In the aftermath of the horrific shooting in South Carolina, a cry has arisen calling for the Confederate flag that flies on the capitol grounds in South Carolina to be taken down. Russell Moore has joined in the call, and I have been called out on Twitter to do the same. Let me explain my reasons for declining to do so — I am declining to say anything about it, one way or the other. There are three reasons.
First, as I explained in another post after another shooting, it is unseemly to politicize these horrors when the families are still weeping. Whether the issue is gun control or something else, whenever a hard sell comes in the immediate aftermath of a tragedy, the only thing it makes me want to do is wonder at how boorish some people can be. If this the case when the political issue is arguably connected, as with gun control, how much more is it the case when it is so obliquely related? Did the alleged shooter even know about the flag? Boorish behavior can be exhibited by either side. If one man starts a roaring debate in favor of gun control the same day of the shooting, the situation is not improved if an advocate of open carry does the same thing the next day. The families involved, who include godly Christian people calling for repentance and a turn to Christ, ought not to be distracted by apparatchiks trying to make some political hay out of their grief.
Secondly, when the appropriate time comes for us to discuss as a people what our response should be — and it will come soon enough — let us start with issues that stand a chance of being far more relevant to the shooting than a flag at the state capitol. Is the point to help solve the problem or is the point to make a grand gesture? Let me give you an example. If you insist on having a national conversation about these iniquitous shootings, then why don’t we start by talking about psychotropic drugs? Take all the mass shootings perpetrated in the last twenty years by young males under the age of twenty five. What percentage of the shooters were on prescribed psychotropic drugs? What drugs? How long had they been on them? And, most importantly, why do you not have immediate access to the answers to these questions? I will tell you why — it is because the industry that promotes better living through chemistry is a politically protected class, in a way that gun manufacturers and Sons of Confederate Veterans are not. So it is not enough to debate the political aspects of such shootings at the right time, it is also necessary to debate the right thing at the right time. Otherwise the clouds of grief just cover for the emptiness of the gestures.
And this leads to the last point. This is an issue that Moore tried to anticipate, although I don’t believe he dealt with it successfully. The issue of taking the flag down, or leaving it up for that matter, is an issue of symbolism. And as this kind of controversy demonstrates, we don’t understand symbolism very well. We don’t know how it works. We don’t know how the meaning of symbols gets assigned, we don’t have any clear way of determining what groups have a right to be offended by a particular symbol, who has a right to speak for those groups, or how we balance competing claims for the right to use the symbol. The Confederate flag can mean that you are at a KKK rally, that you are looking at a truck decal in a NASCAR rally parking lot, that you are at a Skynyrd concert, that you are looking a commemorative calendar painted by a memorabilia artist, that you are driving by a car dealership in rural Virginia, or that you saw a photo of Kanye West taking his confusions to a whole new level.
And if you don’t understand how the battle over symbols is being conducted, the chances are excellent that the flag at the state capitol will be taken down, a rainbow gay flag will replace it in a couple years, and the shootings will continue apace.
Our limitations with regard to symbols can be seen if we apply the same logic to the American flag. Moore tried to show how his reasoning with regard to the Confederate flag did not apply to the American flag, and when it came to the isolated issue of slavery, he has a point. But you can sin against blacks more ways than by slavery.
Here is Moore.
“The Confederate States of America was not simply about limited government and local autonomy; the Confederate States of America was constitutionally committed to the continuation, with protections of law, to a great evil. The moral enormity of the slavery question is one still viscerally felt today, especially by the descendants of those who were enslaved and persecuted.”
Right. But if we restate this, substituting Old Glory and the abortion carnage, what does consistency now demand? “The United States of America is constitutionally committed to the continuation, with protections of law, of an even greater evil.” So why doesn’t the American flag represent abortion on demand? One great difference is that the descendants of this moral outrage will not feel the enormity a century from now because there will be no descendants. Fifty million children have died on the altar of American sexual convenience, and a disproportionate number of those children were black. This was in line with Margaret Sanger’s desire to eradicate human weeds, which means a lot more indignation should be directed at the Planned Parenthood logo than at the Confederate flag. The evil of Planned Parenthood is going on now. This is a gospel issue, but gospel issues have a way of getting obscured by gnats and camels. So there is a shooting in South Carolina, and a number of evangelicals scramble to call for the removal of a museum piece flag, but we think it would be in bad taste rather to say something about the Planned Parenthood centers in South Carolina that will — today — kill a black child for you for ready money.
So is the American flag out? No, I don’t believe so. This kind of symbol doesn’t function this way. The American flag represents what it used to represent, it represents what it ought to represent, and it also represents what it does in fact represent — what it currently covers and protects, which would appear to include the slaughter of infants, high levels of gender lunacy, insane levels of taxation, and unlimited porn on your smart phone. The interplay of all these factors are admittedly complicated. But I am reluctant to join in a stampede that would appear to me to solve nothing.
The grieving families in this have it right. Our response needs to be repentance and a turn to Christ. In this broken world, that is always the appropriate response.
All fine and good, Rev. Wilson . . . and I agree with your thoughts on symbols. Moore and others are just saying that in leiu of yet another racially motivated killing. . . why not leave the flag to Skynyrd and get it out of the state capitols? No one said it would solve gun violence, . . no one said it would fix these shootings. It is jus being said (and I think rightly so) that it would make a big statement to our African American brothers and sisters. I’m from Alabama, this question is a conflict for… Read more »
Why is it necessary to efface our history and identity merely to show “goodwill”? Those calling for the removal of the flag didn’t arrive at this opinion yesterday, this is merely another opportunity they are exploiting in a long war. Goodwill isn’t owed to people who want to eradicate your civilization.
I have a better idea for showing goodwill: Turn human trash like this shooter over to the defenders of the flag. We’re long overdue for bringing back public hangings.
“Never accede to the demands of an SJW” is a good rule of thumb.
What if what the social justice warrior is demanding is exactly the same thing that Jesus does? Before rejecting it, should we not ask what the Lord requires?
“Rule of Thumb”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thumb
A rule of thumb is a principle with broad
application that is not intended to be strictly accurate or reliable for
every situation. It is an easily learned and easily applied procedure
for approximately calculating or recalling some value, or for making
some determination.
Well, why have your rule of thumb at all?
You could say, when a social justice warrior demands something, you should compare it with what God has said he wants before you make a decision as to how to respond. Wouldn’t that be better?
As has been shown time and time again: *SJWs always lie*. Their rhetoric should be considered guilty until proven innocent.
And if somebody wants you to do something that you really should do, but don’t want to, you can brand that person a SJW and walk away. Very convenient.
You’re right. Rules of thumb are entirely useless. Timothy just invented them on the spot to gratuitously irritate eminently reasonable and non-argumentative people like yourself.
What have I done to invite this vitriol and sarcasm from you?
Laura, I am glad you decided to hang around.
Thank you, Timothy.
Look, what I wrote is indeed sarcastic, but not vitriolic. I take it that you understand it as vitriolic so I want you to know it is not that . . . I mean that with all earnestness. All that said, You are steadfastly unwilling to engage and acknowledge even the minor, indisputable points in an exchange. When a line of questioning results in someone having to explain the very meaning of the term “rule of thumb” b/c of a feigned unwillingness to grasp it, then it is hard to argue that the person who made that defining of terms… Read more »
Per Alinsky, “The issue is never the issue” meaning that “the issue of the day” is only a proxy for attaining power.
I haven’t read Alinsky. Maybe I should.
You realize it’s not impossible for person A to manipulate people by having person B, whom they are not sympathetic to, push a cause that person A wants them to reject.
If a rainbow-wearing lesbian promoted the pro-life viewpoint, would you then have to be pro-choice?
I haven’t read Alinsky. Maybe I should.
Full text of Rules for Radicals here:
https://archive.org/stream/RulesForRadicals/RulesForRadicals_djvu.txt
Note the third dedication on the dedication page.
But we’re not talking about a *biblical* SJW, we’re talking about you.
? You see me as making demands that you should never accede to?
“If I had to choose to stand with a black person or with a white nationalist, guess which one I would choose.”
You’ve already made up your mind whose side you’re on, regardless of the facts. Why should we listen to your prejudice?
I have observed facts for the fifty-four years I have lived in the south. Tell me, what facts have I overlooked that should cause me to side with the likes of the KKK and Dylann Roof?
What I’m saying is that your characterization of a SJW who demands “exactly the same thing that Jesus does,” is impertinent to the conversation unless you are presuming to be such. The whole point of the rule of thumb was to suggest that SJW are typically not in governed solidly by biblical standards – which is not necessarily to say that a particular SJW could never be – but as an overarching general matter, i.e. “rule of thumb.” That’s what I meant in terms of substance. But as for that comment in particular, it was a sorry, snide tone, and… Read more »
“no because Jesus would hate black people too!” says the usual defender of the confederate flag, at least in their hearts.
really, follow Jesus first. Not a racist blogger who still thinks the shooter was ‘alleged’.
You have to wonder, don’t you.
If we assume that a defense of that flag necessarily flows from a theology that Jesus “hates black people,” then yes, one would have to indeed wonder. However, if one did more *actual* wondering beforehand, and less rhetorical “wondering” after the fact, then one might realize that the premise is false.
i mean i haven’t been comfortable going to church in AGES because of people like this. i love Jesus very much. I just don’t feel safe in his church.
(but just call me a sinner, divisive, strayed from the light, rebellious, etc. that’ll really bring me back)
Nancy, look for a church with a woman pastor. All churches have problems, and there may be things you won’t agree with, but skipping over arbitrary rules makes it more likely that the focus will be on essential truths.
Ummm, what are you referencing?
“I am declining to say anything about it, one way or the other. There are three reasons.” The irony of this statement preceding a 3 point blog post is delicious.
I think he meant he is declining to argue about whether it should stay or be taken down from the statehouse in the long term.
The shooting shows that WE are not in control. Things like taking the flag are just a futlle attempt to show the universe that something bad happens? We’ll show you! We will do something futile
Thanks for these measured remarks.
I wish some of the “trusted voices” would do something other than stampede for the nearest microphone at the barest hint of tragedy. Emulating the 24 hour news cycle is not a mark of a settled people.
The problem is that what’s merely political posturing to many on one side of an issue, is an an important political and moral to to those on the other side. When gun control activists start speaking up when a mass murder with a gun is committed, they do not see themselves as taking advantage of a tragedy in order to advance a political agenda. Rather, they see themselves as pragmatically addressing a pressing moral and political issue. If someone is trying to solve the problem of gun violence, and they believe that restricting gun laws are one way to solve… Read more »
Acknowledged. That pragmatic outlook is what marks them as unsettled.
Pragmatically trying to curtail senseless killings isn’t exactly unsettling to me. They might be wrong. I don’t know. But I don’t doubt their intentions. We could also say that the NRA’s pragmatic solution towards these violent acts is the near abolition of weapon restrictions so that more people would have the tools to defend themselves. The point is that the term “playing politics” is usually just a term we label on those with whom we disagree with.
Wilson isnt saying the flag should stay, or go down. He is showing that if we associate flags with things countries are known for doing in mass than theres a lot of other flags to come down as well. This includes the union jack and others that are couks be seen as symbols of oppression just as much
I’m going to have to disagree on the constitutional question here. Abortion rights were read into the constitution by the Warren Court, and have only been kept around because of the emotion around it.
Slavery, in the meantime, was explicitly written into the Confederate Constitution.
Forgive me for this question, but your point is unclear to me: are you saying that the American flag today represents abortion?
He’s using Moore’s logic. He’s saying that if the confederate flag represents a society’s past commitment to slavery, and we should therefore take it down, then the American flag could also be said to represent society’s present commitment to a far greater evil, abortion, and therefore the American flag should be taken down as well.
Any time is a good time to kick the Kulaks. Such an incident produces an opportunity for dramatic and poorly thought through political acts from Yankee social engineers. It could have been far worse than a belated capture the flag from a conquered capital. The bigger question is, how bad will things get before the media tire of fomenting race war?
They’ll tire of it when it’s no longer profitable, to state the obvious.
Just my two cents…I understand and agree with a lot of the points that Wilson is making. Maybe it wasn’t the best timing for Moore’s article, and this issue obviously isn’t as important as the Gospel. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t important. I don’t think it’s just about what should or shouldn’t offend. The Confederate flag does offend a lot of Christians, and I don’t think that’s okay (Rom. 14:13, 1 Cor. 8:9). I don’t see any justification for Christian’s to defend a “museum piece flag” that has clearly become a stumbling block for other Christians. Regardless of what… Read more »
It’s in the state flag that people in various states are submissive to (Rom. 13:2)
One could say, then, that in its time the Confederate government was “instituted by God” in the states over which it held sway. But God judged and destroyed that government, leaving no vestige of it but the nostalgia of its children and grandchildren – and their rationalizations of why it wasn’t judgment at all. I place the flying Confederate flag by U.S. Christians in the same position as the Nazi flag is placed among (the few remaining) German Christians – it deserves no place of honor at all, since God has spoken decisively in history. It’s like the Israelites waxing… Read more »
According to your logic, it would have been acceptable to salute the confederate flag the day before the South’s surrender, but not after. I’m not sure how this can be. Were not those who supported slavery already under God’s judgment before the surrender? We know that God doesn’t always immediately destroy a people once they’ve fallen under his wrath.
I’m not sure we can see judgment as clearly in the immediate past (or future) as we can with the retrospect of a few decades.
I think it’s obvious that America is under God’s judgment even now. The fact that the economic collapse (and the resulting societal chaos) hasn’t occurred yet isn’t relevant; what’s relevant is that these things are inevitable. In God’s timeline they have already happened.
Whether one can see the ripeness for judgment in prescient fashion or not until later is beside the point. You claim that until such judgment comes, that authority is worthy of of honor. The authority in the U.S. may indeed still be worthy of honor for a host of complicated and not-so-complicated historical and biblical reasons. That said, if we make our decision based simply on whether judgment has or has not yet fallen, then whether one perceives that judgment immediately or later doesn’t change the fact that that logic justifies honor at the time. That would force us to… Read more »
I commend Lincoln’s Second Inaugural to you, most particularly this section.
“The Almighty has His own purposes. “Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.” If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came…”
If the flag is taken down will it not be replaced by another symbol representative of some other symbol of secular humanism? In the current cultural milleu any symbol that stands above a statehouse is likely going to be offensive to our neighbors not to mention the King of Kings. I would suggest that if we really want to love our neighbor, we ought to start by raising up a godly generation of statesmen and magistrates that would start raising up symbols that reflect the glory and goodness of our Creator. Of course this particular course of action implies that… Read more »
It’s doubtful that our children will have much respect for/desire to advance a worldview that tolerates the continued state support of a flag that symbolizes racism, slavery, and the like. Maybe your kids are different from mine. Even less likely that they will have much drive to support a worldview that doesn’t actively fight against symbols of sin out of fear that the replacement symbols might be unpalatable. That’s a wet dish rag argument I’d be hard pressed to teach them with a straight face.
Moore probably wants the Confederate flag to come down so he can run up the rainbow flag. He will almost certainly be one of the first big Christian names to cave on gay marriage, and has already begun moving in that direction. He recently wrote that a Christian shouldn’t attend a gay wedding, but you should go to the reception, to show the new gay couple that you love and support them.
“And if you don’t understand how the battle over symbols is being conducted, the chances are excellent that the flag at the state capitol will be taken down, a rainbow gay flag will replace it in a couple years, and the shootings will continue apace.” From South Australia: “A gay hate pamphlet criticising an Adelaide council for flying the rainbow flag in a show of support for gays and lesbians has been referred to police. “The decision by Marion Council to fly the rainbow flag should be celebrated, so it is disappointing to hear that a group of extremists is… Read more »
Not whether, but which.
It appears now that he did know about the flag, and it was something of a touchstone for his racial animus. As far as having this discussion in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, I believe that the discussion has been going on for a very long time and to say that folks are going for the hard sell now that nine people have been killed is refusing to acknowledge the years of debate. It seems blind and deaf to me. It is like condemning a man who has been fighting a brush fire for weeks when he starts yelling… Read more »
I think it would be a great repudiation of the white supremacists, to pull that flag down. If every time one of them contemplated a hateful act they had to wonder which Confederate memorial would be the next taken down in response, maybe they would think twice.
This is a chance to state who we are. If I had to choose to stand with a black person or with a white nationalist, guess which one I would choose.
So, is that another rule of thumb?
No.
So, are you saying that you would do that, no matter the situation? Because if you think that it’s impossible for a black person to wrong a white nationalist, you’d be wrong.
You asked if it was a rule of thumb. I said no.
Cool. So what did you mean?
What I said, Tom. I think it’s pretty clear.
Then my previous reply to you stands. Even stopped clocks are right twice a day.
What she means, Tom, is that when detailed explanations might run the risk of laying her arguments bare, she ain’t game. Her argument can be translated roughly with something like: “Because shut up, racist.”
This is exactly what I mean Laura. Evasive, rhetorically manipulative, coy, etc. You refuse to have an honest exchange, b/c the rhetorical crock that you’d have to drop would get in the way of your ideas holding any water. My apology to you for my snide comment was sincere, but so was the substantive criticism underlying it. But other than that comment, you solicit and justify the sarcasm with your squirrely, impertinent, evasive responses. You dug yourself a hole by kicking against the worthiness of rules of thumb, then when you offered one, you had to deny it was one,… Read more »
I don’t know why you keep saying I am coy when I am saying exactly what I mean. Is this a gendered insult?
“you solicit and justify the sarcasm with your squirrely, impertinent, evasive responses.”
Shall I tell you what I really think of you?
Comparing the American flag to the Confederate flag, in terms of the horrors that they may represent, is a false dichotomy. That comparison would only make sense if we were to imagine that a federal law outlawing abortion was implemented, yet some of the states resisted this implementation (on whatever grounds of reasoning, state’s rights for instance…) and then created their own flag as an explicit symbol of their resistance toward these anti-abortion laws (which may be intricately woven into these states’s primary resistance towards federal involvement). Now let’s say that, in the future, these states do finally relent and… Read more »
Joe – how should we respond to Native Americans’ feelings about the Stars and Stripes? From what I understand, those feelings are far from positive, and understandably so.
some points:
1. there’s nothing alleged about the terrorist. he did it.
2. when exactly will the time come for a national conversation? how many more dead bodies? do you have an exact number or is it your discomfort with race?
3. mental illness didn’t cause this. white supremacy did, and that isn’t a mental illness.
Nancy, as I understand it, we speak of an ‘alleged’ terrorist/murderer/thief etc. until the court finds the person guilty as charged. Innocent until proven guilty is part and parcel of our rule of law. The emerging profile of the young man arrested certainly shows extreme racism, but reports also suggest that he was a drug taker. If you read any of Peter Hitchens’ material you will be aware that he has been researching mass-killers and found most of them to be on drugs of some sort. Whatever other reasons drive a young man to murder, is it not sensible to… Read more »
Maybe instead of jumping on the self-righteous bandwagon and joining in with the shrieking mob, we could follow Doug Wilson’s example and point to the powerful testimony of the grieving families who have given more grace to the man who murdered their loved ones than many Christians are willing to give each other in social media comment sections. Those families are not hurting because there is a flag on a courthouse. They are hurting because someone they love was just violently murdered. Now is the time to weep with those who are weeping.
I will probably be attacked for this comment, and this will be my only comment, but, you know, sometimes the less said about something, the better!
I think the Moore article is excellent.
Exactly.
I think Moore gets it right and gets it wrong there.
Here’s what I mean.
Moore has a deeper commonality with the black Nigerian Christian than he does with the non-Christian white Mississippian. Whether he actually has more in common with the former with the later is…debatable, in terms of quantity. Qualitatively, yes.
The swastica use to represent something else as well. So if we’re going to be consistent then I guess having a swastica flag in a public place is okay too, as long as you say it doesn’t represent nazism.
We are quickly approaching a reality wherein the most dangerous place on Earth is between Russell Moore and a television camera or microphone.
“So why doesn’t the American flag represent abortion on demand?”
Maybe because there was never a rebellion fought to secure perpetual abortion on demand, with the rebels taking the American flag as their banner? It seems you’re the one who doesn’t understand symbols here. The Confederate battle flag represents the civil war and the civil war was fought to perpetuate and expand slavery. It’s about time you got with the program, isn’t it?
The Civil War was not fought to perpetuate and expand slavery. It was a defensive war against Northern aggression. Lincoln didn’t give a flip about the slaves; all he cared about was stopping the secession movement.
Slavery was on its way out at the time of the war. The slaughter of 600,000 people was completely unnecessary.
Romans 12:18
18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with men.
If it’s offensive to others whether right or wrong, at the end of the day it’s a flag. Is it really worth it?
That’s it, really.
There’s all kinds of stuff in the Bible about Christians submitting to each other, and in humility considering others better than ourselves. Treating other people the way we want to be treated. Turning the other cheek and going the extra mile. We’re all about the Bible when we want to explain to other people how they need to set aside their status and privileges and wants and desires but when it comes to us, not so much.
In the year 2000 Reginald and Jonathan Carr broke into a home where three young white men and two white women were sleeping. They proceeded to bind and rob them and then over the next many hours rape all of them, physically and sexually torture them and then shoot them all in the back of the head and run over their bodies with a truck. Google the Wichita Horror if you have the stomach. Most people don’t know about this, though if the races were reversed public schools would teach about it. In May a black immigrant from Guyana robbed,… Read more »
Comparing Dolezal with Roof is almost as ridiculous as comparing the white nationalism from “obscure internet forums” with the “black nationalism” as “preached” on CNN. The reason black Americans feels the need for a “nationalistic” impulse is because their culture actually feels the social, economic, personal, etc. effects of racism whereas white people, as a whole, generally do not. Black-on-white racism is not talked about as much (even though it certainly exists and which there no excuse for), because it just doesn’t matter that much to the culture as a whole. The effects that white-on-black racism can have, on the… Read more »
Black on white assault outnumbers white on black assault 10/1, murder 2.5/1, such a ratio can’t be constructed for rape since white on black rape is so rare. I could give you a list of those that involved witness racial slurs. Of course, if whites were assaulting, killing, and raping blacks they wouldn’t get any benefit of the doubt with regards to racial animosity. When you say that black on white racism doesn’t matter much to “the culture as a whole”, I think you mean to the whites that matter, those wealthy enough to economically segregate themselves.
There’s something almost incorrigible about petty white victimization…
Yeah, its not like anybody got thrown out of a public pool.
I don’t even know what that means.
Setting aside every other issue brought up here, to reduce the whole matter to “white supremacist terrorism,” as Dr. Moore does, allows us to ignore the perpetrator’s apparently awful family background, his mental and emotional condition, his prescriped drug use, his illicit drug use, etc. There a lot of racists out there, and there are even more faux-racists – the kid in a parking lot somewhere chewing tobacco with a confederate belt buckle who freely uses the n-word among his buddies but would never dream of shooting anyone, much less a bunch of church people on a Wednesday night. We… Read more »
It’s very possible that this kid was unbalanced but that it took garbage like Stormfront to radicalize him, the way Rodger and Sodini most likely were radicalized by the PUA nonsense into thinking they were entitled to hot women and had a real grievance if they didn’t get them.
Roof claims that he was radicalized by coverage surrounding the Treyvon Martin case. Also, I have not defended PUA on any moral grounds but if you are going to criticize them it should be for something they actually believe. Entitlement to hot women is exactly the opposite of what they believe. They would characterize the belief that a man is deserving of female attention as a romantic beta male delusion and you will find many blog posts from them exploring how that factors into recent nerd rage killers like Roof. They like to say, “Game saves lives.”
They also like to say that if some of those stupid sluts had just given Rodger, or Sodini, some, then they would not have been forced to go on those rampages.
Rodger was tied to an anti-PUA website literally called PUA Hate. If you are actually interested, you will find a very long post on Eliot Rogers here. http://www.returnofkings.com/36135/no-one-would-have-died-if-pua-hate-killer-elliot-rodger-learned-game
We live in a society where being shy, normal, or a little awkward is duly punished by entitled American women who have been encouraged to pursue exciting and fun casual sex in their prime with sexy and hot men as a way of “experimentation.” They are enabled by the culture to seek out bad boys while rejecting the nice guy who is “boring.” This behavior continues until they find that they are past their physical prime, whereby the nice guy is plucked from a spartan sexual existence and expected to keep his mouth shut when a trickle flow of informational… Read more »
I didn’t say it wasn’t crude, I said that you were misrepresenting them and I only recommend that site because that is precisely the incident you referenced. They would say that under the old monogamous system there might have been someone for everyone but now you are going to have to compete. They would say don’t despair or go off the deep end, improve yourself and change your unattractive mannerisms and characteristics.
And get as much string-free sex from “hot” girls as you can, whatever you have to do, to get it. Do you agree with this stuff? Do you agree with them, that only access to casual sex would have stopped this rampage? I’m not trying to be snarky. The man needed psychiatric help, but he also needed Jesus. He needed Jesus way more than he needed hot sex with hot chicks. If sex would have solved his problem, he could have driven across the border into Nevada and bought it, legally. Here are some more thoughts. At heart of all… Read more »
He was neurotically introverted. He wasn’t going to get any string-free sex from lots of hot girls. Affection from one girl may have made all the difference. They might have helped him with that but he strangely joined some super obscure hate group against PUA. He said I can’t or wont change and instead he killed people. If nothing else they could have told him things would get better as he got older. Of course he had psychological problems but psychologically unstable people break on the stress points of our culture. Jesus would have given him a sense of meaning,… Read more »
I don’t have hatred for anybody. No one should have hatred and contempt for other people. Do you disagree? And Jesus gives us more than a sense of meaning. Do you disagree? Are you the Barnabas who posted that per the Bible, women don’t have the right to divorce their husbands for any reason? Abuse, adultery, anything? Does the Bible constrain us women to rigidly correct, self-denying behavior, but men get to do as they please? I had a coworker who grew up on a Mennonite farm. He broke from that life but maintained contact with his family. Over the… Read more »
With regards to divorce, yes, that appears to be what the bible says. With regards to general condemnatoin of fornication the Bible has no double standard, don’t join your flesh with a harlot, the sexually immoral will not inherit the kingdom, etc.
I’ve always admired the Mennonites. I find their clothing both attractive and refreshingly modest.
You should read though some posts at Dalrock. Its a Christian site so the language isn’t as salty but you will find it quite enlightening or infuriating or both.
But you think it would have solved Rodger’s problem if he could have gotten a girl to be”affectionate” with him? And Jesus to give him “meaning”?
As to the Mennonites, I have to assume you are in fact saying that freedom is for men and religion is supposed to constrain women. Unsurprisingly, I don’t agree.
Smash the patriarchy!
You should to Western Pennsylvania and set them straight. Perhaps you could introduce some identity politics and sex-positive feminism to their idyllic pastoral lives.
Where in the world you get that I am pushing identity politics sex-positive feminism is beyond me. (Unless you are in fact talking to yourself, which would be truly weird.)
Do you think in caricatures? That is very limited.
Apparently it needs smashing. It has veered off the track entirely. Smashing it will help us put the focus back where it belongs.
There’s always “more at work”, but its so obvious that the primary motivation at “work” here was racial hatred… what more evidence would we need to convince us of that?
It is a ‘convenient conviction’ to call for the removal of the Confederate flag but not the removal of the name of a self-confessed, “ultra pro slavery man” and slave owner; James P. Boyce, from Boyce College at SBTS in Louisville KY. Let’s #changethename before our hypocrisy is discovered.
Do Lutherans have to change their name so they don’t offend Jewish people? Boyce is not honored at SBTS because of his views on slavery, but because he was one of the founders of SBTS. And, if I remember correctly, he was rather uncomfortable with attaching a form of godliness to the actions of the CSA, or any governing body. I believe that he also had a favorable relationship to those who were previously his slaves after the War. But, to go back even further, does the whole SBC, whose very genesis is tied to slavery, have to cease being… Read more »
I think we would rather hide behind our outrage than actually stare down our racist hearts. You’re right. Repentance (and subsequently Christ) is the cure.
You are correct that the symbolism if the flag has multiple meanings. One of those, of course, signals the enslavement of citizens of South Carolina by others. If you are going to represent the equality of all citizens or even the respect for others required of community, then flying the flag on state grounds is an extremely poor way of symbolizing that. Moreover, the flag had a meaning for the Charleston shooter. It symbolized his ideology that seemed to require him to murder 9 black people simply for being black. Yes, it is true the issue is arising as a… Read more »
If the goal of the shooter was to prompt a chain reaction of fresh racial outrages from both sides, then he looks to have been successful. Certain outrage peddlers here on this thread have swallowed the bait. They are like unwitting agents to further his crusade of outrage. What if Christians responded to these kinds of shootings without falling for the invitation to rehash historic race relations? What if the perpetrator, and his attending social justice warriors, intended to play our emotions like a fiddle, but we refused to dance? What if we looked more carefully at the situation, past… Read more »
Thank you for the well-written post, Reverend. Thank you for pointing out the log in our own eye within the call for the end of a flag on the basis of flawed political stances grounded in debased moral stances. Your last paragraph speaks volumes, and it’s only two sentences.
Though I still think the flag could be taken down and be put in a museum, rather than still used and proudly displayed out of love for our black neighbors, I entirely hear you on what you’re saying and thank you for pointing out that our logic should be consistent.
I think if we distill Wilson’s 3 main points then we can do without a lot of the subsequent hand-wringing. These ideas don’t seem like they should be upsetting to any Christian: 1 – “It is unseemly to politicize these horrors when families are still weeping.” 2 – “When the appropriate time comes for us to dicuss as a people what our response should be…let us start with issues that stand a chance of being far more relevant to the shooting than a flag at a state capitol.” 3 – “…an issue of symbolism…if you don’t understand how the battle… Read more »
http://freethoughtblogs.com/dispatches/2015/06/24/christian-theocrat-and-slavery-apologist-defends-confederate-flag/
If the battle flag of the CSA means nothing foul other than racism and unjust slavery, then it is far more noble than one which means abortion, euthanasia, the targeting of non-combatants in warfare, same sex marriage, and forcing merchants to participate in same sex weddings no matter how much it violates their dedication to an exceedingly ancient and wide spread religious principle. Yes, most lamentably, the USA’s flag no longer even stands for religious freedom. It stands, instead, for making religious freedom less important than the freedom of “gays” to force others to participate in their wedding ceremonies. The… Read more »