By In Books, Politics, Pro-Life

Abortion and Rights, by George Parkin Grant

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“Behind the conflict of rights (between the mother and the fetus MH), there is unveiled in the debate about abortion an even more fundamental question about rights themselves.  What is it about human beings that makes it proper that we should have any rights at all?  Because of this the abortion issue involves all modern societies in basic questions of political principle.

These questions of principle were brought out into the open for Americans, when the Supreme Court of that country made it law that no legislation can be passed which prevents women from receiving abortions during the first six months of pregnancy.  In laying down the reasons for that decision, the judges speak as if they were basing it on the supremacy of rights in a democratic society.  But to settle the case in terms of rights, the judges say that the mother has all the rights, and that the foetus has none.  Because they make this distinction, the very principle of rights is made dubious in the following way. In negating all rights to the foetuses, the court says something negative about what they are, namely that they are such as to warrant no right to continued existence.  And because the foetus is of the same species as the mother, we are inevitably turned back onto the fundamental question of principle: what is it about the mother (or any human being) that makes it proper that she should have rights?  Because in the laws about abortion one is forced back to the stark comparison between the rights of members of the same species (our own), the foundations of the principles behind rights are unveiled inescapably.  What is it about our species that gives us rights beyond those of dogs or cattle?

The legal and political system, which was the noblest achievement of the English-speaking societies, came forth from our long tradition of free institutions and Common Law, which was itself produced and sustained by centuries of Christian belief.   Ruthlessness in law and politics was limited by a system of legal and political rights which guarded the individual from  the abuses of arbitrary power, both by the state and other individuals.  The building of this system has depended on the struggle and courage of many, and was fundamentally founded on the Biblical assumption that human beings are the children of God.  For this reason, everybody should be properly protected by carefully defined rights.  Those who advocate easy abortions in the name of rights are at the same time unwittingly undermining the very basis of rights.  Their complete disregard for the unborn weakens the very idea of rights itself. This weakening does not portend well for the continuing health of our system.” —George Parkin Grant, Technology & Justice 1986

“George Parkin Grant, 1918-1988, has been acknowledged as Canada’s leading political philosopher since the publication of Philosophy in the Mass Age 1959.  He was the author of Lament for a Nation, Technology & Empire, and English-Speaking Justice.  He taught religion and philosophy at McMaster University and Dalhousie University.” (from the back cover of Technology & Justice)<>правила написания продающих текстовопределения позиции а

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By In Theology

Not Looking Over Our Shoulders

The mean God of the Old Testament asks us to take a second look at the word “mean.”

Last week I read a post from Rachel Held Evans in which she criticized Evangelicals for having a heart-less faith. By this she means that Evangelicals are quick to accept the severity of God in order to retain doctrinal ease. For many an evangelical, a doctrinal card trumps the joker of doubt that shows up when confronted with the hand of God’s judgment. Such answers, she said, “never sat right with my soul.” Some things the Bible pins on God are at least, “morally reprehensible at an intuitive level.” Don’t we know what she means?

Let’s not kid around here – we all know what she means. But is she right that there is no answer to satisfy the question? No answer that actually resolves the problem? Mrs. Evans has done well to live with the doubt rather than leaving the faith. For that I am glad. Many of us have done this. Doubt makes Christians feel guilty. If we were to actively deal with doubt we would have to admit that we are actively questioning God. So we ask the doubt to please, Pipe down!

But the monster of doubt, I believe, does not like to sit quietly in his office minding paperwork. Doubt is a debt collector – wicked and persistent. You may not open the bills. You may even drop them into the filing cabinet without a thought. But the debt collector will hunt you down. He knows where you live, and he will eventually insist that you reconcile the math.

The deficit I am describing is “cognitive dissonance.” That’s the name for when you believe two things simultaneously that logically cannot both be true. The distance between your illogical beliefs is a debt that someday must be paid if you will ever have peace of mind. Between the contradictory views you hold, one will eventually solidify and edge out the other one. But notice that it is dangerous for us to resolve this dissonance by asking our own hearts, our own minds, and our own surroundings to show us the truth. All these sources are fallen and will lead us to unfaith rather than faith. Since we have become used to allowing our hearts or our culture to trump scripture, we are set up for solidifying against scripture when we resolve the cognitive dissonance. And this means we have effectively prepared ourselves for loss of faith when doubt comes to collect. I believe a whole generation of Christians have bought a bill of goods on bad credit. Like the youngsters a decade ago who bought adjustable rate mortgages because they were cheap, we have bought the mindset of our culture because it is easy. And now, a whole generation of Christians will be surprised when life changes the rates on them, and now they owe more than they can pay, and they have to call mom and dad and say, “I just don’t believe anymore.”

As I look at the current landscape of especially Evangelicalism, I believe it is helpful to identify three lines of thought that are going to continue to drag a lot of young Christians out of the church. I intend to look at one of these lines each in three separate posts.

1) Sexual Liberty — One such belief is the belief that sexuality is personal and cannot be judged. Once we are emotionally committed to a sexual situation which the Bible calls unlawful, it becomes nearly impossible to just “snap out of it.” Sex sells. And the first good sold by unlawful sex is doubt that anyone could judge us. Especially not a God who made us with these feelings. This debt is reconciled by accepting the lie that our desires tell us what God must have really meant.

2) Contra-theistic Science — A second belief that vies for our people is the belief that the only good explanation for the data of our material makeup is evolution. A great cloud of witnesses from Richard Dawkins all the way down to Koko’s kitten will tell us verified facts about our Genome. No problem. One little adjustment will render us safe: Tada! Genesis 1-11 is now a new genre of Bible literature: “true myth.” Now we Christians have discovered that we indeed did come from a common ancestor of the chimpanzee. However, Noah’s ark and Adam’s naming of the animals is somehow “theologically true,” even if they are not intended as history. We float along accepting that the Bible is cool with evolution, and then one day we happen to read Roman 5 or Acts 17 out loud, and it hits us that the New Testament also is laboring under the delusion of Genesis as fact. The debt monster makes us pay up by forcing us to decide between a flawless Jesus and the ease of believing NPR Science Friday.

Those are really great topics, by the way, for future discussion. And before I continue without dealing with the first two areas, let me say that if you are being hauled out of the church by these issues, I am not mocking your pain. This pain is so real that if we don’t deal with it, it will overwhelm many of us, and many of our children. Our culture, and our churches need to work all that out. But the third area is the one pertinent to this post.

3) Autonomous Justice — The third belief is that morality can be had without submission to a revealed will of God. We are not splitting hairs to point out the difference between saying that Atheists act as moral beings, and saying that Atheist possess logical grounds for supporting their moral actions. But it is hardly atheists with whom I wish to argue in this moment. Christians, we ourselves have gotten so used to being shown morality apart from scripture, that we too are willing to believe that morality is defined on its own, or according to our feelings, or by any means other than the revealed word of God.

When this happens, there is a funny game that happens. It’s kind of like when a dog runs in circles, trying to catch its own tail: we start with what we think the bible says, and let a partial reading of the bible to judge the actual rest of the bible as wicked. We say we accept the Bible, but we limit our knowledge of what the Bible means to a few feel-good prooftexts from Jesus. We come to the conclusion that Jesus was about being nice, and about “not-judging.” Because we are sure we know how Jesus was a pacifist and a sweetie, we form a view of what Christianity ought to be like, and how God would act if he were true to form, and this solidifies in our heads.

But then we read Psalm 58. We read the command to sacrifice Isaac. We read Psalm 137. Let’s not kid around here, we all know what I’m talking about. God is bloody and judgmental, and very unlike Jesus.  Right? At least, we are starting to have trouble after reading that “Samuel hacked Agag to pieces before the Lord at Gilgal” (1 Sam 15.33). And that is how the doubt sets in. But let us look at this situation again and realize that this doubt is produced by fallen judgment,  by our lack of knowledge of Jesus, and our lack of submission to the text as a whole. And especially it is produced by our inability to see ourselves as fallen. We are unable to be good judges without the transformation of God’s word.

Is Jesus a nicey? If we really read the Gospels, we would here: “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword,” (Matt 10.34). If we listened to Jesus we would hear: “I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled!” (Lk 12.49) That’s from the mouth of Jesus.

Are we submissive to the word we confess to believe? If we really used the Old Testament, and did not just read it, but if we really used it like we should, we would be singing Psalms. Psalm singers don’t just see vast portions of the Old Testament, but they actually confess the content of the Psalms as articles of faith. They confess that Yhwh is a warrior. They confess that God extracts vengeance. They confess that God is angry every day. They believe that God abhors the wicked. And not least – they believe that God is good and just.

Is all that blood and judgment talk making us queasy? Is it solidifying our doubt on the side that there just can’t be a God because all this uncomfortable stuff is so obviously bad? Is the supposed God of the Bible really a description of a being who would be vile if he did exist?

Here’s the trouble with that – You can’t judge the standard to be false while using the standard to judge. God can’t judge sin by his own authority and then be judged as a sinner by the authority of the sinners. If God is the standard, then God is also righteous. If there is no God for a standard, then nothing is wrong at all. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING could actually be wicked. Since God’s standard judges wickedness, we need to allow God to be a lethal God, and still call him righteous.

But we can’t easily hear that news…. because we are fallen in all our parts. We are fallen in our own ability to judge. Which is precisely why when our own sensibilities come screaming out against scripture, we had better ask God to change us. If you don’t believe the Bible already, that’s different. But if you do, then you need to recognize that the God who raised Jesus from the dead is also the God who damns the unrepentant.

Here’s a final review of the logic in short, starting with a presupposition that we have all already admitted, that evil exists:

There is evil. I participate in evil, and am affected by it (internally and externally). While I can sense that there is a difference between good and evil, I may not claim personal superiority, because I am part of it. There is a standard, and it sits over me, not I over it.

If I say there is evil, I admit the presence of a standard. I admit that the standard is real (otherwise evil is not evil), and that the standard is universal (or it is not “true”). So if we suppose good and evil are real, then there is necessarily a universal and always true goodness. We are saying then, that we believe in God. That we think the standard is real.

And as one of the billions of people in the world who are able to sense the difference between good and evil, I am also one of the people who can quite simply tell that I am part of the problem. I am a sinner, and it reaches as far as my heart. What Jeremiah says, I can sense to be consistent with my experience: “The heart is deceitful above all else, and is desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jer 17.9)

Guilt, then, is a very true friend. It tells me both that there is a God, and that I am not him.

I have a conscience – sensing evil, but my conscience is flawed – “desperately sick” because I am part of the evil I sense in the world. There must be a God who universally and really arbitrates good and evil, because he is the sole cause of the standard, and he himself is good. If I am ever to have true wisdom, rising above my sinfully flawed conscience, I must ask God for that wisdom. I must submit to the word of his wisdom if I hope to overcome the desperately sick heart I have inherited. He must defeat me.

The very fact that humans make and enforce laws is imitative of the presence of the God we all naturally know to be present. I am not, of course, saying that no one is convinced otherwise, but rather that even the lawful atheist has a conscience. He knows good and evil are real. He therefore admits that a universal standard of goodness is present – even if he says he doesn’t.

Now, there are atheists who say there is no standard but who want to enforce one anyway, and there are also Christians who say that there is a standard, but they have decided the human conscience is a higher arbiter of truth than the word of the God they believe to be the source of that wisdom. These two share a bodyless soul: a conscience that has no source.

And that disembodied conscience is what our culture and our politics reflect. A conscience that still bothers us because of God, but a people who can’t be bothered to look at him. We want the “values,” but we want to have values in a world without specifics. Without historic realities. And most importantly in a world where Jesus himself is not looking over our shoulders.<>siteметро газета объявлений

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By In Culture

Virginity: Christianity’s Main Idol?

Last October my daughter turned 13, and my wife and I took her out for her “promise ring” event.  The evening was a blast, the food was terrific, and the conversation was over-the-top.  We presented her with a ring to commemorate the event.  It was beautiful; she was beautiful; my wife was beautiful; the whole evening was just… beautiful.  During the conversation we focused in on the fact that she was becoming a woman and boys were probably going to start to notice.  The promises that were made that night concerned keeping lines of communication open about whatever may be going on in her life over the next few years. We want to rejoice with her as things go well, and help her through any times when things might not go so well.  We promised to talk about whichever boy that may show an interest, or that she might take an interest in when he comes calling.  The issue of virginity may have come up at certain points in the conversation, but that ideal is not one that is new to her.  Scripture is replete with references to God’s desire for sexual purity, so we did not wait until she was 13 to introduce them.  True love does not wait until your children are 13 to tell them that “true love waits”.

Attached to this post is a link to an article concerning the “downside” of the “True Love Waits” movement.  Perhaps that is the downside–that it is a movement of a Christian bookstore instead of the modus operandi of Christian families in the church.  The downsides referred to in the article concern “damaged goods” and “virginity as a commodity”.  The “damaged goods” issue comes into play since virginity can only be “lost” once.  After it’s gone, by definition, it’s gone.  The article raises some valid questions about how the emphasis on mass-marketed virginity can ostracize the young ladies who are no longer virgins and cannot possibly retrieve it.  They can be forgiven, but not be really “pure” like a girl who is still a virgin.  Is this loving to our neighbors?  Is this how we would want to be treated?  These are questions the article addresses.

I wouldn’t trade the evening with my wife and daughter last October for anything.  I do not plan on changing the general direction of how I am approaching my own daughter, but I appreciate the issues raised in this article.  I love my daughter enough to instruct her in righteousness and be there with her as she matures. Do I love my neighbor’s daughter enough to be careful with my words?  Are we wise and loving enough to preach “as far as the east is from the west” right alongside “you reap what you sow”?

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By In Politics

Henson Ong on Gun Control: “A free people can only afford to make this mistake once.”

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By In Politics

My Nominee for Man of the Year

I realize that this is essentially a symbolic act, and that the emotional reaction I get from it is much stronger than the actual impact it will have.  Still, I get a great deal of vicarious enjoyment out of seeing a man confront Congress as the negligent civil servants they are.

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By In Culture

The Role of Heretical Christianity in the Rise of Islam

Although North Africa enjoyed the blessing of the presence of Tertullian, Cyprian of Carthage and Augustine of Hippo, the impact of these great Catholic leaders was unable to maintain a long-lasting effect. The influence of Vandal Arianism supplanted Trinitarian Catholicism to the point that when the Muslims invaded from the East, there was no sufficient, theological base in the North Africans to resist the new Islamic heresies. Through a series of events, over a couple of centuries, the Byzantine people, and their Catholic culture, had become undesirable to the North Africans. When Vandal Arianism arrived on the scene, the North Africans were emotionally and psychologically prepared to have their Catholic dogma replaced. They did not specifically seek it out, but they were unprepared to repel the Vandal Arian heresy. Upon the acceptance of Vandal Arianism, the North Africans rejected Chalcedonian Christology and therefore, had no problem with the Islamic idea that Jesus was only a great prophet and that Mohammed had come as an even greater, and final, prophet. It was this religious difference between North Africa and the rest of Europe and southwest Asia, rather than any economic or socio-political differences, that opened the door for Islam to nearly eradicate Christianity from northern Africa.

Vandal Arianism developed in the Teutonic regions of northern Europe where Christ was viewed as a step above the average man, rather than a “second degree” God as he was viewed in Hellenic Arianism.  Jesus was a hero, a commander, or king, but not God like the divine All-Father.  This is as clearly heresy as the Hellenic version, albeit distinctive in the details.

In the early 430’s, the Teutonic general, Geiseric moved down through the Iberian Peninsula across the Straits of Gibraltar into North Africa.  By 439 he had conquered North Africa from present-day Mauritania to Tripoli in Libya.  He had become “master of North Africa”.  As surely as modern politicians show favors to those who will be favorable to advance their campaign, Geiseric, a Vandal Arian, promoted his religion in all the cities of his dominion.  Things were much easier for adherents to Vandal Arianism than for those who maintained the Trinitarian Catholic faith. Many clerics were exiled to Italy and the treasures of the local churches confiscated for Arian use.  To portray Geseric and his successors as merely religious zealots would be to oversimplify the matter, for politics played an important role in establishing their rule over the Berber people of North Africa.  With little to no religious allegiance to Rome or Constantinople, a North African ruler could count on that much more fidelity from his constituency. These anti-Catholic moves by the North African leaders, as well as some dumb moves by the Byzantines and Catholics themselves, solidified the shift from Trinitarian Christianity to Vandal Arianism.

Mohammed crafted his vision in 610 A.D., and within 80 years of his death in 632 A.D., his followers had spread the Muslim religion and kingdom throughout the Middle East, Egypt, North Africa and Spain.  Although the Byzantine generals and troops put up a fight every step of the way, the Arian predisposition of the Berber peoples in North Africa made them prime candidates for conversion to the Muslim faith.  This predisposition to a subordinate Christology aligned them more closely with an Islamic view of Jesus than a Catholic one.  The Quran refers to Jesus as a Prophet and the son of the virgin Mary but also says that Mohammed was a greater servant of God than Jesus. The Vandal Arian heresy had primed the pump for the next greater one than Jesus to come along.  As C.J. Speel surmises,

“Conversion from Teutonic Arianism, the faith of the bulk of North Africa’s population from ca. 450 to ca. 670 A.D., to Islam was an easy step.  In Teutonic Arianism Jesus was not God; neither was He the “Second degree” God of Arius, a philosophical logos.  He was a great tribal leader, or healer, or commander, an historical figure, a man who was manifested as the Son of God. Islam did not seriously alter this picture of Jesus; it simply added another and even more distinguished figure—the Prophet of Mecca to whom was revealed in most recent times the will of God.”

By 698 A.D. Carthage had fallen to Muslim invaders and has not yet risen from the ashes.  This is not simply an accounting of things that happened a long time ago on a continent far, far away.  We are not only concerned for the conversion of North Africans to Christianity, but we must take note of the current state of Christianity in our own land.  If a shift from the Trinitarian Catholic Faith of the historic creeds of the church is a tell-tale sign of what is coming, then we need to hang on tight.  This ride is about to get a lot bumpier.

For example, we are not too far removed from the Republican Mormon that was offered to us for consideration last November.  He was weighed in balances and found wanting, but the sobering thing is that he accomplished being the last “conservative” on the scale.  What are conservative Americans attempting to accomplish if a Mormon is the man for the job?  Trinitarian Christianity cannot be anywhere but on the fringes of American culture if Mitt Romney made it as far as he did.  Not to mention the support he received from overtly Christian organizations like Billy Graham’s, who removed Mormonism from its list of cults on their website a few months before the election.  “Christian” leaders like Joel Osteen, the pastor of a Houston church, with about a million members, says that “Mitt Romney is a believer in Christ like me.”  If Osteen was the exception rather than the rule, it would be different, but American Christians bought it hook, line and sinker, and sent Romney up against Obama.  As least the Vandal Arians imposed the rule on the North Africans as their conquerors, as opposed to the GOP, who has willingly traded Nicaea and Chalcedon for some golden plates found buried on a hill in New York.

This is not meant to be a harsh judgment of folks who view the General Election as a zero-sum game, and therefore felt compelled to vote for one of the two options, however abhorrent the choices were.  It’s not the individual’s vote in November that is as disconcerting as the fact that Romney was ever considered viable by the conservative populace.

I did not intend for this to end up being a rant about last November as much as a recognition that America is following in the footsteps of the North African culture, which has not known Christendom for over 1300 years.  She walked away from orthodoxy and God let her keep walking.  America is just a flash in the pan compared to many cultures, and we’ve already walked away.

Speel II, C.J. “The Disappearance of Christianity from North Africa in the Wake of the Rise of Islam.” Church History 29, no. 4 (1960): 379-397. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3161925. Accessed February 1, 2013.<>dobavitоптимизация страницы а

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By In Politics

Plato’s Dual Morality

In the first volume of  Contra Mundum (1955) one of the authors refers to the dual morality of Plato who wrote in The Republic, Book III:

Then if anyone at all is to have the privilege of lying, the rulers of the State should be the persons; and they, in else should meddle with anything of the kind. . .their dealings either with enemies or their own citizens, may be allowed to lie for the public good. But nobody else should meddle with anything of the kind. . .

It looks like the modern state has mastered Plato.

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By In Politics

End of the Boy Scouts of America?

The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) National Executive Board will vote next week on whether to remove the ban on openly homosexual youth and adult leaders from its national membership policy. It will leave the issue for each individual Scouting unit to decide for itself. A vote on the matter by BSA is planned during an executive meeting in Irving, Texas, the first week of February.

I recently approached a California Boy Scout leader to ask his opinion.

Steve Macias: Some have asked if this is a repeat of what happened in the Girl Scouts where, “there are no membership policies on sexual preference.”

BSA Leader: I honestly do not know.  I’m concerned that the fix may already be in.  This ‘reconsideration’ was kept secret from the membership and chartering partners and only became public when someone in the national office leaked the news to the press.  It was just seven months ago that the BSA National Executive Board confirmed the prohibition on openly homosexual youth and adult leaders. So the proposed change in policy has taken everyone by surprise.

Steve Macias:  Is an alternative viable?

BSA Leader: It has already been done.  When the Girl Scouts of America succumbed to the dark side several years [ago], a group split off to form American Heritage Girls (AHG) and they have been growing slowly throughout the country.  AHG is based on biblical principles and has a partnership with the Boy Scouts.  They were one of the first sources to confirm that the Boy Scouts were being seduced by the dark side.

Steve MaciasDo you think other Boy Scout leaders would follow?

BSA Leader: Although it would be a challenge, it is possible to build an alternative organization.  The Boy Scouts have already established the model, which is half the battle.  The hard part is to get the churches behind it.  Many churches see Scouts as competition and not a complement to their own youth programs.  If the churches support such a movement, it can succeed.  But if they turn their backs as they so often do, then a new organization will have difficulty gaining traction.

Steve MaciasShould we as Christians consider leaving this organization?

BSA Leader: Regardless of what happens next week, I am not leaving the Boy Scouts.  I will stay and stand firm on my principles which happen to be the principles the Scouting movement was founded upon.  I will not run away or abandon ship.  I will stay and fight as long as I am able.  I am tired of surrendering ground. Unfortunately, this move is being driven by financial concerns.  I pray the BSA does not sell out its values for money and political and social acceptance.

There are two ways that you can express your opinion.  You can call (972) 580-2330 or you can send an email to nationsupportcenter@scouting.org.  Please take the time to voice your opinion on this issue at your earliest opportunity.

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By In Politics, Pro-Life

So be it!

Another reason why the world needs to read Peter Leithart: “If the price of regaining power is to abandon any semblance of Christian sexual morality, the price is too high. If the Republican party can’t bring itself to endorse a traditional understanding of marriage, let it split. If the Republican party can’t be bothered about the slaughter of the unborn, let it shatter into a million little pieces. Good Republicans will blame Bad Republicans for tearing the GOP to pieces. So be it.”<>оценка web а

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By In Politics

Prayer and Politics

In a panel discussion with Darryl Hart and Michael Horton, Peter Leithart argued persuasively for a liturgy that includes politics. The prayers of the saints are inherently political. When we pray the Psalms, we pray that God would act on our behalf and defend us from our enemies. When we pray for kings and other leaders, we are bringing the secular into the sacred. These prayers, in turn, shape our understanding of politics. We pray not only as sojourners, but also as rulers of the earth. We pray not only for the world to come, but for the transformation of this present world.<>vzlomat-kontakt.comчто такое сео оптимизация а

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