tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1237087217187172116.post6949118962714346288..comments2024-03-28T10:44:30.518-06:00Comments on American Creation: Christianity, Liberalism, Lillback, Beck and IroniesBrad Harthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17669677047039491864noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1237087217187172116.post-9596026911250552262010-05-30T20:37:44.629-06:002010-05-30T20:37:44.629-06:00Well, I'm not really talking about Karl Marx h...Well, I'm not really talking about Karl Marx himself here. I'm talking about the constellation of nonsenses we might call Post-Normative Studies.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.springerlink.com/content/el17x5y5my93pq5m/" rel="nofollow">I thought this was a joke</a>, but one cannot be sure.<br /><br />But really, I'm sorry I brought it up. No good can come of it.Tom Van Dykehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07121072404143877596noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1237087217187172116.post-79870508612072487842010-05-30T20:24:40.375-06:002010-05-30T20:24:40.375-06:00Marx can depress even the optimistic person. :)Marx can depress even the optimistic person. :)King of Irelandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11793825722325763371noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1237087217187172116.post-89143708203959867052010-05-30T17:51:54.909-06:002010-05-30T17:51:54.909-06:00I was speaking of the marxist hermeneutic, trying ...I was speaking of the marxist hermeneutic, trying a uncapitalized "m" to describe the method, not the man, Marx. economics, Class struggle, all that. This blog<br /><br />http://usreligion.blogspot.com<br /><br />uses it or at least their authors do in their professional works. It's pretty much how academics go about their business. "Theory"<br /><br />http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/books/review/Goldstein-t.html?pagewanted=all<br /><br />means there is no truth, only women's truth, black truth, class struggle truth. Or something.<br /><br />I'm sorry I brought it all up. I find it too incoherent and frankly depressing to deal with. I read 3 pages of that blog and nobody said a single concrete thing. It was like chewing air.Tom Van Dykehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07121072404143877596noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1237087217187172116.post-47479789625133359332010-05-30T17:08:29.989-06:002010-05-30T17:08:29.989-06:00This comment has been removed by the author.Tom Van Dykehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07121072404143877596noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1237087217187172116.post-70668807692007158422010-05-30T16:55:06.548-06:002010-05-30T16:55:06.548-06:00"I don't mean to poison the well--- but K..."I don't mean to poison the well--- but Karl Marx was a pretty clear analyst of the problems created by the Industrial Revolution circa the late 1800s [CE]. The injustice and debasement of the human person was intolerable by any secular or religious standards."<br /><br />Sorta disgree. He blamed the Middle Class(small business owners) for oppressing the working class. This is the two classes that banded together to overthrow the elite in France. In 1815 the royalty restored order with the Congress of Vienna. In 1848 revolutions start up all over again because of food shortages and up comes Marx dividing the two classes that cause the revolutions when banded together. The true oppressors were the nobility and royalty.<br /><br />He was against private property just the same as the King and Nobles were, (See Magna Carta) that is the common man having any. But that is another era post founding.King of Irelandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11793825722325763371noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1237087217187172116.post-76283051345253007312010-05-30T16:34:57.299-06:002010-05-30T16:34:57.299-06:00Oh, I think it's just easier to attack Beck th...Oh, I think it's just easier to attack Beck than defend bankrupting the country in the name of "social justice," a 20th century invention of doubtful theological provenance.<br /><br />But since I'm a lover, not a fighter, I let this nonsense pass with a note and mild objection.Tom Van Dykehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07121072404143877596noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1237087217187172116.post-64790315315829677932010-05-30T14:32:04.813-06:002010-05-30T14:32:04.813-06:00Beck is a terrible theologian.
Can we get to 10?...Beck is a terrible theologian. <br /><br />Can we get to 10?rhp997https://www.blogger.com/profile/01938686184643072928noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1237087217187172116.post-74464324150270035462010-05-30T11:13:34.263-06:002010-05-30T11:13:34.263-06:00I guess 8 posts in a row attacking Beck, et al., i...I guess 8 posts in a row attacking Beck, et al., isn't enough "balance" for some people.Tom Van Dykehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07121072404143877596noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1237087217187172116.post-12716963325603773752010-05-30T09:37:52.280-06:002010-05-30T09:37:52.280-06:00.
It seems to me that we must guard against gettin....<br />It seems to me that we must guard against getting caught up in discussions framed by persons with an agenda to prove their faith based ideologies are the authority to which we all must appeal.<br />.<br />All this talk about liberal thinking as though it is the enemy of conservatism based on Biblical truths puts a frame around the American Founding that is bogus in the first place. It creates a fracture in reality that sees liberalism as being associated with Satanistic ideologies.<br />.<br />Beck and his allied cronies seem bent of leap frogging what liberalism is all about and they confuse the issue with their discombobulations of Christian doctrines of one color or another.<br />.Phil Johnsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06756814849309388483noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1237087217187172116.post-61148176319461064572010-05-29T21:50:39.232-06:002010-05-29T21:50:39.232-06:00And I think Jon is right---especially regarding Pr...And I think Jon is right---especially regarding Protestant theology [if I understand it correctly] when he writes:<br /><br /><i>The idea that "rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God" or that God sides with the oppressed is no more or less "biblical" than the social justice teachings against which Lillback and Beck rail. And the patriotic sermons used the same method as the social justice sermons of "extracting" words and teachings from the Bible and giving them new meaning. </i><br /><br />All true. But I do agree with you [and meownself] when you previously wrote that liberty and rights as "natural law" and as God-given was a process in Christian thought that had been developing for the 500 years leading up to the Founding. "Social Gospel" or "liberation theology" as we know them as a politics today date only back to the western world's Industrial Revolution and the social upheaval it created.<br /><br />The question is whether Marxist method---history or theology---is valid as a hermeneutic tool in the 21st century.<br /><br />We of course all agree that their conclusions of a totalitarian state, Communism [marxism-leninism-stalinism-Maoism] is no answer, and I really don't mean to poison the well with the Soviet Union or Mao's China. But the hermeneutic itself is used in our modern universities and churches, whether unwittingly or unapologetically.<br /><br />"Social justice" is either a private thing or a political one. <br /><br /><br /><br />The question would be whether that social upheaval speaks to man's permanent or perennial problems or just to its day and age. In other words, speaking to a permanent truth about man, man's "condition," God, and man's relation to fellow man, or whether "social Gospelism" was just a response to a temporary situation and a temporary inequality/tyranny.<br /><br />I don't mean to poison the well--- but Karl Marx was a pretty clear analyst of the problems created by the Industrial Revolution circa the late 1800s [CE]. The injustice and debasement of the human person was intolerable by any secular or religious standards.Tom Van Dykehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07121072404143877596noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1237087217187172116.post-79638197231010901112010-05-29T19:31:07.191-06:002010-05-29T19:31:07.191-06:00"I'm not even getting into that muck. I t..."I'm not even getting into that muck. I think it's perfectly legitimate to support "progressive" candidates in the name of The Beatitudes. Or vote against them based on 2 Thessalonians 3. Whatever. I have no idea what Jesus would have us do, and I think the Founders saw it that way too, that we must use our right reason to fill in the political blanks'<br /><br />I tend to think you are right.King of Irelandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11793825722325763371noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1237087217187172116.post-85129211963161134182010-05-29T13:15:12.499-06:002010-05-29T13:15:12.499-06:00I'm not even getting into that muck. I think ...I'm not even getting into that muck. I think it's perfectly legitimate to support "progressive" candidates in the name of The Beatitudes. Or vote against them based on 2 Thessalonians 3. Whatever. I have no idea what Jesus would have us do, and I think the Founders saw it that way too, that we must use our right reason to fill in the political blanks.Tom Van Dykehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07121072404143877596noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1237087217187172116.post-34433849458658886702010-05-29T12:59:51.910-06:002010-05-29T12:59:51.910-06:00Tom,
It is the same war that liberal and conserva...Tom,<br /><br />It is the same war that liberal and conservative Christians had in the 20's. They both go to extremes and pick out the "ideals" they want to see in society. Just like the North and the South both using the Bible in the Civil War. Both tories and patriots did as well in the Revolution.<br /><br />Look at Welfare. Jesus was very generous with the needy but the Bible says if you do not work you do not eat. Has to be a balance.King of Irelandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11793825722325763371noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1237087217187172116.post-58374656946826307202010-05-29T12:37:42.931-06:002010-05-29T12:37:42.931-06:00No irony atall. Lillback is free to give his theo...No irony atall. Lillback is free to give his theological opinion as an accredited Reformed theology scholar. So are those who disagree with him, if they know what they're talking about.<br /><br />At least there's no more irony than the other side of the partisan divide who charge "theocracy!" yet support "social gospel" politics.<br /><br /><br />CNN did a breathless "expose" of "Theocracy in America"<br /><br />http://article.nationalreview.com/325055/theocracy-in-america/joe-carter<br /><br /><br />But CNN didn't seem to have a problem with this:<br /><br />http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/10/08/obama.faith/<br /><br /><i>Obama said he was pleased that leaders in the evangelical community such as T.D. Jakes and Rick Warren were beginning to discuss social justice issues like AIDS and poverty in ways evangelicals were not doing before.<br /><br />"I think that's a healthy thing, that we're not putting people in boxes, that everybody is out there trying to figure out how do we live right and how do we create a stronger America," Obama said.<br /><br />He finished his brief remarks by saying, "We're going to keep on praising together. I am confident that we can create a Kingdom right here on Earth."</i><br /><br />Me, I don't have a problem with any of it. Goose, gander, First Amendment, come one, come all. But I think your irony meter is wired backwards.Tom Van Dykehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07121072404143877596noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1237087217187172116.post-53246832381060087852010-05-29T12:32:22.488-06:002010-05-29T12:32:22.488-06:00"The idea that "rebellion against tyrant..."The idea that "rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God" or that God sides with the oppressed is no more or less "biblical" than the social justice teachings against which Lillback and Beck rail. And the patriotic sermons used the same method as the social justice sermons of "extracting" words and teachings from the Bible and giving them new meaning."<br /><br />As for the first part I agree. The second part is a stretch. There was no new meaning. The ideas were established in Christian thought for centuries. <br /><br />But to your larger point to get to inalienable rights and politics even mattering in light of the gospel is different than trying to establish justice socially. It comes down to different philosophies of how to bring this about. <br /><br />In other words, Mac Athur does not really want anything to do with either because it is not the gospel. The liberationists and liberals want to impact society and bring heaven to earth but disagree about how. <br /><br />It really comes down to postive and negative rights. But of course the religious right is hypocritical with its stances on gay marriage and other things. Though not aborition because they seek to protect the liberty of the unborn child in my mind.King of Irelandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11793825722325763371noreply@blogger.com