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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.
<>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.<>
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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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 Macias: Do 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 Macias: Should 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.
Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a link is given.<>
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.”<>
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.<>
Immigration, Amnesty, and the Bible
The Senate has proposed–through some mini-caucus known as the Senate “Gang of Eight”–an immigration reform bill that has big support from the President, enough that he’s not going to offer his own proposal. The proposal begins with bipartisan support because the group is made up of four Republicans (McCain, Graham, Rubio, and Flake) and four Democrats (Schumer, Durbin, Menendez, and Bennet). Although, it having bipartisan support across Congress is less than promising.
The proposal is essentially one that mandates secure borders. Upon securing the border, a trigger is enacted that would give legal status to the approximately 11 million illegals living within the United States currently.
The proposal seems to be in opposition to the typical position held by conservatives: secure borders, no amnesty. Conservatives argue that while America is known as a melting pot of civilizations, no melting pot can remain a sovereign nation without protecting its values (such as a common language, religious values–on a very basic, general level, political ideas–typified in the Constitution, and patriotic loyalty. These things can be protected while the melting pot continues in diversity so long as the influx of diversity is restricted enough that the immigrants have time to be assimilated before their views can become the majority view.
Liberals, on the other hand, see it more along the lines of a human rights issue. These people came here for the chance to succeed and prosper and that’s what we have to offer, the “American Dream.” We cannot refuse a chance at the dream to someone just because we don’t like the minority background–a violation of human rights. It would be wrong to uproot these people (the 11 million illegal immigrants) from their homes, families, careers, churches, and communities simply because we don’t like the way they got here. They are already part of the melting pot, and doing just fine.
Libertarians–while far from a monolithic group–look at it from a slightly different perspective. America is made up of private property and private property holders. The government has no authority over private property and cannot restrict access to it. Thus, if I am a private property owner, I have the right to allow whomever I choose on my property, or to buy my property, or to be employed on my property. This means I can employ, sell to, or rent to anyone, regardless of their point of origin. The 11 million illegal immigrants are illegal based on the arbitrary rules of a government that is violating my private property rights when it makes such rules. The rule is, by definition, an illegal, unconstitutional, and unjust rule, and therefore should be reformed.
What needs to be considered in analyzing the “Gang of Eight’s” proposal is not whether the Democratic President Obama likes it, nor whether it was written by Democrats, Republicans, or both. It is not necessary to know whether FoxNews agrees with it or CNN or MSNBC or the Huffington Post or Drudge Report. What needs to be examined are the philosophical, theological, and political underpinnings of why one is in favor of or opposed to immigration.
For example, if you would normally take the conservative view, would you consistently apply those same arguments to the Church? Would you try to justify refusing Church membership to a large group of Chinese converts because they language, religious views, and values they would bring to your local congregation might overpower the values of the congregation currently?
If you would normally take the liberal view, would you consistently apply those same arguments to your own home? If someone just moved in and began homesteading on your property, would you refuse to have them forcibly removed on the basis of basic human rights?
If you would normally take the libertarian view, would you make no room for restricting the borders for concerns of national security? Should the borders at least be patrolled, if not to stop immigrants from access to private property holders, then at least to be surveyed for potential threats to national security (suitcase nukes, dirty bombs, chemical weapons, etc.)?
Finally, we must ask questions about the unintended consequences of our reform. If this reform basically states that we are going to start securing our borders, and once we do any and all illegal immigrants currently within our borders will become legal, then aren’t we basically offering a huge carrot for a mad rush of illegal immigration to push across the borders now, before they become secure, in order to receive that amnesty? And, if we are, does it matter? Should we even be trying to stop them by securing the borders anyway?
The Bible is silent on securing the border or restricting immigration. It does, however, teach the assimilation of strangers into the culture of the nation, “You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God” (Lev 19:34).
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A.A. Hodge on War
Mark Nenadov quotes an excerpt from A.A. Hodge’s commentary on the Westminster Confession of Faith. Hodge “was the son of the theologian Charles Hodge and was the principal of Princeton Seminary from 1878 to 1886:
“It is very difficult to decide in particular cases when it is right for a Christian nation to go to war…But the following general principles are very plain and very certain: — War is an incalculable evil, because of the lives it destroys, the misery it occasions, and the moral degradation it infallibly works on all sides…In every war one party at least must be in the wrong, involved in the tremendous guilt of unjustifiable war, and in the vast majority of cases both parties are in the wrong. No plea of honour, glory or aggrandizement, policy or profit, can excuse, much less justify, war; nothing short of necessity to the end of the preservation of national existence.
In order to make a war right in God’s sight, it is not only necessary that our enemy should aim to do us a wrong, but also
- That the wrong he attempts should directly or remotely threaten the national life; and
- That war be the only means to avert it.
Even in this case every other means of securing justice and maintaining national safety should be exhausted before recourse is had to this last resort.”
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The Conservative Agenda
G.K. Chesterton once observed that the business of conservatives is to prevent mistakes from ever being corrected. The renown writer of Orthodoxy speaks from the grave. Conservatism as a philosophical system is rather schizophrenic in our day. It lacks a unified agenda, and therefore cannot accurately pinpoint its errors.
Pundits opine eloquently—at least they think they do– about how conservative ideas need to win the day, but ultimately, most of them are only doing what Lionel Trilling described as, “irritable mental gestures which seek to resemble ideas.”
Chuck Hagel endured the systematic chastisement from the left and from the right. The right believed he was too casual about the terrorist threats and not Zionistic enough in his allegiance. The left bombarded him about his past statements opposing homosexuality and abortion. Hagel won the day, but is still recovering from the Neo-Conservative war drums musicalizing against his nomination.
Hagel is the type of conservative Conservatives should seek to emulate: cautious in his foreign policy and strong in his moral convictions. His moral convictions would also entail respect for the much debated second amendment, because defending my wife and children is a moral issue. So Obama was right: there is still something sacred about sticking to our guns and religion.
Andrew Bacevich in his fascinating piece in the Jan/Feb edition of The American Conservative echoes some of these thoughts. Andrew alerted me some years ago to the dangers of Imperialism. In his piece, he says we need a little more of Flannery O’Connor and less of Ayn Rand.[1] He offers an appetizing reason to sprinkle O’Connor into the formation of an authentic Conservative Party. The Flannery O’Connor flavor includes a healthy dose of community living, which is “our best hope of enjoying a meaningful earthly existence.” Lots of cheers there! Also, the agenda may need to be salted with something more than fancy-dressed charlatans “peddling the latest Big Idea That Explains Everything.” Karl Rove, say good-bye. Neo-Conservatives proposing a world police State, say good-bye. You are just not conservative enough for us. We can’t put our house in order if we are spending our time and money in fixing other people’s houses. On the moral side of things, Bacevich says that our big problem is the “collapse of heterosexual marriage as an enduring partnership…”[2] Let’s not overlook our mistakes and blame it on their moral failure. Jesus had a few things to say to that line of reasoning.
Chesterton argued that conservatives need to conserve something. But the problem is conservatives are having a hard time defining what they ought to conserve.
In short, a robust conservative agenda entails the recovery of a moral and transcendent view of life and a profound commitment to a community where Chesterton and O’Connor would be welcomed guests of honor.
[1] Cover Story, American Conservative.
[2] Rich Lusk deals with this in The Church-Friendly Family. You should get yourself a copy…go ahead, I’ll wait.
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