^{[ Intro | Declaration | Conclusion ]}

Given the fireworks I heard going off outside my apartment last night, it would seem to have been the 4th of July.

And, it would seem, the 4th was something worth celebrating (by exploding pretty things in the air that everyone can see and hear for miles around).

(We party in the sky, here in America, and make it impossible for you not to notice. :-)

Which makes me ask, “Is the 4th worthy of this kind of celebration?”

____

I remember sitting in on an “alternate chapel” at Messiah College when I was there as an undergrad.  (You had to attend a certain number of chapels each semester, some of which were held in the central gymnasium, and others of which [called "alternate chapels"] were held around campus in various locations.)

The speaker on this occasion suggested that Canada did just fine without having to fight a war.  Why did “we” have to go and start a war by obnoxiously declaring independence?

“They told the world why in the Declaration of Independence, you b@$#@&%!” I wanted to graciously suggest.  “They wrote this whole long thing, with all the reasons right there in it.  You can read, right?”

(”And, while we’re on the subject, if you love Canada so much, why don’t you marry it?”)

(But I didn’t say any of those things.  I just fumed and felt hurt.)

____

So, is the 4th something worthy of celebrating as my neighbors were doing last night?

Let’s take a look at the Declaration, and find out. (Feel free to skip right to the conclusion, though.)

____

The Declaration of Independence

^{[ Intro | Declaration | Conclusion ]}

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

[ Notice that "united" isn't capitalized.  It's a description, not a name.  "The united States" wasn't a country at this point.  There were just thirteen separate states (read, "countries"), who happened to be acting in a united way. ]

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

[ Notice that the declaration is Jefferson & Co.s' attempt to show respect for the people of the world.  They owe the world an explanation, an "apology" (in the original sense of the word).

Notice how modernist and rationalist this is.  Everyone deserves to have the Americans defend their actions to them.  The world is not divided into Greeks and Barbarians, or Civilized and Uncivilized.  Rather, the world consists simply of people -- rational people with the right to be given reasons for what the Americans are doing.

Notice also that this is not a declaration of war.  It's an explanation for why a group of people who once belonged to one country have decided that something about the Nature of Things demands that they begin to act as belonging to their own new countries (there would have been thirteen). ]

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

[ Jefferson & Co. begin to explain themselves by making their first principles explicit.  And they assume that everyone else in the world can see that these first principles are true.  In other words, they assume that everyone else in the world is rational, and can access the fundamental truths about the world and human beings.

Notice that the primary truth they claim is self-evident -- that all men are created equal -- would not have been self-evident to persons from the ancient era.  Something has happened between Plato and Aristotle, on the one hand,  and Jefferson & Co. on the other.

And whatever it was (I would argue it was the Doctrine of the Priesthood of All Believers in cooperation with the Renaissance restoration of Greek humanist culture, codified by Descartes' opening paragraph of Discourse on Method), it was mostly good. ]

–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

[ Notice how far they've come since ancient and medieval times (when it was assumed that Governments are instituted among Men to make them better Men, to make them virtuous and moral).

And notice how far they are from Communism and Fascism (which argued that governments are instituted among Men to tie those men into a cohesive, unitary organism and thus give Men's lives meaning.) ]

–That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

[ A government that doesn't fulfill its telos is a bad government, by definition, and therefore is a government that does not deserve to rule.  Being a bad government, a defective government, a broken government, a non-functioning government, it's really not a government.

When a government devolves into such a non-government, the citizens under it have the right to force government back on track, to get it back to fulfilling its telos. ]

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

[ Which implies that the causes that lead Jefferson & Co. to declare that they are setting up new governments are neither "light" nor "transient," and that the evils they are suffering under the British government are no longer "sufferable."

Evidently a certain alternate chapel speaker at Messiah College would disagree. . . . ]

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

[ (This is pretty much a quotation/paraphrase of a sentence from Locke's Second Treatise, sec. 225.)

It has become clear to Jefferson and Co. that the British government's goal is to treat them not as citizens, but as slaves, and thus to not act as a government, but as a Despot, a Tyrant.  And rather than protecting them, the British government has abused them.

In other words, the British government has ceased to act like a government, and therefore has practically declared itself to no longer be the government of the American states.

And what is the American response to be?  War?  No.  Simply, the formation of new governments.  Which, of course, the Brits would react to with violence, and therefore the Americans would react to with violence.  But still.  This is not a declaration of war, but of independence. ]

–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

[ And here begins the list of causes that make continuation in the current arrangement insufferable, and make it the duty of the American states to declare themselves their own governments, independent of England.

In what follows, Jefferson and Co. simply assert what all educated British persons would have understood to be examples of legitimate reasons for dissolving a government, based on John Locke's Second Treatise of Civil Government (from 1690), chapter 19, "Of the Dissolution of Government."

In fact, it is pretty clear from reading this list that Jefferson & Co. Locke's Second Treatise open to chapter 19, and were listing all the ways in which what King George & Co. had done clearly met Locke's criteria.

Notice that Locke's criteria are not criteria for revolution per se, but criteria for determining when a government, by its actions, had made itself a non-government, had dissolved itself, done away with itself. ]

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

[ On the above three points, see Locke, secs. 215 and 219. ]

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

[ On the above three points, see Locke, secs. 215 and 216. ]

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

[ On the above two points, see Locke, secs. 215 and 219. ]

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

[ A violation of Locke's principle that the legislature is superior to the executive.  See chapter 13.  This is, therefore, a usurpation (see chapter 17). ]

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

[ On the above point, see sec. 217. ]

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

[ On the above point, see sec. 219. ]

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

[ See chapter 11, secs. 140 and 142, and chapter 19, sec. 221. ]

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

[ See Locke, secs. 212 and 216. ]

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

[ See Locke, sec. 214. ]

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

[ That is a very Lockean point to make. ]

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

[ See Locke, sec. 221. ]

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

[ And all of that would have to be pretty scary, from Jefferson & Co.'s point of view.  Notice here the (ironic) contrast between Jefferson & Co.'s respect for the people of the world, and their expectation that the people of the world will feel sympathy for them having to face attacks by "Indian Savages."  Though, of course, it's not just "Indian Savages" that Jefferson & Co. think are "savages."  They portray King George himself as a "savage," though in other terms.  ]

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

[ In other words, they've tried the whole talking thing.  They've acted on the assumption that their abusers are rational beings.  They've attempted to treat them with respect, as rational dialogue partners.  But it takes two to tango.  See Locke, chapter 18, "Of Tyranny." ]

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

[ Ditto. ]

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

[ Notice the plurals.  "Free and Independent States."  Thirteen.  Not one country, but thirteen.  Interesting. ]

____

Conclusion

^{[ Intro | Declaration | Conclusion ]}

So, there you have it.  That’s why the American states declared their independence.  And they had excellent reasons.

Following the (immortal!) standards of the time — namely, those enunciated by John Locke, roughly 90 years before — they were merely publicly announcing what was in fact the case:  the British government had, through their actions, declared themselves to no longer be the government of the American states.

____

Now, of course, they knew what would happen next.  They knew that the British government would respond to this document not with another document, but with guns.

And they knew that they and their fellow citizens of the thirteen American states would respond to those guns with more guns.

But sometimes you have to take the right stand, regardless of the consequences.

____

On the 4th we celebrated the Declaration of Independence, not war.  And there is much to celebrate in the Declaration of Independence.

1. It has done immeasurable good for the way in which Americans tend to think about things that the first of our “Founding Documents” framed the people of the world as rational agents with whom reasoning was to be the obvious, first, and preferred manner of interaction.  The first of our “Founding Documents” was a rational defense of equality and independence to a rational audience of equals, not a declaration of war or a declaration of our own glory or superiority.
2. It has done immeasurable good that the first of our “Founding Documents” declared the equality of all humans to be rationally-obvious.  With this idea firmly imprinted on the minds of Americans as one of our founding principles, slavery and gender discrimination could only remain in place for so long.  Ideas have consequences, especially when you base your political system on them.
3. It is something to be celebrated that the first of our “Founding Documents” presented war-instigating political acts as things that should only be undertaken if they can be rationally defended before a world of rational observers, based on a certain set of universal principles anchored ultimately in God, and God-given human dignity.
4. Is something to be celebrated that the first of our “Founding Documents” is, in the terms of modern progressive theology, a “prophetic document” that “speaks truth to power” in defense of justice for the oppressed, even in the face of the physical danger that such a prophetic act put the Signers (the first of our national “prophets”?) in.

And I think those are all worthy of some fireworks.

(”She wanted us to vote for her, when she was going to up and quit!?”)

Then I got to thinking about how said “left-leaners” seem to hate Palin more than the real bad guys of the world (e.g., criminals, communists, terrorists, zombies, etc.).

____

Then I realized:  “Well, of course they do.  It’s the left-leaners who actually follow Jesus’ instruction to love your enemies.”

So, of course they love the bad guys of the world more than Palin.  Palin ain’t an enemy, and the bad guys are.

____

But there was something off about that.

I thought for a while.

Then it came to me.

____

Actually, I decided, the most accurate way to describe the situation is to say that left-leaners are really good, not at loving their enemies, but at loving their enemies’ enemies.

Progressives don’t love their enemies (Palin, Bush, CEO’s, fundamentalists, poluters, etc.) any more than conservatives love their enemies, I decided.

The people progressives are most famous for/proud of loving are the enemies of their enemies (i.e., the people their enemies seem to be frightened of most [see the list above, but add "homosexuals"]).

____

But — let’s be honest — it’s really easy to love your enemies’ enemies.

“So, take that, Progressives!” I thought to myself as I was waiting at a red light.

“You’re so proud of loving your enemies, but you love the people you’re so proud of loving not because they’re your enemies, but because they’re your enemies’ enemies.  And by loving them, you’re fighting your enemies.”

(Evidently I find progressives very threatening if I find it emotionally helpful to attack them in those terms — which means I’m afraid that they’re right and I’m wrong — which means I have to attack them and prove they’re wrong so I don’t have to be afraid of them anymore.  [Got that?  Good.  Just so we're all on the same page.])

____

But if that’s true, I thought, then no one loves their enemies.  (We all know “right” and “conservative” are 1940’s German slang for “hate” and “fear,” introduced into America by McCarthy and Nixon, who were Nazi spies.)

____

And that got me wondering who I was proud of loving — which “enemy” I was able to love when other, less-Jesus-like people couldn’t bring themselves to love them — which people I loved as a way of fighting my enemies.

Maybe the “enemies” I’m most proud of loving aren’t my enemies at all, but are rather the enemies of my enemies.  And maybe my love for them is just one weapon in my fight against my enemies.

____

Stupid trains of thought that lead back to me, but not in the, “And I, on the other hand, am awesome” way, but in the, “And I, likewise, need to question myself” way.

(I blame Socrates, and his whole “an unxamined life ain’t worth living” thing.)

(I put “suffered from depression” in quotation marks because depression isn’t the kind of thing you suffer from.  It is suffering.)

I was reminded of the “Is it worth it?” question on our recent trip out to the wedding in Middle America.

The pastor at the wedding talked about how difficult relationships are, you see, and I really hate driving on long trips.

____

Unfortunately for depressed people, it’s not just a sermon or a car ride that leads them to ask, “Is it worth it?”  It’s life in general.

The issue is not so much, “Is this or that relationship worth all the work that has to be put into it?” or “Is this wedding worth the car trip I have to take to get to it?”

Rather, the issue is, “Is life worth all the struggle and pain I have to go through in it?”

____

Now, if you’re like me, there’s enough of the deontologist in you to make the question of whether life is worth it or not to be essentially — and annoyingly — moot.

It doesn’t ultimately matter whether life is “worth it,” since you have certain duties that you can only fulfill if you continue to live. It’s your duty to live, whether or not you think it’s worth it; so you have to get on with living.

Nevertheless, it’s still annoying (to put it mildly) to think that maybe life isn’t worth it.  It would, at least, be really nice if life were worth it.

____

But on that trip out to Middle America and back, I finally got clear on a thought I’d been trying to work out for a while now.

I think, you see, that very often I couldn’t answer the “Is it worth it?” question affirmatively, not because I answered it negatively, but because I couldn’t answer it at all.  And the inability to answer a question looks and feels like a negative answer.

The reason, however, that I so often could not answer the “Is it worth it?” question is, I realized, that very often the question itself is senseless.  Very often it’s not actually a question.

It’s more like, “What’s the answer to life, the universe, and everything?” than an actual question.

Allow me to explain.

____

Imagine that I walk up to the icecream truck that drives through our neighborhood (playing Christmas carols in the middle of summer) and offer the driver three dollars for an icecream cone.

He accepts, and we make the exchange.

In doing so, I show that an icecream cone is worth three dollars to me, and the driver shows that three dollars is worth one icecream cone to him.

(Actually, I show that an icecream cone is worth a little more than three dollars to me, and he shows that three dollars are worth a little more than one icecream cone to him.  Otherwise, I wouldn’t want his icecream cone more than my three dollars, and he wouldn’t want my three dollars more than his icecream cone.)

____

When we talk about how much something is worth, in other words, we are talking about two good things.  An icecream cone is a good thing, and three dollars are a good thing.  And an icecream cone is worth three dollars.

However, when we ask whether something is “worth it” or not, the “it” in question is usually something bad.  Is life worth the pain?  Is getting fit worth the struggle?  Is learning worth the frustration?  Etc.

What this implies is that you can measure the value or worth of a good thing in terms of bad things.  “That (good) wedding was worth a (bad) car trip.  Maybe even a (bad) car trip and a half.”  “This (good) relationship is worth three (bad) arguments per week; maybe even four.  Definitely not five.”

____

But since when does anyone actually think that good things are worth bad things?

Since when do we measure the value of something in terms of badness?

It doesn’t make any sense!  (He said, slapping himself in the face.)

“Is it worth it?” so often means, “Is that good thing worth these bad things?” which means:  “This good thing is equal to how many bad things?”

It’s comparing apples and oranges.  There is no exchange rate between good and bad things, like there is between icecream cones and money.

____

Thus, when Alexei responds “I wouldn’t consent” to Ivan’s discussion of “the case of children” (in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov), it’s not because he thinks a good world isn’t worth the suffering of children, but that it makes no sense to ask whether a good world is worth the suffering of children.

Badness is not the measure of goodness.  You can’t measure worth in terms of badness any more than you can measure time in terms of parsecs.

Finding himself able to offer no answer to Ivan’s question, Alexei mistakenly believes his answer is “no.”

What he should have said was, “I can’t answer that question, because it’s senseless.  It’s asking me to measure goodness in terms of badness, and that is meaningless.  Your question isn’t actually a question, any more than ‘life, the universe, and everything’ is a question, or ‘Why is democracy more three than green?’ is a question.”

____

Pain and evil and suffering are problems, but you can’t express those problems through the question, “Is it worth it?” since the question only seems to make sense.  It’s not actually a question; rather, it’s a vague gesturing at the problem.  (The same thing goes for the Problem of Evil.)

Thus, you’ll never find an answer to the question, “Is it worth it?” in many cases.  And thus those of us who “suffer from depression” shouldn’t be surprised when we can’t.

When “Is it worth it?” isn’t actually a question, it can’t actually have an answer (any more than the ironing board over there, or your hat, “has an answer”).  Only questions can have answers, and very often, “Is it worth it?” isn’t a question.  Just because it has a question mark at the end doesn’t make it a question.

____

All that to say this:

If you’re depressed, please don’t mistake your inability to answer the question, “Is it worth it?” for a negative answer.

If you’re like me, you sometimes think your answer to the question, “Is it worth it?,” is “No,” when actually you just cannot answer the question at all.

Your inability to offer an answer seems like a “No” answer.  However, please remember that being able to give no answer to a non-question is not the same as giving a “No!” answer to a real question.

Please don’t assume that “No!” is the answer to something that isn’t actually a question.

____

It’s not that your pain and suffering aren’t real.  It’s that we shouldn’t measure the good and happy things in life in terms of badness and sadness.

There’s too much badness and sadness in the world already, without our turning badness and sadness into the measure of all things!

Badness and sadness don’t deserve to be the measure of good things.

Good things deserve to be measured in terms of other good things.

For example, perhaps it’s okay sometimes for doctors to force people who refuse the medical treatment they need to take it anyway.

I pointed out that even John Locke, one of the great champions of political liberty, thought that there were at least two limits to what you could do to yourself (i.e., you couldn’t commit suicide or sell yourself into slavery).

So, thinking that people shouldn’t be allowed to destroy themselves is not necessarily just a fascist thing.

____

However, I do think that Christians (like me and Jeff) need to be constantly on guard against any temptation to convert Christianity into fascism.

And we have to guard against that temptation because it would be so easy to convert Christianity into fascism, as I shall now explain.

____

Fascism is simply the idea that the nation is an organism, an organic whole, a living body, and thus every group within the whole (the businesses, the artists, the politicians, the athletes, the educators, the workers, etc.) must work together with all the others for the good of the whole.  (See also the etymology of “fascism.”)

Christianity, similarly, teaches — following Paul’s metaphor — that all Christians form the Body of Christ, as if they were all organs in the same body, and must work together for the good of the whole.

____

However, there are several important differences between fascism and Pauline Christianity:

First, is the fact that the State is the organism/body in fascism, and different sectors of society (different groups, fasci) are the organs, while Christ or the Church is the organism/body, and individual Christians are the organs.

Second, you are born into the State, while you choose to be a Christian.  Therefore, everyone in a State falls under the power of a fascist government, while only people who have purposefully joined a Church fall under “its” authority.

Third, the State controls people via law (i.e., the threat or use of physical force), while the Church is supposed to control “its” members via exhortation.

Fourth, the greatest penalty the State can impose is death, while the greatest penalty the Church can impose is exclusion from the community (i.e., the declaration that you don’t get to hang out with the Church anymore, and have to go play by yourself or with some other group).

Fifth, a sinful person is always at the head of the State, while the all-good, perfect God is at the head of the Church.

____

Remember, I describe the Church as Paul saw them, not as they have always and everywhere been.

At some points in history, certain people in the Church actually could control people via force.   Paul, however, propounded the Body of Christ metaphor to the Church when they were a persecuted minority.

At some points in history, certain people in the Church thought that excommunication meant eternal damnation, not just exclusion from temporal fellowship.  Paul, however, thought that excommunication was a way to save people from eternal damnation.

____

At some points in history, certain people in the Church have allowed themselves to be ruled by sinful persons as if they were God. (I’m thinking here of cults, and of local churches who have become “cults of personality” around their pastors.)

At some points in history, certain people in the Church have thought they had the right to treat everyone as if they were members of the church (i.e., as if the Church had authority over everyone), as if living in a certain area or country automatically made you a Christian, or obligated you to live as a Christian.

____

Those Christians who must be especially on guard against converting their religion into fascism are those who

(1) find themselves wanting to use the State to achieve the good things they are called to work for as members of the Church (i.e., find themselves wanting to achieve their ends via law, not by exhortation, inspirational example, or their own work)

(2) find themselves confusing the call to Church unity with a call to national/community unity (for example, by thinking that the call to Church unity means national/community unity is either possible or desirable, or by thinking that the “one body” metaphor which is appropriate for the Church is also appropriate for communities or nations).

And you will find such Christians on both sides of the political aisle.

It told me my education is “more important today than ever.”

____

That’s a theme I hear a lot.  Keeping track of my finances is more important than ever before.  Energy efficiency is more important now than ever.  Cultural sensitivity is more important than it’s ever been.  Etc.

And since I’ve been hearing such things ever since I can remember, I thought to myself:

“Why haven’t all the various importances reached infinity by now?  If they’re constantly going up, and seem to have been going up forever, what sense does it make to say they’re any higher now than before?  Infinity plus one equals infinity.”

(What is the unit of measure for importance, anyway?)

____

Then I realized that perhaps the various importances had been increasing forever, but had all been approaching some asymptote or other.

But do curves actually reach their asymptotes in infinity?  If they do, then every importance would have reached its asymptote by now (if they’d been increasing forever).

Oh, whatever.  Enough of this post.

(1) How the people in each area look at (and therefore live) their lives,

(2) How the physical and cultural environment in each place must affect the ways in which people in each area look at (and therefore live) their lives, and

(3) What a culture is, anyway.

____

I decided that a culture is a set of fundamental decisions about how to look at a broad range of things in life (food, friends, family, country, religion, government, the arts, clothing, careers, entertainment, living quarters, transportation, etc).

In large part, no one ever makes these decisions.  Instead, one simply consents to them, and makes other decisions in light of them.

(E.g., the decision consented to is that one expresses one’s personhood through one’s car, and therefore one makes the decision to buy a particular car and do particular things to it.)

(On the whole issue of decisions and consent as it relates to “structures,” “systems,” and “groups,” see here and here.)

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Furthermore, I started to wonder whether anyone could take a trip like the one I just took, and hold onto the modern-relativist idea that all cultures arenecessarily created equal (an idea that stems from, though is not asserted by, Descarte’s Discourse on Method).

One set of decisions can be (though may not actually be) better or worse than another, and therefore one culture can be (though may not actually be) better or worse than another (since a culture is a set of decisions).

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For example, you yourself believe

1. that the wedding Iattended this past weekend was either right or wrong, and that I should or should not have attended it,
2. that driving cars on such long trips is good or bad (given things like “carbon footprints”),
3. that the drinking of alcohol that occurred at the celebration (but in which I personally did not partake) was right or wrong,
4. that the industries around which the various communities (through which we passed) seemed to center (e.g., farming, retail, medicine, shipping [by river or truck].) are good or bad (and they are or are not worth devoting your life to through certain career and education choices),
5. that it’s okay to still be wearing your hair like it’s the 70s or 80s, driving showy cars, eating meat, shopping at huge chain stores that have a giant variety of in-season and out-of-season food products, etc.

For every opinion you have on each of those subjects, you agree with certain cultures, and disagree with others.  You think you’re right, and those cultures (those sets of decisions) are wrong — at least in regards to that aspect of life.

Even if the people who live out those cultures (those sets of decisions) are all equal in your eyes, their cultures may not be.

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In other words, I wonder whether anyone could take even a relatively short trip like the one I just took, and still accept the following argument (which expresses the philosophy of cultural relativism):

1. A is something that people in culture x do.
2. All cultures are necessarily equal.
3. Therefore, we must necessarily respect A.

You don’t have to even travel outside your own country to realize that you believe cultural relativism — the idea that all cultures are necessarily equal, simply because they are cultures — to be bunk.

You may believe that all (or most) cultures in the world today happen to be equal, all things considered.

But the trip would at least get you thinking about all the possible and actual cultures — i.e., pervasive sets of decisions — the world has known (e.g., fascism vs. democracy, communalism vs. individualism, industrialism vs. agrarianism, northern pluralism vs. southern racism, communism vs. capitalism) or could know (e.g., you can imagine cultures — i.e., pervasive sets of decisions — that are much better and much worse than any you see around you today) — and that would make you realize that you really do think at least some cultures are/were better than others, at least when you take all of the cultures throughout history into account.

It was the first same-sex wedding ceremony I’d ever been to.

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I was intrigued by how the officiant tweaked the language and structure of the ceremony — especially with regards to the fact that the officiant could only say “by the power vested in me by [insert denomination here],” rather than “by [insert denomination] and by the state of [insert name].”

(See here for my feelings on wedding ceremonies.)

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I was intrigued by the one nominally-Catholic family who brought their children to the ceremony because they thought it was important that they see such a ceremony when they were young (a ceremony which the couple in question no doubt had not seen when they were young).

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I was intrigued by the rural setting of the wedding, where one was as likely to meet folks wearing basketball shorts as folks wearing mullets in the local (HUGE) Wal-Mart.

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I was intrigued by the type(s) of friends the couple in question had collected over the years, who all came to the wedding from different parts of the country.

Not only were their various places of extraction diverse, but so were their educational levels, their marital/relationship statuses (”stati”?), and religious backgrounds.

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I was intrigued by the contrast between the couple and their friends on the one hand, and the locals on the other.  And by the contrast between the couple and their friends on the one hand, and “the locals” amongst whom the couple currently lives.

(The two sets of “locals” are radically different, at least ethnically, and probably ideologically as well — at least in general, given voting patterns for the two locales.)

And I was intrigued by the contrast between the couple and their friends on the one hand, and myself on the other.

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As we travelled to and fro across the country for this wedding, I observed the various cultures we travelled through.  In some places it was obvious that farming was the “local industry” and racing the local pasttime.

In other places it was obvious that farming was the local industry and boating or fishing the local pasttime.

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In other places it was not at all obvious what the “local industry” was, even though the stores were larger and had a greater selection than any stores I had ever seen before.  This was all the more shocking because the places in question appeared to be middle and lower-middle class.

I observed the differences between the college and non-college towns, the differing “ethnic makeups” of the areas, and differences in lawn- and parking-lot-care (specifically regarding how such “care” affected the apparent economic vibrancy of an area).

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Oh, and did I mention the music?

In the car, The Wife and I listened to Gogol Bordello and PFR, Avenue Q and Mozart’s Requiem.

At the wedding festivities, we heard more Gogol Bordello, along with lots of classic R&B, funk, bluegrass, country, 80’s metal, etc.

I’ll have some thoughts on all this later. . . .

A Republican committee member was talking, and said something about how Congress should be concerned about obesity.

I wanted to say, “Lead by example, fatty.”  But that would have been a slur.  Or, wait, scientists say fatties cause global warming, so it’s okay to slur them.

Anyway.

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So I started thinking about why Congress should have anything to say about your eating habits.  They can’t say anything about where you go to church, but they can about where you go to eat?

Separation of church and state, yes.  Separation of state and food services, no.

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Then I realized.  If the government is paying for your health care, then it should have the right to tell you how to live.

After all, your lifestyle choices can cost them money.  So it is their business what your BMI is, where you went for lunch today, and whether you’re making time in your morning schedule to go running.

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That’s how charity works, you see.  The government offers to make sure everybody gets some good or service or other, and then gets to use their generosity to force people to not waste their (the government’s) money.

They’ve found a way to turn even giving into a power-grab.  That’s real brilliance.  And real nauseating.

Good job, government.  Good job.  You just keep that up, now, y’hear?

1 What then are we to say was gained by Abraham, our ancestor according to the flesh? 2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. 3 For what does the scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” 4 Now to one who works, wages are not reckoned as a gift but as something due. 5 But to one who without works trusts him who justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as righteousness. 6 So also David speaks of the blessedness of those to whom God reckons righteousness apart from works: 7 “Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; 8 blessed is the one against whom the Lord will not reckon sin.”

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4:1-2 — Notice that Paul is still primarily talking to the Jewish members of his audience, to those for whom Abraham is an “ancestor according to the flesh.”  However, he’s about to argue that Abraham’s true descendants are those who are righteous, and have become righteous in the same way as Abraham (through faith).

Notice that Paul presents Abraham as someone in need of justification, and says that works didn’t justify him.  This is not really all that controversial a claim.  If you break a law, starting to keep the law won’t erase the fact that you’re guilty of having broken the law.

But Abraham, like everyone else, had sinned.  So he couldn’t erase that past sin by starting to act correctly.  You can’t change the past.  Thus, no one is justified by works, because everyone has already committed some sin or other (except, I would assume, small children — but that’s just because they haven’t really done anything at all; they’re still growing into their human agency), and simply doing more good things doesn’t change the fact that you did a bad thing in the past.

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4:3 — Here Paul quotes Genesis 15:6.  The context is Abraham’s worry that his heir will be one of his slaves, since he has no child.  (That’s an interesting inheritance tradition, isn’t it?)

In response to this worry, God promises Abraham that his heir will be his physical child, and that he will have descendants as numerous as the stars that Abraham could see in the sky (evidently it was night at the time, and there was probably much less of a light polution problem back then).

And then Abraham took God at His word, and thus was counted as being righteous — even though he didn’t say the Sinner’s Prayer, even though he’d never heard of Jesus or the Cross.  He simply believed that God would do what God said God would do.

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But what God said God would do is give him a child of his own to be his heir, and to give him descendants as numerous as the stars.  However, you have to see this promise in the context of Genesis 12:1-4, Genesis 18:16-19, and Genesis 22:16-18.  The promise of descendants is one aspect of God’s promise to make Abraham a blessing to the entire world, especially through the blessing that his descendants will be to the entire world.

Now, we can take this in one or both of two ways.  On the cultural side (philosophy, science, art, literature, etc.), the world certainly has been enormously blessed by Abraham’s descendants.  Some of the greatest philosophers, scientists, artists, writers, etc. have been physical descendants of Abraham.

But also, on the religious side, as a Christian I have to point out that Jesus was a physical descendant of Abraham as well, and that He provides the ultimate blessing — the possibility of a life-the-way-it-was-supposed-to-be (i.e., the eternal kind of life) — to the world.

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So, Jesus is still “in there somewhere,” when we talk about Abraham being righteous because he believed God would give him an heir and descendants like God said He would — because that promise is part of a wider promise to make Abraham a blessing to the world, and the most important way in which Abraham has been a blessing to the world is by starting the family from which Jesus comes.

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4:4-5 — A worker earns wages for the works he performs.  But our problem isn’t getting paid for the good stuff we do, but how to fix the bad stuff we’ve done.

The solution is that it’s God who fixes the bad stuff we’ve done.  It’s God who “justifies the ungodly.”  Therefore, all we have to do is accept that; all we have to do is believe that when God says He justifies us, that He’s not lying.

We just have to be willing to be justified by God (i.e., willing to have God make us not guilty of the since we committed), to have God fix our guilt for past wrongs for us.

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It’s really not that big of a deal on our end; there’s nothing elaborate about it.  God does all the work, we just accept.

What’s a big deal is what happens — or doesn’t happen — next.  Salvation isn’t a big deal from our end (i.e., getting saved is so easy anyone could do it, because you don’t have to do anything!); it’s working out your salvation that’s the big deal.

Being restored to life isn’t a big deal (i.e., God does all the work, you just sit back and relax); it’s abundantly living out that new life that’s the big deal (see John 10:10 and Romans 6).

Receiving grace isn’t a big deal (i.e., it’s a gift, and everyone loves gifts!  It’s not that hard to accept a gift); it’s growing in grace that’s the big deal.

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To put it in theological language, justification isn’t a big deal, sanctification is. (I’m being deliberately provocative by putting it that way.  Please read it in context :-)

Salvation (=justification) is just the beginning; it’s the moment of birth.  Sanctification, growth, living life in an eternal (full, abundant, unstoppable) way is what we’re supposed to focus on.  It’s what we’ll spend the rest of forever on.

Your birth gets you started, but the big deal is how you live out the life you’ve been given by your birth.

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Okay, so you may ask if living (not being born) is central, then why do our past sins have to be fixed?  If we’re living correctly at the moment, what does it matter how we lived in the past?

The answer is, in part, that there is no “at the moment” for the God who created time.  God doesn’t just see you as you are now, because that’s only part of you.  God sees you in your totality, not just that sliver of you that exists in the present moment.

Your past has to be fixed because it’s part of you.  You may think you leave it behind, but that’s just how things look from within time.  In reality, you are a temporally-extended whole, not just the slice of that whole that exists in the present.

Therefore, you need to be fixed as a whole — past, present, and future.  You need to be made the kind of thing that can deal (as a whole) with God — and that God can deal with as a whole — rather than the kind of thing that’s shaking hands with God in the present, and kicking God in the shins in the past (or future).

Salvation takes those past episodes of kicking God in the shins (and the current and future episodes!) and eliminates them, so that way God can deal with you as a whole, not just with that part of you that happens to exist at any given moment.

That’s one possible theory, anyway.

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4:6-8 — Here Paul quotes Psalm 32:1-2.  David is forgiven in this Psalm simply for confessing his sin, not for doing any works.  And it was a great relief to him, a great blessing.

“Blessed are those . . . whose sins are covered”: i.e., it’s awesome to be given big floppy, soft clown shoes so that when you kick God in the shins, it doesn’t hurt Him and therefore doesn’t interrupt your conversation with Him.

Or something like that.