2/22/2005
Objects Of Enlightened Interest
NUMBER EIGHTY-SIX
Objects Of Enlightened Interest
The week that Condoleezza Rice came before the Senate for confirmation as Secretary of State was a bad week for the Democrats. In the Weekly Standard Noemie Emery calls them out in four strikes:
1. Barbara Boxer and allies assault Condi Rice, and
2. Ted Kennedy calls Iraq a Vietnam quagmire just before the successful election there, and
3. Evan Bayh joins the Jihad on Rice and probably gives up his chance to be President some day, and
4. John Kerry goes on meet the press and still thinks the only reason he lost was 9/11.
She observes:
…”the Democrats (are) split into two major camps: the wingnuts—Dean, Boxer, and Kennedy, who know what they think, which alas sets them at odds with the rest of the country; and the caucus of cowards—Bayh, Edwards, and Kerry—who believe in nothing so much as their own career prospects, and change their minds on the gravest of war and peace issues on the basis of what serves their ends.”
Watching the Liberal Democrats scrambling to find a way to halt their descent into oblivion, I was reminded of something Lionel Trilling once wrote in an essay titled “Elements That Are Wanting.”
“Some paradox of our nature leads us, when once we have made our fellow men the objects of our enlightened interest, to go on to make them the objects of our pity, then of our wisdom, ultimately of our coercion.”
It was 1940 and he was critiquing the Trotskyites (The anti-Stalinist Left) in the Partisan Review, but he hit the spirit of the modern Democrat Party dead center! What an absolutely marvelous description of the bleeding hearts busily beating within the promoters of the Socialist Nanny State. The Democrats know what is best for all of the 60 million Yahoos who voted for Bush and they cannot understand why we don’t accept their pity and their wisdom—if they could just be in charge, would they ever straighten us out!
Inside every liberal there lurks a social critic busily disapproving of the lifestyle choices of his fellows. Inside that same liberal also lurks a social worker that sees every “inappropriate” lifestyle choice as a problem to be solved by the government at the taxpayer’s expense. The social worker’s solutions vary wildly from the murder of inconvenient babies in the womb to the deliverance of the serial killer on death row from capital punishment.
The paradox of nature Trilling speaks of is original sin, the fall of man. Trilling had one of the finest minds of the 20th century but I don’t think he knew God. It appears the closest he got to God was a strong interest in Sigmund Freud late in life, which wasn’t nearly close enough. He is best known for his book, The Liberal Imagination, published in 1950. He believed literary criticism should be at the center of liberal culture and he was a fine practitioner of the art. The very perceptive quote above serves as a reminder that all truth is God’s truth and God’s truth may be found in the strangest of places.
May God protect us from those politicians who make us “objects of their enlightened interest.”
+++++++
"Separate religion from politics and you are left with Genghis Khan."
Mohammed Iqbal, Poet/Philosopher, India
2/16/2005
When The Son
NUMBER EIGHTY-FIVE
When The Son
Watching the Inaugural proceedings a few weeks ago, I was impressed. It is right to honor the God in whom we trust, and to demonstrate our subjection to the governing authorities He has ordained for our good. Although the world is a dangerous place and full of troubles, this ceremony had two very bright spots: It demonstrated that God has not been totally eliminated from the public life of America and it served as a reminder of another great day that is coming. Just as this Inaugural was a happy occasion for some and a grim occasion for others, so will the great day that is coming be.
WHEN THE SON OF MAN
COMES AS KING
The cathedral bells are silent now,
The candles all burned out,
The choir has sung its final song,
The doubter's voiced his final doubt.
The sun falls softly as before
Through glass of red and gold,
But every room is silent now,
The final story has been told.
Out there somewhere before a Throne
There stands a restless crowd:
The great, the small, the weak, the strong,
The humble and the proud.
Now the King lifts up his arm,
Divides them one by one;
Some to his left, some to his right
Until the task is done.
His sheep receive eternal life,
A kingdom and a crown--
The goats, eternal fire and death,
The fruit of what they've sown.
So as you meet the naked
And the hungry in the way,
Ignore them at your peril,
There comes a reckoning day.
"Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter. Do not say 'behold, we did not know this,’ does not He who keeps watch over your soul know it, and will He not requite man according to his work?"
Proverbs 24.11-12
"When did we see You as a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see you sick, or in prison, and come to You? And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to me.’"
Matthew 25.37-40
JS
6/72
017
When The Son
Watching the Inaugural proceedings a few weeks ago, I was impressed. It is right to honor the God in whom we trust, and to demonstrate our subjection to the governing authorities He has ordained for our good. Although the world is a dangerous place and full of troubles, this ceremony had two very bright spots: It demonstrated that God has not been totally eliminated from the public life of America and it served as a reminder of another great day that is coming. Just as this Inaugural was a happy occasion for some and a grim occasion for others, so will the great day that is coming be.
WHEN THE SON OF MAN
COMES AS KING
The cathedral bells are silent now,
The candles all burned out,
The choir has sung its final song,
The doubter's voiced his final doubt.
The sun falls softly as before
Through glass of red and gold,
But every room is silent now,
The final story has been told.
Out there somewhere before a Throne
There stands a restless crowd:
The great, the small, the weak, the strong,
The humble and the proud.
Now the King lifts up his arm,
Divides them one by one;
Some to his left, some to his right
Until the task is done.
His sheep receive eternal life,
A kingdom and a crown--
The goats, eternal fire and death,
The fruit of what they've sown.
So as you meet the naked
And the hungry in the way,
Ignore them at your peril,
There comes a reckoning day.
"Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter. Do not say 'behold, we did not know this,’ does not He who keeps watch over your soul know it, and will He not requite man according to his work?"
Proverbs 24.11-12
"When did we see You as a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see you sick, or in prison, and come to You? And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to me.’"
Matthew 25.37-40
JS
6/72
017
2/09/2005
Truthtelling
NUMBER EIGHTY-FOUR
Truthtelling
"Speak the truth and shame the devil." Bartlett’s "Familiar Quotations" attributes this old adage to Francois Rabelais in 1552. It next shows up in Shakespeare’s "Henry IV" in 1597-98. In 1791 it appears in Boswell’s "Life of Samuel Johnson" and finally the poet Robert Browning used it in 1868-69.
It rang a bell in those days and it still does. I came across it in Alan Jacobs’ book, "Shaming The Devil—Essays In Truthtelling." Jacobs says, “One does not normally associate the devil with shame; indeed, one could say that shame is precisely what he lacks.”
But Jacobs explains, “When we tell the truth, the proverb affirms, the Father of Lies (as Jesus calls him in John 8.44) is deprived of his children; he may also be the Prince of this world, but his dominion has limits of scope and compulsion. Every time we tell the truth, we put him in his place. And because he hates his place, and wants more than anyone has ever wanted anything to assume the place of God, he is deeply grieved and shamed when our truthfulness shows the world just how un-Almighty he is.”
Alan Jacobs teaches English at Wheaton College. I commend his book to you if you are interested in the intersection of theology and literature. I was taken with the above explanation because I have a good friend who sometimes tells me that writing letters to the editor of our local Herald-Liberal newspaper is nothing but swapping spit with jackasses, or mud wrestling with the pigs who love it while you only get dirty. I have thought differently about it.
Many of my letters have been printed in the past and I believe they have been helpful to the longsuffering Christian readers of the paper. Lately though Vanessa Gallman, the new hard-core-leftist woman who runs the editorial page has cut me off, I have still felt that someone has to read my emails, even to reject them. Lighting a candle for a even a single dweller in darkness is worth the effort. Shaming The Devil has greatly affirmed me in this work and encouraged me to encourage others to tell the truth to the centers of Old Slewfoot’s power in the culture.
And there is plenty of truth to be told. One of the ways our newspaper lies regularly is in its headlines, particularly on the editorial page. Here is a good recent example: TRYING TO BLOCK SCIENCE IN SCHOOLS.
This is an editorial reprinted from the Washington Post, but the local paper creates its own headlines whenever it can advance its point of view or agenda. It is not unusual for a token conservative columnist like Cal Thomas or Michelle Malkin to get a headline that implies just the opposite of the message in the column. Since the Post is also very liberal, this one may not have been changed.
The editorial is about attempts by school boards to balance their science teaching by including “Intelligent Design” in their science curriculum, or at least as in Georgia, to put a sticker in textbooks describing evolution as a theory not a fact. The opposition to these efforts is every bit as heated and frantic as the opposition to any restriction on abortion.
This editorial’s explanation of Intelligent Design is derisive and inaccurate, to put it mildly. The truth is that Darwinian Macro-Evolution has always been a matter of faith, not supported by the facts. It is a prime doctrine of the religion of humanism. The Darwinians have looked forward in hope to future scientific discoveries that would put a solid foundation under their theory.
What they got instead were great advances in molecular biology, which turned out to be the last nail in the coffin of a theory that was already dead, but not yet buried. Scientists, many and highly qualified (and not all Religious by any means), found inside the cell multiple biochemical machines that could no way have “evolved.” These machines are like a mousetrap that would have to start out by succeeding with less than all of its constituent parts. These scientists called this “irreducible complexity” and posited a designer as the only possible explanation. Being good scientists, they did not try to give the designer a name. They just demonstrated, conclusively, that these machines could not be the product of time plus chance and gradual development.
Naturally, the creationists shouted, “O Frabjous Day” and took to intelligent design like ducks to water. Also naturally, the humanist scientific establishment circled the wagons and started sending out smoke and mirrors to defend their theory. If you want the real truth about all this, read "Darwin’s Black Box," by Michael Behe, or "Darwin on Trial," by Phillip E. Johnson, or better yet, "Doubts About Darwin," by Thomas Woodward, a fascinating book that covers them all. This last is a history of Intelligent Design and is the one to read if you want the best understanding of the whole movement.
So the headline is a lie. The science that is being blocked in schools is modern molecular biology (which is not the same as Creationism) and the science that is being defended to the death in schools is the thoroughly discredited macro-Darwinian Evolution, long held by humanists as a matter of faith, now dead as a scientific paradigm.
One of the frustrations of the public truthteller is that an explanation like this example takes at least 400 words, and the letter editor won’t consider more than 250 words. So the public truthteller often has to cut and condense and trim so far that it is hard to make the point well. But it is worth the effort.
+++++++
"Now as for you, son of man, I have appointed you a watchman for the house of Israel; so you will hear a message from My mouth and give them warning from Me. When I say to the wicked, ‘O wicked man, you will surely die,’ and you do not speak to warn the wicked man from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require from your hand. But if you on your part warn a wicked man to turn from his way and he does not turn from his way, he will die in his iniquity, but you have delivered your life." Ezekiel 33.7-9
Few are prophets, but every Truthteller is a watchman with a duty.
Truthtelling
"Speak the truth and shame the devil." Bartlett’s "Familiar Quotations" attributes this old adage to Francois Rabelais in 1552. It next shows up in Shakespeare’s "Henry IV" in 1597-98. In 1791 it appears in Boswell’s "Life of Samuel Johnson" and finally the poet Robert Browning used it in 1868-69.
It rang a bell in those days and it still does. I came across it in Alan Jacobs’ book, "Shaming The Devil—Essays In Truthtelling." Jacobs says, “One does not normally associate the devil with shame; indeed, one could say that shame is precisely what he lacks.”
But Jacobs explains, “When we tell the truth, the proverb affirms, the Father of Lies (as Jesus calls him in John 8.44) is deprived of his children; he may also be the Prince of this world, but his dominion has limits of scope and compulsion. Every time we tell the truth, we put him in his place. And because he hates his place, and wants more than anyone has ever wanted anything to assume the place of God, he is deeply grieved and shamed when our truthfulness shows the world just how un-Almighty he is.”
Alan Jacobs teaches English at Wheaton College. I commend his book to you if you are interested in the intersection of theology and literature. I was taken with the above explanation because I have a good friend who sometimes tells me that writing letters to the editor of our local Herald-Liberal newspaper is nothing but swapping spit with jackasses, or mud wrestling with the pigs who love it while you only get dirty. I have thought differently about it.
Many of my letters have been printed in the past and I believe they have been helpful to the longsuffering Christian readers of the paper. Lately though Vanessa Gallman, the new hard-core-leftist woman who runs the editorial page has cut me off, I have still felt that someone has to read my emails, even to reject them. Lighting a candle for a even a single dweller in darkness is worth the effort. Shaming The Devil has greatly affirmed me in this work and encouraged me to encourage others to tell the truth to the centers of Old Slewfoot’s power in the culture.
And there is plenty of truth to be told. One of the ways our newspaper lies regularly is in its headlines, particularly on the editorial page. Here is a good recent example: TRYING TO BLOCK SCIENCE IN SCHOOLS.
This is an editorial reprinted from the Washington Post, but the local paper creates its own headlines whenever it can advance its point of view or agenda. It is not unusual for a token conservative columnist like Cal Thomas or Michelle Malkin to get a headline that implies just the opposite of the message in the column. Since the Post is also very liberal, this one may not have been changed.
The editorial is about attempts by school boards to balance their science teaching by including “Intelligent Design” in their science curriculum, or at least as in Georgia, to put a sticker in textbooks describing evolution as a theory not a fact. The opposition to these efforts is every bit as heated and frantic as the opposition to any restriction on abortion.
This editorial’s explanation of Intelligent Design is derisive and inaccurate, to put it mildly. The truth is that Darwinian Macro-Evolution has always been a matter of faith, not supported by the facts. It is a prime doctrine of the religion of humanism. The Darwinians have looked forward in hope to future scientific discoveries that would put a solid foundation under their theory.
What they got instead were great advances in molecular biology, which turned out to be the last nail in the coffin of a theory that was already dead, but not yet buried. Scientists, many and highly qualified (and not all Religious by any means), found inside the cell multiple biochemical machines that could no way have “evolved.” These machines are like a mousetrap that would have to start out by succeeding with less than all of its constituent parts. These scientists called this “irreducible complexity” and posited a designer as the only possible explanation. Being good scientists, they did not try to give the designer a name. They just demonstrated, conclusively, that these machines could not be the product of time plus chance and gradual development.
Naturally, the creationists shouted, “O Frabjous Day” and took to intelligent design like ducks to water. Also naturally, the humanist scientific establishment circled the wagons and started sending out smoke and mirrors to defend their theory. If you want the real truth about all this, read "Darwin’s Black Box," by Michael Behe, or "Darwin on Trial," by Phillip E. Johnson, or better yet, "Doubts About Darwin," by Thomas Woodward, a fascinating book that covers them all. This last is a history of Intelligent Design and is the one to read if you want the best understanding of the whole movement.
So the headline is a lie. The science that is being blocked in schools is modern molecular biology (which is not the same as Creationism) and the science that is being defended to the death in schools is the thoroughly discredited macro-Darwinian Evolution, long held by humanists as a matter of faith, now dead as a scientific paradigm.
One of the frustrations of the public truthteller is that an explanation like this example takes at least 400 words, and the letter editor won’t consider more than 250 words. So the public truthteller often has to cut and condense and trim so far that it is hard to make the point well. But it is worth the effort.
+++++++
"Now as for you, son of man, I have appointed you a watchman for the house of Israel; so you will hear a message from My mouth and give them warning from Me. When I say to the wicked, ‘O wicked man, you will surely die,’ and you do not speak to warn the wicked man from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require from your hand. But if you on your part warn a wicked man to turn from his way and he does not turn from his way, he will die in his iniquity, but you have delivered your life." Ezekiel 33.7-9
Few are prophets, but every Truthteller is a watchman with a duty.
2/02/2005
ON WAKING
NUMBER EIGHTY-THREE
On Waking
ON WAKING
"Worship is the overflow of a heart that has no request to make."
Carl Armerding
Sovereign Lord,
I pray,
Speak once more
The gracious Word
That lets me be
Another day.
And being,
May I be your best,
A worshipper
With no request.
"He is the radiance of His glory and the
exact representation of His nature,
and upholds all things by the word
of His power." Hebrews 1.3
"He is before all things, and in Him
All things hold together." Colossians 1.17
JS/2.05
027-2
On Waking
ON WAKING
"Worship is the overflow of a heart that has no request to make."
Carl Armerding
Sovereign Lord,
I pray,
Speak once more
The gracious Word
That lets me be
Another day.
And being,
May I be your best,
A worshipper
With no request.
"He is the radiance of His glory and the
exact representation of His nature,
and upholds all things by the word
of His power." Hebrews 1.3
"He is before all things, and in Him
All things hold together." Colossians 1.17
JS/2.05
027-2
