This sort of thing is relevant to the question of whether prescientific peoples thought the world was flat. Did they think the world came to an end at the horizon, or was there more over the next hill.
Friday, December 20, 2013
Viking navigation
http://dailycaller.com/2013/12/18/vikings-could-navigate-colonize-the-arctic-during-medieval-times/?print=1
Let's celebrate sodomy...as long as you don't talk about it
It's funny how Phil Robertson's critics get up in arms over his comparison about straight men preferring the vagina to the anus.
Yes, that's sounds ugly. No nice way of putting it.
But what do proponents of "marriage equality" think homosexual men do? They practice anal sex (among other perversions).
How can you be offended by Phil's "crude" anatomical comparison and not be offended by what male homosexuals do?
Yet we have these chic liberals who celebrate homosexuality in the abstract, but are shocked and offended when anyone even hints at homosexuality in the concrete.
Seizing the moment
Most Christian commentators have supported Phil Robertson after he was "suspended." I'm going to comment on an exception:
Perhaps it’s really about LGBT rights at the cable and satellite television channel, half owned by Disney-ABC. But then there’s also the almighty dollar. Conceding to the LGBT agenda is increasingly what’s most profitable, what saves most face, and what brings least financial repercussion.
No doubt that's the impression which the homosexual lobby would like to foster. That A&E will lose out financially if it alienates the LGBT community. But the LGBT community is minuscule compared to the straight community. The network has far more to lose by alienating fans of Duck Dynasty.
Now, maybe the TV executives don't see it that way. They wouldn't be the first corporate executives who are too insulated and isolated from the customer to know their own business. They move in the same social echelon as GLAAD. But the homosexual lobby is only powerful if we empower it. We have strength in numbers. The homosexual lobby is powerful because policymakers defer to it. They cede it power which it doesn't naturally have.
Dear Christian, this is not something worth getting exercised about. As much as it may seem like “reality television,” it doesn’t take much of an eye to see how much this show is scripted and how much this is not the reality worth fighting for.
Mathis is confused. This is not about supporting Duck Dynasty. It's not even about supporting Phil Robertson in general. Mathis confuses the principle with the occasion.
This is not our time to cry fowl about Christian civil liberties.
To the contrary, it's an opportune time to do so.
There will be real battles to fight — real courts and real judges and real presidents, governors, and legislatures that will continue riding the societal wave of the LGBT agenda. As the seemingly unstoppable train barrels down the tracks at us, we will continue to face excruciatingly tough decisions about when and how to hold our ground and when and if to dive out of the way and live to fight another day.
It's because the show is so popular that this presents an opportunity to stop the train or push it back. We can ride that wave of popularity.
Let’s lay down the weapons on this one. There will be other ducks to shoot. Pass on the decoy. There are so many good avenues for expending our righteous energy. It’s time to change the channel.
Mathis lacks tactical judgment. In the culture wars, timing counts. Seizing the moment. Taken advantage of a windfall.
You need to play the hand you're dealt. One can imagine more noble vehicles. Loftier opportunities in the abstract. But in the real world you work with what you have. You can't just assume a better opportunity will present itself for your convenience further down the line. This is a brief window of opportunity. Don't let it pass.
And let's not forget that we serve a God who uses foolish things to advance the kingdom (1 Cor 1-3).
Animal farm
Camille Paglia comments on what happened to Phil Robertson:
I speak with authority here, because I was openly gay before the 'Stonewall rebellion,' when it cost you something to be so. And I personally feel as a libertarian that people have the right to free thought and free speech...To express yourself in a magazine in an interview - this is the level of punitive PC, utterly fascist, utterly Stalinist, OK, that my liberal colleagues in the Democratic Party and on college campuses have supported and promoted over the last several decades...This is the whole legacy of free speech 1960's that have been lost by my own party...
I think that this intolerance by gay activists toward the full spectrum of human beliefs is a sign of immaturity, juvenility...This is not the mark of a true intellectual life. This is why there is no cultural life now in the U.S. Why nothing is of interest coming from the major media in terms of cultural criticism. Why the graduates of the Ivy League with their A, A, A+ grades are complete cultural illiterates, etc. is because they are not being educated in any way to give respect to opposing view points.
There is a dialogue going on human civilization, for heaven sakes. It's not just this monologue coming from fanatics who have displaced the religious beliefs of their parents into a political movement...And that is what happened to feminism, and that is what happened to gay activism, a fanaticism.
(Source)
Thursday, December 19, 2013
Defending Christian liberty
I'm going to comment on some statements by Jared Wilson:
Before we start organizing the boycotts or social media petitions or whatever, I think the show’s Christian fans — of which I am one — could use a reality check on a few notes:We ought to remember that the first amendment does not guarantee anyone’s right to have a show on cable television.
i) Just as firing a private employee for his statements doesn't (necessarily) violate the employee's Constitutional rights, boycotting a private employer doesn't violate the employer's Constitutional rights. So Jared's argument cuts both ways. If A&E is free to fire a Christian, Christians are free to boycott A&E.
ii) This isn't really a question of whether the private sector has the right to fire an employee. This controversy doesn't reflect free market dynamics. If A&E had fired Phil because he made a statement which the general constituency of Duck Dynasty found offensive, that would be defensible on libertarian/capitalist grounds.
But that's not what happened. He was fired in spite of his audience due to pressure from outside interest groups. That's not A&E making a business decision. That's A&E snubbing the consumer. That's a distortion of free market forces.
iii) In the current political and legal climate, politically correct speech is protected speech whereas politically incorrect speech is hate speech. Jared's statement about the first amendment would only be valid if that was equitably enforced. Precisely the opposite is happening.
Suppose A&E fired him after he made a statement supporting homosexual marriage. It's not hard to imagine Eric Holder launching a criminal investigation of A&E for violating Phil's civil rights. So Jared's argument overlooks the glaring disparities in how the Federal gov't currently treats free speech issues.
iv) Many networks have generic disclaimers about how the views expressed on a given show are those of the participants, and not the network.
The firing of a millionaire reality show participant isn’t just a first world problem — it’s a one-percenter problem.
i) Although he's now a one-percenter, he started out dirt poor and make his fortune the hard way.
ii) More importantly, I think Jared draws exactly the wrong lesson from Phil's "one-percenter" status. Yes, his personal fortune insulates him from the financial consequences of losing his job. But if somebody as popular as he can be successfully targeted by the homosexual lobby, then average Christians are far more vulnerable. Christians who don't have the resources he has to fall back on.
In defending Phil, we are defending ourselves. It's precisely because we have more to lose than he does that we should defend him. If he wins, that's a win for the rest of us. If we can harness his popularity to mobilize support to push back the assault on Christian liberty, we are doing ourselves and our children a favor. Indeed, we are doing unbelievers a favor. Everyone benefits from Christian expression.
What Phil Robertson said about homosexuality to Gentleman’s Quarterly magazine is something nearly all so-called “gentlemen” used to believe, including the part where he said black people were happy before the Civil Rights movement and he never saw racism in Louisiana growing up. Yes, he said that. (Heck, the first time I was personally confronted with the harsh reality of racism against African Americans was in Louisiana, and I’d only been in the state a few hours.) Also, Phil Robertson has an adopted grandson who is biracial.
It's quite possible that Phil has some 'splainin' to do on that issue. However, he seemed to be expressing solidarity with the blacks he grew up with.
On Facebook, Jeremy Pierce, who's an evangelical philosopher specializing in race (among other things), offered this interpretation:
He seems to be offering it as an argument against the welfare state, all while putting himself in the same boat as the black people of that era. It's hard to accept that charitably as a defense of Jim Crow without further evidence. It seems to be a rant against the entitlement class created by ushering blacks onto welfare in huge numbers in the 60s. Clarence Thomas makes similar points in his autobiography, and I've seen John McWhorter and Glenn Loury say stuff along the same lines, and none of them would defend Jim Crow. Two of them are even very much on the left with economic policy issues.
"Listen Up White America"
I'm going to quote and comment on a few statements by Leon Brown:
Why doesn’t it seem to matter to you that your neighborhood is culturally and ethnically diverse, but your church isn’t? I feel like you’re staring at me when I walk into your church; will you stop? I guess you didn’t realize you were racist until your daughter got engaged to a black man—thanks for being transparent, pastor. I feel like I’m only welcome if I conform to your culture. Is that true? These are the types of questions I had to ask and the issues with which I had to deal once I became Presbyterian. For just a moment, will you walk in my shoes?Many people of color, according to a title of a recently published book, feel like aliens in the promise land. We look around and don’t see anyone like us. Yes, in Christ, we are all brothers and sisters, but we are not color blind. When my friends tell me they feel like an ink spot on a white sheet when they walk into your church, the color of one’s skin becomes even more apparent.If the Lord tarries and grants me life, I want to open a conversation--one-way initially--that highlights some of the difficulties that I, as a...black?--face in Presbyterian and Reformed circles. I am not alone regarding my concerns. I have had numerous conversations with "black" Presbyterian pastors about the current state (or lack thereof) of ethnic and cultural diversity in Presbyterian and Reformed churches. These conversations normally expand to a host of other issues.
i) Although he raises some legitimate issues, both in what I quoted and what I didn't, I'm struck by how oblivious he is to the one-sided nature of his complaint. For instance, how is the experience of a black man walking into a white church different than the experience of a white man walking into a black church?
ii) He views it all through a racial prism, but surely this has as much or more to do with social class. To great extent, your cultural trappings are keyed to your socioeconomic status. To the extent that white Presbyterian churches have a certain cultural affect, that's because they mirror the social demographics of their membership.
To take a comparison, in my observation the cultural affect of many black churches is quite similar to the cultural affect of blue color white Pentecostal churches. So it's less about race than social class and traditional cultural trappings thereof.
iii) It doesn't occur to him that it's extremely disrespectful to other Christian ethnicities when he frames the conversation in terms of a black/white dialogue. Why aren't other Christian ethnicities part of the conversation? Are they just supposed to sit quietly and listen in polite silence while blacks and whites have an exclusive dialogue about race relations in Presbyterian churches? Are they just irrelevant bystanders? Why does he marginalize other Christian ethnicities? Why does he sideline other minorities? To take one counterexample, I believe Koreans have a big footprint in contemporary Presbyterianism.
iv) There's a circular quality to his complaint. Blacks don't attend Presbyterian churches because Presbyterian churches are too white; Presbyterian churches are too white because blacks don't attend Presbyterian churches.
The racial composition of churches is self-selected. Churches are as racially homogeneous or heterogenous as Christians make them by what churches they choose to attend. If you think they need to be more diverse, the way to diversity them is to attend them. It's as direct and simple as that.
v) We need to distinguish between Christian ethics and self-esteem. From the standpoint of Christian ethics, Christian churches ought to treat all ethnic groups as social and spiritual peers.
But from a self-esteem perspective, Rev. Brown shouldn't care what whites think of him. He's subconsciously making white approval the standard of comparison. Using whites as the frame of reference. But that ironically betrays an inferiority complex. Whether or not he measures up to a white yardstick should be irrelevant to his self-image or self-worth. You are important because you are important to God, not because you are important or unimportant to the dominant ethnic group.
Getting our ducks in a row
- Frank Turk I'm not sure the entertainment stars in the media are for Christ, either.
Frank Turk Let's be clear on my statement - I don't doubt Phil's faith in spite of his dubious denomination. I doubt he's on A&E for the Glory of God or the promulgation of the Gospel. His job, if we can say it that way, is to make duck calls and make us laugh -- and make money. - In that, he's neither a theologian or a missionary: he's not reformed (small "r") like you and me, Michael. He doesn't have a theology of vocation -- or even, it seems to me, a decent ecclesiology. With all of that stacked up, I can't see how his "preaching" (or maybe more accurately: punditry) is "for Christ." It's "for Phil".
- I have to admit that I am also not a fan of dehumanizing people to tell them they are sinners. I agree with the statement that homosexuality is a sin, but let's face it: is it a sin simply because of plumbing issues? I think that's actually the culture-loser and the person-loser.
Michael Foster Where is this dehumanizing? Did I miss something (seriously)? Robertson's focus on body parts and how they work is in line with Scripture consist abominating of homosexuality as unnatural.
Frank Turk I agree that homosexuality is unnatural. Reducing it to body parts is dehumanizing.
Aaron Snell Wait, Frank, I'm confused. I thought you said Thabiti nailed it in his gag-reflex post. Isn't Robertson's interview merely an application of that argument?
Frank Turk a bad application of that argument, but one application. - just because the used a principle I would endorse doesn't mean he did out well. he chose poorly.
We need to sort out a number of issues here:
i) One can raise legitimate issues about some of Phil's theology:
ii) One can also raise issues about his mixed motives. Is he in it for the money? Of course, making money is not inherently sinful. He's a businessman. That's how he supported his family. A more charitable interpretation is that he does the show for the money, but once it became a hit, he seized the opportunity to use it as a Christian witness.
iii) One could object that cast members have a worldly lifestyle. One could also object that the show reinforces the Hollywood stereotype of Southerners as redneck buffoons.
iv) But all that misses the point. If the homosexual lobby is attacking him because, rightly or wrongly, they perceive him to be a Christian, then an attack on Phil is an attack on Christians:
"Phil and his family claim to be Christian, but Phil's lies about an entire community fly in the face of what true Christians believe," said GLAAD spokesman Wilson Cruz.
Whether or not he's a true Christian representative, if that's what he symbolizes to the homosexual lobby, then they are attacking Christian sexual morality in the person of Phil Robertson. Even if their perception is off-target, that's what they are aiming for. It doesn't matter what he is, but what he represents (from the viewpoint of GLAAD et al.).
Now, if he said something essentially wrong, that would be different. But since he said something essentially right, we should support him.
v) I don't know why Frank takes issue with the "plumbing" comparison. Seems to be that Phil's comparison is just a graphic illustration of Paul's natural law argument in Rom 1.
The “interpretation” of “God’s Word” is NOT “God’s Word”
 |
| This was a clever commercial. But with respect to Roman Catholicism, the trucks are moving in opposite directions, and “development” just simply fails to bridge the gaps. |
At first, he seemed to be knowledgeable, and able to appreciate some of the finer distinctions to be made with respect to understanding doctrines, but over time he just seemed to fall back on some of the cliché methods of Roman Catholic apologetics, providing his own “infallible interpretations” in defense of some inconsistencies that Rome had imbibed in.
For example, when I questioned him about the historical way that “the hierarchy” was fastened onto the leadership of the church, and the different ways that Trent, Vatican I and Vatican II subsequently described those in very different ways, he made the claim that the “hierarchy” as described by Trent in existed both “seed form” and “explicit” at the same time, for example, despite Trent’s firm affirmations that this was both “explicit” and “visible”. “Some people just spoke that way”, he said, ignoring so-called conciliar authority.
In any event, what follows is probably going to be my concluding comment on the thread, which I offer here as a pretty good summary both of “development” (as seen properly, and as used improperly in Roman Catholic apologetics), as well as a summary of my own intense dislike for Roman Catholicism.
Critiquing Jerry Walls on libertarian freedom
This is a fairly technical critique of Jerry Walls. For the philosophically inclined:
http://letthereaderbeware.wordpress.com/2013/12/19/jerry-walls-argument-for-libertarian-free-will/#more-45
http://letthereaderbeware.wordpress.com/2013/12/19/jerry-walls-argument-for-libertarian-free-will/#more-45
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
Jared Moore's top 250 Christian blogs
Since Jared Moore plugged us, we thought we could return the favor, and plug his weblog as well. We've added Jared Moore to our sidebar under Blogspotting.
Also, just click on the image below to head over to his weblog:
Duck Dynasty on sodomy
I don't watch Duck Dynasty. But I appreciate the fact that its patriarch has taken a Christian public position on homosexuality:
http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2013/12/18/phil-robertson-makes-controversial-comments-about-homosexuality/
No doubt pressure groups will now lobby to have the network cancel the hit show.
http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2013/12/18/phil-robertson-makes-controversial-comments-about-homosexuality/
No doubt pressure groups will now lobby to have the network cancel the hit show.
Mbewe on Mandela
Conrad Mbewe has posted his postmortem on Mandela:
HT: Patrick Chan
Mbewe makes some valid points, but he also indulges in special pleading. His own racial bias comes through. That's understandable. But it also skews the analysis.
i) Some Christian pundits were turning Mandela into a Christian role model. But by that standard, his policies, both before and after he came to power, are very subchristian. You have members of the Evangelical Left to canonize certain individuals (e.g. John Howard Yoder, Stanley Hauerwas, Mandela) as a prophetic voice whom we should all heed and revere. And they turn a blind eye to their lead-footed heroes. It's an exercise in radical chic. I don't accept their attempt to impose on me who my moral standard-bearers should be.
Mandela's policies on sodomy, statutory rape, abortion, and euthanasia are subchristian.
ii) Some of Mandela's defenders have compared his tactics to Revolutionary Gen. George Washington or the CIA during the Cold War. I don't know enough about the American War of Independence to evaluate that comparison. I'm not of the my-country-right-or-wrong philosophy. However, there are people both on the left (e.g. Edward Said, Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky) and the right (e.g. Ron Paul, Lew Rockwell) who's reflexive instinct is to blame America first. Their historical critiques are often inaccurate, simplistic, and one-sided. I'm not impressed by selective moral outrage.
iii) How I evaluate Mandela depends on the standard of comparison. If we're comparing him to Prime Minster Botha, then, to my limited knowledge, there's a certain moral equivalence.
iv) Ironically, my own assessment is more nearly the opposite of Mbewe's. I'm more understanding of Mandela's position before he came to power, and far more critical after he came to power. "Terrorism" is an indiscriminate term. Take one example. I think the theory behind attacking civilian infrastructure is that it's ineffective to only target the security forces. That alone won't topple the regime. Rather, you have to make daily life unlivable for the general populace. That will force the regime to make concessions. At least in theory. Bomb bridges. Take down the power grid. Especially in urban centers, which depend on so many interlocking systems to coordinate goods, services, transportation, &c., you can disrupt life on a mass scale, reduce urban life to gridlock, through selective sabotage.
That's different than bombing an open air market or sports stadium. And even if that's effective, you lose the moral high ground by such tactics.
v) There's also terrorism in the classic sense, like torturing a suspected gov't informant or killing all his relatives to deter others from collaborating with the regime.
To my knowledge, the operating philosophy of the ANC was do whatever it takes to defeat the regime. That's subchristian. It's just as ruthless as what it opposes. At best, it employs ruthless means in pursuance of a worthy goal, in contrast to ruthless means in pursuance of an unworthy goal. So it's not quite moral equivalence. Just degrees of evil.
vi) There's also the question of how effective his tactics were. What about the impact of economic sanctions?
vii) I understand a pragmatic alliance with the Soviets. However, that's a big gamble. If you win through Soviet backing, your sponsors will likely set up a puppet regime, ruled through Moscow. Turn South Africa into East Germany. It didn't play out that way, but he was taking quite a risk with his own people as poker chips.
viii) It's not enough to have a just cause. The Bolsheviks had legitimate grievances against the Tsarist regime. But if what you replace it with is just as bad in a different way, or even worse, then you burned your moral leverage. Your lofty principles go up in smoke.
ix) By the same token, if you complain that whites are brutalizing blacks, yet you brutalize your own people, then you lose moral authority.
x) To my knowledge, there are basically two white groups in S. Africa: Dutch settlers and English settlers. I believe the Dutch descendants were primarily responsible for the Apartheid regime.
I understand resentment against the whites, but there are degrees of complicity in the regime. And when you have stratospheric levels of black-on-black crime, the protesters are treating their own people-group as badly as the one-time oppressors. So it's hard to be sympathetic at that point.
Socrates in the City: Stephen Meyer
Stephen Meyer and Eric Metaxas Discuss Darwin's Doubt at Socrates in the City.
Personally, I found the Q&A more engaging than the interview portion (although Metaxas is humorous). The Q&A starts at approximately the 53 min mark.
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
Prodigal Sam
"6 Ways to Love a Depressed Person" by Sammy Rhodes.
On a totally different note, Rhodes' "Tweeting Myself to Death: The Rise & Fall of @prodigalsam" is worth a read as well.
HT: Justin Taylor.
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