Truth Comes First

 

Ephesians 6:10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

I have touched on these powers of the dark world before, suggesting that these powers are not merely disembodied spirits, but powers working through real flesh-and-blood human beings.  The Apostle Paul writes next how we are to deal with these rulers and authorities and spiritual forces of evil:

13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place,

The very first defense we have is truth.  The Apostle Paul offers this even before righteousness.  But it gets more interesting thereafter:

15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Next comes the gospel, faith, and finally, salvation.  But first of all comes truth – a commodity sorely lacking in our world, and one few rulers and authorities speak today.  It is not found in the media, not in politicians, not in business leaders.  But Paul offers that it must be found in those in the Lord.

The spoken word is to be guarded, above all else.  God created the world through words; in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God; it is not what goes into one’s mouth that defiles him, but what comes out.

Truth comes first.  When it comes to our armor, it is our first defense.

Jordan Peterson Places His Faith in Man

 

Jordan Peterson had a conversation with Matt Ridley.  Ridley is an author on topics such as economic optimism, trade, the advancements since the Enlightenment, etc.  From the discussion, I gather he is fundamentally a Steven Pinker type.

There is, of course, much to agree with in such discussions.  One cannot disagree with the idea of material progress over the last centuries, especially in the developed (and ever-increasingly developed) world; much of the rest of the planet has been lifted out of poverty.  If all we are after is material goods, end of discussion.  Of course, we are made for more than this, something Peterson – at least prior to his illness – seemed to understand quite well.

Toward the end of the conversation, they begin a discussion about energy, the value of energy in lifting people out of poverty – therefore the benefit of producing energy as cheaply as possible.  This runs counter to the many green ideas of solar and wind.  A very sound discussion and observation.

But then it all goes wrong.  Ridley begins:

“You will notice, Jordan, that you and I have slipped into a slightly pessimistic mood, because we find the energy policies of our countries rather stupid.”

He continues, noting that this is on top of the identity politics stuff and anti-Enlightenment mood in society.

“I could make a case that we just might be about to kill the goose that has been laying the golden eggs.”

All of this runs contrary to the work Ridley has apparently done over the last decades.  It also is consistent with many of the concerns Peterson had prior to his medical issues and disappearance from the conversation due to these.

Certainly, Peterson was always a fan of the material progress of the Enlightenment.  Who couldn’t be?  But he also saw that there was a loss of meaning that has come with it (I cannot say if he believed the relationship was causal, just that it seemed clear he saw both things as true).  His raison d'être was addressing this meaning crisis.  Cheerleading for the material progress since the Enlightenment?  Such academicians are a dime a dozen.

In any case, Peterson doesn’t want to address the negatives of society – at least not those raised by Ridley: governmental energy policies are rather stupid and identity politics is ripping society apart.

Peterson didn’t used to have an aversion to these topics.  In fact, these – especially the issue of identity politics – are precisely where he came into popular view.  No longer.  Peterson offers:

“I truly think we should avoid going there.  I’ve thought about this a lot, watching people respond, for example, to some of the things that I’ve been talking about over the last few years.  There’s a huge population of young and not-so-young people who are literally starving…no they’re metaphorically starving, they’re psychologically starving for a positive but believable story.

Peterson used to be clear that the story could not be merely physical or material.  It is so obvious: if our material good is all that matters to us as human beings, there would be no such thing as a meaning crisis.  This used to be obvious to Peterson as well.  He continues:

Blasphemy Against the Unholy Spirit

 

Matthew 12: 31 And so I tell you, every kind of sin and slander can be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. 32 Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.

A look at the executive orders signed by Biden reveals the blasphemies against the unholy spirit that have overtaken Trump supporters.  For example, his orders include items in favor of:

-          immigration

-          abortion

-          expanding what was already supposedly universal healthcare

-          climate change and return to the Paris Accord

-          further centralization of science and technology

-          more fair housing

-          transgender “rights”

-          more covid restrictions

-          more vaccinations

-          increased covid testing

-          more mask wearing

-          increased minimum wage

-          returning to the World Health Organization

-          canceling the Keystone pipeline

-          rescinding the 1776 Commission

-          non-citizens included in apportionment of congressional districts

-          more immigration

Add to this the list of proposals in front of congress:

-          expand access to the ballot box

-          remove the deadline to ratify the equal rights amendment

-          investigate members of congress who sought to overturn the results of the election

-          reparations for African Americans

-          mask wearing at the Capitol

-          admit Washington DC as a state

Certainly, the lists will continue to grow.  These provide a roadmap for understanding the sins that are not to be forgiven.  These are not addressing “crimes” in any meaningful sense of the term; they are addressing sins…unforgiveable sins.

The following is taken from an interview with David J. Theroux on the Libertarian Christian podcast.  Theroux is Founder and President of both the Independent Institute and of the C.S. Lewis Society of California.  It is on the latter of these two roles that this interview is based, a discussion on C.S. Lewis and Natural Law.  There is one specific comment that I wish to draw out, starting here:

After mentioning Dostoyevsky, Theroux offers:

If you don’t have this objective idea of morality from God then anything goes, so Lewis has many essays he would write about discussing some of these questions.  In one of them he talks about: if there is no objective morality and then that means that there is no accountability for what you choose.  It’s simply your choice that’s subjective.  You haven’t committed an evil or a crime because its subjective, but people may not want you to do that.

It isn’t a crime; it is just a subjective choice that is not accepted by others – a sin, of sorts.

So, your choice must be a mental deficiency.  You haven’t been conditioned properly.  So instead of being convicted of a crime, which has no meaning, you would be put into an institution and you would be socialized into being whatever the proper choices should be, which, of course, is also subjective.

Let’s take a moment to consider some recent examples of this desired “socialization”:

Congressional Democrats back “Secular America,” a group that has sent a 28-page document to the Biden transition team advising him to strip First Amendment rights from Christians who advocate traditional biblical positions on the sanctity of life, marriage, education, and the nuclear family, Harbinger’s Daily reports.

…an incoming Biden administration must “educate the American public,” particularly those identified as the “religious right,” on the need to keep their “religious dogma” to themselves. The document calls for a purge of social conservatives from all levels of government, labeling them as “white nationalist” and “conspiracy theorists.”

According to the now privatized site [the “Trump Accountability Project”], whose internet archives were captured, anyone associated with the Trump administration, including those who elected him, staffed his government, funded him, endorsed him, worked in law firms for him, and who supported him in general, should be “held accountable.”

"Trump must be defeated ... and his enablers, and his supporters ... must be prosecuted and convicted and removed from our society," ranted the always hot-blooded Keith Olbermann.

"The most humane and reasonable way to deal with all these [Trumpian] people ... is some kind of truth and reconciliation commission," tweeted MSNBC prime-time host Chris Hayes, a politic Martin compared to the Nelson-esque brashness of Olbermann.  "When this nightmare is over, we need a truth and reconciliation commission," proposed former Labor Secretary Robert Reich.  Elie Mystal of The Nation floated the same proposition.

That’s enough of that.  Returning to the Theroux interview:

And the people who are doing the conditioning, their minds are subjective too, and they have no idea what is the best outcome, so you end up with this incoherent and incredibly frightening world where this person who is incarcerated can never pay damages to a victim or ever be released because there is no crime that is committed, there’s no victim, and so there’s never a way to get out from under that kind of horror.

Conclusion

One cannot atone for the crime that is not a crime, this blasphemy against the unholy spirit.  The punishment is never-ending:

If you ever get twenty-five years for nothing, if you find yourself wearing four number patches on your clothes, holding your hands permanently behind your back, submitting to searches morning and evening, working until you are utterly exhausted, dragged into the cooler whenever someone denounces you, trodden deeper and deeper into the ground-from the hole you're in, the fine words of the great humanists will sound like the chatter of the well-fed and free.

-          Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

The Critical Juncture in the West

 

Fatal Discord: Erasmus, Luther, and the Fight for the Western Mind, by Michael Massing.

It is difficult to avoid writing about this book, given the topic covered.  I do suggest: for anyone interested in the time and events, it is a valuable resource and an easy read.

In my last post, I wrote of what seemed to clearly be the sticking point for the Church: Luther’s questioning on indulgences.  In this post, I will offer brief snippets of events in the subsequent years.

Jan Hus

Yes, I know this was prior to Luther; Hus is in the story about one century earlier.  But the story of Luther cannot be told without Hus.  It was at the Leipzig Disputation in the summer of 1519 where Luther was compared to Hus, because of a) Luther raised many of the same objections, and b) Luther said that on many points, he agreed with Hus.

Of course, Luther knew little of Hus at the time he made these statements; until this point, he had not read any of Hus’s works (probably difficult to come by, given they were deemed heretical).    Hus, like Luther after him, would condemn the papacy (an Antichrist if he lived contrary to Christ) and supported offering the cup to the laity.  These, among other positions, did not sit well in Rome.

In October 1414, Hus was called to the Council of Constance.  He traveled there with a safe-conduct granted by the emperor, but within a month it was decided that such a heretic deserved no safe return.  By the next summer, he was told: recant or else.  He would not.  On July 6, 1415, Hus was burned alive.

Erasmus

He was in a tough spot.  He agreed with much of what Luther wrote and said, and Luther felt – at least early on – that Erasmus could be an ally.  But, fighting the Church openly was not his style or desire.  In fact, fighting at all openly was not in his sights.  When he wanted to attack, he would author a pamphlet anonymously.

Erasmus would write plainly and openly: he had not desire to speak against Rome or the Pope; in no way would he want to be a martyr.  The pressure slowly turned up into one of those “if you’re not with us, you’re against us” climaxes.

Luther

He could be a nasty sort; he relied on the notion that Christ came, not to bring peace, but a sword.  Those who wrote against him were “doctrinal asses,” “ignorant and wicked,” “swarm of parasites,” “The ‘Holy Roman See of Avarice,’” “the monsters of this age,” “a licentious den of thieves,” “notorious godlessness.”

He even wrote a pamphlet, mimicking a papal bull, entitled “Why the Books of the Pope and His Disciples Were Burned by Doctor Martin Luther.”

To the extent he received admonishments of various sorts from Rome, there was offered little, if any, rebuttal beyond leaning on the authority of the Church.

The Printing Press

Millions (yes, millions) of copies of Luther’s work were printed, spreading throughout Germany and Europe – not only in Latin, but also in the common tongues.  Absent the printing press, Luther may not have achieved any better result than that which came to Hus.

Worms

The Diet at Worms, 1521; Charles and the Church confront Luther.  An event as meaningful to the history of the West as was the day when the Estates General convened in France in 1789.  For Luther, finding himself in the company of the emperor, many esteemed nobles, bishops, etc., was a new and strange experience for such a lowly and haggard man.