Gertrude Himmelfarb's interesting book, The Roads to Modernity: The British, French and American Enlightenments (Vintage Books, 2004) is a plea for expanding our concept of the Enlightenment in such as way as to emphasize the British "sociology of virtue" and the American "politics of liberty" and let them qualify the French "ideology of reason." (19) Her thesis is that we ought not to allow the atheism, anti-clericalism and revolutionary ardor of the Philosophes to define what the Enlightenment is. This is a learned and significant book which exhibits a rare command of modern, intellectual history. But in the end, I believe the thesis obscures more than it illumines.
Himmelfarb's treatment of Edmund Burke, for example, seems a bit forced. She rightly points out that Burke was not unthinking, unreasonable, or closed minded and seems to think that his committment to using reason qualifies him as a part of the Enlightenment. But this only makes sense if we place every reasoning, thoughtful person in the 17 and 18th centuries into one category under the banner of "Enlightenment." But that stretches the definition of "Enlightenment" so far that it becomes virtually meaningless. Admirers of Burkean conservatism, it seems to me, would be better off stressing the rationality of both the Counter-Enlightenment and also the Augustinian-Thomsitic tradition that the Enlightenment revolted against.
Wanting to expand the definition of Enlightenment also leads Himmelfarf to treat David Hume with kid gloves. His extreme nominalism is not mentioned, nor is his skepticism given due weight. He moved in a different social and political climate from the Philosophes, so his public utterances were more measured and less inflamatory and he was careful in what he published during his lifetime. But his philosophy is just as corrosive as anything written by Voltaire or Diderot.
The treatment of the Methodist movement is the most curious aspect of the book. John Wesley's intellect and "progressive" views on slavery and education for the poor are stressed and he is proposed as at least an honourary member of the Enlightenment. But there is simply no contradiction between viewing Wesley's movement as both humanistic and intellectually respectable precisely at the same time as it functions as part of the counter-Enlightenment and helps to serve as a bulwark against French atheism and violent overthrow of the social order. As Himmelfarb herself points out, the Philosophes were not involved in social reform or the relief of suffering, being too caught up in the intellectual adventure of attacking all tradition (and especially religion) in the name of reason. She missed an opportunity, in my opinion, to show that British society was more just, more philanthropic and more open precisely insofar as it resisted the Enlightenment as defined by French radicalism.
The treatment of the American Founders is interesting in that HImmelfarb demonstrates both the continuities with British thought and also the mixture of Christian and Deist convictions exhibited by the Founders. The major difference between France and the United States was that in the United States religion was seen as an ally of justice and liberty even by those who were not personally believing Christians, whereas in France it was seen as the source of all evil.
I appreciate Himmelfarb's concern not to allow Christianity to be portrayed as unintellectual or as unconcerned with social justice. Her attempt to re-define the center of the Enlightenment as an Anglo-American movement with a French deviation is a noble attempt to re-position the role of Chrisitanity in the modern world. And to a certain extent, I think she is successful.
An alternate strategy would be to defend tradition and conservativism against French radicalism (and the British and American thinkers who most sympathized with the French path such as Hobbes, Hume and Paine). It would be to present conservativism as the humanistic and rational alternative to radical atheism and the ideology of reason.
In order to decide between these two strategies, it seems to me that the key is to decide whether French radicalism and the committment to permanent revolution that grew out of it (as seen by Himmelfarb, for example, in Paine and Jefferson) is basically a force for good that, unfortunately, is encrusted with a lamentable anti-Christian coating or whether it is in fact anti-humanistic in essence. The work of Russell Kirk, Alasdair McIntyre, David Bentley Hart and John Milbank would seem to suggest (to me at any rate) that the French Revolution was the logical culmination of the thought of the Philosophes and therefore inherently anti-humanistic in itself. In that case, the French Enlightenment itself must be opposed by Christian humanism.
Part of the problem here is that even many Christian 18th century thinkers adopted the modern criticism of the Augustinian-Thomist tradition and so surrendered the intellectual basis for the morality and social theory they advocated so vigorously. But morality and politics cannot rest on the nominalist foundations of modernity for long. In the end, I think we need to be critical of 17-18th century Christian thinkers precisely to the extent that they qualify for membership in the Enlightenment because the essence of the Enlightenment is the denial of universals, formal and final causation and the resulting loss of teleology. A superficially Christian version of the Enlightenment is not an adequate basis for the future of Western civilization or a Church that wishes to maintain the Faith as Western civilization crumbles.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Monday, August 10, 2009
The Coming Islamic Take-Over of Europe
A story in the Daily Telegraph states that while Muslims currently make up 5% of the population of Europe, by 2050 they will make up 20%. Now, that doesn't sound so bad does it?
But Mark Steyn points out that the 20% figure actually means that Muslims likely will be in charge or close to is in key areas of Europe well before 2050. He says:
"The "European Union" is a fairly meaningless statistical concept including as it does places far off the Muslim-beaten path (Estonia). What counts are real jurisdictions — first, the major cities, which are already on the brink of majority Muslim status, from Malmo in Sweden to the EU capital Brussels; and, after the cities, individual nations. Critics of my thesis, most of whom don't seem to have read the book, like to obsess about the point at which Europe becomes 50.1 per cent Muslim: Steyn's full of hooey; it won't happen till 2100, or 2200, if ever. But as I say about 30 pages in, it is not necessary for Islam to become a statistical majority in order to function as one. At the height of its power a millennium and a quarter back, "the Islamic world" stretched from Spain to India, yet its population was only minority Muslim."
A committed minority with a sense of destiny has often, if not usually, ruled a more placid majority in most countries throughout human history - think of the British Empire. At least, most Muslims know what they believe and are committed to a cause bigger than themselves as individuals. Europeans are going to feel like John Kerry during the 2004 presidential campaign shouting to his aides: "I cannot believe I'm losing to that idiot!" Nevertheless, he lost. What Islam failed to accomplish by war in 732 and 1529, it may be on the verge of accomplishing by immigration.
Rod Dreher at the Crunchy Con, commenting on Steyn's point says:
"I don't think it's possible to argue credibly that it's not happening. What you can argue about is a) what's it's likely effect to be, and b) what, if anything, can be done to stop it? To say that it's not going to have any real effect on the law and public character of European nations is simply absurd. How could it not? The question is, are the likely effects something that Europeans are prepared to live with? And if not, what are they prepared to do about it?"
Dreher has no answers any more than anyone else. He closes with this sobering anecdote.
"I'm beginning to understand why a senior and well-respected British journalist once told me that he believed he would see a religious war in his native land before he dies. This is a politically moderate, even-tempered fellow; he was simply saying that he did not see how British society was going to go easily down this inevitable path. As my English correspondent quoted above indicates, the alienation of European intellectuals, cultural elites and educated middle-class persons from their ancestral religion and its traditions is only greasing the skids. To paraphrase T.S. Eliot, if you will not have the faith of your fathers, prepare to pay your respects to Islam or the British National Party."
But Mark Steyn points out that the 20% figure actually means that Muslims likely will be in charge or close to is in key areas of Europe well before 2050. He says:
"The "European Union" is a fairly meaningless statistical concept including as it does places far off the Muslim-beaten path (Estonia). What counts are real jurisdictions — first, the major cities, which are already on the brink of majority Muslim status, from Malmo in Sweden to the EU capital Brussels; and, after the cities, individual nations. Critics of my thesis, most of whom don't seem to have read the book, like to obsess about the point at which Europe becomes 50.1 per cent Muslim: Steyn's full of hooey; it won't happen till 2100, or 2200, if ever. But as I say about 30 pages in, it is not necessary for Islam to become a statistical majority in order to function as one. At the height of its power a millennium and a quarter back, "the Islamic world" stretched from Spain to India, yet its population was only minority Muslim."
A committed minority with a sense of destiny has often, if not usually, ruled a more placid majority in most countries throughout human history - think of the British Empire. At least, most Muslims know what they believe and are committed to a cause bigger than themselves as individuals. Europeans are going to feel like John Kerry during the 2004 presidential campaign shouting to his aides: "I cannot believe I'm losing to that idiot!" Nevertheless, he lost. What Islam failed to accomplish by war in 732 and 1529, it may be on the verge of accomplishing by immigration.
Rod Dreher at the Crunchy Con, commenting on Steyn's point says:
"I don't think it's possible to argue credibly that it's not happening. What you can argue about is a) what's it's likely effect to be, and b) what, if anything, can be done to stop it? To say that it's not going to have any real effect on the law and public character of European nations is simply absurd. How could it not? The question is, are the likely effects something that Europeans are prepared to live with? And if not, what are they prepared to do about it?"
Dreher has no answers any more than anyone else. He closes with this sobering anecdote.
"I'm beginning to understand why a senior and well-respected British journalist once told me that he believed he would see a religious war in his native land before he dies. This is a politically moderate, even-tempered fellow; he was simply saying that he did not see how British society was going to go easily down this inevitable path. As my English correspondent quoted above indicates, the alienation of European intellectuals, cultural elites and educated middle-class persons from their ancestral religion and its traditions is only greasing the skids. To paraphrase T.S. Eliot, if you will not have the faith of your fathers, prepare to pay your respects to Islam or the British National Party."
Perhaps when, 40 years ago, Europe began to abort half of its babies in the name of "freedom" for women (consisting chiefly of "freedom" to enter the full-time labour force instead of raising a family) and using contraception to limit family size to two, one or zero children, they thought "What could possibly go wrong?" And when forced to bring in ever-increasing numbers of foreign workers to keep the economy going, they thought "What could possibly go wrong?" Now, they contemplate the end of Christian Europe and they still cannot imagine doing anything different.
In the name of Enlightenment, equality, progress and modernity they are creating a situation in which their granddaughters will be forced to wear the burka. A society that refuses to reproduce itself has no future. An ironic end to the West indeed.
Same-sex "Marriage" and Polyamorous "Marriage"
In an earlier post, I taked about the Newsweek article on polyamory. I believe that those who are for same-sex "marriage" today will be in favor of polyamory tomorrow, even if they don't know it yet. Why? Because there are no cogent arguments in favor of SSM that don't also justify legalizing polyamorous "marriage" (hereafter PM and SSM).
Here is a thesis for debate:
This is what I think. But I'd like to hear arguments on the other side. If you want to take a crack at proving the above proposition false, all you have to do is e-mail me your argument (500-1000 words) and if it is any good at all I'll make it a guest post. [ccarter@tyndale.ca] Then I'll reply to it and give you a chance to reply to my reply. (Since it is my blog, inevitably I'll get the last word!)
One rule: you can't dismiss my thesis with a reference to "slippery slopes." That is a red herring. My contention is not that being for SSM leads to being in favor of PM, it is rather that anyone in favor of legalizing SSM is already in favor of legalizing PM whether he or she realizes it or not. There is no slope. To be in favor of one is already to have adopted the necessary arguments for justifying the other. If you are in favor of SSM, you already believe in PM, even if you have not thought your way through to your conclusion. In order to avoid supporting PM, you would need to change your arguments for SSM.
Is anyone up for it? Any takers? Keep it clean, as they say on the sports pages blogs, and we can have a real debate.
Here is a thesis for debate:
"You can't justify legalizing SSM and not legalizing PM."
This is what I think. But I'd like to hear arguments on the other side. If you want to take a crack at proving the above proposition false, all you have to do is e-mail me your argument (500-1000 words) and if it is any good at all I'll make it a guest post. [ccarter@tyndale.ca] Then I'll reply to it and give you a chance to reply to my reply. (Since it is my blog, inevitably I'll get the last word!)
One rule: you can't dismiss my thesis with a reference to "slippery slopes." That is a red herring. My contention is not that being for SSM leads to being in favor of PM, it is rather that anyone in favor of legalizing SSM is already in favor of legalizing PM whether he or she realizes it or not. There is no slope. To be in favor of one is already to have adopted the necessary arguments for justifying the other. If you are in favor of SSM, you already believe in PM, even if you have not thought your way through to your conclusion. In order to avoid supporting PM, you would need to change your arguments for SSM.
Is anyone up for it? Any takers? Keep it clean, as they say on the sports pages blogs, and we can have a real debate.
Why I No Longer Use Gender Neutral Language
English professor, Louis Markos, has an article on this subject on his website and I've borrowed his title for this post. His article begins as follows:
"It has now been nearly a decade since the news leaked out that the foremost Evangelical translation of the Bible (the New International Version) was planning an updated, American version that would conform itself to the “rules” of gender-neutral language. The resulting grass-roots resistance movement thankfully (if temporarily) nipped that project in the bud, but it has proven powerless to stop the slow but persistent encroachment of the gender-neutral agenda. Most of the Bible translations that have been released over the last 15 years (from the New Revised Standard Version to the Contemporary English Version to the New Living Translation) have carefully and systematically eliminated “sexist” language from the pages of God’s Word. Simultaneous with this revamping of the Holy Scriptures, the mainline Protestant denominations have so retranslated and/or reworked their hymnals, prayer books, and creeds as to remove every trace of “gender-specific” language from the Sunday service. And they have been quite thorough in their gender-neutral overhaul. Where once the believer boldly proclaimed his belief that Jesus Christ “. . . for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became man,” he now is expected (well, forced) to proclaim that “for us and for our salvation . . . [Christ] . . . became human.” With astonishing speed and success, most liberal mainline denominations have constructed for their parishioners (whether they wanted it or not) a space that, if not particularly sacred, is at least blissfully free from all that “sexist” and “insensitive” language of the past: by which is meant the language of Homer, Plato, Virgil, Augustine, Dante, Chaucer, Luther, Shakespeare, Milton, and the Bible.
Meanwhile, in schools, colleges, and, yes, churches all over the country, students and parishioners have been indoctrinated into using gender-neutral language by professors, school teachers, pastors, and administrators alike. Often the “rules” are not formally taught; they are just taken for granted. Just as the basic tenets of Freudianism have been absorbed by millions of people who have never read Freud and may in fact be strongly opposed to his teachings and his worldview, so the “rules” of gender-neutral language have so assimilated their way into society as to be almost invisible. The champions of gender-neutral language have been remarkably successful at disseminating their agenda throughout almost every strata of society. Scan through almost any academic journal (including faith-based ones) and you will find nary a word or phrase that deviates from “non-sexist” language usage. More disturbing, flip through almost any textbook (K-12) used in the public school system, and you will find exactly the same total surrender to an agenda that was initiated by the radical feminists but which found its way (as homosexual marriage is slowly doing) into the mainstream.
Worse yet, over the last five years, the almost total capitulation to gender-neutral language on the part of liberal mainline pastors and theologians has spread into the evangelical world. Thus, while many of our finest evangelical writers (I will not “name names”) bend, and at times distort, their prose to accommodate gender-neutral usage, a number of our best evangelical magazines move closer, with each issue, toward the total elimination of gender-specific language. Of course, not all segments of society have so capitulated. The great American heartland (including many who sit in mainline pews) has not fully embraced it; neither has most of the media (including and especially Hollywood) nor most of those great writers (like Thomas Cahill) and periodicals (like Touchstone and The New York Review of Books) that truly care about style. Still, the gender-neutral agenda has been quite pervasive in its penetration."
So what does Markos think of this trend? He is against it. He sees it as an example of accommodation to the spirit of the age.
"When the leaders of the mainline denominations decided, early in the 20th century, that they would become more relevant and exert more societal influence if they liberalized their doctrinal beliefs and practices, they really believed that the “people” were hungry for such liberalization and would accept it as more “natural” than the teachings of traditional orthodoxy. They proved, of course, to be dead wrong in their predictions of what the people really yearned for and of what they considered “natural” and “proper.” In seeking to be relevant, they became profoundly irrelevant; in seeking to accommodate the gospel to the culture, they lost the gospel without winning the culture. It is my contention (and my fear) that the widespread use of gender-neutral language in the church represents another form of accommodationism."
In the rest of the essay, he goes on to explain what he sees as the problem with gender-neutral language. He argument, (which I encourage you to read for yourself), can be summarized as follows:
1. When Paul says: ""if anyone be in Christ, he is a new creation," everyone knows that he means all people, not just men. To suggest that the problem is one of communication - as if one cannot communicate clearly using the masculine pronoun for all humankind - is spurious.
2. The tremendous pressure exerted on writers of all sorts - including university professors, teachers, government bureaucrates etc. - amounts to censorship. The language can and does evolve naturally in response to felt needs. Yet, despite two decades of censorship, gender-neutral language does not "feel more natural" to most people. I notice this in my students' papers all the time - equally so in men and women, I might add. But this is different; it is a form of social engineering being imposed on society by an activist, minority, radical group.
3. Gender neutral language can be vague and ugly and often is both at once. Markos quotes this paragraph from the Preface to the Contemporary English Version:
"In everyday speech, “gender generic” or “inclusive” language is used, because it sounds most natural to people today. This means that where the biblical languages require [an important concession that!] masculine nouns or pronouns when both men and women are intended, this intention must be reflected in translation, though the English form may be very different from that of the original. The Greek text of “Matthew 16:24 is literally, “If anyone wants to follow me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” The Contemporary English Version shifts to a form which is still accurate and at the same time more effective in English: “If any of you want to be my followers, you must forget about yourself. You must take up your cross and follow me.”"
I find the translation "If any of you want to be my followers, you must forget about yourself." to be a disaster from a communication standpoint, from a theological standpoint and from an aestethic standpoint. This is Scripture. There are severe warnings against making God's Word obscure. First, I can't read this obvious confusion of singular and plural and simultaneously pay attention to the meaning: "any of you" - "followers" - "yourself." Shouldn't it be "yourselves"? As communication it fails because the ideological imposition on the text gets in the way of the natural meaning. Second, Jesus spoke in the singular. His challenge was addressed to individuals, but this is obscured (denied?) in the new translation. "If anyone" speaks directly to me as an individual. To say "followers" puts the emphasis on the group. Maybe in one text this will make no difference but in the next text make a crucial difference. But Scripture cannot be put in this ideological straightjacket. Third, if you think aesthetics is all subjective, try this test. Which translation is easier to memorize? Which is more memorable? The CEV is downright ugly and forgettable next to the more traditional (and accurate) translation.
4. This re-writing of the great literature of the past results in the destruction of our literary heritage. As Markos writes:
"For heaven’s sake! Would anyone in academia dare to “translate” the poetry of Shakespeare or Milton in such a way as to eliminate all uses of the word man/mankind? Yet that is exactly what has been done to the poetic verses of David’s Psalms and Wesley’s hymns.
Speaking for myself, I wouldn't be too sure that the inclusive language project won't eventually be extended to Milton and Shakespeare. Or maybe these writers will just no longer be read.
5. Another argument he makes is that to impose such revisionism on the biblical writers in something as fundamental as the language they used to communicate will lead to a pattern of patronising them generally. He writes:
"But there is another reason to take pause before we convince ourselves that a modern-day Paul would have cheered the CEV or the NRSV or the new and emasculated hymnal. To make such a claim is not only to impose our own very contemporary values on Paul; it is to set a dangerous if not lethal precedent. It is to suggest that the language and culture of the Biblical writers are not a sufficient vessel for carrying the Word of God. I do not exaggerate when I say that, if we accept the reasoning that says a modern Paul would have used gender-neutral language, it will not be long before we assert (as many already have) that if Jesus could have been transported to the 21st century and met a loving homosexual couple face-to-face, he would have given his blessing to their marriage."
6. Markos disagrees with the underlying ideology that drives the inclusive language movement. distinguishes between a true and a false notion of equality. On the one hand, he is for equality defined as follows:
"If you mean by equality the equal dignity and inherent worth of every human being; if you mean the freedom from oppression and the liberty to worship as you please; if you mean, further, equal pay for equal work and equal educational and employment options without regard to race, creed, or gender: then, yes, America is all about equality. Indeed, it must be admitted, some of the early crusading feminists helped bring about much-needed reforms that extended the blessings of equality to countless women."
On the other hand, he disagrees with what he calls "egalitarianism."
"Unfortunately, when the proponents of gender-neutral language (and their multiculturalist allies in the public schools) talk about equality, they mean not equal dignity or pay or opportunity, but egalitarianism: the belief that everyone is the same and should be treated the same. The tenets of egalitarianism hold that the differences we see between the sexes and between people in general are not innate, essential, or God-given, but social constructs. The goal of egalitarianism is not unity in diversity or the celebration of inherent worth but a bland, universal sameness: the creation of a lowest-common-denominator world devoid of all difference and uniqueness."
I think Markos is right on the money here. True equality requires treating men and women differently, precisely because men and women are not the same in all respects. To the extent that women have uniquely feminine needs, they must not be treated as men if we are to have equality. And this is just what second wave feminism (since the 1960's) seeks to do. The problem is that the inclusive language movement is based in an egalitarian ideology that is false in certain crucial respects.
Language is powerful and important because it shapes the way we think. Secular Feminists and Christians agree on that point. And this is precisely why Christians cannot allow a secular form of egalitarianism to determine the way Christians think and read Scripture.
"It has now been nearly a decade since the news leaked out that the foremost Evangelical translation of the Bible (the New International Version) was planning an updated, American version that would conform itself to the “rules” of gender-neutral language. The resulting grass-roots resistance movement thankfully (if temporarily) nipped that project in the bud, but it has proven powerless to stop the slow but persistent encroachment of the gender-neutral agenda. Most of the Bible translations that have been released over the last 15 years (from the New Revised Standard Version to the Contemporary English Version to the New Living Translation) have carefully and systematically eliminated “sexist” language from the pages of God’s Word. Simultaneous with this revamping of the Holy Scriptures, the mainline Protestant denominations have so retranslated and/or reworked their hymnals, prayer books, and creeds as to remove every trace of “gender-specific” language from the Sunday service. And they have been quite thorough in their gender-neutral overhaul. Where once the believer boldly proclaimed his belief that Jesus Christ “. . . for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became man,” he now is expected (well, forced) to proclaim that “for us and for our salvation . . . [Christ] . . . became human.” With astonishing speed and success, most liberal mainline denominations have constructed for their parishioners (whether they wanted it or not) a space that, if not particularly sacred, is at least blissfully free from all that “sexist” and “insensitive” language of the past: by which is meant the language of Homer, Plato, Virgil, Augustine, Dante, Chaucer, Luther, Shakespeare, Milton, and the Bible.
Meanwhile, in schools, colleges, and, yes, churches all over the country, students and parishioners have been indoctrinated into using gender-neutral language by professors, school teachers, pastors, and administrators alike. Often the “rules” are not formally taught; they are just taken for granted. Just as the basic tenets of Freudianism have been absorbed by millions of people who have never read Freud and may in fact be strongly opposed to his teachings and his worldview, so the “rules” of gender-neutral language have so assimilated their way into society as to be almost invisible. The champions of gender-neutral language have been remarkably successful at disseminating their agenda throughout almost every strata of society. Scan through almost any academic journal (including faith-based ones) and you will find nary a word or phrase that deviates from “non-sexist” language usage. More disturbing, flip through almost any textbook (K-12) used in the public school system, and you will find exactly the same total surrender to an agenda that was initiated by the radical feminists but which found its way (as homosexual marriage is slowly doing) into the mainstream.
Worse yet, over the last five years, the almost total capitulation to gender-neutral language on the part of liberal mainline pastors and theologians has spread into the evangelical world. Thus, while many of our finest evangelical writers (I will not “name names”) bend, and at times distort, their prose to accommodate gender-neutral usage, a number of our best evangelical magazines move closer, with each issue, toward the total elimination of gender-specific language. Of course, not all segments of society have so capitulated. The great American heartland (including many who sit in mainline pews) has not fully embraced it; neither has most of the media (including and especially Hollywood) nor most of those great writers (like Thomas Cahill) and periodicals (like Touchstone and The New York Review of Books) that truly care about style. Still, the gender-neutral agenda has been quite pervasive in its penetration."
So what does Markos think of this trend? He is against it. He sees it as an example of accommodation to the spirit of the age.
"When the leaders of the mainline denominations decided, early in the 20th century, that they would become more relevant and exert more societal influence if they liberalized their doctrinal beliefs and practices, they really believed that the “people” were hungry for such liberalization and would accept it as more “natural” than the teachings of traditional orthodoxy. They proved, of course, to be dead wrong in their predictions of what the people really yearned for and of what they considered “natural” and “proper.” In seeking to be relevant, they became profoundly irrelevant; in seeking to accommodate the gospel to the culture, they lost the gospel without winning the culture. It is my contention (and my fear) that the widespread use of gender-neutral language in the church represents another form of accommodationism."
In the rest of the essay, he goes on to explain what he sees as the problem with gender-neutral language. He argument, (which I encourage you to read for yourself), can be summarized as follows:
1. When Paul says: ""if anyone be in Christ, he is a new creation," everyone knows that he means all people, not just men. To suggest that the problem is one of communication - as if one cannot communicate clearly using the masculine pronoun for all humankind - is spurious.
2. The tremendous pressure exerted on writers of all sorts - including university professors, teachers, government bureaucrates etc. - amounts to censorship. The language can and does evolve naturally in response to felt needs. Yet, despite two decades of censorship, gender-neutral language does not "feel more natural" to most people. I notice this in my students' papers all the time - equally so in men and women, I might add. But this is different; it is a form of social engineering being imposed on society by an activist, minority, radical group.
3. Gender neutral language can be vague and ugly and often is both at once. Markos quotes this paragraph from the Preface to the Contemporary English Version:
"In everyday speech, “gender generic” or “inclusive” language is used, because it sounds most natural to people today. This means that where the biblical languages require [an important concession that!] masculine nouns or pronouns when both men and women are intended, this intention must be reflected in translation, though the English form may be very different from that of the original. The Greek text of “Matthew 16:24 is literally, “If anyone wants to follow me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” The Contemporary English Version shifts to a form which is still accurate and at the same time more effective in English: “If any of you want to be my followers, you must forget about yourself. You must take up your cross and follow me.”"
I find the translation "If any of you want to be my followers, you must forget about yourself." to be a disaster from a communication standpoint, from a theological standpoint and from an aestethic standpoint. This is Scripture. There are severe warnings against making God's Word obscure. First, I can't read this obvious confusion of singular and plural and simultaneously pay attention to the meaning: "any of you" - "followers" - "yourself." Shouldn't it be "yourselves"? As communication it fails because the ideological imposition on the text gets in the way of the natural meaning. Second, Jesus spoke in the singular. His challenge was addressed to individuals, but this is obscured (denied?) in the new translation. "If anyone" speaks directly to me as an individual. To say "followers" puts the emphasis on the group. Maybe in one text this will make no difference but in the next text make a crucial difference. But Scripture cannot be put in this ideological straightjacket. Third, if you think aesthetics is all subjective, try this test. Which translation is easier to memorize? Which is more memorable? The CEV is downright ugly and forgettable next to the more traditional (and accurate) translation.
4. This re-writing of the great literature of the past results in the destruction of our literary heritage. As Markos writes:
"For heaven’s sake! Would anyone in academia dare to “translate” the poetry of Shakespeare or Milton in such a way as to eliminate all uses of the word man/mankind? Yet that is exactly what has been done to the poetic verses of David’s Psalms and Wesley’s hymns.
Speaking for myself, I wouldn't be too sure that the inclusive language project won't eventually be extended to Milton and Shakespeare. Or maybe these writers will just no longer be read.
5. Another argument he makes is that to impose such revisionism on the biblical writers in something as fundamental as the language they used to communicate will lead to a pattern of patronising them generally. He writes:
"But there is another reason to take pause before we convince ourselves that a modern-day Paul would have cheered the CEV or the NRSV or the new and emasculated hymnal. To make such a claim is not only to impose our own very contemporary values on Paul; it is to set a dangerous if not lethal precedent. It is to suggest that the language and culture of the Biblical writers are not a sufficient vessel for carrying the Word of God. I do not exaggerate when I say that, if we accept the reasoning that says a modern Paul would have used gender-neutral language, it will not be long before we assert (as many already have) that if Jesus could have been transported to the 21st century and met a loving homosexual couple face-to-face, he would have given his blessing to their marriage."
6. Markos disagrees with the underlying ideology that drives the inclusive language movement. distinguishes between a true and a false notion of equality. On the one hand, he is for equality defined as follows:
"If you mean by equality the equal dignity and inherent worth of every human being; if you mean the freedom from oppression and the liberty to worship as you please; if you mean, further, equal pay for equal work and equal educational and employment options without regard to race, creed, or gender: then, yes, America is all about equality. Indeed, it must be admitted, some of the early crusading feminists helped bring about much-needed reforms that extended the blessings of equality to countless women."
On the other hand, he disagrees with what he calls "egalitarianism."
"Unfortunately, when the proponents of gender-neutral language (and their multiculturalist allies in the public schools) talk about equality, they mean not equal dignity or pay or opportunity, but egalitarianism: the belief that everyone is the same and should be treated the same. The tenets of egalitarianism hold that the differences we see between the sexes and between people in general are not innate, essential, or God-given, but social constructs. The goal of egalitarianism is not unity in diversity or the celebration of inherent worth but a bland, universal sameness: the creation of a lowest-common-denominator world devoid of all difference and uniqueness."
I think Markos is right on the money here. True equality requires treating men and women differently, precisely because men and women are not the same in all respects. To the extent that women have uniquely feminine needs, they must not be treated as men if we are to have equality. And this is just what second wave feminism (since the 1960's) seeks to do. The problem is that the inclusive language movement is based in an egalitarian ideology that is false in certain crucial respects.
Language is powerful and important because it shapes the way we think. Secular Feminists and Christians agree on that point. And this is precisely why Christians cannot allow a secular form of egalitarianism to determine the way Christians think and read Scripture.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Loving the Sinner and Hating the Sin
Christians are supposed to love the sinner and hate the sin.
But to many of our contemporaries this sounds like a concession to weakness. They consider hate itself to be wrong and evil. If we had a perfect moral character we would be completely free of hate. The passion of hatred itself is in itself evil and to be struggled against and, if possible, overcome completely. Hate is bad; thus we have "hate speech" and "hate crimes." An action that it bad in itself becomes even worse if it is motivated by hate. The passion of hatred is the basic problem.
But what if loving the sinner requires hating the sin? Is not the Christian calling to love what God loves and hate what God hates? The prophet Amos urges: "Hate evil, love good. Maintain justice in the courts" and the Apostle Paul echos the thought in Rom. 12:9 when he says: "Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good." To fail to hate the sin may be to fail to love the sinner because not to hate the injustice perpetrated against the person (or by the person) is to fail to love the person.
Liberal society is based on a weak form of tolerance, rather than on love. We are urged to tolerate one another. Thus Christians who speak out against abortion, same-sex "marriage" or assisted suicide are condemned as "hateful." But it would appear that what is wanted by those committed to contemporary liberalism is not love, but simply an absence of hatred that is indistinguishable from indifference.
Should we be indifferent to our fellow men? Should we, as Christians view the very passion of hatred itself as the problem because it leads to involvement, advocacy and pleading with others to refrain from doing evil? Our conundrum is that if we cultivate indifference, we short circut love. Should the Church accept direction from contemporary society at this point and refuse to love or to hate in the name of a tolerant indifference to the sin around us?
It would seem that we can err equally in two ways; either by failing to love actively (and thus becoming indifferent to the plight of those in need) or by failing to hate sin passionately (and thus becoming indifferent to the plight of those in need).
Our contemporaries would tell us that hating the sin is the last remnant of a judgmental, non-loving attitude and that, even though it is not as bad as hating the sinner, it also should be abandoned if we will to achieve liberal perfection. But our goal as Christians cannot be a state of total indifference to sin. Our goal is to love sinners as Jesus Christ has loved sinners. And to do that we must hate the sin every bit as much as we love the sinner.
But to many of our contemporaries this sounds like a concession to weakness. They consider hate itself to be wrong and evil. If we had a perfect moral character we would be completely free of hate. The passion of hatred itself is in itself evil and to be struggled against and, if possible, overcome completely. Hate is bad; thus we have "hate speech" and "hate crimes." An action that it bad in itself becomes even worse if it is motivated by hate. The passion of hatred is the basic problem.
But what if loving the sinner requires hating the sin? Is not the Christian calling to love what God loves and hate what God hates? The prophet Amos urges: "Hate evil, love good. Maintain justice in the courts" and the Apostle Paul echos the thought in Rom. 12:9 when he says: "Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good." To fail to hate the sin may be to fail to love the sinner because not to hate the injustice perpetrated against the person (or by the person) is to fail to love the person.
Liberal society is based on a weak form of tolerance, rather than on love. We are urged to tolerate one another. Thus Christians who speak out against abortion, same-sex "marriage" or assisted suicide are condemned as "hateful." But it would appear that what is wanted by those committed to contemporary liberalism is not love, but simply an absence of hatred that is indistinguishable from indifference.
Should we be indifferent to our fellow men? Should we, as Christians view the very passion of hatred itself as the problem because it leads to involvement, advocacy and pleading with others to refrain from doing evil? Our conundrum is that if we cultivate indifference, we short circut love. Should the Church accept direction from contemporary society at this point and refuse to love or to hate in the name of a tolerant indifference to the sin around us?
It would seem that we can err equally in two ways; either by failing to love actively (and thus becoming indifferent to the plight of those in need) or by failing to hate sin passionately (and thus becoming indifferent to the plight of those in need).
Our contemporaries would tell us that hating the sin is the last remnant of a judgmental, non-loving attitude and that, even though it is not as bad as hating the sinner, it also should be abandoned if we will to achieve liberal perfection. But our goal as Christians cannot be a state of total indifference to sin. Our goal is to love sinners as Jesus Christ has loved sinners. And to do that we must hate the sin every bit as much as we love the sinner.
Friday, August 7, 2009
The Case for Early Marriage
The cover story for Christianity Today (Aug. 2009) is "The Case for Early Marriage" and features a story by Dr. Mark Regnerus, a sociology professor at the University of Texas, Austin. He is the author of Forbidden Fruit: Sex and Religion in the Lives of Amderican Teenagers (Oxford, 2007), which sounds good and which I have ordered from Amazon as a result of reading this story.
Regnerus argues that one of the basic reasons for rise of extra-marital sex in modern culture is the biologically ridiculous gap between puberty and age of marrying in modern culture. Age of first marriages has risen in America from 21 for women and 23 for men in 1970 to 26 for women and 28 for men today. Puberty takes place earlier than it did in pre-modern societies due to better nutrition etc. and therefore a gap of over a decade exists between when humans come to sexual maturity and the age at which most marry. Marriage actually occurs at the precise moment a women's fertility starts a slow decline (late 20's). This is a recipe for moral failure. We are fighting the healthy reproductive urge most people have and Regnerus' studies show that we are losing that fight as far as overall statistics are concerned. It is also a recipe for an epidemic of infertility problems, which we are currently experiencing.
But Regnerus is not calling for Christians to throw in the towell and join the culture in embracing casual, pre-marital as the norm. He has a different solution. Encourage earlier marriage. The statistics for teen marriages are not encouraging because they have a higher failure rate, but if you eliminate teen marriages from the picture earlier marriages (i.e. in the early 20's) have no more chance of failure than later ones.
Delaying marriage unnaturally (to the late 20's) not only has the effect of encouraging pre-marital sex, it also cuts down on fertility. The casual sex people have in their teens and 20's often leads to sexually transmitted diseases which can impair fertility. And fertility declines starting in the late 20's and accelerating after the late 30's. So many people put off marriage off and the decision to try for a baby (or several babies) until it is too late.
Surely, Regnerus is correct in discerning that the best way to approach this problem is to work with, not against, nature and re-structure social expectations so that society bends to accommodate nature. For Christians this may have several implications.
1. Parents may have to help young married couples financially in the first few years, especially if education must be completed.
2. Churches should be ready to help young couples practically with showers, counselling, mentoring, etc. Marriage is a good thing.
3. We all need to resist the materialism that lures us to put consumerism ahead of human relationships and family.
Nobody is saying it is going to be easy and this article does not have all the answers. But surely this basic insight - encouraging earlier marriages - is part of the overall solution.
In response to the article, Read Mercer Schuchardt, professor of media ecology at Wheaton College has some trenchent things to say in support of the general thesis. I want to quote him extensively because he says some things so well that need saying:
"Imagine a species that, for the first 5,600 years of recoreded history, arranged its cultures so that when youth began to grow the bumps and curves that signaled biological adulthood, the culture said, "You are an adult now," and welcomed them to adulthood's responsibilities and freedoms. . . . Now imagine that species enlightenened by the blessings of the Industrial Revolution. Advances in media and technology made a way to achieve longer life spans, lower infant mortality rates, and 2,300 square-foot homes with more TV's than children. With biology the mother of neither necessity nor economic life, it soon lost its role in religious and political life as well.
Born into this vast technopoly, today's child understands her world primarily through mass media. Thanks to media's total-disclosure nature, she will be a world-weary 72 year old by the time she reaches 12, but she won't have the maturity of a medieval 12 year old until about age 36. Ages 12 to 22 will be spent in mandatory survival training called higher education. Regardless of her primary course of study, her secondary course, undertaken when she is biologically fittest and physically strongest to raise children, will be the ironic but ironclad dogma that she must never consider having a child until she is economically, psychologically, and spiritually a fully realized autonomous self. If, after a decade of ingesting this dogma, she still has the desire to become a mother, she can only have at most two children.
If life's most meaningful work for couples is raising children, then it's a cynical system that requires the false choice between having children young, when a large family is physically possible but financially hard, or waiting until they can afford a large family, when fertility has dropped. Technology, it turns out, is a harsher taskmaster than biology, offering a world where the best form of birth control is economics, the best predictor of income is education, and the best deterrent to having children is guilt over failing to give them the very best a consumer society offers.
Meanwhile, the ocean of sorrow continues to fill with the tears of those who are childless or heartbroken by the lie that tells a woman she is free to be anything she wants, so long as she is a man about it."
Regnerus argues that one of the basic reasons for rise of extra-marital sex in modern culture is the biologically ridiculous gap between puberty and age of marrying in modern culture. Age of first marriages has risen in America from 21 for women and 23 for men in 1970 to 26 for women and 28 for men today. Puberty takes place earlier than it did in pre-modern societies due to better nutrition etc. and therefore a gap of over a decade exists between when humans come to sexual maturity and the age at which most marry. Marriage actually occurs at the precise moment a women's fertility starts a slow decline (late 20's). This is a recipe for moral failure. We are fighting the healthy reproductive urge most people have and Regnerus' studies show that we are losing that fight as far as overall statistics are concerned. It is also a recipe for an epidemic of infertility problems, which we are currently experiencing.
But Regnerus is not calling for Christians to throw in the towell and join the culture in embracing casual, pre-marital as the norm. He has a different solution. Encourage earlier marriage. The statistics for teen marriages are not encouraging because they have a higher failure rate, but if you eliminate teen marriages from the picture earlier marriages (i.e. in the early 20's) have no more chance of failure than later ones.
Delaying marriage unnaturally (to the late 20's) not only has the effect of encouraging pre-marital sex, it also cuts down on fertility. The casual sex people have in their teens and 20's often leads to sexually transmitted diseases which can impair fertility. And fertility declines starting in the late 20's and accelerating after the late 30's. So many people put off marriage off and the decision to try for a baby (or several babies) until it is too late.
Surely, Regnerus is correct in discerning that the best way to approach this problem is to work with, not against, nature and re-structure social expectations so that society bends to accommodate nature. For Christians this may have several implications.
1. Parents may have to help young married couples financially in the first few years, especially if education must be completed.
2. Churches should be ready to help young couples practically with showers, counselling, mentoring, etc. Marriage is a good thing.
3. We all need to resist the materialism that lures us to put consumerism ahead of human relationships and family.
Nobody is saying it is going to be easy and this article does not have all the answers. But surely this basic insight - encouraging earlier marriages - is part of the overall solution.
In response to the article, Read Mercer Schuchardt, professor of media ecology at Wheaton College has some trenchent things to say in support of the general thesis. I want to quote him extensively because he says some things so well that need saying:
"Imagine a species that, for the first 5,600 years of recoreded history, arranged its cultures so that when youth began to grow the bumps and curves that signaled biological adulthood, the culture said, "You are an adult now," and welcomed them to adulthood's responsibilities and freedoms. . . . Now imagine that species enlightenened by the blessings of the Industrial Revolution. Advances in media and technology made a way to achieve longer life spans, lower infant mortality rates, and 2,300 square-foot homes with more TV's than children. With biology the mother of neither necessity nor economic life, it soon lost its role in religious and political life as well.
Born into this vast technopoly, today's child understands her world primarily through mass media. Thanks to media's total-disclosure nature, she will be a world-weary 72 year old by the time she reaches 12, but she won't have the maturity of a medieval 12 year old until about age 36. Ages 12 to 22 will be spent in mandatory survival training called higher education. Regardless of her primary course of study, her secondary course, undertaken when she is biologically fittest and physically strongest to raise children, will be the ironic but ironclad dogma that she must never consider having a child until she is economically, psychologically, and spiritually a fully realized autonomous self. If, after a decade of ingesting this dogma, she still has the desire to become a mother, she can only have at most two children.
If life's most meaningful work for couples is raising children, then it's a cynical system that requires the false choice between having children young, when a large family is physically possible but financially hard, or waiting until they can afford a large family, when fertility has dropped. Technology, it turns out, is a harsher taskmaster than biology, offering a world where the best form of birth control is economics, the best predictor of income is education, and the best deterrent to having children is guilt over failing to give them the very best a consumer society offers.
Meanwhile, the ocean of sorrow continues to fill with the tears of those who are childless or heartbroken by the lie that tells a woman she is free to be anything she wants, so long as she is a man about it."
Do We Need More Dialogue on Homosexuality?
A few days ago, in my post "What Has Rowan Williams Done?" I questioned the wisdom of endless "dialogue" over the homosexuality issue and ended by criticizing the position that a Church can include within it both those holding traditional Christiain sexual morality and also the modern revisionists who advocate the normalization of homosexuality. Because of the lack of clarity in what the Covenant process actually means for those in the "second tier" or "track" I closed with this paragraph:
If he literally means what he says here, then he is basically advocating the liberal position. The liberals want "diversity" during the interim period between when their revisionism is first accepted and the point where they acquire hegemony and can impose their agenda on everyone. It is difficult to conceive of a Covenant structure where any meaningful discipline has been imposed on TEC if all that is implied by signing or not signing the Covenant is "two styles of being Anglican."
A reader (David) commented as follows:
I recently read William's book on Dostoevsky, and it would probably be helpful to know that for him the inability to continue being open to dialogue is a mark of evil. He writes [p. 113]: 'if the Devil's aim is silence, God's is speech, the dialogic speech by which we shape each other.'
That doesn't excuse him, but it might go some way to explaining that what looks like an extremely high view of unity is in actual fact an even higher view of keeping dialogue permanently open, whatever the risk. [p. 132] ‘If we speak what we believe to be the truth - especially truth about ourselves - we must not be surprised if it is misheard or consciously distorted.
To enter into conversation is always to be in this sense at risk.’ Of course, you're right that doctrinal integrity is more important than unity though. I don't envy him at all!
David raises some interesting issues with regard to unity, dialogue and truth. On p. 113, Williams is discussing a Bakhtinian reading of Dostoevesky's understanding of truth. The sentence quoted represents Bakhtin's understanding of how D. views the role language in helping us attain truth. There are two ways of understanding and appropriating Bakhtin's theories.
1. On the one hand, we can take the approach of the legion of literary critics who, intoxicated by the postmodern relativism that we imbibe with the water these days, understand Bakhtin's observations of the polyphonic rather than monologic nature of Dostoevesky's novels as the denial of any authoritative authorial voice and even the legitimate possibility of such a voice. This is why Williams says: "So for D. in Bakhtin's reading, narrative is argument and argument is narrative." (113) Williams notes that Bakhtin labels as an "ideological approach" any suggestion that "separate thoughts, assertions, propositions that can by themselves be true or untrue, depending on their relationship to the subject and independent of the carrier to whom they belong." (112) Now, there is a trivial sense in which no proposition can be interpreted accurately in idolation; it is always the case that a proposition has to be understood in context. This is the first thing seminary students are taught about exegesis. But the question is whether Bakhtin is going further here and saying that truth cannot be expressed in propositions at all. (If so, that is a proposition and hence presumeably untrue or at least in need of qualification and modification through dialogue). The more pertinent issue, however, is whether Williams agrees with this view.
2. On the other hand, Kroeker and Ward, in Remembering the End: Dostoevesky as Prophet to Modernity, agree with Bakhtin that D's novels are polyphonic (many voices speak from their own perspectives) but they argue that "this does not preclude the orchestrating presence of the author." (150) For Kroeker and Ward, we should not look for D's view in the perspective of Ivan or the Elder Zosima or even in Alyosha, whom D. calls the "hero" of the novel. Rather, we should look for D's view in the way the whole of the book is arranged and in the interactions of the characters, not in the static view of one character at one temporal point. This, of course, makes the process of literary criticism extremely complex, but it does not necessarily imply (though it could and only study of the novel could determine this) that truth is non-existent, unknown or relative for D. It may be possible (and Kroeker and Ward think it is) to come to some conclusions about D's own perspective on the issues of God, faith and goodness. They write: "It is legitimate, then, not only to speak of the author's concern with the possible 'turning around' of his character, but also to see that concern enacted in the novel itself." (150-1)
Canon, Creed and Truth
The interesting thing for me in Kroeker and Ward's approach to criticism is that they see the narrative of the novel as indispensible for D. in communicating his perspective, yet they also see their critical work in summarizing D's perspective, as they understand it, in propositional rather than narrative form as legitimate. We have here a parallel, I think, to the relationship between the Gospels and the Nicene Creed. The Church has recognized the inspiration and authority of the Gospels (and the two-Testament Bible as a whole) and submitted herself to the sacred Scriptures as the vox Deus. However, the Creed has also been adopted as a brief summary in propositions of the true meaning of the Scriptures and is seen as also the work of the Spirit (although inspiration and authority cannot be claimed for the Creed since it purports only to be a true interpretation of Scripture and not sacred Scripture itself). Many complex points clamour for attention here. But I just want to focus on one.
The parallel between a true critical appropriation of the authorial intent in both D's novels and the Bible seems to me to be illumninating. The fact that the Church canonized four (rather than one) Gospels means that a polyphonic presentation of the life and teachings of Christ was seen as necessary for the Church. Then too, the narrative format, with many voices and characters interacting with one another, was seen as necessary to convey the fullness of the truth about Christ. On the other hand, in the face of heresies and distortions, the Creed with its propositional statements could be used to rule out certain distorting readings of Scripture. The Creed gets at the essence of the Scripture, but makes no pretense of expressing the fullness of Scripture. So Canon and Creed are both indispensible; Creed can never replace Scripture and Scripture cannot be read accurately in contradiction of the Creed.
So is Truth narrative or propositional? The answer would seem to be both. So is dialogue necessary to the discovery of truth? The answer would seem to be yes, but not totally open-ended and endless dialogue. The Canon was rightly closed after the death of the Apostles. Dialogue is necessary but not as an end in itself; dialogue itself is in service of the Truth and dialogue is not necessarily in conflict with truth stated in propositional form.
The Nature of Dialogue and the Issue of Homosexuality
Is dialogue an absolute? No. To paraphrase Ecclesiastes: "There is a time for dialogue, and there is a time to refuse dialogue." Dialogue which pushes beyond the canonical text to indefinitely extend the discussion into the future with no resolution in sight (or with a resolution in sight that contradicts the essence of the Scriptural narrative as defined in the Creed) is not legitimate.
Is dialogue ever legitimate? Of course, it is. It can help us refine our understanding, help overcome misunderstandings, clarify the meaning of words, illuminate context, and help to avoid overlooking key aspects of the text. This is true both in literary criticism and biblical interpretation.
The important thing is to know the limits of dialogue. It can clarify the truth, but it cannot create new truth. This is the key point to consider when deciding if further dialogue on the issue of homosexuality in the Anglican Communion (or any other church) is needed.
If he literally means what he says here, then he is basically advocating the liberal position. The liberals want "diversity" during the interim period between when their revisionism is first accepted and the point where they acquire hegemony and can impose their agenda on everyone. It is difficult to conceive of a Covenant structure where any meaningful discipline has been imposed on TEC if all that is implied by signing or not signing the Covenant is "two styles of being Anglican."
A reader (David) commented as follows:
I recently read William's book on Dostoevsky, and it would probably be helpful to know that for him the inability to continue being open to dialogue is a mark of evil. He writes [p. 113]: 'if the Devil's aim is silence, God's is speech, the dialogic speech by which we shape each other.'
That doesn't excuse him, but it might go some way to explaining that what looks like an extremely high view of unity is in actual fact an even higher view of keeping dialogue permanently open, whatever the risk. [p. 132] ‘If we speak what we believe to be the truth - especially truth about ourselves - we must not be surprised if it is misheard or consciously distorted.
To enter into conversation is always to be in this sense at risk.’ Of course, you're right that doctrinal integrity is more important than unity though. I don't envy him at all!
David raises some interesting issues with regard to unity, dialogue and truth. On p. 113, Williams is discussing a Bakhtinian reading of Dostoevesky's understanding of truth. The sentence quoted represents Bakhtin's understanding of how D. views the role language in helping us attain truth. There are two ways of understanding and appropriating Bakhtin's theories.
1. On the one hand, we can take the approach of the legion of literary critics who, intoxicated by the postmodern relativism that we imbibe with the water these days, understand Bakhtin's observations of the polyphonic rather than monologic nature of Dostoevesky's novels as the denial of any authoritative authorial voice and even the legitimate possibility of such a voice. This is why Williams says: "So for D. in Bakhtin's reading, narrative is argument and argument is narrative." (113) Williams notes that Bakhtin labels as an "ideological approach" any suggestion that "separate thoughts, assertions, propositions that can by themselves be true or untrue, depending on their relationship to the subject and independent of the carrier to whom they belong." (112) Now, there is a trivial sense in which no proposition can be interpreted accurately in idolation; it is always the case that a proposition has to be understood in context. This is the first thing seminary students are taught about exegesis. But the question is whether Bakhtin is going further here and saying that truth cannot be expressed in propositions at all. (If so, that is a proposition and hence presumeably untrue or at least in need of qualification and modification through dialogue). The more pertinent issue, however, is whether Williams agrees with this view.
2. On the other hand, Kroeker and Ward, in Remembering the End: Dostoevesky as Prophet to Modernity, agree with Bakhtin that D's novels are polyphonic (many voices speak from their own perspectives) but they argue that "this does not preclude the orchestrating presence of the author." (150) For Kroeker and Ward, we should not look for D's view in the perspective of Ivan or the Elder Zosima or even in Alyosha, whom D. calls the "hero" of the novel. Rather, we should look for D's view in the way the whole of the book is arranged and in the interactions of the characters, not in the static view of one character at one temporal point. This, of course, makes the process of literary criticism extremely complex, but it does not necessarily imply (though it could and only study of the novel could determine this) that truth is non-existent, unknown or relative for D. It may be possible (and Kroeker and Ward think it is) to come to some conclusions about D's own perspective on the issues of God, faith and goodness. They write: "It is legitimate, then, not only to speak of the author's concern with the possible 'turning around' of his character, but also to see that concern enacted in the novel itself." (150-1)
Canon, Creed and Truth
The interesting thing for me in Kroeker and Ward's approach to criticism is that they see the narrative of the novel as indispensible for D. in communicating his perspective, yet they also see their critical work in summarizing D's perspective, as they understand it, in propositional rather than narrative form as legitimate. We have here a parallel, I think, to the relationship between the Gospels and the Nicene Creed. The Church has recognized the inspiration and authority of the Gospels (and the two-Testament Bible as a whole) and submitted herself to the sacred Scriptures as the vox Deus. However, the Creed has also been adopted as a brief summary in propositions of the true meaning of the Scriptures and is seen as also the work of the Spirit (although inspiration and authority cannot be claimed for the Creed since it purports only to be a true interpretation of Scripture and not sacred Scripture itself). Many complex points clamour for attention here. But I just want to focus on one.
The parallel between a true critical appropriation of the authorial intent in both D's novels and the Bible seems to me to be illumninating. The fact that the Church canonized four (rather than one) Gospels means that a polyphonic presentation of the life and teachings of Christ was seen as necessary for the Church. Then too, the narrative format, with many voices and characters interacting with one another, was seen as necessary to convey the fullness of the truth about Christ. On the other hand, in the face of heresies and distortions, the Creed with its propositional statements could be used to rule out certain distorting readings of Scripture. The Creed gets at the essence of the Scripture, but makes no pretense of expressing the fullness of Scripture. So Canon and Creed are both indispensible; Creed can never replace Scripture and Scripture cannot be read accurately in contradiction of the Creed.
So is Truth narrative or propositional? The answer would seem to be both. So is dialogue necessary to the discovery of truth? The answer would seem to be yes, but not totally open-ended and endless dialogue. The Canon was rightly closed after the death of the Apostles. Dialogue is necessary but not as an end in itself; dialogue itself is in service of the Truth and dialogue is not necessarily in conflict with truth stated in propositional form.
The Nature of Dialogue and the Issue of Homosexuality
Is dialogue an absolute? No. To paraphrase Ecclesiastes: "There is a time for dialogue, and there is a time to refuse dialogue." Dialogue which pushes beyond the canonical text to indefinitely extend the discussion into the future with no resolution in sight (or with a resolution in sight that contradicts the essence of the Scriptural narrative as defined in the Creed) is not legitimate.
Is dialogue ever legitimate? Of course, it is. It can help us refine our understanding, help overcome misunderstandings, clarify the meaning of words, illuminate context, and help to avoid overlooking key aspects of the text. This is true both in literary criticism and biblical interpretation.
The important thing is to know the limits of dialogue. It can clarify the truth, but it cannot create new truth. This is the key point to consider when deciding if further dialogue on the issue of homosexuality in the Anglican Communion (or any other church) is needed.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Who Wants Universal Day Care?
Brigitte Pelerin, over at ProWoman Prolife summarizes an article in the Daily Mail on a study of what women really want with regard to work and family. (Her comments are in green.)
Ha!
More than a third of working mothers want to quit their jobs to look after their children, research suggests.
A further six in ten would like to reduce their hours to spend more time with their young ones, the Government-backed study found.
Less than a fifth said they would choose to increase their hours if there was good affordable childcare available.
The findings fly in the face of Government claims that women would want to go back to work if they could find decent childcare.
Tsk, tsk, tsk. Mothers disagree with politicians and child-care activists. How annoying for the child-care activists. I am positively loving it.
Here in Ontario, the government wants to integrate full-day care into the school system so children can be in "school" all day (from as early as 7 am) from age four onward. It is portrayed as a women's issue even though the horrendus cost will come out of the pockets of those trying to raise their children as stay-at-home moms. This is "choice" all right, just not the choice most women would make. It is someone else's choice being imposed on them.
Why will the government not try to support, rather than penalize (through the income tax code), the choice of women to stay at home with young children? Why are big corporations in search of cheap labour so supportive of universal, government-sponsored day care? Could it be capitalism destroying families in search of cheaper labour costs and higher profits? Could it be that talk of day care prevents any need to talk about the moral imperative for employers to pay a "living wage" for men supporting families?
Who gets to make these choices?
Ha!
More than a third of working mothers want to quit their jobs to look after their children, research suggests.
A further six in ten would like to reduce their hours to spend more time with their young ones, the Government-backed study found.
Less than a fifth said they would choose to increase their hours if there was good affordable childcare available.
The findings fly in the face of Government claims that women would want to go back to work if they could find decent childcare.
Tsk, tsk, tsk. Mothers disagree with politicians and child-care activists. How annoying for the child-care activists. I am positively loving it.
Here in Ontario, the government wants to integrate full-day care into the school system so children can be in "school" all day (from as early as 7 am) from age four onward. It is portrayed as a women's issue even though the horrendus cost will come out of the pockets of those trying to raise their children as stay-at-home moms. This is "choice" all right, just not the choice most women would make. It is someone else's choice being imposed on them.
Why will the government not try to support, rather than penalize (through the income tax code), the choice of women to stay at home with young children? Why are big corporations in search of cheap labour so supportive of universal, government-sponsored day care? Could it be capitalism destroying families in search of cheaper labour costs and higher profits? Could it be that talk of day care prevents any need to talk about the moral imperative for employers to pay a "living wage" for men supporting families?
Who gets to make these choices?
Katherine Jefferts Schori's False Gospel of Works
Here is a link to a talk by Katherine Jefferts Schori in which she denies that salvation comes by personal faith in Jesus Christ. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IxG96wpx60&feature=related
1. She says that every person in world has access to God whether he or she has ever heard of Jesus Christ or not.
2. She says that we have to regard those who reject Christ but live good moral lives, such as Ghandi, as saved. At the very least she implies it by stating clearly they we do not need to evangelize them. (If she thinks they are lost and also that we should not evangelize them, then she is extrordinarily hardhearted and cruel.)
3. She denies that the mission of the Church is to evangelize. Like some sort of hyper-Calvinist, she characterized the "mechanism" of people becoming reconciled to God as "God's business" and not our's.
4. She confusingly inverts both the language and meaning of Scripture by saying that personal faith in Jesus Christ is a work and that salvation by repentance, faith and confession is salvation by works.
The Bible says: "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast." (Eph. 2:8-9 NIV) Here the contrast is between faith and works. Jefferts Schori conflates what Scripture distinguishes.
Jefferts Schori's false "gospel" is a message of works righteousness. She talks about living a moral life as the meaning of salvation but does not distinguish between living a moral life as the result of faith versus living the moral life as a substitute for faith. This is what she seemed to imply in her Opening Address to the 76th General Convention of The Episcopal Church:
"The crisis of this moment has several parts, and like Episcopalians, particularly the ones in Mississippi, they’re all related. The overarching connection in all of these crises has to do with the great Western heresy – that we can be saved as individuals, that any of us alone can be in right relationship with God. It’s caricatured in some quarters by insisting that salvation depends on reciting a specific verbal formula about Jesus. That individualist focus is a form of idolatry, for it puts me and my words in the place that only God can occupy, at the center of existence, as the ground of being."
The grain of truth here is that the Christian life is inevitably an inter-personal and inter-dependent form of existence. Faith brings us into a new relationship with God, other people and ourselves and these new relationships are essential to Christian existence. Every heresy takes truth and distorts it. The distortion here is the denial that each person - in order to enter into this new form of existence called the Christian life - has to repent of his or her sins, believe the Good News about Jesus Christ and begin to trust in Christ alone for salvation. Jefferts Schori denies this. But the Scripture says:
"That if you confess with your mouth 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. . . . for 'Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." (Rom. 10:9-10, 13 NIV)
In the video clip (at about 2:20) she says: "in some parts of Christianity we have turned salvation into a work, that you have to say I claim Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour in order to be saved. That turns it into a work." So for her, works are the new faith and faith is the new works. She completely inverts the NT Gospel to suit her agenda: which is to redefine Christianity in terms of social justice work, rather than pesonal faith leading to working for social justice and many other things, chiefly among them evangelism.
It can be no surprise that Resolution CO69, which was similar to a recently passed motion in the Church of England General Synod that affirms the uniqueness of Jesus Chirst in a multi-faith world, was rejected by the Episcopal General Convention.
The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church can be presumed to be a spokesperson for the Church; that is beyond dispute. So TEC tolerates, allows and promotes the heresy that personal faith is unnecessary for salvation; that good works by non-Christians make them Christians even when they explicitly reject Christ as Lord and Saviour. And then to top it off they accuse the orthodox majority throughout history of teaching salvation by works becasue they follow the clear and pervasive teaching of the whole Bible that that salvation comes by hearing the Good News and putting one's faith and trust in it.
It must be stressed that when Jefferts Schori dismissively refers to "some parts of Christianity" that teach false doctrine in her opinion, she is dismissing Athanasius, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Jacob Spener, John and Charles Wesley, George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, William Carey, John Stott, Billy Graham, Karl Barth, Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI and all Evangelical and Pentecostal forms of Christianity. Basically, she is cutting herself off from all of Christianity and all of Church history except for a relatively recent tradition of theologically liberalism manifested in the Social Gospel, Liberation Theology, Feminist Theology, etc. and embodied in the dying, liberal, Protestant denominations of the Western world and a few of its outposts. Theological liberalism looks huge in the talk shops of Western academia, but it is really a blip on the radar of Chrstianity as a whole, comprising perhaps 10-15% of world Christianity and a tiny little slice of Church history.
It is little wonder, then, that ecumenical relations are in deep freeze as far as TEC is concerned with the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodoxy and all forms of Evangelicalism - meaning about 80-90% of world Christianity. Liberal Protestants basically have only each other to talk as far as ecumenism is concerned. TEC is even in a state of impaired communion with 80% of the Anglican Communion itself!
What we have now in TEC is a heretical, schismatic movement that has cut itself off from the roots of the Faith once delivered to the saints and which has no prospects for the future except degeneration and death. Only a revival and Spiritual renewal through biblical preaching of the Gospel accompanied by a long, hard process of reformation can save TEC. All things are possible with God; the Unitarian Universalist denomination theoretically could be reformed by a similar movement of conversion and renewal. But at the moment, TEC is in a death spiral. Homosexuality is only one aspect of the problem facing TEC, although it is integrally related to the loss of a firm grasp on the Gospel itself and the acceptance of a false "gospel" which is no Gospel at all.
1. She says that every person in world has access to God whether he or she has ever heard of Jesus Christ or not.
2. She says that we have to regard those who reject Christ but live good moral lives, such as Ghandi, as saved. At the very least she implies it by stating clearly they we do not need to evangelize them. (If she thinks they are lost and also that we should not evangelize them, then she is extrordinarily hardhearted and cruel.)
3. She denies that the mission of the Church is to evangelize. Like some sort of hyper-Calvinist, she characterized the "mechanism" of people becoming reconciled to God as "God's business" and not our's.
4. She confusingly inverts both the language and meaning of Scripture by saying that personal faith in Jesus Christ is a work and that salvation by repentance, faith and confession is salvation by works.
The Bible says: "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast." (Eph. 2:8-9 NIV) Here the contrast is between faith and works. Jefferts Schori conflates what Scripture distinguishes.
Jefferts Schori's false "gospel" is a message of works righteousness. She talks about living a moral life as the meaning of salvation but does not distinguish between living a moral life as the result of faith versus living the moral life as a substitute for faith. This is what she seemed to imply in her Opening Address to the 76th General Convention of The Episcopal Church:
"The crisis of this moment has several parts, and like Episcopalians, particularly the ones in Mississippi, they’re all related. The overarching connection in all of these crises has to do with the great Western heresy – that we can be saved as individuals, that any of us alone can be in right relationship with God. It’s caricatured in some quarters by insisting that salvation depends on reciting a specific verbal formula about Jesus. That individualist focus is a form of idolatry, for it puts me and my words in the place that only God can occupy, at the center of existence, as the ground of being."
The grain of truth here is that the Christian life is inevitably an inter-personal and inter-dependent form of existence. Faith brings us into a new relationship with God, other people and ourselves and these new relationships are essential to Christian existence. Every heresy takes truth and distorts it. The distortion here is the denial that each person - in order to enter into this new form of existence called the Christian life - has to repent of his or her sins, believe the Good News about Jesus Christ and begin to trust in Christ alone for salvation. Jefferts Schori denies this. But the Scripture says:
"That if you confess with your mouth 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. . . . for 'Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." (Rom. 10:9-10, 13 NIV)
In the video clip (at about 2:20) she says: "in some parts of Christianity we have turned salvation into a work, that you have to say I claim Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour in order to be saved. That turns it into a work." So for her, works are the new faith and faith is the new works. She completely inverts the NT Gospel to suit her agenda: which is to redefine Christianity in terms of social justice work, rather than pesonal faith leading to working for social justice and many other things, chiefly among them evangelism.
It can be no surprise that Resolution CO69, which was similar to a recently passed motion in the Church of England General Synod that affirms the uniqueness of Jesus Chirst in a multi-faith world, was rejected by the Episcopal General Convention.
The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church can be presumed to be a spokesperson for the Church; that is beyond dispute. So TEC tolerates, allows and promotes the heresy that personal faith is unnecessary for salvation; that good works by non-Christians make them Christians even when they explicitly reject Christ as Lord and Saviour. And then to top it off they accuse the orthodox majority throughout history of teaching salvation by works becasue they follow the clear and pervasive teaching of the whole Bible that that salvation comes by hearing the Good News and putting one's faith and trust in it.
It must be stressed that when Jefferts Schori dismissively refers to "some parts of Christianity" that teach false doctrine in her opinion, she is dismissing Athanasius, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Jacob Spener, John and Charles Wesley, George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, William Carey, John Stott, Billy Graham, Karl Barth, Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI and all Evangelical and Pentecostal forms of Christianity. Basically, she is cutting herself off from all of Christianity and all of Church history except for a relatively recent tradition of theologically liberalism manifested in the Social Gospel, Liberation Theology, Feminist Theology, etc. and embodied in the dying, liberal, Protestant denominations of the Western world and a few of its outposts. Theological liberalism looks huge in the talk shops of Western academia, but it is really a blip on the radar of Chrstianity as a whole, comprising perhaps 10-15% of world Christianity and a tiny little slice of Church history.
It is little wonder, then, that ecumenical relations are in deep freeze as far as TEC is concerned with the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodoxy and all forms of Evangelicalism - meaning about 80-90% of world Christianity. Liberal Protestants basically have only each other to talk as far as ecumenism is concerned. TEC is even in a state of impaired communion with 80% of the Anglican Communion itself!
What we have now in TEC is a heretical, schismatic movement that has cut itself off from the roots of the Faith once delivered to the saints and which has no prospects for the future except degeneration and death. Only a revival and Spiritual renewal through biblical preaching of the Gospel accompanied by a long, hard process of reformation can save TEC. All things are possible with God; the Unitarian Universalist denomination theoretically could be reformed by a similar movement of conversion and renewal. But at the moment, TEC is in a death spiral. Homosexuality is only one aspect of the problem facing TEC, although it is integrally related to the loss of a firm grasp on the Gospel itself and the acceptance of a false "gospel" which is no Gospel at all.
Polyamory: The Next Step in the Sexual Revolution According to Newsweek
Newsweek's new business model apparently has concluded that it can make money catering to an anti-Christian audience. So its relentless campaign against Christianity continues.
On Dec. 6, 2008 it presented the "Religious Case for Gay Marriage". Lisa Miller's article was a hit job on the Bible written in the village atheist style at about a Grade 7 level. It was full of slurs and obvious mistakes that any respectable second-year Bible major would laugh at. But it was not an anomoly or fluke.
On Apr. 4, 2009 the cover story was all about how - on the basis of one poll - we are now entering a "Post-Christian America." (The relief that oozed from between the lines was palpable.) By this point the bias was so obvious that Jon Meacham was forced to fend off his critics with an editorial entitled "We Didn't Attack Christianity." (Funny, I didn't see any editorials denying that Newsweek was attacking Islam; no need for that apparently.) By the way, the thrust of the editorial is that Meacham is not attacking Christianity, just the Christian influence on America. In his words:
"Note that we did not say we were discussing the decline and fall of Christianity, or even the decline and fall of Christianity in America. But "Christian America" is something else again. It is the vision of a nation whose public life is governed by explicitly articulated and adopted Christian principles in the hope, I think, that God will bless and protect the country and its people in the spirit of II Chron. 7:14."
So as long as Christians remain quiet about their faith and accept the complete privatization of religion, as demanded by aggressive, Enlightenment secularism, they won't get in trouble. But if they should demand that Christian principles (like justice, peace and concern for neighbour) influence public policy then that is unacceptable.
All this is background for the current edition of Newsweek's promotion of the next step in the sexual revolution. You didn't know there was a "next step" after "Gay Marriage"? Tsk, tsk. You really should get out more. Anyone who thinks that if they just capitulate on same-sex "marriage" then everything will quiet down and all the controversy over sex will go away is naive in the extreme.
The next sexual frontier, that is, the next deviation to be normalized, is polyamory. Polyamory is a kind of institutionalized promiscuity. It is a number of people living together and having sex with multiple partners all with the approval of the others involved in the arrangement. You say you have never heard of such a thing? Well, congratulations on not having been brought up in the sewer. But it is out there and it is a growing phenomenon.
The cover story tells traditionalists to "get used to it" and says polyamory is having a "coming out party." Doesn't sound very unbiased, does it? This is not exactly real, serious, newsmagazine journalism. Anyway, this is supposed to be the next logical step in the sexual revolution, according to Newsweek.
"Terisa and Matt and Vera and Larry—along with Scott, who's also at this dinner—are not swingers, per se; they aren't pursuing casual sex. Nor are they polygamists of the sort portrayed on HBO's Big Love; they aren't religious, and they don't have multiple wives. But they do believe in "ethical nonmonogamy," or engaging in loving, intimate relationships with more than one person—based upon the knowledge and consent of everyone involved. They are polyamorous, to use the term of art applied to multiple-partner families like theirs, and they wouldn't want to live any other way."
Don't you just love the way language gets mangled in the attempt even to talk about this type of thing: "ethical nonmonogomy" and "multiple-partner families"? How long do you think it will be before someone gets the bright idea that society should allow two men and one woman or any other polyamorus combination to "marry"? This, of course, will further erode the meaning of marriage.
The problem is that many of the leaders of contemporary, Western society have only a vague cultural memory of the true meaning of marriage. All they clearly remember is that it has something to do with society bestowing a sign of approval on the gratification of sexual desire, whereas in all other cases society frowns on such gratification. So it is about respectability and approval. Marital sex is not seen as any different from non-marital sex; both are about obtaining physical gratification and personal fulfillment. So why not slap the "marriage" label on a variety of sexual lifestyles as a way of liberating society and making more people happy?
The problem is that marriage is far more profound that this caricature of it. Sex is not about receiving gratification and personal fulfillment. It is about the total gift of self to the other in an act of committment both to the permanent and exclusive relationship it signifies and to the raising of the children that may be born from it. So sex outside marriage is a lie. It is saying "I'm committed" with the body even while not really being committed. There is a disconnect between what the act means objectively and what the people involved intend. Sex is thus degraded and the people who engage in sex outside of marriage thereby degrade themselves.
There are, in the end, only two moral positions on sex. Either it is for marriage only or it is an individualistic means to self-satisfaction and thus can take innumerable forms. Those who think it can be for marriage and also for a limited number of other contexts but not certain other contexts are confused. Rape is simply an extension of pornography and casual sex. Bestiality and orgies are simply the principle of individual gratification applied in other circumstances.
As uncomfortable as it may be to face up to, the reality is that in sexual ethics it is marriage or it is the gutter.
On Dec. 6, 2008 it presented the "Religious Case for Gay Marriage". Lisa Miller's article was a hit job on the Bible written in the village atheist style at about a Grade 7 level. It was full of slurs and obvious mistakes that any respectable second-year Bible major would laugh at. But it was not an anomoly or fluke.
On Apr. 4, 2009 the cover story was all about how - on the basis of one poll - we are now entering a "Post-Christian America." (The relief that oozed from between the lines was palpable.) By this point the bias was so obvious that Jon Meacham was forced to fend off his critics with an editorial entitled "We Didn't Attack Christianity." (Funny, I didn't see any editorials denying that Newsweek was attacking Islam; no need for that apparently.) By the way, the thrust of the editorial is that Meacham is not attacking Christianity, just the Christian influence on America. In his words:
"Note that we did not say we were discussing the decline and fall of Christianity, or even the decline and fall of Christianity in America. But "Christian America" is something else again. It is the vision of a nation whose public life is governed by explicitly articulated and adopted Christian principles in the hope, I think, that God will bless and protect the country and its people in the spirit of II Chron. 7:14."
So as long as Christians remain quiet about their faith and accept the complete privatization of religion, as demanded by aggressive, Enlightenment secularism, they won't get in trouble. But if they should demand that Christian principles (like justice, peace and concern for neighbour) influence public policy then that is unacceptable.
All this is background for the current edition of Newsweek's promotion of the next step in the sexual revolution. You didn't know there was a "next step" after "Gay Marriage"? Tsk, tsk. You really should get out more. Anyone who thinks that if they just capitulate on same-sex "marriage" then everything will quiet down and all the controversy over sex will go away is naive in the extreme.
The next sexual frontier, that is, the next deviation to be normalized, is polyamory. Polyamory is a kind of institutionalized promiscuity. It is a number of people living together and having sex with multiple partners all with the approval of the others involved in the arrangement. You say you have never heard of such a thing? Well, congratulations on not having been brought up in the sewer. But it is out there and it is a growing phenomenon.
The cover story tells traditionalists to "get used to it" and says polyamory is having a "coming out party." Doesn't sound very unbiased, does it? This is not exactly real, serious, newsmagazine journalism. Anyway, this is supposed to be the next logical step in the sexual revolution, according to Newsweek.
"Terisa and Matt and Vera and Larry—along with Scott, who's also at this dinner—are not swingers, per se; they aren't pursuing casual sex. Nor are they polygamists of the sort portrayed on HBO's Big Love; they aren't religious, and they don't have multiple wives. But they do believe in "ethical nonmonogamy," or engaging in loving, intimate relationships with more than one person—based upon the knowledge and consent of everyone involved. They are polyamorous, to use the term of art applied to multiple-partner families like theirs, and they wouldn't want to live any other way."
Don't you just love the way language gets mangled in the attempt even to talk about this type of thing: "ethical nonmonogomy" and "multiple-partner families"? How long do you think it will be before someone gets the bright idea that society should allow two men and one woman or any other polyamorus combination to "marry"? This, of course, will further erode the meaning of marriage.
The problem is that many of the leaders of contemporary, Western society have only a vague cultural memory of the true meaning of marriage. All they clearly remember is that it has something to do with society bestowing a sign of approval on the gratification of sexual desire, whereas in all other cases society frowns on such gratification. So it is about respectability and approval. Marital sex is not seen as any different from non-marital sex; both are about obtaining physical gratification and personal fulfillment. So why not slap the "marriage" label on a variety of sexual lifestyles as a way of liberating society and making more people happy?
The problem is that marriage is far more profound that this caricature of it. Sex is not about receiving gratification and personal fulfillment. It is about the total gift of self to the other in an act of committment both to the permanent and exclusive relationship it signifies and to the raising of the children that may be born from it. So sex outside marriage is a lie. It is saying "I'm committed" with the body even while not really being committed. There is a disconnect between what the act means objectively and what the people involved intend. Sex is thus degraded and the people who engage in sex outside of marriage thereby degrade themselves.
There are, in the end, only two moral positions on sex. Either it is for marriage only or it is an individualistic means to self-satisfaction and thus can take innumerable forms. Those who think it can be for marriage and also for a limited number of other contexts but not certain other contexts are confused. Rape is simply an extension of pornography and casual sex. Bestiality and orgies are simply the principle of individual gratification applied in other circumstances.
As uncomfortable as it may be to face up to, the reality is that in sexual ethics it is marriage or it is the gutter.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
What Has Rowan Williams Done?
On July 22 I posted on "What Will Rowan Williams Do?" with reference to the decisions of The Episcopal Church USA (TEC) at its recent General Convention. Since then Archbishop Williams has written a response to the TEC actions and posted it on his website: Communion, Covenant and Our Anglican Future.
A veritable avalanche of comment and analysis has ensued. See a good article by Jordon Hylden at First Things entitled: Rowan Williams and the Anglican Future. The Internet is filled with other reactions. But the one by N. T. Wright at the Anglican Communion Institute entitled "Rowan's Reflections: Unpacking the Archbishop's Statement" stands out for its clarity and urgency. It is also important because Wright has been one of Williams biggest supporters all through the Covenant process, but one senses that his frustration with Williams' inaction is growing. This was evident in his article in the Times of London entitled: "The Americans Know This Will End in Schism." Talk is fine; but talk alone has never deterred TEC from its schismatic and heretical course.
Where does the Anglican Communion stand today and what is its future? And what does the apparent failure of the Anglican Communion to hold together mean for future prospects for Christian reunion? These are serious questions and require attention from all Christians who lament the present divided state of Christ's body on earth.
In a nutshell, Williams' proposal is that a Covenant be adopted and that it be signed by any province (and maybe diocese or parish) that wishes to do so. Those who sign would be considered Track One Anglicans (i.e. full members of the Communion). Those who do not (like TEC as a whole) would be Track Two Anglicans. Track Two Anglicans would be barred from participating in ecumenical dialogue and the highest levels of Communion decision-making. The status of the orthodox bishops in TEC - the so-called "Communion Bishops" - remains fuzzy and the status of orthodox Rectors in non-Communion Bishop dioceses is even fuzzier. Is all this clear so far? It should not be.
The basic idea is to find a way to avoid schism at all costs. A very high value - perhaps even the highest value - is placed on holding the institution together and keeping all parties at the table. The hope is that eventually orthodoxy will prevail through argument, prayer, discussion and fellowship. The horror of division is rooted in an honourable conviction that we already have too many schisms, too many divisions and too many sects. The need is for greater unity and Williams cannot see the way to greater unity passing through yet one more division. I grant that Williams, Wright, the Anglican Communion Institute, the Communion Bishops, the Communion Rectors and others who are striving for Christian unity are honorable in their intentions and sincerely seeking the unity of the Church. For this they are to be commended.
However, I have some questions about this strategy.
First, why is unity a higher priority than truth and is this apostolic? This is not a question that was first asked at the time of the 16th century Reformation. The Nicene Fathers, including Athanasius, were willing to depose heretical bishops and sever communion with heretics in defense of the "faith once delivered." They simply did not place unity as a higher priority than doctrinal truth. Of course, all possible alternatives to excommunication must be tried first: but when the crunch comes the apostolic instruction of Scripture in I Cor. 5 and Titus 3:10-11 must be followed.
Second, why has this repsonse occurred over the consecration of a homosexual bishop and not over the ordination of women as bishops, the ordination of women as priests, the ordination of unrepentant, practicing homosexuals as priests? What is being said about the current crisis - that one part of the Church cannot unilaterally upend two millennia of Christian tradition without gaining the consent of the whole Church surely applies to all these cases as well. Since the 1970's TEC and other Western branches of Anglicanism have been trampling over tradition with impunity. Why is this suddenly a crisis?
Well, to be fair, there are a number of practical reasons why the consecration of Gene Robinson has been the flashpoint. Here are some of them.
1. The third world branches of Anglicanism have been growing and maturing in numbers, confidence and theological acumen and have now reached the point of daring to and being able effectively to challenge Western revisionism.
2. The Internet has made it much more difficult for things to be done "in a corner" and to be interpreted by skilled spin doctors so as to keep people confused.
3. There was always hope that the Western provinces would eventually come to their senses and put a brake on the revisionism, heresy and begin to turn back the tide of secular humanism that had been flowing into the Church since the 1960's. The consecration of a practicing, unrepentant homosexual as a bishop was a dramatic event that made it clear that further degeneration was imminent.
4. The acceptence of sexual perversion as normal and good in Western Anglicanism involves a number of important theological principles including the authority of Scripture, theological anthropology and ethics in general.
Third, why is schism occurring over ethics rather than doctrine? The heresies of Bishop James Pike, Bishop John Robinson, Bishop John Spong and now Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori, to name only the most well-known, are well-documented going back 50 years. Why did schism not occur when John Spong began writing his heretical screeds without being in any way disciplined by the TEC House of Bishops? Is doctrine really less important than ethics?
Well, from a patrisitic and biblical perspective there is really no hard and fast distinction between doctrine and ethics and when biblical truth is denied it should come as no surprise that moral deviancy is not far behind. Karl Barth once said that the Church is always one generation away from becoming a pagan Church and he witnessed such a declension first hand in Germany. Still, I wish that the focus could be put on doctrines like the doctrine of salvation through personal repentance and faith or the doctrine of the virgin birth, sinless life, miracles, atoning death, bodily resurrection and personal future return of Jesus. As things stand, all these doctrinal issues are implied and stand in the background. No one should be in doubt of that fact.
Fourth, does Williams really expect that TEC will accept second class status in the Anglican Communion? If he does, then he is probably very naive. Perhaps his goal is to force TEC to make the move to schism, rather than being cast out. That would imply a degree of resolution Williams has not displayed to date, but it would be a sensible approach to take. What is not realistic is to expect that TEC will not challenge Canterbury for supremacy if Canterbury proves resistant to TEC manipulation. Ruth Gledhill reports on early moves to set up liberal structures in England that could accommodate C. of E. liberal dissenters on her blog and in the Times. She says that the battle for the Church of England has begun in earnest. Will the C. of E. follow TEC down the road of revisionism or will it side with the Global South and the orthodox elements in Western Anglicanism? We may get a big clue in the next six months as the battle to recognize the Anglican Church in North America as a province takes place in the General Synod of the C. of E. amid elections to synod that may set the direction for the future of the C. of E.
Fifth, when will Williams recognize that there are two religions battling for the soul of the Anglican Communion? If it were a matter of Calvinists versus Lutherans or Eastern Orthodox versus Roman Catholic, then it would be a matter of Christian unity. But the liberal revisionism driving the TEC heresies is not a legitimate form of Christianity at all; it is a heretical, new religion based on experience not revelation. It does not preach the biblical gospel and it does not believe in the faith of Scripture and Creeds. It is a form of modern, secular humanism dressed up in Christian vestments.
If TEC and Canterbury do separate, what will be the fate of TEC? No one really knows, but if I had to hazzard a guess, I could imagine some form of the following scenario. It is highly likely that TEC will lose financial viability and be driven to merge with other like-minded bodies such as the Evanglical Lutheran Church of America, the Church of Christ and other liberal Protestant groups. On the other hand, I could see an orthodox Anglicanism becoming a bridge for closer ties between conservative Protestants and the Roman Catholic Church. (And this would be to me a most welcome development.) At some point, the liberals in the Roman Catholic Church probably will give up in their failed bid to take over the Roman Church and leave to join with the Protestant Liberals (which is what they really are anyway). But because of the pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI, which have prevented liberalism from gaining control of the hierarchy, this group of dissenters will not be able to take the property and name with them. Therefore they will be absorbed into liberal Protestantism and this has so far been a major incentive to stay put. But at some point, schism in the Western Roman Catholic Church seems inevitable. One could make the case that it has already happened spiritually and doctrinally and merely needs to be legally and institutionally formalized.
What has Rowan Williams done in his latest document? Precious little in terms of action. But as for his words, I would highlight three things: two positive and one negative. First the positive:
1. He has given his strongest statement yet against the revisionist arguments for homosexuality. Basically, if you read his words carefully you discover that he feels that he has been given very little by TEC in terms of biblical exegesis and doctrinal argument to which he could respond. If there is a case for revisionism on the point of homosexuality, TEC has not even made a bad one yet, let alone a good one. This is an important pillar for building a response to the TEC.
2. He has considered and rejected as implausible the spin attempted by Jefferts Schori and Co. to the effect that the resolutions adopted at General Convention do not constitute a rejection of the moratorium. His unwillingness to be bamboozled on this point is commendable. The announcement of several homosexual candidates for vacant bishoprics in Minnesota and Los Angeles this week supports his skepticism. The election of any one of them would drive a stake in the heart of compromise for the sake of unity.
And then the negative:
3. Near the end of his document he seems to open the door to a relativism in which homosexuality is recognized by all Anglicans as right and proper in certain provinces and as sinful and evil in other provinces. He says:
"It helps to be clear about these possible futures, however much we think them less than ideal, and to speak about them not in apocalyptic terms of schism and excommunication but plainly as what they are – two styles of being Anglican, whose mutual relation will certainly need working out but which would not exclude co-operation in mission and service of the kind now shared in the Communion. It should not need to be said that a competitive hostility between the two would be one of the worst possible outcomes, and needs to be clearly repudiated. The ideal is that both 'tracks' should be able to pursue what they believe God is calling them to be as Church, with greater integrity and consistency. It is right to hope for and work for the best kinds of shared networks and institutions of common interest that could be maintained as between different visions of the Anglican heritage."
If he literally means what he says here, then he is basically advocating the liberal position. The liberals want "diversity" during the interim period between when their revisionism is first accepted and the point where they acquire hegemony and can impose their agenda on everyone. It is difficult to conceive of a Covenant structure where any meaningful discipline has been imposed on TEC if all that is implied by signing or not signing the Covenant is "two styles of being Anglican."
A veritable avalanche of comment and analysis has ensued. See a good article by Jordon Hylden at First Things entitled: Rowan Williams and the Anglican Future. The Internet is filled with other reactions. But the one by N. T. Wright at the Anglican Communion Institute entitled "Rowan's Reflections: Unpacking the Archbishop's Statement" stands out for its clarity and urgency. It is also important because Wright has been one of Williams biggest supporters all through the Covenant process, but one senses that his frustration with Williams' inaction is growing. This was evident in his article in the Times of London entitled: "The Americans Know This Will End in Schism." Talk is fine; but talk alone has never deterred TEC from its schismatic and heretical course.
Where does the Anglican Communion stand today and what is its future? And what does the apparent failure of the Anglican Communion to hold together mean for future prospects for Christian reunion? These are serious questions and require attention from all Christians who lament the present divided state of Christ's body on earth.
In a nutshell, Williams' proposal is that a Covenant be adopted and that it be signed by any province (and maybe diocese or parish) that wishes to do so. Those who sign would be considered Track One Anglicans (i.e. full members of the Communion). Those who do not (like TEC as a whole) would be Track Two Anglicans. Track Two Anglicans would be barred from participating in ecumenical dialogue and the highest levels of Communion decision-making. The status of the orthodox bishops in TEC - the so-called "Communion Bishops" - remains fuzzy and the status of orthodox Rectors in non-Communion Bishop dioceses is even fuzzier. Is all this clear so far? It should not be.
The basic idea is to find a way to avoid schism at all costs. A very high value - perhaps even the highest value - is placed on holding the institution together and keeping all parties at the table. The hope is that eventually orthodoxy will prevail through argument, prayer, discussion and fellowship. The horror of division is rooted in an honourable conviction that we already have too many schisms, too many divisions and too many sects. The need is for greater unity and Williams cannot see the way to greater unity passing through yet one more division. I grant that Williams, Wright, the Anglican Communion Institute, the Communion Bishops, the Communion Rectors and others who are striving for Christian unity are honorable in their intentions and sincerely seeking the unity of the Church. For this they are to be commended.
However, I have some questions about this strategy.
First, why is unity a higher priority than truth and is this apostolic? This is not a question that was first asked at the time of the 16th century Reformation. The Nicene Fathers, including Athanasius, were willing to depose heretical bishops and sever communion with heretics in defense of the "faith once delivered." They simply did not place unity as a higher priority than doctrinal truth. Of course, all possible alternatives to excommunication must be tried first: but when the crunch comes the apostolic instruction of Scripture in I Cor. 5 and Titus 3:10-11 must be followed.
Second, why has this repsonse occurred over the consecration of a homosexual bishop and not over the ordination of women as bishops, the ordination of women as priests, the ordination of unrepentant, practicing homosexuals as priests? What is being said about the current crisis - that one part of the Church cannot unilaterally upend two millennia of Christian tradition without gaining the consent of the whole Church surely applies to all these cases as well. Since the 1970's TEC and other Western branches of Anglicanism have been trampling over tradition with impunity. Why is this suddenly a crisis?
Well, to be fair, there are a number of practical reasons why the consecration of Gene Robinson has been the flashpoint. Here are some of them.
1. The third world branches of Anglicanism have been growing and maturing in numbers, confidence and theological acumen and have now reached the point of daring to and being able effectively to challenge Western revisionism.
2. The Internet has made it much more difficult for things to be done "in a corner" and to be interpreted by skilled spin doctors so as to keep people confused.
3. There was always hope that the Western provinces would eventually come to their senses and put a brake on the revisionism, heresy and begin to turn back the tide of secular humanism that had been flowing into the Church since the 1960's. The consecration of a practicing, unrepentant homosexual as a bishop was a dramatic event that made it clear that further degeneration was imminent.
4. The acceptence of sexual perversion as normal and good in Western Anglicanism involves a number of important theological principles including the authority of Scripture, theological anthropology and ethics in general.
Third, why is schism occurring over ethics rather than doctrine? The heresies of Bishop James Pike, Bishop John Robinson, Bishop John Spong and now Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori, to name only the most well-known, are well-documented going back 50 years. Why did schism not occur when John Spong began writing his heretical screeds without being in any way disciplined by the TEC House of Bishops? Is doctrine really less important than ethics?
Well, from a patrisitic and biblical perspective there is really no hard and fast distinction between doctrine and ethics and when biblical truth is denied it should come as no surprise that moral deviancy is not far behind. Karl Barth once said that the Church is always one generation away from becoming a pagan Church and he witnessed such a declension first hand in Germany. Still, I wish that the focus could be put on doctrines like the doctrine of salvation through personal repentance and faith or the doctrine of the virgin birth, sinless life, miracles, atoning death, bodily resurrection and personal future return of Jesus. As things stand, all these doctrinal issues are implied and stand in the background. No one should be in doubt of that fact.
Fourth, does Williams really expect that TEC will accept second class status in the Anglican Communion? If he does, then he is probably very naive. Perhaps his goal is to force TEC to make the move to schism, rather than being cast out. That would imply a degree of resolution Williams has not displayed to date, but it would be a sensible approach to take. What is not realistic is to expect that TEC will not challenge Canterbury for supremacy if Canterbury proves resistant to TEC manipulation. Ruth Gledhill reports on early moves to set up liberal structures in England that could accommodate C. of E. liberal dissenters on her blog and in the Times. She says that the battle for the Church of England has begun in earnest. Will the C. of E. follow TEC down the road of revisionism or will it side with the Global South and the orthodox elements in Western Anglicanism? We may get a big clue in the next six months as the battle to recognize the Anglican Church in North America as a province takes place in the General Synod of the C. of E. amid elections to synod that may set the direction for the future of the C. of E.
Fifth, when will Williams recognize that there are two religions battling for the soul of the Anglican Communion? If it were a matter of Calvinists versus Lutherans or Eastern Orthodox versus Roman Catholic, then it would be a matter of Christian unity. But the liberal revisionism driving the TEC heresies is not a legitimate form of Christianity at all; it is a heretical, new religion based on experience not revelation. It does not preach the biblical gospel and it does not believe in the faith of Scripture and Creeds. It is a form of modern, secular humanism dressed up in Christian vestments.
If TEC and Canterbury do separate, what will be the fate of TEC? No one really knows, but if I had to hazzard a guess, I could imagine some form of the following scenario. It is highly likely that TEC will lose financial viability and be driven to merge with other like-minded bodies such as the Evanglical Lutheran Church of America, the Church of Christ and other liberal Protestant groups. On the other hand, I could see an orthodox Anglicanism becoming a bridge for closer ties between conservative Protestants and the Roman Catholic Church. (And this would be to me a most welcome development.) At some point, the liberals in the Roman Catholic Church probably will give up in their failed bid to take over the Roman Church and leave to join with the Protestant Liberals (which is what they really are anyway). But because of the pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI, which have prevented liberalism from gaining control of the hierarchy, this group of dissenters will not be able to take the property and name with them. Therefore they will be absorbed into liberal Protestantism and this has so far been a major incentive to stay put. But at some point, schism in the Western Roman Catholic Church seems inevitable. One could make the case that it has already happened spiritually and doctrinally and merely needs to be legally and institutionally formalized.
What has Rowan Williams done in his latest document? Precious little in terms of action. But as for his words, I would highlight three things: two positive and one negative. First the positive:
1. He has given his strongest statement yet against the revisionist arguments for homosexuality. Basically, if you read his words carefully you discover that he feels that he has been given very little by TEC in terms of biblical exegesis and doctrinal argument to which he could respond. If there is a case for revisionism on the point of homosexuality, TEC has not even made a bad one yet, let alone a good one. This is an important pillar for building a response to the TEC.
2. He has considered and rejected as implausible the spin attempted by Jefferts Schori and Co. to the effect that the resolutions adopted at General Convention do not constitute a rejection of the moratorium. His unwillingness to be bamboozled on this point is commendable. The announcement of several homosexual candidates for vacant bishoprics in Minnesota and Los Angeles this week supports his skepticism. The election of any one of them would drive a stake in the heart of compromise for the sake of unity.
And then the negative:
3. Near the end of his document he seems to open the door to a relativism in which homosexuality is recognized by all Anglicans as right and proper in certain provinces and as sinful and evil in other provinces. He says:
"It helps to be clear about these possible futures, however much we think them less than ideal, and to speak about them not in apocalyptic terms of schism and excommunication but plainly as what they are – two styles of being Anglican, whose mutual relation will certainly need working out but which would not exclude co-operation in mission and service of the kind now shared in the Communion. It should not need to be said that a competitive hostility between the two would be one of the worst possible outcomes, and needs to be clearly repudiated. The ideal is that both 'tracks' should be able to pursue what they believe God is calling them to be as Church, with greater integrity and consistency. It is right to hope for and work for the best kinds of shared networks and institutions of common interest that could be maintained as between different visions of the Anglican heritage."
If he literally means what he says here, then he is basically advocating the liberal position. The liberals want "diversity" during the interim period between when their revisionism is first accepted and the point where they acquire hegemony and can impose their agenda on everyone. It is difficult to conceive of a Covenant structure where any meaningful discipline has been imposed on TEC if all that is implied by signing or not signing the Covenant is "two styles of being Anglican."
Committing Collective Suicide to Save the Environment
The radical environmental movement is crazy. I care about pollution and my wife and I have always grown our own vegetables, breastfed our children and recycled. But the environmental activists who are increasingly influential on government policy and who are infiltrating our school system are not focussed on common sense issues like recycling, breastfeeding and gardening. They have an anti-humanistic worldview and are pushing the culture of death.
They worship the Earth and believe that massive human sacrifice is necessary to honour the Earth Goddess. In fact, they believe (somewhat inconsistently, since they don't immediately commit suicide) that the human race should commit collective suicide in order to "save" the Earth from the impact of human activity. They talk about overpopulation and Global Warming in exactly the same apocalyptic terms as radicals in the 70's talked about overpopulation and worldwide famine. The predictions of one fifth of the world's population dying of starvation by the 80's didn't come true, so like the Jehovah's Witnesses they revised their end-times scenario and adopted Global Warming as their new mantra. But the goal remains the same: humans should die out so the earth can remain undisturbed and pure.
Paganism is not benign. To worship the earth is to make human beings merely a part of the ecosystem and it is to apply the "nature red in tooth and claw" amoralism to human beings. It is to reduce human beings to the level of animals, rather than understanding them as having been created in the image of God. And it is eventually to come to see the very existence of human culture as evil and in need of excising from the Earth. Environmental activists today like to clothe themselves in the robes of science, yet they are irrational, fanatical and anti-humanistic. They despise the Church and accuse Christians of all that is actually true of themselves; but Christians will defend the dignity and value of human life to the very end.
A case in point is this story from an environmental newsletter entitled: "Oregon State study says having fewer children is best way to reduce your carbon footprint." My comments are in [bold and brackets].
_____________
,"Some people who are serious about wanting to reduce their "carbon footprint" on the Earth have one choice available to them that may yield a large long-term benefit - have one less child.
A recent study by statisticians at Oregon State University concluded that in the United States, the carbon legacy and greenhouse gas impact of an extra child is almost 20 times more important than some of the other environmentally sensitive practices people might employ their entire lives - things like driving a high mileage car, recycling, or using energy-efficient appliances and light bulbs. [Did it really take a study by university professors to come to the stunning new insight that more people consume more than fewer people? How could such an obvious truism be blown up into an actual scientific study? Is there any true science here? Or, could it be that this is an exercise in propoganda? Well, duh.]
The research also makes it clear that potential carbon impacts vary dramatically across countries. The average long-term carbon impact of a child born in the U.S. - along with all of its descendants - is more than 160 times the impact of a child born in Bangladesh. [This is true, but the obvious implications are not mentioned - that the real issue here is how we can change our lifestyles. Why is this not mentioned? Because people already born do not wish to change their high-consumption lifestyles. So the alternative to personal change is to continue the high consumption but agitate for fewer children so the high consumption lifestyle is sustainable - at least until we all die. The attraction of this radical environmental activism is that you and I can eat, drink and be merry and they next generation can be eliminated instead of us having to change.]
"In discussions about climate change, we tend to focus on the carbon emissions of an individual over his or her lifetime," said Paul Murtaugh, an OSU professor of statistics. "Those are important issues and it's essential that they should be considered. But an added challenge facing us is continuing population growth and increasing global consumption of resources."
In this debate, very little attention has been given to the overwhelming importance of reproductive choice, Murtaugh said. When an individual produces a child [strictly speaking: "individuals" do not and cannot produce children. It takes two. The individualism of this "movement" is never far below the surface.] - and that child potentially produces more descendants in the future - the effect on the environment can be many times the impact produced by a person during their lifetime. [Really! I wonder how many highly paid scientests it took and how many hard hours of slaving over computer models it took to come to that conclusion. Come on - nothing is being discovered here.]
Under current conditions in the U.S., for instance, each child ultimately adds about 9,441 metric tons of carbon dioxide to the carbon legacy of an average parent - about 5.7 times the lifetime emissions for which, on average, a person is responsible.
And even though some developing nations have much higher populations and rates of population growth than the U.S., their overall impact on the global equation is often reduced by shorter life spans and less consumption. The long-term impact of a child born to a family in China is less than one fifth the impact of a child born in the U.S., the study found. [So, maybe we should outsource baby-making to third world countries and stop doing it ourselves?]
As the developing world increases both its population and consumption levels, this may change. "China and India right now are steadily increasing their carbon emissions and industrial development, and other developing nations may also continue to increase as they seek higher standards of living," Murtaugh said. [Oops, looks like that would only be a temporary solution. Turns out that greed is a worldwide phenomenon. And here I thought that only white, male Westerners were greedy. Who knew?]
The study examined several scenarios of changing emission rates, the most aggressive of which was an 85 percent reduction in global carbon emissions between now and 2100. But emissions in Africa, which includes 34 of the 50 least developed countries in the world, are already more than twice that level.
The researchers make it clear they are not advocating government controls or intervention on population issues, but say they simply want to make people aware of the environmental consequences of their reproductive choices. [Ah, here is the point of the article. Why is there a felt need by the author of this article to deny this? Not wanting to come right out and advocate government control of fertility, the author nevertheless plants a seed. Maybe, if people can be sufficiently brainwashed and frightened, they can gradually be brought to support such measures. This article is part of that effort.]
"Many people are unaware of the power of exponential population growth," [Sounds like Francis Galton, Darwin's cousin in the 19th century. Apparently the message hasn't gotten through yet. The social Darwinism of the 19th century argued that helping the poor just facilitated out of control breeding and so the poor should be left to starve. We are so much more humanitarian today: we just abort them.] Murtaugh said. "Future growth amplifies the consequences of people's reproductive choices today, the same way that compound interest amplifies a bank balance." [You have got to stop of thinking of people as, well, people. You have to reduce them to inanimate objects or abstractions before you can build support for eugenics and fertility control.]
Murtaugh noted that their calculations are relevant to other environmental impacts besides carbon emissions - for example, the consumption of fresh water, which many feel is already in short supply." ["Many feel" - the scientific rigor just oozes out of this article!]
_________________
Summary: This is radical environmental agiprop and should be understood as such. It is part of the dangerous movement to build support for the state control of human fertility and for the contraceptive mentality. It is anti-humanistic paganism dressed up in a lab coat.
Now a critic might say that this article does not advocate letting the human race die out, as the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement does. But the US is barely reproducing itself and Canada is far below replacement rate, as are 58 other countries in the world (so far). But the rules of propoganda requre that you not state your longterm goals in every mention of the strategy, especially when people might be startled by the extremism and start thinking for themselves. That is to be avoided at all costs. It is imperative that Christians and all people of good will practice recognizing this kind of propoganda for what it really is and speak up against it - because a lie repeated often enough without challenge will eventually be believed.
They worship the Earth and believe that massive human sacrifice is necessary to honour the Earth Goddess. In fact, they believe (somewhat inconsistently, since they don't immediately commit suicide) that the human race should commit collective suicide in order to "save" the Earth from the impact of human activity. They talk about overpopulation and Global Warming in exactly the same apocalyptic terms as radicals in the 70's talked about overpopulation and worldwide famine. The predictions of one fifth of the world's population dying of starvation by the 80's didn't come true, so like the Jehovah's Witnesses they revised their end-times scenario and adopted Global Warming as their new mantra. But the goal remains the same: humans should die out so the earth can remain undisturbed and pure.
Paganism is not benign. To worship the earth is to make human beings merely a part of the ecosystem and it is to apply the "nature red in tooth and claw" amoralism to human beings. It is to reduce human beings to the level of animals, rather than understanding them as having been created in the image of God. And it is eventually to come to see the very existence of human culture as evil and in need of excising from the Earth. Environmental activists today like to clothe themselves in the robes of science, yet they are irrational, fanatical and anti-humanistic. They despise the Church and accuse Christians of all that is actually true of themselves; but Christians will defend the dignity and value of human life to the very end.
A case in point is this story from an environmental newsletter entitled: "Oregon State study says having fewer children is best way to reduce your carbon footprint." My comments are in [bold and brackets].
_____________
,"Some people who are serious about wanting to reduce their "carbon footprint" on the Earth have one choice available to them that may yield a large long-term benefit - have one less child.
A recent study by statisticians at Oregon State University concluded that in the United States, the carbon legacy and greenhouse gas impact of an extra child is almost 20 times more important than some of the other environmentally sensitive practices people might employ their entire lives - things like driving a high mileage car, recycling, or using energy-efficient appliances and light bulbs. [Did it really take a study by university professors to come to the stunning new insight that more people consume more than fewer people? How could such an obvious truism be blown up into an actual scientific study? Is there any true science here? Or, could it be that this is an exercise in propoganda? Well, duh.]
The research also makes it clear that potential carbon impacts vary dramatically across countries. The average long-term carbon impact of a child born in the U.S. - along with all of its descendants - is more than 160 times the impact of a child born in Bangladesh. [This is true, but the obvious implications are not mentioned - that the real issue here is how we can change our lifestyles. Why is this not mentioned? Because people already born do not wish to change their high-consumption lifestyles. So the alternative to personal change is to continue the high consumption but agitate for fewer children so the high consumption lifestyle is sustainable - at least until we all die. The attraction of this radical environmental activism is that you and I can eat, drink and be merry and they next generation can be eliminated instead of us having to change.]
"In discussions about climate change, we tend to focus on the carbon emissions of an individual over his or her lifetime," said Paul Murtaugh, an OSU professor of statistics. "Those are important issues and it's essential that they should be considered. But an added challenge facing us is continuing population growth and increasing global consumption of resources."
In this debate, very little attention has been given to the overwhelming importance of reproductive choice, Murtaugh said. When an individual produces a child [strictly speaking: "individuals" do not and cannot produce children. It takes two. The individualism of this "movement" is never far below the surface.] - and that child potentially produces more descendants in the future - the effect on the environment can be many times the impact produced by a person during their lifetime. [Really! I wonder how many highly paid scientests it took and how many hard hours of slaving over computer models it took to come to that conclusion. Come on - nothing is being discovered here.]
Under current conditions in the U.S., for instance, each child ultimately adds about 9,441 metric tons of carbon dioxide to the carbon legacy of an average parent - about 5.7 times the lifetime emissions for which, on average, a person is responsible.
And even though some developing nations have much higher populations and rates of population growth than the U.S., their overall impact on the global equation is often reduced by shorter life spans and less consumption. The long-term impact of a child born to a family in China is less than one fifth the impact of a child born in the U.S., the study found. [So, maybe we should outsource baby-making to third world countries and stop doing it ourselves?]
As the developing world increases both its population and consumption levels, this may change. "China and India right now are steadily increasing their carbon emissions and industrial development, and other developing nations may also continue to increase as they seek higher standards of living," Murtaugh said. [Oops, looks like that would only be a temporary solution. Turns out that greed is a worldwide phenomenon. And here I thought that only white, male Westerners were greedy. Who knew?]
The study examined several scenarios of changing emission rates, the most aggressive of which was an 85 percent reduction in global carbon emissions between now and 2100. But emissions in Africa, which includes 34 of the 50 least developed countries in the world, are already more than twice that level.
The researchers make it clear they are not advocating government controls or intervention on population issues, but say they simply want to make people aware of the environmental consequences of their reproductive choices. [Ah, here is the point of the article. Why is there a felt need by the author of this article to deny this? Not wanting to come right out and advocate government control of fertility, the author nevertheless plants a seed. Maybe, if people can be sufficiently brainwashed and frightened, they can gradually be brought to support such measures. This article is part of that effort.]
"Many people are unaware of the power of exponential population growth," [Sounds like Francis Galton, Darwin's cousin in the 19th century. Apparently the message hasn't gotten through yet. The social Darwinism of the 19th century argued that helping the poor just facilitated out of control breeding and so the poor should be left to starve. We are so much more humanitarian today: we just abort them.] Murtaugh said. "Future growth amplifies the consequences of people's reproductive choices today, the same way that compound interest amplifies a bank balance." [You have got to stop of thinking of people as, well, people. You have to reduce them to inanimate objects or abstractions before you can build support for eugenics and fertility control.]
Murtaugh noted that their calculations are relevant to other environmental impacts besides carbon emissions - for example, the consumption of fresh water, which many feel is already in short supply." ["Many feel" - the scientific rigor just oozes out of this article!]
_________________
Summary: This is radical environmental agiprop and should be understood as such. It is part of the dangerous movement to build support for the state control of human fertility and for the contraceptive mentality. It is anti-humanistic paganism dressed up in a lab coat.
Now a critic might say that this article does not advocate letting the human race die out, as the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement does. But the US is barely reproducing itself and Canada is far below replacement rate, as are 58 other countries in the world (so far). But the rules of propoganda requre that you not state your longterm goals in every mention of the strategy, especially when people might be startled by the extremism and start thinking for themselves. That is to be avoided at all costs. It is imperative that Christians and all people of good will practice recognizing this kind of propoganda for what it really is and speak up against it - because a lie repeated often enough without challenge will eventually be believed.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
