"If there is equality, it is in His love, not in us"

Via Mike Gray at The American Culture, some quotations from C.S. Lewis, indicating his distaste for government intrusion into the lives of individuals and a particular suspicion toward those who would remake us for our own good:

I do not like the pretensions of Government — the grounds on which it demands my obedience — to be pitched too high. I don’t like the medicine-man’s magical pretensions nor the Bourbon’s Divine Right. This is not solely because I disbelieve in magic and in Bossuet’s Politique. I believe in God, but I detest theocracy. For every Government consists of mere men and is, strictly viewed, a makeshift; if it adds to its commands ‘Thus saith the Lord,’ it lies, and lies dangerously.

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.

I believe a man is happier, and happy in a richer way, if he had “the freeborn mind.” But I doubt whether he can have this without economic independence, which the new society is abolishing. For economic independence allows an education not controlled by Government; and in adult life it is the man who needs, and asks, nothing of Government who can criticize its acts and snap his fingers at its ideology.

It is idle to say that men are of equal value. If value is taken in a worldly sense—if we mean that all men are equally useful or beautiful or good or entertaining—then this is nonsense.... If there is equality, it is in His love, not in us.... In this way then, the Christian life defends the single personality from the collective, not by isolating him but by giving him the status of an organ in the mystical Body.

The question has become whether we can discover any way of submitting to the worldwide paternalism of a technocracy without losing all personal privacy and independence. Is there any possibility of getting the super Welfare State’s honey and avoiding the sting? Let us make no mistake about the sting.... To live his life in his own way, to call his house his castle, to enjoy the fruits of his own labour, to educate his children as his conscience directs, to save for their prosperity after his death—these are wishes deeply ingrained in civilized man.

In every age the men who want us under their thumb, if they have any sense, will put forward the particular pretension which the hopes and fears of that age render most potent.... We must give full weight to the claim that nothing but science, and science globally applied, and therefore unprecedented Government controls, can produce full bellies and medical care for the whole human race: nothing, in short, but a world Welfare State. It is a full admission of these truths which impresses upon me the extreme peril of humanity at present. We have on the one hand a desperate need: hunger, sickness, and dread of war. We have, on the other, the conception of something that might meet it: omnipotent global technocracy. Are not these the ideal opportunity for enslavement?... The question about progress has become the question whether we can discover any way of submitting to the world-wide paternalism of a technocracy without losing all personal privacy and independence.... All that can really happen is that some men will take charge of the destiny of the others. They will be simply men; none perfect, some greedy, cruel and dishonest. The more completely we are planned the more powerful they will be. Have we discovered some new reason why, this time, power should not corrupt as it had done before?

Gray recommends "C. S. Lewis on Mere Liberty and the Evils of Statism," by David J. Theroux.

C. S. Lewis and the Modern Total State | The American Culture

"Some of the magic has rubbed off on the real world"

Of interest to anyone curious about the creator of Middle Earth, via The Thinklings, a BBC documentary about, and with, J.R.R. Tolkien from 1968 [the interviews include some of the political silliness typical of that time]. There are many interviews with 20th century authors at the same site, all from the BBC archives.

A shorter version of the same program on YouTube:

BBC - Archive - In Their Own Words: British Novelists - Release | JRR Tolkien

"Reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly, and in the fear of God"

I'm single, never married, so my opinions on this subject should probably be taken with at least one grain of salt. But as I have said previously, weddings have become obscenely expensive and far too much centered on the wonderful individuals tying the knot rather than the obligations before God ["and this congregation"] that they are assuming. [And all of this happening as the average duration of the commitment gets shorter.]

Andrew Brown in "What's wrong with weddings" explains one reason the ceremony should not necessarily be altered to suit the desires of the couple:

.... Most clergy...would much rather conduct funerals than weddings, because they are so much more honest occasions. But in fact the modern wedding, if it does anything, shortens marriages rather than cementing them.

Here's why. The modern wedding, with its stupendous cost (£20,000 on average) and duration, is really a celebration of the participants. They really are unique and precious snowflakes, just as they have suspected all along. In fact, they are each and both of them just the unique and precious people they would like to be. ....

Feeling unique and treasured and valued for yourself is exactly the point of being in love, and it's very nice. But it's not realistic. In particular, it's a disastrous attitude to bring to a wedding. ....

The great point about completely impersonal ceremonies, whose form is the same for everyone, whether these are religious or entirely civil, is that they remind us that the problems and difficulties of marriage are universal. They come from being human. They can't be dodged just by being our wonderful selves, even all dusted with unicorn sparkle.

On your wedding day you feel thoroughly special, and your guests will go along with this; so that is the moment when the ceremony should remind you that you're not all that. What you're doing isn't a step into fairyland. And if it does turn out to be the gateway to a new life, that is one that will have to be built over time and unglamorously with the unpromising materials of the old one. .... [more]

What's wrong with weddings | Andrew Brown | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Moderate Islam

For those wondering whether there can be such a thing as a "moderate Islam," this symposium: "What Is Moderate Islam?," provided by the Wall Street Journal, may help clarify the issues. Links to the contributors' articles:

• Anwar Ibrahim: The Ball Is in Our Court
• Bernard Lewis: A History of Tolerance
• Ed Husain: Don't Call Me Moderate, Call Me Normal
• Reuel Marc Gerecht: Putting Up With Infidels Like Me
• Tawfik Hamid: Don't Gloss Over The Violent Texts
• Akbar Ahmed: Mystics, Modernists and Literalists

In the final essay Akbar Ahmed, who is the chair of Islamic studies at American University and former Pakistani ambassador to Britain, categorizes Muslims into three broad groupings:

Having studied the practices of Muslims around the world today, I've come up with three broad categories: mystic, modernist and literalist. Of course, I must add the caveat that these are analytic models and aren't watertight.

Muslims in the mystic category reflect universal humanism, believing in "peace with all." The 13th-century Sufi poet Rumi exemplifies this category. In his verses, he glorifies worshipping the same God in the synagogue, the church and the mosque.

The second category is the modernist Muslim who believes in trying to balance tradition and modernity. The modernist is proud of Islam and yet able to live comfortably in, and contribute to, Western society.

Most Muslim leaders who led nationalist movements in the first half of the 20th century were modernists—from Sultan Mohammed V, the first king of independent Morocco, to M.A. Jinnah, who founded Pakistan in 1947. But as modernists failed over time, becoming increasingly incompetent and corrupt, the literalists stepped into the breach.

The literalists believe that Muslim behavior must approximate that of the Prophet in seventh-century Arabia. Their belief that Islam is under attack forces many of them to adopt a defensive posture. And while not all literalists advocate violence, many do. Movements like the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and the Taliban belong to this category.

In the Muslim world the divisions between the three categories I have delineated are real. The outcome of their struggle will define Islam's fate. [emphasis added]

A Symposium: What Is Moderate Islam? - WSJ.com

The goal of youth is to grow up

Is there any real relationship between what the contemporary church considers "youth oriented" and what young people are actually interested in? Not much, I think, although most Christian young people are polite about it and kind to the clueless. What most of us baby-boomers think of as contemporary is about as relevant to young people today as Fanny Crosby was to us. Even when we get it right, young people are not necessarily impressed. From a review by Todd Pruitt of T. David Gordon's Why Johnny Can't Sing Hymns at The Gospel Coalition site:

.... Gordon places “paedocentrism” near the center of the present soiling of corporate worship. “Reaching the young” has become for the church what “doing it for the children” is for politicians. After all, who opposes reaching young people? But Gordon challenges this paedocentrism. “Biblically, the goal of youth is to leave it as rapidly as possible. The goal of the young, biblically, is to be mature. . . . We equate youth with youth culture, and erroneously believe that we cannot minister to the one without embracing, condoning, or promoting the other” (p. 161).

What is more, Gordon challenges the assumption of many baby boomers that pop music forms in worship is an effective way to reach young people. One of the “money quotes” from the book is, “Young people who attend a church and see a group of fifty-year-olds playing their guitars in front of the church in order to ‘reach the young’ will perhaps politely appreciate the gesture, but they frankly regard the music as being fairly lame” (p. 159). .... [more]

As a result of my lengthy experience with high school students I developed the firm impression that many teachers underestimate the capacity of students to comprehend complex materials and ideas. The problem often isn't the difficulty of the material but the inability of the teacher to translate it into understandable terms — which, after all, is why teachers exist. Jon Nielson, also at the Gospel Coalition site believes that we underestimate young people's capacity to understand solid preaching as well: "Your Students Can Handle Expository Preaching":

Expositional preaching for high school students? Are you crazy?

Expositional preaching—moving sequentially through a book of the Bible, seeking to discover the main point of the text, and making that the main point of the message—can’t work for high school students . . . can it? Don’t they need something more attention-grabbing, flashy, and topical?

Responding to this thinking, which dominates youth ministry circles, I’ve come up with a list: Top Reasons for Expository Preaching in High School Ministry. I should note that my conviction regarding expository preaching extends to the whole church. ....

Nielson's points:

1. They can handle it. Adults in the church have pitifully underestimated the capacity of young people to grasp biblical truth revealed in the very structure of the biblical text. ....
2. It helps them learn to read the Bible. While topical teaching can be helpful at certain times, a steady and unbalanced diet of it undermines students’ understanding of God’s Word. ....
3. It protects us. A commitment to expositional preaching protects youth ministers from students and from ourselves. .... Only by elevating the Word of God in our teaching, letting each passage along the way dictate what we teach our students, do we ensure that we consistently and faithfully teach the revealed Word and will of God for students’ benefit.
4. It makes you a model, not a celebrity.

Why Johnny Can’t Sing Hymns - TGC Reviews, Your Students Can Handle Expository Preaching – The Gospel Coalition Blog

Heresy and schism

David Mills reacting to news about the most recent denominational split and a commenter's response that "schism is worse than heresy," makes this point:

...[T]he real problem with the claim was theological: that heresy is itself an act of schism. It is a break with the tradition, a rejection of what had been the shared and official belief, a willful refusal to remain in unity with one’s brothers, a transfer of allegiance and obedience to a new and alien ideology.

And it’s a more fundamental schism than schism, so to speak. The man who believes that Jesus Christ is "God of God" etc. and the man who believes He was a notably god-conscious mortal are much farther apart than the man who believes the Nicene Creed and also that our Lord gave us the papacy and the man who believes the Nicene Creed and also that the Lord gave us presbyteral government. ....

Heresy and Schism » First Thoughts | A First Things Blog

While I was gone

I've been gone for the last few days, away from home and away from my computer, enjoying some time with my brother on America's inland coast. Having reviewed the posts that accumulated on some of my favorite blogs, I want to call particular attention to these:

• Via Justin Taylor, "What Was a Church Service Like in the Second Century?"
• Also via Justin Taylor, from the ESV Study Bible, "A FAQ on the Difference between Mormonism and Biblical Christianity"
• Via By Every Word, "Spurgeon vs. Hyper-Calvinism"
• Chaplain Mike on "My Debt to Reformed Theology"
• At 9Marks, Sinclair Ferguson on "What Then Shall We Preach on Hell?"

History

Harry S. Truman:
“The only thing new in this world is the history that you don't know”Harry S Truman

Tolerance and argument

Nick Cohen, in the UK's Standpoint, writes about "Radical Islam's Fellow-Travellers," with particular attention to the antagonism toward Ayaan Hirsi Ali and the applause accorded Tariq Ramadan. In the course of the article, Cohen makes an important point about the difference between tolerance and respect.

.... On one question, however, Ramadan speaks plainly. The religious tolerance of the Enlightenment is not good enough for him. Tolerance means suffering the presence of "the other," he says. Only when we move from tolerance to respect will we "recognise that the other is as complex as we are; he is our equal, our mirror, our question."

Forget the sanctimonious sentiments for a moment. Forget, too, that Ramadan refuses to condemn or even mention the religious oppression and violence in much of the Muslim world, and consider what he is asking us to throw away. Religious tolerance received its classic Enlightenment definition in Thomas Jefferson's Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom of 1777: "No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever...All men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain their opinions in matters of religion."

Jefferson's key phrase was "by argument." Toleration did not limit debate but removed the barriers of state and church that had stood in debate's way. Argument is not in its nature always respectful of "the other's" point of view. At its best, it is robust and demanding. Ramadan's insistence on "respect" is a way of erecting new barriers in place of old, of ruling debates off limits. .... [more]

Radical Islam's Fellow-Travellers | Standpoint

Celebrating virtues

Ryan L. Cole, reviewing an exhibit of Norman Rockwell's paintings, explains to the obtuse why they are worthwhile, and why they remain popular.

.... Though its subjects often coincide with and chronicle events of the twentieth century, Rockwell’s work touches on timeless, universal emotions and aspirations. In the foreground of “Boy Reading Adventure Story” (1923), a child, draped in shadows, studies a novel (perhaps Sidney Lanier’s The Boy’s King Arthur). In the background, a distant, dreamy pastel image of the boy heroically mounted on a steed, suited in knightly armor, a beautiful maiden nearby, projects his mind’s eye. ....

Rockwell’s work also celebrated civic engagement and its accompanying liberties, as in his famous depiction of the Four Freedoms (of Worship and Speech, and from Want and Fear) that Franklin D. Roosevelt set out in his 1941 State of the Union address. The series, published in 1943 and subsequently used to sell war bonds, is represented in the exhibit by a sketchy, early draft of “Freedom of Speech,” which shows a man, surrounded by fellow citizens, rising to speak at a town-hall meeting.

To Gopnik and other critics, this rendering is emblematic of all that is wrong with Rockwell. Why celebrate interchangeable Americans participating in harmless, small-scale civic duty? Because in America, as Rockwell knew, democracy is most often found in school-board, city-council, and town-hall meetings. It takes courage to stand up in a crowd of friends, family, and neighbors and make an argument for or against something. Rockwell was right to celebrate those willing to take public stands on issues; without them, the American idea falls apart. And though not featured in the exhibit, paintings like “The Problem We All Live With” and “Murder in Mississippi,” which championed the civil rights movement, proved that Rockwell’s vision of America was hardly reactionary or blind to changing times.

But it took integrity for Rockwell to continue to paint in his traditional style amid the postmodernist convulsions that elevated abstraction over realism and artistic angst over subject matter. He continued to celebrate virtues that came increasingly under attack amid the self-doubt of the second half of the twentieth century. Perhaps the most fitting coda for Rockwell, then, is “The Connoisseur.” In this work from 1962, an older man, dressed in the formal attire of an older generation, examines a Jackson Pollockesque painting. This forms a kind of self-portrait: Rockwell the connoisseur gazes at a new generation of trendsetters, but holds fast to his own style, now hopelessly out of date. .... [more]

The Storyteller by Ryan L. Cole, City Journal 27 August 2010

Such a thing as truth

A few years ago in some liberal circles a favorite conspiracy theory had to do with the supposed malign influence of "Straussianism," which somehow inspired an equally awful neoconservative foreign policy. The promoters of the conspiracy theory misrepresented Leo Strauss whose ideas about political theory are pretty straightforward and which, as Brian Bolduc reports in the Wall Street Journal, are about to become more accessible as recordings of his lectures are made available online.

Strauss sounds like a very good teacher. Bolduc:

Greater familiarity with Strauss's lectures may demolish this myth of him as a neoconservative Svengali. Instead, people may come to recognize him as, among other things, an engaging teacher.

Students loved Strauss because he rebelled against his profession's norms, especially historicism—the belief that all thought is the product of its time and place. Aristotle, historicism contends, believed the Greek city-state was the best regime because he lived in one. His insights are inapplicable to a modern liberal democracy.

This tenet still infects political science today, causing students excruciating boredom in their (typically, required) classes on political theory. Why should students care about Plato if they're taught that his philosophy is obsolete?

Listening to the tapes, you hear Strauss's different approach. He believes that thought—at least by great minds—can transcend its time and place. In other words, he believes there is such a thing as truth.

Instead of cataloging philosophers for rows of classroom note takers, he throws students into an ongoing argument: How should we live? He forces students not merely to study political philosophy but to engage in it. ....

...[H]e spent so much time answering students' questions that his class often ran past its allotted time. "At times a course went on for so long that Mrs. Strauss had to come in and stop it," says Werner Dannhauser, a former student of Mr. Strauss.

The reason for Strauss's energetic exchanges was that he took students seriously. "He said, 'When you're teaching always assume there is a silent student in the class who knows more than you do,'" remembers Roger Masters, another former student. ....

.... Political scientists who refuse to bend to their field's reigning ideology need a standard-bearer. And what a quizzical standard-bearer Strauss was: a chubby, balding little man with a thick German accent, a squeaky voice and a constant cigarette in his hand.

"You would not think that this man either in his appearance or in his speech would be a Pied Piper to students," says Jenny Strauss Clay, his daughter. "It wasn't for reasons of style or eloquence; it was for something else."

It was for his love of political philosophy, which—despite critics' objections—he believed to be more than an academic exercise. For him, it was a way of life.

Leo Strauss, Back and Better Than Ever in New Recordings and Transcripts of His Political Philosophy Lectures - WSJ.com

Every church is liturgical

Every church, however formal or informal it intends its approach to worship to be, develops patterns and behaviors that become habitual. Those that claim to be non-liturgical are kidding themselves. Attempting to clarify various misunderstandings about the "Ancient-Future" movement which has been attractive to some Evangelicals, "Chaplain Mike" at Internet Monk has this to say about liturgy in worship:

Ancient-Future types believe that liturgy is the means by which we worship God. Furthermore, they understand that everyone has a liturgy.

The Baptist pastor of my youth would have been appalled had anyone suggested his church was liturgical. But every week, he simply took the bulletin from the past Sunday, crossed out the specific hymn numbers, texts, and sermon topic, and wrote in new details for the next Sunday. Everything stayed in the same order. Once a month he added communion. We were as strict and standardized as any Mass.

Most “contemporary” churches claim to be “free,” but that has not been my experience. Those on the Ancient-Future path are not seeking liturgy in contrast to non-liturgy. They are seeking better liturgy in contrast to insufficiently thoughtful and purposeful liturgy. ....

As mentioned above, every congregation has a liturgy by which they worship. Evangelical services are known for music designed to stir the emotions followed by preaching/teaching designed to lead listeners to a decision. This is the revivalist liturgy that is about 200 years old.

The basic form of the traditional liturgy is different. Though specific elements may vary in different incarnations of the liturgy, the church’s worship has been defined traditionally as “Word and Sacrament.” Therefore, the liturgy is comprised of two primary sections: the Service of the Word and the Service of the Table. The beginning of the service, prior to the Word, is a time of gathering before God in praise, confession, and prayer. The ending of the service, following the Table, is when we receive God’s blessing and are sent into the world to share the Good News.

• Gathering: We come before God
• Service of the Word: We hear his Word and respond with confessions of faith and prayers of intercession
• Service of the Table: We give thanks and are nourished at his Table
• Sending: We are sent into the world to serve as God’s blest people

For those on the Ancient-Future path, this order is attractive. Whether it is worked out in an elaborate high-church service with a multitude of elements and formal style, or in simple fashion without a lot of accoutrements, the service focuses on Christ and the drama of redemption. Every Sunday, God’s people are immersed in the Gospel through the liturgy, which begins with acknowledging the worthiness of God, then confessing our sins, then hearing and responding to his Word, then receiving grace afresh at his table, and finally being sent into the world empowered by his Spirit.

Don’t Misunderstand the Ancient-Future Path | internetmonk.com

"Losing oneself in the maw of collective self-satisfaction"

David Rieff in "The Unwisdom of Crowds," discusses the desire for comradeship and the inclination to surrender your own judgment to that of the crowd.

.... Anyone who was ever bullied in a schoolyard, or, more to the point, anyone who ever joined in the bullying or just stood by while it was going on, knows full well where that feeling that no blame attaches to you if you are doing what everyone else is can lead. You end up doing, or at least condoning, things that you would never do solo, and that you have a hard time justifying once the crowd disperses and you are on your own again. Recapturing these scruples — at once the burden and the blessing of individual consciousness — does not mean moving from the utter conformity of the crowd to its polar opposite, an absolute non-conformity. To be a true non-conformist is rare, which is probably just as well, since absolute non-conformity would mean rebelling not just against some particular convention, but rather against all convention, and, by extension, all continuity with the past. Taken to this extreme, non-conformity becomes the moral equivalent of economic autarky — self-sufficiency taken to the point of nihilism, and few travel down that road (our modern pose of non-conformity is another matter). ....

.... As a teenager during the late 1960s, I spent a great of time demonstrating against the war in Vietnam. I have changed my mind about a great many things in my life, but I remain as opposed to that war at 57 as I was at 17. But I remember vividly my profound discomfort before joining every protest rally I ever participated in, and my equally profound sense of relief when I could finally detach myself from the crowd. The former seemed like losing oneself in the maw of collective self-satisfaction..., the latter like recapturing one’s identity, complete with all the dissatisfactions that are the mark of our individual humanity. In a crowd, one can only say, “Yes, we can.” But it takes an individual to say, “No, we can’t.” ....

The lesson, whether about geopolitics or daily life, should be clear: if what you are thinking could just as easily be expressed in a slogan, and shouted out or held aloft on a banner by a crowd, then you are probably not thinking at all. And in troubled times such as our own, times of the most enormous moral, social, cultural, and technological dislocation, that is immensely dangerous. [more]

The Unwisdom of Crowds | Big Questions Online

The President's faith

Terry Mattingly comments on the journalistic coverage of the President's religious affiliation in "Obama and Allah, past and present," and, based on his own research, doesn't think the public has been well served by the media. Mattingly's own column on the subject is here. Part of his GetReligion commentary:

After reading the ongoing waves of coverage of the Pew Forum poll, I set out to write a column that was based as much as possible on three sources: (1) Obama’s own words, (2) statements from the Obama team and (3) mainstream news coverage of his faith history, drawing only from on-the-record sources.

I created a thick file and pulled out my marked-up Obama memoirs. I have concluded three things:

• There is no question that, despite all the denials, the young Barry practiced Islam in Indonesia. He went to mosque, said the prayers, studied the Koran in Arabic and some of his Muslim friends remember him as being quite devout. But here is the big question: Would it help or hurt public discourse if members of the Obama team stopped denying this?
• There is reason to believe that some, repeat “some,” Muslims might consider Obama to be an apostate Muslim, due to his early faith history and his public conversion to Christianity. But this requires viewing the issue from one Muslim point of view, one of several competing Muslim points of view on issues of faith and identity. As always, let me stress a point we often make here at GetReligion — there is no one Islam, no monolithic approach to many, many issues of tradition and law.
• How anyone can doubt that Obama is a convert to a liberal, Universalistic Christianity — as he has said — is totally beyond me. He is a liberal Christian. Conservative Christians can argue that some of his beliefs are wrong (to which, as an Eastern Orthodox believer, I would certainly say, “Amen”), but how can anyone say that he has not given frequent public confessions of faith? Yes, it would help if Trinity UCC would clearly verify that he was baptized (there is online debate about this, of course). Journalists need to do a better job of quoting Obama’s testimony and his many statements about his faith, struggles and beliefs. Period.

With so much chatter and misinformation out there, I also think it would be constructive if citizens knew more information about Obama’s past. Journalists must be willing to quote, to the best of their abilities, what is accurate in order to note that is inaccurate. .... [more]

Note: The image is also from Terry Mattingly's post at the GetReligion site.

Obama and Allah, past and present » GetReligion

Anti-Semitic fellow-travelers

From a review of a book describing a connection between the Nazi regime and Islamist extremism in the person of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin Al-Husseini:

Just after the Allies defeated Rommel’s forces at El Alamein during the Second World War, Arab-world listeners heard this exhortation from Radio Berlin:

“Arise, o sons of Arabia, fight for your sacred rights. Slaughter Jews wherever you find them. Their spilled blood pleases Allah, our history and religion. That will save our honor.”

The speaker was Haj Amin Al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. This man, more than any other individual, can be regarded as the “godfather” of modern-day Islamic terrorism. Every group that daily makes headlines with their atrocities—the Muslim Brotherhood, the PLO, Hamas, Al Qaeda among them—can trace its origins back to Al-Husseini. His hatred for Jews, but especially the Zionists in Palestine, never diminished in his lifetime (~1895-1974). ....

As a terrorist, Al-Husseini innovated suicide bombing, not just against Jews but also moderate Muslims who dared even to negotiate with the Zionists.

From 1937 onward, he was on the Nazi payroll; he moved to Berlin in 1941, being settled in a house taken from a Jew and treated throughout the war like a visiting potentate; he visited the extermination camps incognito, criticizing them for not being efficient enough in executing the “final solution”; he lived off the proceeds of the Sonderfund (money and valuables such as gold teeth taken from Holocaust victims) which he used to set up Bosnian-Muslim SS formations in the Balkans.

When the Third Reich collapsed in 1945, he fled to Egypt with hundreds of Nazis, using the Sonderfund and numbered Swiss bank accounts to finance the escape....

New Book Fills in Gaps in the History of Islamic Terrorism | The American Culture

Christianity and conservatives

William F. Buckley's God and Man at Yale [1951] was the book that first brought him widespread public attention. It was an indictment of increasing secularism and socialism at Yale. Buckley's remedy was controversial even among conservatives - Russell Kirk disagreed, for instance - but not his description of what had happened. Joe Carter, in "God and Man in the Conservative Movement", thinks much the same thing - at least with respect to Christian belief - is happening in movement conservatism.

.... In God and Man, he unapologetically declares, “I believe that the duel between Christianity and atheism is the most important in the world. I further believe that the struggle between individualism and collectivism is the same struggle reproduced on another level.”

Who would have the courage to make such a claim today? Can you imagine the reaction if a prominent conservative were to say that at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference? After the crowd recovered from fainting at such a bigoted religious view, they’d boo him from the stage. How dare he besmirch the good conservative atheists? They have as much claim to the title “conservative” as anyone else. ....

Of course you can still be a Christian—even an evangelical one—within the movement, for the conservative elite is not openly hostile to the faith. In fact, many of the leaders in the movement are, like the administrators of Yale in the 1940s, good churchgoing folk. They are all in favor of religion, provided it is practiced in private and not forced on others. Christianity can be a harmless pastime, similar to woodworking, quilting, or homosexuality.

When it comes to the expression of religious convictions in public and as a defining mark of conservatism, these movement leaders are moderately pro-choice. Christianity should remain safe, legal, and—like Judaism—rare. ....

Stop by a trendy D.C. bar and strike up a conversation about social issues with a group of young Congressional staffers, think-tank interns, and associate editors of opinion journals. If you can tell the difference between the liberals and conservatives based on their view of same-sex marriage I’ll buy the next round; if you can find more than one committed social conservative in the group I’ll buy you the saloon. ....

Increasingly, the elites of the institutional conservative movement do not reflect—much less emphasize—the traditional religious values of their supporters. The obvious question we should be asking ourselves is the same one that Buckley presented to the Yale alumnus: Since they do not support our values, why do we continue to financially support them? .... [more]

God and Man in the Conservative Movement | First Things

Tradition

As I read this internetmonk.com post about how the Church should think about tradition, two points came to mind — one made there, and one largely my own. First, that every Christian tendency has tradition, just as every church has liturgy, the only question being whether it is recognized and intentional. Second, that none of them get it all right. My denomination is very small and remains separate from other Baptists only because of a single doctrinal position. If we are right about that position, there can be only one reason we have been preserved all these years and that is because, just as with every other tendency within the Church, we may have a truth that should be a part of the whole.

The book by John H. Armstrong quoted below is Your Church Is Too Small.

.... John Armstrong reminds us that Christians also have a Tradition with a capital “T”.

Just as a person or family has a history and memory, so does the body of Christ. Tradition is nothing more or less than the means by which we understand this memory. This is how we know who we are as God’s people. The New Testament itself came about through three centuries of life, reflection, and discussion. (p. 129f)

Sadly, he observes that modern evangelicalism, a movement whose traditions go back only about 200 years, has had an extremely negative view of this Tradition.

Much of the modern evangelical movement has been built on schism—a schism rooted in an antitradition perspective. We thought this was the best way for a church to remain faithful. A simple study of early church history would divest us of this idea. I am convinced that as long as we remain opposed to Christian tradition, we will never solve this problem. We will keep building churches on the foundation of strong human personalities and then follow these leaders, much as the Corinthians did with various teachers in their context… (p. 131)

In the following video clip, John Armstrong talks about Tradition with a capital “T” and encourages us to adjust our perception of its value to our future as Christ’s church. “If we don’t have love for the past, we will make mistakes—not only that have been made—but we will learn none of the good things we can learn from the Tradition.”

 

John Armstrong on “Tradition” | internetmonk.com

Progress and the persistence of evil

Reviewing Matt Ridley's The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves, Brendan O'Neill summarizes some of the material improvements that have made life easier for almost everyone:

.... There are more people (or “mouths to feed,” as the pessimists insultingly refer to us) than ever, yet we are better fed and healthier than ever, too. Since 1800, Ridley points out, the world population of human beings has risen sixfold—from 1 billion to over 6 billion—yet in the same period, average life expectancy has more than doubled and average real income has risen ninefold. In just the past 50 years, the average human “earned nearly three times as much money (corrected for inflation), ate one-third more calories of food, buried one-third as many of her children, and could expect to live one-third longer.” ....

...[A]mong Americans officially designated as “poor,” 99 percent have electricity, running water, and a fridge; 95 percent have a television; 71 percent have a car; and 70 percent have air conditioning. .... How much backbreaking female drudgery was wiped out by the invention of the washing machine? How many man-hours have been saved by the availability of cars for shopping, school-drops, and visiting relatives? How much healthier is our food, and longer-lasting, now that virtually everyone in the Western world has a refrigerator? ....

In short, being better off does, generally speaking, make us happier. And, says Ridley, while the environment might be taking some serious body-blows in China right now, in the longer developed West, it is improving. “In Europe and America, rivers, lakes, seas, and the air are getting cleaner all the time. ... American carbon monoxide emissions from transport are down 75 per cent in twenty-five years.” And so on. The more developed a society is, the more resources that can be devoted to cleaning up the environment. Once China and India reach the West’s level of development, the better their air and water quality will become. ....

And yet, as a favorite essayist, Theodore Dalrymple, argues here, however much success there has been in ameliorating human suffering and want, moral evil continues and grows even as we fail to see it for what it is:

.... The Enlightenment held out the hope that with enough of this “proper study,” man would come to know himself sufficiently to eliminate the evil and suffering that had always beset his existence. Man would obtain something like a Newtonian knowledge not only of the universe but of himself, with all the predictive and mechanical advantages that such understanding had brought in the study of inanimate nature.

And in a certain sense, the promise of the Enlightenment has been triumphantly fulfilled in our modern societies—surely as regards natural evil. Thanks to rational inquiry, to take but one instance, the infant-mortality rate since Jenyns wrote has fallen 98 percent. We live lives cleaner, more comfortable, and freer from pain than those of any people who have ever existed. Nobody today has to endure one-hundredth of the physical tortures, brought by illness and the efforts to treat it, that Philip II of Spain and Charles II of England had to endure. ....

But an uninvited guest has arrived at this banquet of human advancement: evil. Whether men behave better or worse, individually or in the aggregate, than they did before the Enlightenment, is probably a question that we cannot answer approximately, let alone definitively. But what is certain is that moral evil has not only failed to disappear but has taken on a more deliberate, calculated character. ....

The two greatest moral catastrophes of the twentieth century, wrought by Lenin and Hitler, were perverse effects of the Enlightenment. Lenin and Hitler were creatures of the Enlightenment not in the sense that they were enlightened, of course, but in the sense that they believed they had the right and the duty to act in accordance with their own unaided deductions from their own first principles. Everything else they regarded as sentimentality. Lenin preached no mercy to the non-proletarian, Hitler none to the Jew. The truth of their theories, supposedly rational and indubitable, was more evident to them, more real in their minds, than the millions killed as a consequence of those theories. If a syllogism ended in a command to commit unspeakable evil, you did not doubt the premises or the argument but obeyed the command.

This post-Enlightenment way of thinking continues to have its defenders. The celebrated British historian Eric Hobsbawm, a lifelong Marxist, said not long ago that had the Soviet Union turned out much better than it did, the deaths of 20 million to achieve it would have been a worthwhile price to pay. One cannot accuse Hobsbawm of thinking small.

That evil has not disappeared pari passu with German measles puzzles and troubles us. Evil remains a conundrum, as evidenced by Marxist literary theorist Terry Eagleton’s recently published book On Evil. Eagleton is not one of those Marxists for whom, like the late historian and Stalin apologist Edward Hallett Carr, the problem of evil does not exist. “I don’t think there are such things as bad people,” Carr once said. “To us Hitler, at the moment, seems a bad man, but will they think Hitler a bad man in a hundred years’ time, or will they think the German society of the thirties bad?”

Eagleton sees clearly that this will not do. Helping him in this recognition is that he is a Christian as well as a Marxist, and no Christian can believe wholly in social determinism. The problem of the human heart is real, not just a remediable social artifact. The relationship between society and human behavior is dialectical, Eagleton believes. Society has its effect, but it is acting on an already imperfect nature, which in turn is bound to produce an imperfect society.

Significantly, Eagleton begins his book by citing the case of two ten-year-old British boys who abducted, tortured, and killed three-year-old Jamie Bulger in 1993. Here is the opposite of childhood innocence, for the two boys knew that what they were doing was deeply wrong but went ahead and did it anyway. The human mystery is that neither their environment nor their nature can fully explain them. Man is not only wolf to man; he is mystery to man.

So the Enlightenment project has failed, at least in explaining man fully to himself. However successful it has been in other regards—and we are all, even its bitterest enemies, children of the Enlightenment—we do not know ourselves any better than we did in Jenyns’s and Johnson’s day. Self-understanding may even have regressed since Johnson, for no man was better at self-examination than he. If more people proved adept at it, perhaps the prevalence of evil would decline. .... [more]

Thanks to Insight Scoop for pointing me toward the Dalrymple essay.

The American Conservative -- Down on the Upside, Modernity's Uninvited Guest by Theodore Dalrymple, City Journal Summer 2010

What is the Bible about?

Via The Gospel Coalition Blog, Tim Keller in 2007:

The Abolition of Man

In a post quoting from and commenting on C.S. Lewis's Abolition of Man [1943] there is a link to an online version of that book, provided "because the book is only in print sporadically." It is a very nice to have it available in this form. The individual links:

1. Men Without Chests
2. The Way
3. The Abolition of Man
4. Appendix-Illustrations of the Tao

Although the book was written in the midst of the Second World War, Lewis was concerned about dangers which would outlast the Nazis:

I am not here thinking solely, perhaps not even chiefly, of those who are our public enemies at the moment. The process which, if not checked, will abolish Man goes on apace among Communists and Democrats no less than among Fascists. The methods may (at first) differ in brutality. But many a mild-eyed scientist in pince-nez, many a popular dramatist, many an amateur philosopher in our midst, means in the long run just the same as the Nazi rulers of Germany. Traditional values are to be 'debunked' and mankind to be cut out into some fresh shape at the will (which must, by hypothesis, be an arbitrary will) of some few lucky people in one lucky generation which has learned how to do it. .... [The Abolition of Man, Chapter 3]

From the flyleaf of my 1947 American edition:

The book is a forceful and brilliantly effective demonstration of the necessity of teaching "the doctrine of objective value, the belief that certain attitudes are really true, and others really false." Humanity, if it is to survive and progress, must obey the traditional morality common to its conception in all forms, Platonic, Aristotelian, Stoic, Christian, and Oriental; for that is 'the Way in which the universe goes on, the Way in which things everlastingly emerge, stilly and tranquilly, into space and time." It is the Way by which a regenerate science can "conquer Nature without being at the same time conquered by her and buy knowledge at lower cost than that of life."

As it happens, the book is currently available as a mass market paperback and in a Kindle edition, but the hardcover is not in print and a "used" one at Amazon is listed at $127.

The Abolition of Man