Born Again Christian; Biblical Fundamentalist, Received Text-KJV, Dispensational
Wednesday, March 31, 2021
Is Milo Yiannopoulos just trolling or truly living a chaste life?
This month Milo Yiannopoulos showed up out of nowhere on LifeSiteNews exclaiming he was no longer practicing homosexual behavior. He is using the ex-gay label and says he is living a Chaste life. However, I am not sure if he is being serious or just his huge troll self.
Blaire White made a video in which doubt was cast on the very notion of someone coming to be heterosexual from a homosexual history. This denegrades everyone whom has found change in their life even if that change is merely not acting on their attraction. Not too mention those for whom true reorientation has occurred.
I am an example of a man whom lived as a practicing homosexual and yet ended up coming out of homosexuality during the course of my life. I am one of many men whom lived as a gay man due to sexual assault; when I was 18. Sexual disorientation or imprints if you will often occurs from guys reacting biologically to their rape or molestation making them and/or their mind thinking it must have meant they were at some level homosexuals or bisexuals in denial born "that way."
Even though people think sexual abuse can never be a pathway to being LGBTQ. The truth is a meta analyses by a completely affirmative Harvard Epidemiologist named Andrea L. Robert's found a higher instance of abuse in the LGBTQ population prior to identifying as such. The most found type of abuse was sexual assaults.
I am not saying every LGBTQ person is that way due to abuse, but, simply to argue no possible way it is a pathway is not accurate. However, the joking away the idea of change in sexual identity/orientation over time is to make a joke of the life of all those whom have experienced true changes. Either in level of desire or direction of desire. Trauma work has found true changes in those for whom being a victim of abuse was the catalyst for their same sex eroticism.
I hope Milo is not messing around because it paints all former homosexuals as liars that have simply lied to themselves. I recommend The New Atlantis meta analysis of all the available data on sexual orientation and gender identity for more information on the fluidity and flexibility of sexual attractions. If that publication is not objective enough for you I point you to LGBTQ affirming, lesbian left wing feminist, and psychologist Lisa Diamond whom found the same changes in identity over time. As well as affirming that there is a link between SSA (same-sex attraction) and having been abused in at least a certain cohort of LGB people.
The idea that simply because you are experiencing certain sexual desires it is an innate and immutable characteristic of yours is not scientific. Nor would the born this way hypothesis mean acting on said desires is the best option for you.
Our World Belongs to God: A Contemporary Testimony
As followers of Jesus Christ,
living in this world—
which some seek to control,
and others view with despair—
we declare with joy and trust:
Our world belongs to God!
From the beginning,
through all the crises of our times,
until the kingdom fully comes,
God keeps covenant forever:
Our world belongs to God!
God is King:
Let the earth be glad!
Christ is victor:
his rule has begun!
The Spirit is at work:
creation is renewed!
Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!
Still, despair and rebellious pride fill the earth:
some, crushed by failure
or broken by pain,
give up on life and hope and God;
others, shaken,
but still hoping for human triumph,
work feverishly to realize their dreams.
As believers in God,
we also struggle with the spirits of this age,
resisting them in the power of the Spirit,
testing them by God’s sure Word.
Our world, fallen into sin,
has lost its first goodness,
but God has not abandoned the work of his hands:
our Maker preserves this world,
sending seasons, sun, and rain,
upholding all creatures,
renewing the earth,
promising a Savior,
guiding all things to their purpose.
God holds this world
with fierce love.
Keeping his promise,
he sends Jesus into the world,
pours out the Holy Spirit,
and announces the good news:
sinners who repent and believe in Jesus
live anew as members of the family of God—
the first-fruits of a new creation.
We rejoice in the goodness of God,
renounce the works of darkness,
and dedicate ourselves to holy living.
As covenant partners,
set free for joyful obedience,
we offer our hearts and lives
to do God’s work in the world.
With tempered impatience,
eager to see injustice ended,
we expect the Day of the Lord.
We are confident
that the light
which shines in the present darkness
will fill the earth
when Christ appears.
Come, Lord Jesus.
Our world belongs to you.
From Our World Belongs to God: A Contemporary Testimony, © 2008, Christian Reformed Church in North America, Grand Rapids MI. www.crcna.org.
Which social conservative views do I have?
In a previous article I explained I was a Pro-life and Pro-Family Conservative. This might have come across as I was somehow attacking abortion and gay marriage in general. However, this would be incorrect and a rush to judge by those that took it that way. In truth I am a Cultural/Social conservative in general. Yet, as a previous Libertarian where have I changed my mind socially outside those issues?
Social conservatism is a “commitment” to making your life, and those people around you, much better. To do this, social conservatives often attempt to influence legislation pertaining to everyday life. In fact, the truth is the term can be seen as far back as the election of Abraham Lincoln whom ran his anti slavery ticket as being socially conservative getting back to the Innaliable rights of the Founding documents.
I stopped being a cultural Libertarian when I realized I could not consistently move from lassiez faire to small, but, smart government while being culturally free for all. This is because any intervention into the market somehow will be restricting choices; self autonomous self governing on all issues leads to anarchy and a chaotic untenable society. Which choices leads to social chaos and broken cultures/communities and which lead to hemming in the sin nature/human nature.
I will put the topic and then my current views on said subject. Using the list in this article as an outline.
Emphasis on Religion
For the most part, social conservatives are rooted in Judeo-Christian tradition. Whilst there is a growing subsect of atheist conservatives, the vast majority are still quite religious as I am. I mean true religion as described by our Saviour in the Word of God and not works based or legalism based False Religions.
Many social conservatives have many of their other beliefs rooted in religion, usually Christianity (Protestantism, but occasionally other sects like Catholicism).
For the most part, this is to do with morals. Religion, through its various sacred texts sets the benchmark for what is morally and ethically correct for humanity. Without them, who knows what could happen…
Others also believe in this for the sense of community religion often brings. You could have one of the richest men in the world, and one of the poorest, and they’d still be able to come together due to their faith!
Anti-Abortion
For the most part, many social conservatives, including many women, have strong views on abortion. It is akin to murder while within the Mother's womb and a major victimization of one of the Weakest members of our society.
Almost all social conservatives are primarily worried about the potential to abuse abortion. If laws are too lax, people may use it too much.
And that’s the bit that people often forget. Most social conservatives understand that if both the child and the mother will die, an abortion should be carried out. After all, two deaths are worse than one… even if that is a bit cynical.
Regardless of their reasons, they vehemently oppose any lifting of conservative abortion laws. When a new abortion-related law is passed or is being debated, they are often the ones marching that it should not be passed. I fully support treating abortion as a form of fetuscide under the law of the land. What the legal outcome is, is a constant debate amongst pro-lifers.
Gun Rights
Social conservatives are strong believers in the Second Amendment in the US. For them, they believe that the government shouldn’t intervene in day-to-day life, unless you are breaking the law in some way. (I support the right to self defense with a gun in all Countries not just the US.)
As such, many of them are firm believers that as the Constitution says you can bear arms, you can do so as you please. As long as you aren’t using them illegally of course.
Depending on the person, they may have stronger or weaker opinions on this. For some, it is merely that the Constitution says you can bear arms, so it is your right to do so if you please.
On the other end of the spectrum, some believe that it is your absolute right to bear arms. Even if that includes three rocket launchers, six Gatling guns, twenty-five assault rifles, eight shotguns and ten pistols.
Naturally, that is a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the idea. I fall into the first category and consider the second one to lack any idea of social cohesion or safe communities.
For some, this also extends to things like universal background checks. Some believe that you should have one, only to prevent dangerous criminals from obtaining one, whilst others believe they violate the Second Amendment.
Many others extend this to hunting as well. Many of them believe that it is not the government’s place to tell them whether they can or can’t hunt animals. Instead, it should be up to the land owner, or the hunter themselves. I follow the idea of the land owner unless there is an overriding consideration such that it is not possible to let the animal be killed.
Anti-Drugs
For many social liberals, and some conservatives, drug use shouldn’t be a crime. Instead, it is ONLY a public health concern and is a cry for help from users, or is a way to vent out stress, rather than harming people or property.
However, social conservatives would vehemently disagree with that. In its place, some would say that it is a sign of moral failing. I would talk about the damage that drug addiction can do. Whilst many users may take drugs in order to relax, often due to high stress work environments, and in order to not physically hurt people, they hurt them in another way.
In the place of physical violence, drug addicts may in turn damage expensive personal belongings whilst they’re high. By the same token, they may accidentally hurt the ones they care about most.
The largest reason social conservatives oppose drugs is the increase in crime that accompanies a drug addiction. Addicts will do anything for their next fix, and when they don’t have the financial resources to fund it, they often turn to crime.
During the 1980’s, when social conservatism was at its height, these worries led to the sale and possession of drugs becoming illegal. This inadvertently led to the War on Drugs which is still going on to this day (sort of).
I only support the idea of a Health based outcome for drug offenses if it is done while keeping the drugs themselves illegal. I am against legalization or decriminalization of drug offenses. However, I would be willing to compromise with having the outcome for offenses where there is no victims be enforced time in rehabilitation and recovery while still being held in a jail or prison between coming/going to recovery.
Or better yet place recovery programs into the prison systems. Once someone is safe for themselves and their communities under this compromise they would be let out of jail. However, if any crime other than recreational drug use is involved they should have swift justice and locked away from society and long as is deemed necessary even up to life depending on what they did to others.
Opposition to Gambling
For many of the same reasons as drugs, social conservatives are overwhelmingly against gambling as well.
Many social conservatives are against gambling because many of them have seen, or can see, the damage a gambling addiction can do. It’s not the physical act they have an issue with, but the addiction that often comes with it.
And it’s this addiction that they are opposed to. This addiction can destroy families, whether physically, emotionally and/or financially.
Several social conservatives have seen firsthand what a gambling addiction can do to good people- it can ruin their entire life! Often, they become distant and refuse to go to work, all in order to feed their addiction.
Many social conservatives have seen that government attempts to regulate the industry are always flawed somehow. This sees gambling addicts continue to feed their addiction.
They have also found government attempts to “help” gambling addicts to be as ineffective as their regulations. Often, after being “helped” many of these addicts relapse.
So, the best way to prevent them from getting addicted is for them never to start in the first place!
TRADITIONAL/Biblical sexuality and Marriage
I am adding in an additional section on issues not undertaken by the article I was originally outlining this post with.
I affirm the Biblical view of sexual immorality which means I oppose any sexual relations outside of marriage as defined by God in Holy Scriptures. This section covers not only same sex unions, but, all fornication without being in the marriage bed.
As mentioned in a previous article I have no desire to overturn the apple cart of legalized same sex unions. However, I do not in anyway endorse or condone same sex unions as marriages within the context of marriages being lay out in Jesus own words as a Male and Female made one flesh. Nor could I attend any of the number of same sex practice/marriage churches nor condone their compromises on marriage issues.
This DOES not mean that I am saying you whom are doing so will go to hell or be damned. I am not God and not all his children show outwardly at all times. Even true Christians sin and then need to go to the Lord in repentance. However, it is listed in the things that will stop you from getting to the Kingdom of God if you are not Saved or regenerated by the Holy Spirit yet.
Ultimately, the Sheapard knows his Sheep and they hear his voice. In addition, I do affirm death bed regeneration as a possible way God elects the saved as well. However, once passed I see no scripture that does not teach once to die and then the Judgement/Justice.
This covers other areas such as pornogrophy, sex work and the hook up culture. Being against the idea of no fault divorce. Easy marriage and easy divorce. Anything that is sexually impure for our bodies are not our own they are currently or the possible vessel for the Body of Christ via the Holy Spirit. In addition, we are not our own from our creation in the womb. We are the Potters pot and like all Clay on the wheel of a Poter the Ultumate clay builder and designer God gets to decide what he considers sexually healthy and honoring to the bodies of his creation. What should or could be done via governments for these issues is complex and obviously some of the things in this list would require an authoritarian police state to enforce which I do not condone.
However, since marriage is a governmental issue I wish to change the divorce laws to limit divorce to needing an overriding issues such as cheating or abuse or a partner with an unsustainable issue such as addictions that is refused to be treated to gambling or other legal activities that are damaging to the marriage. I wish to make Marriage mean something again.
I also wish to fix the despairities in how men are so unfairly maligned in divorce courts. I am against the idea of legalizing prostitution, but, support having a system in place to help set workers get out of the trade and into better environments in society. People that seek out prostitution should also not be legalized in their seeking women that are exploited for sexual gratification. They should be given rehabilitation and recovery while in jail if they have a sex addiction.
Speaking of sex addiction is a very real thing and our currently over sexualized world does not help. I oppose the current sexual education curriculum because it sexualizes young people and usually lies about abstinence never working. I would support sexual education that does not degrade abstinence nor pushes LGBTQ issues onto young confusable and brain washable kids.
I also think there needs to be a campaign of information on the dangers of Pornography; especially what can be found online. Also, I support heavy regulation of the industry as long as it is not able to be shut down completely. People under the age of brain maturity should not be allowed on such sites.
The hook up culture is mentally and physically hazardous to people's health. It does no one of either sex any good to be sexually objectified and exploitczed for use of their bodies. That includes self exploitation. Male and Female were created to be Helpers not objectifying each other or oppressing each other. Sex is an intament act which is lost on the hook up culture to a life of pure sexual anarchy and hedonism.
I am also against the sexualization of advertising and other areas of society. It is literally feeding the sin of lust. As Christ said if your eye causes you to stumble pluck it out... if your hand causes you to stumble cut it off. For it is better to go into Heaven one eyed and one handed then to hellfire eternal with all your limbs or eyes. This means kill metaphorically that which causes you to sexually stumble for your own good and eternal glory.
This is as complete of a list I can make at this time. Of course, the rampant foul language including direct blasphemy of Christ himself as a curse word is also troubling. However, I do not support governments becoming Police States in the name of spreading virtue and thus I will leave that for another day.
THE SIX CORE BELIEFS OF CONSERVATISM
This article is written by Russell Kirk and comes from this site. For educational purposes only
“What is conservatism?” Abraham Lincoln inquired rhetorically, as he campaigned for the presidency of the United States. “Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried?” By that test, the candidate told his audience, Abraham Lincoln was a conservative.
Other definitions have been offered. In Ambrose Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary one encounters this:
“Conservative, n. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.” . . .
Although it is no ideology, conservatism may be apprehended reasonably well by attention to what leading writers and politicians, generally called conservative, have said and done. . . . “Conservatism,” to put the matter another way, amounts to the consensus of the leading conservative thinkers and actors over the past two centuries. For our present purpose, however, we may set down below several general principles upon which most eminent conservatives in some degree may be said to have agreed implicitly. The following first principles are best discerned in the theoretical and practical politics of British and American conservatives.
First, conservatives generally believe that there exists a transcendent moral order, to which we ought to try to conform the ways of society. A divine tactic, however dimly descried, is at work in human society. Such convictions may take the form of belief in “natural law” or may assume some other expression; but with few exceptions conservatives recognize the need for enduring moral authority. This conviction contrasts strongly with the liberals’ utilitarian view of the state (most consistently expressed by Bentham’s disciples), and with the radicals’ detestation of theological postulates.
Second, conservatives uphold the principle of social continuity. They prefer the devil they know to the devil they don’t know. Order and justice and freedom, they believe, are the artificial products of a long and painful social experience, the results of centuries of trial and reflection and sacrifice. Thus the body social is a kind of spiritual corporation, comparable to the church; it may even be called a community of souls. Human society is no machine, to be treated mechanically. The continuity, the lifeblood, of a society must not be interrupted. Burke’s reminder of the social necessity for prudent change is in the minds of conservatives. But necessary change, they argue, ought to be gradual and discriminatory, never “unfixing old interests at once.” Revolution slices through the arteries of a culture, a cure that kills.
Third, conservatives believe in what may be called the principle of prescription. “The wisdom of our ancestors” is one of the more important phrases in the writings of Burke; presumably Burke derived it from Richard Hooker. Conservatives sense that modern men and women are dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, able to see farther than their ancestors only because of the great stature of those who have preceded us in time. Therefore conservatives very frequently emphasize the importance of “prescription”—that is, of things established by immemorial usage, so “that the mind of man runneth not to the contrary.” There exist rights of which the chief sanction is their antiquity—including rights in property, often. Similarly, our morals are prescriptive in great part. Conservatives argue that we are unlikely, we moderns, to make any brave new discoveries in morals or politics or taste. It is perilous to weigh every passing issue on the basis of private judgment and private rationality. “The individual is foolish, but the species is wise,” Burke declared. In politics we do well to abide by precedent and precept and even prejudice, for “the great mysterious incorporation of the human race” has acquired habits, customs, and conventions of remote origin which are woven into the fabric of our social being; the innovator, in Santayana’s phrase, never knows how near to the taproot of the tree he is hacking.
Fourth, conservatives are guided by their principle of prudence. Burke agrees with Plato that in the statesman, prudence is chief among virtues. Any public measure ought to be judged by its probable long-run consequences, not merely by temporary advantage or popularity. Liberals and radicals, the conservative holds, are imprudent: for they dash at their objectives without giving much heed to the risk of new abuses worse than the evils they hope to sweep away. Human society being complex, remedies cannot be simple if they are to be effective. The conservative declares that he acts only after sufficient reflection, having weighed the consequences. Sudden and slashing reforms are perilous as sudden and slashing surgery. The march of providence is slow; it is the devil who always hurries.
Fifth, conservatives pay attention to the principle of variety. They feel affection for the proliferating intricacy of long-established social institutions and modes of life, as distinguished from the narrowing uniformity and deadening egalitarianism of radical systems. For the preservation of a healthy diversity in any civilization, there must survive orders and classes, differences in material condition, and many sorts of inequality. The only true forms of equality are equality in the Last Judgment and equality before a just court of law; all other attempts at leveling lead, at best, to social stagnation. Society longs for honest and able leadership; and if natural and institutional differences among people are destroyed, presently some tyrant or host of squalid oligarchs will create new forms of inequality. Similarly, conservatives uphold the institution of private property as productive of human variety: without private property, liberty is reduced and culture is impoverished.
Sixth, conservatives are chastened by their principle of imperfectibility. Human nature suffers irremediably from certain faults, the conservatives know. Man being imperfect, no perfect social order ever can be created. Because of human restlessness, mankind would grow rebellious under any utopian domination, and would break out once more in violent discontent—or else expire of boredom. To aim for utopia is to end in disaster, the conservative says: we are not made for perfect things. All that we reasonably can expect is a tolerably ordered, just, and free society, in which some evils, maladjustments, and suffering continue to lurk. By proper attention to prudent reform, we may preserve and improve this tolerable order. But if the old institutional and moral safeguards of a nation are forgotten, then the anarchic impulses in man break loose: “the ceremony of innocence is drowned.”
Such are six of the major premises of what Walter Bagehot, a century ago, called “reflective conservatism.” To have set down some principal convictions of conservative thinkers, in the fashion above, may be misleading: for conservative thought is not a body of immutable secular dogmas. Our purpose here has been broad description, not fixed definition. If one requires a single sentence—why, let it be said that for the conservative, politics is the art of the possible, not the art of the ideal.
Edmund Burke turned to first principles in politics only with reluctance, believing that “metaphysical” politicians let loose dreadful mischief by attempting to govern nations according to abstract notions. Conservatives have believed, following Burke, that general principles always must be tempered, in any particular circumstances, by what Burke called expedience, or prudence; for particular circumstances vary infinitely, and every nation must observe its own traditions and historical experience—which should take precedence over universal notions drawn up in some quiet study. Yet Burke did not abjure general ideas; he distinguished between “abstraction” (or a priori notions divorced from a nation’s history and necessities) and “principle” (or sound general ideas derived from a knowledge of human nature and of the past). Principles are necessary to a statesman, but they must be applied discreetly and with infinite caution to the workaday world. The preceding six conservative principles, therefore, are to be taken as a rough catalog of the general assumptions of conservatives, and not as a tidy system of doctrines for governing a state.
The Different Social Visions of Liberals and Conservatives
This article comes from The Daily Signal for education purposes and no infringement intended.
The index before you is more than a book of statistics—more even than a diagnosis of America’s economy and culture. It is first and foremost a corrective to a misguided way of thinking about society that too often holds sway in American politics.
>>> Read The Heritage Foundation’s 2015 Index of Culture and Opportunity, which includes this essay.
The nature of America’s political and policy debates can sometimes foster a profound misunderstanding of the nature of American society—and indeed of all human societies. To make challenges easier to understand and address, people divide politics into discrete “issues” and try to take them up individually. There are education debates, welfare debates, and entitlement debates. There are infrastructure bills and immigration bills and defense bills. There is a health care system and a financial system and a transportation system.
Dividing up public affairs in this way presents each “issue” as a distinct set of problems in search of a distinct set of solutions, and political debates proceed as arguments about the nature of the problems and the desirability of various proposed solutions in each case.
The American Dream is in danger
This is a sensible way to think about a lot of the challenges America faces, but it is inadequate when it comes to the most important and most difficult challenges—those that have to do with the underlying health and strength of the nation as a whole and therefore with the prerequisites for human flourishing, for prosperity, for opportunity, and for liberty in this country.
Americans have clearly had the sense in recent years that the country is in some trouble on this front—that too many of our fellow citizens are denied the opportunity to lead flourishing lives, that prosperity and economic mobility are too often out of reach, and that the liberty that gives meaning and substance to the American Dream is in danger.
Thinking about these broadest and deepest of our public problems brings out most powerfully some of the key differences between conservatives and liberals in America. The left and the right think about society in different ways.
For conservatives, a society is ultimately and above all an intergenerational compact—a kind of sacred trust across time—for the protection of fundamental natural rights and the advancement of essential human goods. We the living members of American society are graced with a magnificent inheritance and are entrusted to preserve and refine its strengths, to work to mitigate its weaknesses, and to pass it along in even better condition to those who will come after.
Too many of our fellow citizens are denied the opportunity to lead flourishing lives, prosperity and economic mobility are too often out of reach, and the liberty that gives meaning and substance to the American Dream is in danger.
Conservatives understand society as an organic outgrowth—a kind of sum and substance—of a set of social arrangements that begin in loving family attachments, spread outward into personal commitments and relationships in civil society and local communities, reach further outward toward broader state and regional affinities, and conclude in a national identity that among its foremost attributes is dedicated to the principle of the equality of the entire human race.
Society is thus like a set of concentric rings, beginning with the most concrete and personal of human connections and concluding with the most abstract and philosophical of human commitments. Each ring, starting from the innermost sanctum of the family and the individuals who compose it, anchors and enables the next and is in turn protected by it and given the room to thrive. The outermost ring of society is guarded and sustained by the national government, which is charged with protecting the space in which the entire society can thrive—the space between the individual and the nation as a whole, the space occupied by society. This means that it must neither invade that space nor allow it to collapse.
How liberals understand the nature of society
Liberals proceed from a rather different general understanding of the nature of society. The left’s social vision tends to consist of individuals and the state so that, essentially, all common action is ultimately government action. On this view, the government’s purpose is to liberate individuals from material want and moral sway. As former Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass.. put it at the Democratic National Convention in 2012, “There are things that a civilized society needs that we can only do if we do them together, and [when] we do them together that’s called government.”
This basic difference of social visions helps to explain why conservatives and liberals sometimes understand our society’s deepest problems so differently.
The mediating institutions that fill the space between the individual and the government are often viewed by the left with suspicion. They are seen as instruments of division, prejudice, and selfishness or as power centers lacking in democratic legitimacy.
Liberals have frequently sought to empower the government to undercut the influence of these institutions and put in their place public programs and policies motivated by a single, cohesive understanding of the public interest. Their hope is to level the complex social topography of the space between the individual and the government, breaking up tightly knit clusters of citizens into individuals but then uniting all of those individuals under the national banner—allowing them to be free of family or community norms while building solidarity through the common experience of living as equal citizens of a great nation.
This basic difference of social visions helps to explain why conservatives and liberals sometimes understand our society’s deepest problems so differently. To many liberals, who view society as a compact among individuals for their mutual material betterment, the persistence of entrenched poverty, family breakdown, social dysfunction, and poor mobility in many communities in America looks like a function of a failure to allocate resources properly.
Liberals often blame these phenomena on selfish interests that they believe actively stand in the way of social progress. Their solution is to double down on the basic liberal approach to social policy: to promote public programs that address economic imbalances through redistribution.
To conservatives, who view society as an intergenerational compact for the preservation of the prerequisites for human flourishing to be advanced through the complex, layered architecture of our mediating institutions, the persistence of such daunting social problems suggests a breakdown of these core institutions, especially those that are deepest and closest to the core: the family and civil society.
The importance of intergenerational obligations
Because our most important social institutions are those that are most defined by intergenerational obligations, our most significant social problems are often those that arise at the juncture of the generations: failure of family formation, failure to meet parental obligations, failure to protect the very youngest and the very oldest—the most innocent and vulnerable among our fellow citizens.
Because freedom is ultimately made possible by and exists for the sake of our most direct and personal commitments, the greatest challenges to liberty are challenges to the freedom of action of our institutions of civil society—challenges that are often advanced under the banner of liberating individuals but that actually take the form of restricting dissent and constraining expression and action (as we have seen of late, for instance, in some prominent public battles over religious liberty).
Because liberals tend to ignore the significance of much that happens at the juncture of the generations and much that is done by our mediating institutions, they often find themselves perplexed by the deepest and most enduring social problems we confront—unable to explain the problems’ persistence except by inventing scapegoats to blame and incapable of addressing them except by frantically moving money around in the hope of finding just the right balance of payments to heal our society.
Conservatives, on the other hand, know that explaining the persistence of entrenched, intergenerational poverty—despite half a century of massive public programs to address it—requires taking into account the interconnectedness of the generations and the institutions that make up communities. Conservatives blame neither any malice of the wealthy and powerful nor any failure of will among the poor, but instead the intrinsic inclination of all human beings to fall into self-serving apathy or self-defeating vice in the absence of sound social institutions and norms.
Conservatives understand that material poverty and spiritual disorder exacerbate one another in an ever-intensifying spiral of misery that can be broken only by material support and social order—a blend of aid and love that must be delivered in person. A true social safety net has to involve more than a government check.
That is why liberals seeking to describe the most significant challenges our country now confronts tend to resort to abstract portraits of inequality while conservatives point to the key indicators of social health and human flourishing—that is, to the state of American families and of civil society.
That is what this index does and why it does it. The institutions it tracks are those that fill the space between the individual and the state: families, schools, local religious and civic institutions, and a robust free economy. The trends it follows chart the state of the core prerequisites for a flourishing society. The questions it asks are those that conservatives take to be essential to understanding the state of American life.
And the answers it finds are, in all too many cases, quite distressing. Family breakdown, an enervation of civil society, a dearth of educational and economic opportunities, and a lack of social mobility stand in the way of far too many Americans. Not all of the trends are depressing; even some crucial ones like teen pregnancy and abortion rates are moving in the right direction. But the general picture for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged Americans is one of social and economic disadvantage building upon one another in a cycle of ruin that the nation must not abide.
This diagnosis does not come complete with neat prescriptions. Addressing America’s current social and economic dysfunction will be no easy feat. But in order to try, society needs a clear picture of the challenges it confronts. That means first asking the right questions, an endeavor often thwarted by the politics of “issues” and the radical individualism that is so endemic today.
In that respect, at least, this index is not merely an insightful diagnosis but the beginning of a cure.
Originally published in The Heritage Foundation’s 2015 Index of Culture and Opportunity.
Tuesday, March 30, 2021
My response to, "Is It Right for Christians to Reduce Their Taxes to a Bare Minimum?:
I wanted to write a response to The Banner article, "Is it Right for Christians to Reduce Their Taxes to a Bare Minimum?"
First of all, I want to thank the Author for portraying conservatives as consistent with being within the CRC denomination. They understand that being pro Capitalism and being for unfettered winner takes all laissez-faire is not the same thing.
I want to also add that conservatives do support a Social Safety net for those that would otherwise fall through the cracks. That our approval of the private sector as being the first line of defense or best line of defense for those in need does not mean we do not support government assistance where and when it is needed.
This by the way is the same for most Republicans in the US to the South as well. Despite many thinking said party is against a Safety Net they are not. Only the Radical libertarians in the Freedom caucus are for scrapping things like Social Security or other assistance mechanisms for those in need.
Yes, I do want citizens to have as low of a tax burden as possible. I support the idea of getting the tax burden as low as possible, but, within what is needed to fund any and all proper government functions. Which includes a safety net for those in need. We within the conservative movement can debate how best to administer that or how big it needs to be.
As the Word of God says, "render to Ceaser what is Ceasers and to God what is God's." Taxation is something we are to pay for the funding of a proper government, but, how much is needed can be argued between us.
Free(d) Markets vs Atomistic Individualism (My take on "The Heresy Of Individualism.")
Last night I read an article from The Banner on what was called, "The Heresy of Individualism." I went into it expecting some kind of anti-conservative rant about the evils of small, but, smart government. However, I found not much delving into which side of the political compass you fall in. Instead it was a very well written column talking about radical or extremist individuals that support atomistic individualism that ignores the need for civil society or group belonging.
I wanted to use this article as a starting point of my own post on the atomistic individualism of the anti-biblical Narcists in the Rand Wing of the political right. I used too be an Objectivist and a strong one at that. However, the atomistic selfishness is good individualist extremism wing of the Right lack any understanding of group belonging or the importance of civil society to curb the excesses of self interest within society.
I need to point out that free and virtuous societies have a plethora of civil society groups including mutual aid societies and collective coming together for the sake of group cohesion. The church itself is a collective body of Christ to which all saved individuals belong. Our bodies are not our own, but, the Temple of the Holy Spirit bought with the Blood of Christ.
However, even smaller groups are still groups. The most important being the intact family unit of Mother, Father and Children. You do not or are not supposed to abandon your Family you are to honor and assist when necessary your parents. The only time you have a reason to distance yourself from your family is if they will not accept you being saved or abuse.
When you distance yourself from your Family then you still search for group belonging except this time it comes from your local Church community. It comes from Christian's being together for each other as a Church Family. If said person is a non believer and unsaved that group will often be ones peers and friends.
When you leave your home which itself is a voluntary collective group unit you enter the broader community called society. That does not mean that believers give up the truth of being in the world not of it. Everytime you go outside your family to trade with others in the market you are interacting with one member of a bigger collective group called a specific Company or other entrepreneurs vision of cooperation.
Every Hospital, roads, Firefight departments, police departments and the entire civil society are representing different collective entities that people voluntarily form due to the nature of our creation. It is built into our human nature from God himself to look for group cohesion and to come together into our own communities. Civil society requires collective actions.
Notice I did not say Big Government nationalized actions. Collective belonging exists in us even outside of governmental collective economic systems. More than that pushing an atomistic rugged individualism makes a truly free and virtuous society not possible. If you do not support bigger government over spending you need to be against free institutions that are no more than selfish and greed is good.
Mutual aid societies which are collective pooling of resources for the sharing amongst those that need assistance are collectivist by their very nature. The biggest assistance for those in need should come from the pockets of fellow members of The Body of Christ in the Churches.
Having NGO based regulatory agencies for actors on a free(d) market are collaborative and collectivist in nature. Where deregulation from Government is proper non-government collectivist and when needed non-profit oversight is used to watch over individual actors in society. Society is more than just atomistic individuals or faceless, nameless and needless consumers.
A world with smaller and smarter government as championed by the conservative right still needs lots of different forms of non-governmental oversight by those groups that will watch the markets actors to make sure they do not get out of control. As well in certain particular sectors and areas, yes Government oversight. (Sorry Utopian Randians and Libertarians.)
If something is to be deregulated and privatized it must have non-government oversight from somewhere. We cannot just have a hyper individualized free for all. Underwriters Laboratory's for example watches out to make sure electronics are safe from a non-government third party regulatory body that collectively looks after electrical elements globally. It is both not government and a regulatory agency at the same time.
There has to be external controls on actors even if that is not the government itself, but, a group outsourced in a sense to do the job privatized. Nor does deregulation equal the Libertarian and atomistic individualist dream of no regulations at all. One can cut the red tape and balance the budgets of future governments without removing the Safety Net for those in need that are unable to find mutual aid within the nonprofit non-government sphere of civil society.
We can argue amongst ourselves the best and most effective means of using our taxes where they matter most along with freeing up the economy. Deregulation not complete Laissez-faire. Privatizing what can be done by nonprofit groups or for profit organizations better and keeping what must be done by government under the government. Cutting taxes wherever and whenever possible, but, taking into consideration the need to finance those government institutions required for ordered and virtuous liberty.
Conservatives; even the most budget hawks are not winner takes all defenders of totally unfettered and unregulated markets. Free(d) market Capitalism is not and cannot be Anarchic free for all Anarcho-Capitalism where anything goes and no regulations or rules exist. However, that is exactly what an imbalanced view of individualism vs collective action gives you by default.
As pointed out by the previous article from gotquestions on individualism vs collectivism in the Word of God we are both of individual human worth (the foundation of individuals human value as Gods creation made in his image and likeness) and belong to a myriad of groups that take collective action when nessecary. The Holy Bible does not in anyway support rugged I am only in this for myself individualism mentality.
Well we must always fight against the collective tyrannies of facism, Marxism, Communism, and, yes true and Pure Socalism. However, that does not mean that the answer is Randian Objectivism or Rothbardian Libertarianism. Nor pure Misien Praxology. The answer must include some place for government for we are told in Gods own words he setup governments to be obeyed as a means of dealing with the sin filled post fall world. To keep the peace and protect ordered Liberty for his creation.
The answer to big government, inefficiency and deficits going off the rails is not Laissez-faire unfettered Capitalism. It is smaller, smarter and efficient government that takes on no more burdens than absolutely needed to keep ordered liberty and social cohesion. This includes giving as much economic choice and freedom compatible with maintaining people are kept from undue externalities.
Which requires that the Randianism and Libertarianism come to grasp with the fact that individualism is not some God replacement. That collective solutions are sometimes needed and collecting into groups is not evil it is an intricate part of maintaining an ordered liberty. A truly possible liberty that can be conserved and passed down to future generations.
Caring about future generations and a cohesive society/Nation provides the very civil society and mutual aid NGOs that can be used as a first line of assistance prior to turning to government assistance. As well as provides the only truly possible framework to maintain a free and virtuous society.
Rugged atomistic selfish individualism is an idol a false God that The Right needs to not succumb to. It is anti-biblical and foundationally anti-conservative at its core. It is self autonomous rebellion against the very existence of rules or commandments to love God with all our hearts and our neighbors as ourselves.
I fully support the official CRCNA statement on homosexuality.
There was an article in The Banner back in October about the statement on same sex practicing individuals. It contained a back and forth with differential views on the issue. However, the official statement remains official for CRCNA churches. I stand by the official statement.
"Homosexualism (that is, explicit homosexual practice) is incompatible with obedience to the will of God as revealed in Scripture. The church affirms that it must exercise the same compassion for same-sex oriented persons in their sins as it exercises for all other sinners."
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