Justification is outside-in. We lose it if we make it inside-out.
Sanctification is inside-out. We lose it if we make it outside-in.
-- Dane Ortlund
Sanctification is inside-out. We lose it if we make it outside-in.
-- Dane Ortlund
Friday, June 21, 2013
Thursday, June 20, 2013
The Virtuous Reader
Be exceedingly careful what you read.—Do not take up a book,
paper, or periodical, that happens to fall in your way, because you have
nothing else to read By so doing, you will expose yourself to great evils. But,
though a book be not decidedly objectionable, it may not be worth reading.
There are so many good books, at the present day, that it is not worth while to
spend time over what is of little value; and it is better to read the Bible
alone, than to spend time over a poor book.
Reading for amusement furnishes a constant temptation for
reading what is injurious. It promotes, also, an unprofitable manner of
reading. Reading in a hasty and cursory manner, without exercising your own
thoughts upon what you read, induces a bad habit of mind. To profit by reading
depends, not so much on the quantity which is read, as upon the manner in which
it is read. You may read a great deal, in a gormandizing way, as the glutton
consumes food, and yet be none the better, but the worse for what you read…
If
anyone should propose to you to associate with men and women of the lowest and
most abandoned character, you would shrink from the thought—you would be
indignant at the proposition. But it is not the mere bodily presence of such
characters that makes their society dangerous. It is the communion which you
have with their minds and hearts, in their conduct and conversation… literature
of the day is written by such characters. By reading their writings, you come
into communion with their minds and hearts, as much as if you were personally
in their company. In their writings, the fancies which fill their corrupt
minds, and the false and dangerous principles which dwell in their depraved
hearts, are transferred to paper, to corrupt the unwary reader. Here are,
likewise, glowing descriptions of evil conduct, more fascinating to the
youthful heart than the example itself would be, because the mischief is
artfully concealed behind the drapery of fine literary taste, and beautiful
language…
Think as you read.—Do not drink in the thoughts of others as you
drink water; but examine them, and see whether they carry conviction to your
own mind; and if they do, think them over, till they become incorporated with
your own thoughts, part and parcel of your own mind. Lay up facts and principles
in your memory. Let the beautiful thoughts and striking ideas that you discover
be treasured up as so many gems and precious stones, to enrich and beautify
your own mind. And let your heart be impressed and benefited by the practical
thoughts you find addressed to it.
Sunday, June 09, 2013
When Given A Choice Between Two Evils...
CWK
When given a choice between two evils, choose neither.
If something is "evil," you should not choose it. If something else is less evil, you should not choose that either. If someone placed two poisons before me, and said, "The first poison is deadly. It will kill you immediately. The second poison is also deadly, way less deadly, but to be honest, it will also kill you. Now, you must choose one of the poisons..."
I'd excuse myself and say, "No thanks. I choose neither poison."
Why am I bringing this up? Because Dan Savage is on a savage mission to promote infidelity. He does so by arguing infidelity is the lesser of "two evils." The other evil being divorce. This is nothing new for Savage. His whole philosophy of life could be summarized with his approach to the ethical dilemma of EITHER divorce OR infidelity. He is a champion, not of righteousness, but small evil, or smaller evil.
Well, there is no such thing as small evil. There's gigantic destructive evil, and then there's other evil which is still more gigantic, and more destructive. Just like there's no such thing as drinking small poison. Small poison kills: it may take longer to kill you, or it may be less painful, but poison is poison. There's also no such thing as a "small" giant. Every giant is gigantic, or else he would not be a giant. Every evil is large and deadly, or else it would not be evil.
Here's Savage, in his own words:
"If one person is completely done with sex and the other person is not done with sex, what do you advise people to do in that circumstance? Divorce? Traumatize their children?" he said. "I look at that and I say 'You know, do what you need to do to stay married and stay sane. And maybe that involves cheating, but as the lesser of two evils. Divorce is an evil, cheating is an evil, there are circumstances in which cheating is the lesser evil."
Au contraire mon frere. Contraire.
Here's what's wrong with Savage's argument:
1) How does Savage know that cheating is less evil than divorce in any circumstance? Which scale of good v. evil is he referring to? Whose law? He is plucking moral truisms out of thin air with, as far as I can tell, no basis for his sliding scale of evil. Is this what God revealed to him? Or, some earthly moral authority? If so, which God? Which authority? And, what evidence does he have to show that infidelity saves marriages, and spares children trauma?
2) His argument is an example of the logical fallacy often referred to as a false dilemma or improper bifurcation. Or, in layman's terms: dividing an issue into two, and only two, camps when, in fact, there are many more camps.
The couple Savage describes might solve their dilemma with a thousand other options beside EITHER divorce OR infidelity.
What about marriage counseling, or endeavoring to rekindle their romance, or taking a vacation together, or reading some books on intimacy, or -- and this would be revolutionary -- communicating with each other openly and honestly about their desires? All of these choices might lead to conflict, but they might also lead to greater intimacy. Whereas infidelity will never lead to greater intimacy. Never, ever, ever, ever. Why? Cause its evil and it involves deception and breaking the bond of intimacy two people share. Cause its evil. That's why.
3) Savage's whole argument about "choosing... evil" is madness. It's the kind of madness that ensnares a man who has lost his moral footing. In one sense, I can't argue with his position just like I can't argue with an insane person who insists he is Julius Caesar. He would have to forsake his whole position and come back to reality before we could make progress. The apostle Paul once engaged a similar argument, and he didn't give it the time of day:
"Hey,some people say, let's do evil so that good may result."
Paul answered, "Really? Well, whoever said that, their condemnation is deserved."
4) Savage willfully ignores righteous choices. This evil, or that evil. This is a false dichotomy, and therefore, a false choice. He is presenting couples with only two choices, both evil, and nary a righteous choice.
Which reminds me: evil is easy; it presents itself as a simple, an inevitable, way out. Evil likes to break the world up into sliding shades of black, with no light, and no bright. Taking the evil way is always taking the easy way. The couple he describes could actually choose to be loyal and loving to each other and grow as persons and as a couple. But this is hard. This requires sacrifice, and selflessness.
However, by recommending couples have only two choices (divorce OR infidelity) Savage is making it easier for the person who wants to pursue infidelity. How? He is giving them an out. Why not devote our time to teaching people the ways to rekindle their romance that would enable them to love each other better? We should not spend one second arguing in favor of infidelity. Cause it's evil. Savage could be straining his estimable communication skills in recommending ways couples can love/care for each other. But he doesn't; he takes time and pain to recommend infidelity.
5) Savage is also making it easier for the "cheater" by presenting infidelity as an option. Somethings should never be an option: no matter how desperate we become. He's casting the cheater as a person of sympathy who really has no choice but to defecate on their marriage vows.
Let's be clear, and come to the heart of Savage's savagery. He doesn't care about healthy marriage (or else he'd despise infidelity, the real killer of marriage). He doesn't care about sparing traumatized children (think of poor little Jimmy stumbling upon mommy kissing daddy's friend Mike. Now, that's trauma). He doesn't care much for sanity (or else, he avoid gaping logical fallacies). He doesn't care about the grand narrative of good v. evil (or else he'd talk about good v. evil, not evil v. lesser evil). These are all accessories on his main prize. What he cares about is a kind of sexuality that is free from moral restraint. What he cares about is doing whatever he wants to do sexually, with whoever he wants, and when he wants. He preaches infidelity, like any preacher, because he loves what he preaches; he wants to fool around with unlimited will, and so he's found an excuse, "saving marriages." But this is not about marriage; if it was, it would not be about infidelity. This is about a man who wants to practice, and wants other people to practice (so he feels better about himself), a selfish and egocentric sexuality.
For a very different view on the beauty of fidelity, and an example of a man who took the words, "for better, or for worse," seriously, see Robertson McQuilken's remarks on why he resigned the presidency of Columbia International University because he wanted to care for his wife as Alzheimer's devastated her health. He speaks of the "honor of caring (for his wife)." Whoever heard of the honor of cheating on your wife? Or, the honor of deserting your wife in pursuit of selfish selfish-as-can-be lust?
Savage's seemingly compassionate "cheat to beat divorce" prescription is dishonorable and repugnant, and frankly, disgusting. I'm gonna go ahead and say the kind of man I want to be is very far from the selfish fop Savage recommends.
Savage is just like the man who says he must cheat on his wife because she constantly nags him and he needs "emotional support." Such a man can find any excuse for his infidelity, and sooner or later, he will find infidelity because that's what he was really looking for anyway.
The truth is, if you want to do the right thing, you won't need excuses. Why? Cause its right. That's why. If your actions are righteous, you won't have to jump through illogical hoops to defend your actions; your actions will defend themselves.
No doubt, Savage seems ever so compassionate and reasonable: ever so understanding. Until you remember that some people are going to read his words today, and tomorrow destroy their true love, and maybe forever. And when they do, they'll say, "I had no choice." But they will be wrong. And when they do, they'll say, "But I have a good excuse." And, they will be wrong, again.
They did have a choice; they made it, and they made a terrible choice. An evil temptation always presents itself as the only option, as a fait accompli, the only road possible. Savage stands at the crossroads, and advises weary travelers to ignore all the roads that lead to green pastures and CHOOSE the road to perdition (cause it's the only choice anyway). But that road is not the only choice; it's obviously not the only choice because it is a choice. The very fact that we may choose it denotes that we may not choose it. There is no "to be" without a "not to be."
So, remember, when tempted to defile your love, or forsake bonds of fidelity, remember that if you do so, you are making a choice. You may choose to, but -- stop! and smell the sweet air of liberty -- you may also choose not to.
6) Savage's morality is simplistic. It's the false gods that offer up easy solutions; it's the false immorality that oversimplifies.
He is mistaken to paint the world in such a black/blacker -- either/or colors. Real couples have more complicated lives than the couple he dreams up: the-cheat-and-stay-sane or divorce-and-go-crazy-couple. Has anyone met a couple like this? I haven't. Which reminds me: he is also guilty of another fallacy:oversimplification. And, another: false analogy.
7) Savage fails to grasp that cheating is, in fact, the one and only one valid reason why anyone anywhere should/could seek divorce. He is like a doctor who endeavors to save a man's life who has a brain infection by cutting off the man's head. Sure, the brain infection will no longer impact the patient's body. The brain infection won't have a chance to kill him. On the other hand, cutting of his head will kill him. So, this is not much of a cure.
An individual has no warrant to seek a divorce because their beloved is not gratifying them sexually. What of the man who marries a woman who afterward becomes an invalid? Also, isn't the whole point of marriage that you will stick to your beloved during the hard times? What about that section in the marriage vows where people say, "... for better, or for worse." When you imagine yourself as "suffering" because your sexual longings go unfulfilled, that's what you were talking about when you said, "or worse."
But, if someone is confused enough to follow Savage's advice, and they actually engage in an affair to "save" their marriage, then their husband/wife does have every right to seek a divorce from them.
7) Divorce is not always, as he seems to think, "evil." In cases of adultery, divorce may be just and right. I say "may" because every situation is different. But, this much is sure: if one's husband/wife is unfaithful, the wronged party is the one who was cheated on (not the cheater), and the wronged party may seek divorce without guilt.
8) Savage asks, "If one person is completely done with sex and the other person is not done with sex, what do you advise people to do in that circumstance? Divorce? Traumatize their children?"
Here's what I would not advise them to do: betray their marriage vows and live a life of infidelity and dishonesty. Yeah, that is definitely not what I would advise them to do. I'd advise them along these lines: Grow up. Be adults. Serve each other in love. Also, for the one who is "done with sex" -- I'd advise this person to remember that, when they entered marriage, they gave themselves body and heart to another. Their body is not their own, just for their own gratification, but should be an instrument of love and care for their beloved.
***
Finally, and thankfully, we need not live in Savage's world of lesser evil. There's more colors than black/blacker; there's more colors than you can even take in during a life. We need not live in Savage's world of slavish despondency and resignation to evil. We might be free. We are not slaves to either this evil, or that evil, with no choice beside. We have a choice. In fact, we have a million choices beside evil. We can do anything, anything but evil. We can buy a tie. We can learn to fly. We can cry. We can find an egg to fry. We can multiply. We can decide to be satisfied, or satisfy. We can find allies. We can scan the skies. We can try, and try. We can pry. We can eat pie. We can sigh. We can climb high. We can rely. We can our lusts deny. We can fight until we die.
Its not so much that we have limited choices in life, and only evil ones at that. We have unlimited choices, and scores of righteous ones. We can do anything we please, actually, because no one can force us to do evil. We can do anything under the Sun. Anything, that is, except the measly handful of evil options we stumble across.
It's not that life is full of evil, with no way out, except surrender -- true life contemplates a million good options, and stands staggered at how many good things there are to do.
When faced with a choice between two evils, choose neither. And lift up your eyes to the heavens to behold a land of good choices, a land of milk and honey, dripping sweet with righteous by-ways.
***
When given a choice between two evils, choose neither.
If something is "evil," you should not choose it. If something else is less evil, you should not choose that either. If someone placed two poisons before me, and said, "The first poison is deadly. It will kill you immediately. The second poison is also deadly, way less deadly, but to be honest, it will also kill you. Now, you must choose one of the poisons..."
I'd excuse myself and say, "No thanks. I choose neither poison."
Why am I bringing this up? Because Dan Savage is on a savage mission to promote infidelity. He does so by arguing infidelity is the lesser of "two evils." The other evil being divorce. This is nothing new for Savage. His whole philosophy of life could be summarized with his approach to the ethical dilemma of EITHER divorce OR infidelity. He is a champion, not of righteousness, but small evil, or smaller evil.
Well, there is no such thing as small evil. There's gigantic destructive evil, and then there's other evil which is still more gigantic, and more destructive. Just like there's no such thing as drinking small poison. Small poison kills: it may take longer to kill you, or it may be less painful, but poison is poison. There's also no such thing as a "small" giant. Every giant is gigantic, or else he would not be a giant. Every evil is large and deadly, or else it would not be evil.
Here's Savage, in his own words:
"If one person is completely done with sex and the other person is not done with sex, what do you advise people to do in that circumstance? Divorce? Traumatize their children?" he said. "I look at that and I say 'You know, do what you need to do to stay married and stay sane. And maybe that involves cheating, but as the lesser of two evils. Divorce is an evil, cheating is an evil, there are circumstances in which cheating is the lesser evil."
Au contraire mon frere. Contraire.
Here's what's wrong with Savage's argument:
1) How does Savage know that cheating is less evil than divorce in any circumstance? Which scale of good v. evil is he referring to? Whose law? He is plucking moral truisms out of thin air with, as far as I can tell, no basis for his sliding scale of evil. Is this what God revealed to him? Or, some earthly moral authority? If so, which God? Which authority? And, what evidence does he have to show that infidelity saves marriages, and spares children trauma?
2) His argument is an example of the logical fallacy often referred to as a false dilemma or improper bifurcation. Or, in layman's terms: dividing an issue into two, and only two, camps when, in fact, there are many more camps.
The couple Savage describes might solve their dilemma with a thousand other options beside EITHER divorce OR infidelity.
What about marriage counseling, or endeavoring to rekindle their romance, or taking a vacation together, or reading some books on intimacy, or -- and this would be revolutionary -- communicating with each other openly and honestly about their desires? All of these choices might lead to conflict, but they might also lead to greater intimacy. Whereas infidelity will never lead to greater intimacy. Never, ever, ever, ever. Why? Cause its evil and it involves deception and breaking the bond of intimacy two people share. Cause its evil. That's why.
3) Savage's whole argument about "choosing... evil" is madness. It's the kind of madness that ensnares a man who has lost his moral footing. In one sense, I can't argue with his position just like I can't argue with an insane person who insists he is Julius Caesar. He would have to forsake his whole position and come back to reality before we could make progress. The apostle Paul once engaged a similar argument, and he didn't give it the time of day:
"Hey,some people say, let's do evil so that good may result."
Paul answered, "Really? Well, whoever said that, their condemnation is deserved."
4) Savage willfully ignores righteous choices. This evil, or that evil. This is a false dichotomy, and therefore, a false choice. He is presenting couples with only two choices, both evil, and nary a righteous choice.
Which reminds me: evil is easy; it presents itself as a simple, an inevitable, way out. Evil likes to break the world up into sliding shades of black, with no light, and no bright. Taking the evil way is always taking the easy way. The couple he describes could actually choose to be loyal and loving to each other and grow as persons and as a couple. But this is hard. This requires sacrifice, and selflessness.
However, by recommending couples have only two choices (divorce OR infidelity) Savage is making it easier for the person who wants to pursue infidelity. How? He is giving them an out. Why not devote our time to teaching people the ways to rekindle their romance that would enable them to love each other better? We should not spend one second arguing in favor of infidelity. Cause it's evil. Savage could be straining his estimable communication skills in recommending ways couples can love/care for each other. But he doesn't; he takes time and pain to recommend infidelity.
5) Savage is also making it easier for the "cheater" by presenting infidelity as an option. Somethings should never be an option: no matter how desperate we become. He's casting the cheater as a person of sympathy who really has no choice but to defecate on their marriage vows.
Let's be clear, and come to the heart of Savage's savagery. He doesn't care about healthy marriage (or else he'd despise infidelity, the real killer of marriage). He doesn't care about sparing traumatized children (think of poor little Jimmy stumbling upon mommy kissing daddy's friend Mike. Now, that's trauma). He doesn't care much for sanity (or else, he avoid gaping logical fallacies). He doesn't care about the grand narrative of good v. evil (or else he'd talk about good v. evil, not evil v. lesser evil). These are all accessories on his main prize. What he cares about is a kind of sexuality that is free from moral restraint. What he cares about is doing whatever he wants to do sexually, with whoever he wants, and when he wants. He preaches infidelity, like any preacher, because he loves what he preaches; he wants to fool around with unlimited will, and so he's found an excuse, "saving marriages." But this is not about marriage; if it was, it would not be about infidelity. This is about a man who wants to practice, and wants other people to practice (so he feels better about himself), a selfish and egocentric sexuality.
For a very different view on the beauty of fidelity, and an example of a man who took the words, "for better, or for worse," seriously, see Robertson McQuilken's remarks on why he resigned the presidency of Columbia International University because he wanted to care for his wife as Alzheimer's devastated her health. He speaks of the "honor of caring (for his wife)." Whoever heard of the honor of cheating on your wife? Or, the honor of deserting your wife in pursuit of selfish selfish-as-can-be lust?
Savage's seemingly compassionate "cheat to beat divorce" prescription is dishonorable and repugnant, and frankly, disgusting. I'm gonna go ahead and say the kind of man I want to be is very far from the selfish fop Savage recommends.
Savage is just like the man who says he must cheat on his wife because she constantly nags him and he needs "emotional support." Such a man can find any excuse for his infidelity, and sooner or later, he will find infidelity because that's what he was really looking for anyway.
The truth is, if you want to do the right thing, you won't need excuses. Why? Cause its right. That's why. If your actions are righteous, you won't have to jump through illogical hoops to defend your actions; your actions will defend themselves.
They did have a choice; they made it, and they made a terrible choice. An evil temptation always presents itself as the only option, as a fait accompli, the only road possible. Savage stands at the crossroads, and advises weary travelers to ignore all the roads that lead to green pastures and CHOOSE the road to perdition (cause it's the only choice anyway). But that road is not the only choice; it's obviously not the only choice because it is a choice. The very fact that we may choose it denotes that we may not choose it. There is no "to be" without a "not to be."
So, remember, when tempted to defile your love, or forsake bonds of fidelity, remember that if you do so, you are making a choice. You may choose to, but -- stop! and smell the sweet air of liberty -- you may also choose not to.
6) Savage's morality is simplistic. It's the false gods that offer up easy solutions; it's the false immorality that oversimplifies.
He is mistaken to paint the world in such a black/blacker -- either/or colors. Real couples have more complicated lives than the couple he dreams up: the-cheat-and-stay-sane or divorce-and-go-crazy-couple. Has anyone met a couple like this? I haven't. Which reminds me: he is also guilty of another fallacy:oversimplification. And, another: false analogy.
7) Savage fails to grasp that cheating is, in fact, the one and only one valid reason why anyone anywhere should/could seek divorce. He is like a doctor who endeavors to save a man's life who has a brain infection by cutting off the man's head. Sure, the brain infection will no longer impact the patient's body. The brain infection won't have a chance to kill him. On the other hand, cutting of his head will kill him. So, this is not much of a cure.
An individual has no warrant to seek a divorce because their beloved is not gratifying them sexually. What of the man who marries a woman who afterward becomes an invalid? Also, isn't the whole point of marriage that you will stick to your beloved during the hard times? What about that section in the marriage vows where people say, "... for better, or for worse." When you imagine yourself as "suffering" because your sexual longings go unfulfilled, that's what you were talking about when you said, "or worse."
But, if someone is confused enough to follow Savage's advice, and they actually engage in an affair to "save" their marriage, then their husband/wife does have every right to seek a divorce from them.
7) Divorce is not always, as he seems to think, "evil." In cases of adultery, divorce may be just and right. I say "may" because every situation is different. But, this much is sure: if one's husband/wife is unfaithful, the wronged party is the one who was cheated on (not the cheater), and the wronged party may seek divorce without guilt.
8) Savage asks, "If one person is completely done with sex and the other person is not done with sex, what do you advise people to do in that circumstance? Divorce? Traumatize their children?"
Here's what I would not advise them to do: betray their marriage vows and live a life of infidelity and dishonesty. Yeah, that is definitely not what I would advise them to do. I'd advise them along these lines: Grow up. Be adults. Serve each other in love. Also, for the one who is "done with sex" -- I'd advise this person to remember that, when they entered marriage, they gave themselves body and heart to another. Their body is not their own, just for their own gratification, but should be an instrument of love and care for their beloved.
***
Finally, and thankfully, we need not live in Savage's world of lesser evil. There's more colors than black/blacker; there's more colors than you can even take in during a life. We need not live in Savage's world of slavish despondency and resignation to evil. We might be free. We are not slaves to either this evil, or that evil, with no choice beside. We have a choice. In fact, we have a million choices beside evil. We can do anything, anything but evil. We can buy a tie. We can learn to fly. We can cry. We can find an egg to fry. We can multiply. We can decide to be satisfied, or satisfy. We can find allies. We can scan the skies. We can try, and try. We can pry. We can eat pie. We can sigh. We can climb high. We can rely. We can our lusts deny. We can fight until we die.
Its not so much that we have limited choices in life, and only evil ones at that. We have unlimited choices, and scores of righteous ones. We can do anything we please, actually, because no one can force us to do evil. We can do anything under the Sun. Anything, that is, except the measly handful of evil options we stumble across.
It's not that life is full of evil, with no way out, except surrender -- true life contemplates a million good options, and stands staggered at how many good things there are to do.
When faced with a choice between two evils, choose neither. And lift up your eyes to the heavens to behold a land of good choices, a land of milk and honey, dripping sweet with righteous by-ways.
***
Inasmuch as certain men have set the truth aside, and bring in lying words... and by means of their craftily-constructed plausibilities draw away the minds of the inexperienced and take them captive... They also overthrow the faith of many, by drawing them away, under a pretense of (superior) knowledge... By means of specious and plausible words, they cunningly allure the simple-minded to inquire into their system; but they nevertheless clumsily destroy them.. and these simple ones are unable, even in such a matter, to distinguish falsehood from truth... Error, indeed, is never set forth in its naked deformity, lest, being thus exposed, it should at once be detected. But it is craftily decked out in an attractive dress, so as, by its outward form, to make it appear to the inexperienced (ridiculous as the expression may seem) more true than the truth itself... Lest, therefore, through my neglect, some should be carried off, even as sheep are by wolves, while they perceive not the true character of these men... and because their language resembles ours, while their sentiments are very different... I have deemed it my duty...to unfold to thee, my friend, these portentous and profound mysteries... I intend, then, to the best of my ability, with brevity and clearness to set forth the opinions of those who are now promulgating heresy. ... I shall also endeavor, according to my moderate ability, to furnish the means of overthrowing them, by showing how absurd and inconsistent with the truth are their statements.-- Irenaeus, Against Heresies.
Saturday, June 08, 2013
Engaging Information
CWK
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
-Aristotle
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind, at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.
- F. Scott Fitzgerald
-Aristotle
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind, at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.
- F. Scott Fitzgerald
***
We're in school every day. We are surround by informers, and we are engaging information. Everyday, we are in school.
Learning, reading, listening to podcasts, streaming an MP3, attending lectures, these are all endeavors which require us to engage another person who is, on some level, attempting to instruct us.
This implies that public information dispensers, those who are "information informers" (writers, film-makers, teachers, politicians, entertainers, musicians) are all about the task of teaching. And so they are, whether we realize it or not. The books we read, the shows we watch, the movies we consume, these are all teaching us something. The authors of these words have something to say (or else they'd remain silent), and the authors of these words are accountable for their words (whether they like it or not), and we ourselves are being changed by the words we engage (whether we know it or not).
In a recent interview, The Avett Brothers spoke of the impact of their popularity: they realized they need to be careful with the message of their music because a large audience attended their every lyric; with greater influence, and a wider audience, they accepted greater responsibility.
But, what about us, the "informed." How should we engage the "informers" all around us.
I want to mention two extremes of engaging information.
The first extreme: accepting everything.
The second extreme: rejecting everything.
In the first, we assign to our "teacher" absolute authority; we do not think it possible they could be mistaken about anything. If they say it, it must be right. Many college students take this posture before their professors. I once did, and I had an instinct toward "submitting my mind" to these great scholars. I assumed what I heard in class was true. I assumed these men/women knew everything they were supposed to know, and were right. How wrong I was.
I'll never forget when the reality of the fallibility of my college prof's struck me like lightning. I took a final exam for one of my sociology classes, and to my surprise, made a B on the exam. In my mind, to the best I knew, I had answered every single question according to the information in the text book: the very information the professor had pointed us to. So, when I got my test back, I compared every question on the exam with the section of the book it covered. Guess what? According to the book, I was right. Every single answer my Prof marked wrong was, at least according to the book, correct. The Prof had marked the correct answers on my test, and I started looking up his answers. Guess what? About 70 percent of the time, what he said was the right answer was simply wrong, or at least not as correct as the answers I had supplied.
Then, I realized: this professor does not even know the answers to the questions on his final exam. This was a major even in my life because it was so odd, so contradictory to my perception of "omniscient professors."
Then again, we might swing to the other extreme: Approaching information and "informers" with a totally critical bent, and rejecting any and every idea from authority figures and teachers. This disposition is often the consequence of prideful know-it-all attitude, and it cuts us off from engaging in beneficial ways with others who may know much more than we do.
Right before I was to begin my PhD studies in the UK, I sat down with a Prof who'd mentored me throughout grad school and explained to him a particular anxiety. I was concerned about my upcoming PhD research because one of my supervisors was known to be unfriendly to many things in Christianity, and a purveyor of false teaching. I foresaw a never ending war with this supervisor, and dreaded having to sit under them, and try to avoid contention. I was also afraid that this experience my impact me negatively; what if I started adopting some of these views? What if my faith started failing me? What if I was intimidated into avowing positions I detested?
Then, my mentor advised me, "Try to learn what you can from this supervisor." I expected he'd say the opposite, something like, "Reject everything this madman says." But he didn't, and what he did say was worth the price of all the education I'd received before. He communicated me, in one sweet sentence, enough wisdom to fill a book:
-Be Humble, but also Wise
-Approach the situation as a person who wants to learn
-You know you are going to disagree, so be confident in your positions. They are true...
-But don't let disagreements get in the way of profiting from someone who has something to teach you.
His counsel set me free, not only agree with this supervisor, but also to disagree. If I'd gone in with the "accept nothing," view I would've started making a straw man of his arguments: I would have had the sort of negativity that ensured I would misunderstand him. All this would have only made me more weak in my own positions, while also ensuring that I had no real knowledge of my supervisors positions.
Instead, my mentor sent me into this situation with the best possible defense against false teaching: a desire to learn and know the truth.
Wednesday, June 05, 2013
The Poet and The Man
CWK
A man sees a bridge – but the bridge is unseen.
A poet sees the heavenly connection between
two cleaved earthen plots,
A poet sees the bridge what God wrought
betwixt two seeming – I say seeming –
disjointed worldly tracts.
Man sees – but perceives not.
But the poet sees the connection between
two cleaved earthen plots.
A poet sees the bridge what God wrought
betwixt two seeming – I say seeming –
disjointed wordly tracts.
Poets eat bread; men will feast on leaven.
Where men see a train, on its tracks,
a poet sees two lines exact
stretching, like a child, toward heaven:
with the train, ever at his back.
with the train, ever at his back.
Poets see the connection between men,
and counts every man a brother.
Poets the connection within men,
and draw one line to another.
A man sees the deed, but not the act –
the appearance, not the fact;
the show, but not the play –
and smiles with admiration.
A poet sees the deed to heart attached –
the shop, not the display –
and rips the playbill in frustration,
and counts every man a brother.
Poets the connection within men,
and draw one line to another.
A man sees the deed, but not the act –
the appearance, not the fact;
the show, but not the play –
and smiles with admiration.
A poet sees the deed to heart attached –
the shop, not the display –
and rips the playbill in frustration,
while men stand by in dim dismay.
Men conceive a world with chaos striven.
Poets see the peace where war is given.
Men lie, by oaths, forsooth,
but a poet feels the lie that bites like tooth.
and builds, and wields, a bridge by truth.
Men cover the bridges without within,
but poets uncover all the bridges hidden.
A man sees a bridge – but the bridge is unseen;
a man sees – but perceives not.
and conceives the reunion of all things,
and so while men are weeping,
the poet still finds songs to sing.
Poets see beyond seems to seams
to find a world intact.
Men see a world in disunion asunder
filled with disparate facts:
part from every part dissected.
Poets see a world connected;
poets see a world intact,
within a unity of wonder,
with myth and meaning intersected,
toward meaning directed.
A man sees what he came to see;
a poet sees what he sees:
what was, what is, and what may be.
Men pick flowers; poets consider the lilies.
Men count seeing as believing,
and ever doubt what poets believe,
but a poet knows believing is seeing –
and, by faith, his vision receives.
Men conceive a world with chaos striven.
Poets see the peace where war is given.
Men lie, by oaths, forsooth,
but a poet feels the lie that bites like tooth.
and builds, and wields, a bridge by truth.
Men cover the bridges without within,
but poets uncover all the bridges hidden.
A man sees a bridge – but the bridge is unseen;
a man sees – but perceives not.
and conceives the reunion of all things,
and so while men are weeping,
the poet still finds songs to sing.
Poets see beyond seems to seams
to find a world intact.
Men see a world in disunion asunder
filled with disparate facts:
part from every part dissected.
Poets see a world connected;
poets see a world intact,
within a unity of wonder,
with myth and meaning intersected,
toward meaning directed.
A man sees what he came to see;
a poet sees what he sees:
what was, what is, and what may be.
Men pick flowers; poets consider the lilies.
Men count seeing as believing,
and ever doubt what poets believe,
but a poet knows believing is seeing –
and, by faith, his vision receives.
The Difference Between A Hero and A Villain
CWK
The villain sees injustice –
the mighty crushing the powerless –
but believing himself only acted on,
like a still tree, by the wind blown,
he decides what is is what is.
And so he mildly reacts,
and lies helpless as a fact,
apologizing for his weakness.
The hero sees the same,
and bears unto himself the blame.
And deeming himself an actor –
not so much a fact, as factor –
he acts, like a wind, constant moving, never slack,
and turns justice into fact.
Injustice is what the villain views;
it is because it is – just because –
injustice is his justice: history, his law.
Justice is what the hero pursues
because – because – it is his cause.
The villain speaks of justice,
but his deeds are cold and rusty –
for just he never was.
The hero acts, and ever justly;
justice is what the dust man does.
The villain sees injustice –
the mighty crushing the powerless –
but believing himself only acted on,
like a still tree, by the wind blown,
he decides what is is what is.
And so he mildly reacts,
and lies helpless as a fact,
apologizing for his weakness.
The hero sees the same,
and bears unto himself the blame.
And deeming himself an actor –
not so much a fact, as factor –
he acts, like a wind, constant moving, never slack,
and turns justice into fact.
Injustice is what the villain views;
it is because it is – just because –
injustice is his justice: history, his law.
Justice is what the hero pursues
because – because – it is his cause.
The villain speaks of justice,
but his deeds are cold and rusty –
for just he never was.
The hero acts, and ever justly;
justice is what the dust man does.
Herein is the difference
between the hero and the villain:
one man is the tree;
the other man, the wind.
Both decide – but the hero has will.
The hero moves, the villain's still.
The villain is chained; the hero, free.
The villain is what he sees;
the hero is what he may be.
The villain becomes what he was;
the hero is what the hero does.
Herein is the difference
between the hero and the villain:
both take blows, but the hero gives.
Both live, and die, in strife;
but the villain lives –
while the hero leads – a life.
No Where There
CWK
Which came first –
the French, or the American, Revolution?
Don’t up look the answer.
Stop, and think
before you search
for absolution.
Every person I've ever asked
this question
has been wrong
in assigning the appropriate order.
Why is that?
Why know we not what came after,
or even what
came before?
We are neither
last, nor first.
We have no history;
we are nomads
in the universe;
nothing happened before us;
nothing is going to happen after, either.
Our past causes us to hang our heads;
we have dim visions of atrocities
in distant dismal cities,
but we seem to have been created
ex nihilo, out of nothing,
out of nowhere.
There's no where, there.
Do we not realize
there can be no fruit
if there never was a seed;
there can be no listening
without a voice to heed;
there can be no doubt
unless there stands a creed.
If we do think of the past,
we think of it as a mass
of irrelevant data,
little connected to us except
that our ancestors did dire deeds.
We got an inheritance;
it is moral debt
that sometime interest bleeds,
and sometime poems reads,
but ever to our set,
and never to our needs.
Meanwhile, still, to this day still,
our evils are not faced honestly,
nor uprightly.
Just as tragic:
our former glory is unknown,
and taken rather lightly.
Our future causes
us to scratch our heads;
we have no goal,
and tomorrow is already past.
History is going nowhere,
and fast.
Risk, Freedom, Law
It used to be said that a man could have liberty, so long as it did not interfere with the liberty of others. This did afford some rough justification for the ordinary legal view of the man with the pot of beer. For instance, it was logical to allow some degree of distinction between beer and tea, on the ground that a man may be moved by excess of beer to throw the pot at somebody's head. And it may be said that the spinster is seldom moved by excess of tea to throw the tea-pot at anybody's head. But the whole ground of argument is now changed. For people do not consider what the drunkard does to others by throwing the pot, but what he does to himself by drinking the beer. The argument is based on health; and it is said that the Government must safeguard the health of the community.
If a man's personal health is a public concern, his most private acts are more public than his most public acts. The official must deal more directly with his cleaning his teeth in the morning than with his using his tongue in the market-place. The inspector must interfere more with how he sleeps in the middle of the night than with how he works in the course of the day. The private citizen must have much less to say about his bath or his bedroom window than about his vote or his banking account. The policeman must be in a new sense a private detective; and shadow him in private affairs rather than in public affairs. A policeman must shut doors behind him for fear he should sneeze, or shove pillows under him for fear he should snore. All this and things far more fantastic follow from the simple formula that the State must make itself responsible for the health of the citizen.
-GK Chesterton
***
Risk is a necessary part of freedom. This means also risking getting chubby from drinking too much soda. Risk is possible for the person who has real moral choice and obligation and responsibility. This comes from a deep sense of dignity: from our root identity. The most responsible and free person in the universe is God. Also, the most dignified person in the universe is God. God has deep dignity: the self-knowledge that he can do whatever He pleases. Dignity and freedom are inseparable; freedom is a fruit on the tree of dignity.
The danger of a law banning certain size sodas has to do with what it does to our dignity, not our waistline. Such a law is the government saying, "We are taking your freedom to choose because you are not big enough or dignified enough to make decisions. You must depend on us." Such a law is another way of saying, "The Government is in control of the person."
Whether you respect soda size or not, if you respect yourself, you are bound to buck a proposal that limits soda size. Such a proposal is also limiting your dignity: shrinking it down: saying, you count less in the universe than you thought you did, or hoped you did.
Freedom is ultimately built on the concept of dignity; a person of dignity demands prerogative to choose for self. This necessarily involves risk because such a person knows decisions count and carry consequences. The free person assumes risk gladly because they cherish their dignity.
At present, we consider Turkey a not-so-free society. However, when you compare Turkey's alcohol laws with NY's soda laws, you find a remarkable corollary; both claim to be in the interest of public health. Both claim to take risk away for the sake of taking care of people.
This is only comforting if you consider yourself the kind of person who needs to be taken care of.
***
Erdogan, a pious man who denies Islamist ambitions for Turkey, rejects any suggestion he wants to cajole anyone into religious observance. He says new alcohol laws, also denounced by the women, have been passed to protect health rather than on religious grounds.
- From, The Huggington Post.
***
Tingling made clear that the city's Board of Health was only meant to intervene "when the City is facing eminent danger due to disease," he wrote in the decision. "That has not been demonstrated herein."
But the mayor disagreed with this assessment, suggesting that actually obesity is an immanent danger. "The best science tells us that sugary drinks are a leading cause of obesity," Bloomberg said during a press conference in which he revealed that he would appeal the decision. "It would be irresponsible not to try everything we can to save lives, he went on. Adding later, "People are dying every day-- this is not a joke, this is about real lives."
What's more, the mayor explained, the disadvantaged were disproportionately affected: "Higher consumption of full sugar drinks leads to obesity and that happens much worse in poorer neighborhoods."- From, The Huggington Post.
***
Happy Meals have been outlawed in San Francisco. Very soon –
unless a hero rises from the ashes – large soda will be literally illegal in
New York. Two great American cities have taken it unto themselves to legislate
public health. It is often bandied about that, “you can’t legislate morality.”
That very sentence is self-contradictory. The speaker has a morality which
amounts to not legislating some other type of morality. You can legislate
morality; if not, then you can’t legislate anything. What is legislation, after
all, but a set of laws pertaining to right and wrong? Morality is the only
thing you can legislate. Legislation is the morality of a nation, codified.
A drama is unfolding in our nation's laws; this drama has been a morality play on
the issues of equality and rights. Not once does a public figure stop to ask
the simple questions: “What is equality?” “What are rights?”
For our governors, equality
means “sameness." The speech on equality is unequal. And, we
ought to seriously stop and ponder whether sameness is something we actually
desire. Not all stars are the same; some are brighter than others. Not all people
are the same: some are taller, some shorter; some brown eyed; some are men;
some are women. Acknowledgement of this glorious diversity in the world is the
embracing of true diversity. God makes men and women differ; he makes them
differ among themselves, and among each other. Contrary to the claim that our national direction is for diversity, our national direction is careening toward sameness, toward non-diversity.
But our leaders and news sources have joined in this sameness; there is no resistance, no revolutionary.Those who claim to be revolutionary are beating the drum of the age, only slightly louder than their contemporaries. The secret of our time is that there are no dissidents. The two cycle news (Fox News v. MSNBC) system is really the one cycle news
system; the two party system, really the one party system.
The cultural mavens have been very vocal about big things – actually, uni-vocal – but curiously silent on Happy Meals and
sodas. To my knowledge, none of the intelligentsia has risen to condemn the
inequality of a 16 oz. soda for a thirsty man requiring 32 oz. On the one hand,
it seems the intelligentsia would like the government to grant more freedom; on
the other hand, less. In both situations the government is domineering in that the government is viewed as the source of freedom, as the source of law.
I am very serious when I say that soda is something worthy
fighting for. If not now, when? If not us, who?
***
***
If you listen to Bill Maher, freedom means the ability to
smoke pot publicly, and without criminality. Maher thinks Holland much freer
than America because Hollanders can smoke pot to their hearts content. He errs
in defining freedom as his unlimited
individual will. He wants to smoke pot. Therefore, for him, freedom means
everyone can smoke as much pot as they like. He doesn’t stop to ask whether
anyone else would like to join him. No doubt, many would. But, it would be
courteous to ask. The fact that he doesn’t ask is a fact which should cause us
pause. The fact that he takes his view of freedom for granted – the fact that
he doesn’t stop to consult other citizens – this is portentous. It looks like
living in a free country amounts to Bill Maher doing whatever Bill Maher wants
to do. But that’s not freedom. That is a dictatorship of Bill Maher. I might as
well say freedom means I can drive as fast as I like, on any street, I like for the simple fact that I like to
drive fast.
Maher (and many others) err in defining freedom so
specifically and individualistically. In another sense, they err in defining
freedom amorphously, in vague generalities. That is, they don’t define freedom
at all. They repeat “freedom” as a catch-phrase, as an ideal. But they never
stop to ask, “What is freedom?” Freedom comes to them in a puff of marijuana
smoke, nothing more; then, it lingers in the air as a cloud of smoke. Nothing
more.
“The religion of the Servile State must have no dogmas or
definitions. It cannot afford to have any definitions. For definitions are very
dreadful things: they do the two things that most men, especially comfortable
men, cannot endure. They fight; and they fight fair.”
***
"What is liberty?" It leaves the questioner free to disregard any liberty...
That is the problem, and that is why there is now no protection against Eugenic or any other experiments. If the men who took away beer as an unlawful pleasure had paused for a moment to define the lawful pleasures, there might be a different situation. If the men who had denied one liberty had taken the opportunity to affirm other liberties, there might be some defence for them. But it never occurs to them to admit any liberties at all.
-Chesteron
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Limits and Limitations
This I have to say to polyamory, postmodernism, those who think form doesn't matter in poetry or art, and to anyone who might be wondering, "Is God's law GOOD for me? It sounds sorta restrictive." Or, to anyone who might think, "If I accept the Christian creed, with all of its definite statement, it will limit my freedom of mind." Or, to anyone who believes gender roles are necessarily constrictive. Or, to anyone who believes that real freedom means freedom from all limits...
This is say: Da Vinci painted within the lines. Shakespeare used the form of the Sonnet. Far from stifling creativity, and free expression, form and order, and set limits, brought full blossom to the genius of these men.
This also I say, or rather, this is what someone else said that I agree with: limits are not the same as limitations. Limits provide an environment, the only possible environment, for playfulness.
***
But to “play with words” within the traditions of theology and liturgy is not to strive for innovation. The theologian or liturgist, as Stanley has also taught us, is not charged with the task of originality, but with that of fidelity to a living tradition that has some parameters, to a language with rules of speech. There are things we know we can’t say—like, for instance, “that majestic mountain over there is God”—but such limits are not limitations. Rather, they are, as Wendell Berry observes, “inducements to formal elaboration and elegance, to fullness of relationship and meaning.”
This is say: Da Vinci painted within the lines. Shakespeare used the form of the Sonnet. Far from stifling creativity, and free expression, form and order, and set limits, brought full blossom to the genius of these men.
This also I say, or rather, this is what someone else said that I agree with: limits are not the same as limitations. Limits provide an environment, the only possible environment, for playfulness.
***
But to “play with words” within the traditions of theology and liturgy is not to strive for innovation. The theologian or liturgist, as Stanley has also taught us, is not charged with the task of originality, but with that of fidelity to a living tradition that has some parameters, to a language with rules of speech. There are things we know we can’t say—like, for instance, “that majestic mountain over there is God”—but such limits are not limitations. Rather, they are, as Wendell Berry observes, “inducements to formal elaboration and elegance, to fullness of relationship and meaning.”
From, “And God Said . . .”: Creation, Word-Care, and the Care of
the World, Debra Dean Murphy.
***
Those countries in Europe which are still influenced by priests, are exactly the countries where there is still singing and dancing and coloured dresses and art in the open-air. Catholic doctrine and discipline may be walls; but they are the walls of a playground. Christianity is the only frame which has preserved the pleasure of Paganism. We might fancy some children playing on the flat grassy top of some tall island in the sea. So long as there was a wall round the cliff’s edge they could fling themselves into every frantic game and make the place the noisiest of nurseries. But the walls were knocked down, leaving the naked peril of the precipice. They did not fall over; but when their friends returned to them they were all huddled in terror in the centre of the island; and their song had ceased.
***
Chesterton, "Authority and the Adventurer," Orthodoxy.
***
All next day at Beacon House there was a crazy sense that it was everybody's birthday. It is the fashion to talk of institutions as cold and cramping things. The truth is that when people are in exceptionally high spirits, really wild with freedom and invention, they always must, and they always do, create institutions. When men are weary they fall into anarchy; but while they are gay and vigorous they invariably make rules. This, which is true of all the churches and republics of history, is also true of the most trivial parlour game or the most unsophisticated meadow romp. We are never free until some institution frees us; and liberty cannot exist till it is declared by authority. Even the wild authority of the harlequin Smith was still authority, because it produced everywhere a crop of crazy regulations and conditions. He filled every one with his own half-lunatic life; but it was not expressed in destruction, but rather in a dizzy and toppling construction. Each person with a hobby found it turning into an institution. Rosamund's songs seemed to coalesce into a kind of opera; Michael's jests and paragraphs into a magazine. His pipe and her mandoline seemed between them to make a sort of smoking concert.
The bashful and bewildered Arthur Inglewood almost struggled against his own growing importance. He felt as if, in spite of him, his photographs were turning into a picture gallery, and his bicycle into a gymkhana. But no one had any time to criticize these impromptu estates and offices, for they followed each other in wild succession like the topics of a rambling talker.
***
All next day at Beacon House there was a crazy sense that it was everybody's birthday. It is the fashion to talk of institutions as cold and cramping things. The truth is that when people are in exceptionally high spirits, really wild with freedom and invention, they always must, and they always do, create institutions. When men are weary they fall into anarchy; but while they are gay and vigorous they invariably make rules. This, which is true of all the churches and republics of history, is also true of the most trivial parlour game or the most unsophisticated meadow romp. We are never free until some institution frees us; and liberty cannot exist till it is declared by authority. Even the wild authority of the harlequin Smith was still authority, because it produced everywhere a crop of crazy regulations and conditions. He filled every one with his own half-lunatic life; but it was not expressed in destruction, but rather in a dizzy and toppling construction. Each person with a hobby found it turning into an institution. Rosamund's songs seemed to coalesce into a kind of opera; Michael's jests and paragraphs into a magazine. His pipe and her mandoline seemed between them to make a sort of smoking concert.
The bashful and bewildered Arthur Inglewood almost struggled against his own growing importance. He felt as if, in spite of him, his photographs were turning into a picture gallery, and his bicycle into a gymkhana. But no one had any time to criticize these impromptu estates and offices, for they followed each other in wild succession like the topics of a rambling talker.
Chesterton, Manalive, Chapter III, "The Banner of Beacon."
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
You Can't Legislate Morality?
CWK
"You can't legislate morality."
In the sense this cliche is usually intended, it is utterly false. The only thing you can -- I better say should -- legislate is morality. You can legislate morality in this sense, in the only sense that matters: you can institute laws that encourage a certain morality (via rewards), and discourage certain immorality (via punishments).
Laws against child abuse are legislating morality; they are saying, "Child abuse is wrong and immoral, and destructive to children, and our nation." Every law is a statement of what a people considers right and wrong, moral and immoral. Or else, we have no basis for any law whatsoever. Morality, it turns out, is the only thing you can legislate.
What you can't, or at least shouldn't, legislate is all the things outside right/wrong and moral/immoral.
You shouldn't pass a law which dictates that men must eat peanut butter every day. You shouldn't pass a law that punishes men for serving large cups of soda (sorry Mayor Bloomberg). You shouldn't pass a law that says everyone must wear blue on Tuesday. You should not pass a law which condemns, with a 5 year prison sentence, wearing white after labor day. You should not (even though I hate to type it) institute a law which requires every restaurant serve sweet tea, Southern Style, or else face a $1000.00 fine. You should not pass such laws because these are issues not of morality/immorality, but rather taste and personal preference and geographical whim. When it comes to our nation's laws, we should indeed demand freedom. Freedom for individual taste; what we can never demand is freedom for individual morality. There's no such such as individual morality, "What's right for you is right for you." Morality, by definition, stands above every individual.
Morality is above and beyond individuals, time, and place. Taste, on the other hand, is tied to time and place and space. Morality concerns the eternal truths which hover above our world; it is the moral map once for all given to man no matter when a man lives, and no matter where a man may happen to be on the geographical map. Morality never changes no matter the time; taste does, all the time. Morality is not tied to any place; taste is a dot on the map, and varies from dot to dot, and town to town.
I grew up in the South; there, we drink sweet tea, and hardly anything else. I love sweet tea, and consider it truly the nectar of the gods. Imagine my surprise when I landed in St. Louis and discovered many restaurants serve not sweet tea. I was startled; I was confused. I had every right to love sweet tea; what I did not have any right to was a demand that everyone else love sweet tea. It turns out many people don't; I can't understand them -- but, and this is the really important thing, I also can't condemn them. They are not immoral for drinking tea sans sugar. You can't legislate taste.
Now, if I went into a restaurant and ordered sweet tea, and was rebuffed, and then I decided I would express my dismay by stealing 100.00 from the cash register, I'd probably be arrested. If I told the arresting officer, "This is no different from my disdain for unsweetened tea! How dare you arrest me. It is my personal choice to steal..." well, this argument wouldn't get me very far. Why not? It turns out, you can legislate morality.
"You can't legislate morality."
In the sense this cliche is usually intended, it is utterly false. The only thing you can -- I better say should -- legislate is morality. You can legislate morality in this sense, in the only sense that matters: you can institute laws that encourage a certain morality (via rewards), and discourage certain immorality (via punishments).
Laws against child abuse are legislating morality; they are saying, "Child abuse is wrong and immoral, and destructive to children, and our nation." Every law is a statement of what a people considers right and wrong, moral and immoral. Or else, we have no basis for any law whatsoever. Morality, it turns out, is the only thing you can legislate.
What you can't, or at least shouldn't, legislate is all the things outside right/wrong and moral/immoral.
You shouldn't pass a law which dictates that men must eat peanut butter every day. You shouldn't pass a law that punishes men for serving large cups of soda (sorry Mayor Bloomberg). You shouldn't pass a law that says everyone must wear blue on Tuesday. You should not pass a law which condemns, with a 5 year prison sentence, wearing white after labor day. You should not (even though I hate to type it) institute a law which requires every restaurant serve sweet tea, Southern Style, or else face a $1000.00 fine. You should not pass such laws because these are issues not of morality/immorality, but rather taste and personal preference and geographical whim. When it comes to our nation's laws, we should indeed demand freedom. Freedom for individual taste; what we can never demand is freedom for individual morality. There's no such such as individual morality, "What's right for you is right for you." Morality, by definition, stands above every individual.
Morality is above and beyond individuals, time, and place. Taste, on the other hand, is tied to time and place and space. Morality concerns the eternal truths which hover above our world; it is the moral map once for all given to man no matter when a man lives, and no matter where a man may happen to be on the geographical map. Morality never changes no matter the time; taste does, all the time. Morality is not tied to any place; taste is a dot on the map, and varies from dot to dot, and town to town.
I grew up in the South; there, we drink sweet tea, and hardly anything else. I love sweet tea, and consider it truly the nectar of the gods. Imagine my surprise when I landed in St. Louis and discovered many restaurants serve not sweet tea. I was startled; I was confused. I had every right to love sweet tea; what I did not have any right to was a demand that everyone else love sweet tea. It turns out many people don't; I can't understand them -- but, and this is the really important thing, I also can't condemn them. They are not immoral for drinking tea sans sugar. You can't legislate taste.
Now, if I went into a restaurant and ordered sweet tea, and was rebuffed, and then I decided I would express my dismay by stealing 100.00 from the cash register, I'd probably be arrested. If I told the arresting officer, "This is no different from my disdain for unsweetened tea! How dare you arrest me. It is my personal choice to steal..." well, this argument wouldn't get me very far. Why not? It turns out, you can legislate morality.
Monday, May 20, 2013
Reading Around The Lines
CWK
Here's a pretty common conversation circa the year of our Lord, 2013:
"So you don't believe in X? Your problem is you don't want people to be free. You enemy of liberty! You spread hate. You want to interfere in people's private lives. Why can't you just let people be happy and do what they please?"
Take, for example, my last post on the 50 Shades phenomenon. In speaking out against the rise of slavery intimacy, I have opened myself up to the above accusations. Boy, have I.
Here's my reply: You, my friend, also don't want people to be free. You are also an enemy of liberty. You spread hate. You want to interfere in people's private lives. Why can't you just let people be happy and do what they please?
To which, I am answered: "How?"
To which, I retort: You think child molestation should be illegal, and punishable, right? You also believe rape to be a serious and horrific crime: a crime that should be punished severely, right? And, you would be squarely against, say, a father marrying his own daughter. Right? Why, o why, do you hate child molesters? Rapists? Why must you spread hate like this? Why can't you just let them be happy? Why can't men just do as they please.
(Silence)
I continue: So, I'm right in saying that you also believe there are certain expressions of sexuality that are just wrong no matter the place or time, and no matter who consents, and no matter if it makes people happy?
"Yes."
I continue: You don't really believe that everyone should just do what they please. You don't believe that anyone and everyone who wants to get married should. You don't believe that any and everyone should just do what they want in private.
"Well, no, I don't."
I conclude: You don't believe the very creed you are trying to press on me. You don't believe your own beliefs. You yourself draw moral lines on sexuality; you yourself condemn certain expressions of sexual desire and practice. Therefore, you can no longer use the cliches about freedom and privacy and happiness in this dialogue. You're going to have to find a different ground to attack me on. Now, I'm listening. Attack away.
Here's a pretty common conversation circa the year of our Lord, 2013:
"So you don't believe in X? Your problem is you don't want people to be free. You enemy of liberty! You spread hate. You want to interfere in people's private lives. Why can't you just let people be happy and do what they please?"
Take, for example, my last post on the 50 Shades phenomenon. In speaking out against the rise of slavery intimacy, I have opened myself up to the above accusations. Boy, have I.
Here's my reply: You, my friend, also don't want people to be free. You are also an enemy of liberty. You spread hate. You want to interfere in people's private lives. Why can't you just let people be happy and do what they please?
To which, I am answered: "How?"
To which, I retort: You think child molestation should be illegal, and punishable, right? You also believe rape to be a serious and horrific crime: a crime that should be punished severely, right? And, you would be squarely against, say, a father marrying his own daughter. Right? Why, o why, do you hate child molesters? Rapists? Why must you spread hate like this? Why can't you just let them be happy? Why can't men just do as they please.
(Silence)
I continue: So, I'm right in saying that you also believe there are certain expressions of sexuality that are just wrong no matter the place or time, and no matter who consents, and no matter if it makes people happy?
"Yes."
I continue: You don't really believe that everyone should just do what they please. You don't believe that anyone and everyone who wants to get married should. You don't believe that any and everyone should just do what they want in private.
"Well, no, I don't."
I conclude: You don't believe the very creed you are trying to press on me. You don't believe your own beliefs. You yourself draw moral lines on sexuality; you yourself condemn certain expressions of sexual desire and practice. Therefore, you can no longer use the cliches about freedom and privacy and happiness in this dialogue. You're going to have to find a different ground to attack me on. Now, I'm listening. Attack away.
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
True Christianity
CWK
At present, truth is off the table. Most speak of their "perspective" or their "viewpoint" as if there were no such thing as a real solid truth outside them, out in the world: as if, every truth was as small as a dot on a map, and every map consisted only of disconnected plots of earth: lonely cities which never touch one another.
Nothing could be more shocking to our pluralistic ears than this: Christianity is true.
Some assertions are true; some are false. Truth gives life and good guidance. The opposite of such truth is error, and dangerous. Christianity is true; all views and claims that contradict it are false.
I noticed, in college, that Christians were most often "hard scientists" -- engineers, especially, seemed to gravitate toward Christianity. When I considered this, it made perfect sense: these are people who believe in truth and order.
There is a problem when we begin to speak about Christianity being true: namely, not many know what true Christianity is: not many know what Christianity actually teaches, what the Bible actually says, or what Jesus actually came to do.
Christianity is true. But, what is true Christianity? I've met numerous people who think they know what Christianity teaches, and time and again, found Christ being slandered. Christianity has been cast in a thousand different roles, some fashionable, some offensive, to modern ears. Unbelievers will attack Christ and His Gospel as a strawman, and misrepresent the teachings of the Scriptures. In some cases, they will assert as Christianity the very opposite of what Christianity actually asserts. In other cases, they will try and found a heresy of their own only to find out Christianity came long before them, and stamped their assertion as orthodoxy.
We commonly hear, "There's no truth." To which the reply is in order, "Is that true?" If the respondent answers affirmatively, "Yes," well then, there must be truth after all.
True Christianity is True.
At present, truth is off the table. Most speak of their "perspective" or their "viewpoint" as if there were no such thing as a real solid truth outside them, out in the world: as if, every truth was as small as a dot on a map, and every map consisted only of disconnected plots of earth: lonely cities which never touch one another.
Nothing could be more shocking to our pluralistic ears than this: Christianity is true.
Some assertions are true; some are false. Truth gives life and good guidance. The opposite of such truth is error, and dangerous. Christianity is true; all views and claims that contradict it are false.
I noticed, in college, that Christians were most often "hard scientists" -- engineers, especially, seemed to gravitate toward Christianity. When I considered this, it made perfect sense: these are people who believe in truth and order.
There is a problem when we begin to speak about Christianity being true: namely, not many know what true Christianity is: not many know what Christianity actually teaches, what the Bible actually says, or what Jesus actually came to do.
Christianity is true. But, what is true Christianity? I've met numerous people who think they know what Christianity teaches, and time and again, found Christ being slandered. Christianity has been cast in a thousand different roles, some fashionable, some offensive, to modern ears. Unbelievers will attack Christ and His Gospel as a strawman, and misrepresent the teachings of the Scriptures. In some cases, they will assert as Christianity the very opposite of what Christianity actually asserts. In other cases, they will try and found a heresy of their own only to find out Christianity came long before them, and stamped their assertion as orthodoxy.
We commonly hear, "There's no truth." To which the reply is in order, "Is that true?" If the respondent answers affirmatively, "Yes," well then, there must be truth after all.
True Christianity is True.
Meant To Be
CWK
I don't think any one thing is meant to be; I think every thing is meant to be. I can't pick out this or that moment as "meant-to-be" anymore than I can pick out a brush stroke from a painting of Da Vinci and characterize it as "meant-to-be."
Everything is meant to be: nothing happens by accident, without cause, or without purpose. There is no such thing as a purely random event, or happening. Everything is meant to be: God created all things purposefully, with a purpose in mind; everything has a goal, an end. All things fit together: the universe is not a riddle of disconnected puzzle pieces from a million different puzzles. The universe, and all within, including all human history, are part of one master puzzle: The Glory of God. There is intention, control, a plan, an end, and means to an end: and over all these God reigns.
I believe in the total sovereignty of God over all events in all of history. Nothing escapes his notice, or His permission, or His Sovereign sway. This is the most comforting truth imaginable because it is true. Even evil men, in their most dastardly schemes, are caught up in God's scheme. They cannot break out of His sovereign power; they can only advance, even against their will, His Will. O, why, O why, do the nations rage, and evil men fume and foment? Why, O, Why? The Lord is seated on His throne in the Heavens, and He laughs (Ps. 2). Such men are caught in the net of God's control and power, and they can't get out. God has the first, and the middle, and the last word. Also, and this is sweet comfort for the Christian, I am in the all-powerful hands of my Father in Heaven, and so is my life. I can't mess up God's plan; even should I try (and I wouldn't): the counsel of the Lord will stand, and all His will will be done (Proverbs 19.21)."
A friend recently said to me, "It must be nice to believe that. It must be comforting."
"No," I responded, "It would only be comforting if it were TRUE. And, it is true."
There is order and design to everything. When I consider the evolutionary perspective on life, the supposition that everything happens by chance, that there is no original order or Order-er -- I wonder how such a person knows which side of the road to drive on, or which was is right, or left, or up, or down. The world dissolves into nonsense. No one can, in truth, live with that view of life. The evolutionist ultimately must break out of there "all is random" viewpoint, and take a right turn. Eventually, they are going to have to put their pants on, or cross a street, or buy a pack of bubble gum, and it matters immensely whether the world has order in such moments: they will, in such moments, even against their strongest protests, acknowledge that the world is a "put-together" reality, and that their is such a thing as sense and nonsense. Otherwise, they won't have a problem wearing their pants backwards, or crossing a busy intersection, or paying 35.00 for a pack of gum.
As for me, there's no contradiction between the order without, and the order within. I take it as common sense that life makes sense, but in this sense: God has a purpose, a goal, and a plan to reach that goal. I don't know how every particular fits with every particular, but I know that every particular fits with One and only One Universal: "For My Own Sake, For My Own Sake, I do it... I will not share My Glory with another (says the Lord), Isaiah 48.11." God is arranging events, like the pieces of a puzzle, for the purpose of self-manifestation, that He might be glorified in all the excellence of His character.
God is seated on this throne; the Lord reigns; let the earth rejoice.
"If God does something in your life, would you change it? If you'd change it, you'd make it worse. It wouldn't be as good."
-James Montgomery Boice
I don't think any one thing is meant to be; I think every thing is meant to be. I can't pick out this or that moment as "meant-to-be" anymore than I can pick out a brush stroke from a painting of Da Vinci and characterize it as "meant-to-be."
Everything is meant to be: nothing happens by accident, without cause, or without purpose. There is no such thing as a purely random event, or happening. Everything is meant to be: God created all things purposefully, with a purpose in mind; everything has a goal, an end. All things fit together: the universe is not a riddle of disconnected puzzle pieces from a million different puzzles. The universe, and all within, including all human history, are part of one master puzzle: The Glory of God. There is intention, control, a plan, an end, and means to an end: and over all these God reigns.
I believe in the total sovereignty of God over all events in all of history. Nothing escapes his notice, or His permission, or His Sovereign sway. This is the most comforting truth imaginable because it is true. Even evil men, in their most dastardly schemes, are caught up in God's scheme. They cannot break out of His sovereign power; they can only advance, even against their will, His Will. O, why, O why, do the nations rage, and evil men fume and foment? Why, O, Why? The Lord is seated on His throne in the Heavens, and He laughs (Ps. 2). Such men are caught in the net of God's control and power, and they can't get out. God has the first, and the middle, and the last word. Also, and this is sweet comfort for the Christian, I am in the all-powerful hands of my Father in Heaven, and so is my life. I can't mess up God's plan; even should I try (and I wouldn't): the counsel of the Lord will stand, and all His will will be done (Proverbs 19.21)."
A friend recently said to me, "It must be nice to believe that. It must be comforting."
"No," I responded, "It would only be comforting if it were TRUE. And, it is true."
There is order and design to everything. When I consider the evolutionary perspective on life, the supposition that everything happens by chance, that there is no original order or Order-er -- I wonder how such a person knows which side of the road to drive on, or which was is right, or left, or up, or down. The world dissolves into nonsense. No one can, in truth, live with that view of life. The evolutionist ultimately must break out of there "all is random" viewpoint, and take a right turn. Eventually, they are going to have to put their pants on, or cross a street, or buy a pack of bubble gum, and it matters immensely whether the world has order in such moments: they will, in such moments, even against their strongest protests, acknowledge that the world is a "put-together" reality, and that their is such a thing as sense and nonsense. Otherwise, they won't have a problem wearing their pants backwards, or crossing a busy intersection, or paying 35.00 for a pack of gum.
As for me, there's no contradiction between the order without, and the order within. I take it as common sense that life makes sense, but in this sense: God has a purpose, a goal, and a plan to reach that goal. I don't know how every particular fits with every particular, but I know that every particular fits with One and only One Universal: "For My Own Sake, For My Own Sake, I do it... I will not share My Glory with another (says the Lord), Isaiah 48.11." God is arranging events, like the pieces of a puzzle, for the purpose of self-manifestation, that He might be glorified in all the excellence of His character.
God is seated on this throne; the Lord reigns; let the earth rejoice.
"If God does something in your life, would you change it? If you'd change it, you'd make it worse. It wouldn't be as good."
-James Montgomery Boice
Tuesday, May 07, 2013
Reading With Heart, Mind, Soul - And Yes, Body
From Andrew Piper, Out Of Touch:
Amid the seemingly endless debates today about the future of reading, there remains one salient, yet often overlooked fact: Reading isn’t only a matter of our brains; it’s something that we do with our bodies. Reading is an integral part of our lived experience, our sense of being in the world, even if at times this can mean feeling intensely apart from it. How we hold our reading materials, how we look at them, navigate them, take notes on them, share them, play with them, even where we read them—these are the categories that have mattered most to us as readers throughout the long and varied history of reading. They will no doubt continue to do so into the future.
Understanding reading at this most elementary level—at the level of person, habit, and gesture—will be essential as we continue to make choices about the kind of reading we care about and the kind of technologies that will best embody those values. To think about the future of reading means, then, to think about the long history of how touch has shaped reading and, by extension, our sense of ourselves while we read.
***
The significance of the tactility of reading could begin with St. Augustine. In the eighth book of his Confessions, Augustine describes the moment of his conversion to becoming a Christian:
In my misery I kept crying, “How long shall I go on saying, ‘tomorrow, tomorrow?’ ” Why not now? Why not make an end of my ugly sins at this very moment? I was asking myself these questions when all at once I heard the singing voice of a child in a nearby house. Whether it was the voice of a boy or girl I cannot say, but again and again it repeated the refrain, “Take it and read, take it read.”
Monday, May 06, 2013
For Mother's Day
CWK
We could let Mother's Day pass with a card and a call, or we could spend some time reflecting on what it means to cherish and honor our mothers.
Spurgeon would have us do the latter, and so would our dear Lord. Reading the following will leave us all smitten with a measure of grief. How much needless pain have we caused our dear mothers? How little real return have we given to their love and sacrifice? The following will smite us if it should; if it should, then we should thank God. It would be better to be grieved now, when we have the opportunity for change, than come upon a day where the only thing we can do is grieve. There's coming a time when we will have no mother to send a mother's day card. There's coming a time when we will live, either with grief, or joy, for the rest of our days, until Christ wipes away every tear, over the treatment of our mothers. Let's weep more now so we may weep less then.
But, you say, you are bringing me down on Mother's Day. I am bringing you down so that you may repent, and rise up. If you should feel sorrow, I hope you will feel sorrow: the kind of sorrow that leads to transformation. Here's the problem with Mother's day: it is possible to honor your mother just enough on this day to quell all the ways you dishonor her the rest of the year. As for holidays, I'm with the puritans: they are mostly superstitious, and an excuse for materialism and false shows of piety. They do more harm than good for 99% of the population. Mother's Day is no different; it lets us put our conscience to rest if we have mistreated our mothers; we have a holiday one day a year for Mother's so that we don't have to think about them the rest of the year. We have a holiday for someone else 1 day a year so we can have a holiday for our conscience for 364 days a year. God calls us to something different: to a life of repentance: not just to an occasional sorrowful thought, but a whole life of repentance. I'm glad, this Mother's Day, to have one more chance to repent, and try and do better. I'm glad God has granted me a mother on earth for another year. He is a good God; he gave me a good mother; I want to be a better son.
Without further ado:
The anxieties of parents are very great, and some young people do not sufficiently reflect upon them, or they would be more grateful, and would not so often increase them by their thoughtless conduct. I am persuaded that there are many sons and daughters who would not willingly cost their parents sorrow, who, nevertheless, do flood their lives with great grief. It cannot always be innocently that they do this: there must be a measure of wanton wrong about it in many cases where young people clearly foresee the result of their conduct upon their friends. There are some young men, especially, who in the indulgence of what they call their freedom trample on the tender feelings of her that bare them, and frequently cause sleepless nights and crushing troubles to both their parents. This is a crime to be answered for before the bar of God, who has given a special promise to dutiful children, and reserves a special curse for rebellious ones. All parents must have anxieties. There is never a babe dropped into a mother's bosom but it brings care, labor, grief, and anxiety with it. There is a joy in the parental relationship, but there must necessarily be a vast amount of anxious care with it throughout those tender years of infancy in which the frail cockle-shell boat of life seems likely to be swamped by a thousand waves which sweep harmlessly over stronger barques. The newly-lit candle is so readily blown out that mothers nurse and watch with a care which frequently saps the parental life. But our children, perhaps, do not give us most anxiety when they are infants, nor when we have them at school, when we can put them to bed and give them a good-night's kiss and feel that all is safe; the heavy care comes afterwards—afterwards when they have broken through our control, when they are running alone, and on their own account, when they are away from our home, when they are out of the reach of our rebuke, and do not now feel as once they did the power of our authority, and hardly of our love. It is then to many parents that the time of severe trial begins, and, doubtless, many a grey head has been brought with sorrow to the grave by having to cry, "I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me." Many a father and many a mother die, murdered, not with knife or poison, but by unkind words and cruel deeds of their own children.
Charles Spurgeon, An Anxious Inquiry For A Beloved Son.
We could let Mother's Day pass with a card and a call, or we could spend some time reflecting on what it means to cherish and honor our mothers.
Spurgeon would have us do the latter, and so would our dear Lord. Reading the following will leave us all smitten with a measure of grief. How much needless pain have we caused our dear mothers? How little real return have we given to their love and sacrifice? The following will smite us if it should; if it should, then we should thank God. It would be better to be grieved now, when we have the opportunity for change, than come upon a day where the only thing we can do is grieve. There's coming a time when we will have no mother to send a mother's day card. There's coming a time when we will live, either with grief, or joy, for the rest of our days, until Christ wipes away every tear, over the treatment of our mothers. Let's weep more now so we may weep less then.
But, you say, you are bringing me down on Mother's Day. I am bringing you down so that you may repent, and rise up. If you should feel sorrow, I hope you will feel sorrow: the kind of sorrow that leads to transformation. Here's the problem with Mother's day: it is possible to honor your mother just enough on this day to quell all the ways you dishonor her the rest of the year. As for holidays, I'm with the puritans: they are mostly superstitious, and an excuse for materialism and false shows of piety. They do more harm than good for 99% of the population. Mother's Day is no different; it lets us put our conscience to rest if we have mistreated our mothers; we have a holiday one day a year for Mother's so that we don't have to think about them the rest of the year. We have a holiday for someone else 1 day a year so we can have a holiday for our conscience for 364 days a year. God calls us to something different: to a life of repentance: not just to an occasional sorrowful thought, but a whole life of repentance. I'm glad, this Mother's Day, to have one more chance to repent, and try and do better. I'm glad God has granted me a mother on earth for another year. He is a good God; he gave me a good mother; I want to be a better son.
Without further ado:
The anxieties of parents are very great, and some young people do not sufficiently reflect upon them, or they would be more grateful, and would not so often increase them by their thoughtless conduct. I am persuaded that there are many sons and daughters who would not willingly cost their parents sorrow, who, nevertheless, do flood their lives with great grief. It cannot always be innocently that they do this: there must be a measure of wanton wrong about it in many cases where young people clearly foresee the result of their conduct upon their friends. There are some young men, especially, who in the indulgence of what they call their freedom trample on the tender feelings of her that bare them, and frequently cause sleepless nights and crushing troubles to both their parents. This is a crime to be answered for before the bar of God, who has given a special promise to dutiful children, and reserves a special curse for rebellious ones. All parents must have anxieties. There is never a babe dropped into a mother's bosom but it brings care, labor, grief, and anxiety with it. There is a joy in the parental relationship, but there must necessarily be a vast amount of anxious care with it throughout those tender years of infancy in which the frail cockle-shell boat of life seems likely to be swamped by a thousand waves which sweep harmlessly over stronger barques. The newly-lit candle is so readily blown out that mothers nurse and watch with a care which frequently saps the parental life. But our children, perhaps, do not give us most anxiety when they are infants, nor when we have them at school, when we can put them to bed and give them a good-night's kiss and feel that all is safe; the heavy care comes afterwards—afterwards when they have broken through our control, when they are running alone, and on their own account, when they are away from our home, when they are out of the reach of our rebuke, and do not now feel as once they did the power of our authority, and hardly of our love. It is then to many parents that the time of severe trial begins, and, doubtless, many a grey head has been brought with sorrow to the grave by having to cry, "I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me." Many a father and many a mother die, murdered, not with knife or poison, but by unkind words and cruel deeds of their own children.
Charles Spurgeon, An Anxious Inquiry For A Beloved Son.
Sunday, May 05, 2013
Why We Love Novels
People wonder why the novel is the most popular form of literature; people wonder why it is read more than books of science or books of metaphysics. The reason is very simple; it is merely that the novel is more true than they are. Life may sometimes legitimately appear as a book of science. Life may sometimes appear, and with a much greater legitimacy, as a book of metaphysics. But life is always a novel. Our existence may cease to be a song; it may cease even to be a beautiful lament. Our existence may not be an intelligible justice, or even a recognizable wrong. But our existence is still a story. If we have sufficient intellect, we can finish a philosophical and exact deduction, and be certain that we are finishing it right. With the adequate brain-power we could finish any scientific discovery, and be certain that we were finishing it right. But not with the most gigantic intellect could we finish the simplest or silliest story, and be certain that we were finishing it right. That is because a story has behind it, not merely intellect which is partly mechanical, but will, which is in its essence divine.
Chesterton, Heretics.
The Reason To Drink
The one genuinely dangerous and immoral way of drinking alcohol is to drink it as a medicine. And for this reason. If a man drinks wine in order to obtain pleasure, he is trying to obtain something exceptional, something he does not expect every hour of the day, something which, unless he is a little insane, he will not try to get every hour of the day. But if a man drinks wine in order to obtain health, he is trying to get something natural; something, that is, that he ought not to be without; something that he may find it difficult to reconcile himself to being without. Hence comes the fact which every doctor knows, that it is often perilous to give alcohol to the sick even when they need it. I need hardly say that I do not mean that I think the giving of alcohol to the sick for stimulus is necessarily unjustifiable. But I do mean that giving it to the healthy for fun is the proper use of it, and a great deal more consistent with health.
The sound rule in the matter would appear to be like many other sound rules—a paradox. Drink because you are happy, but never because you are miserable. Never drink when you are wretched without it, or you will be like the grey-faced gin-drinker in the slum; but drink when you would be happy without it, and you will be like the laughing peasant of Italy. Never drink because you need it, for this is rational drinking, and the way to death and hell. But drink because you do not need it, for this is irrational drinking, and the ancient health of the world.
- Chesterton, Heretics.
Idolatry Always Leads To War On Children
From Chesterton, "Demons and Philosophers," The Everlasting Man.
... without dwelling -much longer in these dark corners, it may be noted as not irrelevant here that certain anti-human antagonisms seem to recur in this tradition of black magic. There may be suspected as running through it everywhere, for instance, a mystical hatred of the idea of childhood. People would understand better the popular fury against the witches, if they remembered that the malice most commonly attributed to them was preventing the birth of children. The Hebrew prophets were perpetually protesting against the Hebrew race relapsing into an idolatry that involved such a war upon children; and it is probable enough that this abominable apostasy from the God of Israel has occasionally appeared in Israel since...
... without dwelling -much longer in these dark corners, it may be noted as not irrelevant here that certain anti-human antagonisms seem to recur in this tradition of black magic. There may be suspected as running through it everywhere, for instance, a mystical hatred of the idea of childhood. People would understand better the popular fury against the witches, if they remembered that the malice most commonly attributed to them was preventing the birth of children. The Hebrew prophets were perpetually protesting against the Hebrew race relapsing into an idolatry that involved such a war upon children; and it is probable enough that this abominable apostasy from the God of Israel has occasionally appeared in Israel since...
Looking For God in 50 Shades
CWK
"Every man who knocks on the door of a brothel is looking for God.”
-GK Chesterton
***
Every man who visits a prostitute is engaged in a single-minded search for God.
The same could be said of the rise of 50 Shades, and all such like-minded literature that followed in its wake. This book was published in response to an incessant search for God which has been afoot for the last 60 years.
An audience was already there for 50 Shades; time and opportunity was all that was needed. The world wrote 50 Shades long before E.L. James did; they wrote it in the sense of cultivating a longing, in their hearts, for such a book. It's success is no mistake, but rather, a forgone conclusion. The audience was ready to read before the writer ever wrote. This audience was made ready by 60 years of "successful" feminism and humanism. Such success has rendered us a people desperate for authority: a people desperate for some "higher" power to control us, and tell us what to do. The consequence of this success is that women, especially, are turning to various kinds of bondage to sate their desire for leadership.
Welcome to a new kind of success in which freedom means slavery and liberation leads to bondage.
How did we get here?
One blossom on the tree of humanism (man = maker = god) is feminism. Feminism, in full blossom, taught women that men were disposable; it urged them to forsake the vestiges of femininity, and disavow patriarchy (male leadership in the home/culture).
Women were left, still longing for masculine leadership, but now bewildered (and guilty) that such a desire even existed. They had a desire which they didn't know how to fulfill. In comes 50 Shades; so, the women who hate male leadership in theory ended up hiding away in corner booths and reading pornography about a "man in charge."
Make no mistake: "50 Shades," and the like, is particularly feminist pornography: pornography especially for feminists. What is pornography but the picture-izing of fantasy? The words to unspoken and unfulfilled longings? A quick and easy answer to confused desire?
Feminist pornography fulfills, in a twisted way, the longing for male headship and leadership and strength. If we will not drink water, we will end up drinking a poor substitute. Our thirst will drive us to drink; feminists avowed hatred for water (patriarchy); eventually they were going to get thirsty and drink something not quite so nourishing (50 Shades). If we will not seek right fulfillment of inherent desires, sooner or later, we seek some other fulfillment. This fulfillment will, by virtue of its being a replacement, be perverse and not quite so healthy.
We may marvel, but it's no surprise, one of the leading young feminist voices of our day, Tracie Egan (of Jezebel fame), is famous for seeking out a forced intimacy fantasy (I'll let you translate that). Her desire for male leadership was so strong, her desire to be "controlled" so controlling, she sought it in the most perverse and destructive symbol of women's degradation possible: rape. Likewise, prostitution fantasy has hit mainstream, and even former Olympic athletes -- and many women who are wealthy proud feminists -- "resort" to it.
The irony of this staggers the mind, and breaks the heart.
How does this relate to God? If we will not be who God calls us to be, we will be some twisted version of who God calls us to be. We cannot escape ourselves, or God, ultimately. The desire to break free from all bonds, human and divine, has led to a voluntary slavery far worse than any perceived slavery in patriarchy or Christianity: a slavery of soul.
Women especially need -- whether they admit it, or not -- male leadership. If they will not have it willingly, they will have it unwillingly willingly.
The rise of slavery fantasies effects both men and women at present, though. In all cases, when humans resort to this, they are seeking God. They are at the same time seeking him and pushing him away.
They are seeking him in that they are seeking some ultimate power to tell them what is right and wrong, to "control" them, and to grant them identity through service. God is the right fulfillment of such desires; He is Good and Wise and Loving, and rightfully the King of the universe. So, when humans seek voluntary intimate slavery, they are indeed seeking a "god" experience: they are seeking what God alone could and does supply; they are looking for God, albeit in all the wrong places.
Yet, they are also pushing God away by seeking this sort of thing; they are putting a substitute (poor and perverse) in His place. They are saying, at the same time, "My soul thirsts for God," and, "Get away from me, God!"
Again, the irony staggers the mind, and breaks the heart.
Slavery intimacy is reminds us, in staggering vivid colors, that we are looking for God. Looking, still, for God. Every woman who took up 50 Shades was longing desperately for God; every man that enslaves his heart in bizarre intimacy is grasping, like wild, for the Almighty. We would be left, lost, at the door of a thousand brothels, if we did not embrace a further truth: "God knocks on the brothel door looking for man."*
Zaccheus was known as an especially wicked man. Still, he went looking for Jesus. He soon discovered: all the while, Jesus had been looking for him: Jesus knows him by name, and invites himself over to Zaccheus house (Luke 19.1-10). Jesus searches for the lost: for those who have lost their way while looking for Him. Jesus came, not to seek those who know their way, but those who've lost their way, "The Son of Man came to seek and save that which was lost (Luke 19.10)" We knock on the brothel door, and hear a knock in reply. In amazement, we are bound to confess: a friendly Jesus is on the other side of the door! We must remember: Jesus was a great friend to prostitutes in his day: they came to him weeping, and he did not turn them away (see Luke 7). We may be surprised to find Jesus at a brothel; we may be surprised, but our surprise betrays ignorance of Jesus' character: he always dealt gently with "great sinners," or at least, those who felt themselves to be "great sinners." The last place we'd expect to find Jesus, a brothel, is the first place He shows up.
50 Shades demonstrates that we are looking for God, and we don't even know it. That's reason for sorrow. However, the ministry of Jesus demonstrates that God is looking for us, and even in the places we are trying to lose him. That's reason for joy.
***
*I am indebted to the writers at Door Of Faith for the phrase, "God knocks on the brothel door looking for man."
***
Chesterton on "50 Shades." Just substitute 50 Shades" for "Cannibalism" ...
But with the appeal to lower spirits comes the horrible notion that the gesture must not only be very small but very low; that it must be a monkey trick of an utterly ugly and unworthy sort. Sooner or later a man deliberately sets himself to do the most disgusting thing he can think of. It is felt that the extreme of evil will extort a sort of attention or answer from the evil powers under the surface of the world. This is the meaning of most of the cannibalism in the world.
For most cannibalism is not a primitive or even a bestial habit. It is artificial and even artistic; a sort of art for art's sake. Men do not do it because they do not think it horrible; but, on the contrary, because they do think it horrible. They wish, in the most literal sense, to sup on horrors. That is why it is often found that rude races like the Australian natives are not cannibals, while much more refined and intelligent races, like the New Zealand Maories, occasionally are. They are refined and intelligent enough to indulge sometimes in a self-conscious diabolism. But if we could understand their minds, or even really understand their language, we should probably find that they were not acting as ignorant, that is as innocent cannibals. They are not doing it because they do not think it wrong, but precisely because they do think it wrong. They are acting like a Parisian decadent at a Black Mass. But the Black Mass has to hide underground from the presence of the real Mass. In other words, the demons have really been in hiding since the coming of Christ on earth. The cannibalism of the higher barbarians is in hiding from the civilization of the white man. But before Christendom, and especially outside Europe, this was not always so.
-GK Chesterton, "Demons and Philosophers," The Everlasting Man.
"Every man who knocks on the door of a brothel is looking for God.”
-GK Chesterton
***
Every man who visits a prostitute is engaged in a single-minded search for God.
The same could be said of the rise of 50 Shades, and all such like-minded literature that followed in its wake. This book was published in response to an incessant search for God which has been afoot for the last 60 years.
An audience was already there for 50 Shades; time and opportunity was all that was needed. The world wrote 50 Shades long before E.L. James did; they wrote it in the sense of cultivating a longing, in their hearts, for such a book. It's success is no mistake, but rather, a forgone conclusion. The audience was ready to read before the writer ever wrote. This audience was made ready by 60 years of "successful" feminism and humanism. Such success has rendered us a people desperate for authority: a people desperate for some "higher" power to control us, and tell us what to do. The consequence of this success is that women, especially, are turning to various kinds of bondage to sate their desire for leadership.
Welcome to a new kind of success in which freedom means slavery and liberation leads to bondage.
How did we get here?
One blossom on the tree of humanism (man = maker = god) is feminism. Feminism, in full blossom, taught women that men were disposable; it urged them to forsake the vestiges of femininity, and disavow patriarchy (male leadership in the home/culture).
Women were left, still longing for masculine leadership, but now bewildered (and guilty) that such a desire even existed. They had a desire which they didn't know how to fulfill. In comes 50 Shades; so, the women who hate male leadership in theory ended up hiding away in corner booths and reading pornography about a "man in charge."
Make no mistake: "50 Shades," and the like, is particularly feminist pornography: pornography especially for feminists. What is pornography but the picture-izing of fantasy? The words to unspoken and unfulfilled longings? A quick and easy answer to confused desire?
Feminist pornography fulfills, in a twisted way, the longing for male headship and leadership and strength. If we will not drink water, we will end up drinking a poor substitute. Our thirst will drive us to drink; feminists avowed hatred for water (patriarchy); eventually they were going to get thirsty and drink something not quite so nourishing (50 Shades). If we will not seek right fulfillment of inherent desires, sooner or later, we seek some other fulfillment. This fulfillment will, by virtue of its being a replacement, be perverse and not quite so healthy.
We may marvel, but it's no surprise, one of the leading young feminist voices of our day, Tracie Egan (of Jezebel fame), is famous for seeking out a forced intimacy fantasy (I'll let you translate that). Her desire for male leadership was so strong, her desire to be "controlled" so controlling, she sought it in the most perverse and destructive symbol of women's degradation possible: rape. Likewise, prostitution fantasy has hit mainstream, and even former Olympic athletes -- and many women who are wealthy proud feminists -- "resort" to it.
The irony of this staggers the mind, and breaks the heart.
How does this relate to God? If we will not be who God calls us to be, we will be some twisted version of who God calls us to be. We cannot escape ourselves, or God, ultimately. The desire to break free from all bonds, human and divine, has led to a voluntary slavery far worse than any perceived slavery in patriarchy or Christianity: a slavery of soul.
Women especially need -- whether they admit it, or not -- male leadership. If they will not have it willingly, they will have it unwillingly willingly.
Be appalled, O heavens, at this; be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the Lord,for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me,the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water. Is Israel a slave? Is he a homeborn servant? Why then has he become a prey?
(Jeremiah 2.12-14).
The rise of slavery fantasies effects both men and women at present, though. In all cases, when humans resort to this, they are seeking God. They are at the same time seeking him and pushing him away.
They are seeking him in that they are seeking some ultimate power to tell them what is right and wrong, to "control" them, and to grant them identity through service. God is the right fulfillment of such desires; He is Good and Wise and Loving, and rightfully the King of the universe. So, when humans seek voluntary intimate slavery, they are indeed seeking a "god" experience: they are seeking what God alone could and does supply; they are looking for God, albeit in all the wrong places.
Yet, they are also pushing God away by seeking this sort of thing; they are putting a substitute (poor and perverse) in His place. They are saying, at the same time, "My soul thirsts for God," and, "Get away from me, God!"
Again, the irony staggers the mind, and breaks the heart.
Slavery intimacy is reminds us, in staggering vivid colors, that we are looking for God. Looking, still, for God. Every woman who took up 50 Shades was longing desperately for God; every man that enslaves his heart in bizarre intimacy is grasping, like wild, for the Almighty. We would be left, lost, at the door of a thousand brothels, if we did not embrace a further truth: "God knocks on the brothel door looking for man."*
Zaccheus was known as an especially wicked man. Still, he went looking for Jesus. He soon discovered: all the while, Jesus had been looking for him: Jesus knows him by name, and invites himself over to Zaccheus house (Luke 19.1-10). Jesus searches for the lost: for those who have lost their way while looking for Him. Jesus came, not to seek those who know their way, but those who've lost their way, "The Son of Man came to seek and save that which was lost (Luke 19.10)" We knock on the brothel door, and hear a knock in reply. In amazement, we are bound to confess: a friendly Jesus is on the other side of the door! We must remember: Jesus was a great friend to prostitutes in his day: they came to him weeping, and he did not turn them away (see Luke 7). We may be surprised to find Jesus at a brothel; we may be surprised, but our surprise betrays ignorance of Jesus' character: he always dealt gently with "great sinners," or at least, those who felt themselves to be "great sinners." The last place we'd expect to find Jesus, a brothel, is the first place He shows up.
50 Shades demonstrates that we are looking for God, and we don't even know it. That's reason for sorrow. However, the ministry of Jesus demonstrates that God is looking for us, and even in the places we are trying to lose him. That's reason for joy.
***
*I am indebted to the writers at Door Of Faith for the phrase, "God knocks on the brothel door looking for man."
***
Chesterton on "50 Shades." Just substitute 50 Shades" for "Cannibalism" ...
But with the appeal to lower spirits comes the horrible notion that the gesture must not only be very small but very low; that it must be a monkey trick of an utterly ugly and unworthy sort. Sooner or later a man deliberately sets himself to do the most disgusting thing he can think of. It is felt that the extreme of evil will extort a sort of attention or answer from the evil powers under the surface of the world. This is the meaning of most of the cannibalism in the world.
For most cannibalism is not a primitive or even a bestial habit. It is artificial and even artistic; a sort of art for art's sake. Men do not do it because they do not think it horrible; but, on the contrary, because they do think it horrible. They wish, in the most literal sense, to sup on horrors. That is why it is often found that rude races like the Australian natives are not cannibals, while much more refined and intelligent races, like the New Zealand Maories, occasionally are. They are refined and intelligent enough to indulge sometimes in a self-conscious diabolism. But if we could understand their minds, or even really understand their language, we should probably find that they were not acting as ignorant, that is as innocent cannibals. They are not doing it because they do not think it wrong, but precisely because they do think it wrong. They are acting like a Parisian decadent at a Black Mass. But the Black Mass has to hide underground from the presence of the real Mass. In other words, the demons have really been in hiding since the coming of Christ on earth. The cannibalism of the higher barbarians is in hiding from the civilization of the white man. But before Christendom, and especially outside Europe, this was not always so.
-GK Chesterton, "Demons and Philosophers," The Everlasting Man.
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