The world vs. nations

July 30, 2008 By 8 Comments

Victor Davis Hanson dissects Barack Obama’s speech in Germany. Hanson’s point is that the “world” doesn’t take actions; nations do. And that nations are not morally equivalent. Excerpts:

With all due respect, I also don’t believe the world did anything to save Berlin, just as it did nothing to save the Rwandans or the Iraqis under Saddam — or will do anything for those of Darfur; it was only the U.S. Air Force that risked war to feed the helpless of Berlin as it saved the Muslims of the Balkans. And I don’t think we have much to do in America with creating a world in which “famine spreads and terrible storms devastate our lands.” Bad, often evil, autocratic governments abroad cause hunger, often despite rich natural landscapes; and nature, in tragic fashion, not “the carbon we send into atmosphere,” causes “terrible storms,” just as it has and will for millennia.

Perhaps conflict-resolution theory posits there are no villains, only misunderstandings; but I think military history suggests that culpability exists — and is not merely hopelessly relative or just in the eye of the beholder. So despite Obama’s soaring moral rhetoric, I am troubled by his historical revisionism that, “The two superpowers that faced each other across the wall of this city came too close too often to destroying all we have built and all that we love.”

I would beg to differ again, and suggest instead that a mass-murdering Soviet tyranny came close to destroying the European continent (as it had, in fact, wiped out millions of its own people) and much beyond as well — and was checked only by an often lone and caricatured U.S. superpower and its nuclear deterrence. When the Soviet Union collapsed, there was no danger to the world from American nuclear weapons “destroying all we have built” — while the inverse would not have been true, had nuclear and totalitarian communism prevailed. We sleep too lightly tonight not because democratic Israel has obtained nuclear weapons, but because a frightening Iran just might.

HT: CRB

Filed Under: America, International, Politics 8 Comments

House churches?

July 29, 2008 By 56 Comments

A manifestation of the view that community, not doctrine, should be the basis for choosing a church is the phenomenon of the house church. A small group of friends get together in each other’s houses on Sundays for worship and Bible study. There is no clergy and no institution at all, really. It is the polar opposite of the megachurch.

George Barna has said this is the wave of the future, and I know some people who “do church” in this way. Members of house churches claim that this is the model of the early church. What do you think about this? Could a house church constitute a valid congregation? Or is it intrinsically sectarian?

Filed Under: Church 56 Comments

Classical education vs. traditional education

July 29, 2008 By 20 Comments

An important distinction noted at the CIRCE conference, from Andrew Kern: Classical education is NOT the same as the traditional education of the 19th century one-room school house. Here is an overview of the history of American Education:

Colonial era-1810. Classical Christian Education.

1810-1890. Traditional Education. Or, more technically, “secular democratic education.” Retained the classical emphasis on content and a broad curriculum, but, in reaction against “European” elements, moved away from classical subjects. The classical emphasis on “community” was replaced by an emphasis on “society” (see the difference?). Theologically, love of neighbor was replaced by love of country. Education became compulsory, shifting the authority in educational matters from the parents to the state. Secular democratic education was also utopian (“Protestantism without faith”), Hegelian (history seen as a progression culminating in today), and Prussian (drawing on that militaristic state’s innovations in regulation).

1910-today. Conventional Progressive Education.

Many people on all sides of the education debates today confuse classical education with traditional education. Some are saying that to get back to classical education, we may need to go through traditional education first. But the two seem so different, especially since the classical goal was to form free citizens, as opposed to controlled citizens.

Filed Under: Education 20 Comments

The 20th century’s butcher’s bill

July 29, 2008 By 16 Comments

More from the CIRCE conference, from a talk by think-tank veteran Barbara Elliott:

From 1901-1987, various governments took 207,500,000 lives.

The number of people killed by their own governments was approximately 169,000,000.

The Soviet Union killed 62,000,000. (Stalin alone: 42,000,000)

Communist China: 35,000,000.

Nazi Germany: 21,000,000

Filed Under: Ethics, International 16 Comments

The penalty for possessing a Bible

July 28, 2008 By 12 Comments

Something else I learned at the CIRCE conference: In the heyday of Soviet Communism, the penalty for possessing a Bible was 3 years in prison. Think of that the next time you dare to read that dangerous book.

Filed Under: Bible 12 Comments

Cult and Culture

July 28, 2008 By 28 Comments

I’ve been at the CIRCE conference in Houston, which offered not only tips for classical education but, what is supremely classical, actual content. I learned some things that I’ll be posting on this blog.

For example, we had several presentations that drew on Russell Kirk, arguably the father of modern conservatism. One of his points was that the root of “culture” is “cult”; that is, the foundation of every culture is a religion with its distinct way of worship. (In cultures that reject religion, an ideology takes its place, as happened with Communism.)

That’s a profound point in itself, but then it made me wonder: I have always complained about Christians who conform to today’s culture with all its woes. But could it be that the problems in the church came first, creating our cultural woes? Did the secular liberalism of the European state churches produce the secular liberalism of modern Europe? Did the subjectivism of Christianity (which certainly began in the 19th century) produce the subjectivism of contemporary culture?

If so, reforming culture would simply be a matter of the church getting its act together.

Filed Under: Culture, Religions 28 Comments

Baylor fires another president

July 28, 2008 By 10 Comments

Baylor University went through another president, this time firing John Lilley. He had only been at the Baptist university for three years. The previous president, Robert Sloan, was also forced out, but for different reasons.

As I understand it, Dr. Sloan pushed through a plan called Baylor 2012, in which the school would become BOTH a major research institution AND a distinctly Christian university. That is a brilliant goal, much-needed in both the church and the academy. We desperately need a conservative Protestant version of Notre Dame, with a grad school that can turn out Christian scholars and professors of the highest quality.

Dr. Sloan made good progress on that front, assembling some first-rate Christian faculty members. But the old guard faculty resented them and would not abide any whiff of creationism or intelligent design. Dr. Sloan was forced out, whereupon many of these young Christian professors were purged in tenure fights.

Dr. Lilley, now, has been ousted by the board of regents, seemingly for the opposite reason, of not taking the Baylor 2012 plan seriously enough, especially when it comes to integrating faith and learning.

We should all hope and pray that the next president puts Baylor back on its Christian course, while also being able to handle the faculty who will oppose that.

(If I’ve got the conflict wrong, Baylor fans, please correct me.)

Filed Under: Education 10 Comments

President of the World

July 25, 2008 By 106 Comments

Some 200,000 Germans came out to hailBarack Obama . Does that make you like him more–after all, he would surely make America more popular around the world–or does it make you like him less, with global politicking and his talk of “global citizenship” giving you the creeps?

Filed Under: International, Politics 106 Comments

Back to 55 m.p.h.

July 25, 2008 By 78 Comments

So, what do you think about the proposals to to lower the national speed limit to 55 m.p.h. as a way to save gasoline and thus lower prices?

Filed Under: Economics 78 Comments

Orthodoxy & culture

July 25, 2008 By 16 Comments

The Russian Orthodox church is calling on the Russian government to denounce communism. OK, it’s a little late, but good on them.

In studying the different theological positions relating Christianity and culture, I find the Orthodox church to be something of a puzzle. It doesn’t seem to fit any of the major categories (culture above the church; church above culture; church separated from the culture; culture and church as distinct kingdoms under God). I asked an orthodox acquaintance who told me that the position of his church is to have monks who withdraw from the culture in order to pray for the culture. That’s a good answer, but it re-enforced my impression that the Christianity of the East is rather passive before the world, submitting to whatever regime it finds itself in but keeping alive an entirely separate spiritual existence. That means Christianity has not been as influential in the cultures of the East (though how could it have been given its domination by Islam and absolutist Czars). At its worse, though, the church sometimes collaborates with those regimes, giving spiritual sanction to the excesses of the Czars and even allowing itself to be infiltrated and used by the Soviets. I do salute the Orthodox Christians who have undergone persecution and martyrdom of their faith, including, arguably, members of the Russian royal family whose remains were discovered recently and confirmed last week.

The Western church, in contrast, both in its Catholic and its Protestant varieties, has always been activist and culture-shaping Even the separatist groups have defined themselves over and against the prevailing culture. This too has sometimes been to a fault.

I know some of you readers are Orthodox or Orthophiles (is that a word? if not, we need to coin it). I’d be glad to learn if this is a correct understanding or if I am missing something.

(I recall that I asked this before on this blog, but I still have questions.)

Filed Under: Church, Culture, International 16 Comments