Fresh from Radio Derb
Posted on 07 January 2012
This is from the latest radio address of Mr John Debyshire, whom I once respected as a stalwart Conservative writer, and whose books I perchased:
The first thing you notice about Rick Santorum is his Christian faith. That’s by his own design: he pushes it right out at you. The first thing he did in his thank-you speech Tuesday night was quote C.S. Lewis, a writer whom American Christians believe to have been a theologian, while Lewis’s own fellow-countryment thought he was a literary critic. My own opinion on that issue is that Lewis missed his calling; he was by nature a writer of verses for the Hallmark Greeting Card Company. Leaving that aside, and leaving aside also the inexplicable fact that very few of Lewis’s American followers seem to want to follow the old boy into the Anglican Church — Santorum for example being a Roman Catholic — there is no doubt that the ex-senator from Pennsylvania puts his faith up front and center.
I have no problem with anyone being a Christian. I used to be one myself.
Suuure! “… and some of my best friends are Negroes. I am not prejudiced against them. It is just that they smell funny.”
I do, however, have mild reservations about politicians who trundle their faith around front of them like a supermarket shopping cart.
“I do have mild reservations against Negroes when they try to act Black. It is uppity. Darkies should know their place.”
For one thing, it’s un-Christian. Jesus of Nazareth, though he sometimes contradicted himself on this, as on many other points, seems on the whole to have favored a modest and private approach to worship. He certainly didn’t approve of ostentation in religious observance.
I love it when Antichristians condescendingly lecture Christians on what Christ said and how to interpret it. It is like Denethor getting advice on wise principles of how to govern Gondor from Sauron the Great, or, to use a less geeky example, Iago lecturing Othello on how to have a happy marriage, or the serpent lecturing Eve on how to be an obedient wife to Adam.
For another thing, ostentatious religiosity doesn’t play well in American politics, even among Christians, even among conservatives. We — we American conservatives — like our presidents to be Christian, but we don’t want to hear about it all the time — or, really, any of the time, other than at moments of national crisis.
Heh. Psychological projection. True it may be of Derbyshire, but not true of any conservatives I know.
The two greatest conservative presidents of the 20th century, Calvin Coolidge and Ronald Reagan, were both Christians, but neither of them beat the electorate over the head with it. Neither, in fact, was a regular church-goer. The most deeply, openly, ostentatiously religious of recent presidents was Jimmy Carter. How’d that work out?And the Jimmy Carter case illustrates a problem with intense religiosity in politics, namely that it’s not a good fit for fiscal, constitutional and geostrategic conservatism. Jimmy Carter made that perfectly plain, but it can be seen too in the case of Mike Huckabee, who was, to repeat myself repeating my 2008 observation, a big-government populist. It can be seen for that matter in George W. Bush, the guy who said that, quote, “When someone is hurting, government has got to move” — possibly justifiable on theological grounds, but utterly antithetical to the conservative spirit of restraint in government.
With Santorum there is also the Catholic factor to be weighed. It is of course possible for a devout Catholic to be a principled conservative — the founder of National Review was an outstanding example. Today’s Catholic hierarchy is, however, overwhelmingly left-wing. Outside the narrow scope of purely doctrinal issues and those issues closely related thereto — abortion and euthanasia, for instance — outside that narrow zone, on all other social and political issues the Church is well out on the political left. On wealth redistribution, on immigration and national sovereignty, on globalization, on welfare, on the death penalty, on Second Amendment rights, the Catholic Church is more liberal than Teddy Kennedy, or Nancy Pelosi, or Joe Biden, to name just three of its congregants. Check out Benedict XVI’s 2009 encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, where he calls for world government.
An individual Catholic might of course interpret scripture and doctrine differently from the hierarchy, but he is leaning into a headwind when he does so. In fact, he is courting excommunication: This is, after all, a church that emphasizes obedience and authority.
Bottom line on this: A President Rick Santorum would likely be another compassionate conservative, squandering the nation’s wealth on extravagant new welfare schemes, leaving the nation’s borders wide open, launching missionary wars on borrowed money to bring light to the heathen. Another George W. Bush: or another Mike Huckabee, if you like.
My comment: Having lost his religion, Derb has lost his mind.
I think the insanity of criticizing conservative candidates on the grounds that Catholics have difficulty being conservative, that CS Lewis was a writer on the level of a greeting card sentimentalist, and that Jesus was not ostentatiously religious (was a good Roman citizen, who dressed and acted so that no one could detect He was Jewish? Or that He was God?) speaks for itself. The man just said in public that JESUS CHRIST was modest about his religious faith, and did not rub anyone’s nose in it.
Atheism is like AIDS: it robs you of the ability to repel invading viruses, philosophical or mental, by crippling the spiritual version of your immune system.
Myself, who has not been following politics closely, had no idea until I read this that Santorum was a Catholic. I was going to vote for him because he was not Mitt Romney.
(No offense to any Romney supporters, but I take him to be a softline semi-conservative candidate along the lines of Bob Dole or John McCain, practically the only candidate in the GOP who, if nominated, could not beat Obama.)
Now I am sure to vote for him because he is not John Derbyshire.
What makes me laugh is to hear that Santorum only did well in Iowa because Iowa is full of them-there redneck Evangelicals. This is doubly laughable: first, because it isn’t — the percentage of Evangelicals in Iowa is slightly below the national average — and second, because being an obviously devout Catholic is even today not the quickest road to an Evangelical’s heart.
Alas, I agree with you about Derbyshire. He has lost his marbles: probably by using them as cockshies to ward off the imaginary Evil Theocracy.
I find them funny: http://fpb.livejournal.com/138154.html
“That noise you hear is all the angels in heaven and all the devils in hell joining in one unison of Homeric laughter.”
Brilliant essay!
“The first thing he did in his thank-you speech Tuesday night was quote C.S. Lewis, a writer whom American Christians believe to have been a theologian, while Lewis’s own fellow-countryment thought he was a literary critic. My own opinion on that issue is that Lewis missed his calling; he was by nature a writer of verses for the Hallmark Greeting Card Company.”
Why not both/and, instead of either/or, Mr. Derbyshire? But for what it’s worth, he was a lay apologist, which anyone is entitled to be, and he never claimed to be a trained theologian.
As for the Hallmark card crack, that is so wide of the mark it’s obvious in its bias. Presumably Mr. Derbyshire has never read any of Lewis’ verse, but it would be breaking entirely new ground if Hallmark were to come out with a range of cards based on it: fascinating ground, but not likely to sell well (except perhaps during Lent and Advent).
I never liked the man’s politics, but when you do literary axe-grinding in such a fashion as to let the naked prejudice and visceral dislike show through, then all is up.
“Check out Benedict XVI’s 2009 encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, where he calls for world government.”
Excuse me while I roll around on the floor for a bit.
Ah, that’s better. Well, it makes a change calling the Pope a Communist from calling this particular Pope a Nazi, I suppose.
Really, Mr. Derbyshire’s complaint is that Christianity is not well-fitted to be the spirit of getting on well in this world, and that serving the God of all Creation may come into conflict with serving the Lord of this world. With that, he and I are in perfect agreement.
“Really, Mr. Derbyshire’s complaint is that Christianity is not well-fitted to be the spirit of getting on well in this world, and that serving the God of all Creation may come into conflict with serving the Lord of this world.”
Well said. Very well put.
Was there some other Caritas in Veritate that I missed?
Oh, you know what those commie Popes are like, bear545. All the way back to that raging Marxist, Leo XIII, with his “Rerum Novarum” about how the working classes have rights like joining unions and the rest of it.
Yeah, sure, he mentions the right to private property, but we all know that’s only a smokescreen
Yeah. Spielberg did a remake of it. Instead of holding up Catholic teaching to the world, this version holds up a walkie-talkie.
I agree with you about this Derbyshire wretch; for him to say that he has no problem with the religious provided that they stay at the back of the bus and don’t openly express their faith is as vomitous and vile to a Satanist as it should be to a Christian.
It may also interest you to know that I’ve been reconsidering my position re: Jesus of Nazareth of late in light of some insightful analysis by a well-known Satanic theorist. This fellow pointed out that as a matter of fact, Jesus exemplified the three pillars of the Left Hand Path in his own life, those being: Autonomy, Power, and Self-Deification.
Now, this claim is rather blasphemous on its face to a dyed-in-the-wool anti-Nazarene such as myself, but upon further reflection I am forced to admit that it is has validity. Certainly an honest Satanist can’t help but admire the hubris of a man who claimed to be the son and messenger of the Almighty, and thereby founded an empire which conquered the classical world and is still going strong after two thousand years. Nor can he fail to respect the courage of one who refused to bow to the seemingly unbreakable power of Rome, the Sadducees and the money-changers of his day.
Having said this, I reserve the right to be harshly critical of Jesus’ disciples whenever they forget his Satanic example and sink to mere spiritual servitude and submission. Look around you: the names have changed but the imperialists and the money-changers are still with us, and as powerful as ever. Why then do you not follow Jesus’ example and fight them? What is Christian about “neo-conservatism” and “Zionism”? Why have modern Christians largely forsaken their prophet and allied themselves with his persecutors?
“It may also interest you to know that I’ve been reconsidering my position re: Jesus of Nazareth of late in light of some insightful analysis by a well-known Satanic theorist. This fellow pointed out that as a matter of fact, Jesus exemplified the three pillars of the Left Hand Path in his own life, those being: Autonomy, Power, and Self-Deification.”
Sean, just this month, I saw prayers answered to heal the sick and to find a home for the homeless, and abundance for the poor. Our magic is practical, it works, and you can live by it. If you seek power, come to us. We have infinite power and more to spare. All you need do to get that power, and the joy, and that glory, is crucify yourself daily. Empty your hands, and the Lord will fill them, aye, and to overflowing. Since the meek shall inherit the Earth it is worse than futile to attempt to seize the Earth by becoming great in the Earth. The only thing the Prince of this World shall do for you is toy with you for a time, perhaps grant you some shallow magic-show for a season, and then betray you.
* * *
To be blunt, I cannot tell if Sean the Damned is having us all on in a big joke, or if he is neurotic, or if he is soberly a Satanist and simply has no ability to tell truth from fantasy. So usually I read his words in a sense of jovial nonchalance.
This, however, is sad. For the first time I pity him. Poor man.
His argument here is that Satanism, the attempt to become equal with God, is exemplified by Jesus, who was God.
In other words, the buck-private, when he says that a Lt. Colonel has no right to give him orders, is just the same as a Commander-in-Chief when he says that a Lt. Colonel has no right to give him orders.
And his exemplar of rebellion against God is the Second Person of the Trinity, who submitted to Baptism at the hands of John (that same John who objected that the Messiah should instead baptize him) despite that it was, theologically speaking, unnecessary; and who submitted to humiliation, a crown of thorns, the mockery of soldiers, the derision of the crowds, the kangaroo-court of Pilate, scourging, and a death so vile that it was reserved only for traitors and rebel slaves, not to mention that among the Jews, to be hanged on a tree was to be cursed of God.
Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, open the eyes of your child Sean, and send your angels to minister to him. Amen.
Amen, amen, Alleluia and amen.
Mr. Wright: Amen!
SMB
I am still baffled that Satanists think they can win. How do they think Satan fell? Did he trip ascending Mount Zaphon? Attemps to become God have all failed: Satan fell, as did a certain ringlord, wintery witch, and dwarf in a flask.
Part of the problem is that a lot of Satanists don’t actually believe in Satan. They just use the name as a Way Cool Symbol of the general spirit of mindless antinomianism and pointless rebellion that they feel inclined to affect.
From what I have read of Anton LaVey, he is one of these. Properly speaking, he should not be called a Satanist but merely one of the world’s biggest poseurs.
I’m not familiar with Satanists, but what you say is true for the so-called pagans I’ve know and whose works I’ve read. They are not actually pagans. They don’t actually believe in any of the spirits/goddesses/etc., they just think they are cool and a nice, “spiritual” way to look at the world. One can argue that the REAL pagans didn’t actually believe any of that stuff either, which I think is likely true. But their outlook on the world was completely different. The main things modern people who call themselves pagan do seem to believe are typical New Age stuff — you can attract good things by refusing to think of bad ones, etc. Very much a “me and the Universe, and I’m pretty in with the universe” type of thing. Very self-directed. E
The real pagans believed, as witness the way they worried that people would offend the gods by not worshipping them, and executed people for impiety for practicing magic. (The biggest witch hunts on record were in the Roman Republic.)
I know a lot of witches — more than I know Christians — and their profile matches what you describe.
Indeed, in the long story of my conversion, the first incident, the first crack in the wall of my atheism, was the thought that Christians were not the most absurd imaginable religious folly. That crack appeared when I was talking to my best friend and college chum Willy the Witch one day, and the topic turned to metaphysics. I asked him if he believed in life after death, and found out that he did not really have a strong opinion one way or the other. (He may have since pondered the question and come to a conclusion, but at the time, he had no answer.) I asked a few other questions about religious topics, as whether the gods punish sin, or how it is best to live. Again, his faith in the pagan gods was curiously blank.
I realized that he was not a pagan, but (as he claimed to be) a Wiccan, a witch, one of the wisecraft. To him, the spiritual world was just another material world, occupied by forces and energies to be manipulated to serve the will of the wizard. He did not say prayers, he cast spells, that is, he did not supplicate the gods, but cajoled or commanded them. If he meditated, this was done as a discipline the way a martial artist might do it.
He explained (if I understood the explanation — perhaps I did not) that the gods were simply masks that the magician applied to the forces of the otherworld, and if addressed by those names, would act in the way the personalities associated with those names would act. Thor represented a different form of the archetype of the storm-god than Zeus, for example a warrior and troll-slayer rather than a king. Again, perhaps what he meant was more subtle than what my atheist brain could absorb, but it sounded like he did not believe his gods were real, but that as useful fictions, the god could be used to trigger real supernal powers into acting in the world, they way a lightning rod can call lighting.
But the idea of a pagan who did not really believe in the pagan gods was staggering to me. Don’t get me wrong–my friend is deadly serious about his religion or his craft, or whatever you want to call it. He has devoted his life to it. Every wall and corner of his house contains some form of bric-a-brac or hanging mask or image or idol to one daimon or diva or another. But his opinion of the nature of their reality, what a philosopher would call his ontology, is radically different, and, to my mind, radically inferior, to the ontology of a Christian.
To him, magic was a technology.
The metaphysics of it did not concern him. His attitude was pragmatic: whatever rites and rituals worked, worked, and no overarching theory was needed to explain why.
I realized that my hated enemies the Christians, for all their faults and hypocrisies and absurdities and enormities, at least had a set of arguable theological, moral, and metaphysical beliefs.
At that time, I thought what the Christians thought was wrong, ludicrously wrong, deadly wrong; but at least they had a ready answer if someone asked them about life after death, or whether fornication was a sin. One may see in Christians the paradox of Saint George, warrior saints following gentle Jesus; but one never sees the paradox of lesbians praying to chaste Diana, the virgin goddess, to bless their marriage rites. (I would never treat Diana with such arrogant disrespect, and I think Diana is a damned fallen angel. I think she is real, or real enough that I do not get to vote on what she stands for.)
Christians think God is not only real, but absolute, the necessary being, the source of reality, like a light that shines into the cosmos and creates it. The pagan thinks the universe is a chaotic mystery, whose origins are obscure and whose ultimate ends are unknown, if indeed it has an end and is not merely an endless return, a cycle of cycles, and within that chaos the gods are thrown together for a time by chance or fate, brighter and higher beings than mortal men, but creatures like him, younger than the world and not makers of it.
It’s Nietzsche, with a religion.
More like, it’s Nietzsche, with a straw-man religion — practised by people so spiritually numb that they cannot see the yawning chasm of difference between their imitation of religion and the real thing.
Glad to see you’re fresh and well after the Christmas, Sean.
As to the Left-Hand Path, it is more that Jesus practiced the way of emptiness, of kenosis; when all is stripped away and the mind rests in emptiness, united with the will of God, in contemplation where imagination and intellect both are stilled and only reality, in the form of perfect charity, is experienced.
It’s not hubris if you really are divine, by the bye.
The Derb has become an embarrassment to NR. We are seeing a continuation of the trend began with Andrew Sullivan and continued with Charles Johnson, where nationalist libertarians discovered that they had something in common with social conservatives on 9/11 and a common foe in the internationalist liberals. Some of them, like the three under consideration, were not content to treat this as an alliance of convenience, but instead chose to join up with the social conservatives (Sullivan and Derbishire even going so far as to join churches) and try to change the social conservatism from the inside. Having discovered that the sources of social conservatism are far deeper than they understood, and that their fifth-column efforts were having little effect, they then turned on those that they had befriended.
Furthermore, I myself prefer not-Romney to Romney as a candidate. I think that we are in a phase much like the end of the Carter administration where liberalism has so overreached been so discredited, that the nation would overwhelmingly elect a real conservative like Ronald Reagan if one were running. And I would very much like to give the nation that chance.
Having said that, Santorum is worse than Romney on every conservative issue other than social issues, and the president really can’t do much about social issues other than appoint honest Supreme Court justices –which Romney can be trusted to do. So if it comes down to Romney vs. Santorum I will have to join with Derbyshire and the other Christian-haters to vote for Romney, putting the good of the country above my desire to be defiant.
FYI, I would put the conservative credentials of Ann Coulter up against anyone. Here is what she says about it: http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2011-12-28.html
I find two faults in Ms. Coulter’s argument. First, I cannot accept her claim that Mr. Romney is ‘right’ on the issue of Obamacare, since he continues to staunchly defend his own Massachusetts health-care law, which served as the template for Obamacare. Second, I do not agree with her that illegal immigration is an issue of comparable importance.
From my point of view, the most important issue of the day is avoiding national bankruptcy, whether it occurs through hyperinflation or through default. Frankly, you folks haven’t got much time left to accomplish that. If I had to pick a second most important issue, it is restoring constitutional government after four years of an administration that flagrantly ignored its constitutional limits on innumerable occasions. Repealing Obamacare, with its massive and unsustainable increase in entitlement spending and its flagrant violation of your Constitution, is a necessary step towards both of those things. Instead of Romney being right on the top two issues of the day, it seems to me that he is a flagbearer for the one program that has done the most to exacerbate your top two problems.
Governor Romney simply insists that he believes it legal for a state government to enact a state sponsored health care mandate but that it is an over reach of the federal government to do the same. I am not certain why people don’t understand this distinction.
There are three crucial differences between Romneycare and Obamacare. First, Romneycare is not unconstitutional. States, unlike the federal government, do have the authority to compel economic activity. Conservatives may think it’s bad policy (and I do), but it’s not illegal like Obamacare clearly is.
Second, Massachusetts was arguably going to get government-controlled medical care one way or another. Romneycare can be seen as a conservative attempt to subvert the plan for socialized medicine into something that the consumer still had some control over. If Obama had been on the verge of passing true socialized medicine in the US, Republicans would be heroes for subverting that plan into something like Obamacare (assuming it weren’t unconstitutional).
Third, Romneycare was backed by funds from the federal government so it got free stuff for the citizens of Massachusetts. Now, as angry as that may make conservatives in general, you have to admit that Romney had been elected to represent the people of Massachusetts, not the people of the United States. It’s not at all clear that it was more ethical for him to take a purist stance and spurn federal money that it was for him to vigorously work for the exclusive benefit of the people who voted for him.
Now, I don’t like Romneycare, but I have a bigger problem with candidates who don’t think they have to enforce immigration law when illegal immigrants are providing cheap labor –which includes most of the other candidates.
“First, Romneycare is not unconstitutional. States, unlike the federal government, do have the authority to compel economic activity. Conservatives may think it’s bad policy (and I do), but it’s not illegal like Obamacare clearly is.”
Hear, hear. A crucial point we Federalists would do well to emphasize. The Federal government is limited to its enumerated powers. The states have the same powers as the crown in England, that is, the general police power.
Now, I don’t like Romneycare, but I have a bigger problem with candidates who don’t think they have to enforce immigration law when illegal immigrants are providing cheap labor –which includes most of the other candidates.
It seems to me that you should be having a bigger problem with candidates whose policies have driven your nation to the verge of fiscal ruin. By mooching off the public teat in Washington for the benefit of his constituents in Boston, Romney has contributed very largely to that.
The United States will survive four more years of illegal immigration. It may not survive four more years of spending money that isn’t there.
“The Derb has become an embarrassment to NR”
No matter what our disagreements on matters theological, I am please we agree on matter Derbyshirical.
on matters Derbyshirical
From Delaware to Oregon, in order categirical?
LOL
The Derb has been an embarassment ever since he published an article a few years ago affecting not to see what was dystopian about A Brave New World.
If I remember that article aright, it was tongue in cheek, a mockery of the liberal mindset who do see nothing dystopian about A BRAVE NEW WORLD. Of course, I could be mis-remembering.
But of course Jesus was pretty quiet about religion! The hallmark (
) of people who are quiet about religion is being a religious teacher who teaches religion to thousands and sends at least 82 men off to teach the whole world, and who regularly gets stones picked up against him for alleged blasphemy, and is ultimately executed for same (despite being found not guilty). Did I mention the bit where people who are quiet about religion often turn up in chief religious centres and upturn tables and other blasphemous items in a righteous anger?
You see, that’s what Santorum’s doing wrong. He needs to go to his local Catholic church and remove all the blasphemous pamphlets or whathaveyou; then we’ll know he’s quiet about religion.
Considering that the other high profile Catholic politicians are ripe for public correction from their bishop, if not excommunication, I would not mind seeing Santorum or any good Catholic going into a Catholic Church with a whip and driving out Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden the next time they advocate abortion, or pass laws promoting the abomination.
Greetings sir. I only found your site yesterday thanks to John Scalzi and I’m hooked.
I almost fell out of my chair when I read Debyshire’s commentary. His characterization, or should I say charicature-ization, of Catholics and conservative Catholics makes me wonder if he actually HAS lost his mind.
I have a number of friends who are liberal and some who profess atheism. Among them, I have never heard views expressed as ridiculous or as easily refuted as Debyshire’s. How does the saying go? “Stay silent and allow people to assume you are fool rather than open your mouth and remove all doubt. Can Debyshire, or anyone, really be that great a fool?
His only redemption is that he doesn’t claim to be a Catholic, merely an former Christian who has since been cured of his delusion. People like Biden and Pelosi have no such excuse. They are just plain insulting when they make pronouncements about Catholic doctrine and it is hard to find any compassion for them.
Mr. Debyshire, on the other hand, sounds like he may have actually suffered some impairment of his cognitive abilities. Somehow he concludes that Jesus kept his “religion” on the down-low?!? Why yes, of course he did. He merely claimed that He was God and was sent as the salvation of all mankind. He only sorta mumbled, under His breath, that it was only through Him that we can be saved. After all, there was no reason to get all-up in people’s faces about His opinions. That’s just rude!
I wonder what He was announcing up there on the Mount, the weekly lottery numbers? Surely, when He said to the crowd, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves.”, He was just trying to screw with their heads. After all, Jesus was a mellow, laid-back, I’m-ok-your’re-ok kind of dude. The real reason all of those thousands were following His goofy ass all over Jordan valley was because they had heard that He and his homies served a mean Tilapia and it was all-you-can-eat.
Sorry but I have to stop now. Both my tongue and cheek are starting to get sore.
More serious is the sad fact that there are so many sincere Christians that don’t find any problems with the views Mr. Debyshire expresses. Atheists are big boys and girls and can look after themselves. With the help of the Holy Spirit, they will either work out their spiritual contradictions or they won’t. I don’t think that God has gifted me with any special ability (or enough intelligence) to save atheists so I don’t try. Conversely, Paul tells us that we are required to look after our fellow Christians and that is tough. Even I am smart enough to recognize the kind of foolishness that Debyshire spouts but, I don’t have the skills to discern or argue the subtle (or even not-so-subtle) heresies that have split Christ’s Church. Most of us don’t. Protestants don’t accept the authority of the Magisterium guided by the Holy Spirit but you just have to look to the Old Testament to realize how quickly we go wrong when left on our own. The Magisterium wasn’t created by accident.
So here is me, praying for my wandering brothers and sisters in Christ (and praying that I’m not one of them). Amen.
I think Derb was trying, in an awkward way, to say that Rick Santorum is a Pharisee, and trying to apply the Christian prohibition against public prayer, public charity, and public fasting to him. Derb does not seem to realize that, despite that he is a conservative, he is on the opposite side of the culture war from us. He is firmly in the camp of the determinist materialists, man-is-an-insane-machine, man-is-too-weak-to-see-we-are-meat-puppets, science-shows-that-thought-including-scientific-thought, grind-granny-into-Soylent-Green type antichristians.
I am willing to make a common cause with anyone, Muslim or Mormon or Agnostic or Atheist, who will oppose the lunatic death cult known as PC or statism or socialism or whatever it calls itself this week. But I would not make a common cause with Mr Derbyshire.
“So here is me, praying for my wandering brothers and sisters in Christ (and praying that I’m not one of them). Amen.”
You are wiser than I am. Prayer works and arguments do not. I was not argued out of my atheism, and I am the most bitterly emotionless and logical man I know. Forgive my impertinence, but I think the Catholic theologian who knows all the correct answers on difficult questions, but who has no love, goes to Hell, and the most outrageous heretic who thinks that Jesus was a space alien and Mary remarried, but who has love, fed the poor, visited the sick, freed the captive, goes to Heaven.
Or that is my reading of those parts of scripture all men who call themselves Christian agree on as authoritative and binding. Saint Peter is not going to deliver a quiz on trinitarianism and Arianism at the pearly gates, or ask anyone to settle the Docetist or Donatist debate. He will ask you if you feed and clothed Christ when he came to your door naked and hungry.
Are we all agreed on that point?
I am not saying the other points are unimportant. I regard heresy as a bad thing, and I think the world history would have been much better off, and Christianity penetrated to much more places in the German and Chinese and Indian nations is the Church had remained in unity with herself -
- but can we all agree on the point that Christ told us to feed the poor and love our foes, not to form a debating society?
I think that we are very much in agreement on all of your points.
The word “heresy” is so heavily loaded. I used it because it came up in some earlier postings and I probably should have chosen a different word. I’m certain that I’ve never used it to someone’s face. I try to follow and understand the Catechism as best I can. If someone asks me why I believe what I do, I try to give them the best answer I can without insulting their beliefs or non-beliefs.
To my mind, debates over belief, doctrine, scripture, etc. are only to be engaged in if they are firstly and lastly based on Love (philia and agape). To do otherwise just causes pain to no good end. Unlike you, I am not a skilled debater (think Rick Perry or Admiral Stockdale). Nevertheless, I love apologetics and I enjoy debating if someone is willing to climb down to my level.
I suspect that you are exactly right about who is more likely to end up in Heaven and Hell. Sadly, that would mean that by the virtues that you listed, I’m probably destined for the latter. In that, I envy our Evangelical Protestant brethren in their certainty about their salvation.
“but can we all agree on the point that Christ told us to feed the poor and love our foes, not to form a debating society?”
True enough. I would go further and say that the various Christian efforts to prove Christianity or prove the existence of God by logic or science (aka, natural philosophy) were counterproductive. They justified the opinion that the decision whether to believe in God is an intellectual decision –one that you choose based on the evidence. But believing in God is not an intellectual decision, it is a moral decision. It is based, not on worldly argument, but on your response to what God does in your heart.
My sentences seem to be getting longer and more baroque as I get older. I used to be better at writing arguments with short, concise sentences. Am I going senile or just getting lazy?
C. S. Lewis observed that he never knew anyone who embraced Christianity as an adult without being influenced by arguments for it.
It may be he faced some selection bias. Nevertheless, since the missionary effort should try to be all things to all men in hopes of saving at least some of them, we can not rule about the arguments, since some people are won by them.
Now THAT is a nice image.
It never ceases to amaze me how little non-believers think about their demand that we practice our faith quietly and in no way proclaim it- that we must treat it like an almost embarrassing hobby.
This is my “private belief”-
The ground of existence, the creator of this universe and all other possible universes,without whom nothing is made, God Almighty, Glory of Glories, Sovereign of Sovereigns- came into our existence as a human being- born a helpless baby in poverty, died an unspeakably violent death (to save us from ourselves out of an unspeakable love) as the hands that flung stars into galaxies were nailed into a piece of wood,who rose from the dead on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, who will come again in Glory to judge the living and the dead, whose flesh I must eat and whose blood I must drink every Sunday for my own salvation.
Oh, and I must constantly affirm this less I fall into apostasy, one of the biggest dangers being one of simple disinterest – always aware that to lose faith, to lose Him, is to lose everything.
When a non-believer suggests that we believers “tone it down a notch”, not “push it” (i.e not mention it to anyone or anything outside the home or Church) or perhaps the most astonishing “don’t take it too seriously” I really feel as if the speaker must be from some kind of fantastical foreign dimension, an alien creature that has no real idea about what human creatures are like.
Excellent point. Just because I believe in a Sovereign Lord who’s will maintains the existence and motion of every sub-atomic particle in the universe, can’t I just lay that aside when it comes to the really important issues, especially political ones? Seriously, it’s cool that I’ve surrendered my very existence and will to the creator of everything whose indescribable Love for His creation (made from dirt no less) caused Him to become one of us, but shouldn’t I try to keep that from dictating what I do every day. Surely I should vote for a President who is going to keep that sort of stuff separate from his or her really important decisions.
Alien creatures indeed. Well, to be fair, the Bible does teach us that we were not made for this world.
They will graciously permit us to act in accordance with our beliefs in all situations where it makes no difference to them, and all they ask in return is that we conform to their beliefs in all matters where they would feel the slightest of differences — and we have to figure out where those are. Even asking them would be an intrusion.
Dear Mr. Wright:
Atheists like Derbyshire puzzles me. Christianity, esp. the Catholic Church, seems to make them go crazy. Apparently, we want to allegedly impose a Nehemiah Scudder style theocracy and burn the atheists at the stake. When, in fact, Christianiy was a chief source of the idea the state should be LIMITED in its power. The rendering unto God and Caesar text in Matthew 22 had the effect of DE DIVINIZING the state. Caesar would have to be content to be merely Caesar, and not a God as well.
I also see a contradiction in the anti Christian nonsense Derbyshire says on the radio and what he writes for PRINTING in NATIONAL REVIEW. His essays are so much better than what I’ve seen quoted of his radio addresses that it makes me wonder which should be taken more seriously. That is, Derbyshire’s written essays are pleasant and sensible.
Sincerely, Sean M. Brooks
Derbyshire’s written essays are edited before publication. Maybe that’s all the difference it takes.
Dear Mr. Simon:
True. And Derbyshire himself could have done the re writing or editing of his printed essays. Or, maybe he simply hasn’t thought it necessary to write about his atheism. Probably because it would irritate many readers of NATIONAL REVIEW.
Sincerely, Sean M. Brooks
This guy used to be a Christian? I believe, (and surely I am not saying anything you fine people don’t already know, just checking my facts) when he says that Jesus supported a private and modest approach to worship, he is quite misinterpreting the Sermon on the Mount, specifically Matthew 6:1 – 18. I take those to mean that you do your almsgiving, for instance, for the sight of the Lord and the act itself, not for the sight of other men (whatever the reward may be for it), that men that do so, have their reward being seen of other men. God will know if you prey in a closet, while the hypocrites would see no purpose in such an activity, because they do so for the sight of other men, that being the reward they seek.
It is not an argument for privacy or modesty (although I guess that last would go without saying) but of authenticity in almsgiving, worship, fasting and the like.
That is the correct interpretation, right? I mean its not rocket science, what else could it mean? I think the contradiction D sees is in Matthew 5: 16. I would venture to guess the answer would be don’t try to hide it, but don’t make your goal promotion among other men.
He got one thing right, Calvin Coolidge was the greatest conservative president of the 20th century.
I am voting for Romney (although, as an Objectivist, ALL the choices make me want to drop acid and tune out for the next 4 and a half years) simply because he is middle of the road enough, and rich enough to get in. The Mormonism may be a big problem as I think a lot of the consevative base will bulk at it. But there is no way a Santorum will get in – no freaking way. The left will chew the living hell out of him. Obama is not nearly weak enough. And luckily Gingrich will be long gone by the time the election comes – what a creep anyway.
But then this election is easy for me – get that %&^$&^%*&&%%&&(*%%^(^%*(&&%^)&%^(^!!!!!!!!!!!! OUT OF OFFICE!!!!!!
Your reasoning on the matter of the Sermon on the Mount appears to me to be eminently correct, and indeed (though you will take it as no compliment) orthodox. Which goes to show that you are an honest non-Christian and a reasoning man.
Mr. Derbyshire, by his utterances on religion, shows himself to be the sort of merely wilful anti-Christian who cannot even be bothered to understand the thing he is opposing. I have met a good few of these in my time. Some of them left the Church because they were rebelling against their parents, and some because they were conforming with their friends; but most of them were nearly as ignorant of Christian doctrine when they left as any remote tribesman who has never heard of Christ.
Such people know very little about Christianity, and most of what they think they know is wrong. But above all the subject bores them: they do not want to know any more about it. They leave the Church, in the end, not for rational reasons but out of pure distaste, and often out of intellectual laziness; though they often make up pseudo-intellectual excuses to cover it from themselves. (The usual dodge, at present, is to pretend that there is no intellectual content to Christianity at all, and that one can only be an intellectual by cleansing one’s brain fastidiously of every Christian idea. Thus the vice of ignorance is converted into the virtue of purity.) They apostatize because they refuse to be catechized.
Roughly true, but I think it’s a bit simpler than that. Jesus was criticizing people for using their acts of worship to gain social benefits, just as today’s rich people give big gifts to charity and send an announcement to their local TV stations to make sure everyone knows about it. Jesus was saying that if the benefit that you want from giving alms or praying or fasting is the good opinion of your fellow man, then that’s the benefit you get. Don’t expect anything else.
By contrast, if you do religious things openly for the benefit of others, that is also good. If you speak out to say that God is against the murder of unborn infants, then you are not doing that for social benefits (obviously, since the social negatives are a lot larger than the benefits), you are doing it to save unborn infants.
It is very common for non-Christians to fail to understand Christianity because they fail to understand that Christianity is all about what is in the heart, while non-Christians tend to be consumed with what is in the world.
I was actually going to use Bill Gates as an example. I cringe everytime they make a big hoopla about one of his “penances”. I clearly get the impression he is a man apolopizing for his wealth and seeking forgiveness from public opinion. Like that means anything at all.
Well, I should also speak in the defense of Bill Gates and other rich people who promote their own charity work. There are a lot of people in this country who hate them just because they are rich and who want the government to hurt them and take their money away. To some extent, charity publicity can be seen as a self defense mechanism. I would think that this still counts as a “that’s the only reward you get” motivation, but it’s not as unseemly when seen in that light.
I agree with you on this.
Still, I have a higher respect for the late Steve Jobs. He came in for criticism from the very people who criticize Gates for being rich, because he did not start a charitable foundation with his name on it. It was pointed out in one article that he was the only really big-league Silicon Valley billionaire without a hospital wing or major medical facility named after him. It was pointed out in answer that he had donated $150 million to a San Francisco hospital for capital improvements, without asking them to put his name on anything at all; and had not called attention to the fact. He was avowedly not a Christian during the public period of his life, but that one act, at any rate, was worthy of a saint.
Late in life, as I learnt from his recent biography, Mr. Jobs admitted that he was ‘fifty-fifty’ on the existence of God, and he seems to have rather admired the religious idea. I hope that before he died he found enough of the truth to lead him home; and may God have mercy on him and rest his soul.
Man, was I crushed when he died. I would suggest to anyone that wanted to criticize a man like Jobs for not starting his own charity to calculate what benefits they have accrued from the simple fact that Jobs saw a use for a mouse and GUI based OS. How about getting music on the fly, a movie, tv shows? The total transformation of what a phone is. How many children have been entertained and found joy in a Pixar cartoon – how many children in a cancer ward found a moment to smile and laugh?
You sit and calculate such things and it just makes me sick (and violently angry) that they pour hate at such a person AND from the very devices that he made possible – hold it – there’s a book that deals with this…
And this is from people that I am pretty positive rush by the christmas Salvation Army pot in annoyance every year!
And this is to say nothing about the complete superiority of an Apple product.
Not as unseemly in that light. But it is futile. You cannot placate envy. And I am in no way against a man earning a pile of money through his productive efforts (it would be like you being against alms) but Gates seems, to me, to be a man with a lot of unearned guilt.
I also get highly offended by the modern injuction to “give back”. As if wealth were some static quantity that the men of greed skim from the rest of us and should give some sort of refund. I don’t have anything against the rich giving away large sums of money (and who but the people who could never earn that kind of money would be able to personally use that vast a sum?) but it is not giving back. That is a bonus to the unfortunate who have already benefited from the wealth creator in more ways than they can calculate.
Agree on Calvin Coolidge. Mister, we could use a man like him again.
“This guy used to be a Christian?” Well, he used to be an Anglican. I assume that counts as a Christian.
“Well, he used to be an Anglican. I assume that counts as a Christian.”
Was there ever any doubt? I hear that the denomination in general is a bit of a liberal sell-out, but the few Anglicans I’ve known have certainly not been.
What Derbyshire used to be is C of E. It’s quite possible that his exposure to Christianity began and ended with being baptized in the Established Church of the U.K.
I can’t help thinking of the old BBC sitcom Shelley. The title character’s fiancée wanted a church wedding.
‘I’m C of E,’ she pointed out.
‘But you’re not even Christian!’ said Shelley.
‘If you had to be a Christian to be in the C of E,’ she replied, ‘they could hold their meetings in the same closet with the Flat Earth Society.’
Perhaps a cruel joke on my part, and certainly uncharitable: but I have heard one too many Englishmen boasting of the indifference of their race to religion. At these these I read regard Religion as an unwholesome hobby, like birdwatching, merely one of those many trivial yet pointless formalities a society imposes on itself. Real faith is something the detested French or more detested Spaniards indulge in. My impression is that Derbyshire, and fair number of Church of England types, feel this way. Those who are sincere and strong in faith, to them I apologize, and I expect them to join up again with Rome any day now.
I take it as a very big compliment, actually, thank you. No inference to you at all, but it is something I wish more of my opponents could do!
Dear robertjwizard,
Been wanting to say for a while that I am glad you are back.
The one area where Derb may have a bit of a point is the part about the Pope appearing to endorse a one-world government. For the life of me, I can’t figure out how he could possibly think that would be anything but an incredibly imprudent disaster for the Church (Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, or any other) from a religious standpoint, and it would certainly be a disaster for the human race from a practical political and economic standpoint. And I haven’t seen any interpretations of the Pope’s arguments according to which he didn’t really say that (though I would certainly like that to be the case). I know that it’s not supposed to be binding, but still, jeez. When you’re the Pope, people are gonna listen to you!
Everything else Derb said is unadulterated, ignorant nonsense, just like every other time he’s attempted to talk about religious or philosophical matters for the past 6+ years or so.
It appears as though those living in Virginia will not be able to vote for anyone other than Mitt Romney or Ron Paul.
Or write in candidates.
I have never been as ashamed of my Republic nor my party as I have beholding the suicidal profligacy of the Democrats and the feckless nonsense of the Republicans — who seem to be agreed that the wisest thing to do for the party is to hold up venture capital firms as evil.