I am not going to update this site so you might want to go there!

Please change your book marks.

Times-Square was disgusting . . . full of the sort of raunchy shops that the morally stunted think are adult. Much of the city smelled of urine and I could hear gun shots in the distance walking back to my rooms . . . not once but often in my short trips to pre-Rudy New York.

It was obvious why people stayed in New York City, even loved her, but it was a dying, even fetid, beauty . . . and I was sorry to be too late to fall for her. I remember thinking, “She must have been something once.”

When I visited New York City post-Rudy, I could not believe the difference. Times-Square was fun again . . . and the entire City was cleaner, vibrant, and was young. . . nor was the change cosmetic surgery, because the City has continued to be vibrant long after Rudy left.

Obviously, Giuliani had not been responsible for all this miracle, but leaders deserve credit and Giuliani led by making the tough decisions. He led and the results were good for traditionalists. He made the City better for families, of all colors, and the voters have never looked back.

On the day of 9/11 and the immediate after-math, Rudy Giuliani was masterful and he has been sound on the War . . . the single most important issue of our time.

The Mayor is smart, a great speaker, and will be able to raise buckets of money. He can also win by putting many blue states in play.

Rudy is no Lincoln Chafee . . . he is the sort of “left-of-center” Republican I personally admire . . . up to a point.

Despite this, I certainly will not vote for Rudy Giuliani in the primaries and I am not sure I could do it in the general election. My presidential vote just might stay at home (the Republic will survive!).

Why?

First, New York City is not the United States . . . as shocking as this news might be to my friends who live in the Big Apple. The brash and by-the-throat style that worked well in the tabloid consuming subways is not the proper style for the White House . . .

In ancient times, when Rome was in a mess, they would call in a strong man . . . a Roman dictator to straighten out the problems before sending him home. New York City was rotting in the 1970’s and it need someone like Rudy Giuliani, a Roman patrician and strong man, to save it. America is not so badly off . . . the economy is sound and the War is still winnable.

Giuliani is an ambitious man, all men who run for the Presidency are ambitious men, but his is the sort of raw ambition that does not sit well with me so close to power in war time. He wants to be president too openly . . . to much. Rudy Giuliani does not have the personality to lead the whole nation. I don’t think he would wear well and bluntly I fear such ambition untempered by any ideology or religion so close to power.

Second, Rudy Giuliani has a philosophy in his personal life that is antithetical to the American tradition. Giuliani has secular-elite morality . . . more libertine than conservative. Can traditionalists trust his basic impulses?

What do I mean? Nobody can anticipate the challenges a President will face . . . remember 9/11 and George Bush. Gay marriage was not the issue it became in 2000. How will a man react to new challenges? His personal life philosophy is a good measure.

Rudy Giuliani’s personal life indicates that in any new challenge his deepest predispositions will be hostile to traditionalists.

When he does not need our votes, he will forget us utterly. He has no friends in our camp or memories that can stir him to sympathy with our point of view.

A comparison with another blue-state Republican might help make what I am saying plain.

Mitt Romney is a Republican who has often taken “wrong positions” on important issues. . . changed his mind . . . and grown as all statesmen do. I don’t agree with him on all the “issues.” This I know about Romney: he has friends who are very conservative, family who is very conservative, and is a traditionalist in his religious view of the world. His deepest and first impulse will be to understand the American tradition . . . not to innovate.

Given the quick changes that happen in American politics, a man’s fundamental view of the world (secular/progressive or traditionalist/Burkean) is more important to me than the way he answers issues.

Romney disappointed “liberal Republicans” in Massachusetts by governing as a conservative . . . he did not mean to deceive in his answers to the overly tight questions of a campaign . . . it is just the actual demands of office are never like the neat check boxes of campaign position lists. (”Are you for legal abortion?” told us nothing of what Romney would do about stem cells.)

I don’t trust Giuliani to be our friend when the new issues arise . . . as they surely will.

Finally, Giuliani is on the side of what the blessed Pope John Paul the Great called the “culture of death.” As a secularist (whatever his claimed religion), he views life and death as in the hands of men. Instead of our right to life being secured by God as our Declaration of Independence says, he would negotiate it or leave it to the whims of Courts. Rudy Giuliani will not even pretend to be in favor of traditional American views on the sanctity of life . . . and if a politician will not even pander on an issue, you know he means it . . . really means it.

Rudy Giuliani would be the first open culture-of-death candidate to receive the Republican nomination since the Reagan Revolution. He would shatter the pro-life Republican presidential monolith that provided key margins in so many states.

Against another pro-culture-of-death candidate (like Hilary!) perhaps Rudy Giuliani would get my vote as the lesser of two evils, but without enthusiasm and with little support.

Or I might stay at home, waste my vote on a protest candidate, and wait for better days.

The fact that a Republican such as I (in a family Republican since Lincoln) would consider this . . . is a bad sign.

The realistic candidates for President on the Republican side at the moment are Giuliani, McCain, and Romney. Only these three have the money, broad support, and chance of winning to make it all the way . . . unless someone else shows up or one of them falters there is simply not room in the media mind for more than three candidates.

McCain is faltering . . . aging before our eyes and struggling to raise money. I know of nobody who wants him . . . and his polling may simply be name recognition. I think him the most likely to vanish in a puff of smoke.

If he fades, then who? Nobody has the money to fill the gap . . . or the charisma. I challenge anyone to name an electable Republican with money raising prowess who in now in the race outside of the Big Three.

Newt? Get real. Democrats might as well nominate Ted Kennedy.

Newt may be popular with some Republicans, but my wife turns off the television any time he appears. She really, really dislikes him. If you cannot carry Hope’s vote, then you cannot win!

Giuliani has much dirty linen, but the media likes his kind of secret and will protect him (as it can) the way it protected Clinton. He will be a player to the end.

Romney? He is far and away the best of the three . . . and it may be coming down to voting for the traditionalist of the heart who swears he has learned some things over time over two men (Giuliani and McCain) who lack the temperament to be in the White House.

We are team teaching a class and he has changed my mind about the film “Lady in the Water.” Here is his persuasive take:

Lady in the Water: A Story Worth Saving
by Joshua Sikora

When my wife and I saw “Lady in the Water,” we came out of the dark
theater simply loving it. Imagine our surprise when we found ourselves in
an unusual minority of opinion on this vastly under-appreciated and
misunderstood work of genius. M. Night Shyamlan has—I dare say—crafted one
of the most intelligent, thought-provoking, and satisfying films of 2006.
You just have to know what to look for. After all, the movie warns us in
its prologue that we’ve all forgotten how to listen.

Now, I’d read all the criticism, and while there was more of it this time
around, I’ve read it all before with each of Shyamalan’s previous films,
post-Sixth Sense (especially “Unbreakable” and “The Village”). The critics
don’t get M. Night, and he knows it, which is perhaps why he chose to
ridicule them and then eat them alive with this film. Literally.

“Lady in the Water” is clever and unique in its construction. It strives
to be original and meaningful, sometimes at the expense of being
“interesting.” But just because it’s not as entertaining or suspenseful as
his prior efforts , doesn’t mean we should dismiss the film as lacking all
merit. Put simply, I think “Lady in the Water” is not meant to be a
story—at least not how we typically think of them. Rather, I suspect it is
a film about THE Story. And the power of that Story. And I’m not talking
about the character’s name when I say that.

What’s up with all of this self-aware filmmaking? This so-called
“narf”—this lady in the water has the oddest name, and yet no one ever
wonders why? And what are we to make of M. Night’s prolonged cameo as a
struggling writer/martyr? Is this the move of a self-obssessed filmmaker
who wants more attention for himself? Or is the filmmaker doing something
else by placing himself so prominently in his own work? The film critic
serves many purposes in the film, but again figures into the plot in such
a self-aware fashion that we have to wonder his purpose.

His purpose…. One of the key questions of the film.

But about the self-awareness of the film. The innovative French filmmaker
Godard would use this technique throughout his career to remind his
audience that they were watching his own philosophical diatribe on film
rather than some sort of immersive story-oriented experience. Godard
pioneered the technique, but now it’s commonplace, employed by many
European, art-house, and indie filmmakers. This self-aware tone forces the
viewer to engage mentally, as well as viscerally.

M. Night Shyamalan is a religious man, drawing inspiration from his
upbringing as an American Hindu who attended attended Catholic and
Episcopalian schools. The importance of faith to this man is most
prominent in his earliest and most personal work, “Wide Awake,” but shows
up time and again, especially in his greatest film, “Signs.” We also know
that this filmmaker is drawn to philosophy, whether it be of the comic
book sort seen in “Unbreakable” or the more Platonic ideas found in “The
Village”—this man is a thinker and obviously well-read.

So, what do we make of a film about Story? What is the purpose of Story
(read: Myth, or maybe more loosely, Word)? In this film, a very special,
royal Story comes from another place, taking on the flesh of a human and
dwelling among us. Not everyone can recognize Story for what she really
is—it takes an understanding and knowledge of old prophecies handed down
through the generations in order for anyone to decipher who or what her
purpose is. Story also requires a number of followers, disciples if you
will. And of course, there’s the writer—a future martyr—who will take the
Truth that Story brings and spread it to the rest of the world. There are
other roles and other elements, all that remind us of Jesus Christ and his
ministry on Earth, but I think the relationship of Shyamalan’s Story to
the familiar Christ-story is a loose one—not meant to be a direct
parallel…even if there is a nice death, resurrection, and ascension.

But no—I think this philosophical film reminds me more of Plato’s
Republic. In that great work, Plato demonstrates the power of Story, using
it as the final method of persuasion as his character of Socrates tries
desperately to save the lost and confused Glaucon.

In the most oft-remembered (although not most important) part of The
Republic, we all recall the famous “Cave Analogy” where Socrates describes
those lost people, imprisoned in a cave, and fed lies about their
existence. The whole of The Republic is the image of an enlightened
individual coming down into this cave and rescuing—no, saving—these
prisoners from their purposeless existence. Shyamalan’s characters also
live in a dark place, isolated from the real world. A place called “the
Cove”—although the ornate sign above the apartment complex almost looks
like another familiar word.

Much of The Republic is focused on this question of purpose. We cannot
escape, if we don’t know our purpose. Socrates seeks out the meaning of
Justice throughout much of The Republic, but seems to conclude that people
are Just when they do what they’re meant to do. He says that guardians
should be guardians and healers should be healers. Or was that something
from the movie—see, I get them so confused now. Cleveland Heap asks at one
point in the film, “Where’s the justice?” wondering why those tree monkey
hadn’t done their job yet, not understanding that justice was already
being accomplished as those in the Cove found their place, their role,
their purpose, in their grand story.

And Cleveland (his very name—meaning “of the cliffs”—demonstrates his
separation from the water, which brings healing, rebirth, and salvation in
the film) is a man who needs saving and yet the community and dialogue
have failed him—even as he has failed to relate back to them. After all,
how do you converse with a man who’s stutter prevents him from talking
back? After the dialectic fails to save Glaucon in The Republic, Socrates
ends his conversation by saying that all that’s left to save a lost man,
like Glaucon or Cleveland, is a Story—and that if we believe in that, we
might be saved. In the film, as Story is about to ascend into the heavens,
Cleveland’s last words to her—indeed, the last words of the film—are
simply “you saved me.” And she has.

“Lady in the Water” has its weaknesses. Perhaps it was a bit rushed or
perhaps Shyamalan’s experiment—to create not a story but a film about
Story, is simply a fatally flawed goal. Nevertheless, by now we should
know that this filmmaker is worthy of our trust. Even the lesser of his
films merit discussion and thought. To dismiss it quickly, because of
critics, boredom, or lack of understanding, is to miss something
potentially great beyond. Shyamalan is no Plato, yet my first readings of
that great philosopher left me thinking that he was simply making things up as he went along, telegraphing key points and avoiding plot and plot twists altogether. But the written word had more to offer me than the
conventional Michael Crichton novel, just as we all know that motion
pictures can offer us so much more than just thrills and chills.

“Lady in the Water” is a bold attempt by a popular filmmaker to create a
marketable, and entertaining film that says something about the role of
stories and storytellers in our society. How does Shyamalan view his role?

If we’re to take his part in the film as any sign, he’s received the Truth
already, from another Story, and now his purpose is simply to pass that
Truth on, through his own stories, to whoever will listen. He knows his
work is not always good, but if he fulfills his purpose, the
powers-that-be might just use him as part of that divine plan, which is
the grand story of this lost world.

In this world, it is hard to be sure of anything very interesting. I am not sure that my wife really loves me, cannot be sure that my children are my own (!), and cannot be positive that I will live to see the afternoon.

And yet . . . though there is little I can know beyond a doubt, there is much that I can know beyond a reasonable doubt . . . and even more that is reasonable to believe provisionally as a working idea.

Very early in their development, humans are aware of a “me” that seems distinct from their body. Call this self what you will . . . and argue that it comes into being in any way you like, but this “I” is impossible to doubt. It gives meaning to experiences and value to life.

Though they obviously interact, it is also fairly intuitive that knowing about my body is not the same as knowledge about this “self.”

There is a physical universe that seems like my body, but there is also an equally interesting world of Ideas that relate to self. It might be my body (even my selfish genes!) that provide the material basis for my passions or feelings, but it is this soul that gives those feelings meaning.

Most human beings come into contact with the world of Ideas and learn to love the conceptual . . . we love Something . . . and there seems no reason to doubt that this Something exists (however it has achieved that existence). It is unknown to us . . . but as Plato says in Symposium this Unknown is known to us by the passion for the Good, the True, and Beautiful it stimulates.

It is tempting to reduce the physical to the spiritual (or world of ideas), but this is too simple. Though the physical world is often not as it appears and people argue about it and what something even so seemingly simple as matter IS (and though denying its existence is much easier than denying the existence of Self and Ideas), at bottom it still seems to exist.

The universe is out there.

In the same way, hasty folk might be tempted to simply reduce the Self and Ideas to the material. We are all just bits and pieces of matter and energy in mindless motion and it is Mind that is the illusion.

Progress in knowledge about the physical world might make the arrogant drunk on the thought that everything could be reduced to the physical sciences . . . but knowing what a thing is made of or where it came from (even if that were true of the soul itself) would not say so very much about what it is.

The fact that one can more easily (and just as rationally) reduce everything to Ideas projected by Mind should give the imperialist wearing a lab coat pause. Two can play at that game. . . and there is no reason to prefer one simplistic solution over the other.

I am not sure that there is both a physical and non-physical reality, but it seems the best, easiest interpretation of my experience. There are decent arguments against it . . . but these arguments face the great burden of proof of denying what cannot really be doubted by me (that there is a first person “I”) or denying the overwhelming evidence of external senses that everything is not “me.”

I know there is something out there, but I don’t know (at first) what it is. Plato calls this “god” the Known Unknown.

This love of the Known Unknown is a long way from knowledge of Jesus Christ, but it is a start. Knowledge of the world of Ideas (which would include numbers as well as person!) is not easily gained. Progress here, as everywhere, would be hard won. We would expect men to disagree about what they find, misinterpret their experiences, and reason out meaning only slowly.

Religion, like any knowledge tradition, would make mistakes, have false starts, but eventually come to better ideas and deeper truths.

There is an additional possibility. If God should turn out to be a person, then perhaps this God would wish to speak to us and help jump start the process through Revelation.

He might help make both physical science and spiritual science possible by giving us clues to His existence or by revealing what is most needful to us.

Such a great being, who would be like humanity in terms of being a Spirit, but utterly beyond us in terms of His fully possessing the goodness, truth, and beauty we loved from birth, might also desire free followers.

If this were true, then the “hidden” nature of God makes sense.

God could speak in miracles, but to do so too often would run the risk of making us dependent in a childish way. . . like easy welfare has done to much of Appalachia.

He could speak often in mystery and awe us with His unfathomable Otherness, but that would discourage reason in creatures already sadly apt to despise thinking for self.

He could assert His authority by appearing in our souls and shouting in a way that could not be denied, but that would reduce us from potential lovers to puppets.

Instead God (if He exists) and if He desires loving relationships with His children, must choose the hard road of a good parent. He would have to keep His object in mind . . . and allow His children to err or even to reject Him.

God wants us to be free to chose Him for love alone.

He would (to paraphrase Dostoyevsky) have to be careful in the use of miracles, mystery, and authority lest He overwhelm us and cut off our progress in becoming adult, fully rational, creative creatures. Like a good parent, He must guide as little as possible . . . in order to allow for as much growth as possible.

Does such a being exist? Has He spoken?

These will be difficult questions to answer. First, if He is real and wishes to speak to us, then our spiritual experience is a first step. If humans had no sense of the Divine, then it would be safe to question its existence. Humans do have such a sense, but we disagree about what it means.

Spiritual experiences are not simple. The fact that one encounters a “spiritual sense” or a “spiritual being” does not make it God or good. That there is a Divine does not mean everything in the world of Ideas or Spirit is good.

Next there is the human risk of misunderstanding or misinterpreting what God has said. Humans are given to the use of “miracles” to manipulate . . . Too often we use power to fix problems and then demand those we help become our serfs in exchange. (”Look! I have given you contact lenses now you must give me your mind!”) . . .

God will not do this.

The true seeker must look at the messages of all the putative holy books . . . and see if they smack of truth, goodness, and beauty. Do they challenge, tease, and lead? Do they create or deny civilization? Does their message (on the whole) lead to human flourishing?

If such a path of thoughtfulness is followed, it leads (at least in my case) to the God of the Holy Bible.

Best reason combined with experience and Revelation indicates that there is a Divine, that He is a person (not just a force), that He loves His children and desires them to be free.

These initial thoughts come from a re-reading (really a listening on my Ipod to a reading) of Brothers Karamazov and from a thoughtful email exchange with a reader. Using these thoughts as a prelude, let me append his most recent email below.

My thoughtful reader says:

I read your response to my letter on your blog. Thank you for considering it post-worthy.

The question I posed to you at the end wasn’t rhetorical. I apologize if it came off that way. If you are able to empathize with an atheist perspective, as you say, then how will you answer the questions that someone like Heather McDonald brings up to an atheist?

I try to answer all the question I am asked logically, using passion for goodness, truth, and beauty to move me from experiences and ideas we might have in common to better ways of living for both of us.

Of course I fail at this often, but I have beloved mentors and friends who are non-theists (of one kind or another). Though never tempted by atheism itself, I understand its appeal . . . as I understand the appeal of “idealism” or “spiritualism” . . . (reducing everything to ideas or Mind).

The reader continues:

>From a Christian perspective, the answers in your article make sense. But to someone who doesn’t believe in the existence of gods, appeals to God are wholly without substance and cannot reasonably support an acceptable answer that can be verified, either personally or independently.

I say:

I hear this from atheists a lot, but it doesn’t makes sense to me. After all, if we are discussing whether something (anything!) exists, then I can report that I have seen it, talked it, make Julienne fries with it . . . you get the idea. My testimony does count for something!

Now you might take issue with my experience (or anyone else’s) but it does count as evidence.

You don’t have to believe in a thing in order to consider it as a hypothesis. I don’t believe in a monster in Loch Ness, but I am able to consider what she would be like if she were there.

In the same manner an atheist should be able to consider putative Divine revelations and see if they seem like the sort of thing a God would say if He said something. In fact, atheists do this all the time when they attack the Bible as revelation! (”This statement is unworthy of a good God.”)

Finally postulating God as the best explanation for an event . . . arguing from experience TO God is not the same as arguing from God’s existence to my experience.

Arguing from experiences to consider the God hypothesis is something that should be an option for every open minded person.

My reader continues:

You concede that your opinions about God’s thoughts and intentions are just that, opinions, but that, in a grander perspective, everything humanly expressed is an opinion and that doesn’t necessarily mean that an opinion is false; which I agree is true however beside the point being what makes a particular opinion true.

My opinions about God’s thoughts and intentions are as reasonable, good, true, and beautiful as I know how to make them.

However, my holding an opinion is not (by itself) sufficient reason to think my opinions true. We will have to look at the reasons and experiences which support the opinion. . . but then so will you!

Isn’t the democracy of reason wonderful?

My reader relies:

You believe that you share an intimacy with God similar to that which you share with your wife and that lends weight to your opinions regarding God’s thoughts and intentions similar to the way you know your wifes thoughts and intentions. Additionally, you find no reason not to trust the authority of scripture and philosophies developed by individuals of the caliber of Aquinas and Augustine. These are among the premises that you accept and, for the sake of argument, an atheist accepts that you accept these premises.

I reply:

Actually I would put it this way: I have good reason to accept the work of thoughtful traditional Christians as the best explanation for my religious experiences.

My reader continues:

Understand that, from an atheist perspective, Christian philosophers and scriptures are no more or less authorities on God than you are and do not lend more weight to your opinions on God.

That does not seem reasonable. First, we have to determine the value to give the testimony of the philosophers or of Sacred Scriptures. Second, we have to examine the arguments they give.

From my perspective as a theist, the fact that an atheist (like Bertrand Russell) is very bright and makes interesting arguments for atheism (or at least non-theism) is good reason to look into atheism.

In the same way, the fact that one billion people find the Christian answer satisfying does not make it true, but it does mean that just dismissing it is folly. It may not be true, but it must work pretty well as a world view (as Islam or Hinduism do as well).

Of course, this does NOT mean that we should accept something JUST because Smart Guy A says so, but we should examine what the experts say to see if they are right . . . best we can.

My reader replies:

Your opinions are automatically compared against the opinions of others who also accept the premises that you do but who come to different conclusions than you have and an atheist is unable to reconcile these often dramatic differences with the idea of one, consistent deity that each of these individuals, including yourself, claim to know and reasonably represent in one form or another; thus invalidating your appeals to God (my insertion of a break here) . . .

I reply:

I really don’t think this need disturb us too much. People have dramatically different views about the nature of people . . . but we don’t doubt they exist.

Really the burden of proof is on the atheist . . . who claims there is no Divine realm. If there is good reason (based on experience and arguments) to think there is, then the fact that many differ in some ways in how they EXPLAIN it is no more shocking than when experts differ in any area they try to explain.

Have you checked out the radically different theories of human psychology lately?

I would not be impressed with anyone who said: “I cannot even relate to what you are saying when you talk about humans . . . given that psychologists start with the same experience of humanity and come to such radically different conclusions.”

As for different explanations of the Divine realm . . . are there really so many viable ones? Let us eliminate thoughtless ones, just as we would eliminate thoughtless explanations for physical reality. It is no shock that unreasonable people would develop explanations unreasonably.

We can eliminate ideas that have themselves to be incoherent or internally contradictory. We can also eliminate ideas (like Sock Monsters hiding under beds and eating socks) that can easily be replaced by more elegant and “simpler” views . . . following the advice of the Christian theist William of Ockham.

Theology develops over time . . . and what we find is that most of the world’s thoughtful theists fall into the great monotheistic traditions (Islam, Judaism, or Christianity).

To the extent they share experiences and assumptions they produce the so-called God of the philosophers who is recognizable and the same entity (personal, all powerful, all present, all knowing). It is not hard to pick the god of the philosophers out from Zeus for example if one had a divinity line up.

So to the extent philosophers share a premise they seem to have reached pretty remarkable unanimity (for philosophers!) . . . or at least as great an agreement as they have reached (for good or bad) regarding the nature of human persons.

Now . . . theists (of all sorts) argue about the details because they do not all share the same ideas. Is this God revealed in the Bible? (Most say yes . . . but argue about the extent of this revelation . . . Islam adds more than Christianity and Judaism less.)

I think my Islamic and Jewish friends wrong . . . but am opened minded. I have to follow the evidence as best I can. . . just as I have decided that one ancient expression of Christianity is best for me . . . and get along splendidly with my friends that don’t agree.

My certainty moves from being very certain “there are more things in heaven and earth” than Heather McDonald’s philosophy seems to have room for, to being certain beyond a reasonable doubt that there is a God like the God of the philosophers, to believing that the bulk of the evidence (and my own spiritual experience) points to Jesus Christ as His only Son and Revelation of God to humanity.

You should become a Christian (if you aren’t) . . . all the freedom to be Socratic and all the love and passion of Paradise!

Now of course there are schools of thought that decide to explain the Divine very, very differently (they reject some of the premises I and other traditional theists accept) and come out with a Divine Nature more like that of Spinoza or Hinduism.

That is what arguments are for . . . and again seems no different than proposing competing explanations for very difficult phenomena in nature. That does not distress me . . . but gives me a reason to keep thinking!

My reader continues:

as it would competing and contradictory notions about any other fantastic entity like the sock eating monster or the Smurfs, no matter what the arguments for this deity may be or how far back the belief in this deity spans or how pervasive the belief in this deity has become.

I reply:

Actually if there was a long term belief in Smurfs, then that would be a decent reason to at least examine the evidence for their existence.

I refuse to dismiss an idea or belief by merely labeling it fantastic.

Don’t be prejudiced! (He says with a grin. . . )

My writer continues:

There is nothing particularly sophisticated about theism (or atheism, for that matter) and no amount of logical argumentation gets around the aforementioned discrepancy.

I reply:

I don’t agree. It just isn’t the case that competing explanations of a phenomenon means that it does not exist . . .

And if you mean that in general terms both theism and atheism can be stated simply, then you are right. But you cannot attack an idea, then complain when the answer to the attack is more sophisticated . . .

My reader continues:

In my short lifetime alone, I’ve seen the issue endlessly rehashed and I do not think it is an intellectual matter, it is an emotional one. All argumentation (sophisticated or otherwise) is merely justification and rationalization for how one feels about the matter but does absolutely nothing to objectively prove or disprove it as any kind of shared reality.

I reply:

In my not-so-short lifetime I have seen many issues endlessly discussed. Some people do it intellectually . . . and other people just talk. The people who do so intellectually can change their mind . . . as I have done myself (as a former pagan). People who just want to shout at each other are doing nothing much.

Just as science and scientific progress are not always obvious at any given conference . . . so the much more difficult field of understanding spiritual reality often looks muddled. However, progress is possible! From Anselm to Plantinga (for example) the ontological argument for God has changed . . . grown more robust, sound, and sophisticated. Is the job done? Few jobs in philosophy are ever done (thank God!), but that does not mean progress is not made.

Science is never done. . . philosophy is never done . . . we commit ourselves and then we see!

Bluntly, if I went by my feelings I would have been a high pagan (atheism never appealed to me on rational grounds). It is just false that all arguments are just emotions shrouded in rhetoric.

On the other hand, I love God now (just as I love my wife) and so (thank goodness!) emotions are part of my love affair with the Divine. I love science . . . and so support it partly for that reason.

However, I don’t love Ed Weirenga’s view of omnipotence, but support it anyway, because I think it well argued. There are issues where love (or emotion) seems pretty distant!

And if evidence suggested (as pray God it never will) that my wife did not love me . . . or that God was not real . . . I trust and hope that I would change my mind whatever the cost.

I have done so in the past, giving up what I wanted most, and trust I would again.

I guess I am more optimistic about reason and discourse than you. It does not have to end in rhetoric or shouting! I love the process. . . and I think it works given time.

My reader continues:

And I don’t think it’s even a matter about what is right or wrong but more to do with how persuasive and, in turn, how easily persuaded people are.

I reply:

I am sure that this is true sometimes . . . so I hope I am persuading you! But I hope this persuasion is based on reason, logic, as well as the heart. There is nothing wrong with love . . .

The universe seems beautiful (on the whole), science seems to find truth (or something ever closer to it) when open minded, and goodness staggers my mind.

If theism gives me the problem of evil (and it does), at least it acknowledges the more important thing: the overwhelming goodness of creation that makes the evil apparent.

I don’t feel helped by simplistically getting rid of evil . . . and losing the good!

For the open minded, God can explain both the existence of the rose (whatever the process He used to make it), the fact that it is beautiful, and the goodness of living in a world with roses.

I do think there is truth out there and that we can come closer to it. I think the history of Christianity shows this type of progress in ideas. From inventing the modern university, to helping invent modern science, to fighting for a culture that affirms life . . . we have learned from our errors (some tragic) and come closer to the Christian ethic of love.

My reader continues:

All that said, what do you think an atheist (I’m still assuming) like Heather McDonald would consider a convincing answer to her questions? You sincerely feel that what you believe is true the same way that Heather believes whatever she believes and that belief brings you closer with other people who also believe in the same truth. There are documented benefits to this fellowship that you share in (personal, social, economic, etc) from the perspectives of a variety of scientific disciplines and philosophical traditions. I understand that such arguments tend to somewhat trivialize the personal significance of what one believes to be absolute truth; however, I think it is an effective way to foster some mutual understanding … if that is, in earnest, what one wants to accomplish.

I reply:

I don’t think that will do. Ms. McDonald made ARGUMENTS against traditional theistic practices like prayer or traditional Christian arguments for God’s goodness. Her arguments were unsound or she wrongly described the doctrines she rejected.

She claims that Christianity believes God is manipulable through many prayers. Either she is attacking a straw man or she is unaware of what Christianity teaches . . . since Our Lord Himself rejects this idea in a Book any well educated person in the West should have read!

If I am right about this (and I demonstrably am), then her arguments must be rejected. If these arguments are why she is not a theist, then she should fix them or become a theist. This process works . . . and even the fixing of her arguments would be progress.

I reject atheism because it seems too simple to explain the dual nature of reality . . . but perhaps I am wrong. At least if I am right, then I will know it some day . . . and can be optimistic about rational discourse (one reason Christianity helped create science).

It is great to discourse . . . and we are clarifying and moving forward . . . not just being emotional! Our dialog proves it can be done!

A republican form of government exists because opinion polls are not always correct. The “will of the people” at any given moment is not always what the people want when they pause to consider.

The Founders in their wisdom allowed the people (us) to elect representatives who could look at the big picture and vote for what was best for our nation . . . without being swayed by the temporary.

Especially in the Age of New Media when a story is old by mid-day, we need leaders who make decisions based on what is wise and not on fluctuating polls . . . and do what is best for the nation in the long run.

This is especially true in the War on Terror.

There is no good that can come of the political posturing of passing useless resolutions that will not stop the fighting in Iraq, but will aid and comfort our foes.

If the Senate opposes the War, then it should strip the President of funds needed and bring the boys home. There is an argument to be made for this position, I do not agree with it, but it at least does something coherent however wrongheaded.

The Senate non-binding resolution is the worst of all positions. . . the act of cowards.

It does nothing but telegraph weakness and undermine morale.

Yesterday I heard a video DJ proclaiming the day that the Vietnam War ended for America a victory. I suppose the defeat of our Armed Forces was a victory for those who hate our nation. It was a victory for the butchers of North Vietnam and Cambodia who killed millions in their ideological rage.

We can be certain that if we abandon the fledgling democracy of Iraq the result will be even worse. We broke it and now we have to fix it or the genocide that results will be our fault. 9/11 shows that we cannot hide, cannot avoid the fight . . . and that this time we will not just lose a war and take in a few boat people, but lose a war and be bombed at home.

Isn’t our commitment to victory worth allowing the President the chance to finish what we started in Iraq?

My family has voted Republican since Lincoln fought for the Union. I am no fair weather party member . . . but I will not support in any way candidates who stab the Armed Forces in the back uselessly.

I have taken the pledge and I urge my friends in New Media to do so as well.

John Mark Reynolds

The following is unedited and only the name has been removed.

My comments are marked with “I respond.”

My letter writer begins:

I read your article published on California Republic entitled Ivy Schools Cause Strange Ignorance. I too agree that philosophy and religious studies would enhance student perspectives, if not appreciation, of history, art and culture.

I respond:

Parents should note that no reasonable person can believe that ignorance of intelligent religion is a good idea. If your son or daughter is going to a college where religious discussion is ignored, then he or she is getting a very incomplete education.

The letter writer continues:

However, possessing of such a broad
perspective as you appear to, you must concede that other individuals will come to sometimes dramatically different conclusions than yourself even when presented with the same body of information.

I respond:

Hurrah! That is the fun of living . . . we get to inquire for ourselves! It is true of any phenomenon or state of affairs that people can come to dramatically different conclusions . . . not just religion!

My Christian faith teaches me to fear no question, no idea, and to joyfully follow the argument wherever it leads.

I am not sure what that has to do with the rest of the letter! The fact that a topic is difficult, or the subject of intense debate, does not make all opinions equal or prove that “nobody knows anything” about it. . . just raises the interest in it!

The letter writer continues:

You speak for the Christian God with an earned measure of authority but I think you will agree that no measure of work will earn one the opportunity, much less the capacity, to be God’s mouthpiece with the final word on what God is thinking and intending. Your own thoughts and intentions are, of course, a different story but you cannot, in good faith, credit those as God’s own.

I respond:

This is a common confusion. One can be uncertain, but still have a degree of knowledge. I am not certain that my wife loves me (I could be wrong), but I have enough evidence to base my life on it.

Of course, I am never sure I am right and that I know God’s will or what is true of Him.

That is why I must always approach any issue with a measure of humility. I could be wrong.

However, the letter writer may be confusing humility with the need for total uncertainty. There are many things about which I am not sure (beyond any doubt) about which I am sure beyond a reasonable doubt.

Best reason and best experience help me to know what God expects in certain situations. It would be arrogant of me to deny the logic of arguments and experience to cling to uncertainty in the face of the evidence.

While I cannot be sure, I can still be sure enough to “know” in any meaningful sense of the term . . .

Of course, even about these things (I know), I am still open to competing points of view!

My letter writer continues:

I know from experience that you do not
speak for the Gods of other Christians, the vast majority of whom seem to be far less studied in the Holy Bible or the history of what they claim is their religion, never mind other religions or systems of thought. Rather than commit themselves to such intense introspective investigation they are, instead, conditioned to listen to authorities such as yourself, many of whom might well be charlatans who exploit them.

I respond:

I don’t know if this is true. My experience of religious believers would indicate that they are a thoughtful, well-read, and introspective lot . . . but let’s assume my writer is correct.

If so, then he would be making a fairly trivial observation:

The majority is less well informed than experts in any area of knowledge. As a result, it is reasonable to trust experts.

Who doesn’t do this?

I know little about the higher Maths, so I trust experts that I know and have reason to believe are sincere and well qualified.

It would not, therefore, be weird or irrational for most folk to do the same thing in philosophy or theology. Folk do the best they can.

Of course, experts can be frauds or hum-bugs, but then what is a man to do? Become an expert in everything?

This is simply an argument for care in choosing authorities . . . not for something different about religious knowledge.

Is my (relative) ignorance of auto mechanics an opening for frauds and con-artists? Of course. . . and so I choose my mechanic with some care. Christians would be wise to do the same . . . as atheists should as well.

Atheists are often not better served by their gurus (see the dreadful arguments of Dawkins . . . easy pickings for the Christian apologist) than Christians are by the TV evangelist.

My writer continues:

If they read their Bibles they might apply Jesus’ litmus tests to such persons but it’s so much easier and more pleasant to simply believe what they preach while turning a blind eye to their their practices.

I respond:

This is wrong, but at least my world-view (traditional Christianity) has an explanation for why people are irrational. It is difficult to devise one on Darwinian grounds!

My reader continues:

After all, who actually wants to believe that God might be so indiscriminate or apathetic as to allow “bad things” to happen to “good people” regardless of what they believe or disbelieve about God?

I reply:

Actually, many of us would prefer (if we were just picking a view based on preference) that this were NOT true. We wish there was no All Seeing Eye, no Final Judgment, and that we could just do as we please . . . and if we escape earthly judgment, then all would be well.

Sadly, we cannot believe it . . . because it is not true.

To pretend that theism is picked by the believer because it is attractive gets rid of the fact that it was atheism that was founded to get rid of the fear of the gods . . .

The Epicureans (rightly) feared the dark possibilities of the after life so much that they got rid of it. . . and banished their gods. After all, “interested gods” might clobber us. . . and a loving God makes demands on our behavior.

It is simply a common error to think folk are theists because it is comforting. The All Seeing Eye of God is frightening to sinful man, not comforting . . . at least at first!

My writer continues:

No, it feels good to be special, to be
part of and favored by something greater than ourselves and we want to believe anyone who reinforces these comforts — which is what you do in this article, at least if the reader is Christian — especially when we grow accustomed to them.

I reply:

It can feel good to be part of something greater than ourselves . . . but that does not make it false. Atheists get a great deal of comfort (I assume) from their noble “courage” in standing together in an empty universe . . . part of a human cause greather than themselves. The fact that they get comfort and even self-satisfaction from their atheism is (on the whole) something good about it . . . not a reason to reject it.

Sometimes people irrationally believe that a pleasant idea must be wrong or suspect!

In the same way, the fact that theism comforts some is not good reason to reject it.

My writer continues:

Atheists like Heather McDonald (assuming she is) may not understand the symbolic rituals and their very real emotional connections that bind together a religious community in fellowship.

I reply:

In a liberally educated adult in the West (such as Heather McDonald), that is unacceptable! I understand secularism since I was trained to do so. . . why can’t she do the same?

My letter writer continues:

You, in no less a condescending manner, hinted at this but still indulged God as a separate and distinct entity that you were describing the motivations of.

I reply:

That is because He is a “separate and distinct entity” . . . I actually have more reason to believe this than in the existence of the letter writer!

My letter writer (assuming he is not a product of my imagination!) continues:

And that separateness, I think, is what many atheists struggle to understand. Why would a distinct, all-powerful being be so concerned with and share the
opinions of the believer who narrates and speaks on behalf of this being, neither of which it appears able to do for itself despite being all-powerful?

I reply:

It is rather that we attempt to share His opinions. We gather those opinions from Writings that we have sufficient reason to believe to be His, from His creation, and from His Voice in our hearts.

Of course, we could be mistaken in all of this . . . but there is no good reason to think so of which I am aware.

I assume by “not speaking” the writer means “audibly” or “visibly” to humans . . . but surely that is very limiting to God since the human eye sees so little of the spectrum and the ear hears so little of the music of the cosmos! Indeed, God speaks to our souls . . . since He is a spirit this makes most sense.

How can we be sure that it is His voice and not our own? First, we must compare what He seems to say with reality (as we know it). Second, we check what He says against what the Writings that contain the most verified of His thoughts.

All of this is not odd . . . or unusual, but the way we check all of our internal experiences (such as love!) to make sure they are sane.

My letter writer continues:

And the atheist attacks that idea with all the effectiveness of putting an imaginary friend into a head lock which, naturally, can be very frustrating, even enraging for some. It doesn’t make sense to an atheist in much the same way it doesn’t make sense to a Christian that there would be no God, something nonsensical is irritating and must
therefore be made sense of.

I reply:

It makes sense that God is not real, it just isn’t true. Does falsehood have to irritate? I think not.

I am not irritated by atheism . . . just atheism that has not bothered to do even basic research or attempted to understand a belief system about which one is speaking and writing.

I have greatly admired many atheists . . . but I cannot admire a man or woman who attacks a view he or she does not try to understand.

Any atheist is free to challenge my beliefs about God . . . and about those we can argue.

My letter writer continues:

In my own efforts to make sense of this separateness, a deity is not distinct from its believer, without which the deity would not be identified or expressed.

I reply:

In fact, a combination of arguments and experiences indicates that the Divine is different from the believer. If there were no men, then God would still exist . . . though there would not be a great deal of human conversation about Him!

Why believe the Divine is just within the believer? The simple explanation for the sense of Someone outside of oneself speaking is that Someone is there . . . it will require proof that it is “just in our heads.”

The simplest explanation regarding this email writer (about whom I know nothing beyond the email) is that he exists and writes sincerely. This could be wrong, but the burden of proof is one the person who asserts to me that he is a imaginary or having me on!

My reader replies:

It’s the connection shared among believers in
their mutual belief in this deity that makes the deity a part of reality.

I reply:

This is asserted without argument. Theists have their own experience of the Divine (which seems different in kind from other experiences), philosophical arguments for His existence, and the experiences of others on which to draw in order to assert that God is not just in their heads.

God is real and is not silent. Simply to assume this is not so without giving an argument is irrational pride . . . which I assume my reader wishes to avoid.

My reader continues:

One might argue that the powerful, intangible relationship between and binding believers is, itself, the deity; the very being that, in fact, does acknowledge prayer and does care for its members, its children if you will. In which case, internet prayer circles would make sense and caring for oneself as a part of a greater whole one shares with others seems not
so narcissistic after all.

I reply:

This is, of course, one possible view of God . . . but I think not the best. I would refer the writer to the work of a former professor of mine Ed Wierenga or to the Oxford don Richard Swinburne for more on the rational coherence of theism.

My letter writer continues:

Again, I think you hinted at this idea but relating what God wants without qualifying your statements as your own opinions, educated as they may be, is a lot like rattling off the demands on a ransom note from the sock eating monster who lives under our beds.

I reply:

Anyone who asserts anything as a “truth” is (of course) giving his opinion. In fact, that statement is my opinion! And the last statement is my opinion . . . and it is my opinion that it is my opinion. I am not sure all of this is very helpful!

Either a reader understands that anything one writes (when not being ironic) is the writer’s opinion . . . or overly long blog posts (!) are going to get infinitely longer.

If you have evidence that a sock-eating monster lives under your bed, if that is the best explanation of your losing socks . . . and if their good arguments independent of your experience and in fact of human experience (some sock-eating monster equivalent to the Ontological argument for God’s existence) then I will take your analogy seriously.

However, the Aquinas of Sock-Eating Monsters does not exist.

You see I can sympathetically look at rational ideas with which I do not agree (for example Hegel’s) . . . and see their attraction.

Atheists like Heather McDonald do not seem so charitable and charity is (after) a philosophical virtue!

My reader continues:

Sure it appeals to other sock-eating monster believers but it does nothing to seriously answer the
questions and concerns that someone like Heather McDonald raises and I hope you can at least understand how crazy the notion is that there is sock-eating monster, much less that someone happens to know what it wants, even if you find it unacceptable to compare such a thing to God and I
doubt you would seriously accept such an explanation as an adult. Apply the way you feel about the sock-eating monster to God and you have some idea how Heather McDonald probably feels about God, naturally. How then will you address her concerns?

Thank you for your time.

I conclude:

My appeal to Heather McDonald was not that she should accept my experience or arguments on my authority . . . but that any educated adult should know religious arguments well enough to refute them. Ms. McDonald does not know even basic arguments (which are not experiences) nor does she read the experience of her neighbors at all charitably.

That is just too bad.

This is the very problem with Ms. McDonald’s education (and perhaps yours?). To compare arguments for traditional Christian theism (which after all I did not invent) to arguments for your sock-monster is (just perhaps?) a bad analogy.

Refutations of theism should at least be sophisticated enough to deal with Augustine (4th century AD) . . . and show awareness of the topic about which one is writing (in this case prayer).

If I claim to refute atheism (something I am not doing in this post), it would be wrong to do so against arguments that no actual sophisticated atheist makes.

I don’t expect Ms. McDonald (0r you) to agree with these arguments or relate to my experience (if it is not like your own), but I do think you can understand.

The arguments (after all) are open to anyone . . . and I can imagine the experience of being an atheist (and sympathize with it . . . at times wishing it true!).

It would be sad to believe that non-Christians have a failure of creative imagination or logical skills in following arguments! In fact, I don’t believe it . . . since I have such beloved friends who are not Christian theists, but most public atheism in this era seems to have declined dreadfully. In a large movement (like Christianity), one must accept degenerate theistic claims, but American atheism is very small and both on the Internet and in public . . . the very worst sort of arguments are starting to speak for the idea.

That is too bad and will not serve atheism well in the long road.

In any case, I enjoyed your note . . . and urge you (as Socrates would say) to follow the argument for yourself . . . where ever it leads you!

It is hard to blame them since most schools don’t require reading sophisticated religious writings and will purge religious writers (like John Locke) of religious references when they are read.

Since most of the world’s population is religious, this is a serious gap in the secular elite’s understanding of culture.

Recently Harvard decided religion should not be a central topic in its General Education program. It did so under attack from a science faculty who demonstrated that though they may be world-class scientists . . . their General Education program failed them when they were in school.

This neglect of religion comes despite the fact that Christians founded Harvard, many of its traditions make no sense except in the light of Christianity, most of Western art, music, and literature makes no sense outside of an understanding of religion, and much of philosophy does not either.

The origins of science and the United States are also hard to understand without a grounding in religious thought. How can one understand Ockham and the origins of his Razor without understanding his religious world-view? How can one read Locke in context without understanding his very frequent quotations of Sacred Scripture?

This ignorance has an impact as a recent article by sort-of-conservative Heather McDonald demonstrates.

She is disappointed that her “arguments” against traditional theism are not taken more seriously.

It would be easier to take them seriously if McDonald showed any evidence of having read (or thought about) thousands of years of Western Christian literature on the subjects she discusses. By the second century, Christianity was producing fairly sophisticated apologetics and by the time of Augustine (just 200 years later) was setting the agenda for the Western world. Bluntly, my students deal with more difficult attacks on Christianity their freshman year than Ms. McDonald thinks are real stumpers.

Here is a sample of her prose:

Around that time, I had started noticing the puzzling logic of petitionary prayer. What was the theory of God behind prayer websites, for example: that God is a democratic pol with his finger to the wind of public opinion? Is the idea that if only five people are praying for the recovery of a beloved grandmother from stroke, say, God will brush them off, but that if you can summon five thousand people to plead her case, he will perk up and take notice: “Oh, now I understand, this person’s life is important”? And what if an equally beloved grandmother comes from a family of atheist curs? Since she has no one to pray for her, will God simply look the other way? If someone could explain this to me, I would be very grateful.

I also wondered at the narcissism of believers who credit their good fortune to God. A cancer survivor who claims that God cured him implies that his worthiness is so obvious that God had to act. It never occurs to him to ask what this explanation for his deliverance says about the cancer victim in the hospital bed next to his, who, despite the fervent prayers of her family, died anyway.

As I was pondering whether any of these practices could be reconciled with rationality, the religious gloating of the conservative intelligentsia only grew louder.

First, McDonald attacks a “straw man.” It might very well be that Internet prayer web sites are absurd and prayer make sense. Prayer would not be the only topic not well served by the web.

Second, according to traditional Christian theism (as confirmed by Our Lord Himself) nobody is heard for their “many prayers.” Anybody who does not know this lacks even a rudimentary understanding of the Bible . . . the best selling book of all time.

Third, prayer asking God for things (”prayer of petition”) can best be understood as being for the good of the person praying. He or she is bringing deep hurts or desires to a good Heavenly Father who delights in hearing His children.

When they were little, I knew what my children wanted and needed for Christmas before they asked . . . but loved them asking anyway! It was part of being a loving Dad.

Since God desires a relationship with His children . . . He delights to hear them. He knows what is best for us, but also knows that it is good for our growth to make our needs known to Him.

In that sense, Internet prayer sites may be good . . . since they allow for a community of prayer which itself is of great value. God will not hear because ten thousand prayer . . . but the bonds formed in the work of common prayer are good for mankind!

As for the life of the cancer victim . . . I would suggest McDonald read C.S. Lewis Miracles or the first couple of books of Augustine’s City of God.

A thoughtful Christian knows that healing from cancer is good, but going to God is also good. God did not desire a world of sin or death, but does bring good out of it. Of course, He knows that we cannot avoid feeling that the loss of a loved one is “bad” and so hears our prayer.

Sometimes He has willed to bring a miracle and heal a person, but no Christian believes it is because he is better than the person not healed. In fact, it is most sensible to think that he is not yet fit for Paradise . . . and so must stay in this school of souls (life!) a bit longer. Miracles do not come based on merit, but based on what is best for soul of a human to lead to eternal flourishing.

If McDonald hears responses from traditional Christians as a bit impatient, then it is only because we wish she would do her homework before dismissing us with such facile arguments. We read our Darwin, Dennet, and Dawkins . . . she could at least read her Plato, Augustine, Aquinas, and Lewis.

It is hard to blame them since most schools don’t require reading sophisticated religious writings and will purge religious writers (like John Locke) of religious references when they are read.

Since most of the world’s population is religious, this is a serious gap in the secular elite’s understanding of culture.

Recently Harvard decided religion should not be a central topic in its General Education program. It did so under attack from a science faculty who demonstrated that though they may be world-class scientists . . . their General Education program failed them when they were in school.

This neglect of religion comes despite the fact that Christians founded Harvard, many of its traditions make no sense except in the light of Christianity, most of Western art, music, and literature makes no sense outside of an understanding of religion, and much of philosophy does not either.

The origins of science and the United States are also hard to understand without a grounding in religious thought. How can one understand Ockham and the origins of his Razor without understanding his religious world-view? How can one read Locke in context without understanding his very frequent quotations of Sacred Scripture?

This ignorance has an impact as a recent article by sort-of-conservative Heather McDonald demonstrates.

She is disappointed that her “arguments” against traditional theism are not taken more seriously.

It would be easier to take them seriously if McDonald showed any evidence of having read (or thought about) thousands of years of Western Christian literature on the subjects she discusses. By the second century, Christianity was producing fairly sophisticated apologetics and by the time of Augustine (just 200 years later) was setting the agenda for the Western world. Bluntly, my students deal with more difficult attacks on Christianity their freshman year than Ms. McDonald thinks are real stumpers.

Here is a sample of her prose:

Around that time, I had started noticing the puzzling logic of petitionary prayer. What was the theory of God behind prayer websites, for example: that God is a democratic pol with his finger to the wind of public opinion? Is the idea that if only five people are praying for the recovery of a beloved grandmother from stroke, say, God will brush them off, but that if you can summon five thousand people to plead her case, he will perk up and take notice: “Oh, now I understand, this person’s life is important”? And what if an equally beloved grandmother comes from a family of atheist curs? Since she has no one to pray for her, will God simply look the other way? If someone could explain this to me, I would be very grateful.

I also wondered at the narcissism of believers who credit their good fortune to God. A cancer survivor who claims that God cured him implies that his worthiness is so obvious that God had to act. It never occurs to him to ask what this explanation for his deliverance says about the cancer victim in the hospital bed next to his, who, despite the fervent prayers of her family, died anyway.

As I was pondering whether any of these practices could be reconciled with rationality, the religious gloating of the conservative intelligentsia only grew louder.

First, McDonald attacks a “straw man.” It might very well be that Internet prayer web sites are absurd and prayer make sense. Prayer would not be the only topic not well served by the web.

Second, according to traditional Christian theism (as confirmed by Our Lord Himself) nobody is heard for their “many prayers.” Anybody who does not know this lacks even a rudimentary understanding of the Bible . . . the best selling book of all time.

Third, prayer asking God for things (”prayer of petition”) can best be understood as being for the good of the person praying. He or she is bringing deep hurts or desires to a God Heavenly Father who delights to meet needs and hear His children.

Since God desires a relationship with His children . . . He delights to hear them. He knows what is best for us, but also knows that it is good for our growth to make our needs known to Him.

In that sense, Internet prayer sites may be good . . . since they allow for a community of prayer which itself is of great value. God will not hear because ten thousand prayer . . . but the bonds formed in the work of common prayer are good for mankind!

As for the life of the cancer victim . . . I would suggest McDonald read C.S. Lewis Miracles or the first couple of books of Augustine’s City of God.

A thoughtful Christian knows that healing from cancer is good, but going to God is also good. God did not desire a world of sin or death, but does bring good out of it. Of course, He knows that we cannot avoid feeling that the loss of a loved one is “bad” and so hears our prayer.

Sometimes He has willed to bring a miracle and heal a person, but no Christian believes it is because he is better than the person not healed. In fact, it is most sensible to think that he is not yet fit for Paradise . . . and so must stay in this school of souls (life!) a bit longer. Miracles do not come based on merit, but based on what is best for soul of a human to lead to eternal flourishing.

If McDonald hears responses from traditional Christians as a bit impatient, then it is only because we wish she would do her homework before dismissing us with such facile arguments. We read our Darwin, Dennet, and Dawkins . . . she could at least read her Plato, Augustine, Aquinas, and Lewis.

That might have worked for JFK, but the rest of us have seen the wages of sin in our own lives . . . and they are death . . . not the Merry Month of May. The film version is so bad, over-blown, and bluntly wicked that it is hard to finish it.

McCoy/Rigby did not just tweak this version of the play. . . they totally changed it. The result is a deeply moral and Christian work that advocates what is best in the T.H. White books on which it is loosely based and what is best in the old legend. Might for Right. Law above Passion. Forgiveness.

The team that gave us the delightful Peter Pan did this, hoping for the miracle of rescuing first class music from a third class book.

This La Mirada version of the play is (miracles happen!) better than the Broadway run. Camelot is saved . . . made serious without sermons, fun without moral bankruptcy.

There is much left to think about . . . the triangle is restored to moral seriousness by taking sin seriously.

This version of the play centers on Arthur as it should . . . and that is due in no small measure to the brilliance of that old Shakespearian actor Michael York.

Bluntly Michael York is the best Arthur yet. He plays a deeply Christian king: humble, but great. Arthur is restored in York’s portrayal as a Christ figure.

York is small when he needs to be . . . even physically next to the huge Lancelot, but bigger than the planet when that perfect voice is needed to pitch a vision. His singing? Camelot has never called for much from Arthur and York gives just enough . . .

James Barbour, readers will recall him as Rochester in the underrated Jane Eyre, is a spiritually sensitive Lancelot. He could sing the phone book . . . and it would grip. He begins as a huge sound, but allows himself to shrink as the play evolves. In the end, he is tender and tormented . . . but without physical sin. He is (even at bottom) a better man than most of us would be (or have been) and it restores the tragic element to his fate.

Only Rachel York disappoints as Guenevere. . . strangely sexless and without energy in a role that screams for both. Bluntly she is second rate and the play should consider somebody else for the role before it hits the road.

It is hard to imagine either York or Barbour developing the passion for her to make the famous triangle work. Still both the male leads are so perfect that she is carried along by them . . . in a play with inspired casting that fails only this once.

The secondary parts are very good with Time Winters as Pellinore threatening to steal any scene he is in . . . and Shannon Stoeke is an appropriately wicked Mordred who brings out the pitiable nature of Arthur’s bastard perfectly.

The scenery is sparse and stylized . . .ideal for a play intent on centering in on characters. This is a darker Camelot . . . with costumes that are not authentic, but closer to the Middle Ages than the absurd fluff one so often sees. The film is passionate . . . and thoughtful. . . and spiritual. Most versions of Camelot are only passionate . . . and the darker sets and costumes reflect the added depth.

The music? It retains all the original Lerner and Lowe genius, but it has been moved about, added to, in ways that set off the best off it and ignore the worst. This new Camelot is not quite My Fair Lady (what is?), but it no longer disappoints fans of that great musical. It is now worthy of it . . . no small praise.

Camelot became the bizarre theme of the Kennedy administration . . .
which made sense since the original score had you routing for people whose sexual infidelity destroyed a glorious Kingdom. John Kennedy must have found it comforting in his day . . . but after the revelations of the dirt of his administration and post-Monica, the glitter has utterly worn off such sophomoric male fantasy.

The new Camelot rightly presents the inability of Lancelot and Guenevere to control their passions as tragic. They are pitiable, but Arthur is great. Only Christian forgiveness, and civilization whose morality and rules they have helped destroy, gives hope for the future. Nobody roots for sin in the new Camelot.

And this very success must have presented McCoy/Rigby with a problem. This is the perfect Camelot for the heartland . . . and for the majority of folk who don’t like spending hours watching selfish people destroy a shining dream. It retains the sparkling music with a moral core . . . but how to avoid getting crushed by reviews from the libertine theater community?

The people who pay to go to plays went to Vietnam. The people who review plays protested it. . . or are the spiritual children of those who did.

Obviously fearful of the deeply traditional morality the new version advances it is pitched by McCoy/Rigby in LA Stage as a sign of the times politically. This play is a harbinger of Pelosi . . . . as if the La Mirada theater knew years ago that the Democrats would take control of Congress in November and prepared for it. The miracle is that this ludicrous and transparent spin works and the play gets a deservedly fair thumbs up.

Traditionalists fear not: this is not Pelosi’s Camelot, nor for the love of all that is holy is it Gingrich’s . . . but Arthur’s.

The play is utterly non-political . . . except in the old Greek sense that included all things human in the political. This darker retelling of the musical is charged with energy from start to finish. Bluntly, it is far better than the original production.

Go see this play.

This is a deeply traditional revision of the “Matter of Britain” having more in common with Malory than White. It is a must see . . . if you like thinking during a musical!

Yet war with a still weak, but re-arming Germany could not be avoided. Britain could fight sooner or later, but it would have to fight. London would be bombed eventually, the question was on whose terms and in what kind of war: offensive or defensive.

Britain’s intellectuals were convinced (beyond reason) of their own weakness, but Britain could have acted to head off worse conflict.

Despite the cost, she had the national treasure and power to act preemptively and end the Nazi threat.

If Britain had acted preemptively, she could have ended at least many of the problems that led to the Second World War. She chose not to pay the smaller bill in the twenties for freedom and barely could pay the higher bill presented in the forties. In fact, it broke the British Empire to fight the Second World War.

The problem with preemption is that one can never be sure that one did the right thing . . . the problem with waiting is that it might be too late or the cost so staggering that it destroys the entire social order.

The United States faces such a moment in Iraq in the Global War on Terror. Founding a positive nation-state in Iraq is relatively expensive compared to the small brush-wars the US is used to fighting. Any serviceman lost is sad and we have lost thousands.

On the other hand, the nation has not had to call for volunteers and the economy has not had to be placed on war footing. The cost relative to a larger conflict, whether a Cold War or a shooting war like World War II, is small.

If it desired, the US could sustain the occupation of Iraq forever economically and militarily. Nobody desires this outcome, there is no political will for it, but the cost of Iraq must be weighed against the cost of failure or fighting a war like it later.

Of course, the threat of Islamic radicalism is not the same as the threat of a rising Nazi Germany. Iran, the House of Saud, and other non-governmental forces opposed to Western values do not have the conventional power, economic or military, that Germany had.

On the other hand, nuclear weapons, and the relative ease of getting them, means that a weaker rouge state and ideology can do much more damage than was the case in mid-twentieth century. One dirty bomb in LA could kill more folk than died in entire wars.

The similarity is that foes of the US in the Middle East aren’t going anywhere and unless confronted now will grow stronger demographically and socially.

Right now they are (relatively) unstable socially as they do not believe, in their heart of hearts, that they can win a confrontation with the Western powers.

Give them hope . . . and the War will drag on with more terror and future invasions that will cost even more lives.

There is good news. There exists no secondary power, like the Soviet Union of the 1920’s and 1930’s (just as blood thirsty as the Germans), to concern the United States. One free state in the Middle East that obviously is going no place would almost certainly transform the region in the long term.

Iran could not compete in terms of social attractiveness with a free Iraq. The Iraq economy already shows glimmers of what might be to come as it continues to grow. As Iran grows oil poor due to waste and mismanagement, her own people will be irked by the comparisons with a free Iraq. West Germany did not have to conquer East Germany to win the Cold War, after all.

The President understands that to leave Iraq now would not “end the war.” It would merely put it off to the next battle while strengthening our foes by making the US appear weak.

Can the battle be won? The President admits that he and his generals made mistakes. Now he believes there is a new strategy that can bring victory. It is important to recall that the Kurdish parts of Iraq are doing well, as are large chunks of the South. If control can be gained over the center, the War can still be won.

There are no viable alternatives to the American led government . . . and no indication that the ideology of the terrorists is attractive to the people of Iraq.

Most important the American troops on the ground are still undefeated.

Quitting a fight always bring short term relief . . . but does any American believe that if we flee Iraq as we fled Vietnam the result will not be the same? Millions will be butchered in ways that make the present problems look small. Our foes will be believe they have won a great victory and will gain the one thing they have liked: a reasonable hope for victory.

If the Armed Forces still think the fight is winnable, then we should back our President and give him the chance to win it.

Victory in this case is so wonderful . . . and defeat so unthinkable that he deserves the chance to try.

I have also warned that secularists would use the Romney run to demonize religious believers. This has started already. As one case, let me present the following with my responses included in the article:

On private belief and public office

By Jacob Weisberg

Published: December 20 2006 21:01 | Last updated: December 20 2006 21:01

Someone who refuses to consider voting for a woman as president is rightly deemed a sexist. Someone who would never vote for a black person is a racist. But are you a religious bigot if you would not cast a ballot for a believing Mormon?

I reply:

Yes, if you do not have good reasons for your case. If you simply wave your hands and claim that Mormonism is “silly” and that anyone who accepts it is “irrational” then you have left off reasoning and taken to the argument style of the bigot.

Religious bigotry is real and is dangerous. This is particularly true of triumphalist secularism that treats religion with disdain.

Extreme forms of such secularism harmed millions of people in the past . . . leading to the murder of millions in the last century by atheists in places like the Soviet Union. As a result of this record, more moderate secularists should use extreme care and sensitivity in dealing with religion.

In the same manner, Christians have a special duty to avoid religious bigotry because of our mixed record, and in extreme cases our deplorable conduct, in the last hundred years towards Jewish persons and non-monotheistic religions.

Back to Weisberg:

The issue arises with the bid by Mitt Romney, governor of Massachusetts, for the Republican nomination in 2008. Mr Romney would not be the first member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to run for the highest office in the US. He follows Utah Senator Orrin Hatch (2000), Utah Senator Mo Udall (1976), his father George Romney (1968) and, not least of all, Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, who ran in 1844 on a platform of “theodemocracy”, abolition of slavery and cutting congressional pay. Smith did not do much better than Mr Hatch and had to settle for the Mormon-elected post of King of the Kingdom of Heaven.

I say:

Lately, secularists have taken to sneering rather than arguing. They simply assume all thoughtful people agree . . . and move on.

When is a “silly” belief disqualifying? Very great men have believed very odd things . . . I would love to be tutored by Socrates (!) whatever his views on government.

But the new secularism has no time for nuance or self-doubt. If a man is religious, then secularists know him to be a fool, an idiot, or a cad. If a secular writer is bright enough, then he might get away with calling a believer all three!

To such folk there are good religious, folk like Cornel West, whose religious views are secularism with God-talk added.

Secularists who are fools, idiots, or cads (the dear leader of North Korea, the Hollywood secularist of the moment, and Stalin in no particular order) are merely misguided . . . or not true secularists to the modern writer of such rot.

Christianity may have helped invent modern science, the University, and produced much of the world’s great cultural treasures, but living Christianity is only to be despised, though to be fair any other religious group is hated just as heartily by these thoughtless secularists.

Historic context be damned, we are going to name call when it comes to Joseph Smith . . . though running as an abolitionist in 1844 is at least attractive.

Weisberg writes:

According to a recent poll, only 38 per cent of Americans say they would definitely consider voting for a Mormon for president. But many analysts seem to think LDS church membership is no longer an insuperable obstacle.

A number of conservative evangelicals continue to view Mormonism as heretical, non-Christian or even Satanic. But because of their shared faith in social conservatism, many evangelical leaders seem open to supporting Mr Romney. As far apart as they are, Mormons and evangelical Christians may have more in common with each other than they do with secular America.

I say:

This is exactly right and traditional Christians need to remember it.

Romney is our friend on social issues. . . not because he took a poll, but because he is a loyal man. Anybody who is willing to stick up for his faith community despite great personal and political cost (think how convenient it would be for Romney to “convert” to the Roman church) will not let us down if he tells us he will be with us on the moral issues.

Weisberg writes:

The remaining scepticism of evangelical leaders seems to have more to do with Mr Romney’s previously expressed moderate views on abortion and gay rights than with his creed.

I write:

Evangelical leaders can read the record. We can understand pushing for the “possible” in a New England state. Romney did not allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good . . . a decent description of the virtue of prudence.

Weisberg writes:

But if he gets anywhere in the primaries, Mr Romney’s religion will become an issue with non-religious voters – and rightly so. Objecting to someone because of what they believe is not the same thing as prejudice based on religious heritage, let alone race or gender. Not applying a religious test for public office means that people of all faiths are allowed to run – not that their views about God, creation and the moral order cannot be considered.

I say:

This is a very good point. Religion is a knowledge tradition. . . and the religion a man chooses says a good deal about him. However, the question relevant to political office is why he chose his religion. . . what his reasons for doing so were. . . and what impact it will have on making decisions.

In the case of Romney, it is obvious that Mormonism is part of his heritage, motivated by a strong love of traditional values, and a love of God. I don’t agree with Romney’s religious point of view. . . I do not think Mormons are Christians (in the traditional sense), but there is nothing about Romney’s Mormonism (as he has lived it) that suggests to me that it is irrational or dangerous to the Republic that he is a Mormon.

Weisberg says:

In President George W. Bush’s case, the public clearly paid to little attention to religion. In 2000 and 2004, the country failed to appreciate that while Mr Bush’s religious beliefs may be moderate, he relies on them immoderately, as an alternative to rational understanding of complex issues.

I write:

There is no evidence for this at all. This is a mere slander.

Weisberg writes:

Nor is it chauvinist to declare that certain religious views are disqualifying in and of themselves. There are millions of religious Americans who would never vote for an atheist for president because they believe that faith is necessary to lead the country.

I write:

Such believers are wrong. The problems related to atheism need not lead to disqualifying political views.

Best reason and experience tell me atheism is wrong. . . even dangerously wrong, but certain kinds of atheism pose less threat to the Republic than some forms of religion.

John Derbyshire worries me less than Cornel West.

While I think atheism wrong, I would rather have an atheist with the governing abilities of a Reagan or Teddy Roosevelt than a Christian like Jimmy Carter in office.

Weisberg writes:

Others would, quite reasonably, not vote for a religious fanatic or fundamentalist – a Christian who thinks that the earth is less than 6,000 years old or a Scientologist who thinks it is haunted by the souls of space aliens sent by the evil lord, Xenu.

I write:

I am a young earth creationist. Evidently that makes me (and Luther and John Chrysostom and almost half of America) unfit for a vote.

Despite the fact that we work in fully accredited schools with grad degrees and try to defend our position using logic and evidence. . . Weisberg thinks we are “nuts” and compares our faith to people who do none of those things.

Of course, Weisberg can name no policy implications that are necessary features of my young earth creationism. . . and has given no argument for his point of view . . . so he is left sounding like . . .well, a bigot.

Weisberg writes:

Such views are disqualifying because they are dogmatic, irrational and absurd. By holding them, someone indicates a basic failure to think for himself and see the world as it is.

I say:

I hold my traditional Christian beliefs (including creationism) is a Socratic manner, try to use reason in living a good life . . . though my love for the Packers may border on the absurd I don’t my religious views (or Romney’s) are.

The problem with Weisberg’s statement is not qualified in any way. Weisberg thinks some of my views absurd, dogmatic, and irrational and I assume that I could return the favor, but this is a very dangerous line of argument.

Where would this end? Does belief in the virgin birth qualify? What about the existence of Moses? Adam and Eve? Original Sin?

Nor is this view unique. Having written a first-year philosophy students defense of atheism, sort-of-conservative Heather McDonald recently responded to critics by saying:

As for the conservative intelligentsia, I was surprised-but that is my fault. I was ignorant and naive enough that somewhere in the back of my mind, I think, I might actually have assumed that presenting what strike me as pretty strong empirical arguments against the claim that God is just and loving, say, would end the matter. And I was unaware of the depth of commitment to the idea that religion is the source of values and that conservatism and religion are inseparably linked. For me, conservatism was about realism and reason.

I am indeed a traditional conservative because of realism and reason. Realism is why I believe in the divine since monism of any kind seems too simple to explain the world as it is . . . and reasons such as those given by Plato in his Laws (Book X) lead me to God.

It does not seem to dawn on Ms. McDonald that her arguments were juvenile (the sort the religious are forced to think through in freshman year of college) . . . and that her own secular education may have kept her from interacting much with ideas beyond her own facile secularism.

Modern secularism is so insulated in its few bastions of power that it can make good arguments outside of it.

Back to Weisberg:

By the same token, many secular Americans would reject anyone who believes the founding whoppers of Mormonism. The LDS Church holds that Joseph Smith, directed by the angel Moroni, unearthed a book of golden plates buried in a hillside in western New York in 1827. The plates were inscribed in “reformed” Egyptian hieroglyphics – a non-existent version of a language that had yet to be decoded with the help of the Rosetta stone. Smith was able to dictate his translation of The Book of Mormon by looking through diamond-encrusted decoding glasses and burying his face in a hat.

I say:

I am no great friend of Mormonism, but surely this is just slander. Why couldn’t God work this way? I believe there is good reason to believe he did odder things!

Such ideas seem absurd to Weisberg only because of his secularist assumptions. . . and Christians tempted to join in the laugh should remember Balaam’s ass, Noah’s ark, and the water turned to wine.

Weisberg writes:

He was an obvious conman. Mr Romney has every right to believe in conmen but he should not be running the country if he does.

I write:

Again we get a slander without evidence or much knowledge. I think Joseph Smith wrong, his spiritual experience at best mistaken, but dare not dismiss him so easily.

The Book of Mormon is interesting . . . and worth more than such a trivial dismissal. I think it dangerously wrong, but the millions who believe it are not obviously stupid. The sort of charity I learned in grad school demands that I try to see what they see in it.

Weisberg continues:

One might object that all religious beliefs are irrational – what is the difference between Smith’s “seer stone” and the virgin birth or the parting of the Red Sea? But Mormonism is different because it is based on such a transparent and recent fraud. The world’s greater religions have had thousands of years to splinter, moderate and turn their myths into metaphor. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, on the other hand, remains monolithic, literalistic and cultish.

I write:

The only good religion is going to end up being Cornel West, liberal, Anglican, Vatican II was too conservative, mushy religion. If you mean it when you say the Creed, Weisberg thinks you are “monolithic, literalistic, and cultish.”

I assume Weisberg means what he is writing now . . . within the monolithic world of the East Coast intelligentsia . . . and means to be understood as meaning what he says. . . hence literally . . . and will give his vote to nobody who does not bow the knee to the Cult of Secularism’s definite belief in unbelief.

Weisberg writes:

It may be that Mr Romney does not take Mormon theology at face value. He has reversed his views on gay rights and abortion to suit the differing demands of a Massachusetts gubernatorial campaign and a Republican presidential primary. This suggests that he is a man of flexible principles, which is encouraging in this context.

I write:

The only good Mormon to Weisberg will be a bad Mormon. . . but then the only reason Jews, Muslims, and Christians escape his lash is that we have had time to produce millions of bad Jews, Muslims, and Christians.

Romney is not flexible about principles (such men were called cads in better times), but flexible about means to achieve his ends. He will take what he can get in order to get more later. . . but with the goal in mind.

Romney appears to be, secularists beware, an old fashioned statesman.

Weisberg writes:

But Mr Romney has never indicated that there is any distance between himself and Mormon doctrine. He is a church “elder” who performed missionary service in France as a young man and did not protest against his church’s overt racism and policy of discrimination, in which black men were denied admission to the priesthood before the policy was abolished in 1978. He usually tries to defuse the issue of his religion with the tired jokes about polygamy or cries foul and insists that his religious views are “private”.

They may be that, but if Mr Romney is running for president, they are the country’s concern as well.

I reply:

Let me remind the reader of my three-fold test regarding religion and getting a reasonable persons vote:

First, the religious beliefs of the candidate should be held by a significant number of people and by a group willing to defend them (even if unsuccessfully) in a rational manner.

Second, the group in question should not have religious claims that will naturally lead to horrific, or at least far out, public policy.

Third, the group should have a long track record of generally playing by republican rules in areas where it is dominant. No group is perfect, but the Presidency is too powerful a prize to trust to a new group that might have secret authoritarian leanings.

Any other test runs the risk of tearing our society apart.

Republicans are not cool . . . and lose elections when they try as California Republicans discover every so often. (The belief that “Arnold” is an exception . . . and that as a “movie star” he was “cool” is a sign that you are not, in fact, cool . . . or have not been since the eighties.)

Britain is not cool . . . and the slogan “Cool Britannia” was a sign that Blair’s Britain was not going to work out as he hoped.

Having a baby is not cool . . . no “with it” person knows the meaning of “transition.”

There has never been: a cool Mormon, Evangelical, traditional Christian of any kind, or Orthodox Jew.

Bands are not cool . . . and band teachers who try to make them cool always become absurd in the effort.

Rodeo riders are not cool . . . and it is hard to imagine a cowboy caring. (”Well,” he chewed his words like a cud and spat them out at last, “I don’t know.” when asked about cool and cowboys.)

Giant floats made out of flowers are not cool . . . unless one is alive in the 1930’s.

The Rose Parade is not, and cannot be, cool as it contains every known uncool thing and is watched by uncool people groups . . . it is old, traditional, run by people born in California, watched by folk who think George Lucas is “hip” (”Dude! Ewoks!”), and is watched by families with more than one child.

There is one thing I know about cool (having never been, but having observed from the bleachers): Nothing is less cool than an uncool thing trying.

The Rose Parade has been a constant in our house . . . and is mildly entertaining. You can watch it while blurry eyed from the night before . . . and miss nothing.

A parade is filled with B-list or once-was-a stars . . . that aging boomers can recall fondly saying, “He looks pretty good, how old is he?”

One comes in and out with breakfast . . . or the Slim-fast shake of the New Year . . . and comments on the floats or hatred of Star Wars I. It is all traditional, happy, and safely dull.

Parades are about tradition . . . are only fun live . . . but on television derive their meaning by their existence. The Rose Parade is not profound, not important, not even very entertaining (unless you are there), but what is . . . is old by California standards. It has been for most of our lives (and that is the measure of old in California)!

This year the Rose Parade on KTLA tried to be “up to date” and managed to be merely dated without the glories of tradition.

Like some English cathedral installing power-point screens, they lost the beauty of the event and gained . . . well the ignomy of looking like geeks marching in Storm Trooper suits they built themselves hoping to relate (in this manner) to the “kids.”

In a move of stunning ignorance regarding their own product, KTLA up-dated their booth with a younger announcer . . . ditching their former host Stephanie Edwards.

I watched the result and it was not good.

Stephanie Edwards was an attractive and perfect personality for the event. Heaven knows she was not cool . . . but instead seemed sincere, cared about the traditions of the parade (having made a few of them), and plainly enjoyed the work. She aged in a lovely manner . . . more attractive at (gentleman don’t discuss the number) than most of us are in our twenties . . . unless one is stupid enough to never develop mature tastes in beauty.

Parades are not Plato, but if they must be consumed, then they need hosts that cherish them . . . not hosts mailing it in to do their corporate duty. Stephanie Edwards loved her job, her replacement is as forgettable as last Christmas’ “Barbie” . . . easily replaced by next years plastic consumer driven plaything.

Stephanie Edwards is Disneyland . . . Michaela is Magic Mountain trying to be California Adventure.

Parade commentary (!) is more like radio than television as the personality hardly ever appears on camera. Edwards “replacement” Michaela Pereira has other work she plainly wishes she was doing (and her mud-colored clothing matched her personality on camera), is wit and banter impaired, and appears to know nothing about everything.

A good parade is like a well-executed liturgy and Ms. Pereira is the Vatican II of liturgists.

She reads the cue cards as if she is reading cue cards . . . and plainly never was hooked on phonics.

Our house did a fearful thing at some points in the telecast . . . we paid close attention to what Pereira was saying . . . the death of any good parade host . . . since what she was saying was equally wooden and absurd. One had to listen . . . as one had to watch “Light Magic” at Disneyland (still called “Light Tragic” by park goers) or sit all the way to the end of Santa Claus III.

The new host-ette combined a dollop of condescension at being forced into the whole ridiculous thing with a dullard’s sparkling rejoinders giving the watcher the weird feeling that he was being laughed at by his inferior. . . in short she managed to rain on our parade.

KTLA should bring back Stephanie Edwards and lose the idea of a hip Rose Parade. Michaela is not cool, doesn’t like parades, and is hard to endure for hours.

(Just for good measure I am clear that forty-something philosophers who blog and like Star Trek, Buffy, and Plato are not cool. I am Victorian, not trendy.)

It is in John, his Gospel and his Revelation, that we can see the Love that moves the Stars combined with the rigors of theology. John is that rare man who could write with every part of his soul engaged . . . including the passions of the intellect. He was the apostle of love and of hell . . . the great theologian and the disciple Jesus loved. Few have ever reached his artistic genius.

If humans were not fallen, then perhaps God would more often reveal truth in a poetic science or scientific fairy tales. Great geniuses, like Dante, were able to write both the best science and the best poetry of their day simultaneously, but for the rest of us this side of paradise many tools that seem to give contradictory results will have to do. Nor is this a bad thing in humanities fallen state, but the divine mercy of Babel.

At the great Tower, as the tale goes, human language was divided to prevent men from stepping over the bounds that divine mercy had built for human protection. Language, whether mathematical or otherwise, is the greatest tool that humans have to describe reality. Divided languages produced divided disciplines and prevented too much power, too clear a picture of reality, from falling into broken, and wicked, human hands.

Fairy tales told humanity this all along. A three wish ring is as dangerous as it is useful, given human nature, but all come right in the End. The Prince is coming with justice and deliverance. John the Apostle reveals that this is true, but great suffering must come first, which all great tales promise.

In contrast, present culture either promises pleasure for little pain or whispers that in the end there is only pain. Pleasure is either facile or a narcotic. It is no wonder that only Christian culture could produce the sacrifice necessary to sustain both science and the arts for centuries. The Christian tales tell are good and tell the truth beautifully, but with no sugar coating for marketing purposes. To be truly happy, to flourish as a man or woman, will require great sacrifice and short term suffering. Nothing worth having will be had for free. This could bring despair, but Christianity also teaches that God has paid the essential bill and humanity need only participate in what He has done.

Of course God allows us to reject Him something John, the Apostle of love also notes. In the end, humans who will not grow up cannot go to paradise. The entertainment in heaven is for adults and those who will cling to fragments of pleasure, who remain childish, must go where the childish go. Only those who come as children can enter the Kingdom and real children are not like Peter Pan, they grow up and have done with lesser things. In this present age, Peter Pan keeps fighting pirates when he should turn grow up and tries to hide his lack of development by labeling his childish joys “adult entertainment.”

It is Wendy who is wise, because she suffers the indignities of motherhood and old age and so begins to experience real grown up joys. In heaven she will be a child again compared to the greatness that is there, and when she has been there ten thousand years, she will so grown up that her former adult state will look like infancy . . . and yet in ten thousand more years she will have grown even more. Wendy gains pain and age what Pan attempts to gain by stagnation: eternal youth! It is no shock that there is more beauty and life in the aged face of a woman who has chosen motherhood and Christ than in the botoxed mask of a Pan who will not submit and grow old enough to be born again.
Hell is the only option for those who simply will not change and become capable of this absolute romance. It is serious, stiff, and frozen. Evil is attractive in this world, because it twists what goodness, truth, and beauty it can find in shocking ways and this novelty can be confused with real creation.

Subjective beauty seems good since it means that no God can command development in our tastes. It feels like freedom until it becomes plain that if beauty is in the eye of the beholder, that it is the majority or at least the powerful people who will judge. Having rejected God’s rule, the sinner finds himself rules by the tastes of men. God can be trusted to choose wisely what is art, music, poetry, and entertainments will lead to happiness, because He made us. Men can be trusted to manipulate us for what they think is their own happiness, but is really the perverse joy of the devils who seduce them. The lustful actually have no love in them since they do not love true Beauty.

Dante had it right when he pictured the ultimate end of evil as frozen, self-pitying, and full of impotent anger. Rejection of reality seems to make humans god, but reduces creativity. It is no accident that the great sub-creator of the twentieth century was the Christian Tolkien. There are many variations possible once one learns the main theme, but those who refuse truth are only left ever more far-fetched lies. When these lies disappoint, too often the reaction is rage at the cosmos and the God who created it! Dante’s Satan is frozen in ice formed from his own tears cooled by the ceaseless beating of his wings. When humans die, they leave this time and this age when change is possible and are left to face just judgment at their lack of love.

If Hell is the great bass note in the cosmic harmony, the melody line is mercy. Humanity can be transformed, moving from death to life, and so come to live in the City of God forever. Love can drive men to a vision of a Person so Beautiful that if seen this side of death and untransformed by grace the glory would consume utterly.

If the Church can regain a driving love of God seen in the person of His Incarnate Son Jesus Christ, then beauty, goodness, and truth will follow.

There is no ugliness in God, no evil, and no falsehood. The ills of this present age are as always, because we have made idols out of subjective things, our own opinions, and ignored the real things. Like a child who fears the shadows on the wall while gorging on candy, we are making ourselves sick, but misunderstand the source of our illness.

Love is not the end, but the force that drives humanity to God. It is as if the entire culture has confused the engine with the destination, but there is still hope. God is the source of all the love in the cosmos and even twisted love reflects His image. Love has become an idol, but like all idols it is a servant of the Most High that we worship. When the Sacred Scriptures say that God is love, they testify to the “three-dimensional” nature of goodness, truth, and beauty for a Christian. This divine romance does not end in a book, but a person. This person is known by love and loves in return.

Propositions about God are important, so that humanity can be sure to direct its love correctly. If I love, then I desire to know all that can be known about the beloved. Someone who claimed to love me, but could not be bothered to learn my eye color is a liar. Love desires knowledge, but love is not knowledge. God is a person and ultimately can only be known through love. Theology is the best guide humans have found to describe that person and to keep human love, so easily turned to idolatry, on track. If we love God, then we will love theology for the sake of knowing Him. Propositional theology is another reality-describing science.

I must confess that loving love nearly destroyed me and hurt people around me. Beauty was in the eye of the beholder, me, and this made me a god, but I did not realize it. When my god failed me, I learned to hate myself and this began to breed cynicism toward the world. Nobody is called to believe in love anymore than the reason for school is schooling.

My loves were too limited: failing to embrace parents, neighbor, nation, and God. My desires and real passions were turned to only one kind of love: a desire for a soul mate. Calling myself a Romantic, I was a Scrooge hording and loving what should have been spent and when finally spending doing so in one place. The true romantic, the one who loves most abundantly, is driven through duty to a profligate passionate that can love everything in God’s creation because it loves God, the source of love.

Perhaps I am not the only one to make these mistakes and what I learned through pain can help other would be romantics. The beginning of absolute romance was learning to love real Beauty, but before that I had to come to believe it existed. Arguments, experiences, and the Bible forced me to this conclusion and caused me to make Jesus Lord of my aesthetic and not just moral life.

My serious, tragic self faced the stark and uncomfortable reality that the truth was happy. Traditionally comedies end in weddings and the resolution of all problems. Tragedy ends in death. Smart people in these times bet on tragedy, wear Hamlet’s black, and roll their eyes at comedy. Comedy is either foolish or sarcastic, but wise grownups are pessimists. But the reality of Beauty, caused me to grow cynical about my cynicism. After all the best comedies (Much Ado About Nothing) contain tragic moments on their way to resolution. What if the darkness is prelude to dawn? This great tragic moment in history is in the light of the reality of Goodness, Truth, and Beauty, but the trial of the lovers before the wedding. We may, after all, be in a divine comedy.

John taught us all this long ago.

There are still ten days to go. . . but still St. Stephen’s Day can seem a bit pale. Many of us have to go back to work. . . and our secular culture strips the decorations down too quickly just as they put them up too quickly. What seemed possible on Christmas day, love and joy to the world, seems a bit less clear on St. Stephen’s Day. After, wasn’t Stephen the first martyr?

Traditional Christians understood that the joy of birth also reminds many of us, the next day in the hang over from the party (!), of the pain of death. How can we know? How can we hope that the promise of Christmas is real?

Opinion is easy to come by, knowledge hard. It took but a moment for me to type that a film that took years to make is bad. If this is mere opinion, then there is no particular reason to value it. Knowledge, if it can be obtained, would be preferable. People recognize this when it comes to medicine and nobody is shocked finding the truth is hard work when it comes to understanding nature.

In human things (the arts), opinion controls most peoples lives. “I don’t know much about art, but I know what I like.” The assumption is that in politics, art, literature, and especially religion one idea is as good as another as long it is tolerant for somebody else’s preference. A music class in high school might as well use U2 as Bach if the teacher prefers U2 or believes that students will “get more” out of it. Music is a personal subject and not an area of knowledge.
It wasn’t always this way. Until the nineteenth century, almost all people in Western culture believed that poetry, music, art, and religion could teach something. Physical reality was best known by “natural philosophy” which is now called science, but physical reality was just one part of a greater whole.

However opinion will not do when facing the rocks that were thrown at Stephen. He needed to know and through reason and revelation such knowledge was available to the classical Christian.

Humans knew through best reason and divine revelation that men are unique. Though even the ancients knew how physically small and powerless men were next to the cosmos, they also understood that the ability to reason and create works of beauty was remarkable. The universe is dazzlingly complex and worthy of study, but so are human creations like the Iliad and the Bible.

Christian civilization, which produced science, the modern university, and loved the arts, sought to flourish as beings created in the image of God. Though fallen, men must live, raise children, and create culture. No such culture will be utopia, but each should as much as possible reflect the soon coming perfect society of the New Jerusalem. No ruler can be King Jesus, but each ruler should be as much like Him as possible.

The Kingdom is utterly perfect and humans have chosen to think about that perfection in three different ways: goodness, truth, and beauty. However, modern Christians have made issues that are culturally relative or personal absolute and assume beauty is subjective. Tell a Church group the topic of discussion is clothing and the next word to come to their minds will be “modesty.” What is modesty? This will shift from culture to culture and even from person to person. On the other hand, traditional Christians have believed that beauty is universal and should be a goal in all humans do.

When my daughter was small, we were discussing this issue. To show her the difference between modesty and beauty, we googled the phrase “Mormon prom dress” and took a look at some of the sites. She quickly said, “These dresses are very modest, but they are not very beautiful.” It was clear to her that the main goal of these dress designers had been to meet cultural subjective standards of modesty. She realized that women want to be beautiful, not merely modest since modesty is the absence of a vice while being beautiful is to reflect the Divine. (My Mormon friends point out that the situation is now much better. . . for which I am sure many young ladies are thankful!)

The goal of a Christian is to be good and not merely not-bad. Yet again, in many discussions the goal is to stamp out vice (“No more coveting!”) and not to increase true love. Similarly excellent education longs for truth and would not settle for falsehood, yet too often teaching in Christian circles focuses on heresy hunting or destroying error and not loving truth. A man cleansed from all wrong beliefs could have no ideas at all! Some Christians live this, but then focus on the culturally relative application of beauty (modesty), goodness (manners), or truth (pedagogical style).

All three have been challenged in this age and this rejection of reality is at the heart of contemporary sickness. Truth is the hardest to deny and even now few challenge it. Some forms of post-modernism attempt to deny the existence of truth or that truth can be known. It is difficult for most philosophers to take these claims or worries seriously. Any five year old can keep asking, “How do you know?” but a wise man wants a reason for his doubts as well as his beliefs.

Humans cannot be certain about most things, but still can be said to know them. “Knowing” for Christians has traditionally meant having sufficient reason, through some combination of argument, revelation, or experience, to accept an idea as opposed to its opposite. Arguments about human things in particular will never be conclusive, but only plausible and probable. Traditionally, Christians have been satisfied by experience, the Revelation of God in His Word, and decent philosophical arguments that goodness, truth, and beauty have a reality apart from human thought . . . at the very least as ideas in the mind of God.

Most people worry about the reality of goodness, truth, and beauty for bad reasons. After all, there is no reason to think that the human heart has been changed by the advance in technology. Moderns may fly space shuttles, use the Internet, and are able to carry movie libraries in their pockets, but are emotionally much the same as the Victorians or the ancient Greeks. Love and hatred may rise for different reasons, but the feeling or experience seems the same. The machines have changed, but the men have not. In fact, the dire nature of skepticism about knowing the truth has caused even philosophers like W.V. Quine who were attracted to some skeptical arguments to pull back from post-modernism. It is hard to find a top philosophy department in the United States with much interest in it. Most well-trained Christian and secular philosophers are, therefore, in agreement that there is some kind of reality that exists apart from human thought and that this reality can be known.

Some facile Christians argue that “creeds” or theological propositions stifle debate when in reality they are the hard result of debate. . . and stimulate even more debate! To argue against creeds in the Faith is like a scientist arguing that the formulation of theories or laws in science cuts off progress!

In Christian circles, the reality of goodness is not often called into question. Morality is grounded in Divinity, revealed in the Word of God, and lived out in the community of Faith. Christians think goodness would exist even if there were no humans. Morality is not the creation of men, but of God.

This is in sharp contrast to popular culture where morality is a matter of opinion. At a secular school any claim that something is “just wrong” would be taken as a statement about the feelings of the speaker and not about reality. But Christians should not feel smug, because if secular neighbors pretend morality is relative so that they can cheat on their taxes, then Christians are equally intent on controlling their taste in art, music, and entertainment. If art contains the truth and contains morally uplifting ideas, then the fact that is ugly is “just an opinion” for most. “I like it” is good enough justification for the Christian consuming any amount of what most historic Christians would have known to be appalling trash.

In both Christian and popular secular circles, almost everybody agrees that Beauty is a matter of opinion. Begin a sentence, “Beauty is. . .” and most will end it with “in the eye of the beholder.” Since as recently as C.S. Lewis (died 1963), Christians were still relatively united on existence of Beauty (either as an idea on its own or in God’s mind), this is a remarkable change. Subjectivity about Beauty has become almost universal. How did this happen?

When in fifth grade, I was given a “fact-opinion” worksheet in English class like many students in primary school in the United States. On this sheet, I was taught to distinguish between “fact” and “opinion.” Facts included statements such as, “Lyndon Johnson was President of the United States.” Opinions included statements such as, “A rose is beautiful.” As C.S. Lewis points out in Abolition of Man, the most important essay of the twentieth century, lessons were being taught to me that had nothing to do with English. Essentially, without any argument Beauty was declared “subjective” and just a matter of personal opinion.

A consumer culture also encourages a passive acceptance of subjective Beauty. After all, companies want to move product. If “beauty is the in the eye of the beholder,” then mass media might be able to shape what beauty is. They have not economic interest in maintaining classical standards over time, but a high motivation to cater to personal tastes. Companies exist to go the customer what he or she desires not to educate them in what they should desire!
Is it any wonder that music, theater, and art are vanishing from education? The arts have vanished almost entirely from education before college and are under severe pressure as useless and expensive in the university. This is entirely reasonable if beauty is merely a matter of preference and opinion. The traditional Christian school views the arts as vital since they help educate about the nature of Beauty. If there is no Beauty, then the arts become a subjective “frosting on the cake.” Why should government pay to allow teachers to opine at students or institutionalize their private preferences?

Of course, none of this is an argument for the existence of Beauty, but before turning to this task, it is important to note what does not have to be done. We do not need to define Beauty before seeing that it exists. Many things humans believe are real are also hard to define. Most people cannot give very good definitions for things in which they have strong belief. If a philosopher were to walk down the street and ask for a precise definition of “street,” most people would struggle to give an adequate answer containing only the necessary and sufficient conditions for a thing to be a “street.” In fact, it is the very habit of philosophers to ask for this sort of definition which rightly irritates most of people with philosophers. After all, we walk down the street, know when we are “in the street” as opposed to our homes very successfully without ever knowing exactly how to define “street.” People can generally successfully separate sheep from wolves without being infallible or having perfect definitions of “sheep” and “wolf.” As we shall see, there are good reasons to think beauty exists even if philosophers find it hard to define it with perfect precision.

The Church claims that goodness is real, but finds its own members full of doubts. How could this not be true? Taught that Beauty is a matter of personal opinion, utterly subjective, Christians have no good reason to think morality, which is in many ways similar is objective.

We should remember that in the middle of human ugliness Stephen looked up and saw goodness, truth, and beauty. He saw Jesus and so was able to forgive and become beautiful. This grace transformed what should have been wicked and made it worthy of the Holidays. We can celebrate the First Martyr, because his vision of the enthroned Jesus made his death glorious!

The blood of Jesus is the ultimate example of this truth. Some moderns are fearful to speak of the precious blood atonement. While not the only Biblical image of salvation, it is still the most hopeful one. . . for Christ took death and His spilled blood and made it the basis for knowledge, revelation, jollification, and entry to paradise! The crooked was made straight, the rough places smooth!

That is why this “day after” we can celebrate even in our own small disappointments. Jesus Christ can make even those little crosses. . . the empty cubicle pulled clean of Holiday cheer. . . avenues of grace.

Merry Christmas, day two!

Nobody could make all of the elements work into one great story, but humanity knew what we needed. We dreamed of it, longed for it, tasted it in the sweat of daily life.

Reality finally took a hand and the Love that undergirds everything made the dream real. Christmas is the beginning of it all. . . the solution dreamed of becoming fact. Beauty, Goodness, and Truth came to Earth because these Ideas exist in a Mind: the Mind of God . . . and that Mind is motivated by Love.

Christmas was better than our dreams, not just because it was real, but because God did the utterly unexpected and became fully Man. He brought Heaven back into union with Earth using a real Body, a real Human Soul, and His Divine Nature. He made them One in Himself without confusing them to fix them and make them right.

The beauty of Christmas is not just marketing, but real. That reality opens many doors . . . including helping us take our own stories seriously. The best are images of that great Image and so have something to teach.

If beauty does exist, and if we can know it because of the Fact of Christmas, then there might be disciplines, learning traditions, which can teach humanity about this aspect of reality. Just as science studies physical truths, it could be that art, poetry, literature, and music describe (in their own terms) aspects of Beauty. Real beauty opens the possibility of taking fairy tales seriously without thinking them “true” in a scientific sense.

What is the reality behind the Cinderella? It turns out that fairy tales are trustworthy guides to reality and what is in popular entertainment has ruined modern vision. The unchanging world in which humans were created resonates with the fairy tales which get at Beauty through the tool of fiction. Fairy tales correspond closely enough to God’s real world that humans created in the image of God can be lead through them to truth. Such myths act as sign-posts to one aspect of His great and complex creation. The stories scientists tell are accurate in different ways and point to different aspects of reality, but both science and fairy tales are incomplete pictures of one great whole.

The Incarnation, the baby in the manger, brought the two realities together for men for the first time since the Fall.

There is at least as much good description of reality in Lord of the Rings, Hamlet, and Harry Potter as there is in most Social Studies textbooks. The history text speaks of the Prince of Denmark who lived in space and time. It uses one set of tools to find one aspect of reality: historic truth. The play Hamlet does not speak of this prince, but of an image of that prince created by Shakespeare. This image does not teach the history of Denmark, but about problems a man faces and does this analysis beautifully. Since men posses both immaterial souls and physical bodies and the cosmos contains spirits and material objects, the whole truth about men and nature must contain a space-time description of what bodies have done and what souls have done. Feelings and beauty are real.

This is the reason the traditional college or university demanded a thorough grounding in both the arts and sciences. Human knowledge is incomplete and fallen. In Utopia, perfect knowledge of a single particle of water could be used to infer the ocean, physics, the pleasure of hearing waves crashing on a beach, and the fears of Odysseus lost on the great wine-dark sea, but Utopia is no place where humans live.

There are not two truths: physical and spiritual. It is simply that there are many ways to come to the one knowable truth for limited human beings. Science works well in coming to one aspect of that reality and poetry is good at another. Simple minded folk try to reduce everything to what can be shown by one or the other means. The Incarnation, Christmas, is the basis of the unity of the University . . . and our starting point back to knowing the real unity of the Universe!

This Christmas as I love my family, as we share the joy of the season, it can be a joy that is mythic and real. . . magical and scientific. . . miraculous and Socratic. . . thanks to a tiny baby, God-Man, born on Christmas night.

(more at Middlebrow…)

As Love Actually points out “love is all around” in virtual reality, but there is too little love in reality and it is too limited scope. Instead of love being a means to a goal, it has become the goal.

We want the perfect holiday, but we actually search for the perfect “stuff” to give as gifts. We crave love, but the media has taught us that love is just sex. Dawkins and his merry band of atheists are often embraced by college students looking for liberation from “rules” . . . only to discover that love has been reduced to one selfish gene looking for another selfish gene to make it to the next generation and that free will has vanished.

(more at Middlebrow…)

Children grow up watching Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, or some other fairy tale, but seeing their parents divorce, political leaders lie, and hearing “grown up” media sneer at their movies. Disney promises that if they follow their heart, then all their dreams will come true. But even if they get what they want for Christmas, it is never as good as the advertisement. It is lie that all wishes come true and it is an even greater lie that it would be wonderful if they did. Kids don’t have to be very old to become cynics.

(more at Middlebrow…)

Yesterday I was working on a manuscript related to Plato’s view of time and eternity in Timaeus. My daughter was playing Christmas music in the other room just as I was translating the odd section on numbers that puzzled even A.E. Taylor. Mary Kate hit a chord . . . just as I was puzzling aloud about the text. As I spoke the following letter appeared on my computer screen. I don’t know what to think of it . . . and pass it on to you. I have not been able to duplicate the convergence that produced it . . . and so I assume that the proximate time and relationship to the winter solstice may have helped produce the result. We shall see next year.

(more at Middlebrow…)

West ends up taking young artists too seriously, empowering, hip-hop artists instead of educating them in better things. However, a “conservative” retreat from education and listening to the many, the heavy duties of servant-leadership, can amount to the same thing.

A great artist, Mozart, saw what Cornel West does not.

Failure to act ends up empowering the moral nihilism portrayed in Mozart’s Don Giovanni. The role of a gentleman in society is central to the opera. Many of the Don’s victims cannot understand how a “nobleman” could be ignoble. Surely they are safe with such a great man! Both the noble ladies and the peasant women cannot understand how the Don could betray the Christian social order. Such a man either cannot really exist, surely the tales about him are rumors, or he must somehow be a great man in order to defy convention. Just as Milton’s Satan can appear to be a hero by the very boldness of his rebellion, so Giovanni is given undeserved admiration for the vastness of his crimes.

(more at Middlebrow…)

Colleges and universities have a civic duty to produce such leaders . . . it is the right thing to do and if they don’t do it then their very right to exist may be threatened by the enemies of freedom.

Hugh Hewitt engaged in a conversation today with Larry Arn of the fine Hillsdale College and later with me. We discussed Torrey Honors at Biola University and the nature of American education.

Hugh is a brilliant communicator and engages daily in a defense of Western values. What school is most likely to produce friends and allies for Hugh Hewitt? Do we want to send our brightest and best to college to be mentored by men and women who share our values or pay to have our future leaders propagandized by those who reject any duty to civic service?

Listeners to his show need to ask this question before writing a check to a college, “Is this school engaged in its civic duty of training up leaders to defend the very values that make the school possible? Or does it attack those values daily?”

Is the school your child attending plainly on the side of Judeo-Christian virtues and the Western tradition of reason and liberty? Ask. Ask if the school hopes to teach virtue to its graduates. If not, and most schools gave up on this long ago in a mess of moral relativism, ask them what their liberal arts curriculum does? It was intended by the men and women who created it to teach character and service. If the college has given up on that, then what is it for?

Programs like Torrey at Biola University and Hillsdale College will teach your kid to think. They might not turn out as we would wish. . . we believe in liberty after all. However, if the college you are choosing has no intention of teaching character or service, then one can be sure of what they will not get.

These schools have the right to stop educating as C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, and Dorothy Sayers were educated. Classically trained graduates of schools like Torrey at Biola University and Hillsdale College would defend that right absolutely, but we have no obligation to support this failure of will and duty by sending our children and our hard earned treasure to schools that no longer do what they were founded to do.

My students have fun at college. . . but they are mostly here to work. They could have fun at home after all without the expensive tuition bill. We are fighting a global war against foes who hate liberty and the Western educational system. It is time to produce another greatest generation that has a serious minded goal of making a difference and defending those values.

If the school is best known for the football team, buy your kid a sweat shirt from that school, a Direct TV subscription to the college football package, and send them to Biola to work.

(more at Middlebrow…)

Cornel West with other modern Christian liberals has a problem.

He does not want to argue for passive non-involvement in politics, since he feels that great social change is needed. Most Americans are Christians and motivated by their Christianity, and as a prophet for change he obviously does not want to disenfranchise Christians. He quickly concedes that the American experience is deeply religious. Christians have always been an overwhelming majority of Americans and Christian ideas permeate American arts, thought, and philosophy. Most American leaders have professed some form of Christianity.

How to negotiate this?

He argues that good Christianity is “prophetic” and bad Christianity is “Constantinian.” Good Christians speak truth to power and bad Christians are co-opted by it.

(more at Middlebrow…)

Cornel West with other modern Christian liberals has a problem.

He does not want to argue for passive non-involvement in politics, since he feels that great social change is needed. Most Americans are Christians and motivated by their Christianity, and as a prophet for change he obviously does not want to disenfranchise Christians. He quickly concedes that the American experience is deeply religious. Christians have always been an overwhelming majority of Americans and Christian ideas permeate American arts, thought, and philosophy. Most American leaders have professed some form of Christianity.

How to negotiate this?

He argues that good Christianity is “prophetic” and bad Christianity is “Constantinian.” Good Christians speak truth to power and bad Christians are co-opted by it.

(more at Middlebrow…)

Cornel West Tries to Attack Constantine . . .

III. Possible Definitions of Constantinianism

West uses the term “Constantinianism” throughout his book Democracy Matters. Over the course of the text, no formal definition is given, but West does give clues to what he means through his use of the term. For West “. . . the most profound, seminal teachings of Christianity, those being that we should live with humility, love our neighbors, and do unto others as we have them do unto us” are under assault from the “Constantinian religious right.” Oddly West has not taken into account the message of monotheism in the Old Testament (surely the “Hear O Israel” is seminal and the intolerance of other religions central) or the greatest commandment to love God with the totality of self.

West (and other critics) is right that Christians with access to power run the risk of worshipping that power, but that is uncontroversial. The fact that a thing can be abused is not sufficient reason to avoid since such goods as sexuality contain similar temptations to abuse. Both Dante and Augustine attacked the powers of the day, including Christians, while advocating the possibility of Christian emperors. It is not attack on an idea to point out the failures that have overcome some adherents. West must provide an alternative, but this he fails to do.

(more at Middlebrow…)

What about Constantine? Why is this Roman Emperor dragged into modern debate by writers like Cornel West?

Constantine was the Emperor who ended the official Roman persecution of the Church and favored Christianity in his public acts. While he did not make Christianity the state religion, he sponsored many Churches and encouraged others (such as his mother Helen) to build and endow many Christian institutions. Christianity had been growing for centuries and acquiring wealth, philosophical skill, and power. Sometimes this power was used well and sometimes badly, but Constantine marked the official acknowledgement by the Empire that Christianity had triumphed over persecution. Oddly, modern Christians such as West view this triumph in wholly negative terms.

(more at Middlebrow…)

Christendom is widely abandoned and ridiculed. Despite helping create the modern university, parliamentary forms of government, international law, world class arts and science, the vices of Christendom are more widely know than her virtues. Yet Christendom is a good model for Christian flourishing, the religious right in America (however flawed) is essentially a positive development, and attacks on it are flawed. Secularism in Western Europe and the United States has proven unable to sustain itself. It is not fecund in any way.

In a pluralistic society, the Christian family, culture of life, and evangelism will bring a gradual growth in influence for traditional Christians. While Christendom will never be identical to any state in this age, any state can associate with it.

(more at Middlebrow…)