Tag: Bill Smith

Just A Goat Breeder

Published on by D. G. Hart161 Comments

The Christian Curmudgeon has moved to “Just a Curmudgeon.” The reason could be that he doesn’t think Christians own being curmudgeonly any more than folks who trust Jesus (or Abraham Kuyper) own the secrets of goat breeding:

I heard Eugene Osterhaven wonder if some take the Kuyperian world-and-life-view too far. The instance he cited was the formation of a Christian Goat Breeders Society in the Netherlands. The question is, What distinguishes a Christian goat breeder from another?

I supposed one function of a Christian Goat Breeders Society is to breed Christian goats only with other Christian goats. And inasmuch as it is the Calvinists who form such societies, I suppose we can go a step further and say that the Society provided a service by which Calvinist Christian goats would be bred only with other Christian Calvinistic goats.

This is the Curmudgeon’s excuse for posting a video about the effects of Christian patriarchy advocates on dating. Not as funny as the Lutheran satirist. But the video has its moments.

Collective Guilt

Published on by D. G. Hart42 Comments

At first I thought I was clear because I’m not Tim Bayly, Tim Keller, or PCA:

Bayly Blog has published a piece by Lucas Weeks, an assistant pastor at Clearnote Church, in which he argues that the root of abortion is feminism. He contends that the PCA soft-peddles feminism; thus the PCA is complicit in the acceptance of and practice of abortion. The PCA needs to repent:

We must never forget that the blood sacrifice for feminism is abortion, and if we really desire to live in a nation free from the bloody slaughter of abortion, we must repent of our feminism. Regardless of the brand of feminism we’re talking about, the vampire that has been feeding on the blood of our children for decades was unleashed by our sexual sin and our rebellion against the very simple and easy to understand words of Scripture regarding manhood and womanhood. Whether it’s the hard-core leftist feminism of Camille Paglia and Sallie Tisdale, or the soft-peddled feminism that’s increasingly common in the PCA, or even the Sarah Palin style of feminism within the GOP, the rejection of God’s clear Word is the same.

In the discussion that followed among those who have not offended the patriarchs of patriarchy to the point of being banned one brother questioned Weeks’ words about the PCA. This provoked Fr. Tim himself to write even stronger words, taking aim at one of his favorite targets, Tim Keller:

To say that conservative Reformed denominations like the PCA are responsible for the continuation of abortion in our country is an unassailable truth, as I see it. The most influential pastor of the PCA brags about not preaching against abortion and claims this is an effective tool in opposing abortion. But of course, every pastor knows why we avoid preaching against abortion, and it’s not because we believe it’s an effective technique in stopping abortion.

So that pastor and all the many pastors who mimic him in his conflict avoidance are responsible for little babies being killed in their congregations who would have lived had their pastors warned their mothers and fathers (and grandmothers and grandfathers) not to murder their unborn. As Pastor Weeks wrote, this is the fruit of feminism. Preaching against abortion is seen as anti-women’s-rights and male pastors will do almost anything to avoid any accusation that we’re anti-women’s-rights.

Then I was feeling pretty good that it’s okay that I’m not nice (which Mrs. Hart has long known but the cats, Kibbles prostitutes that they are, don’t):

In Galatians 5, Paul contrasts the qualities of fleshly, worldly people with the qualities of Spirit-filled, godly people. He lists the fruit of the Spirit, those character traits that ought to mark God’s people, saying, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law” (vv. 22–23). Conspicuously absent from Paul’s list is niceness. Kindness is there; patience and gentleness too. But not niceness.

But then I had a wake-up call. Even though I am a Canadian trapped in an American body, I am still an American and have bigger problems:

Today is the seventieth anniversary of Hiroshima. On this day, seventy years ago, the United States used an atomic bomb in warfare for the first time in history. Another would follow, dropped on Nagasaki three days later. It is no exaggeration to say that since that time the world has been fixated on making sure that no nuclear weapon is ever used again. At this very time the American Congress debates whether or not to support President Obama’s recent agreement with Iran, designed to prevent Iran from attaining the capability the United States already used against Japan a lifetime ago.

The single bomb used on this day, August 6, was not used against a military target. It was dropped on an urban area, a major population center with hundreds of thousands of civilians, including the elderly, women, and children. Some 85,000 people were killed either instantly or within the first day. Many, many more died in the days and months following. Within four months the death toll reached as high as 165,000, the vast majority of whom were civilians. For the survivors, that was just the beginning of the ordeal. . . .

In fact, both arguments – that the United States was justified in using the atomic bomb against Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, and that the United States is justified in bombing Iran should it develop nuclear weapons today – are flatly contradictory to classic Christian just war theory. This is hard for patriotic American Christians to admit, but it is no less clear for that.

Matt Tuininga’s point — if he is correct about just war and the bomb — that sin is deep and profound is a good one, though I’m not sure why he thinks a social gospel will remedy the social aspects of sin. We live on this side of racism, segregation, slavery, and Hiroshima. A society or group cannot go back to a point of prior innocence. History does not work that way. Maybe we simply have to live in a perpetual state of knowing we are guilty and our only hope is a glorified existence. (Imagine what that sense would to outrage porn.)

But the earlier thought that I was without sin, and the later recognition of my guilt, did make me wonder about the propriety of such public calls for repentance. If we have no possible way of making restoration, then what good is the call for repentance other than saying something about the caller? Isn’t the caller as guilty as I am? So why is he throwing the first stone?

Where Do You Stop?

Published on by D. G. Hart70 Comments

If you object to the Confederate Flag, why not to Alabama’s and Florida’s. If you notice the design, you have a diagonal cross similar to the Scottish flag, but with a white background and maroon bars. Historians of Florida are currently debating whether the Florida flag owes its features to the Confederate one. But how can you not see a resemblance between the banner of the Spanish empire and the Florida flag (or Alabama)? And how can you not remember that Florida’s European roots go back to the Spanish Empire, not to snow-birds from the Northeast?

And if the Confederate Flag has problems because of white supremacy, imagine the difficulty for Europeans who followed in the trail of the Spanish to Florida and the southeast (where the PCA hatched). Here is how Alan Taylor describes one of the Spanish conquistadors:

During the years 1539-43, Vaca’s report inspired two great conquistador expeditions northward. From Cuba, Hernando de Soto led the first to Florida and through what is now the American southeast. From Mexico, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado marched the second expedition into and across the American southwest to the Great Plains. Although officially instructed to practice restrain, Soto and Coronado instead unleashed waves of violence, destruction, and disease that devastated the native peoples in their way. . . .

Beginning in the spring of 1539, Soto led six hundred men on a violent rampage through the carefully cultivated and densely populated heartland of the Mississippian culture. The conquistadores traversed present-day Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and east Texas. . . . When faced with the slightest resistance, Soto employed terror tactics to intimidate the survivors. Some Indians suffered the loss of a nose or a hand; others were thrown to the war dogs or burned alive. Archaeologists excavating the sites of villages visited by Soto have found many Indian skeletons scarred by steel weapons. American Colonies, 72

I bring this up not to make life difficult for Florida Seminole fans (but if you’re worried about the mascot of the NFL franchise in the nation’s capital. . .) but to remind those in pursuit of racism within the PCA that they need to be careful. When a generation from now someone finds out that the folks who need to bring a 92-year old man to ecclesiastical justice for racism (even while likely celebrating the forgiveness recommended by Charleston AME church members) — when future church officers discover that the anti-racists were soft on the parts of American history and culture that brought such devastation to native Americans, will their ministry also be compromised? When they find out that ministers in the PCA who opposed racism graduated from the University of Florida and the University of Alabama and did nothing to protest the heritage of those states which included a ruthless treatment of native populations which made slavery look civilized, what will their verdict be and will today’s generation be brought up on charges?

(Oh, by the way, making these matters public via social media is not exactly the Matthew 18 model of calling for repentance and may open you up to civil proceedings. Old Life aphorism of the day: How do you know someone is self-righteous? When the rules don’t apply to them.)

If these accusers don’t stop, they will be yet the latest example of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story, “Earth’s Holocaust,” which recounts the absurd lengths to which reformers go to arrive at a perfect society or institution, so absurd that activists forget to look in the mirror because they threw it into the fire:

“What but the human heart itself?” said the dark-visaged stranger, with a portentous grin. “And, unless they hit upon some method of purifying that foul cavern, forth from it will reissue all the shapes of wrong and misery—the same old shapes or worse ones—which they have taken such a vast deal of trouble to consume to ashes. I have stood by this livelong night and laughed in my sleeve at the whole business. O, take my word for it, it will be the old world yet!”

This brief conversation supplied me with a theme for lengthened thought. How sad a truth, if true it were, that man’s age-long endeavor for perfection had served only to render him the mockery of the evil principle, from the fatal circumstance of an error at the very root of the matter! The heart, the heart, there was the little yet boundless sphere wherein existed the original wrong of which the crime and misery of this outward world were merely types. Purify that inward sphere, and the many shapes of evil that haunt the outward, and which now seem almost our only realities, will turn to shadowy phantoms and vanish of their own accord; but if we go no deeper than the intellect, and strive, with merely that feeble instrument, to discern and rectify what is wrong, our whole accomplishment will be a dream, so unsubstantial that it matters little whether the bonfire, which I have so faithfully described, were what we choose to call a real event and a flame that would scorch the finger, or only a phosphoric radiance and a parable of my own brain.

A Fundamentalist Is A Mean Evangelical

Published on by D. G. Hart264 Comments

It wasn’t supposed to work out this way. Evangelicalism of the Billy Graham variety was supposed to present a kinder gentler conservative Protestantism. But as Tommie Kidd recently observed, evangelicals rarely receive positive press these days:

It’s nice to be liked. But it also comes with temptation – that of focusing all the church’s work on things that will engender the world’s approval. A hundred years ago, social gospel Christians began to suggest that service and aid, not evangelism, should encompass all of a believer’s missionary responsibility. Thus began one of the most important turns away from evangelical Christianity which has haunted the mainline denominations in America ever since.

That lesson may be one that advocates of a progressive brand of evangelicalism may want to remember. I mean, if Jimmy Carter is the best you can do for presenting a positive image of evangelicalism, then you may not be operating from a position of strength. Unless, that is, you want to make this all about Christian truth and devotion and turn Jimmy Carter’s critics, whether political or Southern Baptist, into mean SOBs who don’t trust Jesus as their personal savior. In which case, the kinder, gentler, progressive version of evangelicalism is no less intolerant than fundamentalism.

The subject of evangelical meanness is much in the news these days with all the hysteria over Indiana’s religious freedom laws. It’s a hysteria that has the socially conservative Roman Catholics and evangelicals (and some Eastern Orthodox) pitted against the secular left who as some people tell it are out to destroy freedom in America. I had wanted to follow Eric’s advice and sit this one out with this assessment of the situation:

What we have here it seems to me are 3% of the population who would not do business with gay people in a fight with a minority of gay people who would try to force someone who is hostile to them to perform services for them or sell goods to them. Meanwhile the rest of the population takes sides and gets mad at each other over it while politicians of all stripes posture.

For the defenders of this law not to think that gay marriage is the subtext is well-nigh inconceivable and suggests a level of naivete that is truly destructive of politics since politics goes best when people admit self-interest rather than thinking themselves innocent.

Just as helpful was the Reformed Episcopal Curmudgeon’s point about the flaws of Civil Rights legislation and a legitimate question of whether the federal government should have such social engineering power as to legislate business transactions:

What the “public accommodations” law required, if originally in a limited fashion, was that businesses which provided “accommodations” were required to do business with anyone regardless of race. Goldwater believed it was morally repugnant to practice racial discrimination in providing “public accommodations,” but he believed the federal government had no power to coerce businesses that provided “public accommodations” to provide them to anyone who wanted to do business with them. In other words, the government should not force hotels to sell rooms, restaurants to sell food, or movie theaters to sell tickets to anyone who wanted to do business with them. Those were decisions for business owners to make.

What does this have to do with gay rights? We have accepted as a society that civil rights includes the requirement that all businesses sell their goods and services without discrimination. We believe that a person, regardless of race, ethnicity, or color has the right to buy gasoline from any business that sells gasoline. . . .

It seems to me that the only protection against being forced to do business with gays who want to marry is if there were a recognized right not to have to do business with anyone you don’t want to do business with. It is too late by much, but perhaps, if Goldwater had prevailed in 1964 and the freedom to do business or not do business with anyone you please, even if you are wrong, had been established, those with moral objections to doing business related to gay weddings would be protected. Put another way, perhaps protecting the freedom of people to do wrong (discriminate in doing business with blacks if that is what you want to do) is the only way to protect their freedom to do right when when an action violates their moral code (not do business with gays planning marriage).

Sheesh, what will the obedience boys do with civil magistrates who protect the freedoms of citizens to do wrong?

I still don’t understand why a gay or black person (caution, we’re treading in microaggression territory) would want to give business (and the inherent profits) to someone whose views they find repugnant. I understand the importance of sit-ins during the Civil Rights protests. But conceivably, an African-American who objected to Jim Crow could occupy a lunch-counter seat and not purchase anything. But after segregation laws went away, did African-Americans return to businesses that had refused to serve them? I could well imagine why they wouldn’t. So why do gay people and their enablers want to make anti-gay bakers make a cake for gay weddings and have gay people pay anti-gay people for such services? The whole understanding of human motivation is off. Doesn’t anyone fear an inedible cake? Or will the government set standards for tastiness to which all business must comply?

What I understand even less is the sensitivity of religious consciences to gay marriage. I do not support the legalization of gay marriage on social grounds. But I have no idea why some consciences object to gay marriage but not to providing services for other breakers of the Decalogue. Would a Protestant baker object to making a wedding cake for a marriage in a Roman Catholic church even when Rome’s teaching on marriage violates the sufficiency of God’s word? Or what about a cake for non-believers? I get it. Their money spends. But are we really supposed to think that homosexuals are the only ones with sin entering into nuptials?

The Reformed Episcopal Church

Published on by D. G. Hart36 Comments

The only communion where you kneel to receive grape juice and you have a priest who is able to mix it up with the BBs. Consider the following exchange (over Tim Bayly’s recommendation of a Roman Catholic Cardinal’s views on — can you believe it — masculinity:

Bill Smith – January 14, 2015 – 5:20pm
Excellent counsel here for how to enable men to be more manly:

“The goodness and importance of men became very obscured, and for all practical purposes, were not emphasized at all. This is despite the fact that it was a long tradition in the Church, especially through the devotion of St. Joseph, to stress the manly character of the man who sacrifices his life for the sake of the home, who prepares with chivalry to defend his wife and his children and who works to provide the livelihood for the family. So much of this tradition of heralding the heroic nature of manhood has been lost in the Church today.”

“Going to Confession and to Sunday Mass, praying the Rosary together as a family in the evening, eating meals together, all these things give practical direction in the Christian life. ”

“As an example, it became politically incorrect to talk about the Knights of the Altar, an idea that is highly appealing to young men. The Knights of the Altar emphasize the idea that young men offer their chivalrous service at the altar to defend Christ in the sacred realities of the Church. This idea is not welcome in many places today.”

“In many places the Mass became very priest‑centered, it was like the “priest show”. This type of abuse leads to a loss of the sense of the sacred, taking the essential mystery out of the Mass. The reality of Christ Himself coming down on the altar to make present His sacrifice on Cavalry gets lost. Men are drawn to the mystery of Christ’s sacrifice but tune out when the Mass becomes a “priest show” or trite.”

“Young men and men respond to rigor and precision and excellence. When I was trained to be a server, the training lasted for several weeks and you had to memorize the prayers at the foot of the altar. It was a rigorous and a carefully executed service. All of a sudden, in the wake of Vatican II, the celebration of the liturgy became very sloppy in many places. It became less attractive to young men, for it was slipshod.

The introduction of girl servers also led many boys to abandon altar service. Young boys don’t want to do things with girls. It’s just natural. The girls were also very good at altar service. So many boys drifted away over time. I want to emphasize that the practice of having exclusively boys as altar servers has nothing to do with inequality of women in the Church.

I think that this has contributed to a loss of priestly vocations. It requires a certain manly discipline to serve as an altar boy in service at the side of priest, and most priests have their first deep experiences of the liturgy as altar boys. If we are not training young men as altar boys, giving them an experience of serving God in the liturgy, we should not be surprised that vocations have fallen dramatically.”

“…the Church must make a concentrated effort to evangelize men by delivering a strong and consistent message about what it means to be a faithful Catholic man. Men need to be addressed very directly about the demanding and noble challenge of serving Jesus Christ the Eternal King and His Catholic Church. Men are hungry and thirsty for meaning beyond the everyday world.”

“We need to catechize men about the profound realities of the Mass. As I mentioned, catechesis has been poor, especially the catechesis of men. Catechizing men and celebrating the Mass in a reverent way will make a big difference. It is also clear that many men will respond to the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, the rite celebrated before the Vatican II Council reforms.”

“Confession becomes a mysteriously beautiful experience for a man. For a man can know with certainty that he has personally expressed his sorrow for his sins to God, he can hear the freeing words of God through His minister and that his sins are forgiven and absolved.”

Tim Bayly – January 14, 2015 – 5:45pm
Dear Bill,

The interview was not commended for its practical counsel concerning the formation of manhood. Rather I commended it for its forthright recognition of the abandonment of sexuality and manhood these past few decades.

I’m confident Baylyblog readers are skilled at differentiating between wheat and chaff.

Love, . . .

Bill Smith – January 15, 2015 – 10:28am
Patriarchy puts one into bed with strange fellows. Cardinal Burke the Roman Catholic who commends to us traditional Roman Catholicism is an ally who is willing to go outslde the camp of human approval, to be hated by the world, and to fill up the sufferings of Christ with us. On the other hand Tim Keller, the evangelical who preaches the Gospel if Christ, though not the gospel of patrimony, is rejected and warned against. It get curiouser and curiouser. . . .

Tim Bayly – January 15, 2015 – 11:52am
Bill, you are a mere scoffer. Please move on.

Firmly,

Bill Smith – January 15, 2015 – 12:10pm
Tim, I am not the one who commended Cardinal Burke and linked to the inteview with him in which he recommends traditional Roman Catholic doctrine and practice as the path to the recovery of manhood. I am not the one who attacks and warns against Tim Keller. I am not one who turns patriarchy into gospel and scoffs at those who do not see it and practice it as I understand it. In these cases that would be you.

Honestly,
Bill

While separating wheat from chaff, I wonder if the BBs readers know that wheat is hermaphroditic both male and female.

Christian Homeland

Published on by D. G. Hart196 Comments

Thomas Wolfe wrote You Can’t Go Home Again, a book that I once started but could not finish even after visiting the Wolfe home in Asheville, NC. If Christians could go home again, where would it be? The Garden of Eden? The sword-wielding angels guarding the place would make that difficult. Judah? Adding Protestant Christian claims to the difficulties in Palestine sure seems unwise. Plus, Protestants never had much of a presence in Jerusalem or Israel (except vicariously if Christendom and the Crusades do anything for you). The Netherlands? Scotland? England? Massachusetts Bay? The U.S.? Protestants have lots of vested interests in certain national identities. But most of us, no matter how Kuyperian, neo-Puritian, Covenanter, or exceptionalist would concede that none of these so-called Protestant nations are really the center of God’s redemptive plans (the way that Eden and Israel were).

In other words, we’re all in exile because Jesus has gone to prepare a home for his people.

But some Protestants still regard Israel as a “holy” land in the way they understand Israeli-Palestinian relations. I certainly understand why Western powers would have wanted to secure a homeland for Jews, especially after World War II. But why place the nation of Israel, established with some kind of Zionist sentiments, smack dab in the middle of an ethnically and religiously hostile territory? Might a better place have been Newfoundland or Montana? Just create a Jewish state somewhere in North America. (And by the way, if American diplomats these days find a 2-state solution attractive, why not a 2-state option in 1861? If you look at maps of Israel, the Confederate States of America’s borders looked a whole lot more secure than the situation that John Kerry faces.)

And then, what happens if the only biblical holy land is heaven? Bill Smith points the way:

Does the Israeli state have a right to the territory allotted to the tribes of Israel by Joshua? If you are a dispensationalist, you do think that, because you believe that the Jews are God’s people, that there is a future for Israel distinct from the church, and that the Old Testament land belongs to Israel by divine right. You believe that the human race is divided both as believers and unbelievers and as Jews and Gentiles. We live in a parenthesis (the Church Age) which will be followed by God’s implementation of his original plan for Israel and the fulfillment of his ancient promises to Israel.

My question to those who are not dispensationalists is, Why do you respond to the actions of the Israelis on dispensationalist assumptions? That is, Why do you respond to the conflicts in Palestine as though you believe a geographical land belongs to ethnic Jews and the modern Jewish state? Or, Why do you instinctively support what the Israeli state does as though it has a special status that trumps every other consideration?

In other words, it seems to me that the right way to view the national claims and geographical aspirations of ethnic Jews is to view them the same as we would any other group of people in the world. It is to view these claims and aspirations as we would if (as is the case) ethnic Jews do not have a Biblical claim to land in the Middle East. The modern state of Israel is no different from any other nation as to its rights and obligations.

Ho Hum

Published on by D. G. Hart42 Comments

According to David Hall, not much of significance occurred at the PCA General Assembly:

It was a par-for-the-course General Assembly, which pronounces another resounding “Meh,” to the idealist reformers. As is becoming customary, most of the interesting things took place off the floor as this court of the church has become largely irrelevant for the year-round functioning of the church. Perhaps it is a sign of growth and stability that churches no longer depend much on annual four-day meetings[1] and are doing the work of ministry themselves without reliance on either a Plantation or a Corporatist model.

I’ll let the Presbyterian Church of Americans weigh in on this, but I do need to correct Pastor Hall about the origins of “Obedience boys.” All hail Bill Smith.

Does the L in TULIP Stand for Living in Denial?

Published on by D. G. Hart52 Comments

A while back Bill Smith, Presbyterian in exile, made this observation about the ongoing debates in Reformed circles over antinomianism and sanctification:

I think I understand the problem the “obedience boys” have with the “grace boys.” It is that the “grace boys” can seem to teach grace in such a way as to make people indifferent to sin: “Sin is not such a big deal. It happens. No need to get all worked up about it. Just accept that you are a sinner and that God loves you no matter what. Bask in the knowledge you are a child of God.” I get the problem the “obedience boys” have with the “grace boys.” As far as taking exception with that portrayal of the life of grace goes, I agree.

What I don’t think the “obedience boys” get is how normal sin is. Perhaps they really do not know this reality in terms of their own experience. It could be that for them there is a regeneration-created night and day before and after story. Or, it may mean that there has been a steady upward trajectory to their sanctification without harrowing nosedives into sin or wearying discouragements of slow or no progress. Or, it may be that they do not know themselves very well. Or, it may be that their theological understanding of regeneration and conversion does not allow them to acknowledge that believers can have messy lives – chronic struggles and frequent defeats. That believers can by their messy lives inflict great damage and hurt on other believers and can be badly damaged and hurt by the messy lives of other believers. That the church is a messy place where messy lives are intertwined with and sometimes disillusioned by other messy lives.

Smith recommends that SNAFU makes more sense of how Christians should understand the presence of sin in this world (which would also apply to the neo-Calvinists and Roman Catholics prone to talk about “human flourishing“):

SNAFU – situation normal, all messed up. A National Guard radioman may have invented the term just before World War II, but it became standard, if unofficial, military jargon during the War. It was an apt description of reality as soldiers and marines experienced it. Supplies and equipment did not get where they were needed when they were needed. Battle plans went awry. Stupid orders were issued. Men found themselves in desperate situations. Usually the “human element” was in part or whole responsible. Military men came to expect mess-ups as normal.

A further indication of how few “conservative” Christians (Roman Catholic and Protestant) are willing to apply the category of SNAFU not only to persons but also to the United States, is to consider the degree to American exceptionalism resonates with self-professing believers. Defining American exceptionalism is tricky, but it generally involves a belief that the United States is singularly blessed by God, has accomplished untold good in the history of the world, and even if it has declined the nation was truly great because of its divine sanctions and virtuous performance.

It would be one thing, say through the extra-confessional idea of definitive sanctification, to argue that the individual Christian has broken definitively with sin and so now lives a life that should not be characterized by SNAFU. But to view a nation as on balance wholesome or even as an exceptional force for goodness, truth, and beauty is downright inconceivable given what we know about human depravity (think Woodrow Wilson) or about human politics (think The Wire or Homeland).

To avoid the dark thoughts that follow from Total Depravity is truly gullible. Non-believers tend to think that Christians are remarkably prone to believe all sorts of nonsense. A pronounced understanding of human wickedness should function as a hedge on such gullibility. If it does not, it explains the appeal of the “obedience boys” and the Salem Radio Network.

Male Pattern Sensitivity

Published on by D. G. Hart21 Comments

Who is more sensitive?

Bill Smith in response to Thabiti Anyabwile on crazy Confederate uncles?

I should not have to say these things, but I will, though I know some, perhaps including Brother Anyabwile, will take it as the equivalent of “I have black friends”: (1) I have no sympathy for the League of the South. I have never been to Monroe, Louisiana, or attended a Confederate Ball. While I am eligible for membership, I have not joined the Sons of the Confederacy because I do not want anything to do with the racism of some of its members. (2) In seminary in the early 1970s I spent two summers working as an assistant to a black Presbyterian pastor in Jackson, MS. (3) I was run off as a RUM campus minister, with a wife and five babies, in part because of my racial views and practice. Ours was the only integrated RUF in Mississippi, and we integrated the statewide conferences. I stood by an interracial dating couple which included my sitting in an office hearing one of them described as a “white N-word” by a person threatening my job. (4) I have a love-hate relationship with the South, and particularly with Mississippi. Mississippi is a place where place (both geography and status) and people (your family and social group) make a great deal of difference. I hate indirection and insincerity in relationships. But the South is like my family. I can point out theie faults, but if you go to talking bad about my people, I’ll bow my neck and clench my fists. (5) I read B.B. Warfield and listen to B.B. King.

But, nevertheless I am one of those crazy Confederates I suppose because I am (1) white (so far as I know, though there are questions) , (2) Reformed (in my case defined by the 39 Articles); (3) western (in civilization – the “dead white guys”); (4) Southern (by heritage and affection).

Like all paranoid schizophrenics, I feel I have been persecuted.

Or Jemar Tisby on Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson?

So, Blacks were happier during the Jim Crow era? Does he assume that all Blacks now are on welfare?

I’ve actually heard similar reasoning quite often. Usually these comments come from older Whites who grew up in the South and remember it fondly. I understand their point. They look back on their experience of a historical moment that was mostly positive, and they want to remember it that way. The problem in a segregated society, then and now, is that our perceptions tend only to reflect our particular realities. We have little exposure to the realities of others, including an awareness of their hardships.

What Phil Robertson and others get wrong is how they diagnose the state of race relations in America. They use external cues like the frequency of a smile, and their personal exposure to overt instances of racism to judge the climate of a culture. But what some people fail to understand is that there are unwritten rules of conduct when Blacks interact with Whites. . . .

It’s possible that Phil Robertson knew Blacks who were genuinely happy. It’s possible that in his community there truly were exceptionally positive relationships between Blacks and Whites. It’s possible, but not likely. What’s probably closer to reality is that he saw Black people who knew the rules. They knew what they could say and do around Whites who held the power. Even if those Whites were lower-income or “white trash” as Mr. Robertson describes it. There was still a cultural curtain separating the races.

I am merely asking, since it seems that everyone is sensitive and that everyone also expects others to moderate their sensitivity for the sake of getting along, though Joe Carter may differ.

I do believe that Tisby is correct to conclude that:

We all need to examine our tools of discernment. What are we using as evidence for a hypothesis about a people? Are we employing superficial and anecdotal proofs for our theories? Or are we engaging in meaningful dialogue with those who are different from us?

I am not sure that Anyabwile or Smith’s posts meet Tisby’s guidelines, nor do I think either man is without a point. The issue may be whether each man can acknowledge the other’s grievance, or whether one grievance trumps the other and lowers Tisby’s threshold for “meaningful dialogue.” That’s why Ross Douthat’s point (in the context of “12 Years A Slave”) is worth repeating:

A fruitful conversation about race in America, then, would require both sides to somehow pick a different starting point. To get a fair hearing from liberals — and, more importantly, from black Americans — the right would need to begin from a place of greater empathy for the black experience, and greater respect for the historical reasons that voter ID laws and Rush Limbaugh soliloquies can raise so many hackles. To get a fair hearing from conservatives, liberals would need to begin by imputing racism less frequently, attacking racially-entangled policies that aren’t remotely like Jim Crow on the merits rather than just calling them Jim Crow, Round Two, and recognizing that (as with Hitler analogies) the sooner you link your interlocutors to slaveowners, the faster they will tune you out.

Obama-era conservatism has often gone backward, not forward, where this potential conversation is concerned. But a liberalism that expects conservatives to see their present-day positions and rhetoric illuminated and condemned by a cinematic portrait of the evils of slavery in 1840s Louisiana — or that declares them unreachable when they don’t — is a liberalism that’s as unready for dialogue as any insensitive right-wing talk show host.

Authenticity, Schmauthenticity

Published on by D. G. Hart45 Comments

Ever since the First Pretty Good Awakening (at least), a kind of conservative Protestant has looked for indications of genuine faith — such as religious affections, or unwillingness to compromise with worldliness (read holiness) — to distinguish real Christianity from one that simply goes through the motions. (The search for certainty comes in other forms. Think of the “logic” that concludes with papal supremacy as the guarantee that inauthentic Christianity won’t prevail. Then we have the politicized Protestantism that looks for public square displays of moral outrage as indicators of the real deal.)

The First Pretty Good Awakening’s brief against nominal Christianity — going through the motions — raises serious problems for means of grace (confessional) Protestants since going to church, singing the psalms, receiving the Lord’s Supper, hearing the word read and preached are the very God-ordained motions that real Christians go through. Can singing be faked? Sure. The awakeners’ answer, then, was to find some form of Christian devotion that avoided dissimulation. One of the more recent examples of this quest for authenticity was charismatic or Praise & Worship worship (redundancy intended). Here, supposedly, was a vibrant display of worship, with music that would always yield the desired spiritual vigor.

Turns out that even charismatic worship can be faked (thanks to our Presbyterian-in-exile):

The lights are dim, candles are lit, the music swells as the lead vocalist goes up an octave for the climactic end of the song, and throughout the room dozens of college students raise their hands as they sing with abandon. It’s a powerful moment in the worship service. Then the song stops. The students drop their hands open their eyes. In front of me two of the girls who had their hands raised a few seconds earlier are having a conversation about their afternoon plans. Then the music starts up again, they end their conversation, close their eyes, and throw their hands up in the air again.

Whatever.

The solution is not to find the next devotional fix that will show when faith is real. It is instead to abandon QIRC and be content with the means that God has ordained, and the struggles that accompany seeing only by faith.