December 29, 2017

ethics-2991600_1280

Last year at this time, Donald Trump was on the verge of taking office, the state of the economy was uncertain, and no one knew what would happen.  That didn’t keep us from making predictions!  The Year of Our Lord 2017 was tumultuous and full of surprises.  But last year’s post Make your predictions for 2017 brought forth some thoughtful predictions, which were often interesting even when they were wrong.  But one of them was startlingly spot-on.

My predictions were all wrong.  Queen Elizabeth II did not die, and Charles III did not abdicate in favor of the popular William and Kate.  The British monarchy did enjoy a surge of popularity again, but that was due to the excellent Netflix TV series The Crown.  Nor have ties gone the way of spats and derby hats.  We’ll know that time has come when news anchors and politicians stop wearing them.  Nor did Hillary Clinton divorce Bill.  So I lose.

Some of the predictions were too easy.  Sin will continue to mess things up and the Holy Spirit will continue to bring souls to Christ.  Plow Jockey’s New England will win the Super Bowl.  Setapart predicted a major earthquake, and indeed there were terrible ones in Mexico, Iran, Italy, and China.  But, as tODD commented, what year is there not a major earthquake?  Pete predicted that Mexico would not pay for the wall, but predicting what will not happen is easier than predicting what will happen!

The first prize, the consolation prize, that we will give out is for the worst prediction.  Coming close to this honor was SKJAM! who predicted that President Trump would cozy up to dictators including North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, maybe even inviting him to the White House.  Actually, the two got into a name-calling exchange and President Trump is on the verge of bombing the “Rocket Man.”

Another contender was Joe, who predicted that France would vote to leave the European Union.  Instead, France elected a new president who campaigned on supporting the European Union.  Joe was also wrong about the Pope observing the 500th anniversary of the Reformation by starting a “Lutheran ordinate,” which I believe would mean allowing Lutheran pastors to become Catholic priests without giving up their wives.  That didn’t happen.  Instead, conservative Catholics accused the Pope of being a Lutheran heretic!  (If anybody predicted that, they would not only win our contest, but I would retire the trophy.)

But the winner of the Worst Prediction prize–we won’t use the word “loser”–is Saelma, who predicted that Apple stock would crash to near 70 and the price of corn would double.  Actually, Apple now trades at $171.18 per share.  And the price of corn, which was $3.65 a bushel this time last year, has dropped to $3.50.

Quite a few of your predictions were close or partially right.  SAL thought the “Syrian civil war will end as ISIS is defeated.”  ISIS was defeated, but the Syrian civil war continues.  SAL made some other close predictions: “ESPN nearly goes bankrupt as its viewers turn it off.”  ESPN viewership has indeed plummeted, though I’m not sure it is close to bankruptcy.  “Obamacare is amended but not repealed.”  Indeed, Obamacare was not repealed–that’s actually an impressive prediction, since who would have guessed the Republican legislature couldn’t pull that off–and it was sort of amended when the Tax Bill removed the penalty for not having health insurance.

Other close predictions:  Sven2547 said that 2017 would be the hottest year on record.  Actually, Weather.com said the year is shaping up to be the second hottest.  tODD said that a region would secede from a European country.  Catalonia has come close, but hasn’t quite done so, thanks to Spain crushing the secession movement.  Carl Vehse said that within three months after taking office, Democrats would be trying to impeach President Trump or invoke the 25th Amendment (which provides for removal of a president for illness or mental incapacity).  He added, “If this does not happen, then I predict that ‘Drain-the-Swamp’ promoters, ‘Lock-her-up’ advocates, and ‘Build the wall’ backers will be demanding Trump’s impeachment.”   While the first part of the prediction happened, the swamp isn’t drained, she was not locked up, and the wall hasn’t been built; nevertheless, those advocates still seem to support Trump.

Paul Mason made a series of predictions that President Trump would not be able to do many of the things that he promised:

1. America will NOT be “great again” in 2017. Street crime will continue, 2m Mexicans will not be deported, import tariffs from China will not be 35%, NAFTA will not be torn up, the Iran nuclear deal will not be torn up.
2. TPP will not go ahead, but non-US members will conclude their own multi-lateral trade deal, and may include China.
3. Trump’s cabinet of elitist lobbyists, Goldman Sachs bankers and retired Senators and Pentagon Washington insiders will improve market conditions for Trump Corp
3. ISIS will NOT be smashed this year.

These predictions mostly came to pass–except that ISIS pretty much was smashed this year–though some of them fall into the category of predicting what did NOT happen.

Though SKJAM! was a contender for worst prediction, he was also a contender for best prediction, though he ended up being only “close.”  He predicted that at least one Trump advisor would resign due to a “horrific scandal.”  And that a “family values” conservative would be brought down in a sex scandal.  Actually, LOTS of Trump advisors have had to resign, though how “horrific” the scandal is remains to be seen, as the investigation into the Russia connections continues.  And LOTS of “family values” conservatives have been brought down by sex scandals.  Though the number of prominent cultural progressives being brought down by sex scandals appears to be even greater.  (If anyone had predicted THAT, I would have not only retired the trophy but renamed it in their honor.)

So who made the best prediction of them all?

In second place is Kerner, who said, “Economic growth for the third or fourth quarter of 2017 will hit or exceed 3.5 per cent.”  Actually, it was 3.2 per cent.  That’s really close.

But the winner of the virtual, imaginary trophy, with bragging rights, for best prediction for 2017 is stefanstackhouse.

Now in the course of a long, thoughtful discussion of American foreign relations, stefanstackhouse made lots of predictions, some of whose accuracy is yet to be determined.  Painfully ironic was the one about how Putin will welcome Trump’s presidency and how Russia and the new administration will work well together.  (Maybe I should give a prize for the funniest-in-retrospect prediction.)

But what gave stefanstackhouse the victory is his remarkably detailed and prescient forecast of China seizing and fortifying the disputed islands in the South China Sea.  Here is his prediction:

Unlike the case with Russia, a clash of strategic interests between the US and China is inevitable. Just as the US grand strategy requires that we acquire strategic depth by extending naval force across the Pacific to what the Chinese are calling “the first island chain” (from the semi-island of Korea through Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, and Indonesia), China likewise needs strategic depth out from its coastline by extending naval power at least to – and preferably beyond – this first island chain. This is where our interests clash, and if there is indeed a “Thucydides Trap” between the status quo power of the US and the rising power of China, then it is along this first island chain that the trap will be sprung. I do not see this actually happening, and a major Sino-American war beginning, in 2017. Nevertheless, I do see a high likelihood of several things happening that will bring us closer to that dire contingency.

As to the South China Sea, the Chinese are likely to continue with their aggressive moves to turn it into a Chinese lake. Only the Vietnamese are likely to seriously resist, and a small clash in the Paracel Islands in 2017 is quite probable; China is likely to assure than any such clash goes their way. The US Navy will probably try to do a few Freedom of Navigation Operations, but these are going to become increasingly tense activities, and very likely there will quietly be an adjustment to sail at a further distance from the artificial installations that the Chinese are arming in the Spratly Islands.

To be sure, the dispute between China and the other countries that claim these islands (Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan) has been going on for years.  But in 2017, China has taken this to a new level.  China has not only been occupying these islands but militarizing them.  China is also going so far as to  build new artificial islands, complete with floating nuclear plants, to serve as military bases and so to project its power in the South China Sea.

As for stefanstackhouse’s specific points, there has been a clash with Vietnam (though not a military one) and the United States Navy has launched Freedom of Navigation operations by sailing in the vicinity of those islands.  Three of them, in fact, and they have been tense.

And, as if these predictions were not enough, stefanstackhouse puts a cherry on the top of his entry by making an unrelated prediction that also proved to be exactly right:

One final note, not so US-centric: There will be elections in a number of different countries next year, but the only one I can write about with any degree of knowledge is France. Here, expect Marine LePen to not only make it into the finalist second round of voting, but also to do much better than expected – it may end up being a real squeaker, and she might even win.

The anti-immigrant candidate did make it into the finalist second round and she did do much better than expected, though she didn’t win.

So, please join me in extending congratulations to this year’s winner, stefanstackhouse!

Thanks for playing!  Come back Monday, New Year’s Day, to make your predictions for 2018!

 

Illustration by Tumisu, via Pixabay, CC0, Creative Commons

April 23, 2019

First the Bible was read from long, continuous hand-written scrolls, one for each book.  Then pages were invented, and the new book-form of the codex made it possible for the still hand-copied and illuminated texts to be bound together in large volumes while making it easy to find specific passages.  Then the printing press was invented and the codex form could be mass-produced and made available to all.  Now we can read Bibles on electronic screens, whether on e-readers, computers, or smart phones.

Does it make a difference?  Do we read the Bible in a different way on an electronic screen as opposed to a printed book?  The codex arguably made Bible scholarship and theological proof-texting easier.  The printing press put the Bible in the hands of virtually everyone, making possible a widespread personal piety based around reading God’s Word in which the laity of all backgrounds could participate.  Will today’s digital Bibles likewise change the way we interact with God’s Word?

Pr. A. Trevor Sutton–my co-author on Authentic Christianity:  How Lutheran Theology Speaks to the Post-Modern World–is studying issues like that in his academic work, which specializes in the effects of our new information technology.  Thus, our book gets into issues having to do with the new technology, its cultural impact, and what that can mean for Christians.

Trevor has just published a piece at the Gospel Coalition entitled The Brave New World of Bible Reading.  Here is the opening.  Read what he has to say–it isn’t long–and then I want to offer some thoughts:

“My Bible died.”

I was teaching a class and asked for someone to read a Bible verse. As soon as the student had opened his Bible app and located the verse, his digital tablet—and Bible—died. This declaration made me realize we are living in a brave new world of Bible reading.

The digital age is doing some curious things to the Bible. Not only can modern Bibles “die” because of low batteries, but they can also speak, search, share, notify, and hyperlink. It takes two taps to tweet text from Titus. It is normal to announce to an empty room, “Alexa, add blueberries to my grocery list and read Esther chapter four.”

Social media, smartphones, and new media are changing everything, including how we interact with the Bible. The digital age has created a cornucopia of new opportunities for us to read, mark, learn, and digest the Word of God.

To navigate this brave new world, God’s people need both biblical literacy and digital literacy.

[Keep reading. . .]

The pioneering media scholar Marshall McLuhan, who died before today’s Information Technology got going but whose predictions are remarkably prescient, said that the transition from print to electronic media (he was thinking mainly of television) would result in a kind of reversion to the pre-printing press era.  That culture was more visual and less word-oriented, favoring immediate and often emotional reactions, as opposed to the long, rationally-connected train of thought that printed books made possible.

The new media seems to favor shorter texts.  When I read the Bible on my phone, I tend to focus on little snippets–such as those daily readings YouVersion puts out, limiting my attention to what is on the little screen.

My e-reader is good for longer readings, whether of the Bible or other books.  But I have trouble reading scholarly, technical, or in-depth texts like the Bible on screens when I need to study them.  I can’t easily page back and forth, re-reading, paging through material from indexes, and–importantly for me when I am thinking about what I am reading–underlining passages.

Actually, following McLuhan’s dictum, my e-reader is like a reversion to the scroll.  No pages makes it hard to find things.  My e-reader is an improvement over the scroll because it is searchable, so it is possible to look up texts according to key words.  The online Bible resource Bible Gateway works like the ultimate concordance.  But I find it hard to read extensively on Bible Gateway, though it is certainly possible.

I think the great gift of the Digital Bibles is that they can spread the Word of God everywhere, around the world and in every language, including in nations where Christianity is persecuted and Bibles are forbidden.  As the article I link to says, even impoverished people in the “developing world” tend now to have smart phones.  The Word of God is no longer necessarily bound up in a physical object that must be smuggled and that persecutors can burn.  It can just be downloaded.

Perhaps the Digital Bible, existing in the form of electronic information in the Cloud, may promote a “spiritual” view of Scripture, though perhaps at the risk of the hyper-spirituality of Gnosticism rather than recognizing the sacramental dimension of the Bible with its physical paper and ink.  But I see no reason why Digital Bible reading need result in a lower view of God’s Word and its authority, but people will probably become more oriented to Bible-verse proof-texting rather than sustained study of Scripture.

I don’t know.  What do you think?  What has your experience been with the Digital Bibles?

Isn’t it true that the Holy Spirit can work by means of the Word of God, whether it is inscribed on a scroll, a codex, a printer’s sheet, or an electronic screen?

By the way, Trevor has another piece at the Gospel Coalition entitled What Luther Would Say to Silicon Valley, which brings vocation into the issue of information technology.  We blogged about an earlier version of that piece, but I’m glad Trevor’s work is getting broader exposure.

 

 

Photo from Maxpixel, CC0, Public Domain

February 8, 2019

Sam Anderson is a writer for the New York Times Magazine who came to Oklahoma City to write about the curious story of the town’s NBA team, the OKC Thunder–how an unlikely place like Oklahoma City managed to score an NBA team; how to account for its extraordinarily rapid success; the dynamic of the team’s contrasting stars; etc.  But then Anderson got pulled into the vortex of Oklahoma City as a whole, finding that the whole city now and throughout its history displays similar overachievement, contradictions, and eccentricities.

This inspired Anderson to write a “biography” of Oklahoma City entitled Boom Town, with the descriptive sub-title “The Fantastical Saga of Oklahoma City, Its Chaotic Founding, Its Apocalyptic Weather, Its Purloined Basketball Team, and the Dream of Becoming a World-Class Metropolis.”

He concludes that “Oklahoma City is one of the great weirdo cities of the world–as strange, in its way, as Venice or Dubai or Versailles or Pyongyang” (p. xvii).  He means that in a good way.  More soberly, he says that “with apologies to Charleston, Austin, the Portlands, Fort Worth, Indianapolis, Chattanooga, Memphis, San Antonio, and of course Seattle (always special apologies to Seattle), Oklahoma City is the great minor city of America” (pp. xvii-xviii).

As an Oklahoman who has seen and lived through much of what he writes about, I found myself amused at what this New Yorker considers so exotic–such as the fact that on any given Spring evening a tornado can come down from the sky and destroy everything you own–things that I have always considered normal, but which I now see actually are exotic.

The book, which has made a number of the “best of 2018” lists, is written in the style of “New Journalism,” as pioneered by Tom Wolfe, so it’s lively, personal, funny, poignant, and creatively put together.  Instead of a long continuous history in chronological order, Anderson hops all over the place, developing motifs that he keeps returning to.  A chapter on the history of the city will be followed by a profile of something happening today, with an on-going series of chapters chronicling a season of  the Oklahoma City Thunder.

We see the city’s beginning in the Land Run of 1889 as a tent city of 10,000 people springs up overnight.  It was then and continues to be a “boom town,” filled with Wild West energy, running into “busts” due to hubris and tragedies, but always picking itself up to pursue ever-grander ambitions.  We see how the city then tried to impose order and civilization on itself, with various degrees of success.  Oklahoma  City built itself a downtown of grand buildings, only to destroy most of them in an ill-conceived urban renewal plan.  When Oklahoma City only had a population of a few hundred thousand, it went on a land annexation tear that left it with more land area than any city in the world.  But the city boosters–and this is above all a story of intense civic spirit on the part of its inhabitants–recruited, started, or plundered businesses that brought on new “booms.”

This is a story of colorful and consequential personalities.  Clara Luper who single-handedly, just about, desegregated the city.  The wildly eccentric neo-hippy Wayne Coyne of the alt.psychedelic band “The Flaming Lips,” who unaccountably both loves and is loved by the conservative city establishment.  Gary England, the TV weatherman and guru of storm forecasters, to whom the city and much of the state turns to when the skies turn terrifying and whose predictions and instructions have saved untold numbers from tornados.

Anderson tells lots of great stories, some of which I had never heard and some of which I never knew the full picture.  For example, the reason he says, above, that we always have to give special apologies to Seattle, is that Oklahoma City has a record of thwarting that rainy, high-tech, cool city.  Back before Microsoft and Amazon, in the early 1960s, Seattle’s fortunes were tied to Boeing, which was gearing up for a new era of faster-than-sound air travel on super-sonic aircraft that Boeing would build in Seattle.  The city was so excited about the new energy that it named its NBA team the “SuperSonics.”

But the federal government worried about sonic booms and sought a city to experiment on to see if the problem were really serious.  The leaders of Oklahoma City, always eager to try to put their city on the map, volunteered.  Subjected to half a dozen sonic booms a day for six months, the people of Oklahoma City complained so loudly that super-sonic flights over land were banned.  As if that weren’t a bad enough affront to Seattle, in 2005, some Oklahoma City oilmen bought the Seattle SuperSonics, getting approval by promising to keep them in Seattle, if possible.  But they knew that the city wouldn’t build the team a new arena, so they used that as a pretext for moving the team to OKC, as they planned all along.  The owners changed the name of the team to the Thunder, which is a kind of natural sonic boom.

I also appreciated Anderson’s description of tornadoes.  He described how the suburb of Moore was practically wiped off the map in 1999 by a monster tornado that killed 40.  Moore was rebuilt.   In 2013, Moore was practically wiped off the map again by an even more monstrous tornado, with a funnel over a mile wide.  (I was there shortly after both tornados and witnessed the devastation!  Anderson was with Gary England in the storm center, recounting his coverage of that dramatic night.)  Just weeks later, an even more monstrous tornado, with a funnel 2.6 miles wide and winds of over 300 miles per hour, struck just outside of the city, the largest tornado ever recorded.  It would have destroyed everything, but, though it was headed for the city, it somehow turned to spare the suburb of El Reno and then lifted over Oklahoma City.

Of course, Anderson describes the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building by Timothy McVeigh, the beginning of our country’s plague of terrorism.  That part was hard for me to read.  He also describes how the city rallied to help the survivors.  And how the Murrah attack became a catalyst for the renaissance of Oklahoma City that continues to this day.

Every new player on the Thunder is taken to a tour of the Murrah building memorial, with its bronze chairs for each of the 168 people in the offices and day care center that were killed.  In this way, every Thunder player is introduced to the city and shown who he is playing for.

Anderson quotes Steve Taylor, a judge–the one who sentenced McVeigh’s accomplice Terry Nichols to life imprisonment–who attends every Thunder game.  He said that most of the fans who sell out every game and who have given the Chesapeake Arena the reputation as perhaps the loudest venue in basketball  have no particular interest in the NBA.  “They are there as citizens.”

A final note:  The value of a thesis can be seen in its predictive value.  I thought of Anderson’s book when Bon Appetit Magazine named a little establishment in Oklahoma City, called  “nonesuch,” the nation’s best new restaurant of 2018.

Three young chefs, with no culinary training who worked together in a chicken-and-waffle joint, started a 22-seat restaurant with a tasting menu built around Oklahoma ingredients modeled after Copenhagen’s NOMA (rated by Restaurant Magazine as the best in the world).  The surprise of Bon Appetit‘s editors to find such quality in a seeming backwater like Oklahoma City, the creative audacity of these three chefs, their rootedness in Oklahoma City, and the whole unexpectedness of it all–this would have made a chapter in Anderson’s book, if he knew about it before his publication date.

One of the ironies in the Bon Appetit story is that this incredible restaurant had so few diners.  Now, though, after the publicity, the place sells out three months in advance, with people flying in from Dallas, New York, and (probably) Seattle just to eat there.

 

 

Photo by Josué Goge, Oklahoma City [from Bricktown] via Flickr, Creative Commons License

October 5, 2018

 

UPDATE:  Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed by the Senate and has been sworn in as a Justice in the Supreme Court.  Democrats vowed to impeach him if they take over Congress and the Senate in the November elections.

The Brett Kavanaugh hearings exemplify post-modern politics at its worst.  Two opposing sides were presented, both with a sense of emotional authenticity.  But which one spoke the truth, and how can we tell?  Christine Ford presented no evidence for her accusation, and even the eye-witnesses she cited denied her story.  And yet, progressives believe her no matter what, intensifying their demonization of Brett Kavanaugh.  And conservatives believe him, though they, being not so post-modern, still invoke objective criteria.  A crucial number of Senators, though, a few from both parties, were on the fence, not knowing who to believe.

Turning it over to the FBI was probably a good idea.  An objective investigation by non-partisan law enforcement officers could dig deeper and offer an objective assessment.  Senators, at least those few who haven’t already made up their mind, could decide according to the findings of the FBI.

Unfortunately, the FBI did not receive the punt.  They conducted their usual background checks, interviewing additional witnesses whose names had come up.  They then turned in their usual forms.  Just interview notes, no bottom line conclusion.  The FBI punted back to the Senators.  It is forbidden by law to release FBI background checks, so outraged demands to release them are out of line.  This new information may be enough for some of the undecided Senators, since they apparently turned up no evidence to add to the current lack of evidence.  Meanwhile, the progressives are insisting that the investigation did not have enough time (though it didn’t take the complete time that they did have) and that it was superficial, failing to interview people whom had already been interviewed or whom the FBI determined were not credible enough to be interviewed. (UPDATE:  The FBI said that they only interviewed those who had first hand knowledge, not those who were passing along hearsay.)

So now, the motion to confirm Kavanaugh–which did pass the committee last week–will go to the Senate for a vote on “cloture,” which will limit debate.  (Supreme Court justices are no longer subject to filibusters, which would have required an unlikely 60 votes to overcome.  Eliminating the filibuster for judges was an initiative of the Democrats, though the Republicans applied it to the Supreme Court with Justice Gorsuch’s nomination.)  This vote is scheduled to happen TODAY, possibly this evening.

Then on SATURDAY, the full Senate will vote on whether or not to elevate Judge Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.

I’ll try to update this post once we know how the vote went, though I’ll be on the road this weekend.  But however it turns out, we will enter the era of  post-Kavanaugh politics.

Here are some of my thoughts on what that might look like.  Feel free to add your own predictions in the comments.

(1)  If accusations do not need to be verified in order to be widely accepted and to destroy a person’s reputation, we will be getting a lot more false accusations.

(2)  Both sides will play this game.  Progressives will not be safe.  (Already the left’s star politician who has raised hopes of toppling Ted Cruz in deep-read Texas, no less, Beto O’Rourke is groveling in apology for a college theater review that mentioned the physical attributes of some of the dancers.  This may hurt him more than his actual more recent crime of drunk driving and fleeing the scene of an accident.)

(3) The sexual revolution is over.  This is a good thing.

(4)  Teen-agers and college students had better cut out the drunken parties, the casual hook-ups, and the culture of debauchery.  This too would be a good thing.  They still need adult supervision.

(5)  You children had better behave.  Because if you don’t, your bad behavior will follow you for the rest of your life.

(6)  Yes, Trump has disrupted the civility of politics.  But he only insults his opponents.  Democrats destroy their lives and drive them out of restaurants.  Have you ever known of a Republican mob that disrupts official hearings with screaming protests, throws Democrats out of movie theaters, refuses to serve them at restaurants, and attacks their homes?  Why is that?

(7)  Those who don’t believe in objective truth cannot be trusted to tell the truth.  Those who believe that truth is nothing more than the imposition of oppressive power are likely to impose oppressive power themselves once they get the chance.

 

Photo:  “Brett Kavanaugh at his Yale commencement,” provided by the White House [Public domain ], via Wikimedia Commons

We want to know what you think about the upcoming midterm elections. Vote in our poll below!

July 24, 2018

I’ve been posting about the relevance of George Orwell’s novel 1984 to today and how the pro-abortion movement uses the exact kind of language that he warns against in his essay “Politics and the English Language.”  I came across yet another example of an Orwellian exaggeration that has come true.

In the novel, the protagonist Winston works in “The Ministry of Truth,” which exists to promote lies.  Here, as we discussed, Winston’s job is to continually rewrite history by identifying records about individuals who have fallen out of favor, incorrect government predictions, and ideas that are no longer permitted.  He then puts all of this information down the “memory hole” to be burnt and lost forever.  The Ministry of Truth is adorned with signs reminding its workers of the ruling party’s three slogans:

WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

I was reminded of this passage when I read about an advertising campaign put on by Ohio’s leading abortion provider, a corporation called “Preterm.”  The company wants to “normalize” abortion and so started a campaign to encourage women to be proud of aborting their children.  To that end, the abortionists put up a website called MyAbortionMyLife.org and put up a series of billboards in the Cleveland area.

Here is a description of the campaign from Cleveland journalist Jane Morice:

CLEVELAND, Ohio – Preterm, the largest abortion clinic in the state, has launched a billboard campaign across Greater Cleveland that aims to “shift the public conversation on abortion away from the black-and-white political rhetoric.”

The 16 billboards have the phrase, “Abortion is ________,” each with a different word or phrase filling in the blank, like “life-saving,” “necessary,” and “a second chance.”

On its website, Preterm encourages supporters to share images of the billboards using the hashtags #AllOfTheAbove and #MyAbortionMyLife.

“We want to push people to think about abortion in new, diverse ways with these billboards,” Nancy Starner, Preterm’s director of development and communications, said in a news release.

You may have seen the movie Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri; here are the sixteen billboards outside Cleveland, Ohio.  From Chris Pandolfo, 16 Billboards Proudly Display the Horrific Depravity of Pro-Abortion Ghouls:

Abortion is Life-Saving

Abortion is Your Right

Abortion is Health Care

Abortion is a Blessing

Abortion is Liberty

Abortion is Normal

Abortion is Gender Equality

Abortion is a Second Chance

Abortion is Safer Than Childbirth

Abortion is Hope

Abortion is a Parenting Decision

Abortion is Good Medicine

Abortion is Necessary

Abortion is a Family Value

Abortion is Right for Me

Abortion is Sacred

Notice the attempt to co-opt religious language in an attempt to make abortion sound “spiritual”:  “Abortion is a blessing.”  “Abortion is Sacred.”

Then there are the attempts to make killing one’s child seem pro-family:  “Abortion is a parenting decision.”  “Abortion is a family value.”

 

 

Illustration by The Thought Police [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], from Wikimedia Commons

July 20, 2018

We blogged about Dan Hitchens’ article on politicians who parade their Catholic identity while also repudiating Catholic beliefs.   In that piece, the nephew of the late “new atheist” Christopher Hitchens quotes two figures from the past whose predictions are remarkably prescient.

From Dan Hitchens, The Trouble with Catholic Politicians:

John Henry Newman believed that “a civilised age” might put a nice, unthreatening religion in place of the Gospel. “Benevolence” would become “the chief virtue; intolerance, bigotry, the first of sins.” The “dark side of religion”, the risk of eternal punishment, the awfulness of disobeying God, would be airbrushed from the picture. . . .

In 2000, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger suggested that any future persecution would be directed not against Christianity in general, but against a subset of Christians defined as “fundamentalist” or extreme. The future pope noted that the authorities would never “openly persecute Christians; that would be too old-fashioned and unsuitable. No, they are most tolerant; they are of course open to everything. But then there are all the more definite things that are excluded and which are then declared to be fundamentalist.”

Newman (1801-1890) was a leader of the high-church movement in the Anglican church, who later went all the way to become a convert to Catholicism and, eventually, a cardinal.

Cardinal Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI, who stepped down from the papacy and is now considered “pope emeritus.”

His prediction is essentially that liberal Christians would be tolerated, while conservative Christians would be persecuted.  I think he is basically right, but it seems that liberal Christians are so assimilated into the non-Christian world that they are barely visible.  I don’t recall any critics of Christianity making an exception for liberal Christianity, even though they would probably be in basic agreement on most points.  Liberal Christianity continues to be very influential within church bodies and within the theology departments of universities and seminaries.  But liberal Christians hardly register with outsiders.  That’s quite a contrast with the first two-thirds of the 20th century, when “mainline Protestants” were the acknowledged and accepted representatives of Christianity in the culture.  Now we should probably get a new term:  the liberal denominations are hardly “mainline” anymore.

Cardinal Ratzinger was right, though, that the ruling secularists just hate “fundamentalism,” by which they mean any religious person who believes what their religion teaches.  “Fundamentalists” are no longer the conservative Protestants who signed the “Fundamentals” of the faith, against the encroachment of religious liberalism.  There are “fundamentalist” Catholics, “fundamentalist” Mormons, “fundamentalist” Muslims, and, I suppose, “fundamentalist” Calvinists and “fundamentalist” Lutherans.  The content of the beliefs, the actual religion or theology, make no difference.  What makes a fundamentalist is holding those beliefs, whatever they are, to be “fundamental.”

Cardinal Newman’s prediction is exactly on target.  His prediction is older, which makes a prediction for far in the future more impressive when it comes true.  For him, the apotheosis of “Benevolence” is not some watered down version of Christianity but a new religion altogether.

“Benevolence” has indeed become “the chief virtue; intolerance, bigotry, the first of sins.” The “dark” dimension of religion–judgment and eternal punishment, to be sure, but also suffering, atonement, blood sacrifice, and the Cross–are not sunshiny enough.

And yet, ours is a very “dark” time, full of cynicism and depression, embracing death, fascinated with the occult, and cultivating despair.  The “dark” parts of Christianity, ironically, can meet the darkness of sin, overcoming it with the light of God’s grace, the true benevolence.

 

Photo of John Henry Newman by Herbert Rose Barraud [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons


Browse Our Archives