A Captain in the Armies of the Lord of Hosts

Battle Lines Being Drawn

It is always encouraging when Christian leaders and Christians face up to the Great Antithesis between belief and unbelief and build their lives and ministries accordingly. Here is a clip of Bishop E. W. Jackson calling for black Christians to leave the Democratic party because of its persistent and virulent anti-Christian positions.  He has started a movement called Exodus Now!, evoking the biblical injunction to “come out from among them and be ye separate.”

According to some media reports, the call is being heeded–to the consternation of the Democratic Party.  Before you read those reports, listen to the challenge and appeal Jackson makes to fellow black Christians.  It will be heart warming and encouraging to all Christians.

Here is the piece from the media on the Black Exodus: as the bishop himself says, it’s not about race, but righteousness. Amen.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 26, 2012 — /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — For the first time since the black community’s political realignment with the Democrat Party in the 1960’s, a nationally prominent black Pastor has called on the black church community to leave the Democrat Party in a movement dubbed “EXODUS NOW!” Bishop E.W. Jackson’s call to “come out from among them” is apparently being heeded by many black Pastors and Christians across America and creating a stir in many churches. There is concern at the highest levels of the Democrat Party.

 The impetus for EXODUS NOW, and what has given it credibility in the black community is the Democrat Party’s increasingly secular stand, particularly making “same-sex marriage” an official part of the Party Platform. This came on the heels of a number of other actions which many Christians found objectionable: President Obama’s support for same-sex marriage; regulations ordering Catholic and other Christian institutions providing healthcare to distribute free contraceptives and abortion drugs; Convention speakers support for unrestricted abortion up to the moment before delivery; and taking God out of the party platform and no longer recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Across the country, as black Christians debate the call to EXODUS NOW, Democrats are shaken. They desperately need the votes of black church goers. Democrats are responding by attacking Jackson personally on left wing blogs. “They can say anything they want about me,” says Jackson, “but I do not intend to leave Christians in bondage to a party that is hostile to everything Christians hold dear. Either we worship and rely on God or we worship and rely on a political party. We are supposed to rely on Almighty God, not the government or any party. When a party disdains God and His word, as the Democrat Party clearly does, it is time to leave that party.”

Says the Bishop, “This movement is not about Party, but principle; not about race, but righteousness. This is not about winning an election, but saving a generation.”

Here to Help

Jabba the Hut Gives us Nightmares

Ronald Reagan famously quipped that the most dangerous sentence in the English language was, “We’re from the government and we’re here to help.”  Authoritarian rulers who believe they know what is in your best interests (better than you do) and who have pompously convinced themselves that they are kindly, considerate, and thoughtful–that is, they have noble motives–are the most dangerous of all.  After all Judas believed he was doing his people a great service, having their best interests at heart, when he betrayed our Lord for thirty pieces of silver.  In reality, he had fallen under the control of the Devil (Luke 22:3). 

Consequently, since the price of liberty is perpetual vigilance, we have to scrutinise very closely “well-meaning” governments.  The more well-meaning they are, the more dangerous they become.  At the very least it evidences a mode of thinking which considers citizens to be infantile children.  Such arrogance is both demeaning and minatory.

New Zealand’s privacy laws are an example.  Conceived by civil righters and faceless bureaucrats and NGO-bureaucrats, privacy has become a classic example of the genre of authorities knowing what is best for you even if you don’t.
  (Children, after all, cannot be expected to understand what is in their long term best interests.)  So, after a due amount of huffing and puffing about dire threats to human existence and evil Rodents of Unusual Size which inhabited the badlands, threatening outlying villages we passed Privacy Laws and even appointed a Privacy Commissioner.  The citizen-children at last could sleep in peace with untroubled dreams of privacy gobbling monsters.

But the world is a dynamic place and the privacy threatening rodents merely changed their tactics.  They developed new technologies.  They thought up new ways to invade the children’s cots.  Vigilance was required.  And new laws and regulations.  Always new restrictions, more controls, more Dictats.  Until, one day, the children began having new nightmares.  Not about intrusive rodents from the badlands, but huge hulking slugs, like Jabba the Hut slobbering over the cots, licking the citizen-babes to sleep.  Welcome to the loving embrace of the Privacy Commissioner: the biggest slug of them all.  It stinks with a malefactory odour. 

An editorial in the NZ Herald, reacting to the slug’s latest moves to protect us from advertisers,  puts the matter in proper perspective:

The Privacy Commissioner wants to go much further, attacking direct mail at its source in the information that can be gathered about individuals’ spending habits and preferences. The commissioner wants the powers of the office widened so that it no longer acts only on complaints from the public but can take action against organisations that might be gathering and using information without the subject of the information being aware of it.

Is this so bad? It sounds sneaky, even creepy, but it is simply trying to sell people things they might like. All advertising attempts to reach the most likely buyers of the product it is selling. Advertising is not regarded as a public service because it is done for a profit, but public service and profits are not mutually exclusive. All trade is an exchange of benefit.

Is privacy so important that we do not want direct advertising to know what we might like? Privacy is a relatively new concern of legislators and regulators. It is a concern that originated in rarefied circles of policy-making, not from popular demand.

Principles of privacy are now written into public service rules, sometimes to the detriment of sensible advice that health professionals, for example, might give to family members of a distressed person.

It is hard to write a privacy code for everybody. Information that some people would keep to themselves, others put on Facebook. Individuals differ widely on what they want to share and what they regard as private. The best way to regulate such a variable and subjective human right is to adjudicate on complaints.  Complaints involve real people with real concerns. We might be much less concerned than the commissioner thinks we should be, or would be if we knew what consumer information was being exchanged about us. But do we really care?

If it means we get alerted to travel deals or gift possibilities or it is just another addition to the waste paper collection, it is harmless. Strict privacy is for hermits, the rest of us interact with the world and can judge when marketers exceed our tolerance.

Strict privacy is for hermits and babes in hermetically sealed nurseries.  It is not for adults and free people.  We will judge for ourselves, thank you.  When we make mistakes we will learn from them.  We will follow our own preferences, including this: intrusive Rodents of Unusual Size are much less a threat than Jabba the Privacy Commissioner Hut.  Spare us from nannying, do-gooding government.  It is positively dangerous, and eventually, nightmarish. 

Douglas Wilson’s Letter From America

If Obama Wins . . .

Culture and Politics – Obama Nation Building
Written by Douglas Wilson
Tuesday, 25 September 2012

If Obama wins — which is a real possibility — certain things follow. I mean certain things will follow other than the zombie apocalypse which will tragically end with a horde of them eating the republic’s brains.
One of the results will be the chortling comments pointing out that I predicted this wouldn’t happen, which is true, and that I ought therewith to shut up with the punditry, which is false, and that my observations on the subject have been nothing but glorified wish fulfillment, which is false again.

My conviction that Obama is going to lose, and that Romney is going to take it walking away, is my considered opinion. If I were a betting man, which I am not, I would be willing to put a $25 steak dinner on it. That is, a steak dinner for one of you out there, probably the noisiest one, not a steak dinner for all of you. That would work out to five Starbucks for 5 of you. That is the level of my conviction on this. Here I stand.
So let me state a few observations about an Obama win — which is a real possibility — and then state again why I think he is going to lose.

If Obama wins, look for certain things to follow.
One is for the blame to fall on those conservatives, like myself, who sat it out. We didn’t rally around Romney when it was time to rally around. It would be more to the point, albeit less convenient, to lay the responsibility on the kind of Republicans that the Republicans nominate, the kind which inspire principled conservatives to say meh.

We have gotten to the point where the Republican Party is tagged with the label of “extreme,” and they have managed to do this with candidates like George H.W., Bob Dole, Dubya, McCain, and Romney. Everybody thinks the Republicans are out on the skinny branches when all they do is hug the trunk. On top of this, in the last 24 years we have had 12 years of Republicans and 12 years of Democrats . . . and 24 years of steady growth in statist encroachments and outrages. It is true that Republicans sometimes slow down the growth of this cancer state, but they usually manage to do so in ways that set us up for a pent-up rapid growth when Tweedledumber is then elected.

In short, I grant that Obama is terrible. But it seems apparent to me that Bush II handed us Obama. I grant that Romney would be better than Obama — unless he hands us somebody worse than himself, and worse than Obama. Hard to imagine, I know, but work with me.

If Obama wins, he will have an uncooperative Congress. But he will still have executive orders and a compliant, servile media. If Obama wins, he will no doubt have some new Supreme Court appointments to make, and might conceivably appoint somebody as bad as . . . John Roberts, say. If Obama wins, we might lose three ambassadors.

So now that I have discouraged everybody mightily, let me say why I don’t believe he is going to be elected. If this view of mine turns out to be erroneous — as it quite possibly might, see above — I will still want to maintain that this was a reasonable position to maintain, given the available facts. And here they are, as I see them.

By all the objective criteria, Obama’s is a failed presidency. But he has the good fortune to be a failed president with a media that has no worldview categories for a failed socialist president. This explains why his failed presidency is not discussed in those terms. This is why the election still seems close. Obama seems to me to be a sunk president being artificially kept afloat with digital imagery. But the realities still are what they are.

In the best of times, political polling is a species of haruspicy, and in this situation, the pollsters are not  only reading the entrails of a goat, but it turns out to have been a diseased goat. Polling is the practice of rendering general by induction — interviewing 2,000 Americans and telling us on that basis what 200 million others think. A lot rides on the sample size, and the “scientific” ways in which that sample size is selected and arranged. Pollsters in this go round have been baking 2008 turnout levels into their polling, and it is unlikely in the extreme that those levels are anywhere close to accurate. I don’t want to say that polling tells us nothing, but I don’t think it tells us anything near what we assume that it can tell us. Throw in the fact that polling is a legacy (read, dinosaur) industry, relying a lot more on landline phones, for example, than it ought to.

Moreover, when we get the objective results in (on election day), and the results are quite different from what the polls were telling us the week before, it is rare for us to conclude that the polls were all messed up, or going beyond that, that the whole process of polling is suspect. No, we conclude a late break for one candidate or the other. Anything less would threaten the livelihood of those providing us with the goats. In short, I don’t trust the polls.

That doesn’t mean we can’t analyze numbers with an eye on the election, but they ought to be numbers like the unemployment rate. When was the last time an incumbent president was re-elected with an unemployment rate above 8%? Throw in the fact that the Middle East is burning down. Throw in the fact that we are trillions deeper in debt and no better off. Throw in his insufferable conceit and tip-tilted nose. Throw in . . .  but this takes us back to the failed presidency point above.

But I will say this. If Obama is elected again, we will deserve everything we get, good and hard. No fair feeling sorry for us. Remember FDR’s “we owe it to ourselves!” This will be a more sobering “we did it to ourselves!”

Orwellian Newspeak in France

 “Father” and “Mother” To Be Expunged

We have published comment recently on the wider, deeper implications of homosexual “marriage”.  The argument was that when a society recognises two things follow: the state intrudes into and regulates more and more of human activity, trying to make it conform to its degenerate, regressive, secular religion; and secondly, the family and its structural relationships face a full frontal assault. 

Now, as if  to illustrate the point, France has announced that it is moving to “Orwellise” the national language and discourse about families–all as a result of legalising homosexual “marriage”.  This from The Telegraph:

France set to ban the words ‘mother’ and ‘father’ from official documents

France is set to ban the words “mother” and “father” from all official documents under controversial plans to legalise gay marriage.

France’s Justice Minister Christiane Taubira

The move, which has outraged Catholics, means only the word “parents” would be used in identical marriage ceremonies for all heterosexual and same-sex couples. The draft law states that “marriage is a union of two people, of different or the same gender”. It says all references to “mothers and fathers” in the civil code – which enshrines French law – will be swapped for simply “parents”. The law would also give equal adoption rights to homosexual and heterosexual couples.

Justice Minister Christiane Taubira told France’s Catholic newspaper La Croix: “Who is to say that a heterosexual couple will bring a child up better than a homosexual couple, that they will guarantee the best conditions for the child’s development?” 

Who is to say, indeed?  The government will say, that’s inevitable.  The government is going to step in as uber parent, assuming the role of ultimate father and mother of all children.  The Justice Minister adds:

“What is certain is that the interest of the child is a major preoccupation for the government.” 

 The head of the French Catholic Church Cardinal Philippe Barbarin warned followers last week that gay marriage could lead to legalised incest and polygamy in society. He told the Christian’s RFC radio station: “Gay marriage would herald a complete breakdown in society.”This could have innumerable consequences. Afterward they will want to create couples with three or four members. And after that, perhaps one day the taboo of incest will fall.” 

So there is the nexus of the connection on display.  To legalise homosexual “marriage” the family must be redefined.  Parenting becomes gender irrelevant.  Roles recognised in law for centuries, such as the role of father and mother are to be wiped away and no longer recognised by law.  Parenting alone remains, which has no reference to gender.  The hubris and pretensions are Napoleonic in their scope and folly.

Since homosexuals cannot reproduce they must seek children for parenting from others.  In their quest they will now look to the state to reify their desires.  Children will have to be granted them by law, since nature will not.  Natural parents will no longer have pre-emptive and higher rights with respect to their children.  The state will not arrogate to itself a higher right.  The rights of natural fathers and mothers are to be no longer recognised in law–which is fine until someone else–a homosexual–makes a claim for their children.  Only the rights of parents remain–and “parent” has nothing to do with who bore the child, or the genetic heritage of the child. Children are to be made conquest trophies on the altar of perverted adult sexual passions.

Leading French Catholics have also published a ‘Prayer for France’, which says: “Children should not be subjected to adults’ desires and conflicts, so they can fully benefit from the love of their mother and father.”  And Pope Benedict XVI invited 30 French bishops to Italy to urge them to fight against the new law. He told them: “We have there a true challenge to take on.  The family that is the foundation of social life is threatened in many places, following a concept of human nature that has proven defective.” President Francois Hollande pledged in his manifesto to legalise gay marriage. The draft law will be presented to his cabinet for approval on October 31.

This revolutionary madness–long a French tradition of course–will fail.  But in the process it will refine and purify the Church.  It will eventually lead to the reassertion of the truth about marriage and family.  It will reawaken interest in the Gospel and the reign of the Lord.  It will also mean much pain and suffering as people learn what it means when God gives a nation or a culture up to its own madness. 

When Christians pray, “Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done upon earth as in heaven” this humbling, purifying, winnowing work is what we seek. 

Media Defalcation

Not How the Press Works

The media in the US (and the West generally for that matter) is largely in the tank for Obama.  He appears to have an unlimited, never-ending supply of “free passes”.  Most recently he and his administration made a huge mistake over the assault upon the US consulate in Benghazi.  Obama and Hillary Clinton and the US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice rushed to the microphones to declare that the violence was a reaction to an anti-Islamic video produced in America.  The sub-text was “the US is to blame; one of us caused the violence; mea culpa, mea maxima culpa”. 

Unfortunately for that particular spin, it is now abundantly clear that the attack upon the embassy was planned long in advance: it was a military operation, and had nothing to do with provocation from an amateur DVD.  More alarming is the administration’s ignoring of warnings which were delivered to the US about an imminent attack.
 

But the quiescent media remained loyal to their chief, ignoring the prima facie culpability and negligence of the administration which resulted in deaths of American officials and employees.  Instead, the media went into a febrile paroxysm of criticism of challenger Mitt Romney because he dared to suggest that the administration had been feckless and irresponsible over the matter.

With this background, The Onion has produced what we regard as one of the finest and most biting pieces of sarcasm  we have seen over the compliant, complaisant US media. 

Media Having Trouble Finding Right Angle On Obama’s Double-Homicide

April 14, 2009 | ISSUE 45•16 | More News

The press hasn’t figured out how best to display the gruesome crime-scene photos from the president’s bloody rampage.

WASHINGTON—More than a week after President Barack Obama’s cold-blooded killing of a local couple, members of the American news media admitted Tuesday that they were still trying to find the best angle for covering the gruesome crime.

“I know there’s a story in there somewhere,” said Newsweek editor Jon Meacham, referring to Obama’s home invasion and execution-style slaying of Jeff and Sue Finowicz on Apr. 8. “Right now though, it’s probably best to just sit back and wait for more information to come in. After all, the only thing we know for sure is that our president senselessly murdered two unsuspecting Americans without emotion or hesitation.”

Added Meacham, “It’s not so cut and dried.”

 

 

Associated Press reporters investigate any possible gym training regimens the president might have used to get into peak physical condition for the murders.  Since the killings took place, reporters across the country have struggled to come up with an appropriate take on the ruthless crime, with some wondering whether it warrants front-page coverage, and others questioning its relevance in a fast-changing media landscape.

 “What exactly is the news hook here?” asked Rick Kaplan, executive producer of the CBS Evening News. “Is this an upbeat human-interest story about a ‘day in the life’ of a bloodthirsty president who likes to kill people? Or is it more of an examination of how Obama’s unusual upbringing in Hawaii helped to shape the way he would one day viciously butcher two helpless citizens in their own home?”

“Or maybe the story is just that murder is cool now,” Kaplan continued. “I don’t know. There are a million different angles on this one.”

So far, the president’s double-homicide has not been covered by any major news outlets. The only two mentions of the heinous tragedy have been a 100-word blurb on the Associated Press wire and an obituary on page E7 of this week’s edition of the Lake County Examiner.

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While Obama has expressed no remorse for the grisly murders—point-blank shootings with an unregistered .38-caliber revolver—many journalists said it would be irresponsible for the press to sensationalize the story.
“There’s been some debate around the office about whether we should report on this at all,” Washington Post senior reporter Bill Tracy said while on assignment at a local dog show. “It’s enough of a tragedy without the press jumping in and pointing fingers or, worse, exploiting the violence. Plus, we need to be sensitive to the victims’ families at this time. Their loved ones were brutally, brutally murdered, after all.”

Nevertheless, a small contingent of independent journalists has begun to express its disapproval and growing shock over the president’s actions.  “I hate to rain on everyone’s parade, but we are in the midst of an economic crisis here,” political pundit Marcus Reid said. “Why was our president ritualistically dismembering the corpses of his prey when he should have been working on a new tax proposal for small businesses? I, for one, am outraged.”

The New York Times newsroom is reportedly still undecided on whether or not to print a recent letter received from Obama, in which the president threatens to kill another helpless citizen every Tuesday and “fill [his] heavenly palace with slaves for the afterlife” unless the police “stop the darkness from screaming.”
“President Obama’s letter presents us with a classic journalistic quandary,” executive editor Bill Keller said. “If we print it, then we’re giving him control over the kinds of stories we choose to run. It would be an acknowledgment that we somehow give the nation’s commander in chief special treatment.”

Added Keller, “And that’s just not how the press in this country works.”

Douglas Wilson’s Letter From America

7 Rules for Reformers 

Political Dualism – Dualism Is Bad JuJu
Written by Douglas Wilson
Monday, 24 September 2012

A generation ago “community organizer” Saul Alinsky famously penned his Rules for Radicals, and it is my conviction that those interested in reformation should match his craft and self-awareness without trying to compete with the speed and depth of his revolutionary destructo-vision.

Some revolutionaries are patient and some are not. Gramsci argued for the “long march through the institutions” and Lenin wanted the massive meltdown all at once. Most revolutionaries have what Billingsly described as a “fire in the minds of men,” but some are willing to go for the slow burn. So more than just simple patience is required to distinguish a revolutionary from a reformer.

So what are the basic rules for reformers?

1. Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever. Reformation of culture is either a species of salvation or sanctification, and you can’t have either one without Jesus. Secular conservatism will sometimes buy you time, but that is about all it can do — that and lure you into the complacent notion that it can do more than this. Secular conservatism is like trying to use your pocket handkerchief to slow you down after the main chute has failed. The person and work of Jesus is not optional.

2. Always remember the distinction between principles and methods. Say that the principle is to win the war against the enemy — the methods would be navy, artillery, air force, ground troops, etc. Someone enamored of method would think that the war can be won by their branch of the service alone, without any help from the others. Those who latch on to the methods being employed, without any awareness of the principles being served, are either simple-minded or partisans. The simple need leadership; they can make great foot soldiers, but don’t ever make them generals. The partisans need a peculiar kind of leadership, but you have to be careful — they are the ones who are already a tad too gung ho about your leadership. And they think you are as gummed up about particular methods as they are.

3. Reformers are conservatives, which means they must prefer the concrete to the abstract. The past is concrete, just like the future is going to be. The goal is to preserve and defend everything the Spirit has done in history in such a way as to carry it forward into what the Spirit is going to do. Given our time-bound nature, we must conserve some things, and we must progress toward certain things. But what do we conserve, and what do we seek to build? Our duties are always in the present, but we must read the past, as well as the future (albeit more dimly), and we must do so by the performance of concrete duties. Love your neighbor, not mankind. Build an actual school for your children, and do not love the notion of educational great concepts in some Euclidean eschaton.

4. Reformers must cultivate a high sense of humor. Reformation involves conflict, as we shall see in a moment, but how you fight makes all the difference. Should you fight like a cavalier, with swift sword play and witticisms, or like a thug with a club and a wart on your nose? The besetting sin of ostensible reformers is the sin of shrillness and officious forms of uplift. We need reformers, not another round of bossy-pantses. We also need someone who knows how to form the plural of bossy-pants.

5. Reformers must be combative. There is no way to do any of this without involving yourself in the rough stuff. This means that courage is required. The adversary fights back, and they know how to fight back. Not only that, but because this is a battle between good and evil, and you are fighting for the good (right?), the other side gets to cheat, and you don’t get to. You have to fight, and you have to fight clean, and you have to fight fair. When you enlist in the army, you cannot feign surprise when you find yourself in battles.

6. Reformers must play the long game. We are not laboring for a convenience store reformation, where you buy and consume your “item” before you pull out into traffic, depending on how troublesome the shrink wrap is. If we have Christ, we have all things future, and so we can leave the outcome of our present labors to Him. We don’t have to see the larger end to perform our part in that larger end. And our part is now.

7. Reformers must remember always that religion shapes culture, and culture trumps politics. The plug-in ought not to go straight from reformation in the church to legislation. Legislative battles are important in the meantime, but mostly as a defensive measure. The offense won’t happen until we make the connection between our faith and culture — the kind of culture that forms apart from laws. Just as you can’t fight a naval war without ships, or tank warfare without tanks, you can’t fight a culture war without a culture. The reformation of the church must occur so that there is a reformation of our subculture, and then our subculture will affect the larger polis. Expecting our faith to affect the larger polis when it has not yet changed the average shelf at the local Christian book store is expecting something that is not going to happen. With the weird exception of baseball, where the ball is handled entirely by the defense, you can’t score points until you have the ball. And reformers will not have the ball until they have a culture.

That’ll do for the present.

Willing Little Helpers

Our Feckless Defence Policies

There is much to disturb in the Dotcom fiasco.  We are troubled by the appearance of an over-compliance with US demands.  When the New Zealand police force and spy agency appear to act like extensions of the FBI we are very uneasy. 

It appears that laws were broken by the authorities.  Fortunately we have courts.  We have Parliament.  We have independent officials charged with reviewing the activities of the Security Intelligence Service.  We expect that more and more will come out.  We also expect that what will emerge will be not a sinister intent to subvert law or justice, but ineptitude due to being in awe of the FBI and the demands of the US government. 

Is it too much to suggest that our government is a bit giddy over the thawing of relationships with the United States?  One would hope so.  But we expect to be disappointed.
  In this context we are very uneasy about the re-admittance of NZ into the military strategies and counsels of the United States.  We are once more a “valuable ally”–or so Leon Panetta, the US Defence Secretary has announced.  Restrictions have been removed.  Joint military activities will now take place on a regular basis.  We may even end up with US troops stationed on our soil. 

Let’s be clear.  In no way to we regard the US as an enemy or a threat to this country.  For that we are very thankful.  New Zealand is an open door for any hostile power to walk in and take us over.  The brute fact is that our country is defenceless.  Decades of government neglect of our military–a dereliction of duty perpetrated upon our people by both the Left and the Right–has left us truly without means of defence.  We expect we have enough ammunition and troops in our combined armed forces to be able to put up a spirited fire-fight for about thirty minutes should any invader come calling. 

Having failed in one of its most basic duties given to it by God–the defence of its citizens against armed aggression–the New Zealand defence doctrine has become “Others”.  We look to other nations to defend us.  Australia and the US are the current and favoured candidates.  But the US is the most bellicose nation on the planet.  It has been continually at war somewhere on the globe since the World War II.  We confidently predict this will continue indefinitely until the US sinks under a mountain of unsustainable debt or the citizens of that country come to their senses and repent.  Being joined up with the US risks NZ being sucked into US “adventures” around the world–as has happened in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Proving a reliable ally will likely result in the death of New Zealand soldiers in causes and crusades that bear not a whit upon our national defence.

We despise the pacifism of the Greens and of core Labour.  We also despise the feckless irresponsibility of National which has preferred electoral bribery and government redistribution to fund health, education, and endless welfare, rather than paying for our own defence.  Above all, we despair of the New Zealand electorate which has been raised on the premise that every problem can be overcome, every responsibility can be met, and every duty can be performed by easy recourse to other people’s money. 

New Zealand’s national defence policy is nothing more than international socialism in action.  We have made ourselves into America’s willing little helpers.  We now have no choice–because we are not prepared to take responsibility for ourselves.  

Expect more Dotcom fiascos. 

The "Gospel" of Jesus Wife

Passing Off . . . A Deceit By Other Means

So, Jesus was married.  Ah . . . . no.  Just about every main stream media last week reported in high relief on an alleged fourth century Coptic manuscript fragment which purported to have Jesus speaking referring to His wife. 

When the fragment was released it was with accompanying caveats and qualifications.  Few of those made it through the MSM filters.  The New York Times did provide some of the qualifications:

The provenance of the papyrus fragment is a mystery, and its owner has asked to remain anonymous. Until Tuesday, Dr. King had shown the fragment to only a small circle of experts in papyrology and Coptic linguistics, who concluded that it is most likely not a forgery. But she and her collaborators say they are eager for more scholars to weigh in and perhaps upend their conclusions. . . .

She (Dr King) repeatedly cautioned that this fragment should not be taken as proof that Jesus, the historical person, was actually married. The text was probably written centuries after Jesus lived, and all other early, historically reliable Christian literature is silent on the question, she said.

Below are some initial sceptical reviews of the fragment:

Did Jesus Have a Wife?

Peter Williams, the Warden of Tyndale House in Cambridge, England, just sent out this evaluation of the manuscript discovery that to some people suggests Jesus was married. It also includes the evaluation by Dr. Simon Gathercole, another expert in these matters. Dr. Darrell Bock has also weighed in on this issue.  (Posted by BiblicalTraining.org)

Did Jesus have a wife?

The Web is by now awash with stories of an ancient text in which Jesus says ‘my wife’. The story which broke yesterday in the New York Times and some other sources, is being carried today by outlets too numerous to list. Some of the reporting is responsible, but not all. Consider this extract from The Daily Mail:
“If genuine, the document casts doubt on a centuries old official representation of Magdalene as a repentant whore and overturns the Christian ideal of sexual abstinence.”
We are of course in a context where there is so much ignorance of basic facts about Christianity that even when the media properly relay facts they get completely distorted and misunderstood in popular perception. This can be seen in the way derivative media put spin on the story and in the online comments below the news items.

Here we try to establish a few facts.

The scholarly article upon which almost all knowledge of the fragment is based is here (PDF).
What do we know from this?

What’s in a name?

First, let’s start with the name. The scholar involved, Professor Karen King of Harvard, has decided to call this The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife. However, it might more appropriately be named The Fragment about Jesus’s Relations, since there’s no evidence that it was called a gospel and the text mentions at least two family members. Of course, such a name would not generate the same publicity. Despite this unfortunate choice of name, Professor King is to be commended for publishing a good photograph and detailed scholarly analysis of the fragment simultaneously with the press release. Usually in the case of controversial text the media hype comes long before the availability of the text.

Genuine or forgery?

Professor King has provided pictures of the papyrus, but it is not publicly known who owns it, or where it came from. If genuine, it almost certainly came from Egypt because that is where papyri like this are found.
Because it was not found in situ it is obviously possible to doubt its genuineness. Scholars at Tyndale House think that, on the basis of the limited evidence currently available, it is possible it is genuine, though there are good reasons for scepticism — see the comments of Dr Christian Askeland, an expert in Coptic manuscripts.

What about date?

It is written in Coptic, the language of Egypt which descended from the even earlier language of the Hieroglyphs. Coptic is Egyptian written in the Greek alphabet with a few extra letters. Because Coptic was only emerging as a written language in the third century and papyrus went out of use in the seventh century the 8 cm x 4 cm fragment has to be dated some time from the third to the seventh century and the scholars involved with this fragment have stated that it is fourth century on the basis of the handwriting.
Since we have virtually no firmly dated Coptic handwriting, this date is just an educated guess.
Then we turn to the date of the contents. Here Professor King puts the text in the late second century, but all that we really know is that the text is at least as old as the manuscript.

The papyrus at the centre of the publicity

What does it say?

This is King’s translation of the text, with square brackets used where the text does not survive:
FRONT:
1 ] “not [to] me. My mother gave to me li[fe…”
2 ] The disciples said to Jesus, “.[
3 ] deny. Mary is worthy of it[
4 ]……” Jesus said to them, “My wife . .[
5 ]… she will be able to be my disciple . . [
6 ] Let wicked people swell up … [
7] As for me, I dwell with her in order to . [
8] an image [
BACK:
1 ] my moth[er
2 ] three [
3 ] … [
4 ] forth which … [
5 ] (illegible ink traces)
We believe this to be a largely reliable translation. But is it evidence that Jesus had a wife? The answer is an emphatic ‘no’. Not even Karen King is claiming that it is, though it’s inevitable that some of the news outlets will present it otherwise.

What we have here is a typical sort of text which arose after Christianity had become very popular and when derivatives of Christianity began to emerge. The language of the text is very similar to the Gospel of Thomas, sayings 101 and 114, and the Gospel of Thomas saying 101 shows influence of Luke 14:26, as the Gospel of Thomas does elsewhere. This way of speaking belongs to the mid-second century or later, in other words generations later than the books of the New Testament.

We asked Dr Simon Gathercole, an expert on apocryphal gospels and Senior Lecturer in New Testament in the University of Cambridge, for his comments.
He concluded: “Harvard Professor Karen King, who is the person who has been entrusted with the text, has rightly warned us that this does not say anything about the historical Jesus. She is correct that “its possible date of composition in the second half of the second century, argues against its value as evidence for the life of the historical Jesus”. But she is also right that this is a fascinating discovery which offers us a window into debates about sex and marriage in the early church, and the way Jesus could be adapted to play a part in a particular debate. If it is genuine.
Best wishes,
Peter Williams,
Warden, Tyndale House, Cambridge

And this from Justin Taylor:

The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife: How a Fake Gospel-Fragment Was Composed

Francis Watson of the University of Durham has provided a six-page analysis (PDF) of the Coptic fragment which seems to say Jesus was married. This is the most in-depth examination I have seen yet. Professor Watson concludes that

The text has been constructed out of small pieces – words or phrases – culled mostly from the Coptic Gospel of Thomas (GTh), Sayings 101 and 114, and set in new contexts.
This is most probably the compositional procedure of a modern author who is not a native speaker of Coptic.

Among other scholars weighing in, see Gary Manning Jr., Darrell Bock, Christian Askeland, Michael Kruger, Peter Williams and Simon Gathercole, Dirk Jongkind, Daniel Wallace.

The six page analysis by Francis Watson is particularly useful in proving the fragment to be a copy of parts of the gnostic apocryphal Gospel of Thomas, being passed off as a separate fragment. 

Bigger is Better?

Exploding a Simplistic Myth

We are all familiar with the fallacy of  false causes.  Just because a five year old drummer boy beat his drum every evening it was not the cause of the sun’s decline below the Western horizon.  The co-incidence of factors does not make one the cause of the other–necessarily.

For years we have been told that when it comes to schools, smaller class sizes mean a better, higher quality education.  The argument is that a lower teacher pupil ratio causes better learning.  Superficially this conclusion is compelling.  It seems commonsensical to believe that were a single teacher to teach (say) five hundred pupils in one huge classroom the educational outcomes would be far below one teacher teaching one pupil.

Not so fast, say the sceptics.
  What about if in the second case the teacher of the sole pupil despised his or her charge–and vice versa?  What would happen if the two had a serious clash of personalities?  It is arguable that at a certain point smaller classes intensify the interaction with the teacher to the point of distractions that might well impede learning.  After all, every pupil in a secondary school could relate stories of teachers they dislike or even despise, and others they admire and respect.  What would happen if one of the disliked ones was teaching a small class of only ten children?  Presumably bad educational outcomes would result.

Here is another consideration: it stands to reason that if one is teaching ten unruly, ill disciplined, violent, temper tantrum ridden children the educational outcomes in that  class would likely be far worse than if one were teaching thirty-five generally well disciplined, well ruled, respectful pupils.  

Thus arguments about class sizes can be very misleading.  But it is the standard propaganda line of educrats and teacher unions.  Apparently educational miracles can be worked if only we had more teachers in our schools and class sizes were halved.  But now National Standards data is putting the propaganda line under a “please explain” scrutiny.  This from the Herald:

National Standards shock: Big classes work

Primary schools have disclosed controversial data about pupil achievement, with the surprise revelation that children in bigger classes and bigger schools get better grades.  The Herald on Sunday has conducted a comprehensive survey of schools’ national standards results, before the Ministry of Education publishes them this week.

At schools with fewer pupils for each teacher, around 70 per cent of children are achieving national standards in reading, writing and arithmetic. But at schools with more pupils for each teacher – in effect, bigger classes – the pass rates rise to about 80 per cent.  So too with school rolls: the highest proportions of children achieving or exceeding national standards are at big schools.

What may be going on here?  As always there is likely to be a cluster of causes and effects swirling around.  One intuitive possibility is that larger classes and larger schools necessarily require a greater level of structure, order, and regimentation.  That, in its turn, can foster an atmosphere of respect and discipline within which effective learning takes place.  Smaller classes, on the other hand, may encourage teachers to be “pally” with their charges–more informal, more friendly, more personal.  The classroom would likely become more a time for social interaction rather than hard work. 

In any event, the educrats and the teacher unions now have some explaining to do.

Selective Editing

It’s Too Silly for Words

By the “playbook” of global warming alarmists, we are on very sound scientific ground to conclude that a devastating Ice Age is pending.  It will destroy life as we know it on planet earth. 

OK, so let’s open the global warming playbook to Page One:
This, from the Christian “Science” Monitor

Appearance of explosive WWI relics underscores Alps glaciers’ retreat

The Alps’ glaciers are in retreat at an alarming rate due to rising temperatures – as indicated by the discovery of rusted explosives left over from a nearly hundred-year-old cache.

Roped party members walk on a glacier from L’Aiguille du Midi in front of Les Grandes Jorasses in Chamonix, France, July 23.
(Denis Balibouse/Reuters)

---

By Nick Squires, Correspondent
posted September 17, 2012 at 1:43 pm EDT

RomeThey lay undetected for more than a century, a hidden legacy of the highest, most forbidding battlefield of World War I.  But last month, as Italy sweltered through one of the hottest summers on record, a cache of more than 200 rusted explosives emerged from beneath a melting sheet of ice in the Dolomite range in the country’s north.

The appearance of the explosives – at the end of the hottest summer since 2003 and one of the warmest since record keeping began – fed concerns about Italy’s rapidly dwindling glaciers and the threat posed by global warming. Across the Alps – not just in Italy but in neighboring Austria, Switzerland, and France – glaciers are in retreat at an alarming rate due to rising temperatures.

“In the worst-case scenario, by the end of the century glaciers in the Alps will be reduced to 5 to 10 percent of what we have now,” says Michael Zemp, a scientist with the World Glacier Monitoring Service.

OK, got the picture.  Heat wave in Europe means melting ice in the Alps.  Buried ammo gets exposed.  Oh, wait–was the ammo buried in ice, or in the earth.  In the earth; it had been buried beneath an ice sheet.  Implication: it must have been warmer back then in 1919, or whenever. 

But that aside, its the propaganda playbook that interests us more.  Melting ice means disaster.  OK.  So what would vast expansions of the ice field mean?  Yes, you have it right.  Disaster.  Man will be swamped with a looming ice age.  So at the same time, we are both going to cook to death and freeze to death. 

You haven’t heard about the freezing to death, the great global Ice Age about to descend?  Well, you should have.  Using exactly the same logic as the global warmist crowd, we would be perfectly entitled to make a credible claim to that effect, and to rubbish all opponents as denialists, anti-scientific luddites, etc.  Read the following, from Forbes:

Antarctic Sea Ice Sets Another Record

Antarctic Iceberg (Photo credit: NOAA’s National Ocean Service)

James Taylor, Contributor

I write about energy and environment issues.

Editor’s note:  An update from the author has been added to this article on September 20, 2012.

Antarctic sea ice set another record this past week, with the most amount of ice ever recorded on day 256 of the calendar year (September 12 of this leap year). Please, nobody tell the mainstream media or they might have to retract some stories and admit they are misrepresenting scientific data.

National Public Radio (NPR) published an article on its website last month claiming, “Ten years ago, a piece of ice the size of Rhode Island disintegrated and melted in the waters off Antarctica. Two other massive ice shelves along the Antarctic Peninsula had suffered similar fates a few years before. The events became poster children for the effects of global warming. … There’s no question that unusually warm air triggered the final demise of these huge chunks of ice.”

NPR failed to mention anywhere in its article that Antarctic sea ice has been growing since satellites first began measuring the ice 33 years ago and the sea ice has been above the 33-year average throughout 2012.
Indeed, none of the mainstream media are covering this important story. A Google News search of the terms Antarctic, sea ice and record turns up not a single article on the Antarctic sea ice record. Amusingly, page after page of Google News results for Antarctic sea ice record show links to news articles breathlessly spreading fear and warning of calamity because Arctic sea ice recently set a 33-year low.

Sea ice around one pole is shrinking while sea ice around another pole is growing. This sure sounds like a global warming crisis to me.

As meteorologist Anthony Watts explains, new data show ice mass is accumulating on the Antarctic continent as well as in the ocean surrounding Antarctica. The new data contradict an assertion by global warming alarmists that the expanding Antarctic sea ice is coming at the expense of a decline in Antarctic continental ice.

The new data also add context to sensationalist media stories about declining ice in small portions of Antarctica, such as portions of West Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula (see here, for example). The mainstream media frequently publish stories focusing on ice loss in these two areas, yet the media stories rarely if ever mention that ice is accumulating over the larger area of East Antarctica and that the continent as a whole is gaining snow and ice mass.

Interestingly, a new NASA study finds Antarctica once supported vegetation similar to that of present-day Iceland.

“The southward movements of rain bands associated with a warmer climate in the high-latitude southern hemisphere made the margins of Antarctica less like a polar desert, and more like present-day Iceland,” a co-author of the NASA study reports.

The great con continues.

Disappointment

The One Indispensable Nation

The Commentariat is reported to be deeply disappointed by the Arab Spring.  Those poor Arab people have misunderstood our good intentions and our help in throwing out the bad guys.  But since this is just a misunderstanding, we will work harder at clarifying our intentions and good motives.  We will win them over in the end. 

But the Arab Spring has come and gone.  We are now in a fierce hot summer storm of riots protesting against the West in general and the US in particular all across the Muslim world. 

Firstly, let’s just note the naive foolishness of the “useful idiots” in the West who actually believed that the Arab Spring would produce Muslims who would think like Western secular post-Christian human rights idealists.  This from the Reuters wire:

Still, the “Arab Spring” appears not to have made as many friends for America as Americans might have hoped. The very countries in which Washington helped facilitate popular-backed regime change last year – Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Yemen – are seeing some of the greatest anti-West backlash.

The young pro-democracy activists who leapt to the fore in 2011, Washington now believes, have relatively little clout. That leaves U.S and European officials having to deal with groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood.  There is concern that regional governments such as Egypt might now be playing a “double game”, saying one thing to the U.S. while indulging in more anti-Western rhetoric at home.

You don’t say.  What is it about democracy that blinds the minds of Western elites so darkly?  After all when nearly 80 percent of Egyptians think that people who convert from Islam to Christianity ought to be executed, why would the institutionalisation of that world-view in the new Egyptian government seem unexpected and strange?  Surely moving to democracy would have made it inevitable.

(The Pew Research organisation has found the following in Egypt:

ON TRADITIONAL MUSLIM PRACTICES
— Should men and women be segregated in the workplace? 54 percent said “yes” and 44 percent “no.”
— Should adulterers be stoned? 82 percent said “yes.”
— Should apostates from Islam face the death penalty? 84 percent said “yes.”
— Should thieves be flogged or have their hands cut off? 77 percent said “yes.”)

Apparently it is coming as a bit of a surprise that the US is finding that democratically elected Islamic governments have less flexibility and “reasonableness”  than when autocrats ruled. 

Rachel Kleinfeld, CEO and co-founder of the Truman National Security Project, a body often cited by the Obama campaign on foreign policy, said the new political leadership often had less flexibility than the dictators before them.

You don’t say.  We didn’t see that coming.

For the record, we are firmly opposed to one nation telling another nation what to do, let alone trying to force them to do it. In that regard New Zealand is forced into a far more sensible non-aligned position.  As a tiny nation we cannot afford to offend other countries.  For a while NZ internationalists looked to the UN as a way for us to push other nations around.  But that has long since gone the way of the dodo.  Reality has set in–at least for the moment–although we do not doubt that in time another government will arise attempting to resurrect the socialist international ideal and the UN will again be seen as our secret weapon to achieve the transformation. 

But the US can afford to interfere in the affairs of other nations–although this ability is rapidly ebbing as the debt mountain rises.  It also has the military power to execute its interference.  That means the rest of the non-aligned world starts from a position of wariness at best, fear and loathing at worst towards it.  The best thing–the most constructive thing–the US could do is itself become non-aligned.  Treat all nations with courtesy and respect, yet carry a big stick to thump anyone or anything who attacks US territory or citizens. 

There are two reasons why the US will not adopt this more just and reasonable position.  The first is the capture of the US government by vested commercial interests that look to the US government to blur  national and commercial interests making them one.  Campaign contributions flow accordingly.  Vested commercial interests make the government captive.  The second is the brazen idolatrous belief that the US is the world’s redeemer; its role or manifest destiny is to lead other nations and peoples to a better place.  Both of these combine to goad the US bull into the ring where it thrashes round madly at global injustice and violations of human rights.

This is the role Obama sees for the US.  It is what the Republicans see for the US.  The only debate is over tactics–and that’s a small matter.

While many Americans would like nothing more than to turn their backs on the region (of the Middle East), Obama made clear this week he does not see that as an option: “The one thing we can’t do is withdraw from the region,” he said. “The United States continues to be the one indispensable nation.”

The One who leads the One Indispensable Nation.  

 

Normophobia

Carl Trueman Finds the World to be Upside Down

Pleased to meet you. Hope you guessed my name.

Posted by Carl Trueman

Reformation 21 Blog

Every now and then I find myself reminded of just how much the world has changed.  One such moment came for me on Saturday.  I was up in Boston to preach for my friend and fellow member of a certain parachurch blacklist, Mike Abendroth. On Saturday afternoon, he offered to take me to Northampton, location of the early ministry of Jonathan Edwards.   As I always try to travel light, I ditched my jacket but had no choice but to wear my chinos and a button down shirt for the trip.  In short, I had the humiliation, as an OPC man, of walking around Northampton looking like some newly-minted associate pastor at your typical PCA church.

We went to Starbucks.  There I saw a lady who was, as we would say back in Blighty, clearly a ‘bloke’ dressed as a ‘bird.’  Now I have seen transgendered people before.
  On one level, the sight no longer shocks me as it once did, though I have to say that I can never overcome my firm belief that men usually make remarkably ugly women.  And I can assure you that this chap was no exception to the general aesthetic rule.

What surprised me, however, was how everybody else in the coffee shop (including, I have to confess, myself) simply went about their business as if everything was normal.  And, of course, the reason was simple: everything was indeed normal.  The sight of a man dressed as a woman is no longer weird. It is part of the rich tapestry of everyday life.  My grandfather would have had no categories even to compute such a sight; but now it passes without so much as snigger or a nudge-nudge.

None of this would have been so bad except for the fact that it was clear as I walked up the  street in Northampton that one or two heads were turning to stare at the weird guy dressed like a PCA associate pastor.   My very nondescript, ordinary, balding, middle-aged blandness made me stand out as utterly weird.  Even Mike’s soul patch and sub-AC DC standard tee gave him a little bit of cover; my wing tip shoes simply sealed my fate.   Indeed, I have to say that I have never been subject to such evident and oppressive neophiliac normaphobia in all my life.   The sooner normaphobes are categorised as hate criminals, the better it will be for those of us who belong to the despised minority of the once but clearly no longer normal.

Two things came to mind: the beautiful young things of the reformed renaissance have a hard choice to make in the next decade.  You really do kid only yourselves if you think you can be an orthodox Christian and be at the same time cool enough and hip enough to cut it in the wider world. Frankly, in a couple of years it will not matter how much urban ink you sport, how much fair trade coffee you drink, how many craft brews you can name, how much urban gibberish you spout, how many art house movies you can find that redeemer figure in, and how much money you divert from gospel preaching to social justice: maintaining biblical sexual ethics will be the equivalent in our culture of being a white supremacist.

And the second thing that came to mind were the lyrics of a Jagger-Richards song: ‘Just as every cop is a criminal And all the sinners saints’.  That is surely a brilliant statement of the topsy-turvy morality of the world which sin has produced and in which we now live. 

Oh, and the name of the song?  ‘Sympathy for the Devil’, of course

Scandalous Racism

Above the Pay Grade

Recently the NZ Herald moved from broadsheet to tabloid format.  It did not take the venerable rag long to lower its journalistic standards to reflect its new format. 

A storm-in-a-teacup scandal hit the headlines over the weekend.  Raaaaacism!  But worse, fundamentalist Christian raaaaaacism.   Still worse, fundamentalist creationist Christian raaaaacism.  Yup.  That’s the worst kind there is. 

Apparently a self-promoting violet of the non-shrinking kind was grossly offended by pamphlets circulated in the South Waikato which apparently had the temerity to argue that people who believe in evolution are flirting with racism.
 

“Are you a racist? You are if you believe in evolution!” the letter states.  “Kids are taught in school that man evolved (changed) from a chimp. So I ask you who changed the most from a black chimp with black hair and brown eyes? A black man with black hair and brown eyes? Or a white man with blond hair and blue eyes?”

The article breathlessly suggests that those responsible for the pamphlets were promoting racism, whereas even a superficial glance at the quotations provided demonstrate the authors were arguing against evolution because evolutionism is incipiently racist.  Such subtleties are lost on Herald journalists and on attention seeking models.  But it is axiomatic for tabloid journalists that the fact must never get in the way of a tall story.

Needless to say, the underlying point is a serious one.  Evolutionism is an implicitly racist doctrine. It’s not hard to understand why.  Evolutionism teaches that all life and matter is evolving from lower to higher (more advanced) forms.  Yes, yes of course this violates the natural law of entropy or the Second Law of Thermodynamics, but let’s not be picky.  Therefore, it seems reasonable to postulate seriously that there are more and less advanced human beings.  It would seem not unreasonable–to the evolutionist–regardless of how politically incorrect it may be, to posit seriously that some humans are more primitive than others because the whole race is in evolutionary transition. 

Historically there have been plenty of examples of this kind of theorising amongst evolutionists.  For a while brain size was taken as an evidence of higher and lower specimens of humanity.   Darwin himself, writing in 1871, cites one evolutionary theorist who claimed there were 63 species of man.  [The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (New York: Appleton, 1871), p. 218.] 

One of the more prominent was a Philadelphia physician, Samuel Morton who engaged in field research measuring the cranial capacities of different races.

Morton dies an early death in 1851 and was regarded as a well-respected scientist of his time who had provided the world with the definitive work on racial intelligence.  The figures [of racial cranial capacity] confirmed what everyone “knew”: the white man was the most intelligent, the Indian next, and the Negro least of all.  {Ian T. Taylor, In the Minds of Men: Darwin and the New World Order (Toronto: TFE Publishing, 1874), p.263.]

Morton’s conclusions were not refuted statistically until Jay Gould did the job nicely in the late 1970’s, when he re-analyzed Morton’s data.  Darwin himself saw the human race as divided into lower and higher forms, some more close to apes than others.  (Naturally, Caucasians were thought to be of the higher form, while Negroes and aborigines closest to apes.)

At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla. [Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (London: John Murray, 1871),1st edition, I: p.168f.]

Darwin had form–despite the attempts of his modern day hagiographers.  Then, of course, there is the clear connection between the eugenics movement of the first half of the last century, virulent amongst the Commentariat in Britain and the USA, in which there was a clear link between evolutionism and the prospect of  developing a higher kind of human being through selective breeding.  Such ideas were subsequently lost to the mainstream because of Hitler’s particular application of the eugenics doctrine.  It became unfashionable to maintain the ideology–although it still makes an appearance from time to time. 

Brute evolution gives no support to a sentimental notion that “advanced” beings seek to nurture and protect and prolong the lives of the weak and the primitive.  Nature is without sentiment, without morality.  To suggest that ethics and sentiment reflect a higher evolutionary stage contradicts the essence of evolutionary doctrine–that advances come through the elimination of the weaker amongst the species and the survival of the fittest.  Evolutionists who today attempt to elide around this issue merely show that, on their own terms, they have become a more degenerated unfit member of the species. 

So, today, the leading popularisers of evolution get mighty close to eugenics and wanting some inferior members of the human race to be “bred” out or eliminated.  Christopher Hitchens fulminations against the religious and his willingness to crusade for counter-jihad are one example.  Richard Dawkins’s calls for children to be removed from Christian parents at birth is another. 

But, then, such subtleties are way beyond the pay scale of pop journos working for a tabloid. 

Douglas Wilson’s Letter From America

Obama’s Red Rubber Nose 

Political Dualism – Mere Christendom
Written by Douglas Wilson
Monday, 17 September 2012

I want to begin by acknowledging what all right-minded observers ought to know by now, which is that Obama’s foreign policy approach is a clownfest. And if that is the case, and it is, his Middle East bureau would be the red rubber nose.

It is as if somebody decided to take a mash-up of a Tom Wolfe novel and a Walker Percy novel, get a gifted cartoonist from Marvel or DC, get him on drugs, and then ask him to draw a riveting story of a celebrity president who goes to Vegas in the middle of a Mediterranean meltdown.

In other words, if someone wanted to convince me that the Obama administration is right at the apex of a clueless wickedness, it wouldn’t take much convincing. I am pretty much there.

On top of that, it has occurred to me that I have a vested interest in these proceedings. As the author of a book that was burned in Jakarta, as the result of this same kind of blind bigotry, it occurs to me to me that if the Obama administration were ever in need of perp walk photos of me, in order to appease the unappeasable, he would go right ahead and do it anyway. The issue would not be right and wrong. The issue would be what he needed at the moment.

But . . .

Last Friday, Paul Ryan slammed Obama’s foreign policy. That’s fine. Slam away. We need to be delivered from this serene apotheosis of idiocy. I get that part.

But . . .

A friend put me on to this snippet from Ryan’s speech.

“In the days ahead, and in the years ahead, American foreign policy needs moral clarity and firmness of purpose. Only by the confident exercise of American influence are evil and violence overcome. That is how we keep problems from becoming crises. That is what keeps the peace. And that is what we will have in a Romney-Ryan administration.”

The money quote is italicized by me, and I should begin my discussion of how appalling it is by acknowledging (in the abstract) that there could be an innocent construction of these words, one with the needed caveats built in. It is possible (on paper) that this is not a reference to the doctrine of American exceptionalism, and it simply an acknowledgement of what must be done tactically with the current pieces that are still on the chessboard. Only by the confident exercise of the black knight will the white pieces be overcome, so that we can start the next game.

But I don’t think so. The language of those who want to project American power abroad (and not by “leading from behind” or by other means of “soft power”) is language that has consistently been messianic. The things that might go without saying in a more righteous generation do not go without saying in ours. America is not the Savior; America is one of the nations of men that must be saved. This kind of language is how political idolatries take root.

Don’t get me wrong. I think we should protect our embassies, and I think that our Marines should have actual ammo, and I think that mobs can smell weakness, and I think that what has happened over the course of the last few weeks has been the total collapse of Obama’s Cairo speech of a few years back. Moreover, I agree with Ryan that evil and violence should be overcome, and that moral clarity is necessary in order to project that kind of strength.

But moral clarity begins with the recognition that you are not Jesus. Anything else brings in moral obtuseness and the very opposite of “firmness of purpose.” When mortal men set themselves up as the lords of earth, things can go swell for a time. When the European powers, at the height of their colonial mojo, walked into the Middle East and drew a bunch of lines on the map that seemed like a good idea at the time, politicians could point at what they had done with pride a few years later, and say that their wisdom was vindicated. The lines were still there. But here we are, a century later, with what might be called an Intractable Problem. Since the men who did it are all dead and gone, we can’t vote them out of office.

This is how the gods always fail. They have to fail, and they will do nothing but fail. This is by no stretch of the imagination a sympathetic nod to Obama. Obama is Dagon with the head off. Obama is the crumbling idol. Teddy Roosevelt was the guy with the can and brush when the idol was fresh as new paint.
So the need of the hour is to repent of the hubris that got us here, and not to point with pride to the days when the idol was not quite so teetery.

Vast Power Grab

Homosexual Marriage Would Exponentially Increase State Power Over Citizens

We are engaged in a debate over homosexual “marriage”.  The protagonists have framed the issue as one of human rights and desire.  What people desire to do they have an implicit right to.  But there is another necessary but eclipsed issue that trundles along in behind.  The protagonists necessarily demand our acceptance of another principle: the prior authority and rights of the State to define and constitute marriage itself. 

We acknowledge freely that most Pagans in New Zealand would not consider this an issue at all.  Who would ever dispute anything so self-evident?  Of course the State has rights–pre-emptive rights, prior rights, higher rights.  Thus, naturally the protagonists of homosexual “marriage” look to the State as their protector and vindicator and great redeemer in the matter.  For the modern Pagan, there is no other entity that can fill this void or perform this role.

The shift has tectonic dimensions.
  Previously, in the West the State recognised what God had ordained, and legislated accordingly.  Marriage law reflected the Divine revelation and law.  Now, since God is no longer  anything more than the superstitions of a minority cultural tradition, the State arrogates to itself the role of ultimate lawgiver, ultimate definer of life and being.  It elides into the vacuum left by the banishing of God. 

The quisling liberatians and social liberals clap and cheer.  Of course  long ago they decided that the answer to all ultimate things lay with the secular state.   To the State they look for their liberties and their rights.  To the State they look for health, wealth, and happiness–as the defender and definer of their health, wealth, and happiness.  In the State they live, move, and have their being.  The only arguments in the public square are over tactics and the best modus operandi for the State.  Whilst libertarians and social liberals purport to believe in a limited State, in fact they have already conceded there is no higher authority in human existence than the State.  They are all statists in drag–which an apt metaphor, given their ardent support for homosexual “marriage”. 

Bill Muehlenberg at the blog CultureWatch demonstrates how conservatives and libertarians are ignorantly inviting a vast expansion of state power and control over human beings when they support homosexual “marriage”.  Our view is that this is inevitable for the secular conservatives and libertarians, for scratch their skin and underneath you will find that for them, too, the State is their god.

Marriage: The Battle of Our Time

There are key battles which define a generation. Back in the 60s the counter culture unleashed a torrent of radical liberation movements, which included the horrific abortion onslaught. It became one of the key fights for the past half century. It still continues of course, but other major battlefronts have appeared since then.
The most obvious example today is the war being fought over marriage. This is just as significant and monumental a battle as is the battle for life. It is a defining moment for the entire Western world, and it will have repercussions for the entire world.

To destroy the institution of marriage by redefining it out of existence is a social upheaval so momentous and so far-reaching that we cannot even clearly predict just how much damage will ensue. Everything will change when we gut the institution of marriage of its core components. The Pandora’s Box opened will surely not easily be shut.

A new piece by Jennifer Thieme on this very issue is well worth highlighting here. Entitled “The Roe v. Wade of Our Time: The Battle Over Marriage,” she rightly argues about the fundamental importance of this battle. She begins:

“Traditional marriage really means gendered marriage. It means that marriage, as a public policy, has a gender requirement – each gender must be present. This is why we see terms like ‘bride’ and ‘groom’ on marriage licenses. We have historically recognized this gender diversity as a fundamental feature of marriage due to the procreation that can happen between the couple.

“‘Gay marriage’ is a change in policy from gendered marriage to genderless marriage. Marriage licenses and other areas of law surrounding marriage and children will be forced to remove references to gender such as ‘bride,’ ‘groom,’ ‘husband,’ ‘wife,’ ‘mother,’ ‘father.’ These terms will be replaced with gender neutral terms such as ‘spouse,’ ‘partner,’ ‘parent,’ etc. This is why the accommodation of gay people into the institution of marriage changes marriage from gendered to genderless. Now you can understand why this change is not simply allowing gay couples ‘equal rights,’ and why it is not analogous to the ban on interracial marriage that was overturned in 1967.”

Indeed, so far-reaching are these changes that everyone will be adversely affected. And it will of necessity mean the increased power and control of the state over every one of us. So the push by the secular lefties for homosexual marriage is just as much about the push for more coercive government control and dominance over everything. She continues:

“Unfortunately, the change from gendered marriage to genderless marriage will bring about the most sweeping and uncompassionate power grab of the State into family life we have ever witnessed. It’s because we will be replacing an objective, pre-political reason for marriage (procreation of children, and public recognition of parents’ attachment to them) with a subjective, state-defined one (love, equality, time spent with the child, etc). Gendered marriage is the only institution we have that publicly recognizes and affirms the biological connection children have with their parents. Genderless marriage removes this. Thus, gendered marriage is far more compassionate than genderless marriage.

“Conservatives, and libertarians for that matter, should be extremely alarmed at the change from gendered marriage to genderless marriage. How many have heard the story of Lisa Miller, the bio mom who lost custody of her bio daughter to her former lesbian lover due to their civil union? The lover is not related to the child by blood or adoption, and this did not matter to the judge who made the ruling. Lisa escaped with her daughter to Central America. Her name appears on the FBI and INTERPOL Wanted Lists for parental kidnapping, and the Amish pastor who helped her escape has been convicted of ‘aiding an international parental kidnapping of a minor.’ He might be looking at three years jail time.

“Lisa’s biological connection to her own daughter was disregarded in favor of a public policy aimed at promoting equality. The objective, natural, and pre-political reality lost, and the subjective, artificial, and state defined reality won.

“Imagine the precedence this case sets for all families. Imagine the sorts of incentives that will be institutionalized and promoted once genderless marriage becomes the norm. Where is the compassion here? Is this really the world we want, one where biological connections no longer have priority in the eyes of the law?”

She concludes: “As far as social issues go, the battle over marriage is the Roe v. Wade of our time. In 1973 most conservatives (or liberals for that matter) would never have dreamed we’d be looking at 50 million abortions by this time. We’re at a similar point now with the battle between gendered marriage and genderless marriage. Genderless marriage will be the most sweeping power grab over families and children ever witnessed in our country, and we won’t be able to get our freedoms back once it’s in place. Liberals probably do not care about replacing a natural and pre-political institution with an artificial and state defined one … but conservatives and libertarians should be up in arms over it.

“We must be willing to safeguard our natural and pre-political liberties at whatever cost to us personally, or else we will lose them. I am sincerely afraid that good people are backing away from the support of gendered marriage due to fear and ignorance, not because they proactively understand the consequences of genderless marriage. We must take courage and do what is right, because the change we’re debating will impact our posterity far more than it will impact us. After all, most of us had a mom and a dad, but we’re telling future generations to be happy with ‘parent 1’ and ‘parent 2.’

“Remember: gendered marriage is the compassionate choice.”

Yes quite so. This is the defining battle of our time. If we lose marriage and family, we will eventually lose Western civilisation. But of course that is just what the radicals want.

Letter From New Zealand (About NZ)

FranO’Sullivan Writes a Speech for the PM

Who owns what: for an answer, start here

By Fran O’Sullivan

NZ Herald

Saturday Sep 15, 2012

Mr Speaker, I rise today in this House to introduce legislation to vest all natural resources – water, geothermal steam, airwaves, aquifers and, for the avoidance of doubt, all minerals, ironsands, magma, rare earth deposits, coal, lignite, methane and uranium in this country and the exclusive economic zone that surrounds our shores – in a new Crown entity representing the combined interests of all the people of New Zealand.

Mr Speaker, my Government considers natural resources like water, geothermal steam, and the aquifers that underpin our rich agricultural plains to be public goods that are part of the common wealth of all New Zealanders.

For the avoidance of doubt – and I know many in this Parliament today will regard this as fanciful – the legislation will also extinguish any “rights and interests” that Maori might claim now and into the future to the commercial use of solar power, the wind, the tides, the navigational properties of the stars and the moon. This will also include the magma and lava flows which have enriched our soils over the centuries and will do so again in coming volcanic explosions.

My Government will establish Resources New Zealand as a new Crown entity where natural resources will be vested. The Government – at this stage does not assert ownership to all these resources. Some are already in the public domain. But by vesting natural resources in this entity, the Government retains the ability to go about its commercial business in the interests of all New Zealanders but at the same time preserve the flexibility to negotiate on a case-by-case basis with individual iwi and hapu to resolve historical claims where they are proven to stand up.

This is why my Government’s offer to negotiate in good faith with the representative tribes which have interests in particular waterways that drive our magnificent hydro-electric schemes still stands despite the sweeping statement by the Maori King that “we have always owned the water!”

This legislation I am introducing today also recognises the concept of the taniwha as important to Maori but explicitly extinguishes any so-called rights and interests that are claimed to have evolved from this.  But I reject wholeheartedly the notion that any such claims – if proven – should be settled by way of allocations of shares in the state-owned enterprises that we intend to partially privatise: Mighty River Power, Genesis Energy, Meridian and Solid Energy. There are other ways of settling any claims – if proven – including co-management of waterways.

Mr Speaker, there are some in this House that believe the global financial crisis is over. They do not understand that the United States has embarked on a third wave of quantitative easing – or printing money. I have strong concerns that the US is at the edge of a financial cliff. I am also concerned that China – the powerhouse of our neighbourhood – is having to embark on another multi-billion-dollar infrastructure spend to keep domestic growth moving. And that our nearest neighbour, Australia, is slowing down.  That slowdown is also affecting New Zealand as the wave of redundancies in export-sighted industries continues.

Mr Speaker, these are the issues that cry out for the burning attention of my Government.  But I am disappointed that trifling and vexatious claims are now being advanced at the very time we wish to deal with the major water issue. 

For the avoidance of doubt, let me say my Government will strongly resist the claim filed by Ngapuhi seeking commercial rights over the wind. 

Mr Speaker, New Zealand is an island nation surrounded by a vast coastline. It is subject to the strong winds which circle the globe. The wind is not something that can be captured, bottled or bagged, and sold. The wind – rather like the tides which cause our seas to rise and fall – is simply the bulk movement of air. It can power wind turbines. It can also help propel aircraft.

If Ngapuhi wish to assert a commercial right, it is a simple matter to erect a wind turbine or windmill on their own land.  But for the avoidance of doubt, my Government will also vest the wind within Resources New Zealand. I expect this will result in widespread mirth.  Carried to its logical extreme this could result in Ngapuhi claiming rights to the wind long past our shores and causing the air to move elsewhere – even the United States or South America.

It has also been reported that Ngati Kahungunu iwi has said it will lodge a claim over New Zealand’s second-largest aquifer. It is reported that Ngati Kahungunu claims the rights and interests in the waters of “their” aquifer had never been lawfully extinguished.

For the avoidance of doubt I should make clear my Government is seeking advice as to whether – in subsequent legislation – those “rights and interests” should simply be extinguished. Some will say this is a step towards the nationalisation of this resource. And indeed this is something I am giving serious consideration to, along with the wind, the stars, the moon, magma, sunlight and even the internet.

Mr Speaker, it is also notable that Winston Peters – who is also part-Maori – has suggested that all New Zealanders pretend to be Maori to get special privileges under the law.  I have to say that as the son of recent immigrant parents, Mr Peters’ suggestion has some appeal.  But as Prime Minister of New Zealand I must stand above my personal interests.

What I am asking this House for is the ability to vest natural resources in a Crown-managed entity while my Government – and subsequent Governments – take the necessary time to negotiate with individual Maori tribes on proven claims. We envisage this will take many decades to settle. But in the meantime Governments will be free to get on with the business of governing New Zealand in all our interests.

Anything else is an abrogation of the Government’s responsibilities.

It’s the nationalisation both implicit and explicit in this piece that offends the sensibilities of those who believe in private property.  But there are precedents for initial nationalisation of resources, followed by a devolved sell-down to private owners.  That’s a pragmatic and practical way forward we could endorse wholeheartedly.  

Let’s Be Realistic

Why Some Believe in God, and Some Don’t

People who are self-conscious are likely to be relatively more objective than those naive folk who believe that the facts are the facts are the facts.

In reality man is a finite creature and all reasoning is conditioned to some extent by his limitations and experiences.  This is as true for scientists as for musicians and other artists.  Old beliefs control new beliefs.  What one already believes to be true conditions all hypotheses from that point onward.

As Stokes puts it:

We have to stand somewhere while arguing; we always argue from some vantage point, from some perspective.  In Thomas Nagel’s words, there’s no “view from nowhere”.  And when arguing about the vantage point (the scientific theory, for example), you must and on the very thing for which you are arguing. [Mitch Stokes, A Shot of Faith to the Head (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2012), p. 78]

Those most self-deceived (or dishonest) are those who deny that they are “standing” at some particular vantage point, who imply that they are purely and absolutely objective.  Science (actually scientism) is often claimed by the foolish or dishonest to be just such a discipline–so objective, so committed to just the facts, that there are no previous commitments.  Science, it is claimed, is a higher order way of discovering and knowing the truth.

Consider this fantastic claim by atheist Josh Harris, who objects to those who want to discuss pre-existing paradigms as part of discussing the “facts”.  He argues that such notions lead “many unwary consumers of these ideas” to conclude “that science is just another area of human discourse and, as such, is not more anchored to the facts of this world than literature or religion are.  All truths are up for grabs.”  (Ibid., p. 80.  Emphasis, ours.)

It turns out, of course, that science is just another area of human discourse, as any perusal of the history of science will readily demonstrate.  But acknowledging this makes science more reliable, more objective not less.

So we have people who believe in the Living God, and those who don’t.  In both cases they have been conditioned so to believe (by God Himself–since He is the all-conditioning Conditioner).  Those who believe, if they are objective, will be aware of a cluster of life experiences, relationships, books they have read, personal tragedies experienced, or Christians they have known that predisposed them to believe in God as the Creator of the heavens and the earth, and, therefore, as their Creator to Whom they owe all things, and against Whom they have sinned.

Those who do not believe can likewise, if they are honest, point to life circumstances, upbringing, relationships, teachers and so forth who have predisposed them to Unbelief.  Those that don’t believe, if they are objective, will be aware of how they have been predisposed to Unbelief–and that these predispositions are just as powerful, if not more so, than any arguments about God’s existence.

As atheist Thomas Nagel expressed it:

I am curious whether there is anyone who is genuinely indifferent as to whether there is a God–anyone who, whatever his actual belief about the matter, doesn’t particularly want either one of the answers to be correct.  (Ibid., p. 83.)

Nation State Democracies are the Enemy

Nigel Farrar Confronts the Creeping Despotism of Europe

Unbelief’s Best Shot

The Mother of Invention

We recently began perusing The God Particle by Leon Lederman.  The author is a Nobel winning particle physicist with a gift for whimsical prose.  The intent of the author is to provide the lay person with a rough  general knowledge of arcane particle physics.  The book consists of a journey through the history of physics in general and particle physics in particular.

Lederman is a materialist.  All that exists is atomic particles and space.  So far, so good.  Below is his description for the layman of how it all began.
 

The matter we see around us today is complex.  There are about a hundred chemical atoms.  The number of useful combinations of atoms can be calculated, and it is huge: billions and billions.  Nature uses these combinations, called molecules, to build planets, suns, viruses, mountains, paychecks, Valium, literary agents, and other useful items.  It was not always so. 

During the earliest moments after the creation of the universe in the Big Bang, there was no complex matter as we know it today.  No nuclei, no atoms, nothing that was made of simpler pieces.  this is because the searing heat of the early universe did not allow the formation of composite objects; such objects, if formed by transient collisions, would be instantly decomposed into their most primitive constituents.  There was perhaps one kind of particle and one force–or even a unified particle/force–and the laws of physics.

Within this primordial entity were contained the seeds of the complex world in which humans evolved, perhaps primarily to think about these things.  You might find the primordial universe boring, but to the particle physicist, those were the days!  Such simplicity, such beauty, however mistily visualised in our speculations.  [Leon Lederman, The God Particle: If the Universe is the Answer, What Is the Question? (New York: Mariner/Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006 [1993]), p.3]

Lederman is honest enough to give a hat tip to the speculative nature of the Big Bang theory (“there was perhaps one kind of particle . . . “).  This is materialist cosmology at its best–that is, the best that it can do.  Faced with these limitations and with a cosmology that can only proceed if it builds upon a theory of meaninglessness and randomness lying at the root of everything, Lederman cannot avoid “calling” upon concepts and realities that lie completely at odds with a random beginning upon which “evolution” worked its magic.  At the beginning of everything, he suggests, there was perhaps one kind of particle or a unified particle/force and the laws of physics. 

Pardon me.  How did the laws of physics get into this supposedly brutally random universe?  The self-deceit, the intellectual dishonesty is hard to credit.  These are school boy errors and inconsistencies, but necessary for materialist particle physics to maintain its Unbelief.  And, as we know, necessity has always been the mother of invention. 

Now it is one thing for scientists in general and particle physicists in particular to be faced with the unknown, when current hypotheses fail or paradigms reach their limitations or gaps in knowledge force agnosticism.  That we all expect.  It is part of the human condition, and the joy of inquiry.  Those who do not wrestle with what they don’t know will never enjoy the “eureka” moment of discovery.  As Lederman himself observes, there are times when the hair stands up on the back of the neck when conducting experiments in particle physics. 

But it is quite another thing to clasp irrationality and fundamental rationalist-irrationalist dichotomies to one’s bosom, insisting upon them, making them central to one’s understanding of all reality, merely because one’s religious world-view demands it and nothing else “makes sense”.  It’s curious indeed to see a leading particle physicist resorting to such just-so stories. 

Douglas Wilson’s Letter From America

The Chocolate Milk Test 

Culture and Politics – Sex and Culture
Written by Douglas Wilson
Tuesday, 11 September 2012

In talking about gay rights, we have to distinguish between different kinds of rights. If someone tries to ramp up the stakes by saying that he is talking about human rights, then we have go on to distinguish between different kinds of human rights.

The first kind of right is a liberty right — the right to be left alone in certain specified areas. These are rights we have over against an officious government or a meddling neighbor. I have, for example, the right to keep and bear arms. This right was given to me by God, not James Madison. I also have a right to free speech. I have a right to free assembly together with others exercising the same right. I have the right to worship God as He requires in His Word.

Now in this sense, I absolutely believe in gay rights. Homosexuals are people and habeus corpus applies to them as much as to anybody else.
They have a right to a fair and speedy trial. They have a right to not be convicted of a crime on the basis of stupid rumors. In fact, I cannot think of a single genuine right that I have that homosexuals do not have together with me, and for the same reasons.

At this point in the proceedings, someone clears his throat and says, “Umm, marriage? You have a right to marry, and they do not.” But “marry” is not an unspecific verb with no direct object. I have the right to marry a woman, and so do they. A man and a woman together is what marriage is. The fact that they don’t want to marry a woman is their look out. I have a right to own a gun and so does your spinster Quaker aunt. The fact that she doesn’t want to own a gun is perfectly acceptable. But what she is not free to do is redefine everything, and say that gun ownership is very important to her, but that for her, gun ownership means owning a quilting rack.

Marriage was defined by God in the garden, and He wove it right into our identity as having been created in the image of God (Gen. 1:27). Not only did He weave this definition in, He did it with a thread count that we cannot begin to count or comprehend. Redefining marriage is therefore not a project of weaving something else; it is the destructive project of tearing up what was already woven.

But there is more. Liberty rights mean that other entities (like the government or your meddlesome neighbor) have a corresponding duty to respect that right. They respect it by leaving you alone. You buy a gun, and they do not attempt to take that gun away from you. They respect your rights by doing nothing. All they have to be is “not a busybody.” In this sense, such rights are negative rights.

This leads us to the other conception of rights, which are not rights at all. They are “positive” rights, in the sense that something must be given to you. These would be things like the right to “affordable housing,” or a “living wage.” With the gun, you buy the gun and other people leave you be. With the affordable housing, you provide the lack of a house, and somebody else has to buy the house. You provide the need for a job, and somebody else has to pay the wage. Your “rights” understood in this way amount to an obligation on the part of someone else to provide it.

You have a right, and they have a corresponding duty, not to respect what you bought, but rather to buy you something. Your right is purchased with corresponding duties from them. The more freedom you have under this definition, the less somebody else has. So not everybody leaps to do their duties in this regard — enter the government in order that we have somebody to make them do their duty. The government takes money from them in order to pay for the “right” to an affordable house, a living wage, or a hot lunch.

This notion of positive rights is therefore the intellectual framework of slavers. The former, the idea of liberty rights, is the theological framework for a free society. With liberty rights, you pay for your own gun, and other people leave you alone. With the positive rights, under that definition, say that you had the right to gun ownership. This would means somebody else would have to buy you a gun . . . with a gun pointed at them in case they didn’t want to.

So what does this have to do with gay rights? All we have to is ask whether or not anybody is going to have to be coerced in outlandish ways order to establish, say, the right of homosexuals to marry. With negative rights, when a right is recognized and acknowledged, the experience of liberty grows, and it grows for everyone. With positive rights, when such a “right” is established,” real liberty — in all sorts of areas — shrinks.

Go back to gun ownership. A man has a right to own a gun, and the owner of a restaurant has the right to require all guns to be checked at the door. It is his restaurant. Of course, he should also have the right to go the other way too. This is Idaho, at least where I am, and we have one restaurant in town that gives you a discount for “open carry.” It’s kind of endearing.

So say that homosexuals are given the right to marry, as has occurred in a number of states. Do Christian photographers have the right to turn down the job of shooting the wedding? Do Christians caterers get to say “No, thank you. We don’t do gay weddings.”? Do the Christian owners of a bed and breakfast have the right to decline being the scene of the honeymoon? No? Well, then, there’s your answer. Those driving this particular agenda are no friends of liberty.

I sometimes describe the mentality of soft despotism that surrounds us on every hand as the “free chocolate milk for everybody” mindset. So let this be your litmus test. Do I have a right to buy chocolate milk if I want? Or is someone else being obligated to buy me a chocolate milk whenever I want?