Nazareth: A Hamilton parody

I See the Need for a Clearly Articulated Christian Worldview

Jason Engwer and I have been having some discussions in the comment threads from some of my recent blog posts about an idea, a hypothesis that I have been proposing, which involves a link between what the Roman Catholic Church of the past, and what “wokism” is and is doing in the present. He believes that it is not a good idea, not a good hypothesis, and I know that I have not provided a complete argument for it.

As I mentioned in the comments, I had been hoping to get some feedback with the intention that I would be able to work out my thoughts more fully. Jason would prefer that I not use Triablogue for that particular kind of thing, and of course I will defer to his wishes.

But I am interested in having a discussion.

As someone who is a conservative, Reformed, evangelical Christian, I am alarmed by recent trends in politics and culture, and I imagine that some of you are as well. Francis Schaeffer’s excellent question comes to mind: “how then should we live?” What role should Christians play in all of this? I have frequently in my life been a keen observer of politics. Other times, not so much, depending on what’s going on in my own life. I would imagine that’s true for most of you as well. I seem to be watching more closely these days.

As a writer, I am hugely aware that “words have meanings”. It should be evident to all that definitions are fluctuating almost by the day. Words and concepts such as “racism”, “anti-racism”, “justice”, “social justice”, even “liberal” and “conservative” get thrown about, and often, people today are using the same words, but using different definitions in their minds, and consequently while it looks as if they are having a conversation, in real life, they are talking at cross-purposes, and not having a genuine conversation at all.

The pure speed of conversation, through “social media” such as Twitter and Facebook enable us to see events, form opinions, and to dive into “discussions”, without even knowing the full details of a thing.

These are times, I believe, when people’s thoughts and concepts are in flux, and as a result, people are changing their ways of thinking. Some popular examples include someone like the former comedian Dave Rubin, who is a “gay” “married” “classical liberal” “atheist”, who recently has, through various discussions, found himself to be more apt to “believe there is a God” and to have a generally more conservative outlook in life.

The independent YouTube journalist Tim Pool, too, whom I watch, cut his teeth, so to speak, by “live streaming” news reports from the “Occupy Wall Street” protests from some years ago. Now he is watching closely as rioting is pretty much a constant thing in some Democrat-run cities, and though he considers himself a “social liberal”, in his commentaries, he currently despises the Democrats for allowing things, and he has placed himself firmly in the Trump column for this upcoming election.

Given that this is a time of flux, I believe that the times are ripe for, and needful of, a clearly articulated Christian worldview to make its way onto the public stage.


We can all see what the phenomenon that I am calling “wokism” is and is doing. It is having a profound effect on the national discussions, including everything from the rioting in cities, the role of police and police departments, the role of individuals (generally, a conservative viewpoint) vs the role of “aggrieved groups” (generally, a leftist viewpoint).

One reason for this may be found in academia. It is said (and many of you will be aware of this narrative) that anti-war protesters of the political left went into academia because of the draft deferrals that could be gained by following that path. They found movement there to be kind of “free and easy”, and over a few decades, new “fields of study” emerged, some legitimate, some not (in a parasitic kind of way) – “race studies”, “women’s studies”, “gender studies” – and concepts such as “intersectionality” and “anti-racism” have emerged. New methods, too, emerged. In the meanwhile, those in charge of some of these “studies” have found the concept of “Tenure” to be their ally, in the effort to spread these new lines of thought. Whole new moralities, and in fact, moralities pursued with religious fervor, seem to have taken root and bloomed to fruition before our eyes.

(For anyone who is interested, Roger Kimball is a constant and excellent observer of such things, and has documented the process in his work, “Tenured Radicals”.)

The subject matter is confused and confusing. Even the church is being caught up in things. When George Floyd was killed, I became involved in discussions with church members, and my pastor became involved. My church is located in a city area, where there are multiple college campuses, and inner-city churches nearby. The concept of “anti-racism” came to the forefront. The concept basically says, “if you’re not an anti-racist, you are a racist”. This of course involves definitions that have been changed, without us having been involved in the effort to change those definitions.

I found myself on the opposite side of the discussion from some church members who wanted to support the #BlackLivesMatter” movement. Of course as we have seen, that organization is owned and run and funded and staffed by self-described Marxists, and I just can’t see myself supporting anything that is Marxist.

That’s all for now. More later, Lord willing. Let me know if you have any comments or questions.

Grasping for the divine

"Grasping for the divine" (Esther O'Reilly)

Noblesse oblige

Anne Frank spent 2 years hiding in an attic and we’ve been home for just over a month with Netflix, food delivery & video games and there are people risking viral death by storming state capital buildings & screaming, “Open Fuddruckers!”

— Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt) April 18, 2020

1. Pampered Hollywood celebrities like Patton Oswalt have no idea how comments like this come across to average people. Celebrities are too disconnected from reality. They've evidently forgotten (if they ever knew) what it's like to be an average person. Oswalt sounds more like Marie Antoinette telling peasants: "Let them eat cake!"

2. An obvious issue is many people can't afford Netflix, video games, and getting food delivered to them if they don't have a job.

3. As far as "risking viral death". In fact, some or many people would be willing to risk their own health in order to provide for their families. I'm not suggesting people in general should risk their health or their lives, but it's certainly not something Oswalt should so readily disdain and dismiss.

4. That said, I think it might be prudent if protesters took a lesson from Hollywood by ensuring their protests have good optics. Not to give media any fodder to depict protesters as an angry or unruly mob or somesuch. For example, keep a safe distance from other protesters while protesting, wear a surgical mask, etc.

5. Another recent example is Nancy Pelosi's "let them eat ice cream" moment:

Chinese wet markets

Someone on Facebook is arguing it's "racist" to criticize Chinese wet markets. My response:

1. Culture is not equivalent to race/ethnicity. For example, look at the cultures of groups like ISIS, al-Qaeda, or the Taliban. They're predominantly a religious culture (Islam). They draw from Muslims of any race/ethnicity as long as the Muslims agree with their ideological views. Yet there's no doubt these are evil cultures. And there's nothing wrong with saying they're evil cultures.

2. True, wet markets exist in China and in America. However, the difference is we have certain food safety standards to meet, and we crack down when they violate these standards. What food safety standards exist in China?

3. What's more, China has an authoritarian government that literally could and in fact has used force in the past to crack down on its own citizens. Look at how they've used draconian measures in attempts to quash the coronavirus. If China is going to use force and even violent force against their own people, China could bring force to bear in order to enforce food safety standards or even shut down wet markets if they wished.

4. Of course, I'm not suggesting China should violently quash wet markets. Rather I'm suggesting China has the will and ability to do so, but they don't seem to do anything about wet markets. And that's likely due at least in part to the fact that wet markets are a fixture in Chinese culture. So this aspect of Chinese culture is problematic to say the least. And it's not "racist" for me to say there are problematic aspects in Chinese culture any more than it's "racist" for me to say there are problematic aspects in Muslim culture.

5. There are other people-groups with wet markets. Many Africans eat "bush meat". That's how some diseases have crossed over from animals to humans. So I wouldn't limit my criticisms to Chinese wet markets alone. I could criticize Africans for eating bush meat. How would that be "racist" if I'm criticizing the practice of eating bush meat? I'm not singling anyone out by their race.

The mist

1. Just in passing, I'm sure everyone has already heard California has declared a state of emergency and is on mandatory lockdown. The governor mentioned the possibility of martial law, but later issued "clarifying remarks". I guess California is taking Italy's strategy.

2. It's interesting how life imitates art in our coronavirus pandemic. I'm sure examples could be multiplied.

A recent one is the film Five Feet Apart. I've only seen the trailer. The main characters appear to have cystic fibrosis, but that's where the analogy breaks down, because cystic fibrosis isn't infectious. Rather it's a genetic disease. But the social distancing fits.

3. Of course, movies like Contagion and Outbreak are obvious. There's likewise some overlap with the apocalyptic genre in general.

4. I suppose the pandemic has some parallels with Stephen King's The Stand. Thankfully COVID-19 isn't Captain Trips.

5. Perhaps one of the more apt parallels is Stephen King's The Mist.

Basically the film is about a group of strangers stuck together in a supermarket while an impending mist gradually surrounds them and traps them inside.

Man-eating monsters lurk outside in the mist. So people can't venture outside without taking their life into their own hands. Without risking death.

However, as scary as the mist and its monsters are, there are monsters lurking inside with them too: their fellow human beings. Which monsters are worse? Both are bad, but one is in the open, while the other is hidden. The difference between a massive fire-breathing dragon and a slithering snake in the grass.

We can sympathize with their confusions and frustrations at the beginning. No one seems to know or understand what's happening. They're thrust into their predicament after a storm hits the town.

Some immediately take on a "survival at any and all costs" mentality. Others are more selfless at first, but that changes too.

As the story progresses, we begin to sense increasing mistrust and distrust. We begin to see the heightened fear in their eyes.

We feel the growing panic. The fevered paranoia. It breaks out in yelling and screaming and fighting. People take sides. Form factions.

So, in the end, one by one, individuals are picked off. Either by the monsters outside or by the "monsters" inside, as people realize there's no escape. Death - or a worse fate - awaits them all.

6. In short, it's instructive to witness how some people are responding to this pandemic.

It's like they're stuck inside a locked gas chamber with the gas diffusing across the room and inching toward them by degrees. There's nowhere to run, but some people will still claw and scratch one another to savor a few more moments in the corner farthest away from the steadily approaching poison.

It's also somewhat reminiscent of Camus' The Plague as well as Sartre's No Exit.

By contrast, Christians need not fear death. We know this life isn't all there is. Death isn't the end - or worse. There is an exit. There is a door. His name is Jesus: "I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved..." (John 10:9).

Terminator's dark fate

I haven't seen the newly released Terminator: Dark Fate. I've just been reading some reviews.

1. It seems like the reviews of this movie are mixed. On the one hand, it sounds like this is the best sequel to the first two Terminator movies.

   On the other hand, it sounds like it still falls short of T1 and T2. Apparently there's nothing seriously wrong with the characters and the presentation, per se. Also, the CGI is said to be first-rate (e.g. flawlessly de-aging Ahnuld and Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor in an introductory scene). But evidently the story suffers. Indeed, the story seems to be the main problem.

2. If so, I suspect that means there's little left to say that hasn't already been said. T1 and T2 pretty much said it all. What more can a franchise say about the dangers of A.I., killer robots, time travel, and strong female protagonists? At least a secular worldview can't say much more. If so, this illustrates the limitations of a secular worldview.

3. Take a worldview based on naturalism and neo-Darwinism. What's the significant difference between an A.I. cyborg and a human being? Aren't we both essentially meat machines?

   What room is there for supposedly human distinctives like free will and consciousness? Given naturalism and neo-Darwinism, free will is an illusion. Both A.I. cyborgs and human beings are hardwired to do what we do, either by preprogrammed neural circuitry from a computer programmer working in tandem with a robotics engineer or by natural selection and random mutations acting on our species across the eons to give us the genome we have today +/- the social conditioning we've been raised with. Either way, how does free will really exist?

   Furthermore, consciousness is most likely an emergent property of the physical brain. Consciousness is reducible to the physical brain. Likewise, other creatures could have consciousness. Other creatures could evolve to be conscious like we are. Perhaps someday, after Homo sapiens have long died out, the Earth will be ruled by sentient dolphins. That's not necessarily a joke, not if naturalism and neo-Darwinism are true!

4. By contrast, if the Terminator series could have Christian theistic foundations, then there would be far more to work with.

   Given a Christian worldview, even if a robot seemed to be as conscious as a human being presumably due to similar or superior intelligence (i.e. intelligence is more like a "symptom" pointing to an underlying consciousness), that doesn't necessarily mean they are conscious. A.I. could be as intelligent as our supercomputers (e.g. Summit, Sierra), or indeed far more so, and even more intelligent at calculating this or that than Einstein, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are conscious in the same way humans are conscious. I presume humans are conscious because we have a God-breathed spirit. At the very least, a Terminator movie could play with these ideas.

   Likewise, on a Christian worldview, one could write a story based on the debates between free will theists like Arminians vs. Calvinists. There are many directions this could go.

5. Another idea is personal sacrifice. It's moving to see Ahnuld sacrifice himself to save a human being, but if we think more deeply about it, why should we care about a self-sacrificial cyborg? Indeed, on naturalism and neo-Darwinism, why should we care about a self-sacrificial human being? Sure, they took one for the team, but at the end of the day, so what? It's not the individual who counts, but the collective species.

   On Christianity, self-sacrifice would have far more depth of meaning. For one thing, it could point to the fact that there are some things worth dying for. Moreover, this in turn could imply this life isn't all there is. There's something more.

   This stands in stark contrast to secular self-sacrifice where sacrifice is either something we were preprogrammed to do for the greater good of the population as a whole or something we would be foolish to do if we could avoid it since the individual self is everything. It's all about passing on one's genetic material. It's all about living longer and better than the next guy.

Discipling Asian-American millennials

1. Here is a transcript of the conversation.

2. I think I most appreciated what Alex Choi said in his first response. To put it another way, I don't think the rest of the comments (apart from Choi's first response) are necessarily unique to Asian-Americans. At least my impression is things like a "lack of community" and trying to "reclaim" one's conversion experience are common in other races/ethnicities cultures too.

3. The term "millennials" sure does seem to cover a lot of years generation-wise. Aren't many if not most millennials now at least age 30? If so, perhaps we should consider doing the discipling rather than being discipled! (Granted, everyone is always a "disciple" but I'm speaking in terms of leadership roles in the church.)

In fairness, if what Choi says about Asian-American culture, marriage, and adulthood is true, then the fact that Asian-American millennials and later generations are getting married at an older age might have a significant impact on discipleship as well.

4. I believe at least two of the guys are Korean-American. Perhaps all three.

In any case, there are some significant differences among different Asian-American peoples and cultures. Take Chinese-Americans. There are Chinese-Americans whose families have originally come from mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, as well as various Southeast Asian nations (e.g. Chinese-Americans with roots in Vietnam). For example, one wouldn't necessarily deal with a Chinese-American with parents from communist China in the same way as one deals with a Chinese-American with parents from democratic Taiwan.

More generally, there are differences between East Asians and Southeast Asians. Simply consider how many East Asians have had to interact with socialist and communist ideologies in their modern history (e.g. the Korean war, communist Chinese today). Consider how many Southeast Asians have had to face persecution by Muslims in their own nations (e.g. Malaysia, Indonesia). Persecutions from communists and persecutions from Muslims.

Consider each nation's broader ideological perspective. The Philippines has a Catholic background. Malaysia and Indonesia are officially Muslim. Mainland China is atheist and communist. S. Korea has a strong Protestant Christian influence. Vietnam has a Catholic heritage but became communist, which many Vietnamese-Americans share. Japan is secular. And so on.

Of course there are also Asian-Americans who have only ever known the US. For example, many Asian-Americans can trace their family histories back to the Gold Rush era (c. 1849) and transcontinental railroad. They may have been in the US as long as many Irish-Americans and Italian-Americans, among others.

Asian-Americans have families which come from one or more of these backgrounds.