So a marginal football player got drafted into the NFL, kissed his boyfriend smack on the lips, and then another football player tweeted something that expressed the sentiment ick gross, and so the second player was hustled into sensitivity training. Got that?
As the revolution is established, there will be no heckling. Kirsten Powers got it right. I have as much of an expectation of broad-minded tolerance from the left these days as I do of somebody hoisting up a John 3:16 sign at a North Korean missile parade. These people are coercion junkies.
How will they stop the heckling? Vee haff vays. Notice that I did that obliquely because I didn’t want to violate Godwin’s Law — the first person in a debate to invoke Nazi parallels loses. This is because it is a well known principle of political science that political coercion and tyranny was only possible in the 1940s. All claims about oppressive coercion in our day are therefore bogus by definition, and one begins to suspect that the person who won’t stop expressing his views when the establishment wishes for him to express theirs is cruising for a sensitivity seminar. I also brought up Godwin’s Law because Nazi analogies are not the only negative examples that we should take into account.
Look. If you use language in ways they disapprove of, they will show the world what thorough-going malice looks like. That is why I make a point of doing it. They will send you off to the Gaylag Archipelago — there’s an example of what I do — where they will upbraid you for your intolerance until you come to realize that love is the answer. Love is all you need. Love is the best. Love is what Big Br . . . love is a good thing. Who could be against love except for the haters?
Anybody who says they believe in free speech, but who insists that Christians start groveling lest we “hurt” the perpetually hurt is someone who is himself a central part of the problem. The church is full of effeminate cowards who want us to truckle before the machinery of our passive aggressive police state. Beneath the visor of the leader of the SWAT team hauling me off, I saw a slow tear trickling down. I guess my language was hurtful. I see that now.
Second, they like to marginalize anybody who observes the obvious and comments on it, and they do this by claiming that some Christians can’t get over their loss of privilege, and are just a bunch of whiners. Now I have many faults, deep and grievous, but I think that whining is not one of them. Try another one.
As to the charge that I am fighting for Christian privilege, the reply is “you bet I am.” When the Christian faith is privileged, then freedom for everyone becomes a possibility. When Christian privilege is made illegal, and its denunciation mandatory, as it has been in our time, the first thing that happens is that we see the essentially coercive nature of unbelief revealed. Unbelievers have never built a free society and they never will. They have been running this one for just a few minutes now, and they are already driving up and down the streets with their Coercion Trucks, loudspeakers blaring that it is past curfew and we are all supposed to go inside now, place our noses on the specially designated freedom wall, and think grateful thoughts about how much Uplift Congress will be able to generate next session. When we wake up in the morning, we can all have a breakfast of liberty gruel, designed by the first lady’s personal nutritionist and national sadist.
You know what we need around here? We need a liberty czar.
How many commencement speakers have been uninvited this graduation season? Tolerant liberals are going the way of the dodo, and they really might well be the one genuine victim of climate change. But speaking of commencement speeches, let me share with you the paragraph that got my speaking gig at Oberlin nixed. They had the prudence to ask for a manuscript beforehand, and I was foolish enough to send it to them.
“. . . and now, moving on to your women’s study department, an exercise in what I call petticoat feminism. They have instructed a generation of young women on the art of demanding to be treated like the men are, and then to burst into tears if somebody does, and to contact an attorney shortly afterward so that they can have the security of some fatherly legal protection. This is a mass of . . .”
Third, never forget that discrimination is inescapable. Why are people going along with this ludicrous claim that same sex mirage is marriage? Well, it is because Americans have been taught to hate “discrimination,” as though discrimination is a thing out there all by itself. Discrimination is not a stand alone characteristic. I would discriminate against people who take away liberty; they discriminate against people who exercise it. But everybody discriminates.
But Americans dislike unnecessary coercion, and they have been persuaded that traditional Christians like myself are “coercing” homosexuals by denying them the delights of nuptial bliss. Well, yes, but only in the same sense that I am coercing them by denying them the delights of the hawk’s ability to soar above the clouds, the marlin’s ability to swim the coral reef without scuba gear, and the gazelle’s ability to dash across the savannah. I am coercing them by observing (mildly enough, I thought) that they don’t have a body equipped for such delights, and they don’t have it because God didn’t give it to them. You can’t be born retroactively something else, and as it all came down, you weren’t born a hawk, marlin, gazelle or girl. But you know, things are tough all over.
The one bright spot in this whole rolling debacle is that this kind of big E on the eye chart punditry just encourages them further in their torquemadian tolerance crusade, and this means they start manifesting what actual coercion looks like.
Keep it up, boys, keep it up. I want as many people as possible to see your political theory in action.
Wonder how the left will react when a Muslim player says something. Serious indictment on America when that thought makes sense.
Doug. You used the word “gay” in a manner that the Freedom Czar has declared to be coercive. You must cease and desist.
Much appreciated DW. I cherish the rare Saturday righteous rant. I also pray they “keep it up”. Got my popcorn ready.
Doug,
This sort of talk depresses me to no end. It really does. I thought I was called to be a minister of happy church where the population grows and the problems roll away. I guess I was wrong. But I am encouraged by the “Calvinistic comfort that comes straight down from the Scottish Highlands, playing the bagpipes of hard sovereignty. God is God, and works all things after the counsel of His own will (Eph. 1:11).” Thanks again for some straight talk.
Another disinvite—or not
“When the Christian faith is privileged, then freedom for everyone becomes a possibility” Not necessarily. Christians are just as capable of abusing their power as anyone else. They did it to Hindus in Goa (where Christians tortured and forced the conversions of many of them). The Catholics abused their power in Spain just as Calvin did in Geneva. Reconstructionists like RJ Rushdoony have suggested civil penalties for blasphemy and heresy along with death for fornicators, gays and “incorrigible youths” (just as the Bible commands). Our nation was hardly “free” 200 years ago if you were a woman …. or black.… Read more »
James Bradshaw says, “Our nation was hardly “free” 200 years ago if you were a woman …. or black.” My response; 200 years ago (or more) women in America enjoyed greater freedom than any women in history had ever enjoyed. This was due to the Biblical mandate (try reading Eph. 5:21-27) that had crept into society bringing about a respect for women and an equality of the sexes that had never existed before. Where do you think those ideas came from anyway? Ancient Rome? Mohammed? Where did the ancient Greeks come up with ideas of freedom? Please name any society… Read more »
@melody.
Thank you for taking the time to respond to James.
The revolution will not be televised.
Melody, whatever may have been the theory, 200 years ago women were not permitted to vote, hold public office, own property in their own names if they were married, gain admission to most institutions of higher learning, or get credit without their fathers or husbands agreeing. That does not sound like equality of the sexes to me. As a theological matter, maybe you or others here think that was a good thing, but don’t go passing it off as equality of the sexes. As for Blacks, there is a large number of Black members of the middle and upper classes,… Read more »
Eric, I just re-read my response to James. I also just re-read Doug’s original post. My comments did not change the subject and are actually more apropos than I originally thought. Thanks for getting me to re-read myself.
Why no clarion call for Christians to stop watching the carnal violence, and now gay theater, of the NFL?
Women and Black Americans are more equal now than in the past, but Doug is making plain here that he wants Christian privilege and is measuring “freedom” by how much Christian privilege there is. By this calculus, America 50 years ago featured more Christian privilege than today, so it is automatically freer, whatever the realities for this or that group of people. Black Americans and women might be better off today than they were in the past, but because Christians can’t say whatever they want without repercussion, today’s environment is oppressive.
The first slave came to what is now the a United States in 1619. By the time of the war of independence, every state had laws on the books concerning slavery. Every state had it. The North freed their slaves as a result of the asecond Great Awakening. We have gone over this before
Agreed.
Furthermore, if you have basic cable, you are funding these abominations and it is to your shame.
Wilbur Wilberforce is not amused.
Not necessarily. Christians are just as capable of abusing their power as anyone else. This is absolutely true. They can, have and do commit exactly the same sins as everybody else–rape, murder, incest, homosexuality, adultery, fornication, theft, lies, slander, gossip, etc. Therefore, (according to James) shut up. Dear James. no. God is God. He is holy and just and righteous and does not change because a puffed-up people decide to reject Him and do stuff that has been going on since the days of Nimrod. Those people’s behaviour was worthy of hell-fire and death then and your behavior (and very… Read more »
On the slavery and Jim Crow issues, I think Christianity is a wash. There were Christians who traded slaves, and there were other Christians who worked to abolish slavery. During the 1960s there were Christians who were segregationists, and other Christians like Martin Luther King who worked for racial equality. So I think the best that can be said for Christians on that issue is that they balanced themselves out. That tangent, however, does not dispute the larger trend, which is that as our society has gotten more secular, more and more people are enjoying more and more freedom to… Read more »
Apparently, Eric and James have values and moral metrics that would properly be described as having the property of aseity.
Must be nice.
What Eric and James fail to understand is that the abolition of slavery and the advances in Civil Rights were a direct result and natural progression of Christian thought. They used Scripture and Christian morality as the foundation for their arguments. The very freedoms that we have today and that are present in the Western world are the direct result of Christianity. No Christianity, no freedom. No Christianity, no abolition of slavery. No Christianity, no Martin Luther King. And what James and Eric want to do is to remove that moral foundation and expect the building to still stand. We… Read more »
Those who argue that because Christians were involved in Americanized slavery or oppressing women that Christianity has no say in such matters forget or don’t understand that they were not acting consistently like Christ. Atheists, evolutionists, etc acting in such a way are acting consistently with their beliefs. The only way out for both parties is repentance. Forgiveness and salvation come from Christ. More slavery and more oppression come from liberals and atheists and evolutionists. There is no salvation in their agendas. Only more of the same, just differently. If we see a railing against the governmental oppression of minorities… Read more »
And David, segregationists also used Scripture and Christian morality as the basis for their arguments. You can’t have it both ways. If Christianity gets credited with Martin Luther King, it also gets credited with George Wallace. Both of them are part of the history of Christianity. It’s a fair argument for you to claim that they misunderstood the Bible (even though I would disagree with you if you made that argument). It is not a fair argument that their segregationist views weren’t founded on what they understood the Bible to say, rightly or wrongly.
Eric, When a society acknowledges the Bible as the standard, everyone who seeks to persuade will necessarily appeal to the Bible for their arguments. But the responsibility of a just society is to determine which arguments are genuinely consistent with the Bible.
What I find mildly amusing but mostly boring is the same old rehashed nonsensical railing about something/anything being right or wrong, good or evil, from people who possess no standard of measurement. Mssrs. The Red and Bradshaw et al inevitably return to a discussion with people who believe in an absolute and living God, to insist that said belief and its attendant implications is wrong, unjust, unfair, evil, etc. The amusing part is that they use terms like wrong, unjust, unfair, evil, with a straight face. The boring part is that of watching a snake eat its tail while it… Read more »
RFB, I have carefully re-read everything I’ve written in this thread to try to find the words wrong, unjust, unfair or evil, and I’m not finding them. Can you please point me to where I used those words?
As for having no standard of measurement — you’re very silly.
Eric, you are making my point. Yes, there were arguments for segregation and slavery made from the Bible, but the playing field in all this was Christian morality. The arguments were Christian arguments. It was Christianity that is the moral basis for these progresses in society. Atheist and unbelieving societies had instituted millenia of slavery, despotism, and tyranny, and it was Christianity that brought it to an end. Now, unbelieving societies do pop up, but we don’t see freedom in their wake, we see concentration camps, gulags, burqas, and oppression of all kinds. Unbelieving societies dont produce a William Wilberforce,… Read more »
It’s a bit too glib to say that abolition is the true christian position. The South defended slavery with the Bible, and were not defeated through some theological debate, but through war. An entire denomination of the baptists was created because other Baptists weren’t pro-slavery. For that matter, Doug wrote a book defending southern slavery and as far as I know his sympathies are still not with the abolitionists.
Eric, If your point is that you did not use the exacts words (wrong, unjust, unfair, evil, etc) then you are correct. No, you did not use the exact words. That was not my point, and I think that you know that. If you do not, here is my point: Both you and Mr. Bradshaw speak as if having freedom, voting, holding public office, owning property in their own names if they were married, gaining admission to most institutions of higher learning and equality of the sexes is a “good” thing. And you both speak as if slavery and Jim… Read more »
Eric the Red wrote: “RFB, I have carefully re-read everything I’ve written in this thread to try to find the words wrong, unjust, unfair or evil, and I’m not finding them. Can you please point me to where I used those words? As for having no standard of measurement — you’re very silly.” In spite of his coyness in the use of morally meaningful terms, Eric the Red has been called out many many times already for his logical inconsistency and irrationality. I’m pleased to see that Eric senses his own need to abandon the use of terms like “wrong”,… Read more »
Matt, I believe Pastor Wilson made the point that Southern slavery wrong, but that the war was piling evil upon evil. Slavery ended in England through theological persuasion, and who are you to say it wouldn’t have ended the same way here were it not for the war?
DavidR, you are ignoring the entire Enlightenment/Renaissance, when people who were mostly religious skeptics (though not necessarily atheists) pushed back against the power of the church. You are correct that post-Renaissance the church has at least some of the time been at the vanguard of human rights, but that’s because the worst of its abuses got defanged. Before the Enlightenment, the Christian approach to human rights was burning heretics at the stake. As for the dictators you mention, please keep in mind that since most societies have been religious, most societies have been led by people who were at least… Read more »
RFB, when I comment here, I studiously avoid using value-laden terms like right, wrong, evil, because in this forum, they are terms of art that mean different things to you than they do to most people. Since I disagree with you on how those terms are defined, there is no point to using them. That doesn’t mean I don’t believe they exist or that they have a basis; it means that we’re never going to agree on their basis so there is no point to rehashing that conversation. It’s a little like this: Suppose someone tells me I don’t own… Read more »
Katecho, nice to hear from you. Have you stopped beating your wife yet?
Hmm, let’s see, Renaissance, what else was going on during that time period. Scholastic schools, no couldn’t be.. preachers and theologians getting the Bible into indigenous languages, an attach on the Establishment political/religious forces through confrontation of hot goodspell preaching, blood for seed, hmm..naw, the press pumping out sermons.
With the (admittedly pitiful) commentary on the history of the Body of Christ as we are being transformed from our old nature to our birthright in Him, what these blind fools fail to comprehend is the present of the Body of Christ.
Inherent in the hubris and condescension of James, Eric, (insert your favorite heathen federal judges name here) is the presumption of the decline of God’s work here and now in His bride.
You, Christian. Are you trembling in fear and dhimminitude before these mighty men of warped non-valor?
Me either.
Grace and Peace.
Eric the Red wrote: “RFB, when I comment here, I studiously avoid using value-laden terms like right, wrong, evil, because in this forum, they are terms of art that mean different things to you than they do to most people. Since I disagree with you on how those terms are defined, there is no point to using them.” Somehow this principle hasn’t stopped Eric from studiously bombing Doug’s posts with the term “slavery” (with all of its value-laden moral implications) in hopes of wrapping it around our necks. Since we disagree with Eric on how biblical slavery is defined, is… Read more »
It is as farcical for the state to attempt to define marriage as it is for the institutional church to attempt to do the same. Who asked them and what business is it of theirs? Get a real job already. With Jefferson I say, “I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” True, the progressives are today inflicting their particular flavor of tyranny. Tomorrow, it may well be another Church of Rome. Doubtless, Mr. Wilson himself wouldn’t mind taking a whack at it if he could. I thank… Read more »
Matt, I believe Pastor Wilson made the point that Southern slavery wrong, but that the war was piling evil upon evil. Slavery ended in England through theological persuasion, and who are you to say it wouldn’t have ended the same way here were it not for the war? Actually he never said that in the Southern Slavery book. The argument was that while the slave trade was wrong, the actual institution of slavery was perfectly compatible with a Christian society, of which the South was the premiere historical example. To be frank, I can’t really disagree, as the Bible does… Read more »
@ James and Eric These kinds of conversations bore me to tears. I hate to pull out the snotty card, but it seems to only one left. If you don’t have a standard, how do you define freedom? Why should people be free? Who cares whether they are free? What the heck does freedom mean? Why should blacks or women be free? In the survival of the fittest, they evidently can’t get it together enough to move to the top of the food chain, tough luck for them. They are sucking up too many of our resources, so why should… Read more »
You can read the book here if you’re interested.
mejustasking, I can’t speak for James, but speaking for myself, who are you claiming doesn’t have a standard? You have fallen into the error of the false alternative, in which the only two choices are your standard or no standard at all.
Here’s the standard: Humans do better in community than they do living on their own. Living in community means that certain behaviors have to be fostered and certain other behaviors have to be suppressed. Everything else flows from those self-evident premises.
Matt, Here’s a summary of Pastor Wilson’s position. http://dougwilson.wpengine.com/s21-atheism-and-apologetics/slavery-and-atheism.html
Eric pontificates and calls this “self-evident” so he doesn’t have to provide proof or a sound basis founded in atheism for that standard that he’s actually taken from Christianity.
Both you and Mr. Bradshaw speak as if having freedom, voting, holding public office, owning property in their own names if they were married, gaining admission to most institutions of higher learning and equality of the sexes is a “good” thing. And you both speak as if slavery and Jim Crow issues and people like George Wallace are bad. If I understand correctly (and I may well not), you believe we cannot know what is “good” or “bad” objectively unless God tells us. But the Bible, to my knowledge, doesn’t talk about specific rights for women like voting, holding public… Read more »
Sorry, blockquote fail in the last 3 paragraphs of above comment.
@eric,
Humans do “better” … Can you define “better”? If you can, can you please tell me why that is a “good”? And can you define “good”?
Wesley, if you want to offer evidence or an argument either that (1) humans don’t do better living in community or (2) that living in community is compatible with anything goes, be my guest. I doubt you’ll be able to. Until you do, I shall continue to consider those two propositions self evident.
And to the extent the standard comes from Christianity, Christianity snitched it from the Enlightenment. Pre-enlightenment, the Christian approach to human rights was burning dissenters at the stake.
Mejustasking, there was once a judge who was presiding over jury trial involving an alleged theft. When it came time for him to instruct the jury on the legal definition of theft, he turned to them and said, “The question in this case is whether the defendant stole the money. All of you are old enough to know what stealing means without me having to explain it to you. Now, if you think the prosecutor proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant stole the money, it’s your job to find him guilty. If not, you must find him innocent.… Read more »
mejustasking wrote: @eric, Humans do “better” … Can you define “better”? If you can, can you please tell me why that is a “good”? And can you define “good”? Eric the Red has burned this fuse many times with no result. “Better” is one of those value-laden terms that Eric studiously didn’t avoid this time. What could better even mean in Eric’s materialism? Does it mean atoms are more harmoniously placed in space? Atoms don’t care. Does it mean neurons fire in more pleasant chain reactions? Again, neurons don’t care how or when they fire. Does it mean homo sapiens… Read more »
Eric the Red wrote: “Pre-enlightenment, the Christian approach to human rights was burning dissenters at the stake.” Notice yet another outcry of emotion from Eric. “Burning dissenters at the stake.” Oh my. Who could be in support of that? But at least Eric didn’t use any value-laden terms, right? He’s too studious for that. Eric is relying on us to supply the emotional response from our worldview. Eric’s premise is that the existence of our emotional response validates that we shouldn’t burn dissenters. In other words, Eric wants us to not question our emotional responses (unless those emotions are in… Read more »