In a post the other day entitled "Caesar's Orders: David Cameron Tells the Church to Change Her Doctrine to Suit His Late Modern Prejudices," I discussed the response of David Cameron to the recent court decision to bar Eunice and Owen Johns from being foster parents because they had the "wrong" views on the morality of homosexuality.
This case raises some troubling questions about the relationship between church and state and the state of religious freedom in late modernity. The UK is supposed to be a parliamentary democracy committed to liberalism. But as the practice of the Christian faith declines in Britain, as it has been doing precipitously since the 1960s, the basis of liberal tolerance declines as well. Christianity teaches that people are made in the image of God with reason and free will and, therefore, should be respected and not coerced into any religion - including Christianity. Christians have not always been perfect in implementing this principle, but compared to the alternatives (Islam, Communism) they have made Christian societies far more free than others. As Christian influence declines, the idea of tolerance gradually degenerates into majoritarian tyranny. What Christians once did occasionally and inconsistently with their own theology, secularists now do systematically and consistently with their own worldview.
Pope Benedict XVI, as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, in his funeral homily for John Paul II, spoke of the threat of the "dictatorship of relativism." Part of what he meant by this phrase is that relativism spawns dictatorship. A society that rejects Christian morality and natural law still requires some form of central authority to maintain law and order. The State is not going to wither away as in some Marxist fairy tale. The question is whether the State will make laws based on some sort of objective standard, knowable in advance, to which the rulers can be held accountable, or whether it will make laws based on a shifting, fluid, majority consensus that changes frequently and which is, in principle, beyond challenge by reason.
David Cameron seems to think it is fine to dictate to the Church what its doctrine must be - in the name of tolerance! So what is the actual content of the term "tolerance" now but conformity to the currently fashionable majority opinion? In a liberal society informed by natural law and Christian revelation, there is a basis for arguing for religions freedom that does not depend on the current majority opinion of the population. In "empty liberalism" or "post-Christian liberalism" there is no such basis. Tolerance becomes an empty notion filled by current majority prejudices. In such a situation, minorities have every reason to fear persecution by the majority.
This is quite openly acknowledged by many postmodern relativist who justify the increasing persecution of Christians as legitimate revenge. Christians persecuted minorities in the past, so the argument goes, so it is now right for them to get a taste of their own medicine. Persecuting Christians is justified by the sins of Christians in previous generations. This is a shallow, self-serving argument unworthy of serious consideration from a moral perspective.
Oddly, though, it mirrors the reason some Christians gave for persecuting Jews in past centuries. The Jews murdered Christ 1500 years ago, the argument goes, so we are justified in tormenting their descendants today. But if that was wrong, so is persecuting Christians today for the sins of Christians who lived centuries ago. But if, on the other hand, it is right to persecute Christians in revenge for the Inquisition or whatever, then we have the unexpected result that we have also justified Christian anti-Semitism as morally good.
But this is not a problem for the late modern Left, since it is implacably opposed to Jews getting uppity by daring to found their own legal state in their own homeland and expecting the Arab world to leave them in peace. So persecuting Christians and Jews is fine and dandy by the dictatorship of relativism.
David Cameron is going overboard in trying to tell the Church what it is allowed to believe and not believe. In trying to dictate doctrine he is being intolerant and no pious appeals to tolerance for homosexuals can extricate him from this charge. After all, tolerance is either a two-way street or it is not tolerance. If ways cannot be found to extend civil rights to homosexuals without interfering with the civil rights of those who continue to regard homosexual behavior as wrong, then the reason is not an over-zealous commitment to tolerance, it is a reduction of tolerance to the dictatorship of relativism.
Where once unscrupulous tyrants attempted to cover up their lust for power with appeals to Christianity, they now do it with appeals to the sexual revolution. But tyranny is tyranny.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Monday, March 21, 2011
Inerrancy, Verbal Inspiration and Homosexuality
Al Dobras has a post at Virtue Online, "Reinventing Scripture: Bishop V. Gene Robinson on the Bible and Homosexuality," in which he discusses Gene Robinson's recent efforts to justify homosexuality, divorce etc. from Scripture. If you ever doubted that the conservative Evangelical emphasis on inerrancy and verbal inspiration was important, consider Dobras' summary of Robinson's approach to Scripture.
The details of how Robinson evades the plain sense of the text in one case after another are not as important as his methodological rejection of the Divine inspiration and authority of the text. He sets himself up as the authority over the text and set about to decide which bits are ancient prejudices and which are relevant truths for us. In so doing, he has, in practice, rejected Divine inspiration and Divine authority. In so doing, he has placed himself outside the apostolic tradition and, indeed, outside the Church's teaching authority. It is all about nothing more than his personal preferences. But this is nothing other than the liberal rejection of verbal inspiration and inerrancy in action.
"In order to justify their lifestyle, homosexual clerics like Bishop Robinson are obsessive about trying to convince people that contemporary understandings of Scripture's position on homosexuality are wrong. To make their case, they invariably resort to convoluted and contradictory lines of reasoning, which they hope will rationalize away what has been considered a seriously deviant behavior for at least the last 3000 years.Conservative Evangelicals have been arguing for a century now that, in rejecting a crude dictation theory, we must be very careful not to deny the inspiration of the very words of Scripture. Even though the Holy Spirit worked through the personality, minds and experiences of the biblical writers, the text as it stands is still the inspired Word of God and not merely human opinion. Its Divine origin is the basis of its authority and when Divine inspiration is watered down - when it is reduced to 'the writer's opinion' - the authority disappears and the text becomes a wax nose.
Their arguments usually suggest either that the passages used to condemn homosexual practice are misunderstood by modern critics of homosexuality, or conversely, that the ancient writers were not capable of understanding same-sex attraction in the modern sense. When reason fails, the bishop and like-minded apologists also believe that the Bible was not inspired by God, but the scripture reflects the experiences of men in the context of their cultural environment:
I believe the Bible to be the Word of God -- but not the "words" of God. That is, I do not believe that the Bible was dictated by God and written down by scribes of one sort or another, unmediated by the scribes' own life experiences, culture, religious belief and context. [Emphasis added.]
Scripture, therefore, is primarily the writer's opinion as influenced by the culture and any biases he may possess. Consequently, a passage of Scripture must be examined in that context for the true meaning to emerge, no matter how straightforward the text may appear. As the bishop puts it:
What did these words mean to their author?...What did these words mean to the community for which they were written?...Is the message of this text eternally binding on all people of faith, or, has something changed in the context between then and now?
In other words, if one disagrees with the plain text, it can be claimed that the writer was unduly influenced by the culture or that we just do not understand what the writer meant. Perhaps the text simply doesn't apply to the present day. It is with this understanding that Bishop Robinson examined what he calls "texts of terror" used against gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people."
The details of how Robinson evades the plain sense of the text in one case after another are not as important as his methodological rejection of the Divine inspiration and authority of the text. He sets himself up as the authority over the text and set about to decide which bits are ancient prejudices and which are relevant truths for us. In so doing, he has, in practice, rejected Divine inspiration and Divine authority. In so doing, he has placed himself outside the apostolic tradition and, indeed, outside the Church's teaching authority. It is all about nothing more than his personal preferences. But this is nothing other than the liberal rejection of verbal inspiration and inerrancy in action.
The Relationship of the Legal to the Ontological: Matthew Lee Anderson on Universalism
NOTE:
This post has been altered since I put it up. By "altered" I mean I corrected an embarrassing mistake on my part. I misread Matthew Lee Anderson's sentence as if it meant the exact opposite of what he meant and a reader kindly called my attention to it. I have changed the paragraph below after the quote from Matthew: "The Great Divorce isn’t necessarily incompatible with a doctrine of hell that is grounded in penal substitution." I read it as a single negative instead of a double negative as if the "in" in "incompatible" were not there. Sorry Matthew. It isn't Matthew who has trouble reconciling penal substitution with Lewis' Augustinian view of hell, it is a broad swath of Evangelicalism in general. My point is valid except that it does not apply to Matthew.
____________
Matthew Lee Anderson is a very good thinker and in his post on Rob Bell's book, Love Wins, he has a paragraph (actually two paragraphs) that jumped out at me as especially insightful and, at the same time, especially revealing. He has both stated and illustrated what seems to me to be the single most important and also most profound problem in contemporary Evangelical theology. Here are the two paragraphs:
"One of Protestant theology’s central tasks in the 21st century is to articulate the relationship between the legal and the ontological." This is exactly right, although one wants to add that this has been true through out the history of Christian theology. In the middle of the last century the Biblical Theology Movement fell apart because of a misguided attempt to differentiate between the "Hebrew Mind" and the "Greek Mind" and this distinction soon degenerated into a reprise of Harnack's Hellenization thesis with the implicit justification of the Liberal Protestant reduction of theology to ethics and the immanentizing of the eschaton. The 20th century rejection of metaphysics took many forms - from the "functional Christology" my NT professor, Richard Longenecker, was always refuting, to the Nietzschean, postmodern program of deconstruction, to the attempt by Liberation Theology to ride the horse of history until it dropped of exhaustion.
"Focusing on the former to the exclusion of the latter–which Protestants wary of Lewis’ doctrine of hell are always in danger of doing–will lead to an attenuated understanding of the ways in which our doctrines of heaven and hell play out in our lives." Protestants have lived for a century in reaction against the de-ontologizing of the Christian Faith by Liberals and there is nothing wrong with being a right-wing reactionary that a little historical perspective can't fix. The problem is our lacking of historical awareness; we have not done historical theology seriously enough. So we end up unconsciously assuming the anti-metaphysical (or better anti-sacramental) stance of late modernity without realizing what we are doing. We are suspicious of Lewis because we are used to liberals trying to deny sin, guilt, justification and salvation as forgiveness of sin. But because we start from a modern, non-sacramental metaphysical position, we cannot integrate the legal and the ontological, which makes us suspicious of any account of salvation that is not first and foremost juridical.
"The Great Divorce isn’t necessarily incompatible with a doctrine of hell that is grounded in penal substitution." The reason Anderson has to say this is because many Evangelicals think of the doctrine of hell solely in terms of moral punishment for sin and not in terms of ontological deprivation. We should not be suspicious that an Augustinian account of eternal punishment will vitiate a strong doctrine of penal substitution because the ontological and the moral are not separate, unrelated silos. Rather, they are affected by one another. [The preceding paragraph is different from the original post. See the note at the top.]
"And Protestants interested in the latter would do well to work out the ontology." I heartily agree with this statement. But when the ontology is worked out, the final result will not be the rejection of penal substitution or even the demotion of penal substitution to a marginal position in the overall doctrine of the atonement; rather, I think its ontological significance will be recovered. Within a sacramental ontology, I think, there is a need for an account of how goodness and justice meet each other in the nature of God and in the creation that reflects His glory. Hans Boersma's recent book, Heavenly Participation: the Weaving of a Sacramental Tapestry, is a step in the right direction. I hope the book I am currently writing will make a modest contribution to the same goal. Very little work has been done on the question of re-thinking the doctrine of the atonement in the light of a recovered sacramental ontology. One thinks of T. F. Torrance as the exception that proves the rule, but his theology has not been engaged with sufficient vigor by Evangelicals yet.
"Because fundamentally, Bell–er, Lewis, Dante, Augustine–are all right that God will give us what we want. Of course, none of us want the good nearly as much as we might claim." Exactly. The problem of disordered desires requires not merely a re-ordering of desires, which is after all an ontological problem, it also requires forgiveness for sins done in the past and until the desires of our sinful hearts are completely healed and made perfect it requires on-going forgiveness. So the legal and the ontological work together and may even have some secret, inward connection. Is it possible that we become good by being loved? Is it possible that our weak desires are enflamed by the the seductive, attractive eros of God for His fallen creatures? Is irresistible grace at least partly the means of sanctification, not just justification? Is not forgiveness transformative?
Here all I can do is throw out a few cryptic remarks and hints. But I think Matthew Lee Anderson is talking about the important issues, as usual.
This post has been altered since I put it up. By "altered" I mean I corrected an embarrassing mistake on my part. I misread Matthew Lee Anderson's sentence as if it meant the exact opposite of what he meant and a reader kindly called my attention to it. I have changed the paragraph below after the quote from Matthew: "The Great Divorce isn’t necessarily incompatible with a doctrine of hell that is grounded in penal substitution." I read it as a single negative instead of a double negative as if the "in" in "incompatible" were not there. Sorry Matthew. It isn't Matthew who has trouble reconciling penal substitution with Lewis' Augustinian view of hell, it is a broad swath of Evangelicalism in general. My point is valid except that it does not apply to Matthew.
____________
Matthew Lee Anderson is a very good thinker and in his post on Rob Bell's book, Love Wins, he has a paragraph (actually two paragraphs) that jumped out at me as especially insightful and, at the same time, especially revealing. He has both stated and illustrated what seems to me to be the single most important and also most profound problem in contemporary Evangelical theology. Here are the two paragraphs:
- One of Protestant theology’s central tasks in the 21st century is to articulate the relationship between the legal and the ontological. Focusing on the former to the exclusion of the latter–which Protestants wary of Lewis’ doctrine of hell are always in danger of doing–will lead to an attenuated understanding of the ways in which our doctrines of heaven and hell play out in our lives.The Great Divorce isn’t necessarily incompatible with a doctrine of hell that is grounded in penal substitution. And Protestants interested in the latter would do well to work out the ontology.
- Because fundamentally, Bell–er, Lewis, Dante, Augustine–are all right that God will give us what we want. Of course, none of us want the good nearly as much as we might claim.
"One of Protestant theology’s central tasks in the 21st century is to articulate the relationship between the legal and the ontological." This is exactly right, although one wants to add that this has been true through out the history of Christian theology. In the middle of the last century the Biblical Theology Movement fell apart because of a misguided attempt to differentiate between the "Hebrew Mind" and the "Greek Mind" and this distinction soon degenerated into a reprise of Harnack's Hellenization thesis with the implicit justification of the Liberal Protestant reduction of theology to ethics and the immanentizing of the eschaton. The 20th century rejection of metaphysics took many forms - from the "functional Christology" my NT professor, Richard Longenecker, was always refuting, to the Nietzschean, postmodern program of deconstruction, to the attempt by Liberation Theology to ride the horse of history until it dropped of exhaustion.
"Focusing on the former to the exclusion of the latter–which Protestants wary of Lewis’ doctrine of hell are always in danger of doing–will lead to an attenuated understanding of the ways in which our doctrines of heaven and hell play out in our lives." Protestants have lived for a century in reaction against the de-ontologizing of the Christian Faith by Liberals and there is nothing wrong with being a right-wing reactionary that a little historical perspective can't fix. The problem is our lacking of historical awareness; we have not done historical theology seriously enough. So we end up unconsciously assuming the anti-metaphysical (or better anti-sacramental) stance of late modernity without realizing what we are doing. We are suspicious of Lewis because we are used to liberals trying to deny sin, guilt, justification and salvation as forgiveness of sin. But because we start from a modern, non-sacramental metaphysical position, we cannot integrate the legal and the ontological, which makes us suspicious of any account of salvation that is not first and foremost juridical.
"The Great Divorce isn’t necessarily incompatible with a doctrine of hell that is grounded in penal substitution." The reason Anderson has to say this is because many Evangelicals think of the doctrine of hell solely in terms of moral punishment for sin and not in terms of ontological deprivation. We should not be suspicious that an Augustinian account of eternal punishment will vitiate a strong doctrine of penal substitution because the ontological and the moral are not separate, unrelated silos. Rather, they are affected by one another. [The preceding paragraph is different from the original post. See the note at the top.]
"And Protestants interested in the latter would do well to work out the ontology." I heartily agree with this statement. But when the ontology is worked out, the final result will not be the rejection of penal substitution or even the demotion of penal substitution to a marginal position in the overall doctrine of the atonement; rather, I think its ontological significance will be recovered. Within a sacramental ontology, I think, there is a need for an account of how goodness and justice meet each other in the nature of God and in the creation that reflects His glory. Hans Boersma's recent book, Heavenly Participation: the Weaving of a Sacramental Tapestry, is a step in the right direction. I hope the book I am currently writing will make a modest contribution to the same goal. Very little work has been done on the question of re-thinking the doctrine of the atonement in the light of a recovered sacramental ontology. One thinks of T. F. Torrance as the exception that proves the rule, but his theology has not been engaged with sufficient vigor by Evangelicals yet.
"Because fundamentally, Bell–er, Lewis, Dante, Augustine–are all right that God will give us what we want. Of course, none of us want the good nearly as much as we might claim." Exactly. The problem of disordered desires requires not merely a re-ordering of desires, which is after all an ontological problem, it also requires forgiveness for sins done in the past and until the desires of our sinful hearts are completely healed and made perfect it requires on-going forgiveness. So the legal and the ontological work together and may even have some secret, inward connection. Is it possible that we become good by being loved? Is it possible that our weak desires are enflamed by the the seductive, attractive eros of God for His fallen creatures? Is irresistible grace at least partly the means of sanctification, not just justification? Is not forgiveness transformative?
Here all I can do is throw out a few cryptic remarks and hints. But I think Matthew Lee Anderson is talking about the important issues, as usual.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Obama and the New Left: Socialism in a Conservative Age
I just read Stanley Kurtz' new book Radical-in-Chief: Barack Obama and the Untold Story of American Socialism (Simon & Schuster, 2010). It is an original work of scholarship dependent, almost entirely on archival work, which examines the background of Barack Obama and the circles in which he moved from adolescence through college, work, law school and community organizing. It is a fascinating and illuminating window into the world of left wing activism.
Those who have read David Horowitz' Destructive Generation or A Radical Son, or other books on the rise of the New Left in the 60s, may well ask the question: "Where did the radical, communist activists of the SDS, the Weathermen and other strands of New Left agitation go after the 70s? The so-called "long sixties" extend from the mid-fifties the mid-seventies and slowly burn out with the end of the Vietnam War and the Cambodian genocide. With the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, the US took a definite rightward turn, but what happened to New Leftists who came of age in the 60s?
Of course, some of the less ideological campus radicals traded in their beads and long hair for suits and BMWs. They moved seamlessly from pot and "free love" to being stock brokers and lawyers. They maintained a bohemian ethic in their personal lives and combined it with a meek submission to the capitalist system, which they simultaneously despised and profited from.
But what about the the real communist ideologues? What about the violent revolutionaries who were true believers in the Revolution? What about the hard core radicals who manipulated the less politically aware masses for socialist ends? Where did they go? Did they "sell out" too? Did they maintain their Marxist ideology? Did they continue to work in an organized fashion? Did they change their goals? These are the questions this book provides solid, documented answers for and the answers are surprising and worthy of serious consideration by anyone convinced that socialism is dead in America.
The fact that the New Left (the anti-Stalinist but often pro-Mao Marxist-Leninist movement that arose after Khrushchev unveiled the crimes of Stalin and thus damaged the "brand" fatally) continued to exist after the 1970s may surprise some naive people. I find that many apolitical Evangelicals are extremely naive about the actual threat to Western freedom that continues to exist in the form of Marxism. A giant cultural myth has been erected as a kind of protective shield for Marxism that consists of the following three themes, which are hammered home relentlessly: (1) anyone who fears Marxism is a witch-hunting, fanatical, right-wing ideologue using McCarthism to persecute innocent individuals and (2) we have nothing to fear from Marxism or socialism because neither has anything to do with Stalinism and (3) although socialism does not work as an alternative to capitalism, its critique of capitalism is still valid. Behind the shield created by these three themes, the New Left continues to work for the Revolution by indirect and subversive, rather than by open and violent means.
The New Left ideologues did not lose their ideology; nor did they give up their revolutionary ideals. But they did shift their strategy in major ways. In fact, I would go so far as to say that a new type of socialism has emerged since 1980 which has three distinctive characteristics: (1) it is a movement from below which does not seek government control of the means of production (i.e. nationalization of all heavy industry), but rather seeks to control industry and commerce from below by grass roots pressure on corporations, (2) it is a movement that does not focus on economics directly, but on education, environmentalism and social welfare programs and (3) it is a movement that seeks to expand dependency on the state in every way possible by dislodging individuals from the influence of families, churches and other forms of civil society and making them directly dependent on the state. Sex education that promotes pansexualism in public schools would be an example of this strategy.
These New Left ideologues no longer make bombs in basements, but work through foundations and environmental groups to influence society incrementally rather than transform it over night. Obviously, this approach was dictated, to a certain extent, by the popular triumph of conservative political and economic thought at the national level during the Reagan years. Only the "perfect storm" created by the economic downturn, the unpopularity of the Iraq War, and the disillusionment of Bush's conservative base with his big-spending approach opened the door to a return of big-spending, big-government leftism in 2008. The question Kurtz' book answers is what Obama was doing between the 80s and 2006 and what that means for a proper understanding of his own personal political convictions and goals.
The short answer is that Obama was a community organizer, which places him in the center of the New Left strategy for working to implement socialist and statist ideals from below without focusing on the economy, but on grass roots pressure upward for social transformation. The community organizer is not the old-fashioned communist agitator who is trying to recruit members for the Party; the community organizer is not focused on the Party at all. An informal network of allegiances has replaced top-down party discipline. The network is what this book describes: socialist conferences in New York City, black liberation theology in the churches, the Midwest Foundation, ACORN, community organizer training seminars and so on.
Much of the cost of socialist agitation in today's America is borne by the taxpayer. It is ironic that community organizers have mastered the art of getting government grants to fund projects that supposedly help the community, but which actually provide salaries for workers seeking to advance their leftist ideology. ACORN is the prototypical example of such an organization.
Kurtz documents Obama's close working relationship with unrepentant communist Bill Ayers, Cuba-loving, America-hating Jeremiah Wright, and ACORN and uncovers the web of lies spun to protect Obama's true ideology and keep it hidden from the public. Since the 80s it has been standard operating procedure to keep the depth of Marxist ideology that motivates the activists well below the surface. Community organizing sounds harmless to the average apolitical voter and that same average voter is unlikely to detect any connection between environmentalism and socialism. Of course, the mainstream media, shaped in a socialist worldview by their university education, will not tell them. So the socialism is hidden in plain view. It is not discerned by the average person but for the trained researcher who knows what to look for it is as obvious as the sun.
This book performs a real service to anyone who desires to understand the continuing battle within Western culture between the forces of that greatest of all Christian heresies, Marxism, and traditional, conservative, Christian liberal political thought. We can now say with confidence that Barack Obama wants to transform America into (at least) a social democracy and that his socialist goals are integral to his worldview, his life work and his personality. For that, we are in Stanley Kurtz's debt. Thanks to this book what many people suspected is not documented fact.
UPDATE: You can see Peter Robinson interviewing Stanley Kurtz about his book on Uncommon Knowledge here. Just scroll down to Feb. 4-8. The interview is in 5 parts.
Those who have read David Horowitz' Destructive Generation or A Radical Son, or other books on the rise of the New Left in the 60s, may well ask the question: "Where did the radical, communist activists of the SDS, the Weathermen and other strands of New Left agitation go after the 70s? The so-called "long sixties" extend from the mid-fifties the mid-seventies and slowly burn out with the end of the Vietnam War and the Cambodian genocide. With the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, the US took a definite rightward turn, but what happened to New Leftists who came of age in the 60s?
Of course, some of the less ideological campus radicals traded in their beads and long hair for suits and BMWs. They moved seamlessly from pot and "free love" to being stock brokers and lawyers. They maintained a bohemian ethic in their personal lives and combined it with a meek submission to the capitalist system, which they simultaneously despised and profited from.
But what about the the real communist ideologues? What about the violent revolutionaries who were true believers in the Revolution? What about the hard core radicals who manipulated the less politically aware masses for socialist ends? Where did they go? Did they "sell out" too? Did they maintain their Marxist ideology? Did they continue to work in an organized fashion? Did they change their goals? These are the questions this book provides solid, documented answers for and the answers are surprising and worthy of serious consideration by anyone convinced that socialism is dead in America.
The fact that the New Left (the anti-Stalinist but often pro-Mao Marxist-Leninist movement that arose after Khrushchev unveiled the crimes of Stalin and thus damaged the "brand" fatally) continued to exist after the 1970s may surprise some naive people. I find that many apolitical Evangelicals are extremely naive about the actual threat to Western freedom that continues to exist in the form of Marxism. A giant cultural myth has been erected as a kind of protective shield for Marxism that consists of the following three themes, which are hammered home relentlessly: (1) anyone who fears Marxism is a witch-hunting, fanatical, right-wing ideologue using McCarthism to persecute innocent individuals and (2) we have nothing to fear from Marxism or socialism because neither has anything to do with Stalinism and (3) although socialism does not work as an alternative to capitalism, its critique of capitalism is still valid. Behind the shield created by these three themes, the New Left continues to work for the Revolution by indirect and subversive, rather than by open and violent means.
The New Left ideologues did not lose their ideology; nor did they give up their revolutionary ideals. But they did shift their strategy in major ways. In fact, I would go so far as to say that a new type of socialism has emerged since 1980 which has three distinctive characteristics: (1) it is a movement from below which does not seek government control of the means of production (i.e. nationalization of all heavy industry), but rather seeks to control industry and commerce from below by grass roots pressure on corporations, (2) it is a movement that does not focus on economics directly, but on education, environmentalism and social welfare programs and (3) it is a movement that seeks to expand dependency on the state in every way possible by dislodging individuals from the influence of families, churches and other forms of civil society and making them directly dependent on the state. Sex education that promotes pansexualism in public schools would be an example of this strategy.
These New Left ideologues no longer make bombs in basements, but work through foundations and environmental groups to influence society incrementally rather than transform it over night. Obviously, this approach was dictated, to a certain extent, by the popular triumph of conservative political and economic thought at the national level during the Reagan years. Only the "perfect storm" created by the economic downturn, the unpopularity of the Iraq War, and the disillusionment of Bush's conservative base with his big-spending approach opened the door to a return of big-spending, big-government leftism in 2008. The question Kurtz' book answers is what Obama was doing between the 80s and 2006 and what that means for a proper understanding of his own personal political convictions and goals.
The short answer is that Obama was a community organizer, which places him in the center of the New Left strategy for working to implement socialist and statist ideals from below without focusing on the economy, but on grass roots pressure upward for social transformation. The community organizer is not the old-fashioned communist agitator who is trying to recruit members for the Party; the community organizer is not focused on the Party at all. An informal network of allegiances has replaced top-down party discipline. The network is what this book describes: socialist conferences in New York City, black liberation theology in the churches, the Midwest Foundation, ACORN, community organizer training seminars and so on.
Much of the cost of socialist agitation in today's America is borne by the taxpayer. It is ironic that community organizers have mastered the art of getting government grants to fund projects that supposedly help the community, but which actually provide salaries for workers seeking to advance their leftist ideology. ACORN is the prototypical example of such an organization.
Kurtz documents Obama's close working relationship with unrepentant communist Bill Ayers, Cuba-loving, America-hating Jeremiah Wright, and ACORN and uncovers the web of lies spun to protect Obama's true ideology and keep it hidden from the public. Since the 80s it has been standard operating procedure to keep the depth of Marxist ideology that motivates the activists well below the surface. Community organizing sounds harmless to the average apolitical voter and that same average voter is unlikely to detect any connection between environmentalism and socialism. Of course, the mainstream media, shaped in a socialist worldview by their university education, will not tell them. So the socialism is hidden in plain view. It is not discerned by the average person but for the trained researcher who knows what to look for it is as obvious as the sun.
This book performs a real service to anyone who desires to understand the continuing battle within Western culture between the forces of that greatest of all Christian heresies, Marxism, and traditional, conservative, Christian liberal political thought. We can now say with confidence that Barack Obama wants to transform America into (at least) a social democracy and that his socialist goals are integral to his worldview, his life work and his personality. For that, we are in Stanley Kurtz's debt. Thanks to this book what many people suspected is not documented fact.
UPDATE: You can see Peter Robinson interviewing Stanley Kurtz about his book on Uncommon Knowledge here. Just scroll down to Feb. 4-8. The interview is in 5 parts.
Friday, March 18, 2011
Why Does the Left Project Its Obsession with Promiscuity, Unnatural Sex and Abortion onto Conservatives Who Want Nothing to Do with Such Things?
One of the least serious and most amusing charges made against conservative Evangelicals like me is that we are "obsessed with gay marriage and abortion." What a ridiculous accusation! We have absolutely no interest in either subject unless somebody tries to make murdering babies legal or tries to change the definition of natural marriage. It is clearly the Left which is obsessed with these things and it is the Left which is the clear aggressor in the culture wars that have been raging since the 60s. I believe the pop psychology phrase that describes this phenomenon is "projection."
So it is nice to see this high school debating tactic demolished every once and a while. The latest to shoot these barrel-dwelling fish is David French, who writes:
So it is nice to see this high school debating tactic demolished every once and a while. The latest to shoot these barrel-dwelling fish is David French, who writes:
I chuckle when I hear the common critique of the religious and secular left: "Evangelicals are obsessed with gays and abortion." The criticism is so common that it's often internalized and adopted by the church itself. Similar to our reaction to another leftist refrain ("Christians care about children until they're born"), we act as if the critique is legitimate-as if it's the result of some kind of empirical, good-faith analysis of Christian action in America. But it's not. It is, pure and simple, a talking point.If you care about poor people in need, you had better hope that the Evangelical Left fails to entice many conservative Evangelicals down the path of liberal Protestantism. You had better hope that the number of conservative Evangelicals grows quickly - if you actually want to see the poor get help, that is.
And it's false. Demonstrably false.
What if I told you that American Christians, in fact, are "obsessed" with helping the poorest and weakest members of our society? Would that improve our image? What if I told you that this "obsession" was so obvious as to be demonstrable even to the most hardened skeptic? Would that make you doubt the good faith of the "obsessed with gays and abortion" critique? . . .
We can find part of the answer by looking at the budgets of the largest and most influential Christian organizations. A website called Guidestar publishes the tax filings of most charitable organizations, so register (it's free) and take a tour of Form 990s.
First, you'll notice that Christians do give lots of money to what I'd call "pure" culture war organizations, but not as much as the Left. The largest (by budget) include my employer, the Alliance Defense Fund, and the Family Research Council. Of the pro-life organizations, two of the largest are National Right to Life and Americans United for Life. These organizations raise quite a bit of money-almost $60 million combined. But it's not as much as the leading legal organization on the Left. The ACLU Foundation (which does not include the various state ACLUs) took in $98 million with the national ACLU itself raking in an additional $33 million.
But what about organizations like Focus on the Family? Focus is big, no doubt, with gross receipts exceeding $135 million. But anyone with even a passing familiarity with that organization knows that the vast majority of its efforts are thoroughly divorced from the "gays and abortion" side of the culture wars. Its website and radio show are primarily dedicated to such topics as enriching your marriage, dealing with unruly teens, and reviewing TV shows and movies for their family-friendliness.
How do those numbers stack up with leading Christian anti-poverty charities? Let's look at just three: World Vision, Compassion International, and Samaritan's Purse. Their total annual gross receipts (again, according to most recently available Form 990s) exceed $2.1 billion. The smallest of the three organizations (Samaritan's Purse) has larger gross receipts than every major "pro-family" culture war organization in the United States combined. World Vision, the largest, not only takes in more than $1 billion per year, it also has more than 1,400 employees and 43,000 volunteers.
A Serious Theological Interview on MSNBC: Now I've Seen Everything!
The internet is buzzing with controversy over yet another Emergent Church pastor with an "edgy, new book" questioning something the Church has affirmed for 20 centuries. So Rob Bell has a book at #4 on Amazon that may or may not teach universalism, if it actually teaches anything clearly, which seems to be in question. I have not read the book, but I have followed the reaction to it with some amusement because I've seen the same movie before with different characters.
I did see this interview of Rob Bell by Martin Bashir at MSNBC (see below). The interview is astonishing because it features an interviewer asking tough questions of a trendy liberal type instead of just lobbing the usual soft balls and sneering at conservative doctrine and conservative Christians. I thought is was outstanding journalism and MSNBC ought to be commended for rising above its usual liberal bias.
The interviewer, Martin Bashir, asks Bell to clarify if he is or is not a universalist. Bell refuses. It appears that the marketing strategy of the book is to claim to be (1) in the mainstream of Christianity and (2) pro-universalism in a vague manner. It seems to be "working" from a sales and marketing perspective and Bell stays right on script. The only problem is that he looks foolish, evasive and dishonest when confronted by an interviewer who really tries to get to the bottom of what he actually believes.
A partial transcript can be accessed here. Kevin DeYoung's 20 page review of Bell's book, which Bashir quotes in the interview, can be accessed here. Paul Edwards has a very interesting 30 minute interview with Martin Bashir about the whole incident, which can be heard here.
Some bloggers have accused Martin Bashir of being biased against Rob Bell just because he attends Tim Keller's Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City. It figures; when you can't refute the message, shoot the messenger.
Bashir answers Edwards' question about this by asserting that the job of a journalist is to get at the truth on behalf of the audience and that his personal beliefs have nothing to do with that duty. Quite right. The issue that Rob Bell's supporters have to deal with is not whether Bashir was or was not of one opinion personally or the other. Suppose he was completely opposed to Rob Bell; the question still is why does Bell do so much squirming and equivocating instead of answering clearly and with calm conviction? Why is Bell so reluctant to answer a straight-forward question? In the interview, he looks much more like a politician than a pastor. In fact, he looks like Romney answering questions on health care at a Tea Party rally! The question is: why?
Bashir opines in the interview that Bell is using the medium of writing to work out his own anxieties, insecurities and unresolved issues from his own conservative upbringing. When Bashir asked Bell if this was true, Bell owned up to it rather than denying it. In Emergent Church circles this is not seen as a bad thing at all; it is the way many Emergent Church pastors preach, in fact. But when a pastor writes a book he ought to remember James' injunction about the higher responsibility borne by teachers in the Church and he ought to remember that ineffective shepherds are judged harshly in Scripture. Using one's megachurch platform to address a theological issue is not the place to work out issues best confined to sessions with one's spiritual director.
The Emergent Church is basically a series of youth groups that got out of hand. Some day, one can only hope its leaders grow up and take adult responsibility for protecting the sheep entrusted to them by God. After all, they don't ultimately answer to the blogosphere but to the Good Shepherd Himself.
I did see this interview of Rob Bell by Martin Bashir at MSNBC (see below). The interview is astonishing because it features an interviewer asking tough questions of a trendy liberal type instead of just lobbing the usual soft balls and sneering at conservative doctrine and conservative Christians. I thought is was outstanding journalism and MSNBC ought to be commended for rising above its usual liberal bias.
The interviewer, Martin Bashir, asks Bell to clarify if he is or is not a universalist. Bell refuses. It appears that the marketing strategy of the book is to claim to be (1) in the mainstream of Christianity and (2) pro-universalism in a vague manner. It seems to be "working" from a sales and marketing perspective and Bell stays right on script. The only problem is that he looks foolish, evasive and dishonest when confronted by an interviewer who really tries to get to the bottom of what he actually believes.
A partial transcript can be accessed here. Kevin DeYoung's 20 page review of Bell's book, which Bashir quotes in the interview, can be accessed here. Paul Edwards has a very interesting 30 minute interview with Martin Bashir about the whole incident, which can be heard here.
Some bloggers have accused Martin Bashir of being biased against Rob Bell just because he attends Tim Keller's Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City. It figures; when you can't refute the message, shoot the messenger.
Bashir answers Edwards' question about this by asserting that the job of a journalist is to get at the truth on behalf of the audience and that his personal beliefs have nothing to do with that duty. Quite right. The issue that Rob Bell's supporters have to deal with is not whether Bashir was or was not of one opinion personally or the other. Suppose he was completely opposed to Rob Bell; the question still is why does Bell do so much squirming and equivocating instead of answering clearly and with calm conviction? Why is Bell so reluctant to answer a straight-forward question? In the interview, he looks much more like a politician than a pastor. In fact, he looks like Romney answering questions on health care at a Tea Party rally! The question is: why?
Bashir opines in the interview that Bell is using the medium of writing to work out his own anxieties, insecurities and unresolved issues from his own conservative upbringing. When Bashir asked Bell if this was true, Bell owned up to it rather than denying it. In Emergent Church circles this is not seen as a bad thing at all; it is the way many Emergent Church pastors preach, in fact. But when a pastor writes a book he ought to remember James' injunction about the higher responsibility borne by teachers in the Church and he ought to remember that ineffective shepherds are judged harshly in Scripture. Using one's megachurch platform to address a theological issue is not the place to work out issues best confined to sessions with one's spiritual director.
The Emergent Church is basically a series of youth groups that got out of hand. Some day, one can only hope its leaders grow up and take adult responsibility for protecting the sheep entrusted to them by God. After all, they don't ultimately answer to the blogosphere but to the Good Shepherd Himself.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
The Leader of the Free World
Given the glaring vacuum of leadership from the current occupant of the White House, it could be argued that the de facto leader of the free world today is the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanayhu. Here is his great speech at the United Nations on Sept. 24, 2009 after the sickening spectacle of Iran's president spewing anti-Semitic rants in the tradition of Hitler and Amalek the previous day. He addresses the issue of the reality of the Holocaust and the threat to the world from Iran. He argues that the real clash is not between faiths, but between civilization and barbarism.
If you don't have time to watch the whole thing, I recommend you watch the first part. The full transcript is here.
And here is Netanayhu as a 28 year old student in the US, where he graduated from MIT. He went under the name of Nitay for security reasons. His brother Yonaton, a commando, had recently been killed in the Israeli rescue mission in Entebbe. In this clip, the 28 year old Netanayhu gives a tremendous account of history and clear-sighted political analysis. He is a voice of truth.
Israel is the only democratic state in the Middle East with full human rights for its citizens. It is a beacon of civilization and liberty that must not be allowed to be extinguished. Netanyahu is right that the consequences of such a horrible thing would be of great danger and harm for all of Western civilization and not for Israel or Jews only.
If only the United States has a president with moral clarity, a grasp of history and a passionate commitment to liberty, justice and the defense of all that is good in our cultural traditions.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Liberal Media Successfully Resurrects European Anti-Semitism
Daniel Halper in The Weekly Standard points us to a shocking story in the Jerusalem Post describing a recent study done in Europe by a think-tank associated with Germany's Social Democratic Party. The story is entitled: "47% of Germans Think Israel is Exterminating Palestinians" and the summary says:
I noticed this story after writing my last post, but this is clearly the toxic result of the widespread, growing, and extreme bias against Israel displayed by the liberal media over the past number of years. They should be proud of their work: they have revived what WW II stamped out. European anti-Semitism rises again as a result of stoking the ancient prejudice and hatred of Jews under the guise of being anti-Zionist, anti-Israel and pro-Arab. The Left should be pleased with the preparatory work it is doing to get Europe ready to acquiesce to its coming Islamic masters. The transition should be seamless and painless.
"Dr. Beate Küpper, a researcher from the University of Bielefeld who co-authored the Friedrich Ebert Foundation’s study along with her colleagues Andreas Zick and Andreas Hoevermann, told The Jerusalem Post on Monday that the study showed a strong presence of “anti-Semitism that is linked with Israel and is hidden behind criticism of Israel, and is not neutral.” . . .Read it all here.
She termed the outbreak of Jew-hatred in Germany “remarkable” because there were widespread Holocaust remembrance and education events in Germany.
The study – “Intolerance, Prejudice, Discrimination: A European Report” –questioned roughly 1,000 people in each of the selected EU countries. . . .
Asked to respond to the statement that “Israel is conducting a war of extermination against the Palestinians,” 47.7 percent of the study’s participants in Germany expressed agreement – the highest number in Western Europe.
The statement is a typical question used to probe attitudes about equating Israel with the Nazi campaign to exterminate European Jewry.
The US State Department defines the comparison as an expression of modern anti- Semitism, as does the European Union. . .
The statement “Considering Israel’s policy, I can understand why people do not like Jews” met with 35.6% affirmation in Germany, while 35.9% of British respondents were in agreement. In the Netherlands, 41.1% favored the assertion, as did 55.2% in Poland, 45.6% in Hungary and 48.8% in Portugal. France declined to participate.
The researchers also asked whether “Jews try to take advantage of having been victims during the Nazi era.”
Almost half the Germans questioned responded in the affirmative; the country’s 48.9% result was the highest among the Western European countries. The Netherlands provided the lowest percentage, with 17.2% affirming that Jews were trying to exploit the Nazi era. The number for Poland was 72.2%, and Hungary reached 68.1%. France reached 32.3%, England 21.8%, Portugal 52.2% and Italy 40.2%."
I noticed this story after writing my last post, but this is clearly the toxic result of the widespread, growing, and extreme bias against Israel displayed by the liberal media over the past number of years. They should be proud of their work: they have revived what WW II stamped out. European anti-Semitism rises again as a result of stoking the ancient prejudice and hatred of Jews under the guise of being anti-Zionist, anti-Israel and pro-Arab. The Left should be pleased with the preparatory work it is doing to get Europe ready to acquiesce to its coming Islamic masters. The transition should be seamless and painless.
The Liberal Media Averts Its Face From a Story That Does Not Fit Its Narrative
The horrifyingly evil murder of a Jewish family in Itamar has been all but ignored by the liberal media. Claire Berlinski, however, went there and reports:
Mark Steyn has a reflection on this tragedy bitterly entitled: "Dead Jews is No News." He writes:
We went yesterday to Itamar, the West Bank settlement where Udi and Ruth Fogel, and their children--Yoav, age 11, Elad, age 4, and Hadas, their 3-month-old daughter--were murdered. A detail that wasn't widely reported, or reported anywhere that I've seen, is that their newborn baby was decapitated. . .Sadly, I think she is right. One can't have a conversation with savages who decapitate your babies when they get a chance and then celebrate in the streets. Israel is increasingly isolated and increasingly dependent on its army alone for its survival. We pray that no major crisis/war occurs until this anti-Israel president has been removed from office by the democratic process.
One very quick point I'll make is that this was clearly not a family above all of "settlers"--some alien species that exists primarily as a political bargaining point--but of human beings. In the home next door to the one that was invaded, kids' clothing was hanging on the line next to a child's bicycle. You simply cannot look at that and think, "This story is above all about land and politics." This story is above all about murder. They were children and they were murdered. Two more children were orphaned. The children were targeted deliberately. This was a premeditated murder--not a crime of passion or self-defense--and it was a psychotically savage crime. Anyone who in any way tries to rationalize or minimize this or to suggest that this is a fitting punishment for anything needs to go out and look at a three-month-old baby and ask himself what it would take to climb over a fence, climb in a window, and cut off that child's head. If that act seems an "understandable" reaction to a political grievance to him, I don't think we can have much of a conversation."
Mark Steyn has a reflection on this tragedy bitterly entitled: "Dead Jews is No News." He writes:
The Western media has covered itself with shame once again. Its selective moral outrage grows less believable with every incident like this. The real motivations behind the de-legitimization of Israel are every bit as ugly as this atrocity. In fact, they are identical.On Friday night, twelve-year old Tamar Fogel came home to find both her parents, Ruth and Udi Fogel, two brothers Yoav (11) and Elad (four), and her three-month old sister Hadas murdered in their beds. They had had their throats cut and been stabbed through the heart.
That’s not shocking: There is no shortage of young Muslim men who would enjoy slitting the throat of a three-month old baby, and then head home dreaming of the town square or soccer tournament to be named in their honor.
Back in Gaza, the citizenry celebrated the news by cheering and passing out sweets.
That’s not shocking, either: In the broader Palestinian death cult, there are untold legions who, while disinclined to murder Jews themselves, are content to revel in the glorious victory of others.
And out in the wider world there was a marked reluctance to cover the story.
Caesar's Orders: David Cameron Tells the Church to Change Her Doctrine to Suit His Late Modern Prejudices
David Cameron, the current leader of the once proud Conservative Party in the UK, is attempting to use the power of his office and his platform as leader of the country to tell Christians how they need to change their doctrine in order to conform to his personal worldview. This bullying behavior is shocking in a formerly Christian country. Joseph Watts reports:
But the Church has dealt with little boy imitators of the Anti-Christ before and they are all dead, buried and mostly forgotten. But the Church remains and will remain until the end of time witnessing to the Biblical Gospel of sin and salvation. Arianism, Pelagianism, and the false liberal "gospel" of accepting your acceptance will not endure. The preaching of Jesus Christ on the basis of the Holy Scriptures will endure because the Word of our God endures forever.
A Christian in the UK, David Robertson, writes an open letter appealing to American Christians to pray for the UK:
So it is tolerance for my point of view and tough luck for your view. This is what liberal democracy comes down to in Broken Britain. Anyone who thought the defeat of Labour was the answer must now be thoroughly disillusioned.Eunice Johns and her husband Owen were effectively prevented by a judge from becoming foster parents after telling a social worker they would not tell a child that homosexuality was acceptable.
They are considering an appeal but the Prime Minister, who was told of the case yesterday while in Derby to hold a meeting of his Cabinet, said the judge's decision should stand.
Pointing out that he also went to church, Mr Cameron said: "This matter was decided by a court in the appropriate way and I think we should rest with the judgement that was made."
Asked if he thought Christian views were incompatible with an acceptance of homosexuality he said: "I think Christians should be tolerant and welcoming and broad minded."
But the Church has dealt with little boy imitators of the Anti-Christ before and they are all dead, buried and mostly forgotten. But the Church remains and will remain until the end of time witnessing to the Biblical Gospel of sin and salvation. Arianism, Pelagianism, and the false liberal "gospel" of accepting your acceptance will not endure. The preaching of Jesus Christ on the basis of the Holy Scriptures will endure because the Word of our God endures forever.
A Christian in the UK, David Robertson, writes an open letter appealing to American Christians to pray for the UK:
This week a Judge gave a ruling against a Christian couple who had appealed for the right to be allowed to adopt/foster. I was not surprised that they lost the case, but it is the basis of the decision, which is now a formal legal opinion and case law, which is astonishing.I won't go into all the details but the judgment was made on the grounds that Britain is not a Christian nation, and that our laws now have no basis in Judeo-Christian teaching. Indeed as can be seek from the extract below – the Christian faith is officially defined as being solely subjective, being incapable of proof and evidence.•The Judea-Christian tradition, stretching over many centuries, has no doubt exerted a profound influence upon the judgment of law-makers as to the objective merits of this or that social policy, and the liturgy and practice of the established church are to some extent prescribed by law. But the conferment of any legal protection or preference upon a particular substantive moral position on the ground only that it is espoused by the adherents of a particular faith, however long its tradition, however rich its culture, is deeply unprincipled; it imposes compulsory law not to advance the general good on objective grounds, but to give effect to the force of subjective opinion. This must be so, since, in the eye of everyone save the believer, religious faith is necessarily subjective, being incommunicable by any kind of proof or evidence. It may, of course, be true, but the ascertainment of such a truth lies beyond the means by which laws are made in a reasonable society.The importance of all this cannot be understated! I have never come across such an explicit anti-Christian statement in a court of law (a court by the way which relies on witnesses swearing on the Bible). The implications are enormous. This absolute privatisation of Christianity, and its exclusion from the law of the land, means that we will be subject to the arbitrary whims of judges and the fashions of the day (the judge in this case takes it as read that any child who is brought up and not taught that homosexuality is normal will be damaged – the judge of course does not tell us the basis for this, or whether we should also consider polygamy or incest to be 'normal' as well).
The UK needs our prayers and needs even more a movement of the Holy Spirit. Nothing but revival can save her now.
Defund Planned Parenthood: Save Lives
Herman Cain is a black businessman and radio talk show host who is considering running for president in 2012. He tells it like it is with regard to the billion dollar corporation called Planned Parenthood. CNN reports:
Using unusually harsh words, a potential presidential candidate echoed some previous comments: claiming that Planned Parenthood’s original mission was to “help kill black babies before they came into the world.”Herman Cain went on to say that the sexual and reproductive health care provider is carrying out its mission of “planned genocide.”
In response, the group said that Cain is using "inflammatory and divisive language based on race to achieve extreme political goals" of ending legal abortion.
Cain, an African-American and the first Republican to launch a presidential exploratory committee, made the comments Tuesday during a question-and-answer session at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank in Washington.The purpose of the session was for Cain to talk about national policy. He covered lots of ground: outlining his views on monetary policy, “fixing” the Federal Reserve, and overturning “Obamacare.”
His comments about Planned Parenthood come amid a debate in Congress over federal funding for Planned Parenthood. Attached to the spending bill recently passed by the House is an amendment from Republican Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana that denies the group funds.
Speaking to reporters and bloggers at the Heritage Foundation, Cain echoed a position expressed by many other Republicans.
“I support de-funding Planned Parenthood,” Cain said. “Tactically how they [Congress] does it…I can’t tell you.”
Cain then explained the reason behind his stance.
“You probably don’t hear a lot of people talking about this,” Cain said. “When Margaret Sanger – check my history – started Planned Parenthood, the objective was to put these centers in primarily black communities so they could help kill black babies before they came into the world.”
“It's planned genocide,” Cain claimed.
“It’s carrying out its original mission,” he continued. “I’ve talked to young girls who go in there, and they [Planned Parenthood] don’t talk about how you plan parenthood. They don’t talk about adoption as an option. They don’t say, ‘Well, bring your parents in so we can sit down and talk with you, and counsel with you before you make this decision.’”
Well said Mr. Cain. It is great to see the truth being spoken in public and the liberal media being forced to take note.
It will come as a great shock to those who inhabit the liberal bubble that they are, in fact, not on the side of women and minorities on this issue. Abortion is the great civil rights issue of our time and the reason the Left always tries desperately to hang the racism label on conservatives is that they are afraid that their own racism will be exposed.
Well, sorry, but it's too late to cover that up now.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Deep in the Weeds (Or Was That Weed?) with Justin Trudeau
Justin Trudeau, son of P. E. Trudeau, the father of multiculturalism in Canada, is now a Liberal member of Parliament for a Montreal riding. As one com box wag had it: he got his mother's brains and his father's looks - a double whammy.
Anyway, he got into trouble the other day. The Globe and Mail explains all:
I don't think it was any of these. I think was a case of self-contradictory ideology making you say stupid things. Liberals hold simultaneously to two ideological positions: (1) the equality of women and the raging violence being done to them by the white, Western patriarchy, and (2) cultural relativism as expressed in the ideology of multiculturalism. So when they come up against a cultural expression of institutionalized violence against women perpetrated by non-white, non-Western cultures, they either just sit there and blink like a cat staring vacantly into space or they open their mouths and say something really, really stupid.
Of course, we know which thing happened here.
Multiculturalism is a dead idea. It was invented by relativists, implemented by secularists, praised by leftists and buried by terrorists. It is over. But those who still push cultural Marxist-inspired political correctness still parrot it as if it were still 1968. No matter what the calendar says, the 60s will never end for some people. But those people belong in museums, not Parliament.
Anyway, he got into trouble the other day. The Globe and Mail explains all:
OK, a Liberal MP issues a statement to clarify that he thinks that honor killings are "A Very Bad Thing." I know what you are thinking: was this in question? Well, actually it was . . . sort of. Let's let Barbara Kay of the National Post sort this one out:Justin Trudeau has apologized for saying he was “uncomfortable” with the Harper government’s description of so-called honour killings as “barbaric.”
“Perhaps I got tangled in semantic weeds in my comments, particularly in view of the Conservatives' cynicism on these issues,” Mr. Trudeau wrote in an email to The Globe. “I want to make clear that I think the acts described are heinous, barbaric acts that are totally unacceptable in our society.”
An updated government information pamphlet for newcomers to Canada, “Discover Canada,” warns against such “barbaric” practices as honour killings, forced marriages and other immoral or criminal practices. Federal Liberal Immigration critic Justin Trudeau yesterday made it known that he is “uncomfortable” with the word “barbaric.” “You could say it’s absolutely unacceptable as a phrase,” says Trudeau, adding that the word could have the effect of making newcomers “defensive.”Now, I know what you are thinking: "No way! He did not really say that." Well, he says he did but now he says he didn't mean it. I suppose that makes some sort of difference - somehow. As one might imagine, the reaction was, well, shall we say, vigorous. Barbara Kay again:
Reaction from the blogosphere, as well as from Conservatives, to Trudeau’s reflexive political correctness was swift and uncompromising. Immigration Minister Jason Kenney responded that the language in Discover Canada is deliberate and accurate. “There’s nothing more brutal than killing a woman because of some perceived slight to family honour,” Mr. Kenney observed.Now, you are likely thinking. Why did Mr. Trudeau criticize the Conservative government's pamphlet for potential immigrants in the first place? Was it simply a scuzzy way to curry votes with Muslim voters in his riding? Was it a calculated attempt to appear broad-minded as opposed to those knuckle-dragging Conservatives who believe in absolute right and wrong? Or was it that he thinks killing women is a minor issue compared to horror and trauma inflicted on a potential immigrant father or brother who has already killed a sister or daughter for somehow staining the family honor by using the hurtful term "barbaric" to describe what they did?
I don't think it was any of these. I think was a case of self-contradictory ideology making you say stupid things. Liberals hold simultaneously to two ideological positions: (1) the equality of women and the raging violence being done to them by the white, Western patriarchy, and (2) cultural relativism as expressed in the ideology of multiculturalism. So when they come up against a cultural expression of institutionalized violence against women perpetrated by non-white, non-Western cultures, they either just sit there and blink like a cat staring vacantly into space or they open their mouths and say something really, really stupid.
Of course, we know which thing happened here.
Multiculturalism is a dead idea. It was invented by relativists, implemented by secularists, praised by leftists and buried by terrorists. It is over. But those who still push cultural Marxist-inspired political correctness still parrot it as if it were still 1968. No matter what the calendar says, the 60s will never end for some people. But those people belong in museums, not Parliament.
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