There are some very flawed views (of the Libertarian variety)
in this piece and yet in general it is correct regarding the way in which the
military has formed a nexus with American Evangelical culture.
It needs to be said. American Evangelicalism is a heretical
cult. Just like other cults it has some truth but it is obscured and destroyed
by the syncretism and the alien and idolatrous ideology that has infected it.
Like Gnosticism, the enemy of the Early Church, it represents
a blend of Christian doctrine and terminology with the values and concepts of
another religion. This is why I often refer to it as Christo-Americanism. It
comes with its own version of history, its own mythology and certainly its own
ethics that are quite contrary to the Apostolic Christianity of the New
Testament. We might also add that in many cases Christo-Americanism also
incorporates a secondary canon. The Gnostics had their texts, the
Christo-Americans have deified the founding documents even though they are in
many cases utterly at odds with Christian doctrine.
We need not become Libertarians to avoid the cult of the
state. We can simply follow the teachings of the New Testament and live as
strangers and pilgrims on the earth. We understand the role of the state in
God's Providence and Common Grace. And yet we don't join with it or venerate
it. The Libertarians have fallen into another form of idolatry and yet at this
point perhaps it's a somewhat healthy reaction. We hope in time many Christians
will settle into the Biblical view that rejects both statist nationalism and
Libertarianism. I hope the ascendant Libertarianism in the Church is but a
phase. And yet I also fear that it will lead many into a path of violence.
If you're sitting in a Church that's worshipping the American
Empire and making idols of its concepts and symbols, sacralising its wars and
conquests, it's very simple.
You need to get up and leave. You're in a pagan temple. You
cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils.
Would you attend a Mormon service? You might as well be.
You're worshipping under the auspices of a false gospel and to be honest the 'Christ'
of American Christianity is not the Christ of the New Testament any more than
is the 'Christ' of Mormonism.
My observation of the Libertarianism that has emerged in conservative Reformed and Lutheran circles has been that its focus is primarily on economics. They decry the perceived largesse the "nanny state" bestows on its constituents, whether it be food stamps to welfare recipients or bailouts and tariff protection to large corporations. They describe the current system as "crony capitalism" and long for a return to the halcyon days of small, "mom-and-pop" businesses dotting the landscape, relying on their wits to succeed and not looking to the night-watchman government to come to their rescue in times of peril. That the latter has never existed in its purest form and has always evolved into the former is a discussion for another time, but these same people love their military. They just don't like paying for it.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, did you listen to that Issues, Etc. segment I e-mailed you? What did you think?
To be fair there are some Libertarians even in Reformed circles that have embraced the full implications of the Libertarian position and its localism and have decried the warfare state. They're not pacifists or anything like that but they have realised that militarism and localism are incompatible. They are a tiny minority. On those points I can agree with some of what they say but as usual they're fatally flawed in their failure to grasp that capitalism is wedded to the nation state, finance, cronyism and war. They're merely stages in the system's evolution.
ReplyDeleteTheir system died with the American frontier over a century ago and if you actually look into the economics of the frontier West from the Revolution to the turn of the 20th century you'll find their model never worked in those circumstances either. Undoubtedly they will blame this on the state.
I did listen to it. It was actually kind of interesting. It's interesting because Roback-Morse is a feminist critiquing feminists. There's that element that always comes out in her interviews.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the transgender stuff, I appreciated a couple points she made, the incongruity of claiming someone is born with an orientation but then making gender itself fluid, subjective and something that can be modified.
The idea then that it's right to counsel someone about changing their gender but immoral to change their orientation is indeed schizophrenic and incoherent. That was an excellent point.
Also I enjoyed the point about the hardcore man-hating feminist (often lesbian) types that are struggling to accept men claiming to be women. They don't want to let them into the sisterhood. I have wondered about that in the past. It's kind of like deep down everyone knows this isn't real and its not.
Aside from that, the interview was more of the same. The fact that she's a Christian career-woman feminist who now works with Glenn Beck is no surprise.
It's very frustrating isn't it? It's hard to find anyone that you can endorse or recommend. There's always something, some fatal flaw or cancerous element to what they're about. I can learn things and benefit from many teachers, even those I strongly disagree with but it requires discernment. I hope I've been given a little. But it seems like most people can't make it work. I even knew one guy that insisted that I was wrong because I didn't 'sign on' with one camp in any realm of ideas. My cobbled together quasi-system/method demonstrated that I was wrong. He believed that you have to belong to a school of thought and stand with it and drink from its wells.
He wasn't very bright and it's interesting because almost twenty years later I can say my course has been a fairly steady one. He's been all over the place. He was at one time a Reformed paedobaptist with a notion of antithesis (even straying into legalism) and today he's just a fluffy Evangelical, baptistic, worldly type who's plugged in with the mainstream of the church and society and even the military and all the other things Evangelicals celebrate. From what I can tell his adult children have followed the same path into worldliness minus much in the way of Christianity. It's disturbing to watch such a fall. He thinks he's been liberated but I see one enslaved and utterly lacking in the most important thing.... wisdom.
For anyone interested we're talking about the interview found here:
ReplyDeletehttp://issuesetc.org/2016/04/25/2-do-the-gay-rights-and-transgendered-rights-movements-have-the-same-goals-dr-jennifer-roback-morse-42516/
Did you happen to notice that the next day Wilken interviewed Mark Tooley, the ex-CIA conservative activist within the United Methodist organisation?
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of Nihilism, horror and yet laughter, this video might even be scarier than the video of the man trying to be a little girl:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7_5b1nqg_o
You can't help but watch but at the same time you have to ask... why am I watching this? Why do I feel dirty, like I need to go and take a shower?
I didn't understand why this was Nihilism? William Shatner's comedy is that bad?!
Deletedefinitely a sign of the end
DeleteHe can't sing!
DeleteNo, I didn't listen to that interview and I'm reticent to do so, although in all fairness I guess I should. I don't know how you do it on a regular basis and retain your sanity.
ReplyDeleteWanna know something else I noticed? When the Panama Papers scandal hit the news, Issues, Etc. didn't devote a single program to it. They didn't even bring Terry Mattingly on to criticize the media coverage of it. I guess they figured gay marriage was a more hot-button, life-or-death issue. What a let-down. They have some great theological minds on that show but when they segue into politics or economics, it's almost like any pretense of antithesis is removed and they show themselves to be the subservient establishment mouthpieces they truly are.