Amen, sister!

Karen Kwiatkowski, again. This time in her own words, from LewRockwell.com, about Christmas, Christianity, and fascism. The entire article is well worth reading.

Christmas is a Christian celebration, but it is truly something that should be celebrated each day, in peace, in forbearance, in humble joy and gratefulness for God’s love, His generosity and His guidance. I’d like to think that we Christians might someday be able to show that Gandhi was wrong about us – that we do indeed follow the Prince of Peace in our daily lives, in our relationships at home and at work, and through our participation in politics. It is impossible for a true Christian to cheer war, to celebrate death, disease, destruction and poverty, to wish ill on others. It is downright devilish for Christians to claim their faith while exalting human governments that seek war on the basis of lies, that sow fear and loathing in the name of empire or government survival, and governments that would steal the very future from their own children in the name of patriotism. All I want for Christmas is a glimpse of real Christianity, in our lives and in our politics... [Emphasis added]

God knows what we need even before we ask Him, so I’ve been taught. That being the case, maybe I should see to it that I love liberty more passionately. I’ll add a grain of pure courage to my morning coffee, and I will try to think more independently, and step away from the party lines. I’ll see if I can live my Christianity in a more honest way. All that would make for a lovely Christmas, and it would be more than enough.

But Santa, if there is room for one more gift, please give me the opportunity to vote Ron Paul for President in 2012. Merry Christmas, America!

One more good reason she should be Vice President (if not President) of the United States!

Too many Christians are hypocrites about war

I have argued this for some time, but Laurence M. Vance argues it effectively at considerable length in LewRockwell.com. The following paragraphs summarize his (and my) position nicely:

I believe the two greatest reasons religious people have gotten things so wrong are American exceptionalism and American militarism.

Many Christians are guilty of nationalistic and political idolatry. They have bought into a variety of American nationalism that has been called the myth of American exceptionalism. This is the idea that the government of the United States is morally and politically superior to all other governments, that American leaders are exempt from the bad characteristics of the leaders of other countries, that the U.S. government should be trusted even as the governments of other countries should be distrusted, that the United States is the indispensable nation responsible for the peace and prosperity of the world, that the motives of the United States are always benevolent and paternalistic, that foreign governments should conform to the policies of the U.S. government, that most other nations are potential enemies that threaten U.S. safety and security, and that the United States is morally justified in imposing sanctions or launching military attacks against any country that refuses to conform to our dictates. These are the tenets of American exceptionalism.

The result of this American exceptionalism is a foreign policy that is aggressive, reckless, belligerent, and meddling. This is why U.S. foreign policy results in discord, strife, hatred, and terrorism toward the United States. We would never tolerate another country engaging in an American-style foreign policy. How many countries are allowed to build military bases and station troops in the United States? It is the height of arrogance to insist that the United States alone has the right to garrison the planet with bases, station troops wherever it wants, intervene in the affairs of other countries, and be the world’s policeman, fireman, social worker, security guard, mediator, and babysitter.

The other reason religious people have gotten things so wrong is American militarism. Americans love the military, and American Christians are no exception. There is an unseemly alliance that exists between certain sectors of Christianity and the military. Even Christians who are otherwise sound in the faith, who treasure the Constitution, who don’t support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and who oppose an aggressive U.S. foreign policy get indignant when you question the institution of the military. 

It doesn’t seem to matter the reason for each war or intrusion into the affairs of another country. It doesn’t seem to matter how long U.S. troops remain after the initial intervention. It doesn’t seem to matter how many foreign civilians are killed or injured. It doesn’t seem to matter how many billions of dollars are spent by the military. It doesn’t even seem to matter what the troops are actually doing – Americans in general, and American Christians in particular, believe in supporting the troops no matter what. Americans are repulsed by the serial killer who, to satisfy the most basest of desires, dismembers his victims; but revere the bomber pilot in the stratosphere who, flying above the clouds, never hears the screams of his victims or sees the flesh torn from their bones. Killing women and children from five feet is viewed as an atrocity, but from five thousand feet it is a heroic act. It is sometimes suspicious when a soldier kills up close, but never when he launches a missile from afar.

Christians of all branches and denominations have a love affair with the military. To question the military in any way – its size, its budget, its efficiency, its bureaucracy, its contractors, its weaponry, its mission, its effectiveness, its foreign interventions – is to question America itself. One can condemn the size of government, but never the size of the military. One can criticize federal spending, but never military spending. One can denounce government bureaucrats, but never military brass. One can depreciate the welfare state, but never the warfare state. One can expose government abuses, but never military abuses. One can label domestic policy as socialistic, but never foreign policy as imperialistic.

Why "soaking the rich" won't work and won't help anything

Some people buy into the notion that there is a point at which wealth becomes objectively immoral -- and at that point such people would have government tax away the excess. Isaac Morehouse at The Libertarian Christian takes the reader through a step-by-step logical analysis to show why such premises are false.

One revealing statistic: The poorest people in the world today are better off than the average American in 1880, who lived to be 39 and made about $4,276. In 2000, there is not a country in the world with a life expectancy below 44. A very poor country like Angola, with a life expectancy of 48 and average inflation-adjusted income of $5,056, is better off than the US just a handful of generations ago.*

One of the few things that Abraham Lincoln got right was this statement, "You cannot make the poor rich by making the rich poor."  This truth has been proven over and over again from the Communist experience. Without people with the incentive and the drive to become rich, you do not have the go-getters that create opportunities for themselves and the rest of us. Destroying that only enforces a dull mediocrity over an entire society.

Here is what Mr. Morehouse has to say about the WWJD question:

We needn’t ask what Jesus would do in the face of great wealth and poverty. We can look at what he did do. He helped the poor and instructed others to do the same, but he never forced anyone to help on threat of fine or imprisonment as our tax and welfare system does. He told one rich man to give his possessions to the poor, but then let the man walk away. Apparently, it was the rich man’s heart, not his possessions, Jesus was after.

Preach on, brother.
* I would, however, urge caution in the use of dollar amounts over time and across nations. The American in 1880 was making U.S. dollars backed by silver, the Angolan today probably is not. On the other hand, $1 in a Third-World country in many instances will buy more necessities than $1 in an advanced nation -- I am assuming that the methodology to assume "inflation-adjusted" is correct. This takes nothing away from the logical analysis that Mr. Morehouse is presenting.

Christianity is not a "tucked in tight" religion

By which Marvin Olasky means that Christianity does not provide neat and easy answers to our questions of faith, unlike Islam. And we should thank God for that. Read his article in townhall.com.

Have a blessed Easter.

The irony is almost too much

A few days ago, Texas Governor Rick Perry called for the people of his state to take this weekend to pray for rain.

Andrew Leonard, writing for Salon.com, finds this quite amusing. After all, we know for a fact that we are in global warming, don’t we?  And Texans in particular are such rubes, if one is to believe this paragraph:

[The proclamation] bring[s] us to an ironic crossroads, particularly insofar as God might be concerned. As befits the national headquarters of the energy industry, Texas has long been a flag bearer for climate skepticism, from the halls of Congress to the pages of public school textbooks. And just across the border in Oklahoma we have Sen. James Inhofe, perhaps the single most dedicated critic of climate science in the entire U. S. Congress. It's almost too classic -- let's ignore all the science that might help prepare us to confront the challenges of the future, and then, when disaster hits, we'll just do a rain dance! It's not like we're, uh, civilized or anything.

So I ask the good citizens of Texas to consider whether, as they bow their heads in prayer, they might not have it all backward. God isn't going to alleviate their misery. On the contrary, God is punishing them for their flagrant disregard of the human impact on his (or her) beauteous creation!

Mr. Leonard presents us with a stupendous display of intellectual arrogance: first, by asserting that “global warming” is a fact, not a theory; secondly, that he has some kind of inside knowledge of the nature of a God that he comes perilously close to making fun of; and thirdly, in thinking that people so unlike him could not possibly have an intellect. He laughs at religion, while he has the same kind of childlike faith in global warming that the Left charges the faithful of having in God – and very much like others on the Left have in evolution which, again, is only a theory, not a fact. **

Yes, I am taking offense – but beyond that, on Good Friday, it is deliciously ironic that he sounds so much like the crowds assembled in front of the Cross who jeered to Jesus, “He trusts in God, let God rescue him” (Matthew 27:43).

A God who has created the universe, given it life, and established it with the physical laws we have discovered through science is far too complex for human understanding – at least  for those humans who are wise enough to understand the limitations of intellect. The faithful speak of God in human terms, because it is the only way most of us have to communicate God’s nature. *

I respect the right of anyone to be an atheist, and certainly, that decision can be made in good conscience; but I have to ask: What makes you so certain? What if you’re wrong, and you finally find yourself face to face with the God you denied? Is it worth the risk? What does your common sense tell you?

Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.

Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.

For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish (Psalm 1).

One more thing. For fifteen years, I was pulled down by depression, and there were times that I would have committed suicide, but for indecision as to how to do it. Only by accepting God’s grace could I recover; and only by continuing to accept His grace can I write this blog and speak boldly in defense of human freedom.  I find this Biblical truth to be literal: “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). Jesus was speaking about his teaching; but experience has shown me that the one who does not seek truth will be enslaved to those who would take advantage of their ignorance.

Make fun of such a power at your peril.

* “Most of us” because Buddhism and some other religions believe in a pure spiritual force which is not a God in the anthropomorphic sense that we envision Him in the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam).

** I define theory as an explanation for scientific observations. It cannot itself be a fact, because further observation may disprove it.

A poet's comment on today's foolishness

One of my favorite hymns, traditionally sung to the Old 124th in the Genevan Psalter. It is based on I Samuel 13:13.

Turn Back, O Man

Turn back, O man
Forswear thy foolish ways
Old now is earth
And none may count her days
Yet thou, her child
Whose head is crowned with flames
Still will not hear
Thine inner God proclaim,
"Turn back, O man
Forswear thy foolish ways."

Earth might be fair
And all men glad and wise
Age after age their tragic empires rise
Built while they dream
And in that dreaming weep
Would man but wake
From out his haunted sleep
Turn back, O man
Forswear thy foolish ways.


Earth shall be fair
And all her people one
Not till that hour
Shall God's whole will be done
Now, even now
Once more from earth to sky
Peels forth in joy
Man's old undaunted cry
Earth shall be fair
And all her people one.*

-- Clifford Bax (1916)

arr. Stephen Schwartz in the soundtrack to Godspell.

* I interpret this as being one in the Spirit, not one nation or of a single mind.

Peace on Earth?

[The angels sang,] "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests." -- Luke 2:14 (NIV)

[Jesus said,] "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword." -- Matthew 10:34

Should we be at war in Iraq and Afghanistan? This issue divides both the Tea Parties and American Christianity.

At Christmas, we tend to quote the angels as singing "Peace on earth, goodwill to men," but what the angels promised was not the absence of war. What they promised was a way for Christ's followers to find inner peace.

On the other hand, Matthew 10:34 has Jesus saying something very uncomfortable -- something that many Christians want to pass over. He is not advocating war. The following verses (Matthew 10:35-42) state that those who choose to follow him run the risk of losing their families and even face violent persecution because of their faith.

Too many Christians, and too many in our movement, are willing to rationalize America's warmaking in Afghanistan and Iraq. They say we must "project our strength" to defend our freedom, when our experience since 2001 tells us the very opposite. The terrorism we experience in this country is a response to our aggression, not the cause of it.

We will not be free until we align our faith and our movement with the idea of a strong national defense within our borders, and a willingness to proclaim what the Bible really said in these passages. Until then, pro-war Christians and liberty activists will be rightly viewed as hypocritical liars.

America is great because she is good. When America ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.
-- Rev. John McDowell, sermon in New York September 3, 1922; quoted by Dwight D. Eisenhower in his final campaign speech November 4, 1952.*

Christians and liberty-minded people, wake up! If good is to prevail, we must act to bring about real peace -- in our hearts, and for our country.

I pray that you will enjoy the blessings of Christmas, and that the truth will set you free.

* This quotation is often misattributed to Alexis de Tocqueville in his book Democracy in America. It appears nowhere in that book.