Mirror, Mirror…

Once upon a time there was an old hillbilly who climbed up into his attic and found a tiny, dusty mirror. Not knowing it was a mirror, and having never seen himself, he was astonished and said, “Wow, I never knew my daddy has his pitcher took!” He would go up every night and gaze at the mirror, believing he was looking into the long-lost loving eyes of his father.

One day, however, his wife, aroused by unbearable suspicion, went up to the attic. She too, had always been too poor to own a mirror, and upon finding it, she looked into the mirror, like her husband, believing it was a photograph, and said with triumph and disgust, “so, this is the old hag he’s been runnin’ around with!”[1]

I watched the debate. All 90 minutes of it. And I have been astonished and amused at America’s reaction to the debate. People who watched (or maybe didn’t) are talking about how pathetic it is that these two are the best America has to offer. There are calls for a third party, or a fourth, or a fifth. Anything, we presume, is better than these two.

And isn’t it ironic…doncha think, a little TOO ironic? Isn’t it ironic that people look at the two candidates – the candidates that we have nominated as a body politic – and then decry that these are the candidates? It’s like the man who was complaining to his BFF about his girlfriend, “She’s ugly, smelly, lazy, and mean, I can’t stand her.” “Wadda ya gonna do?” asks the friend. “I’m gonna ask her to marry me!”

It’s really strange, considering we’ve been in election mode for 36 months. We’ve had 36 months for Americans to speak their mind. And we still ended up with the two candidates we thought we would, and they are behaving, with ludicrous predictability, how we thought they would. It’s not as though President Trump and Mr. Biden aren’t known quantities! Biden’s run in every presidential election since Vaudeville was a thing, and Trump has a compulsive need to speak, at length, to any form of recording or broadcast device within sight. We know who these men are. And we voted for them anyways. And now we’re complaining about it?

Methinks the lady doth protest too much!

Here’s what I think is happening. I think that as in all elections, those elected represent those who voted. Not represent in a political sense – but represent in as in the candidates are representative of the nation at large. When America looks at Trump and Biden, America is looking into a mirror.

And we do not like what we see.

We’re looking at two men, who, in both their best and worst attributes, reflect to America what America really looks like. And this does not necessarily follow party lines, as though Trump only reflects conservatives and Biden only Liberals. Although, I would say that is primarily the case. What did the debates show us?

It showed us a loud, aggressive, arrogant, impolite, rude, conservative President who has replaced Biblical morality with a vague sense of Patriotism and Americanism. Now, President Trump may, as people say, be a real Christian who is just very immature but is growing in his faith. I don’t know. But even if that’s the case, I still see a Christianity that is really an amalgamation of beliefs. Trump’s Christianity, real or not, suffers from the same syncretism that the majority of conservative, religious people in America suffer from – the belief that conservative principles are biblical principles and therefore Americanism is Christianity…therefore being Republican is to be virtuous. Of course, not all conservatives feel this way. And there is much truth to the belief that conservative and Classical Liberal beliefs come from a Biblical worldview rooted in Western thought. But that doesn’t mean they are the same. Just because Christianity + Western Rationalism + Classical Liberalism + American History = American Conservatism doesn’t means that Christianity = American Conservatism. But there are all too many who either cannot or will not understand that distinction. And so what do we get? We get Conservatives and Classical Liberals in this country who are frustrated with the moral decay, expanding government, and totalitarian Cultural Marxism and so they, in response to Epistemic and Anthropological crises, manifest a combative and equally totalistic stance against what they view as the forces arrayed against America.

So, what do you get when you see all that you love being destroyed and you’re mad as hell and you won’t take it anymore? You get Trump. The President is not an aberration. He is the perfect vessel to channel the voice of American Conservatism in this time and place. And American Conservatives say, “well, I like his policies, but need he be so strident, need he be so aggressive and rude?” You voted for him, dude. He overwhelmingly won the primary. You picked who you wanted. If you’re a conservative who looks at Trump after voting for him and you think that he’s out of step with Conservative Americans, on the whole, you’re just angry at the mirror.

Conversely, when we look at Joe Biden, we see Liberalism and Progressivism in all its ugliest iterations. We see a career bureaucrat who has gamed the system, is possibly DEEPLY corrupt, has no real values except power and is doddering into senility.

Is there a perfecter picture of American Liberalism? The very fact that the man often seems not oriented to time and place is a very apt metaphor for Liberalism in America that can’t decide if it wants to become a Revolutionary Socialist Party, or the party of working men and women who just think that the government needs to provide a bigger safety net? The very fact that the American Left doesn’t know who it is is illustrated by the fact they elected a man who doesn’t know who he is! He’s a politicker of the old school who still hasn’t gotten used to the age of the internet, where his lies and mistakes and contradictions can be demonstrated as such at the click of a button. He wants to flip-flop on a plenitude of issues because 1) His party can’t decide and he can’t risk angering either side of his base and 2) he’s so used to trying to play both sides of the issue that he can’t stop himself.

Liberals look at Biden, both Progressives and the Non-Socialist Democrats, and they think, “Jeepers, can’t we get anyone better than this incoherent has-been? Has the DNC got splinters under their fingernails?” They look at where their party and movement are and they’re aghast – because NOBODY got what they wanted. The Progressives didn’t get Bernie, the old-school Dems didn’t get someone reasonable and respectable like Tulsi Gabbard, who is at least a likable and reasonable human who seems to genuinely care about her constituents.

Americans, as a whole, we look at what we have to choose from and we are, frankly, disappointed, discouraged, disgusted. Is there anybody, REALLY, anybody who thinks, “Man, it can’t get any better than Scranton Joe or Donny from Queens. These two are the two finest Americans, and we’d be lucky to have either lead our Republic?” Anybody? How ‘bout the crickets? I hear you guys talkin’, you want…no…OK, didn’t think so.

The problem isn’t that people are wrong to respond that the debate looked bad. It did. But it looked bad because it reflected a country going through a crisis. We are at a crossroads because we have forsaken God. We’re murdering a million babies a year; we’ve run headlong from any and all moral restraint; we stopped valuing truth and the great and deep things and, instead, have pursued money and possessions and entertainment. We’re a nation that has decided that God has nothing to say to us, anymore. We’re decadent, purposeless, idle, perverse, haters of righteousness, violent, selfish, and self-destructive. Professing ourselves to be wise we’ve become fools. Do we really think we deserve any better candidates than we have?

Trump and Biden are a mirror, and the debate was nothing more nor less than America having a 90-minute staring contest with the mirror. And everyone lost.

A Footnote:

[1] That story I first heard from Vernon McGee, I’m sure I could find the sermon or study I heard him tell this story in, but that would take time.

Masked Conscience

OK, so first, if you haven’t heard about how the government of Moscow, Idaho arrested Christians at a hymn-sing/ protest, then you can read about it on Doug Wilson’s blog or at the Moscow-Pullman News. But I would recommend Wilson’s blog because he gives some VERY pertinent information that the news doesn’t. Though, Wilson says plainly that his daily-local did a good job. So, if you haven’t heard about this issue, don’t be surprised. The outrage-mongers who perpetuate the incessant charade also known as mainstream news have no interest in this case. And they have no interest in this case for several reasons. 1st, because all masking is good masking and everyone should be wearing a mask, except when it’s a leftist politician getting caught, or a radical anarchist or communist screaming in the face of a major city cop, or a thug looting or burning – IN THOSE CASES mask wearing isn’t necessary – but heavens to Betsy, not wearing a mask at a public hymn sing! These people are monsters! 2nd, because Doug Wilson is the provocateur par excellence. He’s Reformed Christianity’s enfant terrible. And frankly, I doubt many if any in the News Industrial Complex know who he is. 3rd, because the News has long demonstrated that they have no interest in ever showing Christians in any kind of sympathetic light, unless of course they’re the kinds of Christians who call for riots and advocate for abortion on demand – you know the kind of Christians that are kinda ambivalent about Christ – those kindsa Christians. 4th, because they would much rather keep fomenting riots about a perfectly legitimate decision in the Breanna Taylor case, or whatever the misinformation du jour is. I’m sure there are more reasons why you won’t hear about this, but, either way, unless you’re listening to right-wing or explicitly Christian sources, you’re not like to hear this story.

But what IS the story? Well, 5 people were cited and 2 people were arrested. And one of them, a man named Gabe Rench who was arrested is currently running for county commissioner. According to the Moscow-Pullman Daily News, he was arrested for, and I quote, “for suspicion of resisting or obstructing an officer”, but he was not charged.

OK, so if all you were to know about this situation is what the arrests and citations were for, you might, if you were me, for instance, say – well, ya know, bad laws are still laws and unless a law forces you to sin or prevents from doing something God has commanded – then you probably need to follow it. You might think that mask laws are great and you want to wear them – great! You might think that they’re dumb and that masks don’t do anything – suck it up, buttercup. If you don’t like it, change the law. Like I said, that’s USUALLY my response.

But this case gives us a FASCINATING look at a little thing I like to call conscience. You see, there is a problem for people who, like me, on one hand believe that Christians are obligated to obey onerous and stupid laws as long as they don’t contradict any of God’s commands, but who also think that there are legitimate places for civil disobedience. I’ve said before and I’ll say again, human laws and legal systems need 3 things to have any chance of creating justice. To be a good law, the law must be: enforceable and reasonable, and its application and sentencing must be predictable. And when laws are not enforced, public confidence fades. If you don’t enforce, I don’t know, let’s pick a random, non-specific example, I don’t know…umm…what’s a crazy thing to not enforce, something no one would ever choose to not enforce unless they were either stupid or corrupt…ummm…rioting. If you don’t enforce riot laws, then you will get more riots. And people will not have faith in a city’s political will, and people who don’t like riots will leave – or vote out the stupid/ corrupt politicians – or they’ll suffer silently. If a law is unreasonable then people will hate it and a lot of people will disobey (rightly or wrongly) because they hate onerous laws.

Then we come to predictability. And this one is tricky. Because I see, every single stupid day in this stupid world we live in, people posting images of one person who committed a slight offense and had the book thrown at them, and someone who committed some egregious offense and got off on basically nothing. OK, until you have all the facts, that means NOTHING. Does the facebook post tell you their prior criminal history? Does it tell you the strength of the evidence the prosecution had – were they confident in a trial or did they plea down the sentence? What about the judges – let’s not forget judges are local political officials. They’re political lawyers. They can be voted out. But did the two cases have the same judges? Judges are local political officials — if you like their adjudications, keep voting for them, if not vote for someone else!

See, that’s the funny thing about a Federalist system is that just because cops aren’t arresting maskless rioters in Portland doesn’t mean that it’s OK to flout the law in Moscow. And people, my dear Christian brothers and sisters who are saying things like, “well if I were at a BLM riot in Louisville I don’t have to wear a mask, but in Moscow, Idaho I do?” Well, yeah. They’re not the same legal jurisdiction. They’re not in the same state! They’re not on the same side of the Mississippi! So, yeah, bad behavior in Louisville doesn’t mean it’s ok to break the law in Moscow, Idaho!

But what about when the law is unfairly applied in Moscow. What about when there’s one set of laws for the mayor and the important Muscovites and another set of laws for the Plebs? Well, that’s not really a law anymore, that’s an absolutist dictate. And this is where I struggle. On one hand the Scriptures are plain. We are to obey the government. Unless the government commands what God forbids or forbids what God commands we are not free to disobey.

Now, I’ll grant that that stance needs to be modified a little bit in the United States because we have a constitution and we have the right to violently defend ourselves from government tyranny in this country. I swore an oath when I was 18 to support and defend the constitution. Although I’m no longer in the military, I feel like I’m still bound by that oath. I have not been freed from my responsibility to support and defend the constitution. And I believe that because of the system we live in, a Christian can, in perfectly good and clear conscience REFUSE to obey an unconstitutional law. In fact, I think a Christian MUST disobey an unconstitutional law, because to obey an unconstitutional law, is, in fact, lawbreaking.

But what about the masks? The problem is not that Moscow has a policy that seems stupid. So what?! That’s an issue for voters – suck it up, buttercup. No, the problem is that the law is not only not being applied uniformly, it is being used as a weapon against political opponents. When the mayor and the hoity toity folk have one set of rules and hoi polloi have another, now we’re in territory where I, as a biblical scholar, I don’t know what to say. On one hand I want to say – too bad, suck it up, buttercup. But on the other hand, Americans are supposed to resist unjust and tyrannical forms of government. Here’s a passage that may shed some light on the issue.

Hosea 4:14 says this:

“I will not punish your daughters

when they turn to prostitution,

nor your daughters-in-law

when they commit adultery,

because the men themselves consort with harlots

and sacrifice with shrine prostitutes—

a people without understanding will come to ruin!

Now, in this instance, God is telling the people that they have come to such a point of corruption, that prostitution is commonplace – man I can’t imagine living in such a society – yet a lot of the menfolk who, themselves, were going to the whorehouses and committing adultery were, simultaneously, trying to enforce the laws which punish prostitution and adultery against their daughters and daughters-in-law! Like Judah who wanted Tamar burned for harlotry, only to have his own disgusting immorality shoved in his face, God is telling this immoral and corrupt and hypocritical generation of Israelites that God is not going to hear these men’s curses against their daughters and daughters-in-law, when they themselves  are committing adultery with whores. God’s saying, you can’t go a-whoring and then go to law against these girls – I won’t hear it. You don’t bring that kind of hypocrisy before God. When you’re a hypocrite in your application of the law, the law is meaningless.

Or at least that’s one way of interpreting this. Because when God says he won’t punish the girls because the men are hypocrites, that doesn’t mean the girls aren’t engaged in sin – perhaps it simply means that there will be no especial punishment for the girls…but they will face the common judgment coming on the nation for being a nation full or prostitution.

Perhaps we’re to take this at face value – perhaps we’re to understand this figuratively. I tend to think this passage is figurative. But that doesn’t explain it away. Here’s what we can say FOR SURE: the theological consequences for lawbreaking are diminished when those in authority are hypocrites.

Let me say that again. I believe that Hosea 4:14 teaches plainly, and clearly, that the theological consequences for lawbreaking are diminished when those in authority are hypocrites.

In other words, if the Mayor of Moscow is presiding over weddings, with law enforcement present and nobody has to wear a mask, and then that mayor has the audacity to sic the police on a church gathering to sing songs as a form of protest, a protest against a law that is unequally applied, if that happens, then I don’t know that people not wearing masks are wrong. If people are protesting the unequal application of law and the mayor responds by unequally applying the law, I don’t know that the Christian is bound here.

It really is a matter of conscience. I don’t know what’s right or wrong. Maybe everyone is wrong. And the sad irony is that as our country moves farther and farther from God, we see more and more issues where conscience matters deeply, yet so very few have a fully functioning conscience to help navigate.

Here’s the final point. God is very clear about a lot of things. Some things are less clear. Some things seem clear on paper but are tough in real life. Some are unclear on paper and clear in real life. Navigating this crazy world as a Christian is difficult and only going to get harder. And we NEED to pray, think, and talk deeply about issues of conscience so we can have our minds made up ahead of time on what we believe is the godly way to respond, so we will not not get caught unawares.

Marginal and Marginalized

Ars longa; vita brevis. This succinct Latin aphorism sums up, pretty perfectly, the inevitable conclusion of anyone who wishes to be a scholar: life is too short! Everyone who wishes to study a discipline, or learn a craft,or appreciate art, or culture, or anything, really – if they are, at all, self-aware, then they will realized their own limitations. Chief amongst these limitations is our mortality. There’s a saying that there have been many chess masters, but no masters of chess. Chess is too complex to master. As is the piano. As is medicine. As is writing. As is theology.

And, because we will die, we have to make choices. We have to choose the person we will be by killing off potential versions of ourselves. Of course, this comes with not a little bit of anxiety. This, I think, is largely the angst that teenagers face, without knowing it. Tolstoy warns about this; serfdom was bad, but at least it made society stable. Young liberated serfs could no longer rely on a menial existence – they had to find their own way in the world. The point is that we have to make choices and these choices come with consequences.

And the reality is that these choices come not only for Russian peasants and 18 year-olds, but for scholars and theologians as well. Theologians are limited by the exigencies of life. We cannot, any of us, become experts in everything…and the person who tries will be inexpert at everything. We have to limit our fields of inquiry into something that is small enough to be manageable, large enough to be significant, and relevant enough to matter.

In layman’s (finally, I get to say that literally!) terms this means: your pastor doesn’t know everything; in fact, your pastor knows very little…but he might know quite a bit about a small area of knowledge – his personal area of expertise (presuming he has one).

And this means that we make choices. When people study theology they have to pick what they will study, and not only the students, but those who write curricula. The curricula writers have to create a body of knowledge that will be manageable, significant, and relevant. All three are crucial. If you only have 2 of the 3, you’re really going to have a useless curriculum. I mean, a seminary could demand that everyone read the complete works of every major and minor theologian in history – but you’d never be able to read that all! You could, of course, just ask that people watch a 15 minute youtube video that sums up Christian theology – but that’s not significant. And of course, the seminary could abandon Western Theology and spend the whole time reading the writings of the Armenian Monophysites from pre 1000 AD – but that wouldn’t be relevant.

Seminaries (at least the good ones) try to do all three. People who are serious theologians, who wish to have a relevant ministry, spend their time studying things that need to be studied, at a manageable scale, that can offer a meaningful contribution to the state of the art.

And that’s why I grow rather weary of hearing how Evangelicalism doesn’t hear enough [insert minority group here] voices in their theological education. Perhaps there’s a reason. Why don’t seminaries have more courses focusing on Sub Saharan African Christian Theology from the pre-colonial era? Because Christianity didn’t exist there and we have no extant literature from them! Why not more Persian Christian theology from before the Great Schism – well, because a lot of what they say isn’t really all that relevant to the development of theology as it is in the West today. Why aren’t there entire courses on the theology of feminist, lesbians who identify are quadriplegic aardwolves? Well, for a whole host of reasons, but largely because they really wouldn’t have anything worth listening to. 

Because this is the ugly truth: some ideas are bad. And some voices aren’t worth hearing. Particularly in theology, when you become a heretic, a demonstrable heretic, you forfeit your right for anyone to take you seriously. Some ideas deserve to be marginalized. Because they place themselves IN the margins.

Then again, some ideas are just marginal, because they don’t bear much weight in the present culture. People complain that theology focuses too much on dead, white men. Well…dead white men wrote most of the theology. If in 40 years all the people doing top level, discipline changing theology are women, I bet that’ll change. If in 40 years all the best developments in theology are coming from China or Nigeria (two places, I actually anticipate a lot of theology to come from) then there will be a curriculum change. The movement of the global center of Christianity is a real phenomenon, that will have real pedagogical (as well as everything-else-ical) impact. But some day is still not yet. And, frankly, I would expect that in Nigeria and China they focus, a lot, on what Nigerians and Chinese theologians have said and written — as well they SHOULD! I think it would be stupid for someone in Lagos to worry about the problems that face academic theologians in America, except insofar as it gets imported into their culture.

The fact is that we live in the West, a West whose intellectual geography was largely formed by white men. You don’t have to like that truth to recognize that, from roughly 500 AD to still-right-now, theology has been dominated by white European men. Ignoring everybody who comes after Augustine and Athanasius seems to be a mistake. Should we not study Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Simons, Arminius, Wesley, the German Liberals, the Anglophone Fundamentalists?

Why should we marginalize giants to magnify the marginal? Do black and brown voices deserve a seat at the table? Well, if they have something meaningful to say that will advance the discipline, then of course. Do women? If they have something meaningful to say that will advance the discipline, then of course. Do white men? If they have something meaningful to say that will advance the discipline, then of course.

Are there non-whites and women who are changing the discipline? Yes. But none of them have time machines. And until they do, or until an awful lot of time has passed, the history of theology will largely be the history of white men. Women and black and brown people aren’t marginalized, they just didn’t contribute much to the overall development of the discipline, historically speaking, as it exists in the West today. They’re marginal, but not marginalized. For those who are currently being marginalized: perverts, commies, and run-of-the-mill heretics; they are being marginalized because they are supposed to be. The Bible commands us to anathematize them. And so we study them only enough to recognize their heresy and then move on – and, even then, only when it’s relevant.

None of us will live forever, and those of us who know that and have come to terms with that and wish to make an impact on the world of thought know that we have to pick and choose what we read and study. And so, while reading and studying marginal voices may yield fruit, until it significantly changes the discipline of theology, it will likely remain marginal, because we not only have to study the discipline as it is, but how it got here. And you don’t learn how you got there by studying people who had little to no impact on the development of the discipline.

Nobody keep stats on the benchwarmers – how many times they give a “ra-ra” for their teammates, how many practices they were on time for, how good of a scout-look they gave, how many electrolytes they consumed. There is no such thing as the Backup QB Rating. There’s no way to calculate homeruns you might have hit had you been batting. A caddy never hits a hole in one. You don’t have to be on the field to matter. But what matters most happens on the field.  

Ars longa; vita brevis.

Nothin’ In Common

It’s a funny question…but one I find myself asking more and more as the days go by: “do words mean anything?” I mean this sincerely; really, I’m not trying to be smug. I really want to know if words have any meaning or if we’re all, really, truly, just playing Wittgensteinian word games. Because, more and more, I feel like, within Evangelicalism (whatever that means!) words actually don’t have meaning and we are, indeed, just playing word games.

Let me give you a great recent example.

This is the text of a facebook post from Jen Hatmaker:

With a deep, deep bow, I honor this absolute legend. She blazed the very trails we walk on today. I cannot say this with more sincerity:

Well done, good and faithful servant. You fought the good fight, and you finished your race. Enter into your rest, dear sister.

What a profound use of her earthly days until the very end. This was a true public servant the likes of which we rarely see. May we take the baton and we run our leg of the race with half the grit and faithfulness.

#RBG

K…………………………Ummmmmmmmmmmmmm…I have a question or 10. First, when did Justice Ginsberg get saved? I mean, praise God that she did, but like, when did it happen? Because, from the words that Jen Hatmaker has chosen to use, it would certainly seem as though Justice Ginsberg was not a pro-abortion secularist with little to no interest in the Living and True God. Instead, from Hatmaker’s words, we would think that Amy Carmichael or Fanny Crosby just died. You would think that the woman who died was someone who actually loved Jesus.

Hatmaker, who purports to be a Christian public figure, just called Ginsberg a “dear sister” and quoted the parable of the Talents (or Minas) as well as Paul’s valedictory of Christian vindication to Timothy. And also Hebrews 4 for good measure. And that seems…odd.

Now, I’ll admit, that while it’s preposterous to divorce the parable of the Talents from Christian faith, there’s nothing in the immediate context that precludes you from so doing – except common sense and the ability to read critically…but whatevs. So, maybe, possibly, you could almost pretend to say that Hatmaker’s reference to the Talents was kosher (it wasn’t, but for sake of argument, knowaddamean?)

But what about Paul’s words…let’s check ‘em out:

2 Timothy 4:1-8

1 In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: 2 Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. 3 For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. 5 But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.

6 For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time for my departure is near. 7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 8 Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing. (NIV)

So, yeah. This one is pretty Jesusy. In fact, you can’t really use this one in reference to a non-Christian and not look utterly ridiculous. What about Hebrews 4? Let’s read all of chapter 4 and…ya know what? No. Read chapter 4 yourself, and you’ll see that trying to talk about entering into Jesus’ rest for an unbeliever is literally, exactly what the writer to the Hebrews (cough…Paul…cough) says is impossible! The whole chapter is about not refusing the grace of God offered in Christ Jesus!

Using these verses in reference to Justice Ginsberg is utterly ridiculous. I mean that literally. It should be ridiculed.

But this points out a much bigger problem. The problem is that Jen Hatmaker REALLY BELIEVES that she’s using the Bible appropriately. Liberal Evangelicalism and Conservative Evangelicalism are so different, so dissonant, that we have, really, nothing in common. At least nothing that would be substantial enough for us to claim we belong to the same theological species… or genus… or family…or order…or class…or phylum. Maybe we’re in the same taxonomical kingdom, I mean we both believe in God (sometimes)…so maybe not even kingdom.

And this is where that weirdo Wittgenstein gets important, because even though Conservative and Liberal Evangelicalism share really nothing of significance, we do share a common “vocabulary”. But it’s only common in the sense that we make (largely) the same sounds come out of our face-holes when talking religion. Also, we, generally, spell these words samely. But they don’t mean the same thing. In fact, it’s a case of Polysemy. These words are homograms and homonyms and homophones. They look, and sound the same, and they have the same etymological root – but they mean different, and often opposite things.

Conservative and Liberal Christianity have completely dissonant understandings of salvation, and sin, and anthropology, and epistemology, and the bible, and preaching, and righteousness, and justice, and holiness, and Hell, and judgment, and eternity, and God Himself! Any word of significance means something different to a Liberal as to a Conservative. And so, when Jen Hatmaker calls an unbeliever “sister” with a straight face, she’s not been ironic. She really believes it. And moreover, when you say, “ummm, but she didn’t believe in Jesus, so she’s not my sister”, Jenny just wants to pat you on your little rube, fundy head and educate you. She wants you to do better.

And so, it appears that Wittgenstein was right. Words have no meaning – it’s just language games.

Except not really. Because words do have meaning, within a language. I mean, Wittgenstein isn’t totally wrong. Yes, there is, obviously a phenomenon like what he’s describing. Humans use words as we’ve been conditioned to do in our social context. But that doesn’t mean that words don’t actually refer to something in real life – an ontic referent.

See, while we can get all philological up in here, it’s important to remember that Jesus of Nazareth was a real person, who actually lived, and actually said things that the NT says He said, and He actually died for sin and rose again from the grave. He actually ascended into Heaven. He actually sent the Holy Spirit. He will actually come and bring his saints to be with Him. He will actually judge the living and the dead. Sin is an actual phenomenon. The word “sin” refers to something in reality. So does “death”. So does “Hell”. These words have meaning – and the meanings can be discovered. There is, of course, a difference between connotation and denotation. But the existence and importance of connotation doesn’t negate the existence and cruciality of denotation.

Liberal Christianity is just a massive exercise in the Equivocation Fallacy. It’s using Christian terms that have a fixed and historical meaning to mean something else. And so, when I see posts like Jen Hatmaker’s making the rounds on book-face, I can’t help but think, that I and Liberal Christians, that we’ve got nothin’ in common. And, also, I hated Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

The Mirror of Erised: What Dumbledore Got Wrong

For those who are not devotees of the Harry Potter universe, the Mirror of Erised is a mirror which is discovered by 11-year-old orphan-boy Harry Potter. In the mirror he sees his parents. He longs to show his best friend Ron Weasley, but Ron doesn’t see Harry’s dead family. He sees himself victorious in life as Head Boy at the school holding trophies. Ron is uneasy about the mirror, but Harry is drawn to it and refuses to stop gazing into it.

One night, whilst staring into the images of himself with his deceased family, Albus Dumbledore, the great wizard, and the Headmaster at Hogwarts, surprises Harry. Then this dialogue happens:

"Can you think what the Mirror of Erised shows us?" [Dumbledore asked] Harry shook his head.

"Let me explain. The happiest man on earth would be able to use the Mirror of Erised like a normal mirror, that is, he would look into it and see himself exactly as he is. Does that help?"

Harry thought. Then he said slowly, "It shows us what we want... whatever we want..."

"Yes and no," said Dumbledore quietly.

"It shows us nothing more or less than the deepest, most desperate desire of our hearts. You, who have never known your family, see them standing around you. Ronald Weasley, who has always been overshadowed by his brothers, sees himself standing alone, the best of all of them. However, this mirror will give us neither knowledge or truth. Men have wasted away before it, entranced by what they have seen, or been driven mad, not knowing if what it shows is real or even possible.

"The Mirror will be moved to a new home tomorrow, Harry, and I ask you not to go looking for it again. If you ever do run across it, you will now be prepared. It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that. Now, why don't you put that admirable cloak back on and get off to bed.”

In this scene Dumbledore shows both impressive wisdom and also incredible folly.

Let me explain.

Dumbledore is absolutely right about the nature of dwelling on desire. When we make desiring the object of our desire we come to a point where we can never be satisfied. The kinds of people Dumbledore is speaking of are people who become so enraptured by seeing themselves achieving their desire that they fail to differentiate reality from fantasy. People who build their castles in the clouds tend to find them rather drafty. But the mirror allows them to have a form of fruition because they can see themselves achieving and apprehending the object of their desire.

But the problem is that ideation is not apprehension. At least not for a person who wishes to actually accomplish things in the real world. People who seek accolades and accomplishments because of what they will actually do in the world are never satisfied with fantasies and daydreams. They are only satisfied (and sometimes not even then!) after they have done what they set out to do. Doers fantasize only because they with to achieve. Fantasizers never get down to the doing. It’s enough for them to fantasize, because in the fantasy they have gotten all they want – they’ve seen themselves as famous, or successful, or beautiful, or romancing their dream-lover.

We’ve all known people like this. People who are always talking about the novel they’re going to write, or the diet they’re going to begin, or the girlfriend they’re going to get, or the PhD they’re going to earn, or the business they’re going to start, or the trip to Italy they’re going to take, or the…or the…or the million and one things that will never happen in the real world.

Fantasy is good, insofar as it allows us to visualize the end-purpose of our labor. But fantasy MUST be the servant of reality, never its master. Because when fantasy becomes the master of reality, we enter into the realm of insanity. Now, most people would call the person fixated on fantasies pathetic, not mad. But, there is a madness in the man who is addicted to dreams.

And Dumbledore is very wise to warn Harry of what could have been a very dangerous habit.

Indeed, perhaps, JK Rowling was giving a subtle condemnation of the way that the Millennials she was, primarily, writing for had been raised. Millennials (like me) were raised to be dreamers. But we were also raised to not keep score and get participation medals. We were taught to both dream big and also that everyone was a winner. The incoherence is palpable. And the end result of such a teaching is predictable. Children who never became women and men – who had weak character – they found happiness in fantasy that reality couldn’t overtop. And so they chose to live in a fantasy world.

But, most people would say – but why fixate on your own desires? What’s they point of seeing what you desire? Because in the fantastical world of the fantasizer, imagining oneself achieving the end of desire is the same as actually achieving it. Of course, that’s foolish – but it’s a very comforting folly. And there is ample biblical evidence to show that the person who only dreams and never does is a fool.

And so, Dumbledore was right.

And yet he wasn’t. Because he said that the mirror gives us: “neither knowledge or truth”.

But to know our desires, our real desires, the actual deepest desire of our souls – does any of us really know ourselves that well? Do I know what my true, deepest longing is? Would I want to know? The Russian Film, The Stalker (not about what it sound like), explores this theme. In the film there is a place you can go and when you go there you will be given your innermost desire.

But here’s the catch – it’s not what you SAY is your innermost desire. It’s not what you tell yourself it is. It’s not what you’ve deceived yourself into believing. It’s what you really, truly, deeply, most desperately, even if suppressedly, desire. Would you be willing to go into that room? What if what you truly desired was your neighbor’s wife? The death of an abusive or distant parent? To commit some horrid act of perversion? What if you discover you long to be anyone else and you discover how deep-rooted is your self-loathing? What if a Christian discovers they truly desire to hate God and be free?

Think on this for just a short bit and you may find that to enter into that place, “the zone” would be a frightening proposition!

But what if you didn’t have to get your desire – but what if you could just know it, so you could come to terms with it? What if you could know the depth of your depravity – or perhaps your zeal for God! What if you could know yourself at the most fundamental level? Would you do it? Would it be worth it? If you looked into the Mirror of Erised, would you like what you saw? And what would you do if you did? And what would you do if you didn’t?

Dumbledore was right – it doesn’t do to dwell on fantasies. He’s wrong to say that the mirror gives us neither knowledge nor truth. It gives knowledge to all, and it gives truth to the wise. Like so many things, the Mirror of Erised would be a blessing to the wise and a curse to the fool – but, then again, so is everything else!

The Telling Need for Telos

So, what do you get when you combine cultish self-esteemism (which is really just a way of conditioning children to be self-loathing narcissists…but that’s another essay…) with helicopter parenting, added to at least a generation of youths trained to spend all their recreation time saving the universe in lifelike 1st person video games and watching super-hero movies and television, with the complete lack of moral structure, and no existential threat to one’s life, livelihood, or standard of living. What do you get when you combine those disparate elements? Does it sound problematic? Does it sound like much of contemporary America? Does it sound like a recipe for disaster sufficient to undermine our society and disintegrate our body politic?

If it sounds like it’s a recipe for disaster – it’s because it is.

The “youth” of America are struggling with a coalescence of bad ideologies, both political and pedagogical which have been and are being promoted by people who fundamentally hate God and hate America. The existence of such a fusion of destructive beliefs forces us to ask questions about our society. But the question is not, whether this cluster of ideas which results in Wokeism is destructive. That question is being answered before our very ideas every day. The question we should be asking is, “why are these ideas popular?” Why, in the wealthiest, most affluent, freest society in history, are people rioting and burning and looting to “protest” the evils of our society? Moreover, why is it, in large part, those who have most benefited from this system [1] who are the most virulent in their speech and violent with their actions? Why are wealthy elites burning cities?

The answer is pretty simple, though the explanation is a bit more complex. The answer is: because their lives lack meaning. Why they lack meaning takes some unpacking. So, let’s unpack it. Let’s begin with the thesis that: wealthy, predominantly white, urban and suburban, well-educated, unemployed or white collar youths are attracted to the philosophy that America is fundamentally evil and racist because it gives them a cause and a crusade which will validate their lives, while simultaneously, costing them nothing. Because let’s not play games. Wokeism is on a crusade. But in this crusade they have everything (or so they think) to gain and nothing to lose. So, in a sense, it’s a crusade because they have a religiously driven desire to conquer. But in another sense it isn’t a crusade because crusades involve risk to persons and property.

I mean, crusades are fun and all, but, historically, crusades are costly. Especially if there are a lot of people with scimitars trying to rain on your parade. Literally…by raining arrows on you when you try to parade into the holy land. Real crusades where you face a real and entrenched enemy can come at a great personal cost. But crusading, in a video-game fashion, where there are no real consequences for your actions is fun – especially when you can actually effect change without incurring any risk! Not only not incurring risk, but being lauded for committing deeply antisocial and criminal behavior.

So, we have to begin with the idea that burning down cities and looting stores and bullying people into expressing political slogans is a religious crusade that Wokeists are engaged in. But why? Well they’re committing acts of terrorism because committing acts of terrorism is actually very fun. It’s fun in the same way that a rapist or home invader has fun. It’s the demonic (and I use that word literally) the demonic fun of exerting power over another, especially if one feeling virtuous insodoing. Perhaps for rapists their taking their “justified” rage out against women. For the home invader they’re “getting theirs”. People, reasonable people, nice people, decent people, these people ask, “how can these kids burn down their own cities?” But that’s really a question that completely misses the point. The people who don’t understand the violence don’t understand it because they presume that all people are good, nice, decent people who would prefer to build than destroy. It’s a stupid question.

This should be no mystery to anyone who has raised or is raising children...Or anyone who has been a human child. Or anyone who has heard of human beings at all, ever. Let’s give an example: If child 1 builds a tower out of blocks what does child 2 do? Let’s make this multiple choice (Amazing Amy would like this game). Will child 2 (the child who witnesses his sibling or playmate build something): A) Praise child 1 for their effort and seek to participate in the improvement of the block tower B) Ignore child 1 and continue to entertain him/herself with something else C) Go full on Godzilla-mode and destroy for the sheer joy of destruction and spoiling someone else’s hard work? Take your time. If you don’t know the correct answer, ask the parents of children ages 18 months to 5. The answer is obvious. Child 2 will, the vast majority of the time, destroy for the joy of destruction. Children have to be TRAINED to cooperate. Why? Because cooperation is unnatural and a lot less fun (at least in the short term) than destruction. Breaking stuff gives you the immediate adrenaline shot and also some of that sweet, sweet dopamine. Constructive cooperative play creates long term satisfaction – but not all the juicy, chemically, feels that come from rampaging.

It shouldn’t surprise us that young kids are burning cities – because burning cities is fun! It doesn’t result in long term satisfaction, but children have to be TRAINED to ignore impulses and seek long-term satisfaction.

Which leads us to another aspect of WHY these kids’ lives are meaningless. The fact that antisocial behavior is fun engaged in by the antisocial is an evidence that their lives are meaningless, but doesn’t, in itself, go so very far in explaining the WHY? So, let’s ask WHY these people are so antisocial? Why are their lives meaningless?

I blame the parents.

Seriously.

Now, look, I know that even great parents can have a kid go off the rails. It does happen. And that’s why, when looking at individual exhibits of antisocial turdery amongst our youths it’s unwise to blame the parents as the certain cause of the behavior. But human behavior, while hard to predict and diagnose on an individual basis, is extremely predictable in groups (if you actually understand the mechanisms which drive human behavior, that is). And statistics exist BECAUSE people, while highly unpredictable at an individual level are highly predictable in large groups (also, individuals are predictable in iterative behavior…an important thing to remember about human nature — these are often called habits). So, sure, there are probably outliers who had good parents, but on the whole, the reason these people are burning down cities and advocating the overthrow of the nation largely comes down to “their raisin’.”

So, what kinds of parents did these terrorists have? By the way, I will not cease to call them terrorists. They are trying to effectuate political change by acts of violence directed at civilian and military targets intended to create fear. If you doubt, at all that this is political blackmail through violence (otherwise known as TERRORISM) then read this.

Well, we already know the kinds of parents they had, don’t we? The kinds of parents who gave them lots of material things and never cared for their souls and spirits? The kinds of parents who wrote their college entry essays for them but never prayed with them. The kids of parents who never read the bible to their children but bought them iphones. They’re the kinds of parents who never spanked but hosted parties where kids drank and smoked pot in their basement. They’re the kinds of parents who bought their sons the most egregiously violent games imaginable and put their daughters in bikinis from the time they could toddle. They’re the kinds of parents who never missed a soccer game and never made it to church. They’re the kinds of parents who never spanked and tried, oh so desperately, to be the “cool mom”. Absentee fathers and margarita moms who gave their children everything except a framework for living to please God and to have meaning in their lives. Because, despite what many Americans believe – it is possible to gain the whole world and lose your soul. And I ask you, what will a man give in exchange for his soul?

The problem with living as though there is no God, is not that God is offended – although that is a very important part of the problem. The more immediate and existential aspect of the problem is that it denies the primary purpose for which we have been created: which is loving fellowship with God. We were made to love and be loved by God. We were made to enter into the community of the Trinity, by inclusion into Christ. We are called to PARTICIPATE IN THE DIVINE NATURE! God’s calling for humanity is bigger than “worshipping God and enjoying Him forever.” Yes, the Westministerians were right. It’s not less than that, but it is far more than that. It is Oneness with God!

And in this world, when we seek God in Christ, we get to have a foretaste of the consummation of our union with God. We get to experience what giving eternal value and meaning and purpose to our actions feels like. We get to experience what it’s like to live with a τελός – a final end for which we live. Because the truth is that all things are moving in a direction. All things are either moving eternally closer to the Person of God – this is what it is like to be in Heaven. Or they are eternally moving farther (I mean farther not further…I know the difference) from the Person of God – this is what it is like to be in Hell.

Heaven is where God and Godliness and Godlikeness pervade all things and eternally become more Godish. Hell is where God is not, and ungodliness and ungodlikeness pervades all things and eternally become more unGodish. Heaven is the perpetual expansion of God’s personality through all of Creation. Hell is the isolation of the self from all other selves. Heaven is the place where every tear is wiped away by God Himself. Hell is where there is endless weeping and gnashing of teeth.

The problem with living as though there were no God is that you are already on the road to Hell – indeed you’re making your own little version of Hell, and many find, to their sorrow, that Hell is Hellish. When life has no purpose in the God who created it, you have to invent one.

Have you ever noticed that some of the most “successful” people are godless people whose personal lives are abominable, pathetic tragedies? Read some biographies. People generally become great for one of two reasons: their desire to glorify God through work; or their desire to supplant God and narcotize the soul with achievement. Now, for the generation that grew up watching the Brady Bunch, you could supplant God with a $100k salary and an upgrade-wife. But for a generation raised by Playstation the stakes are higher. When you can save the universe between bouts of compulsive masturbation and pot smoking, you get some pretty high expectations of what you’re capable of and what kinds of things will satisfy you. Add to that pornography and the hook-up culture, which erased the prime motivator for many men to grow up and get a job and take on the most rudimentary functions of manhood to become the kind of man a woman would want to have babies with. Why become a real man when porn and girls trying desperately to be a “cool girl” will give you all the sexual satisfaction and masculine affirmation you could ever desire?! Add to that parents who’ve been telling little Johnny that he was a little world-changer from birth, that everything is the [teachers’, coaches’, polices’] fault. Add to that the complete lack of anything meaningful to do – well, nothing meaningful that appeals to an effete and self-centered poli-sci dilettante. What do you get? You get a meaningless life. And you get a telic-vacuum.

The telic-vacuum wants to be filled even more desperately than the “God-shaped hole” because the “God-shaped hole” is often experienced through the telic-vacuum. People’s lives need purpose. And if people have been socialized to live Godless lives and also to have expectations for themselves so great that the run-of-the-mill delusions don’t work, then you have a psycho-spiritual crisis (incidentally I think this leads to a lot of psychoses we see among youngsters…but, again, another essay…). No, if you reject God and reject the petty-bourgeoisie distractions then you need some kind of world changing crusade to give your life meaning. A 401k and getting hammered in Cabo isn’t gonna cut it. You need something revolutionary.

Well, guess what. There’s a revolution out there and Uncle Karl Wants You! Is communism sufficient to give life meaning? Is Antiracism? Is Wokeism? No. Of course not. Nothing but living for God is [2]!

But, like all forms of legalism, when you don’t find any satisfaction in Wokeism it’s because you don’t have enough faith. If only you cared more, you’d do better. If only you REALLY confronted your racism. If only you really denied your privilege. If only you…get the picture. Wokeism is atheistic legalism. It promises rest for the weary by adding a cruel and cumbersome load. Its yoke is not easy and its burden is not light. Like Bunyan’s Moses it knows not how to show mercy. All it knows it “social” justice.

And like all idols, Wokeism disappoints. And like all idols, when people see that their idol has failed them, they do 1 of 3 things. They hate the idol, they hate themselves, or they live in denial. Or sometimes they do 2 of those 3…sometimes all 3! Wokeists will never find deep and abiding satisfaction in Wokeism. Sure, maybe it’ll get by for a few months or years. But eventually, that telic-vacuum will keep growing because legalism can never give a man a purpose worthy of living. And eventually the Wokeist will have to confront their shattered and meaningless life and either repent and turn to God, or dive even deeper into their godlessness.

But one thing I know, and I know plainly and clearly. The destruction: rioting, looting, murder, terrorism, blackmail, intimidation, harassment, and all the rest — it might be very satisfying in the short term. But in the long term, like everything that isn’t God, it will be subject to the law of diminishing returns. So the low-rent Apollyons of our society will either give up their madness, and turn to God, or they’ll run to another distraction to assuage the pathetic and pitiful emptiness of their lives…or they’ll dive in even deeper, growing more puerile, more violent, more radical, and more satanic. Because people are always and forever becoming more like themselves. They are either becoming more like children of God. Or they are becoming more like children of Satan. And those who are becoming more like God are having their most mundane actions infused with eternal weight and purpose. And those who are becoming more like Satan are finding that the best laid plans of mice and men are nothing more than empty and hollow pits full of nothing but unfulfilled longing – full of wailing and gnashing of teeth.

NOTES…AT THE FOOT…FOOTNOTES:

 [1] “Systems” is a word fraught with semantic overload. When anyone talks about systems — you should ask them to define “system”. Not to be a jerk, but for clarification. Also, maybe to be a jerk. Multitasking is important.

[2] This, of course, is the whole point of Anna Karenina — a book so often misunderstood as a piece about the “fallen woman.” It is. She is the eponymous anti-heroin. But Anna is a foil to Levin. She shows what living for self leads to for a woman in her position in society. Living for self destroys everything around her — including herself. Levin is the hero because Levin grows. He learns to live for God, which to him seems profound, but to all the happy and satisfied people in the book, people like Kitty — isn’t the grand conclusion of their lives, but its very foundation. And thus Levin, the great introspective, forward thinker, finds himself truly understanding the peasant and Kitty only at the end of his searching by coming to the very beginning of their worlds.

I mean, I know that this piece wasn’t about Tolstoy, but if we can’t talk about Tolstoy at the end of a 2,500 word essay about telic-vacua when can we? Actually…there are probably a lot better and more appropriate places to talk about Tolstoy. Whatevs.

How to Saddle a Tiger

If you, like me, enjoyed Tiger King, then perhaps you, like me, have thought, “My heavens! Tigers are such magnificent beasts! How delightful it would be to ride upon one?!”

Think about it. Tigers are powerful, fast, and frankly, when you come to an intersection, you ALWAYS have the right-of-way when you’re astride a tiger. Imagine the power and authority you would feel. Why, if you were to ride a tiger, you’d have the ability to control things. People would have to listen to you…because, if they don’t, well, let’s just say they’re invited to lunch, lolz.

And riding a tiger would be such great fun, if for no other reason than the cringing, obsequious smiles of the little peons, and the admiring smiles of the sheeple, and the bitter, jealous smiles of the tarantulas! ‘Cause, friend, there’s only 2 kinds ‘a people in this world: people who ride tigers, and everybody else.

And that’s why it’s so fun to see people in our nation’s churches attempt to get on board with Critical Race Theory and Social Justiceering and Wokeism. It’s just neato. Because these cool beans are showing us just what it means to ride the tiger. So, let me give you a quick breakdown: a sort of how-to manual so your church or denomination can also be one of the specials who get to be sat athwart Panthera Tigris!

Step One: Saddle Your Tiger.

Now, this is the scary part, and frankly, this is where things can go wrong. Try to do it immediately after a tiger has just gorged itself on its most recent victim. It will be satiated on that hapless schlub for a bit, so, while the tiger is sleepy and a little blood-drunk, now’s the time to put on that saddle.

Churches and denominations, here’s what you do. Wait until some riots happen and things get burned down for some reason or another and then decide to side with the rioters. It doesn’t matter why they’re rioting. They just are. See this not as a time to entertain scruples but to not let a crisis go to waste.

You can do this in a lot of ways, but be aware, the more secure the saddle the better the ride.

So, here’s what I recommend. Whatever the rioters/ communists/ perverts/ anarchists/ racists/ space aliens demand, you agree to – wholeheartedly. Not only that, but you need to create creedal affirmations of the hostage ransom note…I mean, reasonable demands of justice minded people. If you can twist scripture, great. Do so. If you want to ride tigers, remember this mantra “Never don’t twist scripture!” If the ransom demands…I mean, manifesto…I mean reasonable demands of justice minded people are so contrary to the Bible, Christianity, or the Judeo-Christian ethic, that you simply CANNOT twist scripture, then YOU’RE. NOT. TRYING. HARD. ENOUGH.

Listen, man, you want to be a tiger king or a Carole Baskin? Come on man. Enough of that malarkey. If you can’t twist scripture to suit any and every occasion, you’re unfit to be a pastor or denominational episcopos. Come on, man. Do better.

Step two: Ride That Tiger.

Here comes the fun part. Now you get to devour and demolish all your enemies by seizing the limitless power of a saddled tiger. In the words of the great theologue Harry Belefante, “jump in the saddle; hold on to the bridle!” You see someone who called your church “liberal”? Eat-‘em-up! Some pastor said that you “were a heretic”? Eat-‘em-up! Some layman pointed out that you have publicly denied and repudiated the Nicene Creed? EAT that sucka’!

The tiger, like the Eagles in LOTR, are literally the solution to every problem. Don’t have enough votes in your session or regional meeting or national conference to get your way? Let that stripey-cat solve your troubles for you.

What’s best is that once you start riding the tiger: people know it! I mean, it’s not a subtle act. Everyone with eyes to see (who doesn’t get gobbled up) will see, plain as day, that you’re riding the tiger. Your ministry is BOUND to expand and your church and denomination be filled by people enthralled to the naked theological and social power that comes from a woman riding a beast…wait, that sounds wrong for some reason…nvm.

People will say, while driving past your church “whoa, that’s that church riding the tiger!” And they’ll be right. Soon and very soon, all your enemies and adversaries will be in flight. You and your tiger will, like Caesar of old, bestride the narrow world like a colossus. Riding the tiger will give you power and prestige. And eventually, when you’ve done all you could and crushed every foe and won every battle and rewritten every constitution and scrapped every creed and you are victorious uber alles and you weep that there are no more worlds to conquer (you needn’t sit down to weep, you’re already sitting on a tiger, mind you) then there will only be one thing to do.

Get off that pesky tiger and get him in a cage.

Why Tell A Story?

I won’t claim to have read every modern retelling of the Arthurian Legend, but I have read the most important and well known, and some of the lesser known, iterations. And all of them are trying to use the archetypal story of Camelot as the background to say something about our contemporary world – which is what good authors do. Good authors look at King Arthur, and they say, “OK, this story is a tragedy about how even the best and most beautiful thing can and will be broken, and often broken by the people who stand to gain the most. Lancelots and Guineveres betray Arthurs and destroy Camelots.” They see the Arthurian Legend as an extended form of the aphorism: this too shall pass. Or perhaps you’re fascinated with Arthur’s rise – perhaps the sword-in-the-stone motif from the most famousest of all Arthurian Legendarians: Malory – you will probably be fascinated with the idea of prophecy, and its Christian and Christological significance. It’s the “chosen one” motif. Or maybe you are drawn to the Quest for the Graal. The idea of a quest is clearly a medieval romantic trope that has its modern iteration in cop-dramas. But a quest is always the basis of a good story. Or maybe, like Lewis, you’re entranced by Merlin and the fact that a pagan Druid is the personal confidante to the Christian King. Who is Merlin? Is he human, is he a man out-of-time, is he something else entirely?

Good writers all know that there are no new stories. There are only new ways of telling old stories. Great writers know that there is only ONE story and all stories are pieces of the Great Story, the Metanarrative. And because good writers know this, when they retell old stories, they want to give us the same message in an updated fashion. Or perhaps, they think the old story got it wrong and wants to try a new version. Bad writers…hacks…they just use the old characters like tools to tell whatever story they want. This is lazy and cheap. It’s what hacks do. And, generally, people dislike these retellings. Why? Because it feels like a rip-off. Like the author wanted to say something but was too lazy to create characters that would fit in that story. Instead they rip characters out of their context, and rely on them being a known quantity to save time and effort.

Cursed, on Netflix, does the latter. The, ironically and unintentionally appropriately titled offering, is a cheap rip-off of Bradley’s Mists of Avalon, and an even cheaper and more hackneyed rip-off of the Arthurian Legend. And like Mists, this story relies on the conflict between Christian and Pagan in post-Roman Britain. Like in Mists, the Pagan gods are real and so is magic – but Christianity seems to have absolutely zero actual supernatural power. All real power is centered in Paganism and Druidism. Like in Mists, Christians are ignorant, fundamentalist bigots. Like in Mists, Cursed wants to play a game where magic and gods are real and the authors want to go toe-to-toe with Christianity, but they never address any of the metaphysical issues that are clearly necessary: are the gods eternal? Is the earth eternal? How do we know the gods aren’t demons, as the Christians claim? We are simply supposed to take for granted that Paganism is true and Christianity false: but don’t ask anyone to prove it. Certainly, don’t ask why so many native Britons would have become Christians if Christianity didn’t have supernatural power to combat Paganism! The authors of these stories aren’t interested in these questions.

Now, in Zimmer-Bradley’s case, we know why: she was a child-molester. Mists of Avalon, which was supposed to be all about how Christianity is bad and pre-Christian matriarchal feminism and goddess-worship is good, was also molesting her own daughter and complicit in her husband’s child molestation as well. She’s a good storyteller – and a rotten person. And she’s really not someone whose opinion on morals particularly interests me. In fact, I’d say it’s fair to say, that when you molest your daughter, you don’t have the right to call Christianity misogynistic. You don’t get to call anything misogynistic.

But the question is, why is Netflix telling this story? We tell stories for lots of reasons, but the main reason writers write is to change people. The story is supposed to say something important about the world. And I have to say, that if you simply try following the plot and dialogue of Cursed, you’re going to have trouble finding anything meaningful. It’s a cavalcade of clichés and tropes and rip-offs and teeny-bopper romance. It hits all the low-notes of lazy writing: girl falls in love with bad boy and they immediately begin having the best sex of their lives the first time they lie together, with multiple simultaneous orgasms – the really realistic stuff. Oh, don’t forget how there are large numbers of women who are capable of hand-to-hand combat with sword and spear against grown men. Ahh, of course, there’s the tough-guy leader who needs to be taken down a peg. And the self-doubting heroine, who is also very sure of herself when the plot needs her to be. There’s the powerful item that has a mind of its own…I could go on. I won’t. Because the most tired of the tropes is also, seemingly, the point of the story.

The plot revolves around a group of Priests who are trying to exterminate the Fey: in this iteration they aren’t fairies, but a race of people who look funny, sometimes. They say that the Fey are demons, so the begin a genocidal purge, because it’s God’s will that they kill the demons hiding in human flesh. This of course suits the pope, just fine! but they discover Excalibur is out there and the pope wants it (for reasons) and then there’s a big fight.

The point of the story seems to be that the biggest threat to humanity and peace are Christian, white men. The greatest warrior of the Red Paladins, a stupid and impossible name if you know what “Paladin” means (or at least meant), is a Fey warrior who converted to Christianity. And, of course, there is the usual misogyny and closemindedness and bloodlust and religious tyranny and all that.

So, my question is: does this story need to be told? Is Christianity, and are Christian, white men, the greatest threat to peace and harmony in the world today? Is religious fundamentalism really a danger to society? Cursed would have you believe so.

This story has so many problems, really significant problems, with how it presents its theology, that it makes my head hurt. I don’t know that the authors have read a single book of Church history. But the audience isn’t supposed to care. They’re supposed to take for granted that this is how the world operates and let the story wash over them and condition them to mistrust Christianity as an oppressive and genocidal regime which suppresses real and true religion.

If there’s another reason to tell this story this way, I’d like to hear it. But remember, all authors have something they want to say. They want to change their audience – not just their minds, but THEM. Cursed’s authors want to change you. They want you to live as though Christianity were an invention of power-hungry, cynical, white men and that it is, at its core, power-hungry and genocidal. It tells this message lazily, and cowardly, and poorly. Like I said, the title is unintentionally appropriate.

What's In A Name?

Baker. Baxter. Weaver. Webster. Brewer. Brewster. These are all relatively common last names, and more than that they’re all occupational surnames. What you may be unaware of is that all the “-ster” occupational surnames in English are the feminine form. Now, look at the names. Notice anything in particular? These are occupations that are largely domestic. Which makes sense. Notice -ster surnames we don’t see? We don’t see “butchster”, for instance. Does that mean women were never engaged at butchery? Of course not. But what it probably means is that women who worked at a butchery were helpers and not the primary butcher. Why? Because butchery requires significant upper body strength, even today, let alone in the medieval world when there were no modern tools. Of course women then, as now, were cunning with a knife. But it isn’t just skill with a blade, and knowledge of the trade. To be a butcher also required strength and stamina. Now women can have all of those – except 1. Compared to men, women are weaker. This is just a fact. Women have talents and abilities men lack, but the fact is that women are, on average, about half as strong is men in the upper body, anyways.

So why do were have these occupational surnames? Because women excelled at many, many things. Not only that, but MARRIED women excelled, particularly at the above tasks. And married women who excelled at such tasks became prominent and important in their communities. So prominent, in fact, that a child would be know as “the bakster’s boy” or the “webster’s girl” – or a man might be known as “the brewster’s husband” (which isn’t a bad thing to be…amiright?)

Of course, unmarried women excelled at their work, too! Spinsters, for instance, were female spinners. But, ironically, or predictably – Spinster isn’t a last name. Spinner is. But not Spinster. Why? Because to be excellent at spinning is really hard. It requires 2 hands and also causes a good spinster to walk upwards of 20 miles a day! Which, by the way, ought to tell us how feeble and weak we are nowadays. But, the bigger point is that it’s kinda hard to raise kids and manage a household when you’re literally walking 20 miles a day. Hence, no kids who are the “Spinster’s son”.

Yet, today, we don’t use these titles. We just say “baker” for a man or a woman in the trade. And the trade is generally known as “baker”. With the rise of industrialization, domestic trades like brewing and weaving and baking went from being female dominated to male dominated. But one occupational title lingered long enough in amongst the fair sex, that, today, we use the feminine form: maltster.

Malting grain was so complex and so mysterious that men weren’t able to do it well enough on a large enough scale. And malting is a, largely, hands-off task. It’s a lot-a pot-watchin’, as it were. Women not only had the knowledge (by the way if you’ve never tried to malt grain – good luck, even with modern science and tools it’s not an easy task), but they were able to do it on a large commercial scale while still running a home. Maltster, as far as I know, is the ONLY feminine occupational title to survive industrialization. Men took over everything else, but they couldn’t crack malting.

Now, right now, you’re probably wondering what on earth this has to do with anything. Well, much in every way. Because the point I’m trying to make is this: medieval and pre-industrial England not only expected women to be engaged in some kind of trade, but they celebrated those who did to such an extent that whole families were known by the matriarch’s job. Contrast that with Victorian England, where women of good families weren’t allowed to walk about unescorted and you can begin to perceive a bit of what I mean.

Let me ask you – which is more feminine? Brewing beer or being a governess? Wearing an apron or hoop-skirt? Grasping the distaff or the parasol? Now, if you’re at all intelligent, you’ll say, “Luke that’s a ridiculous question! It’s all determined by the culture.” And you’d be right. A woman barkeep in Merry Old England was not only not scandalous, it was an honor to the family that the Brewster could make such a fine brown ale. But can you imagine Emma Woodhouse with a white towel over her shoulder listening to your problems, wrestling kegs, and brandishing a rolling pin at a drunkard who’s had two too many tankards?

The Bible gives us the command, that men should not wear women’s clothes and women shall not wear men’s. “Ok, God,” you say, “what kinds of clothes are women’s and what kind are men’s?” God doesn’t say! Why? Because God says that every culture gets to decide these things.

If I wear my kilt to show off my Scottish Pride – unless you know what a kilt is, you might think it looks pretty girly. Just as a woman wearing a men’s cut suit is pretty manly. Clothing is really culturally determined. A friend of mine was a missionary in West Africa. In the Sahara. And they couldn’t wear shorts because men in that culture think that shorts are just for little boys. Men don’t wear shorts. Men also don’t shave. In some cultures, women wear dresses, in others they wear pants.

So, what is Feminine dress? It’s the kind of clothes that women in a particular culture normally wear. Cultures create norms and make certain things normative based upon what most women in a culture do. And this goes beyond dress.

There is an anthropological crisis in Christianity right now, because some are trying desperately to come up with some universal definer of “masculinity” and “femininity” and they are doing so, largely, to combat the gender-bending degenerates who are saying that a person with a penis and testicles should be allowed to shower in with your daughter at college, or race against her at a track meet, or fight her in the ring (though I really don’t think women…or anyone…should be involved in the gladiatorial bloodsport we call MMA). Half the theologians are grasping at universals to make the case that there are traits peculiar to women and universal, beyond the biological – and they’re having a rough go at it. The other half are saying that men and women are the same – which is patently absurd.

But all this is the fruit of not using biological sex as the PRIMARY definer of what a woman is. A woman is a human with two X chromosomes, and female genitalia. It’s very easy, even without DNA sequencing and whatnot, to determine someone’s sex. If he has a penis – he’s a man. If she has a vagina – she’s a woman. So what is masculine behavior? It’s the culturally normative behavior of men. What is feminine behavior? It’s the culturally normative behavior of women.

I’m saying normative and not normal, because some things may be normal but not normative. It’s normal for a woman to have once made an apple pie. But it’s not normative. There’s no maniac out there, hunting for women who’ve never made a pie and insisting that by not making pies she’s a gender-bending disgrace. I mean, I hope not, right. Although, that might be a really fun person to interview. Or terrifying. It probably won’t be boring. Might get murdery. But, I digress.

There’s a difference between normal and normative. And yeah, most women probably own yoga pants. Does that mean that a woman isn’t feminine if she doesn’t wear yoga pants? No. She may just care too much about her friends and neighbors.

Some habits and behaviors and cultural artifacts are more important to femininity and masculinity. Now, we might not LIKE what is normative. I, personally, despise that American masculinity is largely divided in to mancavemen and metrosexuals. I want to change that and give us a BETTER cultural norm for masculinity. I, personally, don’t like where our culture is in it’s view of femininity, which is that being a woman either means being a raging lunatic man-hating feminist or being an airheaded bimbo who is treated like a sex-object from as early was we can squeeze her into a 2-piece. Just because God gives cultures the freedom to DEFINE cultural norms, doesn’t mean they choose good ones! It just means that they have that ability. Any group can choose norms. I can start a club called the “Wear A Purple Shirt Or We Cut Off Your Roast-Beef-Toe Club”. In this club, if you show up to a lodge meeting not wearing a purple shirt we’ll cut-off Roast-Beef. We’d be called the WAP-SOW-COY-RiBiT Club for short. That’s a stupid club. I mean, our fight song will be pretty sweet, and I can imagine…no, Luke, no…don’t start the club. But the point is that the WAP-SOW-COY-RiBiT Club would be stupid. Do we have the freedom to create a club with those norms – yes. Maybe. But it’s stupid and harmful. Just because we have the freedom to create a subculture with its own cultural norm doesn’t mean it’s good – not, leastways, by objective standards.

In the same way, we can say that it is culturally normative for a woman to treat herself like a piece of meat, and that to not give away the milk for free makes you a prude, or, less of a woman. We can; we do; we’ve scandalized virginity. We shame purity. And I think this is bad. Now, this is a place where the Bible confronts a cultural norm and says, “This is a bad cultural norm. Stop making it be that way.”

But by and large, the Bible and the Christian faith don’t come anywhere close to addressing these norms. Should women work? Outside the home? Proverbs 31 woman does! Should she wear dresses or pants? Crickets from the Bible. Should she get married? If she burns with lust. Should she pursue education or focus on family? What does she want to do – the Bible doesn’t care as long as she’s living for the glory of Christ. The Bible is silent on many issues because God is OK with us defining and creating these norms, as long as they aren’t obnoxious to His express Will.

Why does this matter? Because, what I hope I’ve made abundantly clear is that masculinity and femininity are really just cultural constructs defined by the normative behavior of men and women in that culture. You can’t define masculine and feminine without knowing what a man or a woman is, because masculinity and femininity are DEFINED by the behavior of men and women! Our culture elites, these educated imbeciles, who wish to pontificate and bloviate about how Gender is social construct, are actually closer to the truth that they realize. The part the miss is that it’s a construct constructed on the social behaviors of men and women. Ad Fontes! We define feminine by what women do, not vice versa! These charlatans would have you believe that behaving in a feminine way makes you a woman – or at least desiring to behave like a woman. And then they justify their lunacy by saying that a woman is someone who feels feminine. But you can’t define feminine without knowing what a woman is, and you can’t define a woman by saying she’s feminine.

That’s no different that me saying I’m the Emperor of Idaho. And people would say, “but you’re not, though, Idaho is a Sovereign State of the Union.” And I would say, “But I FEEL like the Emperor of Idaho.” And someone would say, “Well, what is an Emperor of Idaho, then?” And I’d say, “someone who feels like the Emperor!” If I tried that I’d quickly have a tete-a-tete with some burly boys in white coats.

And you wouldn’t accept that if I said to someone that I was their father or their wife! If I feel like Warren Buffett can I go to his bank and take out some monies? Of course not. But, a mentally disturbed, or exceedingly cynical high school boy can race against girls at the state track meet!

What if I REALLY FEEL like your Power of Attorney? We don’t accept this kind of asinine and childish (that’s actually unfair to children) logic in any other sphere of life? Why about sex?

Well, we accept this jackassery because most people have confused niceness with goodness – forgetting that contributing to an insane person’s delusions isn’t nice, in fact, it’s cruel and evil. We accept is because too many people have been kowtowed by the outrage-mob, these perversion hustlers who tell you that 2 and 2 make 5. We accept it because we’re forgotten very basic first principles and we’ve strayed from God’s Word. “He made them male and female.” That’s what the Bible says. God created biological sex. God commands us to not try to pervert and confuse biological sex.

Men are men and masculine things are the things men do. Women are women and feminine things are the things women do. That may not be fundamentalist enough for some Christians, and it’s certainly not woke enough for the Wokeists. But it’s a simple, biblical, anthropological statement that I defy anyone to contradict.

Knock, Knock...It's Opportunity

The Gospel of Mark is a narrative. And like all good and well written narratives, it’s best thought of as a chain and not a bulleted list. Unfortunately, in our day where we have little patience for narratives, and our pastors and preachers are under constant pressure to “boil it down” and “get to the main point”, we often miss what’s staring us in the face.

As I said, Mark’s gospel, is best thought of as a chain. One link is connected to the previous and proceeding links. But, in fact, more than a simple chain, it’s like a festoon or bib necklace – not just a simple set of links, but a matrix of interconnections all working in harmony to create an overall effect. Stories not only connect to the previous story but to several of the previous pericopes. Sometimes it’s quite obvious to see the connections. Sometimes the connections are rather difficult. However, I’ve been working on a method for interpreting Mark which is yielding positive results.

My approach to making sense of the narrative structure of Mark is, I know this is groundbreaking, to treat it as a narrative!  I begin with the presupposition that Mark is a good writer and a skilled orator – or rhetor, as his Roman sitz im leben may suggest. Since Mark is a gifted writer/ rhetor, we should expect his gospel, as a narrative to have several factors. It should have a simple vocabulary – you don’t want the audience to stop listening because they need to make sense of a rare word. Check. It needs to be euphonious – as in, it needs to beautiful to hear (it’s beyond the scope of this essay, but, take my word for it, Mark was a skilled wordsmith). Check. It should have all the classical aspects of narrative: hero, villain (s), conflict, resolution. Check. It should have easily identifiable themes. Check. It should flow naturally…here’s where I want to make my point.

If we simply read Mark at a surface level, there’s a chance we might think that his gospel is just arranged haphazardly. But Mark’s arrangement is not higgledy-piggledy. He has a clear purpose in his arrangement. And to show the connections between events, and larger bodies of events, he uses the repetition of keywords, expressions, and themes. Thus, keyword identification can show us how Mark connected thoughts and themes which are pertinent to his gospel and give us clarity on the subtext of the narrative.

In other words, if we can identify these keywords we can draw connections between pericopes which will give us a clue as to Mark’s purpose in arrangement. How will this work? Let me give an example.

So, in Mark 7 we see 2 uses, of the word family εὐκαιρ- (good-time). Mark 7 has 2 out of 2 in the Gospels! These words are only used 5 times in the NT, and twice in the Gospels and both times they are used in Mark 7. So, while this isn’t an obscure of difficult work to a Greek-speaker, it is rare for the NT. And placing these two uses so close together in 2 pericopes, especially two pericopes that are so different ought to tell us that while the events seem disconnected, narritivally, they are not.

Mark wants us to connect these two stories and see that they are connected. What are these two? First is the beheading of John the Baptist and the second is Jesus Feeding the 5,000. Now, obviously these two don’t appear to have much of a connection. But Mark says, “hey buddy, slow down a bit and read more carefully. I want you to see something. But I want to show and not tell.”

Now, to contemporary Americans we see this as obnoxious and stupid. We think, “look nature-boy, if it’s so important just say it.” And Mark says, “1) that’s a cheap-shot and 2) stories work best when they show and don’t tell!”

So, what is Mark showing us instead of telling us? Well, Herodias wanted to kill John the Baptist, but there was never an opportune time, because Herod liked him and protected him. But one say, an opportune time came. Events unfolded such that Herodias was able to get the King to murder a righteous man whom he liked. And what did it do? It demonstrated the weakness of Herod. He couldn’t control his passions (for his step-daughter niece…yucky), he couldn’t control his mouth, he realized how tenuous his power was, and he was forced to do something he didn’t want to do – at a feast.

Jesus however, after learning of John’s murder goes off to spend time private time with the disciples because they’re so busy they don’t have an opportune time to eat! Herod has time to eat. Herod has time to feast. Herodias has time to murder the righteous, but Jesus doesn’t have time to eat. But despite his efforts to get away, Jesus is still hounded by those who want Him. And what does he do? Does he pull a Herodias and do something wicked to create an “opportune time”? No. He sees that the crowds are harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd.

Don’t miss this. This is crucial. It’s crucial because shepherd, especially in the Easter context, were symbolic of kings. There are 5 close matches to the expression “like sheep without a shepherd” in the OT. 3 of the 5 are almost verbatim. 2 of those 3 are referring to the same event. Moses asks Yahweh to appoint a leader over Israel so they won’t be like sheep without a shepherd – and God appoints Joshua. And there is a prophecy about the death of Ahab, where the people leave the battle because Ahab dies and they are like sheep without a shepherd.

The people being sheep without a shepherd means that they have no king. But Judah has a king, right? Isn’t it Herod?

No, says Mark. Herod was the king, in title, and sure, he held power. But he wasn’t a king in the truest sense. Jesus was descended from David. A concept that Mark does not ignore, and neither does blind Bartimaeus. Jesus is the king. And he is beginning to take on his role as king.

But unlike the pervy and impotent Herod who commits murder rather than offend his dinner-guests for making an overly bold promise to his sex-pot step-daughter, Jesus will feed the multitudes. All these themes coalesce. Food and feasting, power, leadership, the right time for things, righteousness, teaching, compassion, and more.

Now, you might say, but Luke that’s a bit disorderly and complex. OK. So what? Narratives don’t have to be clean and clear and under control. They can be disorderly. They can leave logical order if it carries the message more effectively. The point of placing these narratives next to eachother is to show, as Mark does MANY TIMES, how the leadership in Judea was selfish, corrupt, weak, and ineffectual. But Jesus is not. Jesus is the one who can and should rule, both as a religious ruler and as a secular ruler.

Are we supposed to get this all consciously? No. But it’s supposed to sink in and marinade. Remember that we’ve seen Jesus have conflict with the Pharisees, then conflict with family and his hometown. Then he has conflict with the townspeople who don’t like the cost of his miracles. Mark is showing how all the social and religious and political structures in the nation were inadequate and corrupt and how adequate and righteous Jesus is.

Again, we’re not necessarily to see this, openly, and consciously. But, like a good story, it’s supposed to sink in, little by little. Especially as we read and hear Mark again and again.

Justifying Jihad Part I

Let’s have a thought experiment. Let’s pretend that there were an organization called Anabaptists Are Americans. And let’s say that this group’s whole raison d’etre is, purportedly, to advocate for an end to Government disenfranchisement of Anabaptists. Because, you see, if you refuse to sign up for Selective Service (the Draft!) you lose benefits and open yourself up to prosecution. Nevermind that that their Conscientious Objector status can be availed – they still have to register. And since part of the Anabaptist creedo is that we will neither fight nor train for war, then forcing Anabaptists to register with Selective Service effectively denies their US citizenship.

Now, lots of people would say, “Ummmmm, no. It doesn’t deny their citizenship, it’s a policy that we can change, but, if anything, it AFFIRMS their citizenship.” But that’s not good enough for Anabaptists Are Americans. They DEMAND, not ask for, not suggest, not propose, DEMAND that all Anabaptists be treated like Americans. And whenever people say, “But Anabaptists are treated like Americans,” AAA activists would say, then how’s about all the religious persecution against Anabaptists. Anabaptists are, per capita, the most persecuted religious group in modern European History and faced serious persecution in America and Anabaptists face Systemic Persecution in America TO THIS DAY.

And people say, “What! What persecution?” And AAA activists and apologists would say “forcing Anabaptists to fight in war, and btw, look at how many Anabaptists in Lancaster County, PA and how many in Holmes county Ohio don’t even own a TELEVISION! Clearly there is widescale oppression.”

AAA activists go on television and ask naysayers how they explain the lack of smartphones owned by Anabaptists in Lancaster. The disparity, the INEQUITY can only be explained by Systemic Persecution. And if anyone is foolish enough to say, “but how can you prove Systemic Persecution is even a thing,” the AAA activists point to the lack of Smartphones owned by Anabaptists in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania as PROOF of Systemic Persecution.

If this sounds like a textbook example of Question Begging that any 5th grader with a primer on Logic ought to be able to identify, take heart. It isn’t. Because. Reasons.

And then, let’s say people wearing AAA shirts started, I don’t know, let’s pick a random, non-specific example…they started…burning down huge swathes of major cities. They came to parts of Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Virginia demanding that people leave the property that was once owned by Anabaptists. Let’s say they started stopping traffic and then beating the piss out of random passers-by and robbing them, all while claiming to be AAA supporters.

And let’s say that noted officials within the Anabaptists Are Americans organization supported the arson and looting. Let’s say they were so bold, insane to suggest, I know, but they were so bold as to promote the banditry being committed as the agitation that is needed to bring about change. Anyone who refused to say the words Anabaptists Are Americans would be labeled as AntiAnabaptist…as persecutors. We’d call them Inquisitors.

And what if there was massive political cover for this? What if the New York Times put our a special edition called the 1527 Project. Stating that Western History REALLY began in 1527 with the murder of Felix Manz and was followed by the hundreds of thousands of Anabaptists who were murdered, as well as the Huguenots who were persecuted in France AND America. If someone says, but the Huguenots were not Anabaptist and they were not pacifist, AAA activists would just tell them that that’s Inquisitor logic.

Because, you see, all Western thought and rationality is designed to promote an Anti-Anabaptist platform that keeps power in the hands of Inquisitors. It’s all about Non-Anabaptist Privilege. Anabaptists threated Non-Anabaptist privilege in Europe and they were horrifically tortured and murdered and the same things are happening today. AAA activists point to the countless numbers of Anabaptists in prison because of Non-Anabaptists Privilege and power structures.

And let’s say that as all this goes on, murders skyrocket, cities are burned to the ground, riots abound, federal buildings are under attack, federal agents are blinded with laser pointers, children are murdered in roadblocks, bombs are thrown into buildings, highwaymen attack random vehicles, business are destroyed, people fear for their lives, and AAA advocates not only don’t care but promote these things because they constitute reparations and are the necessary pain which will bring about an end to Non-Anabaptist Privilege and finally convince everyone that Anabaptists Are Americans.

What would you call AAA? Would you call them terrorists? Cause the US Criminal Code would! § 2331 of the US Criminal Code defines Domestic Terrorism thusly:

(5) the term “domestic terrorism” means activities that—

(A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State;

(B) appear to be intended—

(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;

(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or

(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and

(C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States…

So, if AAA actively engages in violence to promote a political agenda on US soil, we would call Anabaptist Are Americans a terrorist organization. And we would call those who support their agenda either supporters of terror if not outright terrorists themselves.

The simple fact of the matter is that when you advocate violence, particularly violence against civilians, to effect a political end, you are advocating terrorism.

Now, you might say, “but Anabaptists Are Americans is a loose network of groups and it’s grassroots and there really isn’t an overarching command and control.” And? What’s your point?

As a Mennonite, if someone started committing highway robbery in the name of Dirk Willemsz, I would say that that person knows nothing about Anabaptism and is a disgrace. And if people who were noted leaders in the AAA movement refused to decry the violence, I, as an Anabaptist, would condemn the whole organization. Because, here’s the thing. If you let someone use your car to commit terrorism, and you know they’re going to commit terrorism beforehand, that makes you an accessory before the fact, and you’re liable, equally liable, for that terrorism.

If there are leaders in the Anabaptists Are Americans organization that don’t like people using the AAA logo and shouting “Anabaptists Are Americans” while committing banditry and arson and other acts of terror, wouldn’t it be entirely reasonable to expect them to say…something…anything? And wouldn’t we interpret the silence of the stereotypically dour looking bearded men, who we all know constitute the presbytery of Anabaptists, as tacit, if not outright approval, of acts of terror? We would, wouldn’t we? Just the same way that we would interpret silence from President Trump as consent if a bunch of people wearing MAGA hats attacked a black gay actor in Chicago. Thank God that never happened, but we would, wouldn’t we? In fact, we CONSTANTLY demand that people, especially people on the political right, denounce the extreme right wing, the racial nationalists. Because to NOT denounce is viewed as tacit consent.

In the same way if Anabaptists Are Americans were to not only REFUSE to denounce terrorism, but to actually advocate it, we would say that Anabaptists Are Americans is a terrorist organization. You cannot give cover for, and aid and abet, and condone, and advocate terrorism and not be a terrorist. If you’re an accessory before the fact, you’re a terrorist.

OK. Now that we all agree, let’s just change the letters from AAA to BLM.

Next time we’ll talk about how this terrorism is being justified.

The Ghost in the Machine

What is the soul?

While this question may seem, depending on who you are, overly shallow or overly deep, it is, nevertheless, one of the most important questions in all of Anthropology. Theologians have struggle for…ever…to come up with a comprehensive and coherent answer to this question, and despite our best efforts, there is no consensus. And, really, there is no consensus today. But, let me propose an idea, that may go in the way of getting us closer to an answer, and look at its implications for other aspects of Theology.

So, what is the soul? Well, let’s look at one of the first places that the “word” is used, in relationship to people. Genesis 2:7 says:

וַיִּיצֶר֩ יְהוָ֨ה אֱלֹהִ֜ים אֶת־הָֽאָדָ֗ם עָפָר֙ מִן־הָ֣אֲדָמָ֔ה וַיִּפַּ֥ח בְּאַפָּ֖יו נִשְׁמַ֣ת חַיִּ֑ים וַֽיְהִ֥י הָֽאָדָ֖ם לְנֶ֥פֶשׁ חַיָּֽה׃

And Yahweh God formed the Earth-One [from the] dust from earth and breathed in his nostrils the breath of life, and the Earth-One was a living soul.

Notice the order, because this is significant. The Earth-One is made from the earth, fashioned, secondarily, not spoken into existence, but made of existing material. And AFTER the Earth-One is formed God breathes into his nostrils and the Earth-One becomes a “living soul” – a Nephesh Chaiyah. Now, interestingly, while we think of the “soul” being distinctly a human quality, that’s not how Genesis portrays it. Genesis describes animals as being or having Nephesh Chaiyah. The word “soul” comes to us in English through a strange route, not worth discussing here. But it is crucial to understand that the Hebrew concept of Nephesh, and it’s LXX translation ψυχή “Psoochay” are not 1-1 with the concept we have. Nor is the Latin “Anima”.

Much of our thinking is influenced by Greek Philosophy, and that’s OK, so far as it goes. The Greeks distinguished the Intellect from the Emotions (we’d say the head and the heart). Which is why the Greatest Commandment in Hebrew involved loving God with all your “Heart”, “Soul”, and “Strength”. And the Greeks wanted to break this into “Heart”, “Mind”, “Soul”, and “Strength”. But to the Hebrews there was no distinction between the “Heart” and the “Mind”. The Intellect and the Emotion were encapsulated in the term for “Heart”.

Now, insofar as we use these words as descriptors of distinguishable capacities of the human person, they’re perfectly useful. Note the writers of the NT had no problem breaking up “Heart” and “Mind” for the Greek audience, to accommodate them. This suggests that the dividing of the “parts” (even though that’s an unfortunate word) of the human person is always artificial, it isn’t imagined. People are complex and this complexity seems to seek description and taxonomy. God had no problem with a further and more careful description of personality as an accommodation to a different worldview.

Where this gets us into trouble, however, is when it tends towards Gnosticism and the belief that the “soul” (whatever people mean by that) is entirely distinct from the Body. Which, of course it isn’t.

But let’s define terms here so that we can stop using quotation marks. By soul, for our purposes, let’s use the term consciousness. Granted, consciousness is not well understood, but this seems to be a fair accommodation. The body can exist without consciousness, but in this mortal sphere the consciousness cannot exist without the body.

Remember, consciousness (the soul – Nephesh) came AFTER the physical/ material form of man was fashioned. Man doesn’t become a “living creature” until AFTER the Earth-One is formed from the Earth.

And this, I fear, has been overlook by Christians (or at least by me, heretofore). What this means is that God did something to a physical/ material form that caused that form to become (it wasn’t before) a living-creature. The soul arises within and OF the material form after God breathes the breath of life into its nostrils.

This has implications. What this seems to mean to me, and it seems that science would agree, is that there is no “Ghost in the Machine”. There is no secret-you inside of your brain. Your brain, and other parts of your nervous system which control thought and impulse and the will ARE your consciousness. In other words the brain is the mind and the mind is the brain. This would seem to suggest that the “will” is also one-in-being with the Central Nervous System.

Now, I know that some are going to push back. This seems to Materialist. It seems too mechanical and chemical. But isn’t this what we should expect? If life arose in the form of the dust shouldn’t we expect the dust to be the mechanism through which the “soul” functions?

Moreover, this would seem to answer one of the age-old questions about life. When is a soul (or, if you’d prefer, when is a person who has the capacity for consciousness, the exercise of will, and who possesses personaity and personality) created? It’s created when a new human being is formed. The soul exists at conception because conception creates not only a new physical person, but insodoing creates a new psychological person. This would seem to militate against Mormon thinking, or the Jewish mystical concept of the Guf.

This may seem like making a mountain out of a mole-hill. But let’s consider that human reproduction is a physical act that requires physical material. Sperm and Egg are needed – these are physical materials about which we know a little. We know that when these fuse life is created. Does God supernaturally implant “a soul” into every zygote upon fusion? Maybe. But how? Isn’t it possible that God superintends the fusion of sperm and egg and uses the mechanism of physical reproduction to create a soul, rather than a supernatural implantation of a “Ghost in the Machine”. It seems, at a minimum to be worthy of consideration.

Moreover, this would be in line with the Biblical description of the Sin Nature. The Sin Nature is called “the flesh”. Again, this is not to prop up some Gnostic/ Platonic idea of the badness of bodies, but to consider that what is tainted isn’t some immaterial “part of us” but our very hardware itself! The “flesh” is the hardware and the software because the software is inseparable from the hardware. The soul is inseparable from the body – at least while living.

Sin is passed on from generation to generation, and the Bible warns that some sins are national and familial. Is it possible that it isn’t simply “nurture” that causes certain people to be predisposed to certain sins, but “nature”, as well. It would certainly seem so, when we consider how strongly IQ and other personality traits are correlated to genetics. Naturally, this doesn’t mean these traits are fixed, but that they are heritable.

The Bible’s routine description about the inheritance of sinfulness is that it is passed on through physical reproduction. Why should we spiritualize this? There is no need to. We ought to take these concepts at face value.

Sin is passed on through human reproduction, because the sin nature is nothing less than (though it may certainly be more than) the corrupted neural hardware that has causes human beings to do evil, through various impulse reward mechanism and natural predispositions. It may, in fact, be possible that sin has instinctually programmed us to hate God – to have antipathy towards Him, or at minimum, to desire autonomy and the reject God’s rule.

In short, the soul is sinful because the will is sinful because the brain and body are sinful because our bodies came from sinful bodies that were corrupted in the first sin. Adam’s hardware was corrupted in the first sin and ever since, all our hardware has been corrupted. It requires a New Birth to give us the ability to begin defragging and deleting corrupted software with good stuff. This is the work of the Holy Spirit, often called sanctification.

It is nothing less than what Paul said: we are transformed by the renewing of our minds. Literally, we become like Christ when, by the agency of the Holy Spirit, we reprogram our brains to obey God, to love righteousness and holiness, to hate sin. Some day our hardware will either be fixed or replaced. Until that day we continue passing on corrupted brains. But, hope there is. Someday we will be fixed. Someday all that’s wrong will be made right. Someday our brains and bodies and souls will be fixed and we will be like Christ.

Irregularities with the Irregulable

One of the most frustrating things about stupidity is that so often it appears to be wise. Some assertions, especially amongst those too ignorant or invested to investigate, get by without really being challenged – despite the fact that they are not only not able to withstand significant scrutiny, but will, in fact, collapse under the weight of their own incoherence.

One of these ridiculous notions is the notion that underlies and sustains many of the most grievous evils in our society: abortion, homosexual marriage, fornication, polygamy, and pedophilia. When we look at this list, there is, of course, a common denominator. All of these have to do with sex and the idea of sexual freedom.

In our culture there is this libertine notion that sex cannot and should not and must not be regulated. Abortion isn’t called the violent and horrific murder of babies, but it’s called “giving women control over their reproduction.” Of course, barring rape, all women DO have control over their own reproductive powers. And in the West, women have had that power for a long, long time. Nunneries were always open. Women have been missionaries and history is full of spinsters. The idea that Western culture was one in which women were all raped en masse is one of the more ridiculous notions that came out of 20th Century Feminism. As it turns out, in the real world, women have sex for a wide variety of reasons: pleasure, the desire to please, the desire to manipulate, to make babies, to make money, to name a few.

Again, women have for a long time had, apart from rape, control over their own reproduction. Women – like men, oddly enough – can choose to abstain from sex. They can choose to be celibate. They can also choose to use natural family planning – though this has some problems. Coitus Interruptus, is another option, again, not extremely reliable. Contraception is another example that doesn’t result in the murder of a baby.

But that’s not good enough.

The culture demands that women should abandon the actual and legitimate control over their reproduction and have the option to commit murder after they abrogated their reproductive control. The baseline presupposition is that sex cannot and should not be regulated.

Homosexual marriage uses the same line of argument. People scoff and say, “it’s none of my business.” The presupposition is that it is wrong to regulate whether a man has sex with a man or a woman a woman. There is the presupposition that regulation is wrong.

Same thing with fornication. The cultural understanding is that people can and should fornicate whenever they please. It’s wrong to regulate this.

And we will see over the next few decades a major rise in the attempts to normalize polygamy and pedophilia. I doubt polygamy will be illegal much longer. Why not? Because we presuppose that it is wrong to regulate sex.

But why?

Why is it wrong to regulate sex?

It’s illegal to own a bald-eagle feather. Seriously. You cannot, without special permission from our bureaucratic betters own, possess, sell, trade, or barter any part of a bald eagle – or a golden eagle. And this is all to protect birds. Granted, you can murder a baby, and according to some of our top-notch polies, it’s ok to let a baby die that has survived an abortion. I mean, not only are baby murderers evil and disgusting disgraces, but if they’re too incompetent to kill a baby before it’s born you should be able to kill it after it’s born?!

It’s illegal to drive in Ohio without having a tiny plastic sticker on my license plate. Because we demand that everyone who uses the roads take responsibility for maintaining the roads.

It’s illegal to drive without auto insurance.

Why?

Why is it illegal to drive without auto insurance? Well, because we recognize that cars and trucks and SUVs can do tremendous damage if used improperly and people who misuse or cannot control their vehicles need to be held financially responsible for the damage they do. We say that with cars people are responsible for personal and property damage. So, we’re willing to hold people responsible for doing damage to the degree that you cannot legally operate a motor vehicle in the state of Ohio unless you have taken precautions beforehand to ensure that you can make someone whole in case of an accident.

And more than that. It’s illegal to say bad things against people, publicly, in word or in print, if it’s untrue. Libel and slander are serious offenses. And you can be held liable in a court of law if you damage someone’s reputation.

And if you lie to a judge under oath, you can be tried for perjury. We hold people responsible to tell the truth in a court to ensure the fair and righteous execution of the law. We expect that people will be responsible enough to protect their neighbors individually and societally.

In fact, because the government is so concerned with my and other people’s safety, I can’t drive my car without taillights and headlights and working windshield wipers – and I have to wear my seatbelt. I have to keep my sidewalk shoveled and, tyranny of tyrannies, I can’t just leave bear-traps set up in the yard to capture potential home invaders. There are so many things I can’t do and that I must do because these are the things that our government has decided it gets to regulate for my own and society’s good.

So, tell me please. Why is it totally OK for adultery to be legal, when we know the tremendous damage it does to victims, when I have to keep my lawn mown?

Why does everyone just accept that you need to take a driver’s test, but there is no marriage test?

Why is it that you have to be 18 to vote, but it’s unthinkable to try to regulate whether we undermine the whole of society by permitting homosexual marriage and pornography and licentious music and television and movies?

The reality is that human sexuality is infinitely more important than the possession of eagle-feathers. Human sexuality is one of the most important aspects of humanity and, frankly, THE DRIVING FORCE of the continued existence of the human race! Family’s are the foundation of society and anything that undermine the foundation of society seems to me to be something worthy of prohibiting – or at least it’s on the table for regulation!

Why is it that we can regulate how much water a toilet can use and what kind of lightbulbs you can have, but we can’t say whether or not people can engage in perversity? Queen would have a field day with this naughty-nanny-state.

I won’t go on too much longer – I feel my point is made. Now, obviously, you can disagree that these things don’t warrant regulation because they do not undermine society or pose a danger to human well-being. But let’s not pretend that it isn’t exceedingly disingenuous to simply decree that in the age of ever-expanding executive orders and bureaucratic regulatory bloat that sex is irregulable. If anything ought to be regulated it’s sex, considering its importance to society and the human race.

So why isn’t it? Because the cultural conjurers who summon our Polterzeitgeist don’t want to regulate sex. Because they like sexual dissolution. Or because the like societal dissolution. It doesn’t really matter which because in the end it ends the same way: the soul’s desolation.

Christianity Confirms Brain Science

Introduction

Yes, you read that right. I said that Christianity confirms brain science. I say it that way, because, unfortunately, too many Christians are waiting for Science (with a capital S) to affirm and confirm their faith.

Now, certainly, it is incumbent upon anyone who considers himself to be a Systematic Theologian to attempt to incorporate ALL knowledge – including neurology and endocrinology and psychiatry – into his System. But, one mustn’t be too hasty in accepting The Latest. Because The Latest is often replaced with The Latest-er. So, Christians, like all other thinking people, ought to be slow to accept new theories – especially when theories or rough draft evidence contradicts long held precepts within the faith. Moreover, these findings must NEVER be used to pull us away from the essential doctrines of the faith expressed in the creeds. The things that meet Saint Vincent’s Canon are the things that no matter what Science says we are unflinching and unmoving. Those things are the beliefs that have been believed, “Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus” (everywhere, always, and by all).

However, as alluded to above, sometimes data come out which align with what the faith has always taught. The science and theology of the brain and free-will and impulsivity is a cluster of concepts I’m fascinated with and for which there is almost zero literature within theology. But, every now and then someone says something to which Christians can and should say, “Yeah, we know, we’ve been saying this LITERALLY for centuries!”

Today, I’d like to talk about an example of such a thing.

The Thing

For a while there has been a growing, albeit small, body of literature and thought on how stress and negative emotions are actually addictive. Now, everybody “knows” that people turn to addictions to relieve stress and negative emotion. But that’s not what’s being said. What’s being said is that people actually become addicted to stress and negative emotion!

In fact, not too long ago, Dr. Karlyn Borysenko made the case that Social Justice Warriors are addicted to negative emotion and that, obviously, this is not psychologically healthy (or particularly constructive for the body politic). Her scientific point is that when we experience any emotion, there is a hormonal release to the body. It doesn’t matter whether our emotions are valid or positive, the body receives these chemicals all-the-same. And, when people are in an environment where they are constantly pitted against stressors people become addicted to that stress, because they are addicted to the stress-hormones released whilst experiencing stress or stressors.

Now, here’s where it gets curiouser and curiouser. When the stressors are removed, people, at first, breathe a breath of relief. But only for a bit. After a while, the body is saying, “Hey! I want my stress hormones! Gimme some norepinephrine!”

So, says Dr. B, people create problems out of thin air so they can stir the pot and create stress so they can get a shot of those sweet, sweet, stress hormones. Mmmmm, epinephrine…

Now, I’ve said for YEARS that some people aren’t happy unless they’re miserable! And, it seems, science is on my side!

But why do I say that Christianity affirms this? Well, to answer the question of how Christianity affirms that people become addicted to negative emotions, we could go one of three ways: with an oversimplification (which though useful would leave too many questions unanswered); with an abstruse and technical treatise (see above for why this is a bad idea); or with a short, somewhat detailed, but readable essay for the layperson.

Let’s go with option 3. And to do option 3, let’s chop this thing up into pieces, like Shia LeBeouf on a Normal Tuesday Night. First, some Anthropology focusing on how the human person is comprised, vis-a-vis Christian thinking contra contemporary Secularism’s view. Get excited. Then, some more different Anthropology. This time focusing on the Sin Nature. Lastly a little more Anthropology, but this time it’s going to tie it all together.

The Human Person

OK, so, it’s worth saying that while the mind-body problem has existed for as long as people have noticed that there is a mind and a body. And people have proposed different answers on how to integrate the mind and the body. And there have been some pretty interesting (read: rather far-fetched) answers. For instance Leibniz believed in the Foreordained Harmony of the Universe. Or, Jonathan Edwards’ view which kinda says that…well, you can read it for yourself! The point is that the mind-body problem was a problem and continues to be a problem for serious thinkers.

But, it’s not a problem for Secular Atheists who’ve cut the Gordian Knot. They say there is no mind-body problem because the mind is the brain and the brain is part of the body. Now, insofar as they say that the mind is intrinsically (though Christians would not say inseparably) united with the body, they’re right. But to the extent that they argue that this means Biological Determinism, they are wrong. We’re not just shaved apes dancing to our DNA. And, thankfully, there is new Neuroscience rejecting Neurological Determinism.

But, like I said, the Bible has always affirmed that the Body is good and an intrinsic part of the human person. Indeed, the Body was made before man became a “living soul” a “נפשׁ חיה”.

“The Lord God formed the man from the soil of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” Genesis 2:7 (NET)

The Bible affirms that the body is not some disposable, or unfortunate, or evil aspect of humanity. That’s a pagan Platonic view. It’s not the Biblical view. Now, granted, influences from Greek philosophy and Gnosticism as well as a misunderstanding of what the “flesh” (“σάρξ”) is caused many Christians throughout history to hold a SUB-Christian view of the human person.

Now, now is not the time to debate Trichotomism, Dualism, or Integrated Wholeness. And, all these views have some merit. But the point is that Christian thinkers, the serious ones anyways, have had to wrestle with the fact that our bodies are not just part of us, but ARE us, and yet we will be separated from them and eventually given new (or renewed) bodies. How this works has many theories. But suffice to say, however the body is integrated with the mind and the spirit, they are integrated – and the body and mind and spirit are to some degree distinguishable, if not distinct.

Now, you might be asking why this matters?

Well it matters because from the Christian viewpoint, we should ENTIRELY expect that emotions affect our physical bodies and, we should anticipate that physical and environmental stimuli will affect the mental-emotional state. Christianity not only predicts, but Biblical Christianity INSISTS that the mind and body interact and interact causally!

The Sin Nature

So, I made the rather bold claim that Biblical Christianity INSISTS that the mind and body interact causally. And this, I admit, is a rather delicate point to substantiate. There isn’t a verse that says this in so many words. But let’s look at a variety of data points and see if we can’t outline a position.

First, The Bible acknowledges the reality and power of addiction. Paul warns Timothy not to permit people to hold the Office of Deacon if they were “addicted to much wine”. Granted the word doesn’t have to be interpreted as addiction, but when we consider the Bible’s take on alcohol abuse it becomes even clearer that the phenomenon of “addiction” was known, even if it wasn’t explicitly described with a formal term. And I, indeed, think that “addicted” is the best rendering of the Greek verb in question. But let’s look at some other places in the Bible where we see addiction described:

Who has woe? Who has sorrow?

Who has strife? Who has complaints?

Who has needless bruises? Who has bloodshot eyes?

Those who linger over wine,

who go to sample bowls of mixed wine.

Do not gaze at wine when it is red,

when it sparkles in the cup,

when it goes down smoothly!

In the end it bites like a snake

and poisons like a viper.

Your eyes will see strange sights,

and your mind will imagine confusing things.

You will be like one sleeping on the high seas,

lying on top of the rigging.

“They hit me,” you will say, “but I’m not hurt!

They beat me, but I don’t feel it!

When will I wake up

so I can find another drink?” Proverbs 23

The Bible recognizes addiction as a real thing, where there is a connection between body and mind and mind and body. People have impulses they cannot control due to addiction.

Second, the Bible recognizes the power of impulsivity. We see over and over how people react seemingly in out of control fashion when they are made very angry. For instance, Pharaoh refusing to let the Hebrews go, or Nebuchadnezzar ordering the Hebrew children into the Fire, or Herod’s Slaughter of the Innocents. What we see over and over in the Bible, which is confirmed by Proverbial wisdom is that people who indulge their impulses slowly hand over their agency. Proverbs 19:19 says: A hot-tempered person must pay the penalty; rescue them, and you will have to do it again. Proverbs 25:28 says: Like a city whose walls are broken through is a person who lacks self-control.

Of course, the greatest example is Saul who tried to murder his own favorite son because of Jonathan’s alliance with David – the David he was pursuing because he thought David was a threat to Jonathan’s ascension to the throne!

The point the Bible makes is that impulsive people grow ever more impulsive – WITHOUT INTERVENTION. Discipline, like punishment that leads to introspection, can break the patterns of impulsivity. The Proverbs say that the rod drives folly out of children and (sometimes) fools. God punished Nebuchadnezzar and humbled him.

Christians ought to recognize that addiction and impulsivity are real things. The porn addict and the gambling addict are just as addicted as the heroin addict or the chain-smoker. But because of the way the mind and body work together, the will, human agency, goes on autopilot when facing the same stimuli. Normally in life this is good, it saves time. Mothers and fathers don’t have to think about responding to a baby’s cry. It’s automatic…well, sometimes. We put our brains on autopilot when we drive or do small tasks so we can think about greater and deeper things while engaged in the mundane (we normally call this meditation). Autopilot also makes us more efficient. A skilled carpenter can drive a nail or work hammer and chisel or run a powersaw without thinking because he’s done it so many times. And now he’s good at it.

But when we make a habit out of indulging in sinful behaviors and weakening our wills through impulsivity, the same autopilot mechanism is created. Just because an autonomous habit is negative, and self-destructive, doesn’t mean that it isn’t real. People resist this, because we fear saying that a criminal couldn’t help himself. We’re afraid that this abrogates moral responsibility. It does not. But that’s beside the point.

People say that they couldn’t help themselves when committing a crime or lying to their parents or watching pornography. I believe them. But they got into that position for two reasons. 1) Because of the Sin Nature and 2) Because they have weakened their will to the point where they cannot (apart from an external intervention) stop themselves from engaging in the impulsive behavior.

Third, the Bible recognizes that there are positive reward mechanisms associated with sin. Now, the Bible doesn’t say that when a woman picks a fight with her mom that the body gets a juicy shot of stress-hormone. But the Bible and Christianity are clear that people enjoy sin – even self-destructive sin.

Christians not only oughtn’t to be surprised by the finding that people can become chemically addicted to self-destructive and sinful behavior, but we recognize that Christian doctrine could have predicted as much!

What Does This Mean

So, does understanding the psychochemical mechanism whereby the Sin Nature manifests explain-away the Sin Nature?

Not at all.

Just because we have a slightly better understanding of HOW something happens doesn’t mean that we understand WHY it’s happening, or even WHAT’s happening. Description of phenomena doesn’t negate the existence OF phenomena.

Just because we can explain the chemical reactions that occur when a man kisses his wife doesn’t mean that we’ve explained-away love and romance. In fact, if we’re to take Genesis seriously we should be shocked and scandalized if there WEREN’T a complex chemical reaction which occurred when people get amorous. Similarly, if we take the teachings of the Christian faith seriously, and we really believe that we aren’t persons with bodies but that our bodies are our persons, then we should expect that reward mechanisms occur at a physical level. And if we believe that man is corrupted by Sin, and is totally depraved, then we should insist that these reward mechanisms exist and are perhaps most strongly tied to negative emotions and self-destructive and impulsive behavior.

A Prediction

I therefore predict that we will find that reward mechanisms CAN become stronger for positive emotions than negative and for positive and God honoring behavior than impulsive and sinful behavior. BUT these mechanisms are weaker in adults than in children and will require significant “reprogramming” to get the hormonal releases for holiness to be as powerful and addictive as those for evil and sinful behavior.

In short. The body’s hormonal-reward-mechanism is broken and it rewards us more strongly for sin than holiness, and this brokenness is more pronounced in adults than children. This can be changed, but it requires work. And from a Christian perspective this work requires the intervention of the Holy Spirit of God.

A Conclusion

So, how should we conclude this little essay? Perhaps let’s leave off where we started. Science has much to learn – as does theology. But true science will always affirm the truths revealed to us by God because God IS truth and He cannot lie. What we see in some new scientific research about human free-will, impulsivity, and brain chemistry may seem to undermine the Christian faith.

But fear not. The One who created the brain will not deceive us. He has given us accurate information about the human person and the Sin Nature. Good theology will, and must, incorporate the truths of all disciplines: including neuroscience and psychiatry. And sometimes this is difficult. But sometimes it’s easy. Sometimes we can say with absolute confidence, that Christianity confirms new research.

Some Of Y’all Never Heard'a King Canute…And It Shows

Politics is the art of the possible. Or so said some guy who knew some stuff about some things. Regardless of the provenance of the proverb, it seems to, more or less, be true. What politicians do is try to determine what they can and cannot accomplish and then try to get as much as possible done to fulfill their own aims and objectives.

That’s why politicians make campaign promises: so they can disappoint you…so they can convince people to vote for them. They make the promises, and you want the promises, and you vote for them. Where things go after this is another story altogether.

But, it seems that people in the general population have gotten the idea (heavens knows whence?!?!) that Government can do anything. And, frankly, based upon the current iteration of our political discourse and the expectations of the populace, I’d like to recommend some campaigning points for our political champions, President Trump and Vice President Biden…congressional reps and Senators might also learn a thing or two.

First: No more death.

Dying’s the worst. I want no death. Not just no more Coronavirus death. I mean no death. Not even a little bit of death. Now, I know that the ‘Rona is President Trump’s fault because he did some things and didn’t do others. But, why are we stopping at blaming him for COVID? If the Orangeman really wants to prove he isn’t a fascist Nazi Klansmen, then why doesn’t he solve Cancer and Heart Disease and AIDS? If Republicans would outlaw big trucks and SUVs then all highway fatalities would go away…it is known.

But, as it stands millions of people, every single year die from things. And some estimates suggest that upwards of 100% of them criticized President Trump at one point or another? Coincidence?

So, I want President Trump to put down the driver, get out of the proverbial sandtrap of his complacency and just stop people from dying.

Second: No more Poverty.

Sure, Government has been working and getting closer and closer to ending poverty for centuries, no thanks to Capitalism! But as we disabuse ourselves of the preposterous notions of Smithian Economics we come to the conclusion that people aren’t at all motivated by self interest, but love working to enrich their neighbors. Everyone has seen time and time again how people not being rewarded for working harder, smarter, longer, more efficiently, and with more ingenuity than their fellows just drives them and spurs them on to work even harder at their thankless tasks.

As Government tightens the noose on poverty, we draw ever closer to the day when all of us will live in equity and equality, where no one is in any way better off than anyone else. Government can do this. It can; it can; it can.

Third: No more Sadness.

I can’t see why this is unreasonable. I mean if we can stop the China Virus and make all men rich, why can’t we make all men happy – and women too! People don’t have any existential goals or strivings, it’s all just power-structures, right. We’re all matter and therefor material and therefore materialist…people will be happy as long as their physical needs are met!

Why are we pussyfooting around the real issue. I want to be promised happiness! It’s my right…it’s in the Constitution…or the Declaration…and if it’s not it is anyways, because those are living documents.

I’ve learned, in my short lifetime, that there is nothing Government can’t do so long as it can spend money that doesn’t exist by taxing people who don’t exist. Government can do it. We can stand on the beach and stop the sea! There’s gonna be no rising ocean after we fix the environment! As the Great Leslie Knope once asked, “What are you gonna do without tides?” Well, you’re about to find out. Government can do it all. We can end death and poverty and sadness. We can command the wind and waves and they will obey us!

Brother Andrew tells us how the German Communist Party had a little slogan in the dark and wet and dreary days after WWII. They said, “Ohne Gott und Sonnen schein Holen Wir Die Ernte ein.” This motto typified the can-do attitude that made East Germany the paradise that it was. It was so wonderful they had to build a wall to keep Capitalist influences out of the Worker’s Paradise. East Berlin was the place to be, and no people have ever been as happy and lived such full lives as there in the GDR where people really believed in the power of human Government to literally bring in a harvest without God or even the sunshine!

So, I say to the President and VP Biden…stop being so modest. Promise to end the CV-19. Get rid of death and poverty and sadness and make the earth colder – but not too much colder, only a little bit. Government can make it happen. It can stop the incoming tides! That’s the whole lesson we learn from Cnut, right?

About Gooses and Ganders

Let’s talk anatidology.

Recently, the Daily Mail published extensive bodycam footage from the arresting officers in the George Floyd incident. Al Jazeera, interestingly enough, published a relatively fair assessment of the video and the circumstances surrounding its release. Crucial to the article is this section:

A Minnesota court is investigating how a British newspaper obtained police body-camera footage showing the arrest and death of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man who died after an officer kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes in May. 

…

A Hennepin County judge last month allowed journalists and members of the public to view the footage by appointment, but has not yet ruled on a motion by a coalition of news organisations seeking public access to the videos.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, whose office is leading the prosecution of the four fired Minneapolis police officers charged in Floyd's death, said he was not the source of the leak.

"We will continue to take the strictest precautions to ensure a fair trial," Ellison said in a statement.

So, because like Harry Caray I’m curious like a cat (which is why my friends call me Whiskers), I’ve watched the portion of the video that the Daily Mail published. I’ve watched it and I recommend you watch it. I recommend everyone watches it. I think it adds a lot of context to the situation that was missing beforehand. But that’s not the really important part of this story. Nor is Al Jazeera’s commentary on the video all that important.

What I think is fascinating. What I think the real story is, is that the judge is mad that the video got leaked. Why? Why is he mad? Well, ostensibly he’s mad because this will prejudice a jury, presumably it will prejudice a jury to exonerate officers because it shows that Floyd, who was a very large and very strong and very high and very uncooperative, was doing everything he could to use his size as a means of passive resistance. He lies throughout and cries wolf throughout and that makes it hard for officers to determine when to take him seriously and when not to.

Again, does this video mean that Minneapolis PD did nothing wrong? No. No it doesn’t. Does it help explain why MPD may have been so frustrated and so tired of the resistance and lying that they permitted Chauvin to kneel on Floyd even though officers had potential medical concerns? Yes. And both can be true at once. We can simultaneously accept that Floyd’s resistance, non-compliance, lying, and the fact that he had a lot of drugs in his system contributed to him being put in a bad situation. We can also say that kneeling on his neck when officers knew that this could have health complications was wrong. Both can be true. It’s not victim blaming to say that sometimes victims put themselves in a position to be victimized. Are we saying Floyd bears zero responsibility? Only a great fool would say that. He allegedly was passing counterfeit bills. Which, according to Minnesota Law, if it were under $1,000 dollars worth of goods or services purchased with the fake notes would have meant a maximum of 1 year in jail and a $3,000 fine. The passing of counterfeit money is alleged, but anyone who watches the video can see him physically resisting officers when he is in absolutely zero physical danger. In fact, it is Floyd who puts himself on the ground while wriggling out of a police cruiser. Were Minneapolis PD right to kneel on his neck? Nope. Did Floyd contribute to his own demise? Yep.

But again, that’s not the point. Remember, I said the big point of this article is that the video got leaked to the Daily Mail and they published it. But here’s the question. And this is important. So I want to be extra-special clear.

If the video was so prejudicial why was it shown to news outlets at all?! If it’s so prejudicial why did CNN get to see it. I mean, I know that no one could ever imagine CNN misrepresenting data or twisting facts to suit theories, they being the paragons of truthfulness in media. But CNN was, indeed, shown the video. And CNN commented. Omar Jimenez of CNN went on to describe what he saw in the video – ON CNN!

So, let’s think about this. The video is prejudicial. And, actually, I’m inclined to agree. I think that the news publishes WAY too much about cases before the case. In fact, my wife was assaulted as a teenager and the case against her assaulter was compromised because she had seen his picture in the paper. I think that far too often District Attorney’s are using the pretrial news as campaign ads. I think that we should get a lot of this info during the trial, not beforehand.

I get that people want to know what’s happening in our community. I understand that. But we publish way too much and I think that it does prejudice juries. On the other hand. And this I think is the crucial part and my point of departure with the honorable Judge – and the point of departure that every person who isn’t a crazy person must accept as the point of departure.

If watching the video is prejudicial – how is hearing a politicized description of it NOT prejudicial? Why is it so prejudicial for the Daily Mail to publish this that Minnesota Courts are investigating how it got leaked, but it’s not too prejudicial to allow CNN to view it and comment on it. And therein lies the frustration that so many people have with the way major events are dealt with in this country. Many many people in this country feel that the mainstream media and big tech and the deep state are all actively conspiring to give you a biased view of the days’ events that will better conform to fit the narrative that they want you to hear because it’s the narrative they want you to accept.

Many Americans believe in conspiracies because members of the media, big tech representatives, and officials in our government are behaving conspiratorially. Now, am I saying there’s a conspiracy? No. Conspiracies require secrecy. CNN and Google aren’t conspiring to give you a slanted and biased view of the events of the day – they just are – and are doing so rather nakedly. It’s not a conspiracy. At least not in the common use of the term. It’s just open bias. And open bias is OK. I’m openly biased towards Christ and Christianity. I think and write from the position that Christ is truth and the Bible is the inerrant, infallible, inspired Revelation of God’s will to mankind. I don’t apologize for that. But I am open about it. Now, you could say that CNN et alia are conspiring because they pretend to be unbiased. I mean, in that sense it may be a conspiracy to the 11 people who still think CNN is an unbiased agency. But for the majority, the overwhelming majority of people, the bias is open.

And this is a problem. Even though the Washington Post likes to pompously posture and pontificate about how democracy dies in darkness, it is they who are muddying the already turbid waters by eroding confidence in the Media. People more and more are not seeing the news as the 4th Estate but as a 5th Column. And this is bad. This is not good for the country.

Now, here’s what I don’t want. I don’t want a bunch of prevaricating nonsense about how the news is unbiased. That’s ludicrous and self-serving, and worse and worse, it doesn’t solve the problem. The people who lived in the Communist Bloc came to hate the journalists from Pravda and other party organs that just published the same old tripe and lies. People who punch back at President Trump for calling the news the “enemies of the people” are missing the point. Trump isn’t an outlier in this opinion, he’s a bellwether. And that’s a distinction with a difference. Wrestling with the Mud-Monster who is Donald Trump is not going to convince anyone that the major news outlets are objective and unbiased. It’s a Political Relations non-sequitur. Sure, it plays to the base, but preaching to the choir never changes minds, and, moreover, it’s intellectual masturbation. Sure, it feels good to throw haymakers at Orangeman. But does this actually address the underlying problem?

The underlying problem is that news outlets twist facts and data to suit their narratives (and this happens on the right and the left, by the way). This is bad enough. But what’s VERY bad is when a Judge in the United States decides that it’s OK for a bunch of hand-picked journos to watch the prejudicial evidence, and then give a biased report on that evidence, but it’s not OK for us to watch it ourselves and make up our own minds about the contents of the video.

It certainly FEELS like there are people who are trying to keep information away from the average person. It certainly FEELS like this whole thing is inappropriate and untoward. It FEELS that way because it is. It is that way because we have a government official saying that the truth is only acceptable after it’s been massaged.

Right now we have people in our government, people with real power, who are saying that the truth is only acceptable for public consumption after a biased media mandarin has teased it and airbrushed it. Truth, in its naked form is not fit for hoi polloi. Our political betters will decide what truths we can have and when.

But people shouldn’t want airbrushed truth. We should just want the truth. It doesn’t need to be qualified. If it’s good for the goose it’s good for the gander, right? If CNN can see and then report on this prejudicial information, then why can’t we all just see it and cut out the middle-man? Why is the video not too prejudicial to have it described to us by members of our mediocracy but too prejudicial for us to simply see it ourselves.

As Christians these questions matter because Christians, more than anyone, need to care about the truth because we claim to love and serve Truth Himself, with a capital T. Christians ought to desire the truth – whether it affirms or undermines our political priors. More Truth is always a good thing. And we should always be seeking the Truth. And we should never simply accept that the Truth needs to be adulterated or corrected or arranged for us before it’s appropriate for us. Truth doesn’t need to be sanitized and contextualized by our media elite before its acceptable for public consumption. We just need more of it. More Truth is always better. And we should never be happy with less Truth, neither less of it or less than it.

Sincere Milk

One of the most fascinating images in the scriptures about preaching is that of a nursing mother. Believers in Jesus need to crave milk – the milk of solid teaching from the Word of God. Not only does Peter say this in I Peter 2:2, but so does Paul in I Corinthians 3:2, and Paul (or the Writer to the Hebrews if you’d prefer) says the same thing in Hebrews 5:12,3.

The basic idea in all three of these passages is that milk – the kind of milk that babies get…from women’s breasts – this is how Christians ought to view the preaching of the Word of God, indeed, the most elementary teachings of the Word of God. Some truths of Scripture are mother’s milk and some are steaks. But all of it is useful for training in righteousness. All of it is able to make us wise unto salvation. And all of it is nourishing.

But, if like me and Jonathan Edwards, you believe that everything in the Universe is typological of Christ, then the question is: “what does nursing have to teach us about preaching”. This isn’t allegorizing. This is recognizing that God has created nursing as a means of teaching us about how people are to teach believers about Christ and the Word of God, and how believers are to receive that teaching and preaching.

So, in what follows I’d like to offer some observations about breast-feeding and preaching that may help us to understand what it means to truly preach the Word.

First, Love Hurts. As I watch my lovely wife begin nursing our newborn son again, I get to wince when she winces and grimace when she grimaces. Nursing hurts. Not always. But at first it hurts. And there are lessons here.

We need to recognize two things. A) women have to get their bodies in nursing shape. B) babies have to be taught to eat properly. I think it ought to be fairly obvious how these two lessons correspond to preaching.

The preacher needs to preach the Word of God until it doesn’t hurt anymore. Because it does hurt. Anyone who’s experienced bloody nipple chafing from sports knows how horrible miserable that is. According to my wife, nursing can be even worse. But you just have to keep going. Preaching the Word of God requires rhetorical conditioning. One must plow through the pain that comes with dying to your own notions of intellectual grandeur or homiletical majesty. The Word of God is not improved by worldly philosophy and oftentimes – most times – it is only diminished by our efforts to gussy it up and make it “intellectual”. That’s not to say that there are no intellectual aspects of the Word of God. Of course there are! and they are vitally important. But the Academy and the Pulpit are two very different places. Just as a woman needs to callous her nipples and areolae, so a pastor needs to callous his pride and learn to preach the simple Gospel and the plain Word of God.

Moreover, just as the preacher needs to learn to preach the Word the parishioner needs to learn to receive it. For a baby this means opening wide, getting a good latch and NOT BITING! Again, the parable is clear. Opening wide means taking in as much of the Word of God as possible. The baby needs to receive what the breast offers and not try to control the influx of lactation. Take what the Word of God offers you and don’t try to control what the Word says – receive it ALL and let it form you. Getting a good latch means not being distracted while hearing preaching. Participating in a sermon is experiential. Too many people hear preaching and bible teaching passively. That is wrong. If your pastor cannot see your eyes and so respond to your expressions then something is wrong. Preaching is a kerygmatic event. It is not like watching a TV screen. It is a once-in-a-lifetime experience where you and the preacher are united by the Word of God and the power of the Holy Spirit so that the preacher can speak God’s truths and the parishioner can hear God’s word and interact with the preacher. Or at least it should be. If a preacher could preach the same sermon to a full house as to an empty, then something is wrong with the way he preaches to a full house.

Babies need to latch. Parishioners need to be committed to hearing and receiving God’s Word. Put away distractions. Spend Sunday morning’s in prayer to receive God’s Word. Commit yourself for that 20 minutes to an hour to hearing directly from God through the medium of man – frail though he may be.

Lastly, DON’T BITE! Babies in their frustration bite. Don’t bite your pastor. Don’t bite the breast that nourishes you. He may be a boob, but he’s the boob God gave you. Biting won’t help anybody.

Secondly, It Sucks to Suck. As the kids say, it does, indeed, suck to suck. Beware of this. Too many Christians listen to preaching and read commentaries not to draw closer to God, not to be sanctified, not to become saturated in the Word – but to be entertained.

Granted, the Word of God is entertaining. But its entertainment value is secondary to its transformational value. Don’t simply suck without getting nourishment.

And pastors, if you see a parishioner who is sucking and not being nourished: kick ‘em off the boob! I mean this seriously. Too many turn Chrisitanity into a means of intellectual exercise or mental escape, or worse, and demonically, a way to compete with others and gain power and renown. Such people need to be severely warned. Turning the Word of God into some idle distraction or devilish means of superiority is a grave and serious sin.

Thirdly, Donate Life. We fail to realize this, despite it being obvious, but a mother who nurses isn’t just giving her milk: she’s giving her life! Mothers give themselves, their own substance to feed another person! If anything is a picture of Jesus saying that the Bread is His Body, then nursing must needs be! When a mother gives her milk, she gives of herself.

There are several lessons we can draw from this.

Preaching must be personal. I don’t, by this, mean that it has to have a bunch of forced and corny anecdotes. I mean it must be real to you. My wife can’t give my child another woman’s milk from her own body. Nor can I preach another man’s sermon and have it be real. The words may be true, but if they aren’t true to me, then I’m a meaningless medium. It’s been said that a pastor can never take his congregation further than he’s gone. I believe that. And when a person tries preaching truths he hasn’t experienced or which aren’t true to him, he’s just playing word games.

Preaching is truth through personality. Again, we don’t need the banal personal stories. What we need is God’s Word spoken with the conviction of certified, tried and tested truth!

Just as real nursing gives life from mother to child and creates trust, so preaching truth from the preacher’s own life creates intimacy and bonding with the congregation.

Accept no substitutes. Too often mothers dry up or are simply unwilling to suffer through the pain to nurse their children. While I cannot speak to the moral issues there, I can and will speak to the moral issues of a preacher trying to foist formula on the faithful! Don’t do it.

Let me be frank.

If you’re a pastor and you have nothing to say from God’s Word, so you go and plagiarize someone’s sermon…it’s still plagiarism if you buy it…then you have no business in a pulpit. Get out and let someone whom God has anointed come in and give the people of God the Word of God so they can be anointed by God by the Holy Spirit of God to live the life of God in the Son of God for the Glory of God.

If you’re a pastor and all you got is formula, you’ve no business in a pulpit.

And if you’re in the pew and what you’re getting is ersatz milk – stop imbibing that phoney stuff and get yourself the real thing. Crave the pure milk. Accept no substitutes.

A real preacher, like a real mother, is going to be full to bursting with the Word of God. He’s going to have so many sermons, so much truth, so many things to say that he’s not going to be able to hold it in: indeed if he tries he’s gonna hurt and it’s gonna burn and he’ll get sick. A true preacher cannot hold his milk in – he’ll be leaking all over, and he’ll get no rest until he feels that sweet release, that intoxicating relaxation that comes from the great let-down of preaching.

Friends, I’m afraid that too many great and godly men are getting mastitis because they’ve nobody to drink of the pure Milk of God while others are chased around by gaggles of brats who are being bottle-fed the formula of self-help, prosperitizing, and worldly psychology.

Find a pastor who preaches the Word of God. And then crave that Milk. Open wide, latch on, drink deeply, grow in intimacy, and use the pure Milk of the Word to grow into the man or woman of God whom you’ve been called to be in Christ.

Amen.

I Hope You're Happy Now

Once upon a time all the trees went out to anoint a king over them. And they said to the Olive, “Come, and be king over us!” But the Olive said to them, “Shall I give up my fat, by which both God and men are honored to go to be uprooted and float about and wave above the trees?”

So, the trees said to the Fig, “Come you, be king over us!” And the Fig said to them, “Shall I give up my sweetness and my good produce to go to be uprooted and float about and wave above the trees?”

And the trees said to the Vine, “Come you, be king over us!” And the Vine said to them, “Shall I give up my wine which brings joy to God and men and go to be uprooted and float about and wave above the trees?”

Then, all the trees said to the Thornbush, “Come you, King us!”[i] And the Thornbush said to the trees, “If, in truth, you anoint me to king over you, Go! seek refuge in my shade. And if not, may fire travel out from the Thornbush and eat up the Cedars of Lebanon!”

This is, of course, a bad but very literal translation of Jotham’s Fable. In Judges 9 we learn that Jotham is the only son of Gideon who survives the fratricidal purge of Abimelech, the bastard son of Gideon.

Here’s why the fable works. Gideon had been offered the kingship after he’d defeated the Midianites. Well, after God struck them in a blind panic and Gideon and his handful of men mopped up. But the people wanted Gideon to rule. But Gideon said no. That, neither he, nor his sons would rule, but that, instead, God would be their king.

You see, the obvious parallels between Gideon’s life and the trees. Both were offered rulership: Gideon is the Olive, the natural choice. You would anoint the one who anoints. But if he refuses you have the Fig and the Vine which produce lovely fruit. The Fig is a proper tree and its fruit is good and healthy. The Vine, interestingly, isn’t really a tree, but its fruit is good. Alcohol was essential for clean drinking water, though it could be badly abused. All these refuse the kingship! Why?

Well, Gideon says that God should rule Israel. The trees say something very interesting. They ask if they should give up their produce to “sway over the trees”. Though most English translations say “hold sway over the trees” this doesn’t seem best. NIDOTTE lists 5 senses and rulership isn’t even close. The idea is to sway or stagger or tremble like a drunk. Keil and Deilitzsch think that the idea is that the trees are uprooted and float about swaying in the breeze. The text literally says to “sway ABOVE” them. As in overtop of them.

The point of this is that Gideon and others realized that to be king meant surrendering security and rootedness and even what you naturally love, so that you can have a position that is unsure at best. In other words, a wealthy and powerful man like Gideon or his sons have no reason to leave their productive farms and families to hold some form of ephemeral power.

The Thornbush realizes this too. He realizes that anointing a king is, in the minds of the trees, a status symbol, the trees don’t really intend to be ruled. But they want a king. Part of the irony is linguistic. The verb in Hebrew means both to BE a king and to Rule as king. The trees really just want someone to BE a king. But the Thornbush has no intention of that. He wants to RULE as King. Moreover, he commands the trees, on pain of a curse, to stoop down and relax in his thorny shade.

The symbolism is, of course, beautiful and poignant. And the lesson Jotham is trying to teach the treacherous townspeople is that you ought to be careful what you wish for. They thought that killing off Jerubbaal’s progeny would free them up to have a king who would rule them fairly and justly, but really what they wanted was someone with a crown they could boss around.

But the trees learned to their sorrow that when you anoint a king, you end up with a king. When you give someone power, it’s much more easily given than taken back. The Thornbush insists that the proud Olive, Fig, and Vine humiliate themselves by lying down among the vicious boughs. And the consequence of rebellion is utter destruction.

Fast forward to today.

Fast forward to the Pacific Northwest.

Fast forward to reality and a new age fable.

One day the people of Portland went out to anoint a king. The came first to the Lumberjack and said, “come please, be our king.” But the logger said, “Shall I give up my chainsaw so powerful to hold sway over the Portlanders?”

So the people of Portland went to the Barista and said, “come be our king.” But the Barista said, “Shall I give up my  coffee so bitter and strong to hold sway over the Portlanders?”

So the people of Portland came to the Techie and said, “come be our king.” But the Techie said, “Shall I give up my money so green which is sought after by men to hold sway over the Portlanders?”

Finally, the people of Portland came to the Wokeist and said, “BE OUR KING!” And the Wokeist said, “If you really want me to rule you, then give up free speech and prepare for totalitarianism! If not, my fire come out of Antifa and burn Portland to the ground.”

OK, so it really isn’t a fable so much as a pretty accurate description of what’s happened. Portland, though other cities have done too, has over the past decades made itself a haven to the fringe of the fringe. They thought it was cool and hip to be a place that had communists. Ooh, communists, so hip, so avante garde! Cause nothing says, “I’m hip to contemporary politico-economic theory” like hanging your hat on the most busted pseudo-historical abomination to ever lead to the murder and misery of several billion people! Yeah, slavishly and stupidly following the theories of a guy who was so lazy and worthless he had to pawn his pants from and who died almost 150 years ago is really in the Zeitgeist, huh!

But, that’s what Portland did. It became a haven for the wackiest of the wacky and the kookiest of the kooks! They were so cool and counter-cultural with their stated desire to “Keep Portland Weird”. Remember back in the way back when Progressives were riding bikes and white people could have dreadlocks…ahh those were the halcyon days.

Now, Portland is pretty much just on fire.

See, the thing is, Portlanders could have chosen not to become a social experiment for Progressivism. Portland could have chosen to not tolerate riots. Portland could have chosen to not tolerate arson and murder. But they didn’t. They created a policy that gave power to Antifa and the Wokeists and the Progressive rioters. They chose a king – and now they need to rest beneath his shade.

Not only Jotham, but all throughout the Bible, God warns us that it’s very easy to give someone power. It’s very hard to get it back. Portland and Seattle and other major Progressive cites decided to crown anarchists as their kings. They got what they wanted. And I hope they’re happy, now. I really do. Cause nobody else is.

NOTES:

[i] I’m trying to draw out the increasing frustration of the trees. First they say to the Olive with an Imperative Cohortative, “come and be king over us.” As they move down from Olive to Fig and Vine the Cohortative becomes a plain Imperative “be king over us” (the “come” in vv. 10,2,4 is actually the verb “come”). Then they are no longer even talking to a tree but to a bush and they ask the bush to be the king of the trees and they give a terse command. The words “Be/ rule as King” and the Indirect Object are united by a maqqef, suggesting that as the candidate trees become more ignoble, the demand that they take authority becomes ruder or more desperate.

Who's the Boss

Let’s play a game. On the count of three let’s both say what we think the single most important overarching concept in the whole Bible and all of Christian theology is. Ok. Ready? One…Two…Three! Authority. Did you say “authority”? Well, frankly, there’s no way to say for SURE whether authority is or isn’t the single most important concept – but I think all Biblical scholars and theologians would agree that it’s “up there”.[1]

From Genesis to Revelation, God’s authority is key. “Did God really say?” is the question that introduced all misery upon mankind. Does God really have the authority to tell us what to do and what not. Moreover, can he carry out that authority: can he execute his law?

In essence, it boils down to the question, “who’s in charge?” And that’s not as simple a question as it may seem on the surface? Christians want to say, and so say rightly, God is. But what about human authority? Jesus said to render to Caesar the things of Caesar. Romans 13 commands us to submit to the governing authorities which exist. Moses said that anyone who despised a judge was to be put to death.

So, the answer is God…and? Or is it?

Let’s look at a text that will helpfully add more confusion. Yes. I said that the way I meant it – it will helpfully add confusion.

In Mark 10 we read (in my translation):

“You know that those who are seeming to rule the Gentiles exercise lordship over them and their great ones exercise authority.” Οἴδατε ὅτι οἱ δοκοῦντες ἄρχειν τῶν ἐθνῶν κατακυριεύουσιν αὐτῶν καὶ οἱ μεγάλοι αὐτῶν κατεξουσιάζουσιν αὐτῶν.

What’s very significant here is that word “seem”. And I’ve deliberately chosen this word because it stands out like a sore thumb, especially when we compare it to the same expression in Matthew and Luke.

Matthew 20:25 says:

“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them and their great ones exercise authority.” Οἴδατε ὅτι οἱ ἄρχοντες τῶν ἐθνῶν κατακυριεύουσιν αὐτῶν καὶ οἱ μεγάλοι κατεξουσιάζουσιν αὐτῶν.

It’s almost word for word – but it isn’t. That expression “seeming to rule” is a big difference from the otherwise verbatim comparison. Let’s Look at Luke. Luke’s might be the most interesting of all. Luke 22:

And there arose among them a dispute, which of them seemed to be the greatest. And [Jesus] said to them, “the kings of the Gentiles who rule as lords over them and have authority over them are called ‘benefactors’.  Ἐγένετο δὲ καὶ φιλονεικία ἐν αὐτοῖς, τὸ τίς αὐτῶν δοκεῖ εἶναι μείζων. ὁ δὲ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς· Οἱ βασιλεῖς τῶν ἐθνῶν κυριεύουσιν αὐτῶν καὶ οἱ ἐξουσιάζοντες αὐτῶν εὐεργέται καλοῦνται. 

Here the question amongst the disciples is who “seemed” to be the greatest among the disciples, and Jesus mockingly compares their thirst for power and prestige and position to the pompous preening presuppositions of princes and potentates. They are lording over others and they call themselves “benefactors”. Which is not being used as a routine noun, but is a technical term that dealt with the honor culture of the ancient Mediterranean, wherein there were benefactors and clients as part of a patronage system. It was all rather complicated, and beside the point, but the fact is that it was part of an exploitative system and Jesus is here making it quite plain that he thinks their calling themselves “benefactors” (literally “good workers” in both Greek and Latin) is quite ridiculous.

So, the word “seem” appears in Mark and is connected in Luke, but Matthew omits it entirely. But something is here. The point Mark and Luke are both making is that authority can be a very ephemeral thing. Much, if not MOST, authority on earth can only be exercised if others willingly participate. The exercise of authority is not merely one “great man” exerting his will on the world. Rather it is the manipulation of social machinery. As Tolstoy points out, brilliantly, Napoleon couldn’t invade Russia and sack Moscow. It took La Grande Armée and all her allies to do that. Could Napoleon force each and every man? Of course not.

Remember how I said I wanted to add some helpful confusion. Here’s what I mean. The Biblical text makes it clear that those who SEEM to be rulers ACTUALLY exercise authority. How does that work? Don’t you need actually be a ruler before you can exercise authority? How can you seem to be a ruler and have actual power? That part’s confusing. But that very confusion forces us to seek an answer and to that degree it’s helpful. Helpful confusion!

You see, when we talk about human authority, we are, whether we realize it or not, always speaking of something that is really a game. Sure, it’s a game played with bullets and prisons, but that doesn’t make it any less a game. Congressmen and Presidents and Governors can’t FORCE anyone to do anything – or at least not effectively, as individuals, in the sense that we normally think of “force”, that is the personal exercise of physical power to coerce someone to do something. Instead we all play games. That’s all human society is: a series of games. Call them exchanges or transactions if you like. Call them contracts if it makes you feel better, but they are all games. And, most of the time, in the contemporary West, when you play the game it turns out well for you. But it’s a game, nonetheless. When it comes down to it, Caesar is just a man who couldn’t swim the Tiber – or so says Cassius.

So, when we speak of human authority, if it’s legitimate, it means the “right” to rule. Not necessarily the power. And Mark, writing to the Romans, people who lived in the very epicenter of Gentile world power understood authority. And notice the little detail that Mark adds for the benefit of his Roman audience. He says that those who rule over the Gentiles “seem” to rule. But, in reality, this is only an appearance. In truth, they don’t rule anything. They play a little game and sometimes people play along and sometimes they don’t. Being Caesar is fun, when everybody plays along. But it’s much less fun when everybody gets all stabby and stuff. Then the dogs of war are let to slip and people are crying havoc and it’s not a good time.

But, here’s the question. Why am I making a big deal about this? Well,  because I think it’s important for us to recognize that although there are powers and rulers and authorities in this world, they really only SEEM to rule. In reality, all they’re doing is playing a game. Real authority: the right to rule and the might to rule – that belongs to God alone. That belongs to Christ!

As Christians approaching the election, a lot of us are looking at the world and at our country, and yes, we’re frightened. We’re afraid of what might happen. But we shouldn’t be – at least not unduly. Surely we should recognize that rampant godlessness is not good for anyone, least of all the godless! But, what we must remember is that God is the Actual Authority. All the princelings of the worldlings only seem to rule. Christ Actually rules. They seem to be in charge. Christ is Actually in charge. They seem to be running the show. But it’s Christ Who is writing, directing, producing, and starring in the great cosmic comedy called Reality. And it concludes with Him seated upon the throne as the Kingdom of the world is become the Kingdom of our God, and of His Christ, and of His Christ; and He shall reign forever and ever! Hallelujah!  

NOTES:

[1] In an imaginary poll I conducted, 97% of respondents agreed.

Paying the Danegeld

Once upon a time in England, a bunch or Earls named Æthel[1]...something got together. And one Æthel-something was like, “Guys, can we talk about the Vikings?!” And another Æthel-something was like, “OMG, the frickin’ Vikings, right!” And another Æthel-something was like, “You guys, for real, I heard at Lindisfarne they went crazy – like berserk. These guys are nuts; I don’t think we Anglo-Saxons can withstand them, even if we allied with they Cymry.” And another Æthel-something was like, “You guys, did you know they fight with axes made specially for battle…battle-axes?” And they kept talking about how tough the Vikings were and how getting axed is a bummer, when another guy came in, named Æthelred, and he was like, “Guys, don’t worry about the Vikings...I took care of it!”

“What?” “How?” “Impossible!” said the incredulous Æthels. But Æthelred was undeterred. He told them, “Guys it was easy. All I did was pay them an enormous, crippling sum of silver and they left!”

“Whoa!” said one Æthel. “Genius!” shouted another Æthel. “This calls for a celebration,” cried another Æthel. “Make Æthelred king of all the Æthels” proclaimed another Æthel – but they weren’t so hot on that idea, so they didn’t. But they did party-it up, Saxon-style. For they knew that for good and for all the Danes would never return. 

Oh wait, I told it wrong. The Danes did return. A lot. Cause the funny thing about rapist, murderer, extortionists, is that they tend to A) not keep their word and B) not respect weakness. It seems counter-intuitive that when you prove that you’re unwilling to fight an aggressive person who wants to take your property that if you give him your property he still tries to take more. Oh wait, that’s not counter-intuitive. It’s…what’s it called…oh yeah, intuitive. It’s, actually, exactly what you’d expect!

But, I mean, it’s not like there had ever been a civilization that faced destructive pillaging invaders that could have served as an example for the Saxons. Oh, wait, I’m Historying wrong again. There were lots of examples. And all the examples of paying subsidies and tributes went badly, in the long run, for the civilized state paying them. Strange though it may seem – taxing your people nearly to the point of starvation to pay off an extortioner who’s only going to come try to extort you again, or break their word and invade you anyways, seems like bad Kinging…or Earling…or Ætheling…ing.

So, actually, there’s really only one reason to pay an extortioner, and that’s to bide time to build up to be strong enough to fight him, later. Except, with the money you pay him, you make him stronger and you weaken yourself. It’s a catch-22 (only without airplanes, but, incidentally, also about war).

Now, right about now, you might be wondering what on earth I’m talking about. I mean, 11th Century English History is thrilling, but what’s it got to do with today? Much in every way. You see, as the cancel-culture grows stronger and more brazen in the public sphere there is going to be increasing pressure put upon non-conformists to toe the party line. The thought-police who are currently patrolling the blogosphere and twittertopia are looking, ever looking, prowling about like lions (one might say) seeking someone who says something that they can “problematize”.

The Woke witch-hunters are watching, always watching; like Argus Panoptes, they are semper vigilans! But it isn’t simply the watching and the Wokeness. It’s the intellectual extortion. Moreover, it’s the smug, virtue-signaling, sanctimoniousness of the intellectual extortion that only can come from a true Disciple of the Danes.

Like the Vikings of old, today’s Danes seek not gold or silver or land – but they do seek to terrorize people into handing over their capital. Granted, the capital isn’t (always) money. But it is capital. The plunder the Woke-raiders seek is complicity in their incoherent religion. They demand – not ask politely – demand that anyone and everyone who disagrees with them either change their mind or be deplatformed or be silenced. The same people who justify riots and looting (you know behavior that ACTUAL Vikings engaged in) because “a riot is the voice of an oppressed people” are the same folk who demand that anyone who dares to dissent be deplatformed because speech that incites hate IS violence.

Actual violence is just vox populi, but the voice of a non-Wokeist is malicious violence that must be stifled. Sure, rioting is loud – but it’s just the people singing…the song of angry men. And if you’re not willing to hop on the barricade then you’re l'ennemi du peuple! “Get the guillotine, comrades! Here’s someone who says people with penes are men! The fascist swine!”

Of course, this brings us to the very simple and observable truth that most people are cowards. Most people are not willing to lose their jobs or face doxxing or the full attention of the outrage-mongers over theological/ political issues. Most people really would rather just be told what to say and think and get on with their lives than stand up and fight.

And therein lies the problem. Paying the Danegeld doesn’t make the Danes go away. It just encourages them to keep coming back for more and more and more. You can never pay a Viking enough money for him to stop raiding and pillaging and raping and plundering. Vikings like doing that kinda stuff and it makes them super rich. Think of all the sweet sweet furs and copper armbands you can buy if you capture Wintanceaster! #iflookscouldkill #slay #deadguyduds.  And the thing about the Wokesters is that they really, really like witch-hunting. They really, really like exerting power over people.

It has to be a helluva rush to be able to abuse someone, to vilify them, to destroy them, to publicly shame them, to force them to capitulate, make THEM apologize AND feel virtuous, the most virtuous, all at the same time! Does it matter if the attacks are true? HAH! As the great playwright, spy, political commentator, arms-dealer, and all-around fascinating guy, Beaumarchais[2] once said, “Calomniez, calomniez; il en reste toujours quelque chose.”[3]

The new Woke witch-hunters, the Social Justice Vikings, they don’t care about being polite and having civil discourse. They don’t want civil discourse. They want capitulation. They want kowtowing. They want groveling submission. They want abjection and degradation and subjugation because that is the goal. The goal is power for its own sake. You can’t pay off a Viking because the payola just gives him more of what he wants and makes him more capable of taking more. The Dane doesn’t want SOME of your silver. He wants it all. The Wokeist doesn’t want partial, or moderate, or even majority agreement. He wants all your agreement. He wants you to give in in every sense and to hand over your intellectual capacity to him so that he can tell you what to think. He will give you the new orthodoxy. He will give you the new creeds and dogmata. He will tell you what to wear, what to eat, what to drive, what to do, how to drive, how to raise your children, how to talk, how to think, how to have sex, how to go to the bathroom, where to live, when to live, when to die. The Wokeist will teach you that 2 and 2 make 5. He will make you love Big Brother.

Let me say this clearly and unequivocally so that no one can mistake me. The τελός, the end-goal, the final-cause, the reason for the power grab IS the power-grab. The power grab is both the journey AND the destination. Wokeism seeks power for power’s own sake. It wishes to control people for no other reason than to control them. Don’t be fooled by the ludicrous claims that equity is the end goal. It is not. Because no society is equitable where people cannot freely speak their consciences. No society is equitable where babies are murdered by the millions. No society is equitable where people are forced to pay for the sins of their fathers. No society is equitable where some people are favored not for merit, but because of their status as aggrieved victims of a fictitious system. Equity is not the goal. Equity is a stalking horse. The goal is power. It’s a tale as old as time, a song as old as rhyme – about the Dragon and the Beast. Seeking power for its own sake is demonic. And I mean that very literally.

I mean that when these Woke witch-hunters attempt to make everyone bend the knee and mouth their maxims they are making like Mephistopheles. Satan seeks power for its own sake. The Proud seek power for its own sake. It is no mystery why Tolkien portrays the Satanic as Monadic in his work. It’s because he understood that at the core of the demonic psyche is the wish to expand self-hood through the diminution of other selves. Lewis writes about this in Screwtape Proposes a Toast (though THAT must soon become banned reading!). When a person seeks power as power because it’s power they are behaving like Beelzebub.

Giving in to this kind of demonic demagoguery is not only destructive to democratic dialogue and discourse – it also dares the Danes to be more daring! The Wokeist Social Justice Warrior will always push for more and more capitulation and uniformity of belief. When one gives in, when one says the mantras and repeats the creeds, when they say the Secular Shahada, it just makes the Wokeists stronger and everyone on the side of not-living-in a-totalitarian-hellscape weaker. Worse and worse, saying a lie to avoid being harassed leaves people humiliated and feeling shabby and dingy. To give in is cowardly and robs us of our integrity.

Do not be fooled. Giving in to the outrage-mob will not make them leave you alone. As Kipling pointed out, once you pay the Danegeld, you never get rid of the Dane:

It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation

  To call upon a neighbour and to say: --

"We invaded you last night--we are quite prepared to fight,

  Unless you pay us cash to go away."

And that is called asking for Dane-geld,

  And the people who ask it explain

That you've only to pay 'em the Dane-geld

  And then  you'll get rid of the Dane!

It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation,

  To puff and look important and to say: --

"Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.

  We will therefore pay you cash to go away."

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;

  But we've  proved it again and again,

That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld

  You never get rid of the Dane.

It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,

  For fear they should succumb and go astray;

So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,

  You will find it better policy to say: --

"We never pay any-one Dane-geld,

  No matter how trifling the cost;

For the end of that game is oppression and shame,

  And the nation that pays it is lost!"

Notes:

[1] I don’t know what the deal was with using ligatures; but apparently ligatures and roads were the only things the Anglos-Saxons wanted to keep in England from the Roman times. It was the cool new way to write on vellum! I mean blackletter hadn’t been invented yet, and that’s like impossible to read. Which makes it fun…as a joke. And Christianity, they kept that, too. But seriously, look at the names, everybody is an Æthel something…at least the nobility. Boys AND girls. Which is kinda lazy since Æthel means “noble”.

[2] Seriously, Beaumarchais is the most interesting guy in a century of incredibly interesting people. If you don’t know about Beaumarchais, check him out.

[3] “Calumnize, calumnize, something always sticks.”