Here is a group that is advancing their world-view. They state it carefully and well.
Aren’t you glad you live in a nation where these folk can express their point of view?
Now ask yourself:
Why is this groups point of view the only one allowed in your child’s tax-payer funded classroom?
Bush Remarks On ‘Intelligent Design’ Theory Fuel Debate: “Bush Remarks On ‘Intelligent Design’ Theory Fuel Debate
Before wading into the details of this article, praise is in order. This is a far better piece than would have been written about “creationism” ten years ago. It seeks to give both sides of the issue. It mostly avoids loaded language. It goes to good spokespeople on both sides. There is no lazy search for extremists to represent the right.
Most Americans are theists. Most thoughtful Americans are theists. Americans pay for government schools. They have a right to expect that their schools will present their ideas in all but extraordinary cases.
Some secularists seem to think mentioning that an idea is “Christian” or supports a religion is enough to taint it. Notice that in the old days religious freedom was properly understood to mean that I was not forced to follow your religion or practice it. Now it seems to be (for some of the folk on the left) the “right” to never hear any religious idea at all. Does this include the Declaration of Independence? Extremist Christians are wrong when they try to control the marketplace of ideas that way, so are radical secularists.
No atheist will die if forced to hear a careful argument against naturalism and for design.
Theism is an intellectually respectable position with first rate philosophers (such as Al Plantinga) offering support to it. At the most basic level Americans do not want philosophic naturalism enshrined as our state religion. The idea that nature is all there is may be true, but it is not self-evident. Perhaps only “natural” causes should be considered in science, but that idea is not self-evident as it begs the question of what a personal cause is. Are human persons for example only matter and energy in mindless motions? Are there souls? If so, then Intelligent Design (ID) is seen every day in the works of humans!
My thoughts on the story below are as usual in italics.
By Peter Baker and Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, August 3, 2005; Page A01
President Bush invigorated proponents of teaching alternatives to evolution in public schools with remarks saying that schoolchildren should be taught about ‘intelligent design,’ a view of creation that challenges established scientific thinking and promotes the idea that an unseen force is behind the development of humanity.
This is not a great definition. However, we must be fair to a reporter! Blogging has taught me great definitions do not get read! This definition seems good enough. It seems broadly accurate and is not couched in the sort of “devil words” that make the reader hate ID before the article really begins.
Note the Phillip E. Johnson inspired language in it that ID “challenges established scientific thinking.” Johnson has been more than vindicated in his desire to broaden the terms of debate and argue for a libertarian marketplace of ideas in all levels of education. Freedom is a good thing. It works.
Although he said that curriculum decisions should be made by school districts rather than the federal government, Bush told Texas newspaper reporters in a group interview at the White House on Monday that he believes that intelligent design should be taught alongside evolution as competing theories.
‘Both sides ought to be properly taught . . . so people can understand what the debate is about,’ he said, according to an official transcript of the session. Bush added: ‘Part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought. . . . You’re asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, and the answer is yes.’
Take a deep breath and read what Bush said.
There is a debate. Who can doubt it?
The “establishment” keeps telling us there is no debate, but it goes on in academic meetings, journals, and publications. Theism is growing in philosophy. More and more scientists are willing to risk their careers by speaking out. What is wrong with giving the points of view of both sides?
Kids care. They know about the debate. Must we just ignore it or give only one side?
These comments drew sharp criticism yesterday from opponents of the theory, who said there is no scientific evidence to support it and no educational basis for teaching it.
Notice how brittle the comments of the opponents are. They will not concede any scientific evidence for design. This is more than Darwin would say or Dawkins in his honest moments.
Nature shouts “design” both concede.
The beauty of Darwinism, and it is a powerful idea, is that it tries to explain that what appears designed actually is not. But after all what if (contrary to Darwin) nature is what it appears to be? Surely that can never be a stupid idea!
Science was born in design and many scientists still use it in their work. Can’t their voice be heard?
These comments also assume that “philosophy” has no place in schools. Of course that itself is a philosophy of education. Call it the philosophy that “science does not deal with any issues, ever, that fall outside of our narrow definition of science.” That seems self-evidently false to me, but there you have it. I disagree with the establishment.
The difference is that I am not trying to impose my own philosophy of education on goverment schools and the other side is.
The “evolutionism/creation” debate is not just about science, because “science” is not just some pure set of facts and untainted-by-philosophy theories. Science is constrained (as it must be) by the world-views of those that hold it. Isn’t it possible that a different world-view would see the facts differently?
As a result of an educational philosophy being imposed on us by the establishment, naturalism and reductionism are taught (both philosophical views) without any attempt to mention that many philosophers think both ideas applied to science are wrong headed.
Much of the scientific establishment says that intelligent design is not a tested scientific theory but a cleverly marketed effort to introduce religious — especially Christian — thinking to students. Opponents say that church groups and other interest groups are pursuing political channels instead of first building support through traditional scientific review.
This is an excellent paragraph. First, it is true. Much of the establishment does say this. This goes a long way to explain why people who do not agree with the establishment keep their mouth shut. To agree with the establishment leads to praise. Dissent leads to hyper-scrutiny. Who wants that?
Second, note the terror that is supposed to result in our minds from the radical notion that students would be exposed to Christian thinking. “By the dog, expose those students to Aquinas and the next thing you know there will be riots in the street!”
Third, the idea that parents would want a say in how their children are taught is now made to sound frightening. Pursuing “political channels” used to be called “democracy.”
Now, if non-secularists do it, we are supposed to worry about being one step from the Taliban. Here is a good idea: when my kids are exposed to atheist views (as they are) in the marketplace of ideas (especially in the media), I will not scream that we are about to enter Stalin’s Russia, if secularists will not see the Taliban behind civil discourse about religious ideas.
Yes?
Don’t hold your breath. These folk do not want any ideas that disagree with their deeply held secularism taught.
The White House said yesterday that Bush’s comments were in keeping with positions dating to his Texas governorship, but aides say they could not recall him addressing the issue before as president. His remarks heartened conservatives who have been asking school boards and legislatures to teach students that there are gaps in evolutionary theory and explain that life’s complexity is evidence of a guiding hand.
“Conservatives” are not the only ones who favor ID. Ask the African-American community. Check out the position of the new pope (no “conservative” in the modern American political sense).
“With the president endorsing it, at the very least it makes Americans who have that position more respectable, for lack of a better phrase,” said Gary L. Bauer, a Christian conservative leader who ran for president against Bush in the 2000 Republican primaries. “It’s not some backwater view. It’s a view held by the majority of Americans.”
This is one of the few weird sources in the article. Why Bauer? How many votes did he get? Is he an expert on this issue? Why not call an African American congressperson and ask their views on ID? I bet it would not be hard to find a Democrat who supports ID.
If you must talk to a Republican (it seems to fit the slant of the story) then why Bauer? I would have started with Rick Santorum, the sponsor of the Santorum Amendment on teaching intelligent design. He has national ambitions and is more like the mainstream of the ID movement.
John G. West, an executive with the Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based think tank supporting intelligent design, issued a written statement welcoming Bush’s remarks. “President Bush is to be commended for defending free speech on evolution, and supporting the right of students to hear about different scientific views about evolution,” he said.
Opponents of intelligent design, which a Kansas professor once called “creationism in a cheap tuxedo,” say there is no legitimate debate. They see the case increasingly as a political battle that threatens to weaken science teaching in a nation whose students already are lagging.
Translation: we are already doing a bad job teaching your kids science. Please trust us to know how to best teach them science.
One good thing about the article is that it rightly measures the level of debate. Most foes of ID do little more than think of clever shots to throw at their foes. Why?
When they engage the ID crowd in a serious way (as published books from University presses are already doing) they lend iron-clad proof that there is a real academic debate.
For example, the world-class philosopher Al Plantinga has attacked the naturalism in “evolution.” His paper has drawn respectful criticism. Plantinga has responded. The debate continues in philosophy. Why not tell kids, most of them from ID friendly homes, that is true? Why not spend a day or two reading the papers from these leading thinkers?
Students would be interested.
It would spark debate in classes.
What is the other side afraid of?
“It is, of course, further indication that a fundamentalist right has really taken over much of the Republican Party,” said Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), a leading liberal lawmaker. Noting Bush’s Ivy League education, Frank said, “People might cite George Bush as proof that you can be totally impervious to the effects of Harvard and Yale education.”
Check out the number of liberals who voted for the Santorum Amendment. Look it up!
When did Barney Frank become mainstream? Google him.
If the notion that God had something to do with creation is “fundamentalism” then almost all Americans are “fundamentalists.”
Note again that when pressed foes of ID can only insult the intelligence of those who disagree with them. Many fine philosophers do not think ID is sound. They argue strongly against it. (One thinks of Michael Ruse.) No ID person thinks anti-ID people are idiots since most of us earned our doctorates under the tutelage of very bright members of the establisment!
We just do not agree.
Why must the “other side” assume the worst of all their foes?
Bush’s comments were “irresponsible,” said Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. He said the president, by suggesting that students hear two viewpoints, “doesn’t understand that one is a religious viewpoint and one is a scientific viewpoint.” Lynn said Bush showed a “low level of understanding of science,” adding that he worries that Bush’s comments could be followed by a directive to the Justice Department to support legal efforts to change curricula.
Barry Lynn does not think “religious view points” should be heard. Schools must not even present the POINT OF VIEW of religious people. Most folk think “separation of church and state” means the government will not make them go to church or practice a religion, but Lynn does not want religious ideas heard. Period.
Notice that “science” and “religion” are treated by Lynn as if they existed in two air tight compartments. What happened to the unity of truth? What happened to the beauty of “inter-disciplinary” study? If it were not “religious” ideas, then Lynn would support talking about where two disciplines touch and inter-mingle.
Science is not an air tight compartment. It touches on ethics. It touches on religion.
Teach the controversy.
Bush gave no sign that he intended to wade that far into the debate. The issue came up only when a reporter from the Knight Ridder news service asked him about it; participants said the president did not seem especially eager to be asked. “Very interesting question,” he told the reporter playfully.”
At a morning briefing yesterday, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Bush was simply restating long-standing views. “He has said that going back to his days as governor,” McClellan said. “I think he also said in those remarks that local school districts should make the decisions about their curriculum. But it’s long been his belief that students ought to be exposed to different ideas, and so that’s what he was reiterating yesterday.”
But it’s long been his belief that students ought to be exposed to different ideas, and so that’s what he was reiterating yesterday.
Oh the horror! The President wants students to be exposed to different ideas! That Socrates must die! He will fill the youth of the city with his fiendish ideas and undermine the scientific establishment!
In comments published last year in Science magazine, Bush said that the federal government should not tell states or school boards what to teach but that “scientific critiques of any theory should be a normal part of the science curriculum.”
The president’s latest remarks came less than two months after Cardinal Christoph Schonborn, archbishop of Vienna and an influential Roman Catholic theologian, said evolution as “an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection” is not true.
“Any system of thought that denies or seeks to explain away the overwhelming evidence for design in biology is ideology, not science,” Schonborn wrote in the New York Times. He said he wanted to correct the idea that neo-Darwinism is compatible with Christian faith.
This is a lovely citation. Schonborn is a very serious thinker. He is a blue-blood European and fits no ones notion of an “American fundamentalist.” The fact that Schonborn even exists denies most of the lies told about ID by the other side. He is: not an American, not a fundamentalist Christian, not badly educated, and understands the issues.
Bruce Alberts, president of the National Academy of Sciences, warned this year in a “Dear Colleagues” letter of “increasingly strident attempts to limit the teaching of evolution.”
Alberts manages to spin his call to ban ID into the other side wanting to “limit teaching evolution.” Here is a deal my ID friends would accept Mr. Alberts:
1. Let us expand the teaching of evolution in American schools.
2. Let us also include 3 days exploring the philosophical arguments advanced by Plantinga and his critics regarding mainstream science as a way of showing where science impacts other disciplines.
O.K.?
Of course, he will not agree because the science establishment cannot stand even one mention of non-naturalism in the class. Ask yourself why?
What harm would it do for students to be exposed to this high level philosophical debate?
The most prominent debate is underway in Kansas, where the conservative state board of education is expected to require the teaching of doubts about evolution to public high school students. A challenge to the teaching of intelligent design is scheduled for trial in Dover, Pa., while a federal court in Georgia said textbook stickers questioning evolution were unconstitutional.
‘Mature conservatism,’ continued - Altercation - MSNBC.com: “The guy who said that was slapped with a ten day suspension. But what about these guys?”
How can one account for the unhinged ranting of otherwise interesting folk like Eric Alterman when George Bush is the subject?
If there is one thing you learn from teaching college students, it is that people are often much simpler than you think. Bright ones often have long and elaborate reasons for what they do, but it usually comes down to the same simple motives, things like love and hate, charity and greed.
Eric Alterman rages against George Bush. His rage has become irrational. Why? What could his motive be? The very anger in this postings betrays him. He cannot persuade for sneering. He cannot make a good argument against the President for falling into bad ones.
Today was a good example. Alterman has an excellent education and yet he still compares lying to Congress about steroid use to quotes about WMD by the White House.
It appears the simple distinction between knowing that one is doing steroids and lying about it and being wrong about one’s rational beliefs regarding WMD escapes him.
His rage makes him irrational.
What is one to make of this?
I think the simple answer is that there is not much left of the Left. They are reduced to their last bastions, certain parts of the Academy and Hollywood. Folk attracted to these areas are the very sort that hate people like George W. Bush. This allows folk like Alterman to exist as “leaders” of the Left without any other group checking the natural blind spots of the class. There just are not enough Leftist business leaders or traditional religious left to balance out the small mindedness of what is becoming a movement with one dimension.
Talking to each other, they feed their prejudices and begin to sound unhinged to outsiders.
Academics, film stars, rock stars, writers, and a few politicians are not going to point out when your views go too far.
And Geoerge Bush is the kind of kid that as a student drives most of the younger version of the Alterman’s mad.
George Bush is the sort that did not take Mr. Alterman or his report card seriously in school. He may have shown disdain for the things Alterman takes most seriously. I don’t think Mr. Alterman likes George Bush. . . and a primary school level and it is leaking out in irrational outbursts.
How else to explain juvenile nicknames for the President repeated over and over? How else to explain the failure of a bright man to use even a bit of reason in dealing with the White House?
If Bill Clinton was the type of man conservative leaders naturally loath, then George Bush is the very sort of man the last liberals are used to sniffing at. The fact that he is winning. . . and the leader of the Free World. . . drives them mad. The frat boys, the jocks, and the lads living on Dad’s trust fund were supposed to fail and leave the world to Alterman.
The fact that frat boy Bush was saved by Jesus Christ and a good wife from certain ruin is even worse.
Watch for Alterman to keep lashing out and shouting. The cosmos was supposed to punish men like Bush in Alterman’s view of things. It did not and he cannot take it.
Steroid shocker: Palmeiro suspended - Baseball - MSNBC.com: “The 40-year-old Palmeiro became the seventh player to fail a test under the toughened major league policy that took effect in March, rules criticized by Congress as not being stringent enough.”
Today I called my thirteen year old daughter from a conference in San Diego.
She knew about Palmeiro, of course. Mary Kate is the biggest baseball fan I know. She knows the sport and reads the paper with the avidity of an eighty year old with memories of looking for news of the War.
So she saw the news well before I did.
There was disappointment in her voice. She was sad, there is no better word. Why? One of the clean players had been caught lying.
She knows people aren’t perfect. Living with me would impress on her the fact that forty year olds aren’t all they wish they were.
What is hard to deal with, I think, is that her perfect game, which should be about her Sox destroying the Yankees, is now about cheating by stars. Men paid millions to play a game cheat and lie to make millions more.
Her softball coach, paid nothing to do great things with girls, taught her cheating does not pay.
Well, does it Mr. Palmeiro? Who is right: the mother coaching girl’s softball in La Mirada or the superstar from the Majors?
I am not here to judge Palmeiro. What he has done, assuming he has done it, is no greater than the evils most of us do. Today, however, a dad had to hear disappointment in his daughter’s voice. One of the good guys was not good. I know she has to learn that lesson. People are not always what they say they are. They often say that they are doing one thing, but then do something else. (And now the anguish of knowing my own failings! Lord be merciful to me a sinner!) This is a trivial thing compared to the lessons that will come.
That is my problem. Palmeiro made a small joy a sorrow for no good reason.
I doubt in his mansion, Palmeiro cares he took a bit of my daughter’s joy in his game. I doubt he will ever know the pain. It is not so great, not so important in a world where terrorists roam, babies starve, and Sudan allows slavery. But isn’t that what makes me so bad?
It is Palmeiro’s rare and beautiful gift to live in one of the last gardens in this troubled old world. We do not envy him his life, at least very much. It gives us joy to know that somewhere there is a place where men play games and other men watch for the sheer pleasure of it. It is a peaceful place where arguments go on peacefully, because they are half the fun of it. Baseball is a game in a very serious world.
Palmeiro has made a game “serious.” When a game is serious, then it is no longer of any value.
Palmeiro has brought his trivial evil, his petty lies, to the game. And he made my daughter sad about something that is supposed to have few meaningful tears. She should cry over the playoffs, not drug use by aging athletes who will not accept their own mortality. Must Palmeiro force me to have a serious discussion about everything?
I know such small heartbreaks must come and
Tolkien and Plato
J.R.R. Tolkien is one of the great Christian neo-Platonists of the twentieth century. With C.S. Lewis and A.E. Taylor, Tolkien was part of a revival of this traditional Christian synthesis with the work of the great Athenian. Tolkien’s works in the realm of imagination helped create an entire genre of literature, modern fantasy novels. His writings continue to cleanse the imaginations of new generations of readers. However, many scholars, especially in departments of English, question whether Plato would have been comfortable with the literary and imaginative character of much of Tolkien’s writings.
What was Plato’s attitude toward the realm of imagination? The Republic is usually taken to be especially critical of imagination so our brief examination will focus on this dialogue.
For Plato, imagination is where images of the objects of the visible world reside. Here is the realm for the utterly unreflective imitation of what is visible. The imagination confuses the speculative with the visible objects of nature. Since Plato allows artifacts and manufactured things to be in the higher category one need not put Michelangelo’s “David” in this realm. Instead, one would place any image, like a reflection or a bad piece of “art,” that is the product of no thought.
Many scholars believe Plato condemns all art to the lowest level of thought. I agree with Francis Cornford in thinking that Plato is speaking here of thoughtlessness that does not separate the fantastic from the visible. If this is correct, Plato is not placing the arts, as we know them, in the realm of imagination. The hard work of the artist to think about and reflect on the world seems more like science than mere imagination.
Tolkien and his work do not fit in the lower realm. Tolkien’s writings are the product of massive amounts of thought and contain may deep truths. It is the sort of myth making of which Plato was so fond. Bach may be dealing with an even higher level of intellectual activity. His work seems more like thought in the Platonic sense than imagination.
Instead, Plato may be defining “imagination” is a very particular way. For example, there are some people who do not know that television shows are not real. George Reeve, the actor who played Superman, was worried that some fanatic fan would take a shot at him to see the bullet bounce off his chest. There really are people who confuse the lives of the characters they see on television with the actor who plays the role. One need only attend a Star Trek convention to see people who cannot keep in mind that William Shatner is not actually Captain James T. Kirk. Of course, Star Trek itself as a higher art form is mythic and the productive of great creative genius. However, not all television viewers are astute! Some simply accept what they see on television the same way they accept what they see at the mall. Plato is placing at the lowest level of cognition the sort of “imagination” that is unconstrained by any thought whatsoever. On the other hand, the arts that like his own dialogues create “thought experiments” for the viewer, reader, or user are of a different and higher order.
One other point must be made. Wherever he would classify art, Plato believes each person moves from the visible to the invisible. Imagination is a stage in this process and is not an evil thing unless it is never outgrown. The divided line moves from the least to the most real. It moves from the weakest form of opinion to sure understanding. Kindergarten is not bad unless one refuses to leave. No one should be finger painting at forty.
The best known image in all of Plato is the Cave analogy found at the beginning of Book VII. Once read it cannot be forgotten. Allusions to it appear in so many books and movies that it would be impossible to list them all. In fact, the Cave Analogy can be a kind of trap for the unwary reader. The image appears in a particular dialogue to show particular truths to a specific group of people. However, the image is so powerful that it is tempting to view everything Plato ever wrote through it. Students are often tempted to compare it to any other passage of Plato and use it as a Rosetta stone for every difficulty. Many other people only read the Cave Analogy in anthologies. It becomes the entire Republic.
This is very dangerous. By itself, the Cave leads the reader to believe that Plato despised the visible world and science. Plato was surrounded by people who believed the visible world was the only one that mattered. He saw the comparatively greater importance of the divine. To most people the divine seems less important, because it is not immediately visible. Yet it is the divine that makes the visible possible. Compared to the Good nothing seems worth discussing. But Plato does discuss other things for he devotes an entire dialogue to science, the Timaeus. Many of his myths like that in Republic Book X contain important cosmological detail. Plato does not feel the need to convince his reader of the importance of the “real world.” That is easy enough.
Plato uses the Cave Analogy to make many points. The world that seems so important is much less important than the divine reality we cannot see. People who have seen the truth often seem less wise than those who not seen it. Men cannot live in the world of the Forms. At best, man leaves the cave and sees the sun. No man ever goes and lives on the Sun. In fact, humans must eventually return to the cave. There they can tell what they have seen. This difficult duty shows that Plato does not despise the world. He sends the philosopher back to it. He just speaks in a kind of prophetic extreme about the glories of the next world to jar the prisoner of the cave from his complacency.
Let me draw attention to one detail that is often overlooked. Plato provides no way for the first man to get out of the Cave. He merely says, “When one was freed from his fetters. . .” (515c) How? It seems unlikely chains would fall off merely by the prisoner recognizing he is wearing them. Every human is in chains. Of course, the theory of recollection says there is forgotten knowledge of the other world that might be remembered by some fortunate man. This does not seem adequate, however. The power of the lies about the shadows would be too all pervasive. The returning memory would be uncertain and the power of the keepers of the prisoners, who create the images on the wall with their puppets and fire, too absolute. The prisoner who began to doubt the sufficiency of the explanations found in the Cave could be quickly silenced. Who shall release the first man? How is it done? This is the great unanswered question of Republic.
Socrates presents his views on education following the insights gained from the Cave Analogy in Book VII and his divided line image in Book VI. Education is offered freely, but is not compulsory. “Nothing taught by force stays in the soul.” (536e) The students are to be sound in body and in mind. Sound bodies will enable them to engage in the hard work of learning at a later age. Young people are to learn all the normal Greek fields of study. At twenty, the best are taught how these fields of study form a unified whole. Socrates warns that the dialectic is not for the immature. The immature use it to become lawless. Having been confused by argument, they rush out and confuse others. Instead, only the best and most mature should be given the tools of the dialectic. They will then be forced to serve others.
This is the educational system of the city in words. Real men took this speculation seriously and built the Western educational system around it. The training of a stereotypical Victorian English gentleman followed this course of study almost exactly. Modern American education still has the remnants of this liberal arts system without any comprehension of the philosophy behind it. Building on the ideas of Republic was not an unreasonable thing to do. How can this be since I have cautioned so often that Plato is building a city of words that is not to be taken as proscriptive?
This is schooling in words. I think Plato has no commitment to the details of his educational proposal. At one point Socrates is asked if a course of study should take five or six years, he says, “It doesn’t matter. Make it five.” (539e) On the other hand, at times in Republic Plato is basing his city in words on certain metaphysical beliefs he does take seriously. These ideas are not just found in Republic. The general principles outlined here in compact form are the same ones we have seen scattered throughout the other dialogues. It seems fair to attribute them as Plato’s own views as a result. One would use the same rules that one might use in determining what a writer like Tolkien believed from reading Lord of the Rings. No one should conclude from reading Return of the King that Tolkien would have favored an absolute monarchy for
Tolkien and Plato both use myth in the same way. Each used story telling to spur the human soul to deeper truths. If the myth is not confused with the Truth, then it has served its Platonic function. Plato need not condemn literature and myth-making, indeed he would applaud it. Tolkien is a consistent neo-Platonist.
July 31 is the last “red” Sunday. We use red as the color for Pentecost. Pentecost Sunday was May 15 and our church has been reminded of the Gift of the Holy Spirit and His Power for over two months.
On August 7 we turn green, or at least our church colors do. The cloth on the Communion Table will be green, the scarf on the pulpit will be green and Dn. Dan and I will wear green. We are entering what the Church calls Ordinary Times, or another name is Kingdomtide. This is the longest season as it lasts till the last Sunday in November, when the New Year starts with Advent.
This is a reminder that we must live in ordinary times. An important part of the Christian life is just loving our families, loving and serving our neighbors, going to work and earning a living and being good responsible citizens.
Sometimes the Christian life is presented as if we must always be experiencing something new and “exciting.” A lot of what we see and hear in the media seems to present a constant state of “hype.” Sometimes we are tempted to become followers of the latest trend. There are even times when believers neglect the “ordinary times” and the ordinary duties to be “super spiritual.”
Most days are not filled with hyper sensory stimulation and unusual manifestations of God’s Power. Most days are lived in Ordinary Times.
But Ordinary Times are to be lived as citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven. For the Bible tells us that we are a colony of Heaven right here on earth. We have a King. We are citizens of a heavenly country. We live our lives confessing that Jesus is Lord.
Our Lord wants us to learn how to live in Ordinary Times, so that truly they are Kingdom times. He wants us to live at home, to go to work, to live in our neighborhood as citizens of the Kingdom.
I am glad that Pentecost comes before Ordinary Times. It is His Power that enables us not just to have great experiences and do great deeds of valor, but to live our ordinary lives as Christians. Folks need to see Jesus in us as we go about our day. Our most powerful witness should be who we ARE in our everyday life.
So, in August we bring out the green. Whether or not your church observes all the seasons, perhaps when you see green you will think of Ordinary Times and be thankful that the Power of the Spirit and the Presence of Christ He gives us is for Ordinary Times.
Father L. Dayton Reynolds
CEC
TheWhitePath.com: Bolshevism in a Headdress
This is a must read article by a rising star in Islamic journalism.
Rather than the Tancredo Option, we should be setting up think tanks to enourage this sort of dialogue and reformation in Islam.
This news story should remind all evangelicals that liberalism has been tried and found wanting. My Pentecostal and left-of-center evangelical friends are invited to try dialog with the left, women’s ordination, and innovation. Perhaps then you could replace the Faithful now leaving the NCC.
Touchstone Magazine - Mere Comments: “Breaking News: Orthodox Leave NCC
Dearborn, Michigan. July 28, 2005.This afternoon the General Convention of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America voted overwhelmingly to leave the National Council of Churches of Christ. The General Convention is holding its annual meeting this week in Dearborn, Michigan.
The action was not a temporary “suspension” of membership, but a formal withdrawal from the NCC. The clergy unanimously approved the withdrawal, followed by a unanimous vote of the lay delegates supporting the move. An announcement of the final vote was met with thunderous applause by the Convention.
Reasons given for the withdrawal include the general liberalism of the NCC, whose General Secretary, Bob Edgar, withdrew his signature from a statement defining marriage as being between a man and a woman.
Metropolitan PHILIP, head of the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese, was reportedly outspoken in calling for the church to withdraw from the NCC, stating that the relationship had proven fruitless.
The National Council of the Churches of Christ has listed on its website ‘36 member communions and denominations.’ It now has 35.
Note: An interview about this vote and its consequences with the Very Rev. Olof Scott, the newly-elected chairman of the Department of Interfaith Relationships, is scheduled to air on Ancient Faith Radio this coming Sunday, July 31, 2005, at 5 PM EDT.”
BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Japanese develop ‘female’ android: “We have found that people forget she is an android while interacting with her
Prof Hiroshi Ishiguro”
The science is interesting, but the cultural implications are bad.
Just what a Japanese culture that already has too few children needs! Sterile faux-women that might someday fool men into thinking they are woman for ten minutes. Most men don’t interact more than ten minutes with woman already. The implications are staggering!
The ancients made gods in their own image and worshipped them. We make less capable images of our own image and chat with them.
Does anyone else see a failure of imagination here?
There are simpler ways of getting more actual Japanese women.
Robotics can have many positive uses, but creating “foolies” is not one of them.
Vital church question:
What if this android is programmed to claim a call to the ministry?
I have just received a second suggestion for the worst argument favoring women’s ordination.
Let’s call it the “We Already Knew” (WAK) attack.
This little gem can go in one of two ways.
First, one can simply state that failure to allow women to be priests/senior pastors is on its face unjust. Being unjust is bad. . . therefore it is bad to bar women from the priesthood.
WAK!
How do we know. . . because “We already knew!”
Of course the very issues at stake are whether the priesthood is like a “job,” whether men and women have equal qualifications for the “job” (if it is a job), or whether inequality in function is part of the divine order.
However, there are positive aspects to this argument. The Green Bay Packers (bless them!) have never asked me to try out as their place kicker. I feel called to be a Packer. I love the Packers. I can place kick. (Dare anyone question my sincerity? If so, then I will cry or scream or both.) Why shouldn’t I get a try-out? Am I not a human? Am I not a citizen created equal before the Almighty?
It is unjust that the Packers do not let me play for them given my passion and calling. Since it is bad to be unjust, they must give me a try out.
WAK!
Can anyone say “circular argument?”
Of course, there are advocates of women’s ordination who do not stoop to this level of argument by brow beating, but there are an amazing number of church leaders who do.
The second technique is to claim that God has called one to pastoral ministry. How can anyone deny a call from God based on theology? Aren’t we led by the Spirit?
Pentecostal churches have been particularly vulnerable to this sort of argument.
Their history is abused, distorted, and an overly robust individualism (common to all Americans!) is exploited to make a subjective and highly manipulative appeal look like an argument.
Why should women be ordained? Why it turns out that “we already knew” they should!
(”Are you saying, Mr. Smith,” said the candidate with tears in his/her eyes, “that I am not hearing our precious Saviour?”
WAK!
Any counter argument based on reason will make the foe look like he or she has a hard heart and is led by the law and not the Spirit.
I can think of no objective standard immune to this WAK attack given the state of the culture.
Any Anglican knows that this method will not end with women’s ordination.)
Of course, this argument could be used to justify making just about anyone a minister who claimed a call . . .including people that the advocates of women’s ordination would agree should be excluded. (For example, suppose Bob were the husband of two wives. . . )
At that point, the advocate (one hopes) would point to Scripture, Church history, or some standard within their community to limit the subjective feelings of the membership.
So the truth is none but the mad think anyone should be a priest/pastor simply on the basis of receiving a call.
A call is a necessary, but not sufficient condition.
Bringing this issue up simply distracts from the point.
What is the point?
We all agree that our culture (meaning the US/Western Europe. . . these people often talk a global Christianity but on this issue aren’t) believes equality of persons demands some kind of equality of function.
Is this a good idea? Is it Biblical? Is it just? Does it comport with the traditions of the Church? Is it reasonable?
One cannot beg these questions with fetching anecdotes. In many churches the laity ends up going along with change that makes them uncomfortable based on these bad argument. Lightly educated seminary grads with an agenda can push and push. The folk don’t have an agenda, don’t have much training in this area*, and so can be worn down by advocacy “scholarship.”
*Fun example: Let’s call this the Greek bluff. A seminary grad with very little actual Greek skill claims that Paul has been misread. “By the goddess, he is not really a misogynist like he seems. After all, how could he be? Isn’t the Bible true?” The poor traditional elder ends up looking like he is attacking Paul and the Bible.
Does anyone with Greek skills outside the evangelical sub-culture take evangelical feminist exegesis seriously? Paul stands in the way of what they want so the advocates simply misrepresent the Greek to people who don’t know better. Seminary grads further down the food chain repeat the lies in all sincerity. Church elders are told: “Head means source in the Greek!” and they don’t know the proper response is to laugh.
In the interest of good philosophic fun, I am conducting a hunt for the single worst argument in favor of women’s ordination. People arguing for such a role have to argue against tradition. It just was not done. They have to explain how a book (the Bible) shot clean through with patriarchy isn’t. Finally, they have to assault reason itself. (More on that later.)
Part of that assault on reason has been the production of some of this worst scholarship this side of Kent Hovind.
Today’s candidate for bad argumentation could be called the “Luther was an Anti-Semite” argument.
Advocates of women’s ordination have a problem. Nobody read the Bible (or orthodoxy) their way until very, very recently. All the great heroes of the faith, including women saints, supported traditional roles for women until very, very recently. That makes women’s ordination look like an innovation coming to the Church from the worst part of secular culture, not a move of the Holy Spirit.
So what is to be done?
Find out that (the horror!) some men in the Church (even big names!) were misogynists.
Second, point out that Church leaders were not always perfect. Here the fun thing to do is to point out that “Luther was an anti-semite”.
Why is the argument bad?
First, it ignores the universal consensus of the Fathers. Unless a male priesthood is held to be a sign of a low view of women in and of itself (begging the question), many church leaders (including the female saints) were not misogynists. They also did not support women’s ministry.
There is no absolute consensus on “racism” or “anti-Semite” thought as there is on the issue of women’s ordination.
About any odd belief can find a Church leader in history to be its advocate (ask the Mormons!). What should concern the leaders of the women’s ordination movement is the consensus. . .not any given name.
Second, the Luther argument implies that if a great thinker pops off in a bad way in some area at the edge of his thought, we can freely dismiss serious discussion of views instrinsic to his theology or way of reading Sacred Scripture and tradition.
If only Catholics knew! They could solve any problems with Lutherans by saying, “Well, we know that Luther made some strong arguments, but he was an anti-Semite!” This is a pretty all purpose defeater.
Professor Bainbridge sides with Tancredo on the issue of whether it is ethical to target non-combatants.
While it may be (in very rare cases) ethical to target non-combatants, I would argue that it is so unlikely that any of these cases would apply to the War on Terror that Hewitt’s statement is true enough for blog use.
Tancredo has argued that bombing Mecca “should be on the table.” I fail to see any relevant example where traditional Christian ethics would allow for the bombing of Mecca. First, the default ethical position is strongly on the side of Hewitt’s general take that one should not intentionally target non-combatants. It seems to me that Hewitt has stated a generalization with so few exceptions (none of which seem at all likely to apply to this war) that it should be accepted.
The War on Terror seems unlike any other war used as an example in three important ways.
First, we are not (mostly) at war with a state. Terror need not depend on state support. (We are of course in the process of destroying those few, very weak states that decided they will support terror.) Therefore arguments about knocking out the infrastructure of a guilty state do not apply.
Second, terrorists do not depend on massive arms, numbers, or supplies to act. With or without state support, they are lean. Destroying an entire city will not keep them from getting box cutters or simple explosives.
Third, those few nations that do support terror (or might) are so weak that it is incoceivable that we would need saturation bombing to bring them down.
I am of course assuming that Mecca is not a military target. So far as I know it contains no massive stores of arms, factories to build military supplies, nor does it have a large civilian population necessary to the “radical Islamic” war effort.
Mecca is of importance only as a symbolical target. As such, the only value it could have is if the destruction of this place would shorten the war by demoralizing the foe. Since nobody believes it would do this and it would obviously have exactly the opposite effect, I see no precedent in just war thought that would allow for consideration of the bombing of Mecca in this War.
As a result of these considerations, I think Hewitt is right in his generalization as applied to the GWOT. It would always be self-defeating and wicked to intentionally target civilians and civilian targets in this war which is the only war were are fighting at present. Generic examples (which may be rare) from World War II do not help Tancredo.
Bainbridge is a very good thinker, but isn’t it a bit unfair to apply examples to a Hewitt generalization that do not apply to the situation to which Hewitt was commenting?
Comments below:
ProfessorBainbridge.com: Tancredo versus Hewitt: “Actually, the extent to which one can target non-combatants consistently with Christian just war theory is a pretty complex question, as I explained in a semi-tongue in cheek post on Star Wars.
Bainbridge is right, but I feel to see one reason Mecca would fit (even in theory) as an example of just targeting of non-combatants. (I view this intentional targeting of non-combatants with some degree of distaste. It may be ethical in some rare cases, but even in those cases it should scarcely be the topic of bombastic speech making by a Congressman with his eyes on the White House.)
LTC Peter Farber has written that just war theorists long defended strategic bombing:
… 1) it preserved and protected the just against the criminal (note the Augustinian emphasis here),
It is unclear to me how the bombing of Mecca would accomplish this end. We are not at war with Saudi Arabia. Though terrorists may live in Mecca (or LA for that matter), there is no reason to think the majority of the people of Mecca are aiding terrorists. If their government is doing so, then I would suggest we start a war against the House of Saud. Such a war would not begin with a bombing of Mecca!
If on the other hand, the House of Saud is being (on the whole) presently helpful against terrorism, then what possible justification can there be in attacking Mecca?
2) the civilians supporting their national leadership were equally responsible for the decisions made by that leadership,
I fail to see how the people of Mecca could express this view in present day Arabia. They did not elect their government.
and 3) the vigorous prosecution of the war prevented an even greater loss of human life.
As everyone agrees there is no chance that Mecca would be a good target in this regard.
The use of strategic bombing in response to an act of non-state terrorism presents different questions than its use in traditional warfare between states, of course, especially when one of the states is as evil as Nazi Germany, but what if the terrorists had state support?
-If the House of Saud (the government in the case of Mecca) supports terrorists and they will not stop, then war with them might be justified. In such cases one might bomb cities in order to quickly bring the terrorist nation to its knees and end active warfare, but only if this was necessary to save lives in sum. However, since the House of Saud could not withstand even the amount of force used to topple Sadaam, it is hard to imagine a case where the war would get to the point where targeting non-military infrastructure and civilians would ever be necessary OR ethical. The government of Arabia simply does not have the muscle (unlike the powerful Nazis) to justify it in any conceivable situation. In fact, does any Islamic state have such power at present? As a result, even in this hypothetical, Hewitt’s general rule would still apply.
As a Christian I do not think Islam is right on some vital issues. My preference would be for Moslems to be Christians. I respect serious Moslems who believe that I would be better off (closer to Truth) if I were Moslem.
That is a matter for dialogue and reasoned debate. Being right on these issues is important and one need not “wimp out” on them carry on civil discourse and friendships. People who think dialogue is “wimpy” are the same people who think winning by force, without winning hearts, is victory.
Ask the Communists in Russia. You may have the guns, but when that is all you have then your cause is doomed. Win the battle of ideas and all the guns in the world cannot help your foe.
Of course, good ideas need brave guardians to keep intellectual losers from trying to survive by force, but the USA has plenty of such guardians.
Disagreement on some things should not cloud agreement on other things.
I agree with most Moslems on many important issues. Mainstream Islam is right about the bad impact of secularism. Serious Islam supports a strong family structure and positive child rearing practices.
Of course there are “unserious” forms of Islam, just as there are weird forms of Christianity.
Christians should be allies with serious Moslems when they can on cultural issues where we have much in common. We should also be allies against terror which both religions (in their serious manifestations) deplore. The US has millions of Moslem allies in the Global War on Terror.
The abortion clinic terrorist behaved in a way contrary to his stated Christian faith. My Moslem friends say that the World Trade Center bombers were bad Moslems. Just as I would hope they would believe my claim about the abortion clinic killer so I take their world for the state of play in Islam.
Tom Tancredo misses that important point.
Taking on someone that is “on your side” is hard for a member of the media to do.
When someone does, it is brave and they should be commended for courage.
Hugh Hewitt is showing such courage.
Recently, a conservative favorite in Congress, Tom Tancredo announced that bombing Mecca should be on the table in the Global War on Terror.
Hewitt opines:
“Supporting” Congressman Tancredo on this issue identifies you as an American interested in comforting noise rather than progress in the GWOT.Hewitt is right and Tancredo is wrong on at least four grounds.
First, Tancredo is wrong on pragmatic grounds to make such a statement. Turning the War on Terror into a West versus Islam battle is the only hope our foes have. They have little support in most of the world. Islam has a great deal of support. Tancredo would be stupid to say this (as a leader) even if he was right.
Second, even if one assumes that Islam is all radical Islam (as I do not), the proper position would be to support movement in Islam toward change. Advocating bombing Mecca is no more likely to produce positive change in Islam than ecumenical dialogue with Catholics would be helped by putting “bombing the Vatican” on the table.
Third, Mecca is not a military target. What would be the ethical justification for destroying part of our world heritage, with civilian losses, for no military gain?
Fourth, it is empirically false that all of Islam supports terrorism. To cite but one example my colleague Mustafa Akyol has a fine web site and blog here.
Mustafa is a thoughtful person and professional friend. He has had positive interaction with my intellectual godfather Phillip E. Johnson. Johnson writes about him in the most recent Touchstone.
We do not always agree, but it horrifies me that a member of our government would put bombing this fine man’s most holy site on the table in a war in which Mustafa, like millions of Moslems, is an ally against terror.
One can think Islam wrong on theological and philosophic grounds without making the straw man argument that all of it is as bad as its worse possible proponents. Christians rightly resent it when this is done to them. Moslems should be treated with the same charity.
Tancredo is making presidential noises. He now is disqualified from serious consideration given the pressing need to win the War.
The British police shot a man they believed was a terrorist.
He was not a terrorist.
This man fled from police when asked to stop. He entered the Underground System that had just been bombed.
Now the British police are under fire. However, the criticism is irrational and assumes that one must be right in order to be justified in his actions.
In the real world, human beings must act based on the information they have. When lethal force is being used this information must be compelling. The person making the decision must use the time he has to gather this information and make a rational choice.
In the case of the victim of the shooting, the police had seconds (at most) in which to make a decision. If the man were a terrorist, lethal force had to be used quickly. All appearances pointed to the man being a terrorist. The officer made a rational decision and shot the man. His decision was the right one at the time given the information at hand and the time limits imposed by actual terrorists.
It is sad that the officer was wrong and that a man innocent of terrorism was killed. The blame for this error must rest with the terrorists of London who created a situation where such decisions to shoot are rationally justified at the time of the shooting.
Given actions of the terrorists, men with backpacks who refuse to stop when asked by police who run into crowded areas often the targets of terrorists are going to die.
Imperfect knowledge, the only kind one gets in a fallen world, will lead to imperfect decisions.
People demanding that governments never be wrong before using lethal force cannot live in the real world.
The same thing is true in the case of WMD in Iraq. Bush made the decision that Iraq had WMD. He based his case on information that every country agreed was accurate. The Russians thought Iraq had WMD. The French believed it. This information had been gathered over a long period of time.
There was no reason to believe that more time would lead to different information. For example, part of the UN was actually in the pay of the old regime. The UN could not be trusted to find any information. The government of Iraq lied so often it could not be believed. It had used WMD in the past. In a world where foes of the USA were beginning to gravitate to Iraq for training and perhaps for weapons, this situation was intolerable.
Bush acted. . . Like the officer in London.
In the case of Iraq, a brutal madman was removed from power and a democracy is beginning to take root.
The situation in London is not so happy. There is nothing good about the death of the man in the Tubes except that it tells the terrorists that such behavior will now meet lethal force. The chances of taking “infidels” with them now might seem less to them.
It might (one prays) deter some of them from giving their lives for “nothing.”
In any case, “being right” after the fact should not be the sole standard by which we judge a decision to use force. One has to make the best choice one can at the time.
Given the evils of Sadaam, Bush was almost surely justified in using force. Given the cost of letting a suicide bomber through, the police officer was also ethically justified in making the decision he did at the time.