Noah Millman explains why Christians may need to work out a truce with the Democrats:
Suppose that you look out a couple of decades, and you see, as Dreher does, an America in which traditional Christians are a dwindling minority ever more clearly out of step with American culture, to the point of mutual incomprehension and even loathing. In that world, a polarized party system in which one party is resolutely determined to circumscribe the freedom of that dwindling minority while the other party pays lip service to its defense is a world in which that minority’s life gets progressively worse and worse year after year. One can dispute the probability of that world coming to pass, but I believe that’s what Dreher believes is coming.
If it is, my question is: what’s the political strategy for heading it off? Voting over and over again for a party that pays less and less attention to your concerns is clearly a losing strategy — for obvious reasons. So what’s the alternative?
It seems to me, clearly, that the alternative is making an overture to the enemy party. After all, as Yitzhak Rabin famously said, you don’t make peace with your friends — you make peace with your enemies. And you cannot make peace with your enemies if you decide, from the start, that your enemies will never make peace, on any terms. It seems to me that if Dreher really believes the Democratic Party is moving in the direction of outright persecution of traditional Christians, then it is a moral and practical imperative for traditional Christians to engage in outreach to the Democratic Party to try to change their course, and to keep trying if the first efforts bear no fruit.
But suppose the enemy really is as implacable as you imagine. If the correlation of forces is similarly dire, then what we’re talking about isn’t making peace but negotiating the terms of surrender. Even then, terms have to actually be offered. And it’s the people seeking an end to hostilities who have to offer them.
If that is the case, then — and I know this is a very ugly way of putting it, and I apologize in advance, but Dreher himself is the one who brought up “Japanese-soldier Religious Rightists hiding out on a desert island in the South Pacific” — my question is: what is the traditional Christian version of “we’ll surrender if you let us keep our Emperor?”
Old Life 
Perhaps throwing the florist, baker and photographer under the bus in exchange for allowing private Christian colleges to retain and enforce codes of conduct consistent with statements of faith?
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…So what’s the alternative?…
What if there is no alternative? Here’s what scripture tells us to expect from the world.
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Gospel of Luke, 6:22 The words of Jesus: “Blessed are you when men hate you, and ostracize you, and insult you, and scorn your name as evil, for the sake of the Son of Man.”
Matthew 10:22 Jesus speaking to His disciples. “You will be hated by all because of My name, but it is the one who has endured to the end who will be saved.”
John 15:19 Jesus speaking again. “If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you.”
John speaking in his 1st epistle, 3rd Chapter, 13th verse: “Do not be surprised, brethren, if the world hates you.”
The apostle James chapter 4 verse 4b “Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”
The defining reason? The Lord Jesus speaking of Himself. John 3:19-20 19-“This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. 20-“For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.”
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From which book of the bible did we ever get the idea that moralistic generally christian-esque “human flourishing” was any part of God’s design for Adam’s world?
Romans 8:
18-For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19-For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. 20-For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope 21-that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22-For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. 23-And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. 24-For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees? 25-But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it.
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(no, none of this contradicts anything I’ve said in the past. )
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If we’re going with the Japanese metaphor, we arm the women and children of Okinawa, train our dive bombers to fly into their carriers, and wait for the nuclear warhead.
Huh.
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Dan, I’ll take that deal.
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Not sure who would have a sturdy enough s**t umbrella to actually introduce such a bill.
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I want to surrender. I really do. Then the Christian florist/baker/photographer/candlestick maker can server both God and Gay weddings. But I see no fearsome soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army or the dreaded Roman Legions to bow before with my neck stretched out awaiting summary execution. All I see are emasculated SJWs empowered by Anthony Kennedy’s 5-4 Supreme Court to impose the dictates of Democrat Liberalism’s One True God: The Almighty Orgasm.
Liberalism’s Cosmic Law of the Universe: All consensual sexual relations between two or more persons shall not be condemned, criticized, discouraged, disparaged, or denigrated, but instead must be praised, promoted, extolled, subsidized and in the case of homosexuality: preferred and put on a pedestal.
And I’m supposed to surrender to this? I really don’t want to beat a dead horse (again) but perhaps Millman has been spoiled by paying too much attention to certain urban Christians who are only too eager to please their cultural betters in The Secular City. Let them surrender. I won’t.
I’he had enough of hearing about Christian liberty defined by the Little Sisters of The Poor, grandmotherly florists, pastry makers and photographers.
I want my Ol’ Timey Religion back, please.
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This is some great writing right here man.
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Andrew, apparently, Woody Allen didn’t submit to Liberalism’s Cosmic Law. See Cafe Society and find homosexual sex.
Maybe you want to modify that screed?
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After deciding that an enemy is implacable, one has to look at why. That has always been the missing activity for Rabin and Israel. And that is because Israel insists on the Occupation and confiscation of land.
So if we decide that the Dems are implacable, don’t we have to look at why first?
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You don’t claim to be a Calvinist, right Curt?
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Greg,
First, yes I do though such doesn’t mean that I agree with him on everything. Second, why do you ask after what I previously wrote in this thread?
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