jeffreymark

POSTMODERNISM AND THE CHURCH

Like most of my contemporaries my secular education consisted of enlightenment laced curriculum neatly packaged in a diploma which reads Texas Tech University. Yet, a funny thing happened on the way down from the ivory tower-enlightment died years ago and postmodernism took its place. Postmodernism, supported by major cultural influencers today, is both skeptical of and open to all philosophies, faith included. The emergent church gets this and has jumped on this openness to faith as a door into redemptive ministries. I plan to spend more time learning how one can share their faith within this context.

THE BIG PICTURE

I always marvel at informed pundit's inability or refusal to examine a politician's worldview. Most simply relish the pseudo intellectual exercise of debating issues one by one. A person's worldview, on the other hand, explains why the world is the way it is. It determines the issues we so passionately debate. That worldview gets shaped through ones formative years via education, family, and friends.

Rush Limbaugh intuitively knows this, and steadily, implicitly, beats it's proverbial drum. Today, he once again reminded his listeners of Obama's real agenda as an extension of his worldview:

Yeah, damn right I mean to say that! Who else did it? Were we doing anything else before he was elected and immaculated? We weren't on this course! Yes. I damn well mean, "Yes, Obama has destroyed!" You know, I use the words I mean, Snerdley, and I like hearing myself say them. Remember, I love being right. So when I tell you, "Obama has destroyed more jobs than any president in modern history," I mean it. Same thing goes for homeownership. Obama destroys home ownership more than any president in modern history. Was any of that going on before he was inaugurated? He runs up the debt more than any president in history, period. 

He's spreading the wealth around to his political donors and supporters more than any president I can remember. That's what Solyndra and all this green energy crap is about. It's not about green energy or anything else. It's about spreading wealth so it comes back to him in the form of campaign donations and votes and what have you. We're supposed to trust him with trillions of dollars more, and he says he'll create jobs with it? He's got a two-and-a-half-year track record, folks, of not knowing the first thing about it and frankly not caring about creating jobs in the private sector. He's the president of the wrong country. He'd fit perfect the as the president of Greece or Spain. He is the perfect socialist. He uses all of their rhetoric. He'd make a perfect Hugo Chavez. He'd be a great Labour Party leader in Britain. But he's ruining this country. Pure and simple.

A PATRIOTIC CALL TO THE FAITHFUL

Often pastors come into the cross-hairs of their parishioners when waxing eloquent about anything other than ethereal matters. “We want more spiritual stuff,” they exclaim with vacuity and thousand yard stares. Private morality equals absolute virtue in less than seasoned disciples.   I believe, however, the collective social anxiety we experience today relates directly to both our private and public morals. In fact, our founding fathers believed public virtue trumped private virtue. The book of James envisions both as an ice burg, whose tip warns of the massive roots below. Consider these words from his epistle:

You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar?  You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend.  You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone. (2:20-24 NIV)

Assessing the contemporary moral climate in a rather Billy Grahamesque way- we are in a social free-fall indicative of our internal moral cancer. The persistent chronic denial of our moral malady is now manifest in our collective skeptical attitude. And, we cynically snicker at empty political promises. We need healing. Once, perhaps twice (historians debate the number) in our history we experienced a great spiritual awakening manifested via sweeping social changes, triggered not from centralized government authority, but from the Church. Indeed, according to a legion of Christian historians, the Church has been the faithful staple of the American character throughout history.  My former history professor at Asbury Theological Seminary, Dr. Melvin Dieter, once opined: 

When protesters violently marched on Washington during the 60s and 70s  the Church provided a principled fiber that kept us from coming unglued. (ATS Classroom Lecture, Spring 1981)

According to Dieter the Church really did become “salt and light.”  

In addition, few historians and silver tongued politicians have wrongly attributed these words to French historian Alexis de Tocqueville:

I sought for the greatness of the United States in her commodious harbors, her ample rivers, her fertile fields, and boundless forests-- and it was not there. I sought for it in her rich mines, her vast world commerce, her public school system, and in her institutions of higher learning--and it was not there. I looked for it in her democratic Congress and her matchless Constitution--and it was not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great! 

Whoever originally penned these thoughts (tradition has it they represent a confluence of both Eisenhower and Reagan speech writers) certainly captured our nation's seminal character. They also should sound the clarion call to all in the Church who care about tradition, decency, and future generations.  Our children depend on it.

FROM PARADISE TO PURGATORY

The City of Angels now looks like a city of demons. Used to, Los Angeles seemed like a another planet. We Texans made an idealistic trek to the city of starlets and Disney Land our life's goal. In addition some blame the city's decline on liberal policies come home to roost. And, to hear Joel Kotkin of City Journal describe it, one might mistake LA for Castro's Havana. Kotikin strongly suggests that arduous regulations, an affectionate staple of liberals, and maniacal environmentalists bear much of the blame: 

Meantime, business-strangling regulations proliferate. Many of these originate with the environmental movement, which Villaraigosa and other Democrats count on for political support and media validation. The city has tried repeatedly to control emissions at the port from ships and trucks, for example. Also harmful are various labor-friendly regulations, such as the city’s effort to expand unions’ presence from the docks to the entire network of trucks serving the port—essentially forcing out independent carriers, many of them Latino entrepreneurs, in favor of larger firms using Teamster drivers.

Such policies could backfire, says economist John Husing, who has done extensive research on the port sector and who calls L.A.’s port by far the largest generator of blue-collar employment in the region. They could lead shippers to transfer their business to cheaper and less heavily regulated ports elsewhere, precipitating a shift of blue-collar employment to Charleston, Houston, Savannah, and other growth-oriented southern cities. This is particularly dangerous given the planned 2014 widening of the Panama Canal, which will make southeastern ports far more competitive for Asia-based trade. “Our ferocious concentration on the environment and other issues has created a huge potential issue of social justice bigger than we might want to deal with,” Husing says. “We are telling blue-collar workers here that we don’t want you to have a job.”

Continue reading about this one time paradise turned purgatory here. 

INDEPENDENCE DAY THOUGHTS

In 1946 a young Congressional candidate by the name of John F. Kennedy delivered a compelling address in Boston defining the essential elements of the American character. In particular, Kennedy suggested this concerning religion:

Our deep religious sense is the first element of the American character which I would discuss this morning. The informing spirit of the American character has always been a deep religious sense. Throughout the years, down to the present, a devotion to fundamental religious principles has characterized American thought and action. Our government was founded on the essential religious idea of integrity of the individual. It was this religious sense which inspired the authors of the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights." Our earliest legislation was inspired by this deep religious sense: "Congress shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise of religion." Our first leader, Washington, was inspired by this deep religious sense: "Of all of the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports." Lincoln was inspired by this deep religious sense: "That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth." Our late, lamented President was inspired by this deep religious sense: "We shall win this war, and in victory we shall seek not vengeance, but the establishment of an international order in which the spirit of Christ shall rule the hearts of men and nations." Thus we see that this nation has ever been inspired by essential religious ideas. The doctrine of slavery which challenged these ideas within our own country was destroyed. Recently, the philosophy of racism, which threatened to overwhelm them by attacks from abroad, was also met and destroyed. Today these basic religious ideas are challenged by atheism and materialism: at home in the cynical philosophy of many of our intellectuals, abroad in the doctrine of collectivism, which sets up the twin pillars of atheism and materialism as the official philosophical establishment of the State. Inspired by a deeply religious sense, this country, which has ever been devoted to the dignity of man, which has ever fostered the growth of the human spirit, has always met and hurled back the challenge of those deathly philosophies of hate and despair. We have defeated them in the past; we will always defeat them. How well, then, has DeTocqueville said: "You may talk of the people and their majesty, but where there is no respect for God can there be much for man? You may talk of the supremacy of the ballot, respect for order, denounce riot, secession--unless religion is the first link, all is vain."

That speech embraces an indispensable truth-a nation's strength rests on the bedrock of faith. When faith recedes the foundation quakes, sending shockwaves through every sector of life imaginable. Jesus authorized the Church to take responsibility for building the culture upon this eternal, stable rock when he exhorted, "You are the salt of the earth" and the "light of the world." Interestingly, Jesus expounds on that "light" bit explaining, "A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under a bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all the house." (Matt.5:13-16 NRSV) Our faith in Christ lights the way for the culture. Kennedy infers such when he quotes DeTocqueville suggesting that if religion fails to take precedent all subsequent benevolent endeavors are futile.

This Independence Week ought to remind us of Christ's eternal trust passed on to this generation through the saints of old. Pray that God will soften our collective heart, call us to repentance, and save us from ourselves.

(riginally posted July 3, 2007)

CONFESSIONS OF A HOMOPHOBE

I acquiesce. I'm a homophobe. A genuine, modern day ignoramus. I'm worse than a Texas Aggie. (all in fun you Aggies realize) Problem is, I'm hopelessly terminal. This disease shall not wane in my lifetime. I shall always be pathological. But, thank God Southern Seminary president and radio reverend Albert Mohler assures me I'm not alone:

Our greatest fear is not that homosexuality will be normalized and accepted, but that homosexuals will not come to know of their own need for Christ and the forgiveness of their sins.

This is not a concern that is easily expressed in sound bites. But it is what we truly believe.

It is now abundantly clear that evangelicals have failed in so many ways to meet this challenge. We have often spoken about homosexuality in ways that are crude and simplistic. We have failed to take account of how tenaciously sexuality comes to define us as human beings. We have failed to see the challenge of homosexuality as a Gospel issue. We are the ones, after all, who are supposed to know that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only remedy for sin, starting with our own.

We have demonstrated our own form of homophobia—not in the way that activists have used that word, but in the sense that we have been afraid to face this issue where it is most difficult . . . face to face.

While I sometimes find Mohler a bit too tenacious when offering his credo, I must admit I take comfort in his Biblical essentials, particularly the high view of Scripture which forms the basis for our so called "phobias." Some things are true even when the polls suggests 99% of the public thinks otherwise. I'm reminded of Pilate, the crowd, the thief, and Jesus. The herd mentality, often essentially evil, gets it wrong. History, the unmerciful lie detector, confirms this. 

Read more Mohler here.

 

TALKIN' ABOUT MY GGGGENERATION

My father, WWII veteran, passed away suddenly in 1980 at the young age of 60. He witnessed a mild, yet frightful generational uprising of the boomers during the 70's. Vietnam protests, men with long hair, pot-heads, all seemed foreign to his small Great Depression tempered character.  Were he to miraculously rise from the dead today he may feel as though he helplessly tumbled into the video below.

DAMNED NAZIS

The picture below speaks for itself. 

Professor Bainbridge adds his commentary. Nuff said.

GALLUP SUGGESTS OBAMA SUPPORTERS PREDOMINATELY NON CHRISTIAN

According to the latest Gallup poll Obama's current supporters fall predominately in the non Christian category. Rush Limbaugh quizzically suggests he knows not what this means. It may further substantiate Franklin Graham's statement that Obama's administration seems hostile toward evangelical Christians. (watch video below) Graham never infers President Obama himself is stoking the fires of hostility. He does, however, challenge Obama to look into the matter. All of this coming off the heels of the Army's rescinding their invitation to Graham to speak a the Pentagon National Prayer breakfast because of remarks he made about Islam religion.

And, we must remember Obama's history. He cut his teeth on Socialist liberation theology like that espoused by the Reverend Wright. He associated with Socialist radicals such as the Weather Underground. Lately we discover his Supreme Court nominee wrote her undergraduate thesis at Princeton on Socialism in New York. In that publication she strongly sympathizes with radical Socialists who seek to infiltrate our culture. Socialist movements are predicated on an atheistic philosophy. They view Christianity, particularly evangelical Christianity, as a threat to society's well being.  It seems only natural that elements hostile to evangelicals exists in the Obama administration. 

WHAT VICTOR DAVIS HANSON SEES AT THE REVOLUTION

A new revolution lurks in America. Not one from lower income needy types or the over taxed, but a revolution that begins at the top. Ultra privileged intelligentsia are transforming our culture from a mom and pop driven foundation to an oligarchy dictated by hypocrites. 

Taking a page from Thomas Sowell our favorite man of letters, Victor Davis Hanson, passionately explicates the essence of the revolution:

The result is that we are witnessing  a quiet but insidious revolution. At home, if successful, the state and its vast array of newly hired employees, will administer our health care system, as well as education loans (and that will need a sort of new agency like the Postal Service or DMV). We now take for granted take-overs of much of the automobile industry and financial organizations. Should cap and trade pass, the administration would be dictating energy use. If you add it up — going to the doctor, driving a car, stopping by an ATM, flipping on the lights, taking out a student loan — you could run bump into a lot of new federal bureaucrats. And that’s the point, isn’t it after all?

I doubt anyone in the administration believes that these new public sectors of the economy will be better run. (After all, the Obamas themselves did not wish to live in a city-run housing tract, or send their children to an inner-city public school: wishing to be paid by the government is rather different than relying on the government).

So the point instead is I think fourfold:

a) those who profit from running these new agencies will be our new anointed class, at the top, Ivy-League technocrats, and lower down among the ranks, the politically deserving: power and patronage; b) the resultant cost increases will require more taxes on those whose ill-gotten gains should be properly redistributed to the commune; gorge the beast; c) in political terms, a constituency that either administers or receives federal larges (think of an ACORN/SEIU hybrid) will prove a predictably loyal base in future elections: dependent future voters; d) federal and state wages and pensions will remind us all during tough times that government “service” is the only steady, reliable, and fair employer: we will all end up the same.

Interestingly, years ago Reagan speech writer Peggy Noonan published a book where she opined about what she saw at the Reagan revolution. Drawing inferences from Hanson, however, leads one to assume Reagan's revolution was a mere halftime speech in a game in which liberal intelligentsia possess the momentum.  Read Hanson's timely piece here.