The fallout from the Supreme Court’s ruling on DOMA and California’s Proposition 8 continues to pile up. But even before the justices tallied their votes and wrote contrary opinions, some could see that the debate over gay marriage had lost its way and that marriage in the United States was in bad shape. For instance, in the same issue of The New Republic came two pieces that indicate why the current debates over marriage are missing the civil (as opposed to religious) point.
Michael Kinsley, who edited the magazine when Andrew Sullivan first tried the idea of gay marriage (1989), believes that Ben Carson’s remarks about homosexuality (on Hannity and Andrea Mitchell) revealed an orthodoxy on the left every bit as powerful (probably more) than most Christian communions:
There are those who would have you think that gays and liberals are conducting some sort of jihad against organized Christianity and that gay marriage is one of the battlefields. That is a tremendous exaggeration. But it’s not a complete fantasy. And for every mouth that opens, a dozen stay clamped shut. In the state of Washington, a florist refused to do the wedding of a long-time customer “because of my relationship with Jesus Christ.” Note that “long-time customer.” This woman had been happily selling flowers to the groom. She just didn’t want to be associated with the wedding. Now she is being sued by the state attorney general. DC Comics dropped writer Orson Scott Card’s planned Superman book when thousands signed a petition demanding it because of his many homophobic remarks.
Thought experiment: If you were up for tenure at a top university, or up for a starring role in a big movie, or running for office in large swaths of the country, would it hurt your chances more to announce that you are gay or to announce that you’ve become head of an anti-gay organization? The answer seems obvious. So the good guys have won. Why do they now want to become the bad guys?
In other words, gay marriage advocates are no more tolerant than their opponents who don’t tolerate gay marriage.
But what would the debate look like if we lowered the stakes from “I’m right, you’re a cretin,” to what is actually good for the righteous and cretins who have to live together and increasingly support each other through government programs, insurance, and other forms of imposed solidarity? In the same issue of TNR, for instance, came a story about the consequences of loneliness and an implicit brief for more and stronger marriages:
If we now know that loneliness, a social emotion, can reach into our bodies and rearrange our cells and genes, what should we do about it? We should change the way we think about health. James Heckman, a Nobel Prize–winning economist at the University of Chicago who tabulates the costs of early childhood deprivation, speaks bitterly of “silos” in health policy, meaning that we see crime and low educational achievement as distinct from medical problems like obesity or heart disease. As far as he’s concerned, these are, in too many cases, symptoms of the same social disorder: the failure to help families raise their children. . . . As nearly half of all marriages continue to end in divorce, as marriage itself floats further out of reach for the undereducated and financially strapped, childhood has become a more solitary and chaotic experience. Single mothers don’t have a lot of time to spend with their children, nor, in most cases, money for emotionally enriching social activities.
“As inequality has increased, childhood inequality has increased,” Heckman said, “So has inequality of parenting.” For the first time in 30 years, mental health disabilities such as ADHD outrank physical ones among American children. Heckman doesn’t think that’s only because parents seek out attention-deficit diagnoses when their children don’t come home with A’s. He thinks it’s also because emotional impoverishment embeds itself in the body. “Mothers matter,” he says, “and mothering is in short supply.”
Heckman has been analyzing data from two famous early-childhood intervention programs, the Abecedarian Project of the ’70s and the Perry Preschool project of the ’60s. Both have furnished ample evidence that, if you enroll very young children from poor families in programs that give both them and their parents an extra boost, then they grow up to be wealthier and healthier than their counterparts—less fat, less sick, better educated, and, for men, more likely to hold down a job. In the case of the Perry Preschool, Heckman estimated that each dollar invested yielded $7 to $12 in savings over the span of decades. One of the most effective economic and social policies, he told me, would be “supplementing the parenting environment of disadvantaged young children.”
I suspect that the author, Judith Shulevitz, TNR’s science editor, is in favor of gay marriage, given her status at TNR. But aside from the politics of homosexuality, folks who live in the United States actually care about the health of marriages and families. And I suppose that if people like Ms. Shulevitz understood that anti-gay marriage folks also care about the health of marriages and families and the well-being of their society, they might have a profitable conversation about what kind of policies states and the feds should have to bolster the family.
I understand that marriage is more basic or primal than car driving, but I do wonder if the Christian approach to gay marriage debates should have been more akin to the kind of reaction that would greet a proposal to allow drivers to use both the left and right side of the road. We could marshal statistics about the dangers of auto-driving that exist now when everyone already drives on the right side of the road. That might be enough to say, “you know, we have enough accidents already without throwing another wrinkle into navigating big pieces of machinery on wheels around our fair land.” We could also project what kind of fatalities and injuries might result from allowing driving on both sides of the road. This would likely close the debate. No reason to get huffy about the sin of driving on the left side (since the Brits already do). Just think about the temporal realities of driving and how to make it as safe as possible. Why not do the same with marriage as a civil (not religious) institution?
Old Life 
Thanks for the Kinsley mention, he is the best thinker of the liberals that Bill Buckley gave apprentice time to back in the day (Garry WIlls being the rock bottom worst easily, but he was a turncoat to the cause…)
You can’t win against this enemy. It is based on behavioural and personal preference that can disguise itself when opportune. Any attempt to put this preference up against obvious empirical evidence has to fail.
I would expect that people without any tendency towards the issue at hand would start taking advantage of it from the economic benefits. All it takes is the word of a person to enter this zone, there are no distinguishing marks or obvious traits beyond private behaviour that won’t be displayed.
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My younger brother (a realtor) wrote this poem and sent it out widely today:
I know how I would feel if I was told I couldn’t love my wife
That I was wrong for how I felt, that it wasn’t the right life
My feelings didn’t matter, I was wrong and needed to pray
And those are feelings that exist, the feelings if you’re gay
You see the signs when you turn on the evening news
People fighting about you and for you, polarizing views
On one hand there is pride and a day for parades
while the other grips a sign saying that “God hates Fags”
Does he? Can that message really be true?
It seems that some of us will tell you it’s what we learned from the pew
I have to admit that I have been confused in the past
Believing I have to think one way, only to not want those thoughts to last
The message is confusing, “hate the sin and love the sinner”
But until we form a common bond there will never be a winner
It will always be us against them when push comes to shove
until we find that common bond, the bond that I call love
See what my faith actually tells me is this, I serve a God of Love
I serve a man named Jesus who would offer you a hug
He wouldn’t shun you from his sight just because you were gay
He would love you and guide you and show others that way
The way you should be treated, the only way that is right
To be treated with dignity, respect and kindness, not spite
You were born no different than me and you are no different today
You love who you love and you crave love from others along the way
Now I have a son and it’s time for him to learn
I can teach him hate or love, and guide which way he turns
I can point you out on the street because you love your own sex
or I can tell him that doesn’t matter, and teach him about respect
To respect all people, all races, colors and creeds
Teach him to love because your human, regardless of your deeds
We are all on this journey together, united in a common quest
To be happy, to be free, to be loved and nothing less
So to end all of this, please let me say
For me and my family, we will love, even if you’re gay
No hatred, no judgement, no making you feel less
You are who you are and when you are loved you are your best
So be gay, be straight or something in between
Be butch, be macho, be a princess or a queen
Never be afraid of who you are, if you are in or if you’re out
Remember that life is short, so let love be what you’re about
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Re: childhood inequality
I announced a little league all star game last night for 11-year-olds. Our local team lost to a (larger) neighboring town team 32-0 in 4 innings.
“After 1 1/2 innings the score is Johnston 22, Central Iowa 0”
Youth sports is getting to the point that if you aren’t serious about it, it quickly becomes embarrassing.
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Erik, at least it’s baseball.
When it’s hockey or football or lacrosse it becomes a matter of getting out without a life-long injury.
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Dr. Hart,
I would like to believe that your driving analogy does show a better way of interacting with the gay marriage question. However, it just seems that so much of the problem is about narratives and definitions. Modern culture is built on hallowed ideals like: love, equality, freedom. The trick is that these are good ideals, but people have very questionable definitions of what these ideals are. Further, they hold to these questionably-defined ideals with a near religious-like intensity. Any analogy showing the dangers of gay marriage for society, proper as it may be, will inevitably fall short when matched up with the modern ‘leap of faith’ that somehow, someway equality, freedom, love (as defined by the narrative of liberal politics) will produce a good society. We just choose to believe that driving in both lanes will turn out for the best, even in the face of contrary evidence/on-coming traffic.
Also, Erik: would it change things to discover that the person saying “don’t love your wife” is actually a God of love?
The narrative behind the ethic really counts for a lot in this issue.
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while the other grips a sign saying that “God hates Fags”
Oh please. The condemnation for Rev. Phelps & family is universal.
I understand that marriage is more basic or primal than car driving, but I do wonder if the Christian approach to gay marriage debates should have been more akin to the kind of reaction that would greet a proposal to allow drivers to use both the left and right side of the road.
This begs the question of course, that all sexualities are created equal.
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Because there are some who don’t think marriage is a civil institution but a religious one:
http://ironink.org/2013/07/r2k-on-marriage/
In point of fact I would contend that those who are outside of Christ are doing all they can to put off genuine humanness in favor of putting on beastliness. Man loses his manishness the further he goes in sin. So, all appeal to a “human thing” are question begging if we can only consistently determine what Human is using Christian categories.
Evidently, we need Christianity and the Bible to not only know what marriage is but what it means to be genuinely human. The arrogance is staggering.
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“Youth sports is getting to the point that if you aren’t serious about it, it quickly becomes embarrassing.”
Erik, I was watching baseball for 8 year olds and the lady next to me told me that her son’s hitting wasn’t up to snuff but that she would get him a batting coach in the offseason. And all the top Valley runners have personal coaches in addition to the high school coach. Add in ten year olds travelling all over the Midwest and you’ve got a situation thats gone off the rails.
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“And all the top Valley runners have personal coaches in addition to the high school coach.”
MM & Erik, it’s so bizarre. All my nephews, every single one, had a speed coach. And it wasn’t them pushing, it was their mothers. My sisters were never into athletics themselves. My brother and I could never process it.
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Zrim:
You said: “Evidently, we need Christianity and the Bible to not only know what marriage is but what it means to be genuinely human. The arrogance is staggering.”
Based on your response, I think that you were not really understanding the point behind Pastor McAtee’s post. If you read through the entire post, you will notice that he was talking about taking into account what we know, how we know it…..
In one sense you have a point.. Non-Christians do understand what marriage is, without the Bible.. However, their knowledge and understanding of what marriage is is limited, and only through a fully logically consistent epistemological and biblical approach, can you **fully** understand what marriage is in that you know its true purpose and design, where it came from, and how we can know the foundational and epistemological basis behind marriage.
How can R2K arguments alone answer any of these questions?
This is the basic presuppositional epistemological/apologetical approach applied to ethics… You being a reformed Christian, I dont understand why you have a problem with Pastor McAtee’s approach, if you were applying CVT presuppositionalism consistently.
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Here’s another warning flag: “epistemology.”
Oh, hi Chris.
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Christopher,
While I’m not a Van Tillian, I think McAtee’s statement moves a fair bit beyond Van Til. McAtee’s statement suggests that the Fall rendered humanity in a state of utter depravity, such that one cannot rely at all on the light of nature to understand any truth whatsoever. Van Til never made such a suggestion.
McAtee’s approach emphasizes the danger of an idealist epistemology. The epistemology of Old Princeton (and of Machen) was realist, not idealist. Van Til was somewhere in the middle.
I fear that one of the dangers of modern evangelicalism is the emphasis on an idealist epistemology, thereby leaving Christians with no means of communicating with the those who don’t share the same ideals. Therefore, Christians have stopped seeking cultural influence through rational fact-based argument, and have instead sought to influence the culture via the Culture Wars. In other words, Christians have given up on the battle of ideas, and have instead taken up the battle of ideals.
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Chris, being Reformed I don’t understand why you have no problem with McAtee’s approach. Protestantism says grace renews nature. McAtee shows his hand by saying that grace restores nature, which is the Catholic construal, which explains why his view feels like it’s about to sacralize marriage. By grounding marriage in redemption instead of creation, what keeps him from doing that?
And I don’t care about a “fully logically consistent epistemological and biblical approach” to anything grounded in creation. I don’t care if the pagan cashier can provide a “fully logically consistent epistemological and biblical approach” to why she gives me the right change. I just care that she does it, not about winning epistemological pissing contests with my neighbors.
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One of the entities I work for trains kids in basketball (and now volleyball). Harrison Barnes came out of our program and my boss’s two daughters have been/are scholarship players for Creighton (and probably have no business playing at that high of level based on their genes). It really works for my boss and his family, though, as it did for Harrison and his family. I think the parents have to ask two questions: (1) Does my kid really have the potential and the desire to make this type of training worthwhile?, and (2) Does it work for the family? We have kids who travel with their parents 2 1/2 hours (one way) several times a week and they enjoy the time together. For other families that wouldn’t work. I think it can be a good thing if everyone is on board. It certainly gives some kids a focus they would otherwise lack. Other kids/families are better off being low key, doing multiple activities, and taking occasional beatings at the hands of highly trained athletes.
http://www.alliowaattack.com
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From Scott Clark:
“D. G. Hart’s latest is just out: Calvinism: A History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013). It just arrived in the post so I’ve not had time to read it and we have a dinner guest arriving any minute. I hope to do an interview with Darryl soon. More later.”
I think I got mine today, too.
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Therefore, Christians have stopped seeking cultural influence through rational fact-based argument
I believe you know of Rev. John Witherspoon, the Presbyterian who helped rewrite your American version of the Westminster Confession.
The Witherspoon Institute at Princeton is devoted to natural law, history, and politics.
http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/
Probably too many Roman Catholics for your taste, and according to Dr. Sproul they don’t exactly count as Christians. Still, you take what you can get these days.
Public Discourse is an online publication of the Witherspoon Institute that seeks to enhance the public understanding of the moral foundations of free societies by making the scholarship of the fellows and affiliated scholars of the Institute available and accessible to a general audience.
The Witherspoon Institute is a 501(c)3 research center located in Princeton, New Jersey.
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BTW, My blogbrother Mark at American Creation came across this quote from John Witherspoon, what I think somebody called “bad theology” the other day:
That’s one of yours, a founder of your church in America. There was scarcely a man alive then who didn’t see the American Founding as a miracle, the direct hand of Divine Providence. From our comfortable armchairs in the 21st century, that seems to many to be superstitious, arrogant, or merely “bad theology,” but for Calvinists in particular, escaping the filth of Europe and the twin pincers of Catholicism and Anglicanism to a bountiful and free land could only be seen as nothing short of miraculous.
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What if We Thought about Marriage the Way We Think about Driving?
Uhh, we’d need to rethink the way we think about driving.
You can drive on any side of the road as long as everybody drives on the same side.
But if everybody is driving on both sides, then guess what?
IOW marriage is not adiaphora.
Driving on the left or the right is.
Yeah, I know it’s the internet and this is just another bwog site among many, but coming off the last post, ‘why the roman boiler room op doesn’t ever reach out and touch the first pope’ it’s a distinct let down.
And it be one thing if everybody was constantinian, but they’re not. They’re 2k.
Huh?
There is no reasonable rational argument for sSM. The argument as it exists today is predicated on positive rights and equality defined as equal outcome, not equal opportunity, i.e. the Jacobin French Enlightenment revolutionary paradigm.
That is, if everybody has a right to get married, but homosexuals can’t get married, it’s discrimination, i.e. the outcomes are not equal/the same.
Again, if heterosexuals have a right to marry whomever they love, then homosexuals ought to have the same “right”. Never mind that one, they are homosexuals and two, that heterosexuals don’t get to marry anybody they want to, otherwise incest and polygny would be legal. (Don’t worry, little grasshopper, they will be before long at the rate we keep buying into the non sequiturs.)
But never fear according to the prevailing koolaid, the implications will work themselves out. The fact that girls can’t become Boy Scouts will result in either redefining boy or the government funding transgender ops for girls, if not just solving any future litigation by chemically neutering/castrating both sexes into one amorphous grey pool in which all are “equal”.
IOW the Harrison Bergeron blenderizing has begun. Unfortunately Vonnegut didn’t forsee that the Sexual Revolution would skew his thesis, but the bones are there nonetheless.
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Tom, impressive historical work there. Witherspoon to Witherspoon Institute to Presbyterians and Roman Catholics and Tom (who’s taking what he can get) together. Good job.
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Tom, so if you agree with your brother, you think Witherspoon was doing good theology? THEOLOGY!?!
Say hello to David Barton.
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Bobby:
Thanks for the reminder about the grace restoring nature bit. We can have a debate about this particular issue, and I can see points on both sides. I still have to think about this particular aspect a little bit more…
I dont think that Pastor McAtee was saying that man cannot know any truth at all with the light of nature only. What he is saying is that they do embrace such truth, but only at the expense of contradicting their own naturalistic presuppositions. That is far different from saying that they cannot understand truth at all.
However, regardless of whether one is a consistent Van Tillian or not, I dont think that anyone would say that natural man can understand truth ***fully*** unless the Holy Spirit regenerates his heart.
Zrim:
In the actual post, you will notice that he does actually say that marriage is a creational institution. We can have a discussion on whether grace restores nature or not, but whatever one believes in this particular area, this still doesn’t affect the validity of presuppositionalism in relation to the normative aspect of ethics. You seem to think that simply because the concept of grace restoring nature is incorrect, that therefore everything else that McAtee said is wrong, which is fallacious. Those two concepts can be related to each other, but they do not necessarily follow each other.
Also, the fact that you use an example such as a cashier giving you the correct change makes me realize that you are unwilling to understand presuppositionalism properly.
Presuppositionalism doesnt say that man cannot know anything. It has never said that, whether or not you are in complete agreement with CVT in terms of his understand of nature and grace… It says that natural man cannot account for his knowledge, not that he doesnt have any knowledge.
However, if natural man were to logically follow his presuppositionalism, he would “logically” conclude that he cannot know anything.. which is contradictory because he at least knows that he cannot know anything… The point behind this is to show that it is only through the Christian worldview that you can account for knowledge and that it is fully consistent… The naturalist worldview cannot account for knowledge and is utterly contradictory (as the example of “knowing” that you cannot properly know anything should show)… That is the point.. not that natural man does not have knowledge.
Being a Christian plumber or a pagan plumber is somewhat of a simplistic example, although you could still make the case for differences in presuppositions, although it does take a little more steps in this example… I seem to remember that blog post (which Dr hart commented on in this blog) about the case for the Christian bus driver.. (ref 21, I think??)
Why dont we start with an example where it is obvious?
Why dont you try applying this reasoning to a Christian philosopher vs an atheist philosopher?
Or better yet, a Christian theologian vs an atheist theologian (e.g. Bart Erhman etc…)
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Chris, I detect a conflation of creation and redemption: unbelievers can have knowledge but not real knowledge. That makes no sense, unless what you mean is that they can grasp creation full stop but not redemption, in which case agreed. But worldviewers don’t talk that way. They say knowledge but not real knowledge as if unbelieving cashiers, plumbers, and philosophers know their trades and crafts but they also don’t.
I don’t know why the example can’t be the trivial tasks (cashiering) and must remain at the substantive (philosophy), but this usually betrays the worldviewer’s arrogance about how the lower things aren’t worthy. The reformers were all about obliterating this contrived class system, while still retaining their natural distinctions. The religious medievals did it with priests and laity, religious worldviewers do it with cashiers and philosophers.
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Tom – That’s one of yours, a founder of your church in America
Erik – First American Presbytery was organized in Philadelphia in 1706. The American Revolution was in 1776. Not sure we can call Witherspoon a “founder”.
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Chris, by conceding that marriage is a creational institution, McAtee (who apparently has an embargo on contrary comments on his blog, unless of course you slam on Zrim – hows that for niceness…) undermines his whole “presupposition”.
And McAtee’s assertion that R2K (e.g., Van Drunen or Hart) thinks “the Creational realm [is] a realm that is completely compartmentalized from the Redemptive realm” – is a straw man. I wonder if McAtee even looked at the cover or read the title of Van Drunen’s Living in God’s Two Kingdoms.
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“The religious medievals did it with priests and laity, religious worldviewers do it with cashiers and philosophers.” -Zrim
Excellent point. I’m also concerned that neo-Cals, theonomists, and revivalists are so concerned about discovering the “real truth” of something, that they gloss over all sorts of obvious truths that one can induce from nature.
Realists (e.g., Princetonians) believe that we primarily arrive at truth by observing the natural order and reasoning inductively to develop rules that make sense of those observations. Of course, realists still believe that we must consult special revelation to know of our redemption in Christ.
Idealists (e.g., neo-Cals, theonomists, revivalists) believe that we ought primarily to arrive at truth by identifying a synthetic a priori principle (i.e., an ideal) and reasoning deductively to apply that principle to the world around us. But this only works if regeneration so equips us to be able to appreciate these ideals with any consistency. I see nothing in Scripture to suggest that Scripture equips us in this way. In fact, such Kantian approaches to Christianity reek of Gnosticism.
Ultimately, the idealist fails to come to an adequate grasp of the subject studied because he has overlooked and disregarded what can be known by careful observation. After all, if the assertions of idealists are true, then we should expect that the top practitioners in most disciplines to be revivalists, neo-Cals, or theonomists. But the opposite is in fact true. A disproportionate number of the top scientists, musicians, economists, etc. are in fact not Christians at all.
Of course, I suspect that most proponents of idealist epistemologies don’t actually believe what they say. In most cases, they have simply realized that natural reasoning cannot give them everything they want out of the culture. So, like any young child who’s about to lose a game, they change the rules. And these new rules are fantastic. If anyone ever disagrees with you, you can just cast their arguments aside as the improper byproduct of a deficient worldview. In that sense, the increasing predominance of idealist epistemologies within conservative Christian circles (even to the point where realists are deemed not even to be Christian) is a sure sign of cultural retreat.
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Erik Charter
Posted July 4, 2013 at 12:07 pm | Permalink
Tom – That’s one of yours, a founder of your church in America
Erik – First American Presbytery was organized in Philadelphia in 1706. The American Revolution was in 1776. Not sure we can call Witherspoon a “founder”.
John Witherspoon was “moderator” of the panel that rewrote the WCF ‘1789, establishing the
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presbyterian_Church_in_the_United_States_of_America
as a spinoff from the Church of Scotland, no? Your OPC spun off of them in 1936, no? I’m trying to follow your comings and goings, but it seems to me John Witherspoon is on the main trunk of your ecclesia.
[And of course he saw America as an obvious gift from God, an idea 2Kers seem to abhor. Oh well.]
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D. G. Hart
Posted July 4, 2013 at 8:05 am | Permalink
Tom, so if you agree with your brother, you think Witherspoon was doing good theology? THEOLOGY!?!
Say hello to David Barton.
No, he was doing “bad” theology. Because you say so.
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Tom, “Because you say so.” Why, thank you (II).
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Bobby, and so is it any wonder that the idealists toggle between one form of pessimism and optimism or another (over against a more staid realism)? Either the sky is falling or a new dawn is breaking but never any room for nothing new under the sun.
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Zrim, Bobby, Nate
I have been looking through all the comments…
From a more fundamental approach, how do you reconcile what you are saying and believing with presuppositional apologetics? If you are adamant about not using the Scriptures in the public square, how is it consistent then to evangelize at all?
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Chris, first, how do you get that the Bible isn’t to be used in the public square? Christian secularists aren’t legal secularists. The point is that the Bible is the book that norms ecclesiastical life and natural law civil life, but that doesn’t mean the Bible is off limits in civil life anymore than natural revelation is off limits in ecclesiastical life. It’s simply a point about which book corresponds to which kind of life.
Second, evangelizing and norming are two different things. How is it to preclude evangelizing by making the above distinctions?
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Prsuppositional apologetics are optional. If you like them, use them and if you don’t then don’t. When they are made mandatory and made synonymous with True Christianity, then what is man-made and situational is being treated as if it is divine and one-size-fits-all.
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that doesn’t mean the Bible is off limits in civil life
In America since 1947 or so [Everson v. Board of Education] and subsequent Supreme Court decisions, yeah, it sort of is, Brother Z. that’s what a lot of the religious right hubbub is about. Bible is out, “rational basis” is in. The Bible is by definition “irrational,” since it depends on faith, not reason.
anymore than natural revelation
Equals “natural law.” And natural law’s truth claims are founded on the premise that what’s forbidden via natural law is bad for man. Violate the natural law, and things go south.
Perhaps this will help, written by Murray Rothbard, a libertarian Thomist atheist.
http://americancreation.blogspot.com/2009/04/primer-on-natural-law.html
Thesis: God’s law works whether you believe in Him or not. That’s what makes it “natural.”
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TVD, that’s why I made the distinction between Christian and legal secularists. Chris is asking his questions of the former, not the latter. Contrary to what their theocratic and worldviewist detractors suggest, Christian secularists do not preclude the Bible from the public square.
And to add to what M&M added, we confess TFU/WCF, not CVT. TDG might consider Chris a bit distracted:
http://www.modernreformation.org/default.php?page=articledisplay&var1=ArtRead&var2=964&var3=main&var4=Home
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To elaborate, CVT did apologetics. That is, his work was centered on how to defend the faith over against the dominant thought-life of his times. It should be evaluated appropriately, and such evaluation includes being open to a time when Kant’s shadow has sufficiently receded that CVT’s particular apologetic may no longer be the go-to Presbyterian apologetic. Try it on a post-modernist some time and get back to me about how it went.
CVT was not a philosopher. He didn’t particularly claim to be, and he was not received as such outside of over-zealous Presbyterian circles. Note his limited influence unlike Plantinga who does philosophy and is recognized for his work far outside the Reformed world. CVT was dogmatic, often announcing his positions rather than really proving them.
This is not a lack of appreciation for the efforts of CVT, just an attempt to have a more modest appraisal than is promulgated in some quarters.
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It seems to me that a big part of the reason that support for gay rights/marriage has snowballed over the past decade has been the weakness of natural law arguments. They aren’t convincing to most people not already convinced. Gay marriage is a natural extension of the 60’s-era sexual revolution which was the natural outgrowth of the privatization of love and marriage in the 19th century (marriage as personal romantic fulfillment versus creational ordinance for sustaining communities). I suspect that it was the “ickiness” factor that held the gay stage of the sexual revolution in check for as long as it did, but we’re way past that now.
But if the natural law arguments aren’t effective at convincing heterosexuals (who have a lawful outlet for their desires) that they should remain chaste, why would they be convincing to homosexuals (who don’t have a lawful outlet for their’s)? I suspect that publicizing the natural law arguments (and their implications) turned a lot of people off and changed their mind to affirming gay rights. The thought process likely goes something like this: Natural law teaches that use of birth control pills is evil. I’m not willing to entertain the possibility that use of birth control is wrong, therefore, I will not consider NLT as a realistic theory of morality. NLT is the secular basis for objection to SSM. I don’t accept NLT. Therefore there is no good reason to object to SSM.
The attempt to provide a philosophical grounding for morality whose foundation is unassailable is fine for philosophy seminars, but most of us don’t use philosophy to guide our moral intuition. One’s theory of where this moral intuition comes from really isn’t relevant for public debate. The reality is that most people base their intuition on some combination of group think, tradition, and sentiment.
Whether they should or nor is a different question, but this is what we have to work with. I doubt that we will be very effective at convincing unbelievers to adopt a moral outlook that is anything other than incidentally congruent with Christianity. I do think that proclaiming the gospel freed from the fetters of the culture wars and transformationalism has much more potential to “transform” society. It’s kind of like happiness – the harder you try to be happy, the less likely you are to be. Similarly, the harder the church works to win the culture war and transform society, the less successful she will be. She should stick to word and sacrament and let the Holy Spirit blow where he wants. What her members do in their free time is their business, but let’s not confuse that with kingdom work.
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Zrim
Posted July 4, 2013 at 11:24 pm | Permalink
TVD, that’s why I made the distinction between Christian and legal secularists. Chris is asking his questions of the former, not the latter. Contrary to what their theocratic and worldviewist detractors suggest, Christian secularists do not preclude the Bible from the public square.
I’m thinking of Biblical arguments in support of a public policy. The Social Gospellers like Obama get away with it, it’s true, but nobody orthodox or conservative, to my knowledge. And frankly, I’m OK with that level of 2K–if one can’t make a corresponding argument from general revelation/natural law, then I’d be forced to agree with the secularists there’s a First Amendment complication.
And to add to what M&M added, we confess TFU/WCF, not CVT. TDG might consider Chris a bit distracted
L.S./M.F.T.
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sdb
Posted July 5, 2013 at 12:18 pm | Permalink
It seems to me that a big part of the reason that support for gay rights/marriage has snowballed over the past decade has been the weakness of natural law arguments. They aren’t convincing to most people not already convinced.
By the time natural law arguments were even attempted, true, it was too late.
Indeed the wrong tactic was taken from the first–the question isn’t marriage, it’s marriage and the family. The ideal of a child being raised by a parent of each sex is statistically provable. This argument almost worked in France recently. By focusing on the positive welfare of the children rather than going negative on the gays, the high ground can still be held.
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Zrim:
You ask: “Chris, first, how do you get that the Bible isn’t to be used in the public square?”
You said previously: “Evidently, we need Christianity and the Bible to not only know what marriage is but what it means to be genuinely human. The arrogance is staggering.”
If you really think that we can use the Bible in the public square (contradicting what DVD says in Living in God’s 2 Kingdoms), then it seems very unclear to me that this is what your advocating with statements such as above.
The R2K argument has always been that we shouldnt use the Bible in the public square, because that is a “confusion” of the kingdoms, which you mention in another response:
“I detect a conflation of creation and redemption”
You said: “The point is that the Bible is the book that norms ecclesiastical life and natural law civil life, but that doesn’t mean the Bible is off limits in civil life anymore than natural revelation is off limits in ecclesiastical life. It’s simply a point about which book corresponds to which kind of life.”
-If this is really your position, then yours is not the WSCAL R2K position.. DVD is pretty clear in his book that this is not how he understands the Bible and the “common” sphere. His point is that we ***cannot*** at all use the Bible in “civil life” (common sphere)..
You always seem to knock on theonomists, neo-cals and transformationalists. If this truly is your position, all of your responses thus far do not give me this indication…
Second: you say: “Second, evangelizing and norming are two different things. How is it to preclude evangelizing by making the above distinctions?”
In some sense, yes.. In other sense, no.. How can we exhort people to repent of sins if we dont tell them the sins that they are committing against God? How is this not “norming” (in addition to evangelism)?
Repenting of sins would mean that you confess, and then turn away from committing those sins…If we dont convict people with the law of God, the gospel is meaningless. If you have no understanding that you need salvation because of your sin, the only way for people to understand about their sin is through “norming.”
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Mikelman,
If you feel that presuppositional apologetics is “optional”, then, I am curious as to what apologetics you would use.
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Chris, my point is that nobody needs the Bible to reveal what nature already does. That doesn’t mean it mayn’t be used or referenced in civil life. It just means that if one does one is being redundant, since both books are in harmony. Go ahead, use it in the public square, but my guess is that worldviewers and culture warriors want to do so in order to attach explicit divine oomph, which itself seems a function of being rather ill-at-ease with the emerging post-Constantinian era, a loss of cultural clout, etc. But to the extent that Constantinianism is all about worldliness, could it be that 2k is just what the doctor ordered?
I’m not as concerned about how what I’m saying lines up with how you’re reading somebody else. Go ahead and push your puzzles pieces around all you please, but I don’t read DVD the way you do.
Re norming and evangelizing, you had me until “…the only way for people to understand about their sin is through ‘norming.’” So the only way for unbelievers to understand about the law of God is to embody it legislatively and politically? That seems like a small view of the Spirit. Sorry, but I take the preaching of God’s law to be effective in every time and place, regardless of the particular legislative landscape.
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“If you feel that presuppositional apologetics is “optional”, then, I am curious as to what apologetics you would use.”
First I should note a few of my convictions about apologetics. First, I think it serves more to strengthen believers than to convince unbelievers. For every convert to whom apologetics was a significant influence, there are a thousand believers who feel more intellectually at ease becasue of apologetics. Then I would posit a sharp distinction between academic apologetics and “arguments” one might use among personal acquaintances. Some kinds of arguments seem to be better adapted to journals, textbooks, and formal debates than to one’s next door neighbor. Third, the gospel is unchanging revelation which may not be substantially altered, whereas apologetics – and here, I’ll just go with the idea that they are for the unbeliever – is a way of loosening the jar on the lid and can be altered to fit contexts, whether that alteration is in light of culture, intelligence, religious background, or the current dominant ways of thinking.
Then, not every apologetic encounter needs to argue everything. I know CVT says we must and that the specific Christian God in His fullness but there is no argument that has managed to make the fullness of the Christian God a necessary presupposition, regardless of how much something inside us wants to cheer when we hear that. So if an apologetic encounter presents God as designer or creator or moral perfection and it makes a dfference, some progress has been made, and perhaps future discussions or ruminations may make further progress.
Do men suppress the truth? Certainly, but they suppress the truth during a presupp presentation as much as they do in an argument from causation, and if the argument from causation loosens the jar it would be silly to have an inflexible apologetic that insists on walking one’s conversation partner through idealist epistemology.
So I have somewhat focused common/non-academic apologetics here. In the academic realm there will always be new challenges and occasionally new paradigms that will challenge apologetics and apologetics needs to respons to such challenges in ways that we may not currently conceive. The man of the middle ages and even a Westminster divine would not have conceived of presuppositionalism as we know it and we are currently unaware of another kind of apologetic that may rise up to face challenges 10 or 100 years from now.
Anyway those are my thoughts, such as they are, on July 5, 2013.
I’m sure there are typos here, but hopefully they are obvious.
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Here’s my apologetic:
3 possibilities
(1) The gospel is true
(2) The gospel is false and some other religion is true
(3) The gospel is false and no religion is true
With option one I am in good shape and the atheist is in bad shape.
With option two both the atheist and I are in bad shape.
With option three both the atheist and I are in bad shape.
I’m batting .333 and he is batting zero so I win.
I can only lose to another theist and I find no other religion to be as credible as Christianity.
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Basically Pascal’s wager for dummies.
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@Chris Lee: Excellent work! You are very patient and long suffering.
Keep pressing on!
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Zrim, Chris had you ten ways to Sunday. Your flippant and simplistic example about receiving the proper change sounded as shallow as per usual; but you are definitely contradicting the old Zrim I loved to hate, pun intended.
You are the guy who was so fond of saying the Bible is off limits for the public square, ala DVD, now you say its okay? Do you have a split personality or are have you seen the light? This isn’t the first time lately that you have swerved of the old path. Yet, your antipathy for Neo-Cals and theonomists is still burning as bright as ever. I guess I need to ask, are you aware that you are contradicting yourself from just a few short years ago? If peeking at the Bible is *now* suddenly okay for the Magistrate then what’s your beef with me?
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M&M; FWIW I have always felt the same way. I like both the causation, and the pressup, arguments, and have used both. A good friend of mines brother tried to mess with me for believing the Bible, and I gave him everything I had with confidence. It was mainly causation mixed in with showing him the absurdity of the alternative. He was a stubborn 58 year old man.
That was two years ago, I just found out he has accepted the Lord!! Praise God!! I can’t help but wonder if the defense I gave of the Bible, and the true and living God had something to do with his conversion. All we can do is throw out seed, God causes things to grow.
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Doug, referencing the Bible isn’t the same as ruling from the Bible. But that’s the kind of distinction that usually eludes you and earns me heaps of scorn.
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Doug, “ten ways to Sunday”? That violates the Sabbath.
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Call me a dunce but I have a couple of questions regarding this odd claim – “The R2K argument has always been that we shouldnt use the Bible in the public square”.
1) Where exactly can this argument be found (I’ll only be mollified with references from multiple books and their accompanying page numbers)?
2) What exactly is meant by “use the Bible”?
3) What exactly is meant by “public square”?
My own opinion is that one shouldn’t be using the Bible in church if you suck at interpreting it.
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Bruce, if you can’t interpret it I’d be O.K. with someone just reading it. I’d more readily admit to someone using scripture in NL constructions for policy purposes if I knew it’d be handled with the cult/culture distinction in bold relief. We admit to NL overlap for cultic purposes, and scripture can and does speak in such a way(NL) but people’s ability to make distinctions on this score is so poor they’re liable to drive whole theonomic trucks through the gate.
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Sean: I’d more readily admit to someone using scripture in NL constructions for policy purposes if I knew it’d be handled with the cult/culture distinction in bold relief.
Bruce: Exactly my point. How’s this proper handling gonna occur outside the church when it’s rare to see inside the church.
Yet, I still have my three questions – especially the first one.
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Zrim retorts: “Doug, referencing the Bible isn’t the same as ruling from the Bible. But that’s the kind of distinction that usually eludes you and earns me heaps of scorn.”
Me: LOL! So you pick and choose the laws you like? Sort of like a Smorgasbord approach to the law? Is it any wonder your reasoning is autonomous? *You* get to choose the laws you feel are right in your own eyes?
Quick question: Do you now admit that VanDrunen was wrong to say we may not look to Scripture for the quote *common realm*? Come on Zrim, let me hear you say DVD is full of cr__!
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Doug, I’m not a lawmaker, so I don’t get to pick and choose anything. I’m just a lowly law keeper. Come on, Doug-the-Theonomist, let me hear three ironic cheers for law keeping and a big old-fashioned boo for civil disobedience.
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Hector Avalos: Is Polygamy the Next Issue?
One of the fears voiced by those against gay marriage is that legalizing gay marriage will lead to legalizing bestiality, pedophilia and polygamy.
Most legal experts don’t think pedophilia and bestiality will ever be legalized. Polygamy is another story.
Numbers are difficult to establish, but some reports record anywhere from 30,000 to 80,000 men practicing polygamy in the United States. According to some anthropologists, some 85 percent of human societies have permitted polygamy, and it is still legal in more than 100 countries around the world.
Last month, the Supreme Court issued two decisions viewed as highly favorable to an eventual nationwide legalization of gay marriage.
In The United States v. Windsor, The Supreme Court declared as unconstitutional a key section of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which, in 1996, defined marriage as only between one man and one woman for crucial purposes of federal law.
The reasoning used in the Windsor decision, which emphasizes equal protection under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments and a rejection of the only-one-man-and-one-woman definition of marriage, may be used to legalize polygamy.
Religious freedom, which would appeal to the First Amendment, also is a principal justification for legalization used by advocates of polygamy. For advocates of polygamy, if religious freedom means anything, then it ought to mean that people are free to practice a fundamental component of their religion.
After all, polygamy was accepted in the Bible. According to the authoritative Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000): “Marriage is one expression of kinship family patterns in which typically a man and at least one woman cohabitate publicly and permanently as a basic social unit.”
Polygamists are already utilizing reality television in order to help Americans understand their lifestyle. On The Learning Channel, “Sister Wives” began in 2010. The show features Kody Brown, who has four wives and 17 children at last count.
The Browns fled their home in Utah because they feared they would be persecuted by local authorities. They have now settled in Las Vegas, where they seem to live openly as polygamists.
The National Geographic Channel followed in 2013 with “Polygamy USA,” which centers on polygamist families in Centennial Park, Ariz.
Both shows feature groups who see themselves as persecuted Mormon fundamentalist minorities continuing the lifestyle of Joseph Smith (1805-44), the founder of the Church of Christ of Latter-day Saints, which officially ceased the practice of polygamy in 1890.
In both shows, the diversity of polygamy is displayed. The Browns and The Centennial Park families voice their disgust with Warren Jeffs, the head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS), who is now serving a prison sentence for child sexual assault.
Unlike what is alleged for the Jeffs’ group, there are no arranged marriages of children at Centennial Park or in the Brown group. The Brown family encourages their children to make their own decisions about whether they will follow the polygamist lifestyle.
The Centennial Park group is more insistent on having its young people follow the polygamist lifestyle, but it is the women who choose the husband, whether he is already married or not. Women also are the main public spokespersons for legalization, and they are shown speaking to local colleges and civic groups.
Both of these shows were preceded by HBO’s “Big Love” (2006-11), a fictional show that featured a polygamist family that strove to legalize polygamy.
The challenges to polygamy will be both religious and sociological. In 2012, Robert Boyd, an anthropologist a the University of California at Los Angeles, and other researchers published an important study, which cited some social problems with polygamist communities.
The most important of these was the increasing numbers of young men without female partners. Such young men leave their communities to find partners, and females begin to marry older men at younger ages because there are fewer younger men around.
In any case, polygamy eventually may force our legal system to weigh the benefits of religious freedom against the social costs of a practice that many polygamists see as a fundamental part of their religious life.
Hector Avalos is a professor of religious studies at Iowa State University.
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I “get” the logic of going from SSM to polygamy but I’m not so sure we’ll go there. First, there is actually a SCOTUS case upholding an anti-polygamy law. Then, to the extent that the court is influenced by ideology, neither conservatives nor liberals are all that sympathetic to polygamy. To the former it’s an extreme religious and sociological break and to the latter it’s a strong man surrounded by weak women.
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Erik and M&M, don’t discount polygamy’s ties to Islam. Muslims scare the West. And this brings up the progressive narrative of gay marriage. It is about liberty and rights, an extension of the American ideal. Polygamy represents the past.
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Speaking of polygamy and the past, wasn’t it a practice enough for Christian nationalists to keep Utah out of the Union? Would today’s nationalists want certain New England states booted from the Union for legalizing homosexual marriages? Doug, huddle with Tom and let us know the answer.
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matt t today:
Paul wished that all would be as he were, a celibate Christian devoted to the kingdom of God, and he acknowledged that marriage would be appropriate for most people only as a concession (1 Corinthians 7). But the Christian who is married is to live as if he were not (1 Corinthians 7), and the most important identity and sense of belonging for the Christian is to be the body of Christ. Paul’s most eloquent words about love (1 Corinthians 13) therefore appear in his discussion about the church, not in the context of marriage.
Even when agape love is discussed in the marital context of Ephesians 5, it is sacrificial love that is the model for marital love – not the other way around. Marriage is a venue for expressing love, which in its purest form exists, first and foremost, outside of it. The greatest joys and experiences God has for us are not found in marriage, for if they were, surely God would not do away with marriage in heaven.
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Zrim pontificates: “Doug, I’m not a lawmaker, so I don’t get to pick and choose anything. I’m just a lowly law keeper. Come on, Doug-the-Theonomist, let me hear three ironic cheers for law keeping and a big old-fashioned boo for civil disobedience.”
Me: Strike two! Zrim, in case you haven’t heard, we have had referendums, (you know votes) on same sex marriage. We live in democratic republic where we have a say in these laws. Moreover you vote in our lawmakers, you big boob! Our representatives are supposed to be sensitive to our feelings. So don’t give me this nonsense that your just a law keeper. You of all people, have said in the past that you would probably vote FOR same sex marriage.
So quit acting all coy! My question is simple and direct: Why do you REFUSE to allow Scripture to establish your foundation on how you would vote on this issue? Why do you act ashamed on what God says about homosexuality? BTW, this is what puts the R in your 2K. You refuse to let Scripture be your guide in such matters.
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Doug, what I’ve said is that homosexuality is immoral, contrary to nature, and should not enjoy the sanction of marriage. What I have’t done is show sufficient moral indignation and outrage to satisfy you or the Rousers. Yours is another gospel. The Bible tells me to flee from you.
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Bruce asks: “Call me a dunce but I have a couple of questions regarding this odd claim – “The R2K argument has always been that we shouldnt use the Bible in the public square”.
Me: Okay Bruce, as you requested; you’re a dunce! Have you ever asked you self why DGH refuses to make a biblical argument to oppose public homosexuality or same sex marriage? Earth to R2K! God has destroyed cities, nations, for this sin when it gets to prevalent, and yet not a one of you R2K men? are willing to use Scripture. Why?????
1) Where exactly can this argument be found (I’ll only be mollified with references from multiple books and their accompanying page numbers)?
See VanDrunen’s living in two kingdoms, where he says we may not use Scripture to norm society. DGH has said this to me, so many times I could puke, but I refuse to buy his tripe, so I am unable to quote from one of his so called books and give you page numbers. Just ask Darryl himself! Get it straight from the horses mouth.
2) What exactly is meant by “use the Bible”?
God Word and his will are one, and should norm all norms. If God says that homosexuality is evil and wicked, and a soul damning sin (as he does) then any Bible believing man should be *man* enough to tell the truth found in God’s Word in public! Darryl Hart tries every argument BUT what God thinks!
3) What exactly is meant by “public square”?
Me: Public laws Bruce! Once again you’re acting like a du__e! In a democratic republic like we live in, that values our vote, every true christian should be willing to tell the truth founded on the Rock of God’s Word. Homosexuality had been illegal since our nations founding, because of what the Bible teaches us about this sin! Now suddenly, when DGH talks about same sex marriage he never mentions God’s will, or his Word, as the main reason we should oppose this law.
My own opinion is that one shouldn’t be using the Bible in church if you suck at interpreting it.
Me: Then please tell Darryl Hart to quit writing books!!!
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Sure Zrim! That’s why you said you would vote FOR same sex marriage? Or at least abstain from voting? Did you think I would forget your words?
Have you done a 180 reverse? And if you have seen the light, what changed your mind?
And in this whole conversation about SSM, why not use God’s Word as your main reason for opposing this movement? You use everything BUT the word of the LORD. Why?
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Doug, thanks for the reply. I’d much rather have heard from the guy who made the original quote. I’m hoping, whoever he is, that he is less emotional than you are. I’ve never seen any evidence from you that you’ve actually read any relevant material. I think you are mistaken in your definition of Public Square” but can’t, for now, get past this:
Doug: See VanDrunen’s living in two kingdoms, where he says we may not use Scripture to norm society.
I said I won’t be mollified without page numbers. Until you cough up page numbers (and a second book, just one won’t do) I consider this “The R2K argument has always been that we shouldnt use the Bible in the public square” an odd claim. BTW, that’s Reverend David Vandrunen that you’re bearing false witness against, just so you know.
Note this: Are you saying that the phrase “use the bible in the public square” means the same thing as “use Scripture to NORM society”?
And your final jab flat out fails to actually engage the point I was making. Here is the brief exchange:
Bruce: My own opinion is that one shouldn’t be using the Bible in church if you suck at interpreting it.
Doug: Then please tell Darryl Hart to quit writing books!!!
Bruce: 1) Darryl is not an ordained minister. You knew that. 2) Writing books is a “public square” enterprise. You knew that. 3). Whether or not Darryl sucks at interpreting the Bible is NOT the issue since he is not an ordained minister.
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And, while you’re incriminating yourself, Doug, answer this question regarding “The R2K argument has always been that we shouldnt use the Bible in the public square”.
And it’s a question I should have asked the first time around: Who does “we” refer to in the quote?
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Doug, no, but you keep twisting my words something fierce. And I don’t need the Bible to make those claims about homosexuality and marriage. Everything needed is in natural revelation. Why so little faith in God’s revelation?
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Zrim, how many times must it be said? How do you *know* you have arrived at natural revelation, aright? What if a Congressman says “I am following natural revelation! And I want man boy love to be legal”!
What would Zrim say to such a servant of the people like our Congressman we have today? How could Zrim respond? How could Zrim say, well Congressman, I think you’re reading NR amiss, without pointing him to God’s Holy Word?
Answer; Zrim couldn’t say a blasted thing!
You see? Zrim you are always embarrassed to stand on God’s Word. And if you knew anything about natural revelation, you would *know* it can not contradict Scripture. Natural law and Natural revelation are one and same as Scripture. lest God be guilty out of talking out of both sides of his mouth. God forbid!!
Chew on those thoughts, and I will get back to you later.
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Bruce, read what Zrim just wrote! He can’t find it in himself, to give his Congressman, who is his servant, a Bible based answer on why homosexuality is immoral! Have you asked yourself why?
That is what puts the *R* in 2K!
Zrim is ashamed of God’s Word, when it comes to putting pressure on his local Congressman. If Zrim were to actually go to God’s Word, he *thinks* he would be guilty of Bible thumping. LOL!
Something smells rotten in Denmark.
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Doug, how do you know you’ve arrived at special revelation aright? Plenty read it and say it plainly denies sola fide. Again, you reason in the civil sphere the way Catholics do in the ecclesial: natural revelation isn’t sufficient to sort out civil life so break out the Bible, special revelation isn’t sufficient to sort out redemptive life so get a pope. But Bibles and popes don’t settles matters the way you both think they do. Do you really think all you have to do is thump a Bible in front of your legislator and it will all fall into place?
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Doug – no page numbers? I thought not.
Doug – no answer to the questions? I thought not.
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Bruce, have you been paying attention? I thought not. Just ask Darryl himself!
FWIW, Darryl Hart is an Elder in his church. Look up the qualifications for being an Elder in 1 Tim. 3 and Titus. There is no difference between an Elder and a Pastor. So your attempt at saying DGH isn’t an ordained minister is refuted by Scripture. Just what is the difference? No difference?
Wake up bro~
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Norm!Doug!LikeLike
Hey Doug,
All I want are page numbers. And answers to my other questions. I can do without your brilliance with scripture.
To keep it simple for this dumb ass, just give me page numbers and tell me who the “we” refers to in the quote above.
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Darryl, not Norm but Cliff (or Newman!).
Bruce, not dumb ass but ninny hammer.
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