For My Postmodern and Skeptical Friends

Generally when I lack creativity I go for quotes. There's this old saying that good writers borrow from great writers, but the great writers steal outright. I don't claim to be either good or great, but I have really been enjoying the non-fiction and fiction of G.K. Chesteron as of late and so wish to quote him. I'm into my 5th book of his this year and have found him highly refreshing to my stage of life.

The following quotation occurs in his novel, Man Alive, which describes a seemingly insane person as the only truly sane person (a common motif of Chesterton), because he is so full of life. In the context of one of these exhuberant episodes, Chesterton writes:

It is the fashion to talk of institutions as cold and cramping things.
The truth is that when people are in exceptionally high spirits, really wild
with freedom and invention, they always must, and they always do, create
institutions. When men are weary they fall into anarchy; but while they
are gay and vigorous they invariably make rules. This, which is true of
all the churches and republics of history, is also true of the most trivial
parlour game or the most unsophisticated meadow romp. We are never free
until some institution frees us; and liberty cannot exist till it is declared by
authority.

Leave it to Chesterton to frame things in a way that totally spins our contemporary sensibilities. Prescient even to our time, Chesterton exhorts us to accept and love our organizations and institutions, not distrust them. This exhortation is something I try to live by daily in the context of church ministry, despite the postmodern skepticism of institutions.

Michael Vick and Moral Priorities

"Going on from that place, [Jesus] went into their synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, they asked him, 'Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?' He said to them, 'If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a man than a sheep! [emphasis mine] Therefore, it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.'" -Matthew 12:9-12 (NIV)

I grew up with pets and both my sisters are veterinarians, so I can speak with some moral authority on the following subject.

Humans are more important than animals, but our culture mixes this up. Michael Vick kills dogs and gets a 2 year jail sentence. Donte Stallworth kills a human and gets a 30 day jail sentence.

We protest the return of Michael Vick to the NFL. Donte Stallworth won't get an interview on 60 minutes if he returns.

Michael Vick is regularly chastised by PETA and the humane society. Donte Stallworth was the more inhumane by driving drunk and killing someone.

Perhaps the retort from an outraged citizen goes like this, "But Vick's actions were deliberate, ongoing, and intentionally cruel. Stallworth's action was unintentional." That's a fair argument, but the results should matter to, not just what's in a person's head. Stallworth was negligent and should hold full culpability for his moral failings.

Furthermore, a person's sense of moral outrage against Vick is fine if it is morally consistent and prioritized correctly. A pro-choice person cannot be outraged at Vick, though. One of the most consistent arguments for the pro-choice movement is that human life isn't really destroyed during an abortion. Well it must also be true, then, that human life is also not destroyed by electrocuting dogs because dogs aren't humans. [Some may argue that dogs are alive but babies not so much, but science is universal that whomever is in the womb is "alive" by scientific standards] What, then, is the problem with Vick if you are pro-choice? And, if you think that abortion isn't as gruesome, what facts are you looking at?

Our culture has screwed up our priorities. We practially deify animals and impersonal forces of New Age spirituality, but we don't value human life. The Christian religion values all of life and prioritizes life properly. Creation matters, animals more, and humans most of all.

We go wrong when we mix up this priority list.

Pro-Life Polls Revisited

Back in May, I blogged on the significant news of the Gallup poll asking people's questions on abortion (read here). Now, there's a follow-up poll and Amy Sullivan from Time magazine is gloating a little bit from the more settled numbers:

My skeptical interpretation of the poll didn't turn out to be terribly popular. The idea that just a few months after the election of a pro-choice president, Americans were racing to embrace the pro-life cause was too tempting a storyline. The poll made headlines everywhere, and we ran an essay on it anyway.

Now along comes a follow-up poll from Gallup and whaddya know, the much ballyhooed pro-life majority seems to have disappeared. The percentages of Americans calling themselves "pro-life" and "pro-choice" are essentially the same (47% for pro-life; 46% for pro-choice). Meanwhile, the positions they hold--a more useful indicator than the labels people choose for themselves--haven't budged. A solid 78% think abortion should be legal in some or all circumstances.

Besides the fact that a journalist shouldn't use the non-word "whaddya," Sullivan's point to undermine the numbers are meaningless. Saying that abortion should be legal in "some" circumstances is very different from "all" circumstances. Heck, "some" is very different from "most" circumstances. Consider:

-"Some" can include cases of rape, incest, and the risk of the life of the mother (which all-told constitute a small number- in most cases less than 5%- of all abortions). See Francis Beckwith (Defending Life) on this- he allows abortion only when the life of the mother is at risk. He falls in the "some" camp, I suppose, but he has written an impressive and compelling treatise on the illogical nature of the pro-choice movement.

-"Most" can include other unwanted pregnancies like teenage pregnancy, women in poverty, etc.

-"All" is morally egregious (as is "most") but I do not wish to think of the mere fancy that a baby can be killed merely because someone doesn't want the baby.

Morally speaking, there is a vast difference from "some" to "most" here, and Sullivan shouldn't be so giddy as to presume the moral sensibilities of Americans. The "enligtened" course of action would be to make murder illegal. Apparently there's still a significant number of Americans who agree with this.

Caesar and Healthcare

Don't be deceived by any talk of, "let's do whatever works as it regards healthcare." No mere survey of the facts will tell us what the "right" thing to do is on a national scale as it regards healthcare. There are only two camps: both are informed by idealogy. There is the camp that says the government could possibly do a better job than the private healthcare industry and there is the camp that says the government could not possibly do better than the private healthcare industry. I am of the latter opinion.

You can get the information at a different source more capably, I'm sure, but let me outline the basics. Many democrats insist that a public option can be revenue neutral with premiums. The public option really just provides competition to the insurance industries. But the essence of a public option is that it's financed by the public. Okay, so I can keep my insurance if I like my insurance, but my tax dollars, whether I like it or not, will contribute towards the public system. Note: this isn't competition, it is coercion and an unfair advantage in the market place. Hospitals, doctors, and yes, even insurance companies don't get to receive tax dollars in this fashion, and so competition isn't really provided (and Amtrak, the US Postal System, and the DMV all make me think that the government doesn't run things well anyways).

Why does this matter? Why tow the conservative line on this when this blog is supposed to be about the Christian worldview? Because Christianity in all its forms rejects statism.

I can understand the compassionate impulse of many Christians. More people are cared for under universal (or almost universal) healthcare. This is a Christian good, right? Well, perhaps, but it's misguided.

It's misguided because a public option, or whatever nod we give in the direction of increased government-run healthcare, is coercion and not compassion. I can still hear the doubting, though. Even if it's coercion, how is this a bad thing?

It's a bad thing because Christianity rejects statism in all it's forms: the Roman empire, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Fascism, and Communism. Whether we call these regimes conservative or liberal, they have the same characteristic in common- their belief that the government is the solution to all individual, social, economic, and political ills.

N.T. Wright has a saying about the book of Romans. You see, Paul was insidious in his subversive rhetoric against the Roman Empire. In the letter written to Christians in Rome- the center of the empire- Paul continually notes that Jesus is Lord. Why does that matter? N.T. Wright says because if Jesus is Lord, then Caesar is not.

Now the Roman Empire was much more down the line of statism than the US is (Caesar thought he was god, after all). But the idea that it's the state's responsibility to provide healthcare and that it's a citizen's right to receive it is a scary crawl in the direction of statism.

That is why we should be wary of any increased power of the federal government, even if it's healthcare. Bush did it his way. Obama's doing it a different way. We should always be wary.

Confusing Categories and Common Sense

"How can you hate something that doesn't exist?"

These words were spoken by a friend of mine to someone he knows. My friend doesn't pride himself on his education or his intelligence: he doesn't have reason to be prideful in these regards. He isn't pompous, but very humble. He doesn't really consider himself an authority on anything. But he has common sense.

Many lack common sense, though. You see, my friend was in a conversation with a self-proclaimed atheist who at times would say he doesn't believe in God and other times would say he hates God. My friend's question is a logical question to ask the confused atheist. Hating something and not believing in something are two different things.

And so it is with many people. A tragic event strikes someone's life. "How could God let this happen to me. He must not be good at all." I suppose that sentiment, while misguided, doesn't contain any logical fallacies. But the logical fallacy isn't far behind for most people asking that question. "God isn't good, so he must not be there." And here this person has confused the categories again. It doesn't follow that God must not exist because tragic things happen. Tragic things may happen for a number of reasons (and some people doubt the goodness of God as a reason), but a person cannot doubt the existence of God because of those tragic things. It is two different categories. I would rephrase my friend's question in a lot of different ways, then:

How can you be upset at a God who's not there?

How can you expect goodness from a God who you don't think is good?

How can you expect goodness from a God who you don't think is there?

Simply based on our empirical knowledge, then, we have three conclusions. Either 1) There is no God and everything is a vast wasteland of meaninglessness or 2) God is there but he isn't good or 3) God is there and he is good. (Of course: other options exist for those in a different worldview, but for those who generally take to assume monotheism, these are the only conclusions).

Given the amount of goodness in the world, I opt for number 3.

Debt Matters: A Brief Manifesto against Obamanomics

"The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender."

Proverbs 22:7

The title of this post is a little facetious, to be sure. Our massive government debt isn't the fault of just Obama, he's just the latest champion of obese government spending. I'm opposed to most of it really. I was opposed to the stimulus measures back last fall (see here and here), and so I'm no johnny-come-lately to the criticism of government spending. That 700 billion was spent in a jiffy and no one knows where it went. Then Obama passed another "stimulus" measure that hasn't really stimulated (because it hasn't been spent yet), and yet the economy is beginning to recover on its own anyhow.

I'm no economist. I have an amatuer's interest, but I can't understand the complexities like an expert. And yet regulating money, in the end, is very simple. People should spend less than they make. And yes, governments should spend less than they make. The proverb above applies to every person and organization. The borrower is always servant to the lender.

While Lord Keynes may have taught, to some degree, that government spending can jolt an economy, the entire decade of the 30's should teach us otherwise. Most economists roundly agree that FDR's policies didn't bring us out of a depression, but rather that WWII did. And yet we're currently re-living the bogus thinking that a government can spend it's way out of an economic downturn. Two thoughts: we'll always have economic downturns, and the borrower is always servant to the lender. The money the government is spending is costing us dearly in much more important capital. Don't believe me? Listen to the words of Cokie Roberts, no friend to Libertarians or Conservatives, from Sunday on This Week with George Stephanapoulos:

"We can't put the type of pressure on China that we would like to put on China to cooperate with us in terms of North Korea or Darfur or other types of places because they own so much of our debt, and we are not in a position to pressure them because ...we are beholden to them as long as we are driving up this kind of debt."

I know economics are complex, but this simple truth is at work on a geopolitical scale. We can't exercise what little moral authority we have because we are in debt. We want new cars w/ "cash for clunkers," yet we're compromising our ability to weild international influence. Just because we want stuff and we want people to have jobs that will sell stuff. Debt is a more insidious, but more long term destructive power to our national strength. But it's even more destructive to our national consciousness and our national morality. The borrower is servant to the lender.