The Governor of the State of New York has directed all state agencies to  recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states, such as  Massachusetts and California, although such marriages are not legally performed in New York.  The governor, David A. Paterson, commented that this action will constitute a srong step toward marrige equality.

For aeons, Marriage has been understood as being between a man and a woman, a male and a female – for the simple reason that it is out of such  couplings that succeeding generations come into being.  While we may be approaching a time  when human beings will be produced in laboratories, as was the case in Aldous Huxley’s novel, Brave New World – that time has not yet arrived, although it is a truism that if  something can be done, it will be done – eventually.

Because homosexuality is seen by most people to be un-natural, a perversion, it has been declared to be immoral, debauched – particularly by traditional religious organizations and their adherents.  The Pope, in particular, has termed homosexuality to be an intrinsic moral evil.   So what is happening in New York and elsewhere is that a moral evil is being legitimized.

There is, of course, no necessary connection between what is Legal and what is Moral.   Ideally, the Laws of a Nation rest on a Moral and Ethical foundation.  But the furor over where the Ten Commandments can be displayed indicates a  strong aversion to introducing Judeo-Christian beliefs into the American political system.  Is not the stage being set for the accepting of a world-view- which will weaken, and eventually destroy, America’s behavioral foundations?

Conspicuous Consumption

Thorstein Veblen is known primarily as the author of The Theory of the Leisure Class, a book which gave us the term Conspicuous Consumption.  The basic notion was that people are to be understood as Consumers who buy stuff.  We buy stuff, however, not only because we need them, but because particular items reflect who we are .

There is, for example, the perceived need to keep up with the Jonses, to say nothing about the Smiths and everyone else on the street.  Veblen was not religious, but Chistians and Jews are familiar with the story of The Fall of Man in the Bookof Genesis, which recounts Adam and Eve disobeying God and eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.  This was an Act of Pride – giving us the pertintent insight that Pride goeth before the Fall.  Pride is the culprit, and is insidious, permeating all of life. 

The New York Times is read by many members of thr Leisure Class, and merchants pay huge  fees for advertisements, particularly on pp. 2-3, knowing that they will be perused by people who can pay for the hyper-expensive shoes, clothing, jewelry and other items favored by members of the Leisure Class who have a need to exhibit – to use Veblen’s term, conspicuous consumption, which, of course, is a first cousin of Pride.

On the plus side, Consumption is  good for the Economy, whch is why so many of us received gratuitous checks from the Treasury Department.  The  hope is that we won’t squirrel away that money, but will rush out and spend it.  Back in FDR’s time, this was called pump-priming.

The actual things we need – food, clothing, shelter, health care, transportation – are  not in short supply in this country.  It has been estimated that a family of four (2 adults and 2 children) needs an income of abot $20,000 a year before they fall blow the so-called poverty line.  Little conspicuous consumption is possible at this income  level. 

World-wide, hundreds of millions live on $1.00 a day.  It is something of a wonder tht more are not devotes of Kark Marx, who cried out, Workers of the world unite, you  have nothing to lose  but your chanins.  Actually, they had a great deal to lose, but Marx’s message was seen as a  new Gospel, that is, Good News for people who saw themselves as oppressed.  It turned out to be only an updated Idolatry - with clay feet - and like other idols, it crumbled over time. 

NATURAL RIGHTS AND THE RULE OF THE DEMOS

One might think that the existence of Natural Rights has always been a feature of human existence.  Not true.  The concept of Natural Rights appeared on the European scene as the age-old idea that Monarchs possessed a divine right to exercise power as they saw fit was being superseded by early stirring of Democracy, which is a system of governing based on rule by the demos, the Greek term for people.

While a form of Democracy may dimly be discerned in the government of ancient Greece, the vote was limited to a small, elite ruling class.  It was not until the authority of the Roman Catholic Church was questioned, as a result of the teachings of Reformers like Martin Luther and John Calvin, that the very concept of rule by the People began to be entertained.  And initially, the assumption was that the authority of this group be limited to literate men who were property owners.  Many years had to pass before women were given suffrage, and in the USA the right to vote has since been extended to people who are incarcerated in Mental Hospitals.

The USA is a relatively new nation, and because it was in reality an 18th Century creation, it was possible for the Founders to strike out in new directions.  Thus the phrase life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness came into being as a fresh statement about the Natural Rights of citizens, which was an indication of what was happening during the period known as the Enlightenment.  It is worth noting that an earlier version of the Declaration of Independence mentioned life, liberty and (private) property.  Its replacement, pursuit of happiness, is an imprecise, perhaps meaningless term that “sounds good”.  But while happiness can never be guaranteed, a Society may be so fashioned as to provide a degree of freedom sufficient to permit happiness to be pursued.

King George III was not unconcerned about the well-being of his American colonists, and was troubled about the excessive number of “black suited lawyers” who were in positions of authority.  Today, the understanding of Natural Rights is modified by Legal Rights, which Rights are not preternatural, and may be revised from time to time. What may be assumed to be a Natural Right today may not be declared illegal tomorrow.

Confusion, disorder, and a paucity of Common Sense are lamentable marks of 21st Century America.  Natural Rights, of course, are just there, and will persist – even if they fall under a cloud from time to time.  It will be a continuing challenge for our elected leaders, educators and churches, to see to it that an understanding of, and an appreciation of, Natural Rights are preserved for future generations to enjoy.

With Rights, of course, go Responsibilities, a personal and individual matter.  And where do young people learn to be responsible?  Not in big city public schools, from which virtually all expressions of Religion have been wiped out, thanks to the likes of the ACLU.  Of course, there are those who claim that Morality can be learned absent any religious associations, but is this true?  All Americans grow up in a kind Christian garden, so to speak.  The German-American theologian, Paul Tillich, used the metaphor of cut flowers. to describe the culture of the mid-20th century; it still had its blossoms,, but the blossoms were fading.

C. S. Lewis used another metaphor.  We castrate, and bid the gelding be fruitful.  He wrote these words almost eight decades ago, when a moderate Christian culture marked life in England and elsewhere in the West.

Today, England and the rest of Europe are decidedly uninterested in traditional Christian matters, while Islam is flourishing.  To some extent this is the result of a decision to permit anyone in the Empire who held a British passport, many of whom were Muslims, to become resident citizens of England.  They flocked in, and they vote, and one can be sure that Islamic values are not those of the England of Yesteryear.  The same may be said for France and other parts of Europe.  In effect, a kind of conversion has taken place – away from Christianity and toward religious indifference and alien ways of thinking.  Can such a gelding ever be fruitful?

DECENT BUT GODLESS

“And the wind shall say:
Here were decent godless people;
Their only monument the asphalt road
And a thousand lost golf balls”

T. S. Eliot is remembered as one of America’s greatest poets, and social critics, although in some ways he was more British than the British, and moved across the Pond to live there. He is perhaps best known for The Waste Land, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, and the play, Murder in the Cathedral, based on the murder of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket.

The middle years of the last century were distinguished by such notable Christian writers as C. S. Lewis, Dorothy L. Sayers and, of course, Eliot – all of whom cast a critical eye on the nature of the Society in which they lived.

With regard to the above quotation, What is wrong with asphalt roads? Surely, they are to be preferred to the dirt roads which crisscrossed America in the mid-1920s.

There is also nothing wrong with playing Golf, and losing the expensive little round spheres in the Rough
and elsewhere. Golf, being mostly a weekend sport, has lured many from going off to the local parish church on Sundays, which resulted in many insti-tuting Saturday evening services to keep the damage from spreading.

How numerous are the decent godless people in present-day America? Another term for them is secularists – this-world-only folks. Certainly, they are among the so-called elites, who influence our tastes and attitudes. And they are dominant in our more prestigious universities, which brainwash,-so to speak, the young and impressionable. Don’t send my boy to Harvard, the dying mother said; Don’t send my boy to Princeton, I’d rather see him dead. Certain ways of thinking can be bad for one’s soul.

The problem begins earlier, however, in the Public Schools, where matters Religious are, in accordance with the Constitution, excluded from the curriculum. Since morals and ethics are rest upon a foundation, religious or quasi-religious, societal behavior can only reflect the popular notion that there is no such thing as Right and no such thing as Wrong. In effect, by demoting or even dismissing God, we become our own gods, recognizing no authority greater than ourselves.

Glory to Man in the highest,
for Man is the master of things

Is Head-Slapping Torture?

It is contrary to the Geneva Convention of 1929 to “torture” prisoners captured during a war – which reflect the humanitarian belief that human beings are more than assemblages of DNA.  Christians, of course, say that we are Children of God; that we are created in His Image - which doesn’t mean that we look like him -  after all, God is without Body, Parts, or Passons – but that we carry within ourselves something of his Nature, the ability to love, for instance. 

And  we share humanity with Jesus, who was in every way as human as we are, but was without sin as the Son of God; He was Holiness and Perfection Incarnated - in the Flesh, in human form.

It is because we (imperfectly) resemble Him that Torture was banned by the Geneva Convention – not that the Convention was a Christian conclave, but because European Society had been Christianized.  There was a commom understanding of the difference between Right and Wrong – and Torture was wrong.

What this does is to present today’s Military with a problem, particularly with regard to the proliferation of Islam-instigated Terrorism.  Many  believe that the kill non-Muslims is pleasing to Allah, that such killing assures them of an existence in Paradise in the next life.  Its in the Book  – the Koran 

The United States has captured a  number of such terrorists, incarcerating them in the prison on Guantanomo Bay.  It goes without saying that these people are interrogated vigorously in an attempt to discover what nasty plans are in progress. 

But at what point does this interrogation swing over into torture?  Gentle suasion won’t work – not with these fanatics.  Nor will appeals to be civilized.  And perhaps not even will the “head-slapping, simulated drowning or frigid temperatures” authorized by the Justice Department.   

So how to elicit the essential information we need to provide a measure of security for American citizens? – given the state of the contemporary contentious political atmosphere, the place of the ACLU, defense lawyers for hire at huge fees, the unpredictabllity of Court decisons, not to forget the pervasive left-wing orientation of the Press.

When another 9/11 incident takes place, as it very probably will, how will these groups react?  We can be sure that no admssion of having been mistaken will ensue; that just doesn’t happen in the USA.

THE NATURALISTIC VIEW OF LIFE

The naturalistic view of life pervades very area of Western life, but nowhere with greater effect than among young people.  At every turn, they are bombarded with hedonistic, self-gratifying messages.  Day in and day out, they are bombarded with the message that life is all about toys and pleasures and gratifying every hormonal urge.  (“How Now Shall We Live”? (p. 159)

 

These are the words of Charles Colson, President Nixon’s White House counsel who was imprisoned for ”obstruction of justice” following the Watergate scandal and, who, while in prison, was converted to Christianity.  He is particularly known today for his work with prisoners through the world-wide Prison Fellowship Ministries.

 

Colson rejects what he calls the Naturalistic View of Life as not only un-Christian but anti-Christian.  In effect, it degrades human life to a purely animal level – a notion articulated by the noted jurist, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., who said: I see no reason for attributing to man a significance different in kind from that which belongs to a baboon or grain of sand.

 

Inasmuch as the Constitution is interpreted to separate Church and State, the teaching of Religion is banned in

 

 

 

 

 

America’s public schools.  Consequently, a Naturalistic View of Life typifies the prevailing philosophy.  It is no wonder that gratifying every hormonal urge is very much a part of the teen-age zeitgeist –a consequence being that venereal diseases are rampant, about one in four girls being infected, and one in five Americans having genital herpes.

 

To a certain extent this is a bye-product of the exclusion of Christian moral teaching from the public school experience.  If it is assumed, even postulated, that we are not created in the image and likeness of God (as the Bible puts it), the door is thrown open to gratifying every hormonal urge.  Since nothing is prohibited, everything is permitted.

 

 

What will America be like in the future, given that the Christian view of life is being pushed out of the Public Square – at a time when Islam is on the rise in the Western World, particularly in Europe?  There, a labor shortage has resulted in the importation of large numbers of Muslims at a time when commitment to the Christian Faith is increasingly nominal.

 

Perish the thought that the time will come when mosques outnumber churches in what once was the heart of Christendom.

HAS THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH LOST ITS MIND?

When William Butler Yeats penned Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold in “The Second Coming” (1919), he could not have had in mind what would  be happening to The Episcopal Church (TEC) in the early years of the 21st Century.  Not only has TEC, one of the 27 autonomous Provinces of the world-wide Anglican Communion. begun to ordain homosexuals, lesbians and transgendered people to the ministry, it is now considering inviting the unbaptized to receive the Sacrament of Holy Communion.  As one put it, we now live in a post-Christian culture where we have more visitors who are unbaptized.

 

There is something incoherent here which is parti-cularly unsettling, inasmuch as the statement came from the academic dean of a Seminary.

 

It is well within the memories of the living that only the Baptized and Confirmed were admitted to Com-munion, and some recall having to actually memorize the Catechism in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer.  The current 1979 Prayer Book’s Catechism was deliberately written not to be memorized but dis-cussed.  Rote memorization was discredited by the educator John Dewey, with the result that while students applauded, a generation has grown up devoid of the satisfaction and pleasure of being able to summon up in one’s mature years those nuggets of beauty and wisdom that abide in the old Catechism and in the Literature that was embedded in our minds once upon a time.  But the “experts” tell us that education must be fun, pleasurable.  And so, apparently, must be the experience of unbaptized people who may wander into Episcopal churches. 

 

The nature of the Christian faith demands that the parish church be a friendly and welcoming place.  After all, the Church is a called out community – called out, that is, from a skeptical and unbelieving world, into a relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

 

Yes, let the parish church be a fun place, but let it not be forgotten that its primary activities are the worship of Almighty God through Jesus Christ, as well as the instruction of the laity by way of Sermons and formal teaching.  Even the revisionist 1979 discussion-based Catechism might be used.  The laity is far from stupid and often highly trained in their respective fields, but in many cases only superficially educated in the essentials of the Christian faith.  Happily, they are eager to learn. 

Wars of Religion

We are living at a time when the religion of Islam is gaining power and influence in the West and claiming to be a “religion of peace”.

Tell it to Charles Martel (The Hammer) – and tell it to the Marines!

We forget that “peace loving” Islamics got to within a few miles of Paris in AD 732, and were pushed out of Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella as late as 1492 – which permitted their Majesties to underwrite Columbus’ expenses and enable him to sail across “the ocean blue” and discover the New World.

And then, to be fair, there were the Christian Crusades, originally and ostensibly launched to regain Jerusalem, but linked to a variety of political, economic, religious, and other reasons.  The 4th Crusade, with Innocent III as Pope, sacked Orthodox Constantinople partly because Roman Catholic merchants in Venice perceived an opportunity to plunder a great city.  The huge bronze horses which stand inside St. Mark’s Cathedral , were stolen from ”the second Rome” - replicas, which have to brave polluting rain, have been placed outside for tourists to admire.  The Venetians even stole the relics of the Apostle St. Mark from their former location in Alexandria. 

Agnostics, atheists, and other critics of Relgion often point to evidences of hypocricy on the part of  believers – sometimes citing Jesus’ reaction to the religious authorities of his time, O ye scribes and pharisees, hypocrits.

There seems to be a “great gulf fixed” between the ideals of a religion and the actual practice of it – which has led some to assert that the very existence of Religion is actually harmful to a society’s well-being.  One atheist is reported to have said, “Maybe the fool does say in his heart there is no God . . . but the wise man says sit out loud,”  Wise man?

Secularism (the belief that this world is all there is ism) is the philsophical view of many of the opionion-makers of the WesternWorld – university professors, such as Richard Dawkins of Oxford; American public schools; the ACLU; and many others.  The public Square, they assert,should be swept clear of any signs of Religion.

But let us pause before Baby is thrown out with the Bathwater.

Alister McGrath, also a professor at Oxford, is a critic of Dawkins and has pointed out that Science is quite unable to provide a “guiding moral vision”.   McGrath, incidentally, became Christian after studying molecular biophysics and chemistry.   Every human being, he asserts, needs a “moral vision” to escape living in pandemonium - pandemonium in Dante’s Paradise Lost being the palace built under Satan’s order as the Capital of Hell.

Life in the United States is not Hellish - yet.  Bujt isn’t it gradually moving in that direction?  The news is filled with one horror after another, from the sexual violation of children, to co-ed gang wars in big cities, to “wickedness in high places” like Congress. to the Supreme Court legalizing Abortion on Demand.  America’s moral vision is astigmatic, blurred- and it will remain so as long as the Christian Faith (and other faiths) are sidelined and even denigrated – and thus hobbled in their mission to “provide Guidance”. 

Physically we see with our eyes, but Spiritually we are stumbling around in the dark.  We are morally diseased and need a strong anti-viral injection of orthodox Christianity to “open our eyes”.      

FLUID AMERICAN RELIGION

A New York Times article pointed out that many Americans move back and forth among various Christian churches and sects, as well as leave them to become inactive or even to join another religion.  It has been estimated that as many as 44% of us have switched affiliations.

 

Such a development cannot but have a deleterious effect on American religious and political life.  While we give lip-service to the supposed benefits of diversity, it is rarely recognized that excessive diversity provides a highway to chaos, pandemonium – and such a condition can only bode ill for a society’s future.

 

What is happening is that authority is increasingly seen to reside with the individual.  As W. E. Henley’s poem Invictus puts it:  I am the master of my fate,, I am the captain of my soul.  But are we?

 

The New Testament recounts a confrontation between Jesus and Satan, who shows him all the kingdoms of the world and offers them to Jesus is he would only bow down and worship (him).  Jesus’ reply is Be gone, Satan!  You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you served.  (Mark 4:10)

 

This biblical passage is radically at odds with the message Invictus encapsulates, although the Zeitgeist,  the Spirit of the Age, is generally in agreement with it.

 

While the so-called Evangelical movement, markedly Bible-based and individualistic, involves millions in this country, there is abundant evidence that America’s intellectual elites, generally secular or agnostic, wield enormous influence.  It is significant that Ivy League universities, originally founded to educate Protestant clergy, are now overwhelmingly secular, and even hostile to Christianity.  Inasmuch as they like to claim that they train the brightest and the best, it is unclear how this will affect the frame of mind of the American body-politic in the long run.  In any event, it appears that Religion will decline in influence. And because Nature abhors a
Vacuum, some religion-like ideology will take its place.  It seems to be part of human nature to venerate some thing or some one.

 

Fluid religion sloshes about, the way water might in a swimming pool on a storm-tossed ocean liner.  It can be unsettling, and such a Religion can hardly be expected to undergird a healthy society.

Evolution vs. I.D.

American public schools are struggling with how to teach Biology as a Science at a time when there is disagreement as to whether human life evolved by chance or was created by God, as the Bible says, in His image and likeness.  Put another way, are human beings the result of a purposeless evolutionary accident or is there a divine intelligence behind our existence?

Public schools are forbidden by the Constitution from introducing a religious factor into classroom instruc-tion.  The teaching of Science, therefore, must remain wholly thing-centered, materialistic, limited to this world, – devoid of any association with intuition or Religion, which believes that God stands behind Creation.  Because Religion lies beyond the purview of Science, it is regarded simply as personal opinion and therefore subject to error.

The purpose of Education is usually thought of as preparation for employment, and that is not unim-portant.  But there are other factors which have to do with deeper issues, such as What does it mean to be a human being? – or as the Bible puts it, What is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou visitest him? (Ps 8:4; Heb. 2:6

Human beings are more than a collection of bio-chemical cells that evolved willy-nilly and somehow came to possess minds, skills and consciences – quail-ties which underlay the creation of organized communities, which, in turn, led to the naissance of Civilizations, all of which are extremely complex and nuanced. 

It is often asserted that Western Civilization is Judeo-Christian, although it seems to be moving in a secular direction, away from faith in religion.  A generation ago, colleges offered courses aimed at transmitting the ideals of Western Civilization to the rising generation.  This has faded away in the face of the relativistic notion that all cultures are worthy of respect (whatever that may mean) and that ours is simply one among many.  Does this not promote cultural amnesia, a precursor of a form of anarchy?

Doesn’t such amnesia undercut belief in a God who cares and who is the Intelligent Designer, and may lead to what Shakespeare had in mind when he wrote,  Life’s but a walking shadow . . . It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing?