are here we should be good neighbors and good
citizens, recognize signs of common grace when we see them and
co-operate with all those of good will in making the world a little less
violent, a little less unjust and a little less disrespectful of human
life, family and the weak among us. (It might even mean voting for a
Mormon as president!)<br />
<br />
<br />
Such a politics has no grandiose goals of turning a
fallen world into the kingdom of God; that is the work of Jesus and he
has promised to complete it when he returns. Such a politics has no
grandiose visions of the mission of the Church; she exists to preach the
Gospel, bear a witness to Jesus, enfold the lost, comfort the dying and
build up the body of Christ. The Church is not here to make America
into the kingdom of God. On this point, Fitch is right to criticize
Evangelical rhetoric because the goal is not a Christian nation in the
sense of a nation that is transformed into a church. But, you know, I
have actually met one or two Evangelicals who understand this and who
would insist that the rhetoric of civil religion not be
over-interpreted. A Christian nation can be understood as a nation that
(1) does not persecute the church, (2) upholds natural law as the basis
of positive law and (3) protects the religious freedom of all
religions.<br />
<br />
<br />
Christian Smith, the Notre Dame sociologist who has
studied the Religious Right in depth, came to the conclusion that the
real goals of the Religious Right was to get America back to the
situation of the 1950s (with the exception of the civil rights gains
made since). Now that may not be a very ambitious goal because the
1950s were far from perfect. But that is exactly my point; conservative
politics does not aim for perfection. The Christian Right doesn't ask
for much. Stop killing babies, teach abstinence to school children,
respect the flag, don't impose socialism on the nation. Only in the
fevered imaginations of over-wrought leftists (who I suspect are not
sincere), does this add up to theocracy. If you want to see a real
theocracy don't look at 1950s America, look at post 1979 Iran. Check
out Saudi Arabia. Feminists who call Jerry Falwell a theocrat should
have to go live in Iran or Saudi Arabia for a while. Did you know that
women in 1950s America were allowed to drive cars? Really. And did you
know that there is no record of any adulteresses being stoned to death
in America in the 1950s? Seriously. Maybe the America of the 1950s
might not look like the Gulag after the experience of living in a real
theocracy.<br />
<br />
Politics is not the mission of the church and
it is of secondary importance. Preaching the Gospel is the mission of
the Church and it is of ultimate importance. Turning the preaching of
the Gospel into a form of politics is to demean it. On this fundamental
point Fitch and Evangelicalism will remain at odds. <br />
<br />
For
neo-anabaptism, the goal is to evolve beyond the Reformation, but the
historic mission of Evangelicalism in the West is to revive the church
when it falls into dead orthodoxy. The Trinitarian and Christological
dogmas of the first five centuries and the solas of the Reformation are
not the problem. Evangelicalism presupposes them. Evangelicalism is
not doctrinally innovative at its best; its real contribution to the
church catholic is to call it back to the truth and power of the Gospel
of Jesus Christ. <br />
<br />
Politics is a matter for Christians who
must live in the world while we await a Saviour from heaven. Politics
is a matter of prudence, discernment and compromise. It is always messy
and often dirty. It is part of living in a fallen world. But politics
is not the Gospel. The Gospel is Christ crucified to save sinners.Craig Carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10209954891388905090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328993133397649838.post-63675571422527929882012-05-17T11:05:00.001-04:002012-05-17T11:05:07.760-04:00The End of Evangelicalism or the Failure of Neo-Anabaptism to Take Over Evangelicalism? Part I<i>Note: In this post and the next I'll be reviewing David Fitch's new book, "The End of Evangelicalism: Discerning a New Faithfulness for Mission" (2011). In this post I discuss chapters 1-5, which contain his critique of Evangelicalism. In the next, I discuss chapter 6 and the Epilogue, which offer his alternative. </i> <br />
_______________<br />
<br />
David Fitch does not have much good to say about Evangelicalism. The first five chapters of his six chapter book, <i>The End of Evangelicalism: Discerning a New Faithfulness for Mission</i>, reads like a laundry list of all the sneers and jeers Bill Maher has makes against Evangelicals (minus the profanity). Honestly, we already knew that there is a lot wrong with Evangelicalism; only a Pelagian would be surprised by the sin, hypocrisy and inconsistencies. You would think after reading this book that Evangelicalism is the only major segment of the Church that has problems. After a while it ceases to be critique and descends into caricature. <br />
<br />
There is also a disconcerting passive-aggressive flavor to his rants in which he first says: "Now I believe this teaching just like you do," after which he proceeds to rip it apart and accuse most other Evangelical of not really believing it. He takes what he claims are three central tenets of Evangelicalism, biblical inerrancy, conversionism and the Christian nation, and claims that these are empty constructs that function as ideological markers for people who do not believe them but use them to mark off their political beliefs. (I say "claims" because the third of these is not fully accurate. It is just the old liberal "theocracy" boogey man being trotted out for the upteenth time.) More on that in a moment. <br />
<br />
Along the way he employs a lot of pseudo-intellectual, out-dated, Marxist mumbo jumbo appropriated from Slovakian atheist and Marxist, Slavoj Zizek. Great. Do we really need an atheist Communist to give us psychotherapy in order to recover from our false consciousness and throw over our false ideology? <br />
<br />
I basically have nothing to say about chapter 2, which is about Marxist jargon. Some people are into magic crystals, others are into astrology and some just know that UFO's have already visited us. And then there are those who believe that European Marxists know the key to understanding history and culture and politics. "Honest," they exclaim, "I learned it in Cultural Studies - which is way easier than actually studying philosophy, history, economics and all those hard, boring subjects." I think we can leave the Marxist jargon aside; it really contributes nothing important to the book other than making the author look "cool" to a certain kind of scraggly grad student. <br />
<br />
In chapter 3, he argues that believing in an inerrant Bible makes us arrogant. How does he prove this? Well, you see, Hal Lindsay (stop laughing!) predicted the return of Christ <i>on the basis of believing in an inerrant Bible.</i> So what, you ask? Well, that means believing in an inerrant Bible is an embarrassment according to Fitch. No, David: biblical inerrancy is not an embarrassment to Evangelicals - <i>Hal Lindsey</i> is an embarrassment to Evangelicals. That whole date-setting thing was not the fault of the inerrant Bible. If only Hal Lindsey <i>had really believed </i>in an inerrant Bible! If he had taken Mark 13:35 literally and as true, he would not have gotten into date-setting in the first place. He didn't do it because it is what you have to do if you believe in an inerrant Bible, he did it to sell books. If you look in Mark 13:32 it says that the angels in heaven and the Son in his incarnate state don't know the time of Christ's return but only the Father. It does <i>not</i> say "The Father and Hal Lindsey." If someone wants to have a serious discussion of biblical inerrancy a good way to get one going would be to pay more attention to B. B. Warfield than to Hal Lindsey. <br />
<br />
Also, I am just tired of the old meme that if you believe in truth of any kind in a tough and serious way, then you are arrogant. Here is a news flash: arrogance is a besetting sin of both those who believe in absolute truth and those who are relativists. It is part of the sinful, fallen human condition and we all are susceptible. But lay off the Bible; the problem lies elsewhere.<br />
<br />
In chapter 4, he argues that the evangelical emphasis on the need for personal conversion - the decision for Jesus - means that Evangelicals have no doctrine of discipleship or sanctification. Now does he interact with Tom Schreiner or John Piper here? No. Well does he discuss Calvin or Edwards or Hodge? No. So, who does he discuss? Ted Haggard. (insert ribald joke and laugh track here) Yes, he quotes a man with very serious spiritual and psychological problems and who has been ejected from leadership in the Evangelical movement to prove that forensic justification is a doctrine that prevents Evangelicals from having an adequate theology of the Christian life. He writes:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Haggard finally says, 'You know Larry . . . Jesus says 'I came for the unrighteous, not for the righteous . . . ' So as soon as I became worldwide unrighteous I knew Jesus had come for me.' Here in stunning fashion, Haggard presents the language of forensic justification as that which makes a final resolution possible. It is the 'decision' to be forgiven and pardoned that enables him to bypass the raging duplicitous desires, make sense of the inconsistencies of his life, and come to peace. . . Does this not reveal the contradiction at its core, which says 'Go ahead and enjoy, but be guilty about it and then forgiven. For that's where the true enjoyment lies'? Is this not revealing of the lace behind the evangelical belief and practice of salvation: 'the decision'?</blockquote>
<br />
So, OK, let's try to get past the fact that treating Haggard as a theological spokesman for Evangelicalism is like judging all 16th century Anabaptists by the violent Munster rebellion. What about the issue? Is Fitch right to accuse Evangelicals of anti-nomianism on the basis of our belief in forensic justification?<br />
<br />
I'd just like to point out that last week the 4000 members of <a href="http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=15991#.T7RYDMX5-So" target="_blank">the Falls Church (Episcopal) </a>walked out of their beautiful and historic building and left it in the control of the neo-pagan pansexualists of the Episcopal Church who have rejected the Bible, sexual morality and all manner of sound doctrine. These believers paid for the property, which was worth millions of dollars, but they left it behind because they believe that when we come to believe in Jesus Christ and are justified by faith we then, if Christ is really living in our hearts, will begin to walk in newness of life and struggle against our sin and law-breaking through the power of the grace of God given to us in the Spirit. They believe that sexual sin of all kinds (divorce, homosexuality, fornication, adultery, etc.) needs to be repented of and confessed and that temptation needs to be resisted by the power of the Spirit. They believe that when a Church begins to justify sexual sin in the name of "inclusion" and "tolerance of lifestyles" then that Church has seriously gone off the rails. All over North America Evangelical Anglicans/Episcopalians have been making similar financial and emotional sacrifices in order to say that sanctification is not optional for Christians. This is just one example that to me is far more revealing of the real heart of Evangelicalism than the twisted rantings of one drug-using, homosexual adulterer and ex-Evangelical leader.<br />
<br />
In chapter 5, he argues that Evangelicals substitute a concern for a Christian nation for true compassion for the neighbor. This chapter touches all the bases of typical leftist attacks on conservatism from Jerry Falwell to the Republican Party to George Bush to capitalism to Wal-Mart. But let's just stop for a moment and ask what does he really want Evangelicals to do? I get the feeling that he wants us to maintain our beliefs in marriage and against abortion but to do so in a way that is popular with the liberal media. (Now, I believe in miracles, but isn't this asking a bit much?) Again and again he quotes such biased figures as Jon Meacham and Sam Harris and at one point writes:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I suspect that many American Christians under the age of thirty-five refuse to be called evangelical because of the presidency of George W. Bush." (p. 66) <i> </i></blockquote>
<br />
One has to ask oneself, "Why does the unpopularity of Evangelicalism with the Left bother Fitch so much?" We know that the Left started the culture wars that have been raging since the 1960s and is engaged in trying to undermine the family and basic morality in the name of preparing the way for the Revolution. When Evangelicalism came out of its separatist hibernation that followed the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy in the early 20th century, Evangelicalism reacted defensively against the attempt by the Left to destroy the family, make killing the innocent legal and impose a European-style welfare state. This made us unpopular. Jesus predicted that in the Upper Room Discourses.<br />
<br />
So what should Evangelicals have done? Should they just stand aside and let the Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wrights and Al Sharptons and the radical feminists and the socialists change America? Should they say, "It's no concern of ours whether the public schools teach free sex and out condoms to eighth graders? Should they concentrate on hymn sings, Bible studies and church suppers and have nothing to do with politics? Or should they vote for the Democratic Party like Jim Wallis wants them to because they "care about the poor"?<br />
<br />
Once Evangelicals decided that they had to get involved in politics it was entirely predictable that it would end up messy and that there would be harsh opposition. And to build a mass movement and a voting block you have to risk having wackos saying embarrassing things (kind of like the Democratic Party has to put up with Joe Biden putting his foot in his mouth every other day). The Religious Right is not perfect, but if you want Evangelicals to be involved in politics you have to take the good with the bad. Or you can, I suppose, join the other side. Or you can withdraw. <br />
<br />
Tomorrow I look at the kind of theological politics Fitch proposes as an alternative to the decision of about 75% of Evangelicals to vote Republican and engage in politics as conservatives. <br />
<br />Craig Carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10209954891388905090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328993133397649838.post-68452052306998893092012-05-16T14:49:00.001-04:002012-05-16T15:40:16.085-04:00Global Christianity Will Outline Western LiberalismMark Tooley has an excellent analysis of the situation in the United Methodist Church in this article entitled: "<a href="http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=15997#.T7PyGsX5-So" target="_blank">United Methodists Transition from Liberal to Global</a>." <br />
<blockquote>
The
global 12 million member United Methodist Church, now likely the
world's 9th largest communion, is no longer a predominantly liberal U.S.
denomination. Its quadrennial governing General Conference, which met
for 10 days in Tampa ending May 4, refused to alter the church's
official disapproval of homosexual practice. <br />
<br />
Some news stories
huffed disapproval and surprise. After all, the Episcopal Church,
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Presbyterian Church (USA), and
United Church of Christ have all surrendered to American culture on
sexual ethics. Their membership spirals subsequently accelerated into
formal schisms. But United Methodism, unlike these other historic
denominations that once dominated American religion and liberalized in
the early 20th century, is now a growing church and has a record number
of members.<br />
<br />
Unlike the other traditionally liberal-led Mainline
denominations, United Methodism is fully global in membership. (The 2
million member Episcopal Church of the U.S. does include the small
churches of Latin America, Europe and Taiwan but is still 90 percent
U.S. persons.) There are 7.5 million United Methodists in the U.S. and
4.5 million overseas, almost all in Africa, mostly in the Congo. With
the U.S. church losing about 100,000 members a year (down from 11
million 44 years ago) and the African church gaining over 200,000 a
year, the denomination likely will become a majority non-U.S. church in
about 10 years or less.<br />
<br />
These statistics frustrate United
Methodist liberals who have dominated the domination for 50 years or
more. Homosexuality has been debated at the church's General Conference
every four years since 1972. And the church consistently decreed that
homosexual practice was "incompatible with Christian teaching." Over the
years, the denomination formally prohibited clergy who were actively
homosexual (as well as any clergy sexually active outside traditional
marriage) and banned same-sex unions. For the last 12 years it has even
supported "laws in civil society that define marriage as the union of
man and woman," though normally loquacious bishops and other church
elites decline to articulate this stance even as the nation debates it.<br />
<br />
United
Methodist liberals always assumed their church would follow American
culture on sexual permissiveness, just as the church had followed on so
much else across the 20th century, starting with divorce and
contraception. They always consoled themselves, "If not this time, then
next time." Sounding like deterministic Marxist Hegelians, they believed
history sided with sexual inclusion.<br />
<br />
But this year in Tampa, the
church once again rejected any dilution of his disapproval of
homosexual practice, despite a full court lobby campaign. Liberal caucus
groups pitched a full size tent outside the Tampa Convention Center,
served daily lunches to any delegates, mobilized hundreds of volunteers
in rainbow stoles, and distributed a full-size daily newspaper,
sometimes translated into other languages. As chronicled by the just
released Forgetting How to Blush: United Methodism's Compromise with the
Sexual Revolution by the Rev. Karen Booth, pro-gay caucus groups have
received hundreds of thousands of dollars from non-church
philanthropies. <br />
<br />
It was largely wasted money. A record 30 percent
of delegates came from Africa this time, up from 20 percent just 4
years ago (and 10 percent 8 years ago), and they voted uniformly against
any liberalization of the church's sexual teaching. Combined with many
Filipino and European delegates, plus U.S. evangelicals, who were
themselves about 20 percent of the total, there was an insurmountable
conservative majority on key issues. The final vote on homosexual
practice's "incompatibility" with Christian teaching showed 61 percent
supporting the current stance. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
</blockquote>
Read the rest <a href="http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=15997#.T7PyGsX5-So" target="_blank">here</a>. <br />
<br />
<b>Comment: </b><br />
The title of this piece signifies a very important truth about the nature of the universal church today. Living in the decadent, late-modern West it is easy to be overwhelmed by the surge of left-wing deconstruction of the pillars of Western society such as the family, marriage, respect for human life and limitations on the power of government. The church is seduced by the line "If you don't join the left-wing revolution now, you will be left behind in the ash bin of history." But look where God is at work: Africa, Asia and Latin America. The universal Church is growing, vibrant and orthodox. Global Christianity is on the upswing; it is just compromised, Western, modern, liberal Christianity that is in decline. <br />
<br />
If other Protestant denominations such as the Episcopal Church in the US or the Anglican Church of Canada were truly ecumenical, they would not exclude the growing majority of Christians from the Global South a voice in ecclesiastical decision-making. But, it is clear from a look at the world-wide Anglican Communion, that if they were ecumenical they would not be accommodating themselves to the late-modern, secular, sexual revolution against civilized sexual morality. Liberal Christianity in the West are cutting themselves off from the ecumenical (world-wide) Church.<br />
<br />
In order to rationalize away the fact that they are on the losing side of history and really just a group of sectarians, they try to pretend that the rest of the world just hasn't caught up. A half-century ago they thought that the secularization thesis was undoubtedly true; today it is clearly nothing more than secularist wishful thinking. Then they were sure that Marxism would win the hearts and minds of the Global South and leave no room for non-Marxist forms of Christianity. But Marxism is now a failed ideology and has been tossed onto the dust heap of history, which is to say that it is only alive in the late-modern Western university.<br />
<br />
What will it take for us to come to the realization that: 1) the Christian position on sexual morality is never going to change, 2) theological liberalism is a sect that will have its day in the sun and then wither away, 3) biblical orthodoxy is never going to die out, and 4) Western secularism itself is doomed and hitching one's wagon to it is not a wise idea?Craig Carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10209954891388905090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328993133397649838.post-51870539091043024102012-05-15T20:34:00.000-04:002012-05-15T20:34:56.519-04:00Satan Gives Commencement Addrss at St. SincerusIn the wake of Georgetown University's decision to invite Kathleen Sibellius (best known as the persecutor of Catholic and Evangelicals, as well as other faith communities,) to speak at its Commencement Ceremony recently, the Catholic Phoenix decided that mockery would be the most appropriate response. <br />
<br />
So it announced that St. Sincerus University, the 84th largest Catholic university in the US, has invited Satan to be its Commencement speaker. (Today's liberal Catholic universities do not make satire easy.)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In a move already denounced by Catholic bishops & other leading
religious conservatives, St. Sincerus University, the nation’s 84<sup>th</sup>
largest Catholic university, has invited Satan to deliver its
commencement speech later this month. Also known as the Prince of
Darkness, Lucifer, &, more popularly, the Devil, Satan is a divisive
figure among Catholics & other Christians. Several Catholic
universities have upset religious conservatives in recent years by
inviting controversial figures to deliver commencement speeches, as
when the University of Notre Dame, the nation’s largest Catholic
University, invited President Barack Obama, who supports a woman’s right
to abortion, in 2009. The invitation to Satan by SSU president Fr. Thad
Despereaux comes at a time when many Catholics are highly critical of
the Obama administration’s attempts to reform health care, which some
claim would force Catholic institutions to violate their Church’s
teachings by providing contraceptives as part of their health insurance
plans. Fr. Despereaux, in comments made to the Daily Sham, SSU’s student
newspaper, said that having Satan on campus gives bold witness to a
central Catholic principle that God can be found in all things. “The
continuing politicization of the faith indicates just how important it
is for us to build bridges,” Fr. Despereaux said. “Our whole mission as a
university is to bring people together. Satan is badly misunderstood by
many people, & we hope to show our graduates that stereotypes,
& the hatred they engender, have no place on a Catholic campus. As
Catholics we are to hate hate.” </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
On-campus reactions at SSU have been favorable, as faculty &
students alike have applauded the university’s open-mindedness in
issuing the invitation. Dr. Sophia Greengrass, Director of the
university’s Wiccan Institute, called the invitation a brave attempt to
promote the university’s academic integrity in the face of “fascist
attempts by the male hierarchy to impose its limited & limiting
dogmas,” . . . </blockquote>
Read the rest <a href="http://catholicphoenix.com/2012/05/05/jesuit-university-invites-satan-to-give-commencement-speech/" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
<br />
Now, Dr. Satan's speech is up. Here is the beginning. <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: red;">Thank you. (<i>loud applause</i>) Thank you all very much. Thank you, Fr. Despereaux. Please, folks (<i>continued applause</i>), please be seated. A little restraint every now & then. . . (<i>laughter</i>).</span><br />
<span style="color: red;">Seriously, this is quite an honor for
me. I can’t say an unexpected honor, as this invitation was in the cards
for some time now. And this despite all the non-attention I’ve received
from many of your Catholic intellectuals; wasn’t it your own Fr.
Cheever in Ancient Near Eastern Studies who said in your student paper
that I don’t exist? (<i>laughter</i>). He’s not alone in thinking
that, though I take it that after we got to know each other a bit better
last night he has a different take on things. Talk about an ashen
countenance when I discussed my background! Suffice it to say that he
knows a bit more about ancient mythology & sacrifice than he did
before we spoke. It really is too bad he can’t be here today, as he’s
much in my thoughts, as are all the fine academics at this institution.
Much of the work you do is directly responsible for my being here today,
& I am much pleased by it.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: red;">To honor the graduates of St. Sincerus,
I will focus my remarks on the creative gifts God has so richly blessed
you all with, as well as on your sacred responsibility to nurture those
gifts, despite the heavy costs. As you know, you live in a world in
which the majority of people seek to restrain, to control, & even to
deny the creativity of the few. Isn’t it a sad irony that such a gift,
which can help you to make & remake your world, & which is an
expression of God’s image within you, so badly frightens the
unimaginative? </span></blockquote>
<span style="color: red;"></span><br />
<span style="color: red;">Read the rest<a href="http://the-american-catholic.com/2012/05/15/satans-commencement-address/" target="_blank"> here</a>. </span>Craig Carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10209954891388905090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328993133397649838.post-79076829660862831752012-05-09T20:58:00.003-04:002012-05-09T21:05:50.040-04:00God Changes His Mind on Same-sex "Marriage" - According to His Prophet ObamaBarack Obama's evolution on same-sex "marriage" took a lurch forward today as he announced to the world that he now approves of recognizing homosexuality as equivalent to marriage. And why did he do this? Political advantage? To get Hollywood campaign donations? Oh no, it was because he realized it was required by Jesus Christ. Really.<br />
<br />
Now that would be the same Jesus Christ, one presumes, who told him to be against same-sex "marriage" in 2008 and who told him to be for it back in 1996. It is all quite confusing, but that is liberal Protestantism, for you. One day black is black and the next day it is white; it's just God trying to keep up with the Zeitgeist while his prophet tries to get elected. <br />
<br />
In the transcript of "<a href="http://gma.yahoo.com/obama-announces-his-support-for-same-sex-marriage.html" target="_blank">Good Morning America</a>" we read how Obama appeals to the cross of Christ to justify his capitulation to pagan sexual deviance:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Roberts asked the president if First Lady Michelle Obama was involved
in this decision. Obama said she was, and he talked specifically about
his own faith in responding.“This is something that, you know, we’ve
talked about over the years and she, you know, she feels the same way,
she feels the same way that I do. And that is that, in the end the
values that I care most deeply about and she cares most deeply about is
how we treat other people and, you know, I, you know, we are both
practicing Christians and obviously this position may be considered to
put us at odds with the views of others but, you know, when we think
about our faith, the thing at root that we think about is, not only
Christ sacrificing himself on our behalf, but it’s also the Golden Rule,
you know, treat others the way you would want to be treated. And I
think that’s what we try to impart to our kids and that’s what motivates
me as president and I figure the most consistent I can be in being true
to those precepts, the better I’ll be as a as a dad and a husband and
hopefully the better I’ll be as president.” </blockquote>
This is pretty disgusting stuff. The least he could have done was have the decency to leave Jesus Christ out of it. He may feel he has no choice but to support the radical base of the Democratic Party or he may be a convinced pagan himself, but to wrap himself in the cross while advocating for one of the many sins Jesus died to pay the penalty for is just sick and blasphemous.<br />
<br />
It is time to get liberal theology out of politics. It is demeaning to the intelligence of thinking people everywhere. Liberals who support abortion and the rest of the sexual revolution would do so no matter what the Bible says. They just pretend religion is important to them. And for them to knowingly and cynically go against the Bible while pretending to be sincerely Christian is just sickening. They have Marx as their prophet, why do they need Christ? Other than as a cynical ploy to win a few votes from people who don't know any better, that is. <br />
<br />
<a href="http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100157207/obamas-cynical-distracting-endorsement-of-gay-marriage-is-a-gift-to-mitt-romney/" target="_blank">Tim Stanley </a>at the Daily Telegraph is not buying the "Jesus told me to do this" line:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
It’s unlikely that Obama is taking a principled stand for civil rights. <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/05/timeline-of-obamas-evolving-on-same-sex-marriage/">In 1996, he said he was for gay marriage</a>.
In 2004, when he was running for the Senate, he said that Jesus told
him it was wrong (Jesus, apparently, changes his mind almost as often as
the Pres). In 2008, he repeated that gay marriage was a step too far.
Then he started to “evolve” and, like the caterpillar, he turned into a
beautiful pink butterfly. Now that he’s for it, his tortuous
flip-flopping makes Mitt Romney look comparatively consistent. But more
on that later. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<br />
The Pres probably has his eye on big campaign dollars from Hollywood, <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/president-obama-gay-marriage-pressure-biden-hollywood-321525">which was causing him havoc on the gay rights issue only last week</a>.
North Carolina forced his hand, but in a way that some on his team
might calculate is a vote winner. I infer the game plan to be this: 1)
make everyone stop talking about the economy and start debating sex
instead, 2) mobilise that liberal base, 3) split the Republicans by
forcing Romney to reiterate his hard-line anti-marriage position, 4)
turn the election into a coalition of the young, women and well educated
vs the old, religious and dumb. The bottom line: send people into that
voting booth thinking about <i>anything</i> other than their job.</blockquote>
Stanley also thinks Obama has just handed a great gift to Mitt Romney and he undoubtedly has done that:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
But will the gay-marriage bait-and-switch work in the fall? Maybe,
maybe not. It could help Romney, who has been having trouble convincing
the evangelical/Catholic base that he is one of them. Those people might
have felt edgy voting for a “moderate Mormon,” but they’ll come out in
big numbers to vote <i>against</i> Obama’s social liberalism. Also,
Mitt’s reputation for flip-flopping is no longer a problem. Obama just
flipped right over his head, did a 180 in the air, and landed on his
backside on the other side of the political compass. Flopping is a dead
issue in 2012. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Meanwhile, all the evidence suggests that “the folks” (as Bill O’Reilly calls the great middle-class) don’t like gay marriage. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/05/09/us/politics/same-sex-marriage-not-supported-in-most-swing-states.html">Anti-marriage amendments have been passed in seven out of nine of the 2012 swing states</a>
– most of them by popular referenda. Propositions have been voted on in
32 states and on every occasion gay marriage has been banned, even in
Maine. <i>Maine.</i></blockquote>
<i></i>The Romney campaign must be ecstatic; they were not going to win hotbeds of liberalism like New York and California anyway. So what if Obama ups his winning percentage in those kinds of states from 14 to 15%? This election will be won or lost in 12 states and most are in the Midwest or the South. Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Pennsylvannia, Virginia, Florida, North Carolina and Ohio are key swing states. If Obama thinks taking this stand helps him in these states, he is deluded. For example, Obama won North Carolina in 2008 by less than 1% and it just voted yesterday 61-39 to enshrine marriage in the constitution. He is toast in North Carolina in November. As one who prays for a Romney victory even though Romney is a far-from-perfect candidate, I have to think that things are looking up.<br />
<br />
There is an interesting parallel between Obamacare and same-sex marriage in that Obama is rigidly sticking to his ideological agenda in the face of voter opposition and he, apparently, is willing to lose big to make (what he imagines to be) irreversible changes to the nation in a leftist direction. I think his leftist ideology is dead wrong, but I have to admire his political courage. Are Republicans prepared to lay electoral success on the line in order to bring the nation back in a conservative direction?<br />
<br />
<a href="http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/09/the-success-of-the-gay-marriage-movement/" target="_blank">Ross Douthat</a> in the New York Times observes that the politics behind Obama's decision illustrate the growing divide between the governing elites and the population as a whole in America:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
At the popular level, the country is still divided (and <a href="http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/08/obamas-marriage-maneuvers/?hp">perhaps more divided</a>
than polling suggests), but at the elite level and within the
Democratic Party’s upper reaches, especially, what was a consensus
understanding of marriage just two decades ago has become so associated
with bigotry and reaction that a sitting president facing a difficult
re-election campaign has been forced to abandon the politically-safer
“civil unions yes, but marriage not just yet” position for the uncertain
consequences of being for marriage, period. Given the landscape of the
2012 election (and the results yesterday in North Carolina), Obama’s
prior attempts to finesse the issue made a lot of sense. But the moral
ground had shifted underneath him — to the point where even his own
cabinet wouldn’t risk the taint of bigotry in order to give him cover on
the issue — and such finesse was no longer an acceptable option.</blockquote>
<br />
The consensus in the upper reaches of the Democratic Party is far more radically leftist than the general population of the US and this issue is just one of many that illustrate that divide. The rulers of any nation cannot get too far out in front of the voters and hope to maintain power. Today, the Democratic Party, by abandoning yet again any appearance of being representative of the nation as a whole, took a large step toward electoral disaster. But that, of course, is their problem. <br />
<br />
By the way, Billy Graham took a stand in North Carolina in favor of traditional marriage and urged people in newspaper adverts to vote to enshrine marriage in the constitution. Who do you think is the more reliable interpreter of Scripture: Billy Graham or Barack Obama? One of them has to be dead wrong on what the Bible teaches and I'm pretty sure it isn't Billy Graham.Craig Carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10209954891388905090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328993133397649838.post-65942648206326918862012-05-03T22:05:00.000-04:002012-05-03T22:05:58.669-04:00Wheaton College Joins Opposition to Obama's Infringement of Religious FreedomWheaton College has come out against the Obama administration healthcare mandate the infringes the freedom of religious institutions. The <a href="http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20120502/news/705029831/" target="_blank">Daily Herald</a> reports:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<br />
Wheaton College and other distinctively Christian institutions are faced with a near and present threat to religious liberty.<br />
<br />
Last August, the Department of Health and Human Services
issued a mandate that the insurance plans for religious institutions
(except churches) must provide coverage for all government-approved
contraceptives. The list of required contraceptives includes
abortifacient drugs — “morning after” and “week after” pills that claim
the life of a fertilized egg.<br />
<br />
During the period for public debate, the HHS received more than
200,000 comments objecting that the contraceptive mandate would violate
the First Amendment rights of anyone who believed — for religious
reasons — in the sanctity of human life.<br />
<br />
This would be true not only for Roman Catholics who oppose
all forms of contraception, but also for Protestants and others who
believe that the use of contraception for the purpose of abortion is
immoral. <br />
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The HHS secretary has been unresponsive to these concerns,
and, in fact, has testified to Congress that she did not consider legal
precedents for religious liberty in formulating her mandate. In January,
she announced that the HHS regulations would be enacted without
amendment. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Catholic charities, Christian colleges and other religious
organizations still would be compelled to cover contraception in their
health insurance plans. And the coverage list still would include
abortion-inducing drugs.<br />
<br />
In February, these regulations were finalized without
amendment. Subsequently, the administration has proposed to offer
certain religious groups some sort of accommodation. According to the
proposal (which has not yet been enacted), Christian organizations would
not have to pay for contraception and abortion; instead, their
insurance companies would offer these services for free. <br />
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Unfortunately, the proposed accommodation fails to address
the religious liberty issues at the heart of the controversy over the
HHS regulations. Even if we are not paying for it, institutions like
Wheaton College still would be required to cover abortifacient drugs, in
violation of our religious principles. Practically speaking, we would
still be paying for them, too, as insurance companies inevitably pass
along their costs to their customers.<br />
<br />
The effect of these regulations on Wheaton College may be
dramatic. We are unwilling to compromise our Christian convictions. Will
we face punitive fines? Be compelled to abandon medical coverage for
our employees?<br />
<br />
It is important to understand that Wheaton College is a
pervasively Christian institution. Every member of our campus — faculty,
staff and student — makes a commitment to live a distinctively
Christian lifestyle. Our Community Covenant, as we call it, includes
embracing the sanctity of life. As Christians, all of us agree not to
commit abortion, alongside other actions we regard as sinful. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Many Americans disagree with our convictions, as is their
right. What should not be in dispute, however, is that colleges like
Wheaton have the freedom — guaranteed by the United States Constitution —
to carry out our mission in a way that is consistent with our religious
principles.</blockquote>
<br />
It is important to understand that the Obama administration is the hardest left, anti-religious freedom in the history of the United States by a wide margin. The problem is their working definition of religious freedom in which they substitute "freedom of worship" for "freedom of religion." What this means is that the only activity protected by the constitution is actual worship on Sunday mornings (or Friday evenings) and not any other organized activity of religious people such as Christian colleges, Christian camps, professional organizations, or any mission agency that mixes social service with soul-winning. It is as if they want to restrict religion to the most narrow band of life as possible and claim the widest swath of life possible for the sovereignty of the secular state. <br />
<br />
This distinction is critical to the work of the State Department overseas as well. Under the Obama definition of religious freedom the old Soviet Union has freedom of religion all through its existence. Of course this is nonsense, but it is dangerous nonsense. <br />
<br />
Every Christian has a duty to stand up to tyranny while the democratic freedom to do so still remains. One witty blogger said that the dispute between the Obama administration and the churches is about contraception is exactly the same sense as the American Revolution was about tea. That is right; both are really about restraining tyranny. All Christians, and all people of any faith, have a compelling interest in opposing the soft totalitarian over-reach of the modern, progressive state.<br />
<br />
Cross-posted at The Bayview Review. Craig Carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10209954891388905090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328993133397649838.post-2736789266385638982012-05-03T21:46:00.000-04:002012-05-03T21:46:17.084-04:00United Methodists Decide to Remain ChristianThe United Methodist Church is the largest of the old, declining, liberal Protestant denominations in the United States. Nevertheless, it still claims 8.6 million members and many of them are Evangelical. In its General Conference, held every four years, delegates come from the mission churches planted overseas in back in the days when liberal Protestants still did missions. The African and other overseas churches are growing rapidly and are, unsurprisingly, overwhelmingly Evangelical. They now number about 4.4 million members. The Evangelicals in the US plus the mission church delegates from overseas now constitute a majority of General Conference delegates. <br />
<br />
As Evangelical churches continue to grow in the US and especially overseas and the liberals die off, the denomination is expected to become more and more Evangelical. So, interestingly, the UMC thus constitutes a kind of microcosm of world Protestantism today. What does the future of world Protestantism look like? Is is liberal? Ecumenical? Liberation/Marxist? Feminist? Or is it conservative, traditional and Evangelical? General Conference is going on in Tampa this week, so let's drop in and find out. <br />
<br />
The <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/methodists-uphold-policy-that-calls-homosexuality-incompatible-with-christian-teaching/2012/05/03/gIQAkaenzT_story.html" target="_blank">Washington Post</a> reports:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Despite emotional protests and fierce lobbying from gay rights
groups, United Methodists voted on Thursday (May 2) to maintain their
denomination’s stance that homosexuals acts are “incompatible with
Christian teaching.”</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<br />
Two “agree to disagree” proposals were soundly defeated during
separate votes by the nearly 1,000 delegates gathered for the United
Methodist Church’s General Conference in Tampa, Fla.</blockquote>
<br />
Jim Antle at <a href="http://spectator.org/blog/2012/05/03/united-methodists-uphold-teach" target="_blank">American Spectator </a>notes that the heavily biased, left-wing reporting of the New York Times is downright laughable on this one: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The vote was 61 percent to 39 percent against the change to the church’s
"Book of Discipline," indicating little change to the <b>deadlock</b> on an
issue the church has been debating for the last four decades. The
delegates also defeated a compromise amendment proposed by the advocates
of equality for gay members, which said that Methodists can agree to
disagree on homosexuality and still live together as a church. [my bolding]</blockquote>
No, we are not laughing with you Grey Lady; we are definitely laughing at you! I wonder if Obama won by 61-39 in November if they would refer to that as a "deadlock"? <br />
<br />
Antle also wonders if the denomination's pro-abortion stance can be turned around by Evangelicals in the denomination.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The votes suggest a working majority coalition between orthodox
African delegates and U.S. evangelicals. This has kept Methodists
from going in the same liberalizing direction on social issues as
the other mainline Protestant churches. It will be interesting to
see if this coalition has the votes to yank the United Methodist
Church out of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.</blockquote>
It is nice to see the advocates of the secular, sexual revolution get rejected by Christians in favor of the Christian view for a change. Congratulations to the United Methodist Church! <br />
<br />
Cross-posted at the Bayview Review. Craig Carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10209954891388905090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328993133397649838.post-86631466075772519912012-04-30T12:53:00.000-04:002012-04-30T13:35:51.056-04:00Contraception , Evangelicals and Sexual SinI suppose it was just a matter of time until people within Evangelicalism began to call for unmarried people to start using contraception as the "lesser of two evils," with the other evil being abortion. This story in <i>Christianity Today</i> by Matthew Lee Anderson, W<a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/article_print.html?id=96220" target="_blank">hy Churches Shouldn't Push Contraceptives to their Singles</a>, is at once shocking and unsurprising. <br />
<br />
[See Anderson's two blog posts: <a href="http://www.mereorthodoxy.com/church-contraception-single-members/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MereOrthodoxy+%28Mere+Orthodoxy%29" target="_blank">The Church and Contraception for its Single Members</a> and <a href="http://www.mereorthodoxy.com/evangelicals-contraception-integrity/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MereOrthodoxy+%28Mere+Orthodoxy%29" target="_blank">A Hill to Die On: Evangelicals, Contraception and the Integrity of Our Witness</a>.]<br />
<br />
As Western Evangelicalism continues to become bigger, more worldly and more accommodated to the late modern secular society around it, its resources to resist the depraved immorality of late, modern, Western decadence continue to deteriorate.<br />
<br />
Pope John Paul II and a growing host of intelligent Catholic writers such as Mary Eberstadt, Christopher West and Janet Smith have put forward the thesis that contraception and abortion stand or fall together and that the problem we face is not merely an issue of the sanctity of innocent life (though it certainly is that), but also a false understanding of the purpose of sexuality rooted in a false understanding of human nature itself that underlies both the recent rush to embrace both contraception and abortion. In other words, they argue that we must understand what human beings are and what role our sexuality plays in humans fulfilling their ultimate <i>telos</i> as creatures made in God's image, if we are to be able properly to evaluate the morality of contraception and abortion.<br />
<br />
The sea-change in the 1970s that saw formerly apathetic Evangelicals quite suddenly become rightfully concerned about the rise of abortion-on-demand (i.e. abortion as birth control) led to an Evangelical-Catholic coalition in support of the sanctity of human life that is most welcome. The work of Francis Schaeffer and Harold Brown is especially notable here. Opposition to abortion, euthanasia and infanticide by this coalition has been key to slowing down the advance of the culture of death legally, socially, theologically and politically. It has also brought Evangelicals and John Paul II Catholics into an alliance in which each sees in the other side more congenial dialogue partners than either sees in the liberals of their own traditions. We can be thankful for these developments.<br />
<br />
But Evangelical opposition to abortion has been predicated almost completely on the basis of the sixth commandment, whereas their Catholic counterparts have those reasons and also other, deeper, reasons rooted in the seventh commandment, Genesis 1-2 and Jesus' teaching on sexuality for opposing the whole mentality that lies behind the drive toward social approval of contraception, promiscuity and abortion. A few Evangelicals, notably Al Mohler, have understood that what the Catholics call "the contraceptive mentality" is a serious problem, but most have not probed into what this might mean. <br />
<br />
Contemporary, conservative Evangelicals such as Daniel Heimbach, John Piper and Andreas Kostenberger have written good books on sexuality in which they try to hold the line against promiscuity - including both fornication and adultery - but they have seldom probed into the view of sexuality and human nature presupposed by the contraceptive mentality. They have done good service upholding the rule against extra-marital and pre-marital sex, but seem at a loss to explain the deep theological reasons for the rule, which, of course, inevitably leads some to suppose that the rule is entirely arbitrary and possibly unimportant.<br />
<br />
Is it possible that the reason why the left wing of Evangelicalism is weakening in its opposition to homosexuality is that it is very difficult (and perhaps impossible) to specify the moral difference between homosexual behaviour and heterosexual acts in which artificial, contraception is used? Are not the two kinds of sexual behaviour similar in important ways?<br />
<br />
For one thing, both are "unnatural" in that both employ the sexual organs for purposes for which they were not designed. Our sexual organs are part of the reproductive system and on a strictly biological level they are designed for reproduction. Marriage is also designed for reproduction; Genesis 1:27 makes it clear that there is a close connection between man being created in the image of God and as male and female. And Genesis 1:28 makes it clear that the Divine intention in creating man as male and female is procreation. Just as God is Triune and not unitary, so man is created in two sexes and just as God is in his nature creative with the mutual love of Father and Son issuing forth in the inevitable result of creative love in the Holy Spirit, so man as male and female is able to issue forth in fruit created through love. So to say that the <i>telos</i> of sexual intercourse is procreation is not to reduce man to his biological substratum; rather it is to raise him to his highest dignity. Although the animals reproduce sexually, they do not do so through personal love and this marks out mankind alone as being in the image of God. Non-procreative sex is therefore unnatural for humans and a denial of the dignity of man as the one creature made in God's image. <br />
<br />
Secondly, sexual intercourse between married persons is not recreation or entertainment, but a deep personal knowing of the other person at a level of intimacy and trust that allows the two to become one flesh. When a man has intercourse with a woman he is saying: "I love you and desire to stay with you forever. If a child results from this act, I will devote my life to helping you raise the child." When a woman has intercourse with a man she is saying: "I love you and desire to stay with you. I trust that you will devote your life to helping me raise the child that may result from this act." That is what the act of intercourse intrinsically means, whether any individual couple know it or admit it or not. So any frivolous or casual sexual act is essentially a lie and is detached from the relational context that makes it different from animal sex and brings it into line with God's purpose in creating us male and female. <br />
<br />
So, in these two ways, which can be summarized as mutual, personal, loving commitment, married sex is morally right and in harmony with the will of God for the human creature and the human creature's highest good. The rule serves the higher good for the man, the woman and the child - all of whom are involved in the act of sexual intercourse. When the Divine plan for human sexuality is abrogated, the following things happen:<br />
<br />
1. Sex becomes a matter of self-focused pleasure and the satisfaction of lust rather
than a drive to deep, personal, committed intimacy and oneness.<br />
<br />
2. Sex becomes detached from its procreative intent. Fornication and adultery are recognized as creating inappropriate contexts for bringing new human life into the world.<br />
<br />
3. Potential children are fenced out of the act of sexual intercourse through artificial contraception.<br />
<br />
4. Women are increasingly regarded as "sex objects" and they even internalize this degraded status. <br />
<br />
5. A great temptation arises to resort to abortion as a "back-up" to failed contraception or sexual behaviour so driven by lust that contraception was not used.<br />
<br />
6. Divorce can be contemplated as an option much more easily when sex is understood as the satisfaction of physical desires, rather than as a drive to total oneness because if marriage is understood as a contract for mutually satisfying sexual relations (as for Kant), rather than as a vehicle for total unity of husband and wife into one flesh, then breaking the marriage contract does not necessarily seriously wound and even potentially destroy one's personhood. <br />
<br />
On this analysis, abortion does not appear suddenly out of nowhere as a sudden temptation to break the sixth commandment; rather, it has its context in the desire for non-procreative sex and the severing of the link between between the biological sex drive and the emotional and spiritual drive toward intimacy, commitment and oneness at the psychological and spiritual level with physical oneness as the sign of that greater oneness.<br />
<br />
All this calls contraception into question on a moral level. Is the use of artificial contraception ever compatible with the Biblical understanding of human beings and the role of sex in the make up of our human nature as created in the image of God? <br />
<br />
Why, apart from specific Biblical passages condemning it, is the theological basis for viewing homosexuality as morally deficient? I suggest that even pagans operating only with general revelation can see that there is a deep and important connection between sexual intercourse and reproduction, which is to say the family, and it is the fact that homosexual behaviour violates this connection that makes it suspect even to pagans. Of course, in an extreme state of idolatry and rebellion against the Creator, some pagans actually begin to believe that homosexuality is a good, as Paul argues in Romans 1:18-30. But this, to Paul, is iron-clad evidence of their extreme depravity rather than a respectable argument for the goodness of homosexual acts.<br />
<br />
The important question is not: "Can one find a Bible verse specifically condemning artificial contraception?" but rather, "can the Biblical link between sexual intercourse and oneness of the husband and wife on the deepest level of their personality be preserved when sex becomes non-procreative and merely recreational?"<br />
<br />
If decadent, late modern Western culture is committed unconditionally to anything, it is to the proposition that sex is just a recreational activity with no significance or meaning beyond the satisfaction of the lusts of the participants. This view of sexuality makes promiscuity seem good, marriage seem trivial, and contraception and abortion seem "necessary." What is "the contraceptive mentality" but this attitude toward human sexuality?<br />
<br />
It seems to me that Evangelicals do not know what sex is for and so cannot give satisfactory reasons to our single adults why contracepted sex for pleasure before marriage is contrary to human nature as created in the image of God. The only way forward is serious theological reflection on human sexuality and contraception that goes way beyond the limits of a blog post.<br />
<br />
Cross-posted at The Bayview Review. Craig Carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10209954891388905090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328993133397649838.post-80881661158231694062012-04-28T12:34:00.001-04:002012-04-28T12:34:47.481-04:00The Point is to Bully ChristiansThe main reason why pro-homosexual (and pro-sexual revolution) activists want same-sex marriage to be the law of the land is so that pro-homosexual behaviour propaganda can be incorporated into the school curriculum. The point of that is to detach the next generation from their parents and their churches and convert them to the pro-sexual revolution agenda of free sex and a post-traditional marriage culture.<br />
<br />
You think I'm crazy? Well, I think you are naive. Check out <a href="http://www.citizenlink.com/2012/04/18/students-walk-out-on-dan-savage/" target="_blank">this example</a> from Focus on the Family of bullying students with traditional morals.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
A group of high school journalism students attending a conference
called “Journalism on the Edge” in Seattle over the weekend felt they
were pushed over the edge by syndicated sex advice columnist Dan Savage. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Savage, the creator of the two-year-old It Gets Better Project, which
encourages teens struggling with same-sex attractions to embrace
homosexuality, was invited to give a keynote address last Friday at the
JEA/NSPA National High School Journalism Convention. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Students were expecting him to talk about bullying. But they also got
an earful about birth control, sex, and Savage’s opinions on the Bible.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
A 17-year-old from California who was attending with half a dozen
other students from her high school yearbook staff, was one of several
students to walk out in the middle of Savage’s speech.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“The first thing he told the audience was, ‘I hope you’re all using
birth control!’ ” she recalled. Then “he said there are people using the
Bible as an excuse for gay bullying, because it says in Leviticus and
Romans that being gay is wrong. Right after that, he said we can ignore
all the ‘B.S.’ in the Bible.</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“I was thinking, ‘This is not going a good direction at all,’ Then he
started going off about the Bible. He said somehow the Bible was
pro-slavery. I’m really shy. I’m not really someone to, like, stir up
anything. But all of a sudden I just blurted out, ‘That’s bull!’ ” </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
As she and several other students walked out of the auditorium, Savage noticed them leaving and called them “pansies.” </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Though recordings of the keynote speech are unavailable, Savage has
made similar comments in the past, which can be found on YouTube. Among
them: </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Most people that you wind up arguing with about religion and
homosexuality have not ever read the Bible without their, you know,
moron glasses on.” </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“If you believe it is the divinely inspired word of God, if you
believe in the literal truth of the Bible, I challenge you to read the
first five (expletive) pages. There are two creation myths in Genesis.” </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“We ignore the (expletive) in the Bible about race, about slavery, and we’re going to have to get there for homosexuality.” </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The student’s father is a public school teacher. Though he said
Savage’s comments were inappropriate, he thinks the organizers of the
conference are ultimately responsible.<br />
“I’m well-versed in the rules of the game, the captive-audience
ethic,” he said. “You have a bunch of kids. They’re required to go to
school. They don’t have the option of walking out on you as a teacher,
so you guard your speech. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“If Dan Savage was a teacher, they’d suspend him without pay for this
behavior,” he added. “He didn’t take account of who his audience was.
If he was doing this with a bunch of college journalism kids, that would
be a different story — that’s more rough and tumble. How many of the
kids who didn’t walk out felt backed into a corner? To me, that’s
bullying behavior. It has all the symptoms, as far as I’m concerned.”</blockquote>
You can't sing a Christmas carol in a public school, but you can launch vicious attacks like this on Christians. Do you think this kind of 180 degree shift in a culture happens by accident or without a planned and coordinated attack by fanatical activists? Note that the goal being promoted by Savage's organization is not about tolerance; it is to get teens to embrace homosexuality. That means they are after your children and they want to convert them; that is the cold, hard fact of the matter. <br />
<br />
Yes there is a bullying problem in public schools today and Christians who stand up for their faith are the victims.Craig Carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10209954891388905090noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328993133397649838.post-88892686689956613132012-04-27T23:12:00.000-04:002012-04-27T23:12:57.602-04:00A Review of Coming Apart: The State of White America 190-2010 by Charles MurrayCharles Murray is one of the most influential and controversial social scientists alive today. His book, <i>Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950-1980</i>, was very influential in the highly successful welfare reforms undertaken in the mid-90s in the US during a period of divided government while Bill Clinton was president. His book, <i>The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life</i>, argued that intelligence is a better predictor of future success than socio-economic status and education level. Much of Murray's work challenges the conventional wisdom of modern progressives and liberals and defends the truth of traditional, conventional wisdom. As a rather extreme libertarian, rather than a social conservative, Murray is an interesting writer because he comes to so many conclusions that support the conservative case for traditional family structure as the basis of a healthy society even though that is not a central tenet of his philosophical belief system. It appears to be a matter of following the logical implications of the data he studies in his case. He is divorced and re-married and not particularly religious, although he attends Quaker meetings with his second wife. <br />
<br />
Murray's new book, <i>Coming Apart: The State of White America 1960-2010</i> (Random House, 2012), is a fascinating look at the social revolution of the past half-century. The disastrous effects of the attempts to impose a European-style welfare state on America beginning with the Great Society programs of the 1960s on the black family have been well-documented. But what has been going on in white America during this period? Were the effects of welfare statism on black families different from their effects on white families or were those effects merely delayed slightly? <br />
<br />
Murray also argues that what he calls "the American project" has involved the attempt to build a nation without a class structure and that this effort was in many ways largely successful up until the 1960s, that is, for a period of almost two centuries. His diagnoses is that, since the 1960s, however, a growing economic chasm has been hardening into a genuine class divide in America. The deepest divides in America today are not racial but economic and for the first time the nation is divided into what may become permanent classes. <br />
<br />
Murray documents the emergence of a new upper class which lives in a geographic and cultural bubble isolated from the rest of society and, in particular, from a new lower class. Up until recently, most Americans, regardless of income levels, thought of themselves as middle class. Men holding menial jobs who supported their families were accorded high social status; their lives and efforts were regarded as making a genuine difference both by themselves and by others. These men have become irrelevant and unnecessary in the welfare state and their social status has plummeted. <br />
<br />
Murray documents the rise of a new lower class of people in which marriage has almost disappeared as a way of life. In his white, urban neighbourhood (called Fishtown) the percentage of the population who married declined from 85 to 50% between 1960 and 2010. The percentage who never married rose from 8-25% and the percentage of divorced people rose from 5-35%. The percentage in self-reported "very happy" marriages dropped from 68-55%. The percentage of children living with a single, divorced or separated parent rose from 2-22%. One particularly startling statistic was that the percentage of children in Fishtown living with both biological parents dropped in this period from 95-35%. <br />
<br />
When it comes to young men (aged 30-49) and employment the trend is clearly away from full-time employment and toward fewer hours worked per week. Marriage and work habits are closely correlated. In effect, the government is taking over the economic role of the father, which results in arrested development of young males, who simply do not grow up. <br />
<br />
Prior to the 1960s, a young woman in Fishtown got a boyfriend, got pregnant and got married. Now, marriage is optional and less and less frequent. One telling comment from a resident of Fishtown was by an elderly woman who observed that many of the women trying to raise children had a live-in boyfriend who was more like an extra son to care for than anything else. A new class is emerging that is not middle class and never will be; it is something not adequately described by the phrase "working poor." It is dysfunctional. <br />
<br />
At the other end of the scale, however, the last half-century has witnessed the growth of a tiny, powerful, wealthy, influential upper portion of the upper class, which is increasingly isolated in their daily lives from the rest of America. Beginning in the 1950s universities like Harvard began to admit mostly the brightest students from an ever-growing pool of eager applicants. Today, elite colleges admit students whose test scores place them in the top quadrant of the population for intelligence. Since marriage partners are usually found in such settings, the children of this class will inherit an IQ on average in between that of their parents. And, since these children will grow up amid privilege, they will gain admission to elite colleges and repeat the process. A third generation is now going through this cycle.<br />
<br />
One of the most fascinating parts of the book is Murray's description of the insular nature of the lives of this group. They have, for the most part, never held a job that made a body part hurt at the end of a work day. They live in enclaves of privilege among people of their own class. They often attend private schools and share a number of prejudices and incontrovertible beliefs. They are thin, fit and do not smoke. They have never owned a pick up truck and they often work in the high-paying jobs created by the computer revolution and are all are some sort of "symbolic interaction," meaning media, law, journalism, university teaching, management, consulting, finance, etc. <br />
<br />
The top tier of this new upper class is concentrated in four cities: Washington, DC, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Interestingly, this group has very low divorce rates, very low illegitimacy rates and appear to be immune from many of the trends afflicting the emerging welfare class. Although, this is good news in some ways, it also highlights the insularity of their lives. But why is insularity a problem? As Murray points out, if the delivery truck driver in Omaha fails to understand the daily lives of Wall St. stockbrokers, it doesn't matter. But if the presidents of major movie studios, those who make laws regarding media standards, those who make educational policy etc. do not understand the daily lives of those who are affected by their decisions, it is significant. <br />
<br />
Murray wonders whether the members of the new upper class have any moral core or if they are essentially "hollow." The question arises because the members of this class oddly refuse to "preach what they practice." Even though getting married and staying married, working hard and obeying the law are lifestyle habits which have made them successful, they are unaccountably reticent to "impose their values" on anyone else. Why? Murray has no answer. <br />
<br />
Also, the recent rise in unseemly behaviour from this group is disconcerting. For example, grossly inflated bonuses paid to CEO's of major corporations and unethical behaviour leading up to the 2008 crash on Wall St. and the whole subprime mortgage scandal raise the question of whether this group can be trusted with power. Yet, who is available to restrain them when they move effortlessly back and forth between government and corporations and seem to float above both.<br />
<br />
Murray is neither optimistic nor pessimistic, but realistic. He admits the necessity of religious belief in order for a free people to survive in the long run but is not sure if a religious revival will come. He speculates that as Europe goes bankrupt the unnaturalness and impossibility of the welfare state will eventually come to be appreciated. He is stern in his insistence that social capital has been severely diminished over the past half-century and the effects are already visible. Like all libertarians and conservatives his greatest fear is that the decline of religion, morality and the family will erode social capital to the point that government will have to become totalitarian just to maintain some semblance of order and structure in daily life. <br />
<br />
There is a lot in this book that I have not been able to mention and certainly much to ponder. As I look over Murray's shoulder as he analyzes his data and formulates his hypotheses, my conclusion is that the evidence is incontrovertible that nothing but another Great Awakening can save America from a long, slow decline into anarchy and state control of more and more of the daily lives of her people. Religious revival is the future or there is no happy future. This is not the conclusion of a fundamentalist preacher, but of a sober and conflicted social scientist. This ought to give those on all sides of the debate food for thought. <br />
<br />
Cross-posted at the Bayview Review.Craig Carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10209954891388905090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328993133397649838.post-60935276578430464372012-04-27T11:37:00.000-04:002012-04-27T11:37:59.515-04:00American Idol<br />
Instead of giving him an honorary doctorate from Notre Dame, this is what the Roman Catholic Church should have said to Obama:<br />
<br />
<img alt="" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-37678" height="214" src="http://the-american-catholic.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/obamagodchurch-300x214.jpg" title="obamagodchurch" width="300" /><br />
<br />Craig Carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10209954891388905090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328993133397649838.post-34063514783252009772012-04-26T13:02:00.002-04:002012-04-26T13:02:33.949-04:00Strengthening Traditional Marriage is the Highest Priority for Anyone Concerned about Improving SocietyRachel Sheffield has <a href="http://blog.heritage.org/2012/04/25/family-fact-of-the-week-marriage-protects-women-and-children-from-violence/" target="_blank">a very interesting post </a>at The Foundry. It
contains links to many sources documenting two disturbing facts:<br />
<br />
1. Marriage rates are falling. Fewer people are married for less and less of a percentage of their lives.<br />
<br />
2.
This is bad for women and children. Those who live outside of marriage (as single or cohabiting) are poorer
generally and women and children are at much higher risk of physical
violence including sexual abuse. By almost every social measure,
children not living with their married, biological parents are at risk
of lower academic achievement, emotional and mental illness, poverty,
involvement in crime as either perpetrator or victim, etc. <br />
<blockquote>
New government <a data-mce-href="http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr049.pdf" href="http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr049.pdf">data</a> (PDF) reveals <a data-mce-href="http://familyfacts.org/charts/150/the-proportion-of-married-adults-has-decreased" href="http://familyfacts.org/charts/150/the-proportion-of-married-adults-has-decreased">a continuing trend of declining marriage rates</a>. More women have never been married, and cohabitation rates have increased steadily. And <a data-mce-href="http://familyfacts.org/charts/205/four-in-10-children-are-born-to-unwed-mothers" href="http://familyfacts.org/charts/205/four-in-10-children-are-born-to-unwed-mothers">more children are born outside of marriage than ever before</a>.<br />
The consequences of these trends include <a data-mce-href="http://familyfacts.org/briefs/31/family-structure-and-economic-well-being" href="http://familyfacts.org/briefs/31/family-structure-and-economic-well-being">lower economic prosperity</a> for families and an <a data-mce-href="http://familyfacts.org/briefs/35/family-structure-and-childrens-education" href="http://familyfacts.org/briefs/35/family-structure-and-childrens-education">array</a> of <a data-mce-href="http://familyfacts.org/briefs/26/marriage-and-family-as-deterrents-from-delinquency-violence-and-crime" href="http://familyfacts.org/briefs/26/marriage-and-family-as-deterrents-from-delinquency-violence-and-crime">poorer outcomes</a> for children. <br />
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
Tragically,
as marriage declines, even the very physical safety for women and
children is compromised. Research reveals that both <a data-mce-href="http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/ipv.pdf" href="http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/ipv.pdf">unmarried women</a> (PDF) and <a data-mce-href="http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/opre/abuse_neglect/natl_incid/reports/natl_incid/nis4_report_congress_full_pdf_jan2010.pdf" href="http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/opre/abuse_neglect/natl_incid/reports/natl_incid/nis4_report_congress_full_pdf_jan2010.pdf">children</a>
(PDF) living in family settings other than with their biological,
married parents are at far greater risk of experiencing domestic abuse.<br />
The Bureau of Justice Statistics <a data-mce-href="http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/ipv.pdf" href="http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/ipv.pdf">reports</a>
that never-married women are over four times as likely to be a victim
of domestic violence compared to married women. (Never-married women are
also <a data-mce-href="http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/cvus0801.pdf" href="http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/cvus0801.pdf">much more likely</a> (PDF) to be victims of violent crimes besides domestic abuse, including rape.)<br />
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
Additionally, <a data-mce-href="http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/opre/abuse_neglect/natl_incid/reports/natl_incid/nis4_report_congress_full_pdf_jan2010.pdf" href="http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/opre/abuse_neglect/natl_incid/reports/natl_incid/nis4_report_congress_full_pdf_jan2010.pdf">children living outside of married, biological-parent homes</a>
have a far greater probability of experiencing physical and sexual
abuse. Most notably, children living with a single parent and the
parent’s romantic partner are approximately 10 times as likely to be
physically abused and 20 times as likely to be sexually abused. Even
children living with both biological parents are at heightened risk of
physical abuse (over four times as likely) and sexual abuse (nearly five
times as likely) if their parents are not married.<br />
As marriage
rates decline, more women and children are exposed to living situations
that jeopardize their safety. As policymakers look to ways to address
violence against women, rather than <a data-mce-href="http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/03/the-violence-against-women-act-reauthorization-fundamentally-flawed" href="http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/03/the-violence-against-women-act-reauthorization-fundamentally-flawed">expanding top-down approaches of questionable effectiveness</a>, efforts to promote and strengthen marriage are critical.</blockquote>
The
great irony of the sexual revolution over the past half-century is that
it was launched and defended in the name of "women's rights" and
"personal freedom." Personal freedom was supposed by the secular
humanists of the time to be a necessary prerequisite for individual
growth, development and flourishing. Traditional morality and the
traditional family were viewed as impediments to personal freedom and
flourishing. <br />
<br />
For a small number of white, upper-middle class
women, who spear-headed the second-wave Feminist movement of the 1960s,
these convictions, buttressed by neo-Marxist theory, could be made to
seem plausible. But, starting with Lyndon Johnson's "War on Poverty"
(which, in hindsight looks more like a "War on the urban, black
family"), the whole sexual revolution including Feminism and the rise of
the divorce culture has been a social plague. <br />
<br />
It has destroyed
the black family (70% of black children in America are born out of
wedlock) and it is now moving up the social scale into white
middle-class families, as we see documented in the recent work of
Charles Murray in his book <a href="http://www.amazon.ca/Coming-Apart-State-America-1960-2010/dp/0307453421/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1335459631&sr=8-1" target="_blank"><em>Coming Apart: The Story of White America 1960-2010</em></a>.
The fact is that only movie stars and upper-class rich people can
afford divorce, just as in primitive societies only rich males can
afford plural wives. Would-be social reformers have seemed oblivious to
the fact that the intact family is the single biggest bulwark against
poverty for the vast majority of the population, as well as the basis of
independence and dignity.<br />
<br />
Or have they? Marxist thought views
the family as an impediment to complete state control and domination of
individuals. Social engineering is more difficult for state bureaucrats
when individuals are not completely dependent on the government for
their daily sustenance. The destruction of the family appears to be a
matter of good intentions gone wrong, but is that analysis sufficiently
critical? <br />
The final sentence of Sheffield's post is low-key but
it contains a revolution and a counter-revolution within its calm
suggestion of a policy reversal. Right now, government is doing
everything possible to break apart the family in the name of individual
freedom and substitute government for fathers in order to create what is
called "social justice." She suggests that government reverse itself
in a hundred policy areas from tax penalties for married couples to
eliminating no-fault divorce, to tax penalties for cohabiting couples to
increased social disapproval of sex before marriage to fighting
pornography and prostitution to requiring divorcing couples to seek
counseling to stigmatizing promiscuity to encouraging adoption to
banning abortion to defunding Planned Parenthood and so on and on. <br />
But can we really accuse self-described liberals of really being
neo-Marxists? Is that fair? Well, as Forrest Gump might say "Marxist
is as Marxist does." So let's be generous and not call them
neo-Marxists. But to pretend that actual, hard-core neo-Marxists are
not actively trying to forment revolution by destroying the family is
just willful blindness; they have been working at this agenda for over a century now. Yet, the liberals and progressives running the Democratic
Party are not all neo-Marxists. So let's be generous and call them
"fellow-travelers" and "dupes." But whatever label one attaches to the
policy-makers, the important thing is the policy. And the policy must
change. <br />
<br />
The liberal idea that loosening the bonds of the
traditional family is the path to individual self-realization is an
unmitigated failure and a cruel joke for vulnerable women and children.
The policies are a failure in achieving what they claimed they wanted
to achieve. That fact is no longer in dispute. So the policies must
change: liberals and conservatives should be able to agree on that
much. Only a neo-Marxist has an ideological reason to dig in and
defend the broken status quo.<br />
<br />
Cross-posted at The Bayview Review. Craig Carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10209954891388905090noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328993133397649838.post-12744123818555523752012-04-24T13:40:00.001-04:002012-04-24T13:40:41.736-04:00This is What They Mean by ToleranceAre you for tolerance? Am I? Well, it all depends on what we are being asked to tolerate. Tolerance is a minor virtue and totally dependent on the nature of what is being tolerated for its moral goodness. In other words, tolerance is not an end in itself. It is good in some circumstances and bad in other circumstances; much depends on the moral status of what is being tolerated and on whether what is being tolerated inherently requires intolerance of the opposite.<br />
<br />
There are three categories: things which should never be tolerated (eg. child molesting), things which should always be tolerated (eg. free speech about values) and things that should be tolerated up to a point but not necessarily indefinitely (eg. sexual deviance). This last example is non-controversial in principle; almost every rational person agrees that some sexual deviance should be tolerated though not socially approved. An example would be fornication. We don't think it is morally right and expressing social disapproval to the point of driving it underground is necessary for a healthy society, yet we would not want to infringe on civil liberties to the extent necessary in order to have fornication police investigating, probing, arresting and jailing every single fornicator. On the other hand, another sexual deviance, rape, falls into a different category. It should be illegal and penalties should be harsh. If we have to give up some privacy to prevent or punish rape, so be it. It is that serious.<br />
<br />
So tolerating rape or child pornography is morally reprehensible and also ought to be illegal and laws against them should be enforced stringently. But simple fornication between adults is morally reprehensible but should not be illegal. Tolerance of deviant lifestyles is good up to a point. When people begin to be hurt too much and too often, society has to revise its tendency to tolerance and begin to act against evil. Statecraft is not reducible to ethics; it is more complicated.<br />
<br />
Tolerance is not like a major virtue like hope or faith or love in that there can be too much tolerance, whereas there can never be too much love there can easily, and often is, too much tolerance. Our society is very confused about tolerance. There is a ferocious attempt to control so-called "hate speech" but an extremely lenient approach to punishing physical attacks on people. If we cannot even punish those who physically attack innocent people, what good do we think is being done to punish individuals who say things categorized as "hate speech?"<br />
<br />
The unspoken but operative "rationale," if one can even call it that, for punishing Christians who express the traditional and normal view of homosexuality while letting violent criminals walk free, seems to come down to one over-riding factor: how likely is the person being punished to react violently? Those who show signs of aggressive fight-back are treated with a hands-off approach, but those who submit meekly to a totalitarian approach to speech regulation are increasingly oppressed. Christians are punished severely for expressing religious ideas in public but Muslims are ignored. Criminal mobs are treat leniently but Christians who witness to their faith are clamped down on. There is a clear pattern here. <br />
<br />
Julian Mann, writing in <a href="http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=15893#.T5bJ6NX5-So" target="_blank">Virtue Online</a> gives us a good example of the contemporary approach to "tolerance." <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Orthodox bishops in the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, meeting this
week in London, are gathering in a capital city where the Conservative
Mayor Boris Johnson has just banned this statement from London buses:
"Not gay. Post-gay, ex-gay and proud. Get over it."<br />
<br />
Such
censorship of these advertisements, responding to the earlier "Some
people are gay. Get over it." campaign by the highly politically
influential homosexualist lobby group Stonewall, is disturbing enough.
But the reasons Mr Johnson has given for the ban in the UK capital city
are even more alarming.<br />
<br />
His latest rationale frighteningly exposes the dry-rot in the edifice of democratic freedom.<br />
<br />
At
a mayoral hustings last week at St James's Piccadilly, Mr Johnson
declared that he banned the ads on London buses by Christian groups,
Anglican Mainstream and Core Issues Trust, because "the backlash would
be so intense it would not have been in the interest of Christian people
in this city".<br />
<br />
His initial stated reason for banning the posters
was his desire to protect Londoners from being exposed to the
suggestion of gay therapy: "London is one of the most tolerant cities in
the world and intolerant of intolerance. It is clearly offensive to
suggest being gay is an illness someone recovers from and I am not
prepared to have that suggestion driven around London on our buses."<br />
<br />
Whilst
his latest reason at the hustings does not contradict his earlier one,
it is a significant development. It emits an even stronger whiff of
democratic putrefaction.</blockquote>
At least Boris Johnston is explicit and open about his cowardice, for cowardice is the reason for tolerating the aggressive and angry pro-homosexual lobby while shutting down the free speech of Christians. "Tolerance" here is just a content-less slogan that is ritually invoked by intolerant people as their excuse for eliminating Christianity from the public debate. Christians are easy marks, peaceful and tolerant themselves, and so unwilling to strike back against this kind of persecution.<br />
<br />
The take-away from all of this is two-fold. First, Christians must stop being afraid to appear "intolerant" because there are worse things than intolerance. Christians must not allow a debate over good and evil to be stifled by their opponents playing the tolerance card as an undisputed trump. We don't just want tolerance for our opinions; we want good to be recognized as good and evil to be recognized as evil. Playing for a tie is a losing strategy because even persecution of Christians and the suppression of religious freedom are being justified in the name of "tolerance." We don't want mere tolerance; we want an acknowledgment that right is right and evil is evil.<br />
<br />
Second, Christians must either accept persecution meekly and go underground or else they have to fight for the democratic and human rights that gradually evolved in Western civilization and made the West the highest, best civilization in history of the world. If we choose not to fight for our culture, then we must accept that we are complicit in its destruction and for the coming of a new dark age. If you really think this is the right thing to do, fine. But take responsibility for your choice and acknowledge that you believe that Christians should not be in the culture-building business. So keep quiet and don't ingratiate yourself with the secular persecutors. If you wish to live an underground, privatized existence and let the culture go to hell (literally), then that is your choice.<br />
<br />
For my part, I believe we ought to fight. We ought to fight in a moral way and refuse to use certain despicable tactics, but I believe we ought to pray for revival, vote for politicians we think can slow down the rot and generally be the adults in the room. This is messy and precarious in a fallen world, but that is our calling as long as our Lord tarries. <br />Craig Carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10209954891388905090noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328993133397649838.post-70410580081417574462012-04-22T08:00:00.000-04:002012-04-22T08:00:20.894-04:00This is What They Mean by Tolerance: An UpdateVanderbilt University continues to deny Christians the right to freedom of association and freedom of religion. Students there have put together an excellent video explaining their case. Take time to watch it. You can bet leftists at elite universities all over the US are watching to see if Vanderbilt gets away with it.<br />
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<br />Craig Carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10209954891388905090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328993133397649838.post-42112299489130654042012-04-21T07:00:00.000-04:002012-04-21T07:00:08.503-04:00Quebec: The Greece of North AmericaQuebec is unsustainable. Captured by radical feminists and socialists in the mid-twentieth century, it now pursues the most radically leftist policies of any jurisdiction in North America, even more left-wing than California. <br />
<br />
The welfare state has created not just a host of entitlement programs, but more importantly, an entitlement mentality in which poorly-educated people with low levels of numeracy expect the government to fund their individualistic, hedonistic lifestyle indefinitely and without limit. This mentality is about to crash into the harsh reality of a declining population, a stagnant economy and lower government revenues. <br />
<br />
In this European-style situation, the government will tack first one way then the other. Sometimes it will try to impose a dose of fiscal sanity here or there and the result will be riots in the streets. See <a href="http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1165275--charest-speech-erupts-into-rowdy-protest-in-montreal?bn=1" target="_blank">the story</a> from yesterday's <i>Toronto Star</i> below:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
MONTREAL—A spring of discontent in Quebec characterized by scenes of
red-clad student protesters erupted into something darker Friday.<br />
Demonstrators hurled projectiles from
rocks to flower pots in downtown Montreal, disrupting political events
indoors and committing vandalism outdoors. Riot police fought back by
swinging batons and firing rubber bullets and tear-gas canisters into
the crowd.<br />
Police said some vandals even tossed
rocks from an overpass onto a busy downtown expressway. There were no
reports of any injuries in those incidents.<br />
But several people were injured —
reportedly including police officers — during protests of a broader
nature than the weeks-long anti-tuition demonstrations that have
occasionally snared traffic in cities across Quebec.<br />
Provincial police were called in as
local officers struggled to handle crowds that disrupted two separate
events, including one featuring Premier Jean Charest and, to a lesser
extent, one involving federal Immigration Minister Jason Kenney.<br />
A few participants stressed one message: This isn't just about university fees anymore.<br />
“It's not just the tuition increase,”
said Alexis Remartini, 18, who who took a 60-kilometre bus trip from
St-Hyacinthe to attend the protest.<br />
“The movement has grown to include other things we don't agree with.”</blockquote>
This is about the government imposing a $325 per year increase on university and college tuition over five years, which will still leave Quebec with by far the lowest tuition rates in the country. So fiscal austerity is going to be tough.<br />
<br />
So, other times the government will attempt to borrow more and increase the debt. But contrary to settled economic doctrine among left-leaning "economists" the situation in Europe is demonstrating that countries cannot continue running up the national debt indefinitely. So the Quebec government will likely try blackmailing the rest of Canada into transferring more and more of the national wealth into Quebec in order to pay for free daycare all the way through university. <br />
<br />
But demographic changes in Canada show a move of population, economic growth and political power away from central Canada to the West (and to a limited extent to east to Newfoundland). The federal Conservative government is firmly controlled by Western Canadian interests and will be harder to blackmail than the Liberals were. At some point, the rest of Canada is likely to say to Quebec, "Good riddance."<br />
<br />
Then the Quebec government will be back to austerity and budget cuts, which will lead to further unrest. Immigration will be ratcheted up in a vain attempt to maintain the population but it will make assimilating new immigrants more and more difficult, which will lead to a different kind of social unrest. Japan may experience a quiet, dignified slide into "that good night" because of its social homogeneity and national character. But the streets of Montreal are not likely to be quiet or dignified. <br />
<br />
The future is not rosy for Quebec. It is living beyond its means on the basis of a secularist, socialist worldview that is out of touch with reality and its economy is unsustainable. The giant feminist-socialist social experiment launched in those heady days of the 1960s is slowly falling apart but those who launched it will be dead before things really get ugly. So I guess they might, for that reason, count is a success from their perspective. Those who are still around may beg to differ. <br />
<br />Craig Carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10209954891388905090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328993133397649838.post-87830020839326166402012-04-20T10:21:00.005-04:002012-04-20T17:58:35.119-04:00Sweden: The "Good" Socialist State?Every time you talk to a soft-hearted, left-leaning liberal who thinks that the welfare state is the answer to poverty, Sweden comes up. If I talk about China, the USSR, Eastern Europe, Cambodia, Vietnam and North Korea, they want to point out that Sweden is democratic and free despite being a social democratic state. Sweden is the poster-child for "enlightened social democracy." This is a myth that needs to be exploded.<br />
<br />
Lydia McGrew has <a href="http://www.whatswrongwiththeworld.net/2012/04/choice_devours_itself_sweden_w.html">an article</a> on the growing state totalitarianism in Sweden in the area of education. In some ways, total government control of the educational system of a country is even worse than total government control of the economy since thought-control is worse than external control. Even prisoners in Soviet concentration camps were intellectually free so long as every aspect of their lives were controlled but they were left free to educate each other at night in secret: their minds were not taken prisoner.<br />
<blockquote>
Some of us have already heard about Sweden's totalitarian and utterly committed attack on home schooling. Home education is illegal, and that's that. See <a href="http://www.hslda.org/hs/international/Sweden/">here</a> for more links and information. <br />
But mandatory daycare, too, is on the horizon if not already here. In <a href="http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2012/April/Swedish-Home-Schoolers-Flee-Parental-Inquisition/">this article</a>, along with more details on the persecution of home schoolers, we learn this:<br />
<blockquote>
Parents are pressured to put their children in daycare at age one. <br />
"One mother told me when she went with her 18 month son to his medical checkup, and he was not in daycare. They said, 'Oh, your son is not in daycare? But he has to go to daycare. He needs that and you need to work,'" Himmselstrand told CBN News. <br />
"The argument they give about this is that every child has a 'right' to daycare. This is not a right that parents are allowed to interfere with."</blockquote>
HSLDA translates from <a href="http://www.svd.se/opinion/brannpunkt/infor-skolplikt-fran-tre-ars-alder_6230068.svd">this link</a> (which is in Swedish) the following argument for compulsory three-year-old daycare: “We cannot allow parents to deny their children the right to go to pre-school.” <br />
The idea of children as free-standing actors in relation to the state, which enforces its own ideas of their "rights" against their parents, is not a new one. HSLDA has been warning about it for a long time. Sweden seems to have few qualms about a fairly extreme interpretation of the concept of the "rights of the child." A child has a right, in essence, to be separated from his mother. </blockquote>
As this article points out, the policies and attitude of the Swedish government are in violation of the UN Declaration on Human Rights signed in 1947.<br />
<div class="adjusted">
</div>
<blockquote>
<div class="adjusted">
Swedish human rights lawyer Ruby Harrold-Claesson calls what's happening in Sweden a "parental inquisition."</div>
<div class="adjusted">
"Sweden's treatment of parents in the area of education is totalitarian, essentially. They want to take children from birth to graduation and control them," said Michael Donnelly, director of international relations at the <a href="http://www.hslda.org/" target="_blank">Homeschool Legal Defense Association</a>.</div>
<div class="adjusted">
Donnelly claims Sweden's treatment of parents violates established standards of human rights.</div>
<div class="adjusted">
"In fact, the <a href="http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/" target="_blank">U.N. Declaration on Human Rights</a> signed in 1947 actually says ... that parents have a 'prior right' to decide the kind of education their children should have," he explained.</div>
</blockquote>
<div class="adjusted">
</div>
<div class="adjusted">
Contacted for a response, the Swedish government replied in the haughty tone of an absolute monarch addressing commoners below his rank:</div>
<div class="adjusted">
</div>
<blockquote>
But Sweden's ambassador to the United States said, "The [Swedish] government does not find that home schooling is necessary for religious or philosophical reasons."</blockquote>
<div class="adjusted">
The arrogance is breathtaking: "The Swedish government does not find . . . " = diplomatic-speak for "Shut up, he explained."<br />
</div>
<div class="adjusted">
Sweden has a number of problems including declining educational standards, an increasing trend toward single-person households, an unsustainable welfare state and increasing<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/sweden/7278532/Jews-leave-Swedish-city-after-sharp-rise-in-anti-Semitic-hate-crimes.html"> anti-Semitism</a> among its growing immigrant Muslim population and Swedish officials who are afraid of Muslims. Sweden is a rich country and free market economics influenced the current structure of the economy to a great extent, which means that socialism will need more time to utterly degrade the economy than it needed in an economic basket-case like Imperial Russia or China. The social democratic experiment, however, is barely 50 years old at this point, so we need to give it some time.<br />
<br />
But there likely is not enough time to play out the full economic experiment because economic collapse is just a matter of time anyway due to the population decline in progress. Like most European nations, Sweden only has a few more generations of existence anyway. The total fertility rate today stands at 1.67, which is well below replacement level. This explains why Swedes have no choice but to bring in increasing numbers of immigrants with a totally different culture, religion, politics and priorities.</div>
<br />
The connections between post-World War II feminism and socialism in Sweden and the looming demographic nightmare are discussed in Allen Carlson's book: <span style="font-style: italic;">The Swedish Experiment in Family Politics: The Myrdals and the Interwar Population Crisis</span>. The experiment is ongoing and the long-term results are not in yet.<br />
<br />
Pointing to Sweden as "the great Socialist success story" is like the man who fell off a 50 story building saying "So far so good" to people as he passed the 40th, 30th and 20th story windows. That is the best you can say for Sweden's social democratic, post-traditional family experiment: "So far so good." But the ground (reality) is coming up quickly.Craig Carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10209954891388905090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328993133397649838.post-74768651323845355962012-04-18T17:00:00.001-04:002012-04-18T23:46:29.435-04:00Ontario School Policy is Clear: Only Conservatives May Be BulliedIn today's National Post, Mark Steyn mocks the totalitarians who are pretending to be caring and kind as they shut down dissent.<br /><blockquote>Canada’s GSA is the Gay-Straight Alliance. The GSA is all over the GTA (the Gayer Toronto Area), but in a few remote upcountry redoubts north of Timmins intolerant knuckle-dragging fundamentalist school boards declined to get with the beat. So the Ontario Government has determined to afflict them with the “Accepting Schools Act.”<br /><br />“Accepting?” One would regard the very name of this bill as an exquisite parody of the way statist strong-arming masquerades as limp-wristed passivity were it not for the fact that the province’s Catholic schools, reluctant to accept government-mandated GSAs, are proposing instead that they should be called “Respecting Differences” groups. Good grief, this is the best a bigoted theocrat can come up with? <p>Bullying is as old as the schoolhouse. Dr Thomas Arnold, one of the great reforming headmasters of 19th century England, is captured in the most famous novel ever written about bullying, Tom Brown’s Schooldays in what, by all accounts, is an accurate summation of his approach to the matter: “‘You see, I do not know anything of the case officially, and if I take any notice of it at all, I must publicly expel the boy. I don’t wish to do that, for I think there is some good in him. There’s nothing for it but a good sound thrashing.’ He paused to shake hands with the master … ‘Remember,’ added the Doctor, emphasizing the words, ‘a good sound thrashing before the whole house.’ ”</p> <p>These days, a Thrashing Schools Act mandating Thrashing Out Differences groups across the province would be the biggest windfall for Chief Commissar Barbara Hall and her Ontario “Human Rights” Commission since the transsexual labiaplasty case went belly up. Teachers are not permitted, in any meaningful sense, to deal with the problem of bullying. And, when you can’t deal with a problem, the easiest option is to institutionalize it. Thus, today is the Day of Pink, “the international day against bullying, discrimination, homophobia and transphobia.” Don’t know how big it is in Yemen or Waziristan, but the Minister of Education for the Northwest Territories is on board, and the Ontario MPP Peggy Nash has issued her own video greeting for the day, just like the Queen’s Christmas message: “Today’s the day we can unite in celebrating diversity and in raising awareness …”</p> <p>So it’s just like every other bloody boring day in the Ontario school system then?</p> <p>Meanwhile, Cable 14 in Hamilton, Ont., has been Tweeting up a storm: “National Day of Pink/Anti-Bullying Day is tomorrow. What will you be wearing?” Er, I don’t think I have a lot of choice on that front, do I? “For schools holding Anti-Bullying events in April, you still have time to order shirts at a discount.”</p> <p>That’s great news! Nothing says “celebrate diversity” like forcing everyone to dress exactly the same, like a bunch of Maoists who threw their workers’ garb in the washer but forgot to take the red flag out. If you’re thinking, “Hang on. Day of Pink? Didn’t we just have that?” No, that was Pink Shirt Day, the last Wednesday in February. This is Day of Pink, second Wednesday in April. Like the King streetcar, there’ll be another one along in a minute, enthusiastically sponsored by Scotiabank, Royal Bank, ViaRail and all the other corporate bigwigs.</p></blockquote><p>If anyone is naive enough actually to think that this bureaucratically-imposed exercise in groupthink actually is about what it claims to be about (i.e. bullied homosexual kids), then you also probably believe that Obama is highly committed to reducing the number of abortions by raising taxes and expanding the welfare state.</p><p>Bullying is a problem, but it is one largely created by the left-wing refusal to discipline bullies and it has little to do with homosexuality.<br /></p><p></p><blockquote><p>According to the Toronto District School Board’s own survey, the most common type of bullying is for “body image” — the reason given by 27% of high school students, 38% of Grades 7 and 8, and yea, back through the generations. Yet there are no proposals for mandatory Fat-Svelte Alliances, or Homely-Smokin’ Alliances. The second biggest reason in Toronto schools is “cultural or racial background.” “Cultural,” eh? Yet there seems no urge to install Infidel-Believer Alliances in Valley Park Middle School’s celebrated mosqueteria, although they could probably fit it in the back behind the menstruating girls. So the pressure for GSAs in every school would seem to be a solution entirely unrelated to the problem. Indeed, it would seem to be a gay hijacking of the issue. Queer Eye For The Fat Chick: “But enough about you, let’s talk about me.”</p> <p>What about if you’re the last non-sexualized tween schoolgirl in Ontario? You’re still into ponies and unicorns and have no great interest in the opposite sex except when nice Prince William visits to cut the ribbon at the new Transgendered Studies Department. What if the other girls are beginning to mock you for wanting to see <em>Anne Of Green Gables</em> instead of <em>Anne Does Avonlea</em>? Is there any room for the sexual-developmentally challenged in the GSAs?</p> <p>Why, of course! GSAs are officially welcoming of gays, straights, and even those freaky weirdy types who aren’t yet into sexual identity but could use a helpful nudge in the right direction. “Advisors Say GSA Also For Straight Students,” as the headline to a poignant story in yesterday’s edition of the Pembroke Academy newspaper in New Hampshire puts it. The school-approved GSA began five years ago with an ambitious platform of exciting gay activities. “They had plans for group events, like bake sales and car washes, but they never came to pass,” explained Ms Yackanin, the social studies teacher who served as the GSA’s first advisor.</p> From a lack of gay bake sales and gay car washes, the GSA has now advanced to a lack of gays. “The students just stopped coming,” said Mrs McCrum, the new Spanish teacher who took over the GSA at the start of this school year. This is the homophobic reality of our education system: a school gay group that has everything it needs except gays. </blockquote><p>Homosexuality is not the point. Bullied homosexual kids is not the point. The point is to change your attitude and mine to sexual promiscuity and the sexual revolution as part of the Ne0-Marxist attempt to undermine the family and leave the State as the only entity capable of solving social problems, which thus gives it unlimited power.<br /></p><p>Did you really think it was about bullied kids? There is only one group that is being bullied here and that is conservatives who resist the attempt to corrupt kids by promoting sexual license.<br /></p>Craig Carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10209954891388905090noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328993133397649838.post-75163556658129465572012-04-18T09:16:00.003-04:002012-04-18T09:36:03.297-04:00Feminism Can't Even Condemn the Killing of Female Fetuses: Why is it Called "Feminism"?Feminism is not about advancing the rights of women. It is about something else. It is all about individualism, individual autonomy and selfishness. It is really extreme libertarianism applied to a set of issues deemed to be "private" and by advocating private, individual liberty in these areas it creates the illusion of freedom at the same time as it rolls over and accepts total state control of most of life - the areas deemed "public." <br /><br />It is the worst of both worlds: private selfishness and public totalitarianism, or as Bill Gairdner puts it "libertarian socialism." <br /><br />Heather Mallick, in today's Toronto Star, demonstrates the moral hollowness and hypocrisy (not to say inner contradictions) of contemporary third-wave (Marxist) feminism. She shamelessly calls for society to take <a href="http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/1163258--hiding-toronto-hospital-ultrasound-results-to-prevent-sex-selection-is-pointless-and-possibly-racist?bn=1">a hands off attitude to female feticide</a>. <br /><p></p><blockquote><p>"Many GTA hospitals, particularly those in “ethnic” areas, the Star <a target="_blank" href="http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1162613--six-gta-hospitals-won-t-reveal-fetal-sex-during-ultrasound?bn=1">reported</a> Tuesday, won’t let their ultrasound staff tell pregnant women the sex of the fetus. One admitted it worries that women and their spouses (if any) might have the female fetus aborted in order to try again for a male.</p> <p>A recent study done by St. Michael’s Hospital researchers has shown that though the male/female ratio for the first child of immigrants born in India is normal Canadian stuff — 105 boys to 100 girls — the ratio for third children born to such women was 136 boys to 100 girls. This may mean something. This may mean something wildly other than what it seems.</p> It’s complicated."</blockquote>Complicated? Now, of course we understand that feminists can comprehend the political and logical implications of accepting even one restriction on the abortion license. Once it is admitted in principle that society at large has a compelling interest in protecting human life at the pre-birth stage, then who knows where the logic will lead from there. So, yes, we should read her article as a desperate bid to prop up an illogical position using a bad faith argument.<br /><br />But the sheer hypocrisy is breath-taking. And it is evident that she feels the pressure because she tries to deny the reality that is staring her right in the face by denying that it is what it is:<br /><blockquote>I don’t leap to judgment of any woman seeking an abortion. No one should. By deploring sex-selection — if that’s what this is and we don’t yet know that — we’re saying “this is a bad reason to have an abortion.”</blockquote>We don't know what it is? What planet is she living on? We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are dealing with families desiring boys rather than girls and we should be able to count on the so-called Feminists, of all people, to protest that attitude. But no, it is left to Evangelical Christians and Roman Catholics to defend women when the Feminists act like apologists for the oppressors and the woman-haters.<br /><br />Feminism has lost all the moral credibility it once had. A century ago, courageous women campaigned for the vote and admission to the professions and I bet they never in their wildest imaginations foresaw a time when, having attained the vote, women would use it to defend the killing of unborn children merely because they were women. <br /><br />Feminists are anti-women and anti-children. They are apologists for socialist tyranny and they don't deserve sympathy, support or respect. They are primary agents of the culture of death and they must be fought with all the strength that decent people can muster. <br /><br />And why, exactly, other than clever marketing techniques, are they called "Feminists"?Craig Carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10209954891388905090noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328993133397649838.post-34667808251204034072012-04-07T15:31:00.004-04:002012-04-07T16:07:56.397-04:00Puzzling Headlines<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">In the mood for a new, up-to-date Bible?</span></span><br /><br /> <span style="font-size:130%;"> <a href="http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/jimmy-carter-supports-same-sex-marriage-as-he-launches-his-new-bible">"Jimmy Carter supports same-sex ‘marriage’ as he launches his new Bible"</a><br /></span><br />No thanks, I'll keep my old one by God that does not support mockery of marriage.<br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">So, who exactly is God again? </span></span><br /><h2 style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size:100%;"> <a href="http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/catholic-actor-martin-sheen-the-church-is-not-god-on-gay-marriage-issue"> "Catholic actor Martin Sheen: ‘the Church is not God’ on gay ‘marriage’ issue"</a></span></h2>We knew it wasn't the Church, but we didn't think it was Martin Sheen. Or maybe he is just the guy who decides when the Church is right and when it is wrong. But we thought that was God . . .<br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><br style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">We admire Timothy Cardinal Dolan's honesty, but isn't it about 50 years late? </span></span><br /><h2 style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size:100%;"> <a href="http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/ny-cardinal-dolan-says-church-failed-to-teach-doctrine-on-contraception">"New York Cardinal Dolan says Church failed to teach against contraception."</a></span></h2>Not that we Protestants have anything to be proud of on this issue. We folded like a cheap suit when the world discovered that the pill allows you to play around without consequences . . . or so it was thought back in the 1960s.<br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><br style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Wait, isn't it the job of the Left to persecute Christians? </span></span><br /><br /> <a href="http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=15802#.T4BZzNXviSr"> "Betrayal of the Crucifix: As PM urges support of Christianity, his own Minister tells Europe Britons do not have right to wear cross at work</a><b><a href="http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=15802#.T4BZzNXviSr">"</a><br /><br /></b>David Cameron's "Conservative" Party is going to get in trouble with the Labour Party, which specializes in persecuting Christians. Now the Left and the "Right" is competing to see who can be most intolerant of Christianity. Only in Britain you say? Well, so far anyway.<b><br /></b><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" ><br />Does This Encapsulate Obama's Foreign Policy or What?</span><br /><h1 style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size:100%;"> <a href="http://blog.heritage.org/2012/04/06/white-house-hosts-egypts-muslim-brotherhood-as-rocket-hits-israel/">"White House Hosts Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood as Rocket Hits Israel"</a></span></h1>Say what you will about Obama; the guy has always had exquisite timing.Craig Carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10209954891388905090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5328993133397649838.post-39424687806296673082012-04-07T15:19:00.005-04:002012-04-07T15:26:43.437-04:00This is What They Mean By "Tolerance"See, you got to kick people out to be inclusive. . . especially religious types. <a href="http://blog.heritage.org/2012/04/05/vanderbilts-tolerance-policy-forces-christian-groups-off-campus/">See?</a><br /><p></p><blockquote><p>One of Vanderbilt University’s largest Christian student organizations has <a href="http://www.worldoncampus.com/2012/03/vanderbilt_catholic_refuses_to_sign_nondiscrimination_policy">announced</a> it will formally break ties with the Tennessee school, becoming the latest victim of the college’s intolerant policy on student club leadership.</p> <p>Vanderbilt Catholic <a href="http://www.vanderbiltcatholic.org/index.cfm?active=1">announced</a> last week that is it unable to comply with the school’s new nondiscrimination policy that prohibits student groups from maintaining belief or faith-based qualifications for leadership positions.</p> <p>“The Administration is forcing religious groups to open leadership positions to all students, regardless of whether or not they practice the religion or even know anything about it,” Father John Sims Baker, chaplain of the 500-member Catholic group, <a href="http://www.vanderbiltcatholic.org/index.cfm?load=page&page=277&message=New%20page%20has%20been%20successfully%20created.">explained</a>.</p> <p>Vanderbilt updated the school’s nondiscrimination policy at the beginning of March, applying what administrators call an “all-comers” policy to student groups. The policy <a href="http://www.vanderbilt.edu/student_handbook/university-policies-and-regulations#equal">states</a>: “Registered student organizations must be open to all students as members and must permit all members in good standing to seek leadership posts.”</p> <p>Vanderbilt Catholic’s leadership has <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/story/2012-04-01/vanderbilt-bias-catholic-group/53935512/1">explained</a> that the organization allows any student to become a member but requires those in leadership to share the group’s beliefs.</p> <p>Any student group wishing to remain affiliated with Vanderbilt during the next school year is <a href="http://www.vanderbilt.edu/studentorganizations/students-organizations-manual/registration-guidelines">required</a> to sign an agreement to abide by the new nondiscrimination policy and submit group bylaws that ensure inclusion of any student wishing to become a member or leader.</p> <p>In a letter to its members announcing that the group will move off campus for the next school year, Vanderbilt Catholic’s student board <a href="http://www.vanderbiltcatholic.org/index.cfm?load=page&page=276">wrote</a>:</p> <blockquote><p>After much reflection, discussion, and prayer, we have decided that Vanderbilt Catholic cannot in good conscience affirm that we comply with this policy.… We are a faith-based organization. A Catholic student organization led by someone who neither professes the Catholic faith nor strives to live it out would not be able to serve its members as an authentically Catholic organization. We cannot sign the affirmation form and remain [a registered student organization] because to do so would be to lie to the university and to ourselves about who we are as an organization.</p></blockquote> <p>Vanderbilt Catholic joins four other evangelical student groups who are unable to abide by the new policy in good conscience, relinquishing their official status with the school and losing the use of school facilities for meetings. The Christian Legal Society, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Beta Upsilon Chi, and Graduate Student Fellowship will also make plans <a href="http://www.worldoncampus.com/2012/03/vanderbilt_catholic_refuses_to_sign_nondiscrimination_policy">to leave campus.</a></p></blockquote><p><a href="http://www.worldoncampus.com/2012/03/vanderbilt_catholic_refuses_to_sign_nondiscrimination_policy"></a></p>It is not about homosexuality. That is just a handy club with which to beat Christians. It is anti-Christian intolerance pure and simple. They are secularists; what do they need freedom of religion for? Liberal Fascism is on the march! Don't you feel safer now?Craig Carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10209954891388905090noreply@blogger.com0