Totalitolerance and the Tactics of Trigglypuff

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Introduction

If you assume that secular society is an actual possibility, which is a big suppose, one of the first things you have to do is ignore the outliers. In other words, diversity is great, and will continue to be great, just so long as nobody leans too far to the right or left in our wobbly societal canoe. In other words, secular diversity works great so long as we manage to keep the diversity to a minimum.

This is just another way of saying that any culture, in order to be a functional culture at all, has to operate around shared values. If the values are not shared, if people cannot quietly assume them in their disputes with members of a rival party within that culture, with the rival party assuming the same values, then we do not have a culture at all. What we have is a cultural civil war.

And that is what we currently have.

The Set Up

In order to work out the ramifications of this, let me point to a current manifestation of what is being touted as simple liberal hypocrisy. But it is not so much hypocrisy—although there is a hypocritical element—as it is an example of the limitations of stage four secularism. The current secular ruling elites are incapable of handling the hardline outliers, and their canoe is going over.

Over the last few years, we have been treated to one disgusting display after another of secularists demanding that evangelical florists, bakers, photographers, et al. leave their convictions, however deeply held, at the door of their shop and just serve the public. What’s so hard about that? But given the nature of their professions—celebratory professions—they were being required to celebrate things they believed ought not to be celebrated. That’s too bad, our overlords said. Just do it. Secularism demands that we brand anyone who holds to traditional sexual morality as nothing other than Bull Connor in the bedroom.

We have gotten too accustomed to the totalitolerant tactics of this world’s Trigglypuffs.

trigglypuff

Comes now Donald J. Trump, ascending to the Oval Office, and what do we encounter, right off the bat? Mike Pence went to a production of Hamilton, and got himself hectored by the cast. And Sophie Theallet—a name I am embarrassed to admit that I had not heretofore known—drew herself up to her full height and penned an open letter letting it be known that her designer dresses will not be heading Melania’s way anytime soon. Our future First Lady might find herself preparing for the Inauguration by shopping off the rack, a process I assume may have to be explained to her.

But it all works out. Pence took it all in stride. He said he enjoyed the show, and also said that he wasn’t offended by the comments. “That is actually what makes America the nation we all love so much. In the heady days after the election, we were all pretty exultant, up in the clouds, you know. It was good to come back down, to once again encounter the smug and officious superiority that liberals love to ladle over the tops of all our heads. It was frankly good to be home again. We must never forget that this was how we got elected in the first place.”

Actually, I made that quote up. Pence wasn’t offended, but he didn’t say all that. I wish he would have, but alas, he didn’t.

And Melania will probably look fabulous in a little thing whipped up by a back alley gay designer in Manhattan. Trump knows a guy.

Hypocrisy or Revelation?

Now it didn’t take anybody very long to see that if the progressives didn’t have double standards they would have no standards at all. Where did they get off demanding that evangelical bakers sacrifice their personal convictions for the sake of homo-agenda, but then when they lose the election, refuse absolutely to surrender their personal convictions? Why the double standard?

But this is more than a mere personal hypocrisy. It reveals what careful observers have known for some time now, which is that there are two Americas. The political form of this is seen in the red state/blue state map, which is even more striking when you look at it county by county. There are other ways of configuring it, but it comes down to the fact that we have something more than two political factions. Rather we have developed two incompossible cultures.

Incompossibility means that two things are not mutually possible. If your political party wants the Defense Department budget to be 600 billion and the other party wants it to be 550 billion, that is not incompossible. That is a disagreement. You vote and decide what to do. If you want no tariffs and the other party wants tariffs, that is another disagreement. That is not incompossible. But if you don’t believe in chopping up babies to sell for parts, and the other party does, that is incompossible. That is not a disagreement over Policy A over against Policy B. That is a disagreement over the meaning of God, life, man, sin, law, right and wrong.

Now when you have two such alien cultures occupying the same general space, then there are four basic possibilities. 1. One culture may be driven out. 2. One culture may resentfully submit to the other. 3. One culture is defeated and absorbed by the other. 4. The civil war continues until option 1, 2 or 3 occurs.

As my daughter Rachel pointed out the other night at our Sabbath dinner, our current situation is the result of progressives simply assuming #2, with the consequent inevitability of #3, and that they are therefore the masters and we are the servants. A servant must do as he is told. The master doesn’t have to do what the servants say. Why do evangelicals have to bake the cake, and take the picture? The answer is because the secularists have hammered out their own doctrine of dhimmitude. They are the lords of the earth, and so one imperious glance is enough to tell you that it past time for you to be decorating that cake.

But when someone tries to pull that stunt on them—insisting they bake a cake for the Homophobe Ball, say, with the frosting inscription saying something like “Bring a pretty girl.”—they put on their full indignant face and say, “Sirrah!” Indignant? How indignant do they get? Well, pretty indignant. It rivals that time I put twenty cats in the bathtub to hose them down.

Note to my enemies: I didn’t actually do that. It was just a colorful metaphor, trying to capture how indignant you guys always are, even about metaphors. Even so, I don’t think I quite captured it. Try twenty-five cats.

Secularism on Its Last Legs

Progressives have gotten so far into their bubble that even Saturday Night Live has noticed it.

An actual functioning “secular” square was possible in America when the diversity consisted of a wide range of Protestant denominations. We had an informal Christian establishment, and for the most part it worked okay. With the radical infusion of many Catholics in the nineteenth century, it was challenging but not incompossible. The rhetoric of religious neutrality did not result in disaster so long as pretty much everybody was quietly assuming the basic facts of the Apostles’ Creed.

But with the rise of aggressive progressivism, and the challenges posed by radical Islam, we have discovered that the fabric of the big American tent was canvas after all, and not anything more stretchy than that. Christian culture and progressive culture are incompossible. Christian culture and radical Islamic culture are incompossible. And progressive culture and radical Islamic culture are incompossible. What’s a politically engaged Christian to do?

This is what has been underneath my disagreements with Russell Moore. I do not believe that he celebrates Obergefell as a positive good in itself. It is not the case that he wants homosexual marriage in the public square. It is more that he rejects explicitly Christian politics in the public square—and I think he knows (as do I) that the only practical way to overthrow Obergefell would be through an appeal to explicitly Christian political standards. That would, in his system, collide with his commitment to religious liberty.

Now I say this affirming my own commitment to religious liberty—including Muslims, atheists, and Melanesian frog worshipers. But I want to ground their religious liberty in the fact that Jesus died and rose, and not in the fact that John Locke thought it would be totally great.

And Now a Concluding Word From Our Sponsor

We live in interesting times. One of the things that engaged Christians must do is work through and work out a political theology, one that is grounded in Scripture and consistent with the history of our people. To that end, let me recommend two of my books, books designed to help get you up to speed. The first is a detailed examination of what constitutes a scriptural theopolitical imagination. It is called Empires of Dirt and was just released last week.empiresofdirt

In this book, I interact in detail with the alternatives suggested by such worthies as Darryl Hart, Greg Boyd, James Davison Hunter, David Gelernter, and Jason Stellman. In that interaction I find that the central feature of Christian cultural engagement is its failure to engage. We are not blowing down the road—we are sitting in the driveway with the clutch in, revving the engine. If there is any time when conservative Christians need to settle on a biblical political theology, it is the next two years.

Because evangelical Christians have been largely convinced that abortion is a bloody atrocity, it does not take much convincing to get them to register their opposition to Roe. But Obergefell has been an entirely different matter, and I would offer Same Sex Mirage as my proposed antidote.same-sex-mirage

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FatherTimNE
FatherTimNE
7 years ago

Just a note: Trump’s wife has been seen wearing clothes that are assumed to be “off the rack” since they cost less than $400.

jon
jon
7 years ago

Why 2 years?

"A" dad
"A" dad
7 years ago

“Stage 4 secularism”,
brought to you by stage 4 selfishness!
????

Rob Steele
Rob Steele
7 years ago

Secularism as cancer and secularists as doctrinaire islamists are both really good metaphors but I liked the not-driving one better when you described the not-driver as clutching the wheel saying varoom-varoom with the engine off.

ME
ME
7 years ago

“The current secular ruling elites are incapable of handling the hardline outliers, and their canoe is going over.” I am rather cheerful about this election, but one thing that has cheered me immensely is understanding that a culture dominated by Christian values simply will not allow the darker aspects of our own extremists to come into power. I’m speaking specifically about the blatantly racist and misogynistic elements lurking within some of the Alt Right. Ironically, it is not Christian tolerance I put my faith in, but rather Christian intolerance, intolerance even for our own kind whose views can be extreme,… Read more »

"A" dad
"A" dad
7 years ago
Reply to  ME

Memi, I think Ian posted a link where the number of KKK (aka “alt. Right?) members was counted / estimated. The “number” was 3000 to 6000 “members”? In a country of 318,000,000, at least the actual racists are a small problem, perhaps be cause Christians do have a real God, who convicts people of their sins!????????????

JohnM
JohnM
7 years ago
Reply to  "A" dad

Those numbers might be accurate, but what concerns me are the fellow travelers.

"A" dad
"A" dad
7 years ago
Reply to  JohnM

Who are?

“All” deplorables?????

HRC and Dem. Co. are far more concerning.

JohnM
JohnM
7 years ago
Reply to  "A" dad

All the non-members who agree the members have a point is who.
HRC et. al concerning, yes – far more, I don’t know. Up until the last year and a half I might have agreed, but more recent observation has reminded me that at the end of the story there actually *is* a wolf. Then too, HRC lost, so not as scary as a couple weeks ago.

"A" dad
"A" dad
7 years ago
Reply to  JohnM

J’, most people don’t even know what the kkks point is. I assume the short version is: “white people good, everyone else bad”.
Are you a “fellow traveler” to that? If not, how can you say other people are? People are considered innocent until proven guilty. Even libs get that! Especially HRC.

JohnM
JohnM
7 years ago
Reply to  "A" dad

I assume the same short version, and I assume most people do in fact know that as well, and I see *some* people who wouldn’t be about to don bed sheets think the same way even if they don’t think it as much or as far. I can say that because I listen to (or read) their words.

"A" dad
"A" dad
7 years ago
Reply to  JohnM

Well, just be careful not to confuse the default human position: “me good, you bad” with “white good, other bad”.
Niether looks good, but they are not exactly the same!????
Especially when the truth is: “me bad, you bad, God help!”

JamesBradshaw
7 years ago
Reply to  ME

I’m not so confident about that.

Protestants and Jews didn’t fare well in Spain under Ferdinand and Isabella, and no one really did well in Geneva under Calvin. Of course, chattel slavery was introduced in America by a predominantly Christian culture.

This isn’t to say that secularism (of any stripe) prevents any of this. Secularism can descend into barbarity as well if you mix it with the tribalism that most of humanity seems prone to.

"A" dad
"A" dad
7 years ago
Reply to  JamesBradshaw

How is Native American conquest slavery different from European “chattel” slavery? The point being, slavery was in the americas before the Europeans arrived.

mkt
mkt
7 years ago
Reply to  "A" dad

Oh c’mon man. Native Americans were all peaceful, pot-smoking vegans. All that stuff about scalping, human sacrifice, fighting and enslaving each other was probably made up by some white guys. You need to spend more time studying original sources like Hollywood and gov’t school textbooks.

ME
ME
7 years ago
Reply to  JamesBradshaw

You’re right, Christians are quite capable of descending into tribalistic barbarity. I guess that’s when my nationalism and patriotism kicks in. Either God shed his grace on this country or he didn’t. I believe he did and he put his good will in the people who live here. So yes, slavery once happened, but a few hundred thousand people gave their lives fighting against it, too.

denise njim
denise njim
7 years ago
Reply to  ME

And long before we had American slavery, white Europeans/Slavs were enslaved by the Ottoman Empire and Barbary Pirates. Slave markets are still active in the ME!

jillybean
jillybean
7 years ago
Reply to  ME

But what possible reason is there to assume that God shed His grace more brightly on this country than on any other? The song asks God to shed His grace; it doesn’t say that He has,

ME
ME
7 years ago
Reply to  jillybean

God has shed his grace on America. That is evident all around us and in the many blessings we enjoy. If God has shed his grace on some other nation, awesome, go forth and be blessed. We don’t deny our own God given grace as if that somehow lifts any other nation up.

"A" dad
"A" dad
7 years ago
Reply to  ME

The rain falls on the good and the bad everywhere!????????????

stan schmunk
stan schmunk
7 years ago
Reply to  ME

The difference here is that American slavery was initiated by Christians and justified by Scripture as was segregation. Comparison to other nations’ slavery is invalid. BTW, hundreds of thousands of Americans fought to maintain and extend slavery and again used Scripture to justify it. The true heroes of the Civil War and the true Christians of the era were the 190,000+ black Union troops and the hundreds of thousands of other blacks who supported the Union. From the beginning they were intent on freeing themselves and their people, laying down their lives for their friends as it were.

wisdumb
wisdumb
7 years ago
Reply to  ME

Now consider the ‘blatantly racist and misogynistic elements’ on the ‘acceptable’ left’ – just as evil and much more prevalent.

End The Madness
End The Madness
7 years ago
Reply to  ME

One reigns them in — the vile — by calling them out for what they are — self involved narcissists. As a secularist I have no problem doing so and know many secularist liberals who feel the same way. Secularism has less to do with it than the overall concept of subjectivity vs objectivity. I can argue that all human social action is subjective without capitulating the fact that some subjective social systems are far better than others. A Christian believes in an objective truth — God. I don’t but that doesn’t mean I have no sense of truth. I’m… Read more »

Billtownphysics
Billtownphysics
7 years ago

I’m beginning to wonder if liberals even understand the word “hypocrisy?” I mean, I think when they are accused of being hypocrites they must go to the dictionary, look it up, and scratch their heads, still unsure of what the word is trying to convey.

Dunsworth
Dunsworth
7 years ago

I think for them (and conservatives can be guilty of this too) it’s not hypocrisy because it’s not hypocritical to be for the RIGHT thing and against all the WRONG things. And in a way, that’s absolutely correct. The problem is they’re trying to stake out that ground without an objective measure of right and wrong. So it really does come back to hypocrisy, because they only ground they can stand on is “you do what you believe to be right, and I do what I believe to be right.” But when they don’t grant that you are doing that… Read more »

"A" dad
"A" dad
7 years ago
Reply to  Dunsworth

And the libs cheat and deny, when reminded that the initial Americans said they were endowed with “all this” by our self-evident creator!

jillybean
jillybean
7 years ago
Reply to  "A" dad

A Dad, I don’t think it is cheating or lying, but rather a different interpretation. I do not see the reference to the endowment of rights by our Creator in the DOI as an expression of belief in Christianity. It sounds like the deist formulations that are common throughout Enlightenment writings. Same thing with “Nature and Nature’s God.”

I don’t doubt that many of the founders were sincere Christians (and some were deists), but for whatever reason, they chose not to incorporate specifically Christian references into the DOI.

"A" dad
"A" dad
7 years ago
Reply to  jillybean

Jilly, as usual we are actually on the same page. A knowledge and belief in God, the supreme being and ultimate authority, is not at all the same thing as having a religion, like Catholicism or Protestant. The original Americans said their power to do what they did, self-evidently came from God, not themselves. God, not “the church”. God and State are not separated, church and state are separated. When libs “cheat”, as they do, they fail to make the big distinction between “God” and “church”. All one has to do, to make the point with a lib, is to… Read more »

JohnM
JohnM
7 years ago
Reply to  "A" dad

What church *does* God go to? ;)

"A" dad
"A" dad
7 years ago
Reply to  JohnM

He keeps an eye on all of them!
Even Randman’s!????

jillybean
jillybean
7 years ago
Reply to  Dunsworth

Jane, I always have trouble with this argument regarding there being no objective measure of right and wrong. It comes up frequently, and although I believe my moral code is rooted in my religious faith, I have trouble accepting that no secular moral code is possible. This seems to me to discount the possibility of agreement. To take a trivial example for illustration, imagine a group of children inventing a game and deciding on the rules. Once agreement has been reached, the game begins and any child who breaks the rules will be called to account. Yet the group is… Read more »

Christopher Casey
Christopher Casey
7 years ago
Reply to  jillybean

“Jane, I always have trouble with this argument regarding there being no objective measure of right and wrong. It comes up frequently, and although I believe my moral code is rooted in my religious faith, I have trouble accepting that no secular moral code is possible.” A secular moral code is possible but it wont be objectve. I’m reminded of Ravi Zacharias argumemt from evil: If there is evil there must be good. If there is good there must be a moral law. If there is a moral law there must be a moral law giver. A group may share… Read more »

RandMan
RandMan
7 years ago
Reply to  jillybean

I think that is well said. (sorry to agree with you publicly jilly, it won’t help you here.)

I would also point out that ideas about morality have changed over time with an evolved understanding the range of human suffering. I think this is due to post-enlightenment secularism. I think morality can be grounded in rationality and secular humanism.

"A" dad
"A" dad
7 years ago
Reply to  RandMan

It can! Aka, social Darwinism! ????
Or, the Gulag system!

Dunsworth
Dunsworth
7 years ago
Reply to  jillybean

The problem with the children’s game analogy is that nobody claims that everyone who doesn’t want to play the game is doing something for which they can be legitimately morally criticized. Yet those who claim to hold to a morality without an objective foundation do find themselves saying that bullying transgender kids is immoral. Why? Maybe the bullies are just playing a different game, right? A merely “agreed upon” morality carries no weight with those who don’t agree to it, does it? And how could you possibly argue that it should? “The other problem I see is that even Christians… Read more »

Kilgore T. Durden
Kilgore T. Durden
7 years ago

Doug, once again great post. Your daughter is absolutely correct that secularists have deluded themselves into triumphalist dreams. The problem is that they fail to understand that secularism has never actually built a society of any kind. They are a destructive plague that either militantly destroys a traditional culture through force (Soviet Russia and China) or it attaches itself like a leech to a thriving and wealthy one (Scandinavia and much of Western Europe) and works to kill it internally. But you are categorically wrong about the compatibility of Catholicism and Protestantism. You’ve apparently forgotten about the convulsions of the… Read more »

bethyada
7 years ago

I don’t think the fact of war is the same as the inevitability of war. Doug is pointing to situations that seem to have no solution short of civil war.

I doubt the Reformation was necessarily a similar case, even though there was war. And especially given the fact that European wars were often territorial without respect to religion.

Dunsworth
Dunsworth
7 years ago
Reply to  bethyada

I agree. I also don’t think his “Catholics accepted a form of dhimmitude and pretended to be Protestant” is very historical. They may have accepted a form of “dhimmitude,” if we grant that the Muslim practice is the exemplar from which other situations ought to be analogized, but they certainly didn’t “pretend to be Protestant” in any meaningful way. Also, it’s a serious question, and you don’t have to be secularly minded to ask it, whether the post-Reformation wars occurred because Catholicism and Protestantism can’t comfortably occupy the same space, or because religion was used as a proxy for the… Read more »

bethyada
7 years ago
Reply to  Dunsworth

because religion was used as a proxy for the same-old same-old territorial ambitions that have plagued mankind since the beginning

All the more so when we see Catholic kings protecting Protestant subjects!

jillybean
jillybean
7 years ago
Reply to  bethyada

Like my dear King Henry of Navarre.

jillybean
jillybean
7 years ago
Reply to  Dunsworth

I agree with you. The conflicts between Catholics and Protestants here were more likely a result of fears about large scale immigration from Catholic countries, and the tendency for Catholics to prefer to live in large cities. Specific issues like the Oregon school wars came about because of Catholic preference for educating their children in Catholic schools. (Not that most Catholics care about that today.) No Christian today would likely make the argument that a failure to attend public school represented a reprehensible refusal to assimilate into the dominant culture! Catholics make up the dominant Christian group in Canada, I… Read more »

Kilgore T. Durden
Kilgore T. Durden
7 years ago
Reply to  Dunsworth

Dunsworth, I know this comment was not directed to me, so forgive me for jumping in. If you think Catholics were not treated as second class citizens in the early 1900’s, or would claim that it was not historical, I would suggest doing some reading. Perhaps the word dhimmitude was imprecise, but there is simply no denying that Catholics were widely despised for most of American history. Their acceptance now has more to do with their partnership with Leftists and secularists than it does with some supposed Catholic Protestant truce. The wars in Europe were drawn along Catholic and Protestant… Read more »

Dunsworth
Dunsworth
7 years ago

“If you think Catholics were not treated as second class citizens in the early 1900’s, or would claim that it was not historical, I would suggest doing some reading.” I’m saying exactly the opposite. Of course they were treated as second-class citizens. I remember hearing Protestants of older generations 30 and 40 years ago still talking as though they were a different tribe, and barely tolerating them on a social level. But I don’t think they ever “pretended to be Protestant,” or to the extent that they did, they were the ones giving up their Catholic identity. American Catholicism as… Read more »

jillybean
jillybean
7 years ago
Reply to  Dunsworth

I think you are right. The one qualifier I would suggest is something Kilgore alluded to earlier. I think that Catholics were always defensive about any presumption that allegiance to the Vatican made them disloyal Americans. As he noted, this still had be an issue in 1960 or JFK would not have had to reassure the American voter that he would not take his marching orders from the pope.

Kilgore T. Durden
Kilgore T. Durden
7 years ago
Reply to  jillybean

Thank you for the additional thoughts, Jillybean. That sense of being a loyal American, which meant that you must distance your loyalty from the Pope, was an antithesis brought about by the heavily Protestant nature of early America. In other words, there was a close connection between Americanism and anti-papal (i.e. Protestant) tendencies.

I can’t help but think that if Catholicism were the ascendant ideology instead of secularism, that we would not be sort of reliving the conflicts of the Reformation and European past. That is why I disagree so adamantly with Doug.

Kilgore T. Durden
Kilgore T. Durden
7 years ago
Reply to  Dunsworth

The fundamental difference between the Catholic view of Christianity and the Protestant view is that of Papal primacy or infallibility. Can you point to any influential Catholic thinker in American history who has ever suggested that submission to the Papacy is a goal toward which they must work for government or the culture writ large? If you can find me one influential Catholic in American history who has ever written anything even remotely close to this notion, I will gladly concede that they are in fact acting like a true Catholic. Until then, they were acting like a Protestant in… Read more »

Kilgore T. Durden
Kilgore T. Durden
7 years ago
Reply to  bethyada

Bethyada, we are not currently at war in the formal sense with secularism. Yet, the worldviews are mutually exclusive, and there will either be submission by one or the destruction of one. The example of the Reformation is valuable. Either the Pope is infallible, and the keys of Heaven belong to the Bishop of Rome or it is by grace alone through faith alone as reveled in Sola Scriptura. This is irreconcilable on a fundamental level, so if Catholics had the same amount of influence culturally as secularists do now, I have a hard time seeing it being much different.… Read more »

bethyada
7 years ago

The reason I deny religion was central is that I think that warfare is global from time immemorial until now. And I don’t see that Christendom was particularly worse, and often much better. There is a difference between religious (and worldview) differences being the primary cause of war, and warmongers appealing to religion to increase support for their cause. I think a much stronger case can be made for Islam. Christianity less so. I am not saying that we are at war with secularism in the West yet (though we were with communism). I believe that Doug was pointing out… Read more »

Kilgore T. Durden
Kilgore T. Durden
7 years ago
Reply to  bethyada

Bethyada, I am not trying to proffer that Christianity was worse or that war was in some way unique to the reformation. It isn’t and it wasn’t. But we simply cannot peel apart what they didn’t. If they linked land, ethnicity, and religion, we should not try to in our analysis. The authority of the Pope was very important in these wars. My allegiance stands with the Reformers, because I believe that we will one day have peace because of the election and growth of God’s people. But we should not deny our past, even the bad parts.

ashv
ashv
7 years ago

I think there’s just as much evidence that the Reformation got the traction that it did as a result of war as for the converse.

Kilgore T. Durden
Kilgore T. Durden
7 years ago
Reply to  ashv

Winning wars does tend to help one’s cause.

ashv
ashv
7 years ago

More specifically I think a good deal of weight should be given to the tension between the Holy Roman Emperor, the Pope, and the German nobles, and Frederick of Saxony taking advantage of a young monk who might help tip the balance of power in his favour.

Kilgore T. Durden
Kilgore T. Durden
7 years ago
Reply to  ashv

A well read commenter! This is why I like this place. No doubt, watching a third party start to erode the foundations your enemy’s authority is always helpful to a scheming aristocrat. Those German nobles among others in Europe quite happily sided with Luther for reasons that had little to do with Sola Scriptura. To add to your point, I think we in America fail to understand the intimate connection between religion, ethnicity, and national allegiance. We try to chop them up and sort them out and rearrange them. That is not how it usually works and almost never worked… Read more »

jillybean
jillybean
7 years ago

Do you suspect that when it comes to political power, religious convictions fly out the window? Why did Cardinal Richelieu support Gustavus Adolphus?

Kilgore T. Durden
Kilgore T. Durden
7 years ago
Reply to  jillybean

I don’t think that they do at all. In fact, acquiring power many times solidifies it. What you may be referring to is that sometimes people who profess a certain belief drop it upon gaining power, but that merely reveals that they didn’t have any real conviction to begin with.

Evangelicalism is full of these types of people. It is socially acceptable and many times fun with lots of opportunity to network and learn skills like music or public speaking or video production. Once they have no need for the community, they drop them.

jillybean
jillybean
7 years ago

I think that is a trifle harsh. Tim Kaine’s position on abortion is wrong. But it should not be forgotten that Catholics in the U.S. waged a constant war against legalizing abortion before it was on anyone else’s radar. Scalia, Roberts, and Alito are neither secular nor pretend Protestants.

Kilgore T. Durden
Kilgore T. Durden
7 years ago
Reply to  jillybean

Jillybean, I never intended this comment to be harsh, and I would never say that Catholics and Protestants have no common goals. That would be silly. But Protestants and secularists also have goals that align on occasion, and I am thinking of something like human trafficking as an example. And I would hasten to add that there are certainly more goals that align between us and Catholics as there are between us and secularists. None of that changes the mutual exclusivity of the two systems. What I meant by them pretending to be Protestant was that they have never fought… Read more »

Wesley Sims
Wesley Sims
7 years ago

Now I say this affirming my own commitment to religious liberty—including Muslims, atheists, and Melanesian frog worshipers. But I want to ground their religious liberty in the fact that Jesus died and rose, and not in the fact that John Locke thought it would be totally great.

Mind you, Locke didn’t want to tolerate atheists.

jigawatt
jigawatt
7 years ago

In order to work out the ramifications of this, let me point to a current manifestation of what is being touted as simple liberal hypocrisy. But it is not so much hypocrisy—although there is a hypocritical element—as it is an example of the limitations of stage four secularism. The current secular ruling elites are incapable of handling the hardline outliers, and their canoe is going over. One of my hobbies is finding and pointing out secular progresive inconsistencies and hypocrisies. It is indeed a target rich environment. What I’ve found though is that the secularists never confront such charges head-on.… Read more »

JL
JL
7 years ago
Reply to  jigawatt

It’s all much easier to figure out when we realize that their founding principle is “Do what thou wilt is the whole of the law”. When every rule you make promotes this goal, then there is no longer contradiction. Does democracy give me what I want? If yes, then I promote democracy. If no, then I denounce democracy. Never will I say I do or do not believe in democracy because belief in anything is not warranted, with the exception of the founding principle. All else is means. The argument must come back to can you or can you not… Read more »

jillybean
jillybean
7 years ago
Reply to  JL

But JL, what happens when the person on whom you are imposing this restriction refuses to honor it? What happens when more of your fellow citizens side with him rather than you?

ashv
ashv
7 years ago
Reply to  jillybean

Eventually?
War.

JL
JL
7 years ago
Reply to  jillybean

When Christians are a small minority, persecution nearly always results. We are witnessing that in Syria and Africa right now. When Christians and pagans are equal, and neither group is willing to submit then war is a real possibility. I don’t think that’s the case now. I believe the vocal and resistant leftist pagans are actually a small group. That’s why we have the targeted violence like cop killing and riots. We will see more of those until the economy turns around. Trump will try to bring the majority of Americans together, and if he is successful with his economic… Read more »

Capndweeb
Capndweeb
7 years ago

Christian baker MUST produce cake celebrating gay wedding, under penalty of law.
Liberal dressmaker has a RIGHT to refuse to produce dress for conservative first lady.
And now we know what is nincompossible.

"A" dad
"A" dad
7 years ago

So…………..,
What did the raging queen want?
A free range, non-patriarchal latte?
????
☕️?

Bystander girls’ expression was priceless!????

Ministry Addict
7 years ago
Reply to  "A" dad

I second this request for info. Might come in handy to know what makes someone like that rise to that level of rage in that type of setting.

somethingclever
somethingclever
7 years ago

“Take your hatred off this campus”

"A" dad
"A" dad
7 years ago

So, was that what the raging queen was saying? And to whom?

somethingclever
somethingclever
7 years ago
Reply to  "A" dad

Yes, and she was screaming it at Steven Crowder, Milo Yiannopoulos, and Christiana Hoff Sommers at UMass.

"A" dad
"A" dad
7 years ago

Hmmm, my state. Yep, that makes sense. Perhaps you can pray that I’ll be granted more salt and light!????????????

somethingclever
somethingclever
7 years ago
Reply to  "A" dad

She seemed to be in the minority at that event, but I take your point.

ashv
ashv
7 years ago

Maybe not if you measured the audience by weight.

somethingclever
somethingclever
7 years ago
Reply to  ashv

Too easy

jigawatt
jigawatt
7 years ago

I think it was pronounced

Take your hatred off this campus

ashv
ashv
7 years ago

Inconsistency and hypocrisy are fun to point out, but largely irrelevant at this stage.

Again, this election was about us vs them (wherever you want to draw the precise group lines) more than it was about differing ideas.

What inconsistency and hypocrisy reveal is that logic, facts, and ideas are merely tools for these people to strike at their hated enemies. Seeking to debate, debunk, or disprove anything they say is to make a category error.

For the sake of our children and to honour our parents, option #1 is the only choice available to us. Drive them out.

Indigo
Indigo
7 years ago
Reply to  ashv

I think we all have a responsibility to pray for number 3, however unlikely it is in human terms. Is anything too hard for the Lord?

ashv
ashv
7 years ago
Reply to  Indigo

Perhaps you’d like to review how David prayed for the Philistines.

Indigo
Indigo
7 years ago
Reply to  ashv

In what way do you think it’s better to pray for God’s enemies to be killed than to pray for them to be transformed? Either way, God’s enemies are destroyed; but if they’re destroyed by conversion there are more voices singing his praise in paradise, and more wide-reaching effects on the earth right now. (Imagine a guy from Boko Haram being converted instead of killed, and going home to disciple his family and bring the good news to everyone he knows!) I’m reasonably familiar with the imprecatory psalms and I certainly appreciate their appeal to justice for God’s enemies. I’m… Read more »

ashv
ashv
7 years ago
Reply to  Indigo

We should remember the lesson of Jonah ,and believe that we were once enemies of God — and that He does bring repentance to them. That said, the first sign of repentance would be for them to stop attacking God’s people.

Wesley Sims
Wesley Sims
7 years ago
Reply to  ashv

Catholics have Hail Marys and David had Two-Hundred Philistine Foreskins. Not sure on the exchange rate between the two just yet.

JL
JL
7 years ago

“Now when you have two such alien cultures occupying the same general space, then there are four basic possibilities. 1. One culture may be driven out. 2. One culture may resentfully submit to the other. 3. One culture is defeated and absorbed by the other. 4. The civil war continues until option 1, 2 or 3 occurs.” I think there’s another one, although it may be 2B. One culture appears to humbly submit, only to take over from within. I think this is what we’ve seen again and again in the church, with neocons in the republican party and Islam… Read more »

JamesBradshaw
7 years ago

“Now I say this affirming my own commitment to religious liberty—including Muslims, atheists, and Melanesian frog worshipers. But I want to ground their religious liberty in the fact that Jesus died and rose .. ” Where in Scripture is religious liberty held as a positive value to be embraced by either a Christian government or a Christian people? It’s certainly not in the Old Testament (where idolatry was punished with death by civil authorities under Moses). Luke 19:11-27 seems to imply that Christ didn’t see any particular issue with continuing this approach. Are you sure you didn’t start with a… Read more »

jillybean
jillybean
7 years ago
Reply to  JamesBradshaw

I don’t see it either. My own view is that religious liberty for Christians was pretty much a non-starter until the Reformation. My own dear Catholic church was not well known for its insistence on the individual conscience rights of the believer. It was “Get back behind the line or we’ll chop your foot off.” And even the reformers were not especially tolerant of those among themselves who came to different conclusions about infant baptism. I think religious liberty became an explicit value at the time of the Enlightenment. Before then, I think it referred to the liberty to practice… Read more »

Matt
Matt
7 years ago

Hmm, liberals do seem to be taking the election of Trump rather badly…or maybe I just forgot what it was like 16 years ago. But when it comes to hectoring, have we already forgotten “You lie!”.

But overall everyone is taking a one percent result to mean much more than it does.

ashv
ashv
7 years ago

It’s worth remembering that these people haven’t lost a war in centuries and have forgotten how to be strong in defeat.

Jack Bradley
Jack Bradley
7 years ago

Great analysis, Douglas. Can’t wait to get “Empires of Dirt”!

Luke Pride
7 years ago

Glad you chose the Johnny cash version for your title and not the originsl NIN version.

Mark Evans
Mark Evans
7 years ago

Doug is “stage 4 secularism” a term you made up? Can you point me to where I could learn more about it?

katecho
katecho
7 years ago

After banning the Confederate flag, Wilson alluded to the possibility of flagphobia extending to the U.S. flag itself. Now we have this: http://boston.cbslocal.com/2016/11/22/hampshire-college-amherst-stops-flying-flags/

There aren’t going to be enough safe spaces to hide in if they keep this up.

Luke Pride
7 years ago

So if you are using pics from Milo’s events, can we hope that you will invite him to Moscow for a debate soon? I know you already debated someone on homosexuality and conservatism.