A pastor friend of mine emailed me last night just as I was texting back and forth with an evangelical leader. Both were on the exact same topic. There is extraordinary pressure right now on Christians and their churches to take up the cause of racial injustice in America. They should. But the question is how.
I've read it three times and plan to continue to reread as I ponder so many profound points you make. I think we can get lost in the labels Progressive and Conservative. In the world we live in with video making phones everywhere, it is hard to sweep mistreatment and abuse out of sight. And that's a good thing. Certainly, it is to be expected that some will seek to gain political advantage. They always have and always will. But there are reforms needed--common sense reforms based on values most Americans share. I wish there was a religious leader today with the standing to help lead us. But I can't name one. Nor can I name a political figure who seems capable of leading us through this morass safely. I pray we find a path through the next few months. It's going to be a bumpy ride.
MLK said, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of the character." Those in the alt-right don't accept that because they choose to judge by skin-color, which is determined by the amount of the pigment melanin, that everybody who isn't 100% albino has. Those in the progressive-left don't accept that because progressive ideology is dependent on classifying people based on everything but the content of their character.
Continetti's argument is BS. The violent riots related to George Floyd were based on one primary value, i.e., that advocates of progressive ideology are not in power and they want to be. Treating urban areas as cannon fodder was deemed an acceptable loss in the fight to regain power. It is not the case that progressives don't know that the violent destruction of private property is wrong. It is simply that they don't care because their ultimate good involves regaining power at all costs. In the progressives worldview, that is the moral basis for civilization, and they couldn't care less about the Constitution or the worldview of America's founders.
I don't always have to "like" what you say or "agree" with you. I try very hard to hear and understand your points. Learn what I can and weigh each point accordingly. At 57, I have lived a different life than someone at 70, 25, or 40. I keep trying to listen and understand and not just hear what people have to say with my response just tripping off my tongue because I want to get my thought in. That is a problem. People don't truly listen and respectfully articulate a response. The whole time a person is speaking the "listener" is fabricating their response. The fine art of listening is no longer taught. The education system no longer teaches critical thinking.
You make compelling points. Did the right abandon moral arguments because it wasn't winning elections?
I keep thinking of the Carter years. That the US voted him in because we wanted someone as different from Nixon as possible (or as different from the Nixon as portrayed in the media, anyway.) Four years of President Carter, who wound up with a tough row to hoe what with inflation and hostages...and then we swung to Reagan.
My point being that even if Biden wins...it's not the end of the world. Maybe we just need a little peace and quiet while we decide who we are and what we believe in.
If you've never read "The Naked Public Square," by John Neuhaus, I'd recommend it to you. Neuhaus was no fan of the religious right, as portrayed by the likes of Jerry Fallwell or his son; but he was crystal-clear on the problems that by necessity are created when religion, and the Judeo-Christian ethic that accompanies it, are removed from the public square. His point was that the loss of the religious voice in civic affairs does not create a void, but instead a vacuum. And that vacuum must be filled by something that speaks to people's innate, and ultimately religious needs. This usually takes the form of some sort of authoritarianism or soft tyranny. America's religious tradition provides a somewhat fragmented voice on matters of conscience or other moral questions, and has been slow to recognize the co-opting forms of religious zeal that these secular movements represent. But you are right that for America to regain it's footing, the Church has to regain it's footing, and enable those within it to make the moral argument for American/Western civilization. The weight of history is behind the Church. We who constitute it need to be the ones right now, who, in the words of WF Buckley, are standing athwart history, yelling "stop."
From Neuhaus:
"Chesterton's observation that America is a nation with the soul of a church underscores the fact that Americans are a people on purpose and by purpose. In most other major nations, the people were prior to the polity. America, however, has been fabricated, in the precise sense of that term, by ideas and beliefs. Religion provided the "sacred canopy" under which that deliberate construction took place. For this reason Tocqueville could confidently assert that religion is America's "first political institution." The founders' talk about "Nature and Nature's God" was a lowest common denominator form of ecumenism aimed at comprehending a diversity of beliefs, but it was not just rhetorical fluff. A limited, individualistic, and procedure-based polity was only plausible because so much else was already in place, so to speak. The values and virtues that the polity assumed were chiefly the business of religion. But there was no "separation" in the sense that term has assumed today.....There was, in short, an expansive understanding of what was "public" in American life. ... Some of those who deplore the decline of the public role of religion accuse militant secularists of engineering that decline. ...These religionists, however, seldom recognize the degree to which they have collaborated in their enemy's crusade."
I've read it three times and plan to continue to reread as I ponder so many profound points you make. I think we can get lost in the labels Progressive and Conservative. In the world we live in with video making phones everywhere, it is hard to sweep mistreatment and abuse out of sight. And that's a good thing. Certainly, it is to be expected that some will seek to gain political advantage. They always have and always will. But there are reforms needed--common sense reforms based on values most Americans share. I wish there was a religious leader today with the standing to help lead us. But I can't name one. Nor can I name a political figure who seems capable of leading us through this morass safely. I pray we find a path through the next few months. It's going to be a bumpy ride.
MLK said, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of the character." Those in the alt-right don't accept that because they choose to judge by skin-color, which is determined by the amount of the pigment melanin, that everybody who isn't 100% albino has. Those in the progressive-left don't accept that because progressive ideology is dependent on classifying people based on everything but the content of their character.
Continetti's argument is BS. The violent riots related to George Floyd were based on one primary value, i.e., that advocates of progressive ideology are not in power and they want to be. Treating urban areas as cannon fodder was deemed an acceptable loss in the fight to regain power. It is not the case that progressives don't know that the violent destruction of private property is wrong. It is simply that they don't care because their ultimate good involves regaining power at all costs. In the progressives worldview, that is the moral basis for civilization, and they couldn't care less about the Constitution or the worldview of America's founders.
Praying for God's wisdom so that His Church finds its voice and uses it properly.
I don't always have to "like" what you say or "agree" with you. I try very hard to hear and understand your points. Learn what I can and weigh each point accordingly. At 57, I have lived a different life than someone at 70, 25, or 40. I keep trying to listen and understand and not just hear what people have to say with my response just tripping off my tongue because I want to get my thought in. That is a problem. People don't truly listen and respectfully articulate a response. The whole time a person is speaking the "listener" is fabricating their response. The fine art of listening is no longer taught. The education system no longer teaches critical thinking.
That Continetti piece. Wow.
You make compelling points. Did the right abandon moral arguments because it wasn't winning elections?
I keep thinking of the Carter years. That the US voted him in because we wanted someone as different from Nixon as possible (or as different from the Nixon as portrayed in the media, anyway.) Four years of President Carter, who wound up with a tough row to hoe what with inflation and hostages...and then we swung to Reagan.
My point being that even if Biden wins...it's not the end of the world. Maybe we just need a little peace and quiet while we decide who we are and what we believe in.
If you've never read "The Naked Public Square," by John Neuhaus, I'd recommend it to you. Neuhaus was no fan of the religious right, as portrayed by the likes of Jerry Fallwell or his son; but he was crystal-clear on the problems that by necessity are created when religion, and the Judeo-Christian ethic that accompanies it, are removed from the public square. His point was that the loss of the religious voice in civic affairs does not create a void, but instead a vacuum. And that vacuum must be filled by something that speaks to people's innate, and ultimately religious needs. This usually takes the form of some sort of authoritarianism or soft tyranny. America's religious tradition provides a somewhat fragmented voice on matters of conscience or other moral questions, and has been slow to recognize the co-opting forms of religious zeal that these secular movements represent. But you are right that for America to regain it's footing, the Church has to regain it's footing, and enable those within it to make the moral argument for American/Western civilization. The weight of history is behind the Church. We who constitute it need to be the ones right now, who, in the words of WF Buckley, are standing athwart history, yelling "stop."
From Neuhaus:
"Chesterton's observation that America is a nation with the soul of a church underscores the fact that Americans are a people on purpose and by purpose. In most other major nations, the people were prior to the polity. America, however, has been fabricated, in the precise sense of that term, by ideas and beliefs. Religion provided the "sacred canopy" under which that deliberate construction took place. For this reason Tocqueville could confidently assert that religion is America's "first political institution." The founders' talk about "Nature and Nature's God" was a lowest common denominator form of ecumenism aimed at comprehending a diversity of beliefs, but it was not just rhetorical fluff. A limited, individualistic, and procedure-based polity was only plausible because so much else was already in place, so to speak. The values and virtues that the polity assumed were chiefly the business of religion. But there was no "separation" in the sense that term has assumed today.....There was, in short, an expansive understanding of what was "public" in American life. ... Some of those who deplore the decline of the public role of religion accuse militant secularists of engineering that decline. ...These religionists, however, seldom recognize the degree to which they have collaborated in their enemy's crusade."