Words Matter

Today, “truth” has become relative. Values rather than being “received” are “self-actualised.” “Guilt” is no longer a motivation for change in lifestyle or behaviour, it is the feeling of guilt itself which is unhealthy and repressive.

It’s all about words. Words are important, they shape the ideas expressed. In 1984 Orwell explained, “Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thought crime literally impossible because there will be no words in which to express it.”

Winston Smith, learned something about his world, and ours: When words are eliminated or have their meanings changed and the common vocabulary is adjusted then the thinking of the common people becomes adjusted.

The Italian communist Antonio Gramsci was shocked when the Bolshevik Revolution  in Russia failed to inspire the oppressed workers throughout Europe to rise up in violent rebellion. He came to the conclusion that the heart of the problem was Judeo-Christian values and rather than immediately launch a violent revolution these values had be destroyed before any revolution was possible. Thus began what he termed “the long march through the institutions.”

Gramsci called for a methodical approach to infiltrate, capture, and reform every formative cultural force; education, the press, the cinema, theatre, the government, and the church. The key to the battle lay within the cultural hegemony, change that ideologically, change the way in which people thought, and the political and economic battles would be won.

Georg Lukacs, a Hungarian socialist and one of the most brilliant Marxist theorists of the 20^th Century, went further when he noted that all the successful revolutions were engineered by a small cadre of intellectuals. In 1922, he met with a number of fellow intellectuals  for a week in Ilmenau, Germany. A year later, the Frankfurt School was conceived as a think tank that trained agents of cultural change.

Foundational words were rebranded. “Individualism,” “personal industry,” and “self reliance” became were regarded as oppressive because the world was divided into two types of people, either “oppressors” or “victims.” Thus “fatherhood” instead of being seen as protective and providing, was seen as tyrannical and domineering, giving rise to the feminism of the 70’s. It was religion, however, which was seen as the greatest oppressive force of all – a blind superstition that led to intolerance and war.

In 1965, Herbert Marcuse, probably the most influential alumni of the Frankfort School, turned language 180 degrees when he justified intolerance on the grounds of tolerance, In Repressive Tolerance he wrote: “The conclusion reached is that the realization of the objective of tolerance would call for intolerance toward prevailing policies, attitudes, opinions, and the extension of tolerance to policies, attitudes, and opinions which are outlawed or suppressed.”

Thus he, and his progressive acolytes, were able to preach intolerance towards all that was commonly held to be worthwhile and tolerance towards all that which was rejected, and do all this in the name of tolerance.

Political engagement is important, far more important is cultural engagement. This is about more than the Daily Mail ranting about “political correctness gone mad”. Those who hold to the importance of words because of the importance of the Word have no option but to resist the destruction of language and proclaim that there is such a thing as the truth, and that the Truth has come to show us the Way.

I shall be down in Yorkshire for the next week and shall be posting again in ten days time.

We’ve All Been There

Last Saturday was the day we remember what Jesus was up to, or down to, between Good Friday and Easter Day. The following cartoon, courtesy of the Naked Pastor, was sent to me by John James who obviously knows me only too well. Everyone who has had to sit through Kirk Session meetings or their equivalent will nod their heads in agreement.

Thank you John, and the Naked Pastor.

Islamic Imperialism

Alright, so I’m naïve. When I first heard of the group Muslims Against Crusades I was glad. “At last,” I thought, “a group of Muslims taking a stand against holy wars.” Silly me.

Of course this group belonging to the religion of peace are only opposed to other people’s holy wars, they are all for Muslim crusades, or jihad as they term it.

A crusade was a holy war, just as jihad is, in part, a holy war. But which came first, jihad or crusade?

Apologists for Islam continually tell us of all the good which came from the Muslim military invasion, conquest and subjugation of the Iberian peninsula. We have algebra, alchemy, astronomy and Aristotle before we even get to the rest of the alphabet. It would seem that without Islam western civilisation would only now be emerging from the dark ages. Whilst progressives assure us that every empire has influenced their subjugated peoples in ways which have destroyed indigenous culture and are truly reprehensible, with Islamic imperialism it’s the opposite, only the positive influences are ever mentioned.

The truth is Islam always has been and still is an imperialistic religion. Even today many Muslim clerics, scholars, and activists, not a few of them in the UK, would like to impose Islamic law around the world. However, historical truth shows that Islam launched its own Crusades against Christianity long before the concept of a holy war entered European thought.

It is easy to dislike the Crusades. Contrasted with the mission and ministry of Jesus and the first generations of Christians the Crusades are a distortion of Christianity. But we should ask why Christianity changed from a pacifist, power and violence rejecting faith into the propagator of mindless, bloodthirsty and irrational war? We learned it.

During the last ten years of his life Mohammed went on or initiated about 74 military actions, expeditions or wars, ranging from small assassination hit squads to the Tabuk Crusade in 630. Sometimes the expeditions did not result in violence, but a Muslim army always lurked in the background. Muhammad could exact a terrible vengeance on an individual or tribe that resisted him.

Only toward the end of his life did Mohammed lead his first major campaign against Christians. In 630, two years before his death, Mohammed led an army of 30,000 against Byzantine Christians.

After that the aggression came thick and fast.

634 At the Battle of Yarmuk in Syria the Muslim Crusaders defeat the Byzantines.

635 Muslims besiege and conquer of Damascus.

636 Muslims defeat Byzantines decisively at Battle of Yarmuk.

637 Muslims conquer Iraq at the Battle of al—Qadisiyyah.

638 Muslims conquer and annex Jerusalem, taking it from the Byzantines.

638—650 Muslims conquer Iran, except along Caspian Sea.

639—642 Muslims conquer Egypt.

641 Muslims control Syria and Palestine.

643—707 Muslims conquer North Africa.

Muslims spread into India and then in 711-713 conquered the Iberian peninsula. In 732 further advance into Europe was stopped in France at the battle of Poitiers.

And so it goes on, year after year, century after century, of violent invasion, slaughter and subjugation, the repression of any non-Muslim faith and the destruction of the culture of the conquered.

Finally in 1094 Byzantine emperor Alexius Comnenus I asked western Christendom for help against Seljuk invasions of his by now shrunken territory. In 1095 Pope Urban II preached the first Crusade.

Prior to 1095 Islamic imperialistic aggression had been met with defensive war. It was only after 465 years of Islamic violence and holy war that Christens actually invaded Islamic territory on a crusade.

Many, influenced by Islamic apologists regard Islam as a meek, peace loving religion whose adherents were brutally invaded and slaughtered by blood thirsty crusaders. This can only be held if we ignore the facts of history.

The big difference on these wars of 1,000 years ago is that practically every Christian is repelled by them and many Muslims want to re-enact them.

The Crusaders may have been sincere, but we acknowledge that they wandered far from the origins of Christianity when they slashed and burned and forced conversions. Jesus never used violence; nor did He call his disciples to use it. The New Testament never endorses violence to spread the word of the true God. The Crusaders wandered far from the origins and teachings of Christianity.

When Al Qaida, the Taliban and their sympathisers bomb and murder they are not an aberration, they are following the crusading impulse of Islamic history and theology. Imperialism is integral to Islam.

Walking Into What?

Nobody tell Vince Cable but John Cleese, one of the Lib Dems most high profile luvie supporters, has come out strongly against multiculturalism and the Britain with its “strange” values which, along with Vince and his progressive chums, Cleese helped create.

John Cleese and "The Ministry of Silly Walks"

In an interview to be published  in next week’s  Seven magazine Cleese says: “There were disadvantages to the old culture, it was a bit stuffy and it was more sexist and more racist. But it was an educated and middle-class culture. Now it’s a yob culture. The values are so strange.”

He added that he preferred living in Bath to London because the capital no longer felt “English”. “London is no longer an English city which is why I love Bath,” he said. “That’s how they sold it for the Olympics, not as the capital of England but as the cosmopolitan city. I love being down in Bath because it feels like the England that I grew up in.”

Being old enough to remember Monty Python the first time around I can remember the impact as it poked fun at the undoubted stuffiness of British society of the day. The sketches with Cleese, Barker and Corbet sending up the class system became classics because although truly funny they were oh so uncomfortably accurate. Monty Python was arguably one of the greatest comedy shows of all time.

Demolishing that which is pompous and self-satisfied is a worthy endeavour and to do it with humour is effective in a way dry analysis can never be. Unfortunately change for its own sake, no matter how humorously expressed, is irresponsible as it rarely works, usually it ends up as merely amusingly destructive. Once the pomposity has been punctured what replaces it? Unless there is a clear alternative any value untainted by the past will rush in to fill the vacuum.

With a Church weak at the knees with apologising for having any clear view at all we shouldn’t be surprised if the replacement social values are much less tolerant and open. The result of 60′s hedonism (and, “Yes I did enjoy it, I’m as much to blame as anyone else.”) is that we have a society where polite toleration has been replaced by the enforced conformity of political correctness.  We have stuffy stoicism replaced by sentimental dependency, the stiff upper lip has been replaced by a flabby lower one. We have a society in which citizens bore their responsibilities being replaced by a society in which individuals demand their rights. An imperfect self-reliant adult society has been replaced by an even worse therapeutic childish society. Cleese and his friends did their work all too well.

There was something quintessentially British in Monty Python, it stood in a long tradition of poking fun at authority going all the way back to Chaucer. Yet I wonder if Life of Brian could be filmed today. We certainly couldn’t film Life of Abdul.

Tomorrow is Good Friday so for the next few days I shall be concentrating on things a wee bit more important than my latest rant. I shall be back on Tuesday, in the meantime here are a couple of links to views on Scripture from very different stances.

This Easter Try To Avoid The Gospel of Grayling by Brendan O’Niell of  Spiked

How Easter Killed My Faith in Atheism by Leo Strobel in The Wall Street Journal

Our Allies

We are going to have British boots on the ground in Libya. They are not going as combatants but will instead be ‘advisers’ to the rebels. Thus mission creep continues.

This adventure was initially peddled by David Cameron as a mission to save civilian lives. This was the caring face of nuclear powered submarines, almost a humanitarian operation really, a kind of Save The Children with cruise missiles. It is a difficult thing to save civilians from the cockpit of a fast jet armed with air-ground weaponry and pretty soon the RAF was acting as the rebel air force, taking out government held positions and heavy weapons.

Even with this help the rebels were too ill-trained and badly organised to make any real headway. You have to doubt the effectiveness of any quasi military organisation which runs out of ammunition because its fighters fire so much into the air in celebration.

As expected the aim of the mission gradually escalated. Cameron, Sarkozy and Obama all said yesterday that peace was not possible whilst Gaddafi remained in power. The mission has escalated into regime change, although this is in contravention of the UN resolution.

Now British troops are going to be on the ground in Libya. This is a war where there are no clear front lines. What will happen if British troops are ‘advising’ rebels and find themselves attacked by government forces? Will they be allowed to return fire? Will we be drawn ever closer to direct involvement in yet another Middle East war?

In the meantime we are not the only ones putting fighters into Libya. An article yesterday (19^th April)  in Le Figaro, chronicled what has been obvious in a way the British media studiously fails to acknowledge.  Le Figaro highlights an interview given by Saleh Abi Mohammad, an Al Qaida spokesman, to the Saudi journal Al Hayyat which is published in London.

According to Abi Mohammad, Al Qaida fighters are taking their place fighting alongside the Libyan rebels in numerous cities. In the town of Dernah, they have already formed with their allies an Islamic Council, “pour gouverner la ville en vertu de la sharia.”

When questioned as to whether Al-Qaida welcomed foreign intervention, Abi Mohammad answered, “It is always preferable to die like a martyr than to ask the help of the crusaders.”  He believes that the rebels could have prevailed without assistance, and he does not consider foreign help as “positive.”

There is no clear reason why Britain, or any other western nation, should be involved in the turmoil in Libya. At the end of this debacle all we will have achieved is to put into power those who consider themselves our sworn enemies.

Nice one Dave.

Soft Bigotry

Recently we were all condemning Terry Jones for burning a Koran. Politicians and religious leaders, especially in the USA, were lining up to agree with General David Petraeus who said the action was, “hateful, intolerant, extremely disrespectful.”

General David Petraeus

We even had the extraordinary spectacle of US Senator Lindsey Graham saying that “Free speech is a great idea,” except of course when you say something your enemy might disagree with.

Despite the First Amendment to the US Constitution concerning the separation of Church and state Barak Obama can say “I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.” What’s wrong with the Druids and the Jedi?

Even here across the Atlantic we are aware that Obama and the previous President George W Bush were not best chums. This makes us wonder why the contender Obama did not raise his voice in 2008 when the Bush government ordered the destruction of Bibles sent to US troops in Afghanistan? Perhaps Senator Graham thinks condemnation of burning holy books is a one way street? There seem to have been no voices raised amongst the senior ranks of the US military, the body ordered to burn the Bibles, saying how “extremely disrespectful” this was.

The US government of the day decided that the presence of Bibles in Afghanistan, a “devoutly Muslim country,” might upset the natives who would react in all too predictable ways. Instead of simply returning the Bibles to the USA it was decided that it would be easier, and more pleasing to the natives, to burn them in Afghanistan.  In the military they burn trash.

The US Department of Defence is very specific, however, about how to handle the Koran. In instructions to guards at Guantanamo it says:

1. Clean gloves will be put on in full view of the detainees prior to handling.
2. Two hands will be used at all times when handling the Koran in manner signalling respect and reverence. Care should be used so that the right hand is the primary one used to manipulate any part of the Koran due to the cultural association with the left hand. Handle the Koran as if it were a fragile piece of delicate art.

These differing reactions to the Koran and the Bible emanating from the US government equate to:

1. Don’t burn the Koran otherwise Muslims might go on a killing spree.
2. Do burn the Bible otherwise Muslims might go on a killing spree.

What we see in the actions of two very different US governments is the entrenched progressive bigotry of soft expectations. By making allowances for predictable Muslim reaction they are saying effectually that Muslims are coffee coloured children with dangerous weapons who will throw a tantrum therefore we will appease them. Christians on the other hand can be expected to behave with restraint.

If members of the BNP came out with this we would rightly condemn it as odious bilge. Why is it not odious when it is the effect of what progressive Islamist apologists decide?

Who Says They Can’t Be Good?

A recent comment on the blog, with which I agreed, said that it was not necessary to be a Christian to be a moral person. The unfortunate thing about this claim is that it raises by implication the assertion that Christians do hold that only Christians can be good moral people.

It is a fact of life that we Christians frequently run into non-believers who say, sometimes triumphantly as though delivering a knockout blow, “You don’t have to be a Christian to live a good moral life.” From the well meaning to the arrogantly dismissive the assertion is produced as though Christians are so arrogant as to assume they alone can be moral people.

Even when made by the well meaning this assertion is simply boring because it merely states the obvious. Every Christian knows men and women who live morally upright lives, some of whom give of themselves to others at a sacrificial level. The non-believer is merely pointing out what everyone knows anyway.

Sometimes this statement comes from Christians who wish to appear sensitive to people of different faiths or total non-believers. As a reasonably compassionate person I have no wish to be so cruel to non-believers as to withhold from them the good news of Jesus Christ the only Saviour and as a consequence will press His claims at every opportunity. To do any less and remain silent would be to be heartless and even hateful.

However,  I know of no Christian who in pressing the claims of Christ would make the type of statement objected to by implication. Are there any reputable theologians, teachers or preachers who argue that non-believers are inevitably immoral people who cannot live a good life because of their lack of belief? I know of none myself and am yet to meet an unbeliever who can quote one.

Far from equating Christianity with the only possibility of morality Jaques Ellul argues that one of the weaknesses of the Church is that believers and non-believers can confuse Christianity with a moral system when it is nothing of the kind. A highly moral man Ellul argued that whilst Christianity gives rise to a moral system to confuse that moral system with Christianity itself is to diminish the faith.

The only interesting thing about this assertion is the question to which it gives rise: Why do non-believers raise this issue with such regularity when they must be aware that no Christian claims that a belief in Christ is necessary for what is normally considered a moral life?

It cannot be an attempt to educate the believer as to the blind error and intolerance of Christianity because it is simply wrong.

It could be that the assertion is a red herring used to distract the Christian and put him on the defensive when all other arguments fail the unbeliever. If so it should be dismissed with contempt.

Sometimes it is an attempt to evade the evangelistic claims of Christ, a way of saying “I’m a good person without Jesus so go away.” As Christianity is not at its core about being good the objection doesn’t stand and gives an opportunity to talk about what Christianity truly is.

It surely cannot be a serious attack designed to undercut the basis of the Christian faith because it is so utterly ineffective. Putting up a straw man for the purpose of knocking it down is a time wasting distraction from genuine debate and only serves to give pleasure to those who are fearful of genuine engagement.

The best explanation is that it is an understandably defensive reaction, a claim to be a good and moral person in the face of a genuine misunderstanding of Christian theology. If so it should be pointed out that Reformed theology has a long history of understanding and appreciating the good works of unbelievers, those who exist in rebellion against God and yet do good.

Calvinist theologians and philosophers have developed at length the doctrine of common grace, a non-salvific attitude of favour by God towards unbelievers by which He enables them to do marvellous and worthwhile things in every field of endeavour. The Christian can, and does, enjoy, appreciate and value the work and activity of unbelievers in every legitimate field of endeavour whether it be music, medicine or morality; and the Church has taught so for centuries.

The only people who can continue to assert, even by implication, that Christians hold that unbelievers are ipso facto immoral are the usual suspects, those with closed minds who refuse to listen to reason.

Spring Spheres

I don’t know how accurate this report from Northwest.com is but either political correctness has moved beyond parody or there is one sixteen year old with a wicked sense of humour.

http://www.mynorthwest.com/?nid=11&sid=459668

Copy and paste the link in your browser, it may brighten your day, its too daft to get angry.

Pathological Happiness

Why do progressives seem so enamoured of death? Under the rubric of ‘quality of life’ they so often respond to the very real problems of human existence with the clear cut response of death. At the beginning of life they answer the problem pregnancy with a stock response; whether the child may be born severely handicapped or is inconvenient the answer is abortion. At the end of life when an individual is in pain with an incurable affliction the progressive answer is a one way ticket to Switzerland and a ‘death with dignity.’

Quality of life is the mantra of those who press for the abortion of ‘defective’ foetuses at the beginning of life and the withdrawal of food and liquids at the end of life. Yet quality of life is an amorphous, because essentially subjective, concept. Its selfish stepsister is the equally difficult to quantify ‘right to happiness.’

These ill defined values undermine traditional liberalism in the name of progressivism. Classical liberalism, the motive power behind Western development, was a robustly optimistic view of life which brought progress and democracy, and the societal freedoms which ensue. What is often ignored today is that at its core it was a view of life grounded in morality. There were moral absolutes and it was held right for society and individuals to pursue the good and reject the bad.

In Western thought freedom was traditionally held to be a value only when exercised within moral constraints. We see this everywhere from the Dean of St Paul’s John Donne’s statement that “No man is an island” to the early 20^th century Spanish anarchist miners of the Asturias who allied their anarchism with a moral framework similar to that of the Puritans. The individual was not free to satisfy his or her own wants without reference to the needs or rights of others.

The difference between liberalism and progressivism is that the progressive holds that in pursuit of personal self-realisation autonomous individuals have the right to make subjective judgements about what is a suitable course of action. Thus liberty becomes confused with license and the idea of normative behaviour is rejected in favour of individualism. By removing the notion of normative morality progressives have substituted a therapeutic society.

Behaviour with harmful consequences for others such as promiscuity is treated as normal and healthy. Those who attempt to champion values such as chastity or fidelity are greeted with cries of “Intolerant”, “Bigoted “, “Repressed”, and most damning of all “Out of touch.” To uphold normative values is to commit the grievous sin of making free spirits feel bad about themselves.

Having elevated the individual’s right to happiness to a determining position the only course open when faced with hindrances to that happiness is the avenue of increasing intolerance. This happens all the way from banning speech which makes others feel bad about themselves to prescribing death for those who might have to face problems in their lives or cause us pain or inconvenience. Because they believe in the ultimate freedom of the individual progressives e3nd up restricting the freedom of other individuals.

There is one society where the balance between the individual and the community is held in a creative and life giving way, the Church. The individual through his or her personal relationship with God through Christ enters a community where the one common factor is that they are travelling the same road. In growing closer to Christ the individual grows closer to the person they were created to be whilst at the same time growing closer to those around him. Calvin rightly described the Church as the spearhead of the new creation.

Progressive Religion

Global warming has now become the successor religion to Christianity for the Episcopal Church in the USA.

This year Good Friday and ‘Earth Day’ (whatever that is) fall on the same day, 22^nd April. To mark this the Episcopal church is going greener than ever.

The ECUSA’s Office of Economic and Environmental Affairs has released a statement urging its members to mark the most solemn day of the year by being mindful of global warming, recycling and reducing carbon dioxide emission.

“This year Earth Day falls within Holy Week, specifically on Good Friday, a profound coincidence,” said Mike Schut, a church spokesman. “To fully honor Earth Day, we need to reclaim the theology that knows Earth is ‘very good,’ is holy. When we fully recognize that, our actions just may begin to create a more sustainable, compassionate economy and way of life.”

Schut continued: “On Good Friday, the day we mark the crucifixion of Christ, God in the flesh, might we suggest that when Earth is degraded, when species go extinct, that another part of God’s body experiences yet another sort of crucifixion — that another way of seeing and experiencing God is diminished?”

The Lent resources produced by the ECUSA are “focusing on the environment, creation care and sustainability.”

Christians, as stewards of creation, should be concerned with all that God has made. However, to make the sacrifice of our Lord for our salvation a peg on which to proclaim the necessity of recycling soda cans and composting scrap paper goes far beyond the usual progressive distortion of the gospel.

Truly environmentalism has become much more than just school assembly for progressives.