The greatest problem with traditionalism is that it cannot achieve its  intended goals. In order to protect tradition’s freedom, traditionalism requires its believers to enter the political realm and play the game of political power. This inevitably leads to disastrous outcomes. Two examples are: [1] the corruption of tradition’s goals by enforcing the tradition upon everyone, leaving it open to later overthrowing and [2] the subjugation of tradition to the game of political power. Whenever a religious tradition enters the political realm as a political power, it becomes subject to the political realm. It is important to read the last sentence as a critique of religion as a political force. Secularisation in the strictest sense is the separation of religion from the political realm as a political power. Secularisation is not the absolute separation of religion from the political realm, as two completely unrelated realms of participation. In other words, secularisation is a rejection of all religious traditions as unified political parties, allowing people to be religious and political participants without needing to be a particular kind of one to be another (i.e. without needing one to be of a particular political party in order to participate in a particular religious tradition and vice versa).

The greatest benefit of secularisation is that one is free to participate in both the political and religious spheres without one interfering with the other. Closely related to this is that each sphere can influence the other but to the extent that one is free to ‘pick the battles’. In short, one can preserve one’s tradition better if one’s tradition is not tied into the rise and fall of political power. This is strength that secularisation provides over traditionalism. While this post is largely a proof-of-concept demonstration, my following posts will analyse details secularisation entails.

…not forbidding certain behavior should not be conflated with not approving of certain behavior. Being permissive of lifestyle choices does not entail me agreeing that the lifestyle choice is morally right before God. Such non-agreement is my religious perspective, and thus cannot be used as a rationale to coerce others. To me, this is the essence of being socially tolerant: though I disagree with a behavior I shall not raise an aggressive hand against it. I would use a similar argument to defend any non-aggressive behavior even if I believed it to be wrong.

This indeed is the linchpin on this issue between more statist Christians and Christian libertarians. Both views see homosexuality as a sin, an abomination before God of which we do not approve, condone and indeed as Christians we hate that sin (as we hate all sin). But only the former believes that we must (in order to be consistent) go a step further and engineer society by force, using the police and threatening to MAKE people conform to our religious views.

Zeal For Truth has gone through a much needed update. The forums and blog are better integrated. There are new and better features for comments and blog posts. There are also new features for categorisation, organisation and access to enable users to get as much as possible out of the content of this site.

Christopher Roussel, has gone through and done this work for the site and has continued to keep the site afloat for many years.

Feel free to report any bugs here or any gripes you have, but also to thank Chris for the hard work that he’s done.

Perhaps the most telling reasoning behind this marriage is one that confronted me recently. Recently, I commented that today I get to go to church without needing to worship the State. An old friend replied that one should be thankful to the State for the freedom of worship, even if it cuts into the time one spends worshiping God and Christ.

Yet this is exactly the kind of civil religion that ultimately harms the church. Over the next few posts in this series, I will argue that the separation of church and state that we find in secularisation. Through secularisation, Christians have greater freedom to worship God because there is no pretense to glorifying the State before, with, or after God. In other words, a secularised society is better than one in which State and Church is married.

In this respect, American Christianity is largely backwards in its love of civil religion. I wish to analyse the theological underpinning of this marriage, showing that the marriage of Church and State has developed out of a poor understanding of Christian theology. It is only through a secularised politics that Christian theology will grow.

President Barack Obama will warn health insurance industry executives at a White House meeting on Tuesday against imposing big rate increases ahead of tighter rules under the new U.S. healthcare law, The New York Times reported.“Our concern is that they not try and, under the cover of the act, get in under the wire here on rate increases,” Obama’s senior adviser David Axelrod told the newspaper.

The White House is concerned insurers will blame the new law for premium increases that really are intended to maximize industry profits, the newspaper said.

“Our message to them is to work with this law, not against it; don’t try and take advantage of it or we will work with state authorities and gather the authority we have to stop rate gouging,” the newspaper quoted Axelrod as saying.

This is deeply troubling, and I fear, a sign that my dour predictions two years ago may finally be coming. Here is the pattern that has been historically observed:

• government intervenes in a sector of the economy
• said intervention causes/augments imbalances and booms/busts
• government blames individuals, voluntary collectives or the marketplace itself for consequences of intervention
• government further intervenes, eventually by attempting to control prices
• price controls lead to shortages and even higher prices
• shortages lead to either industry failure or (if industry is fundamental to human survival) civil unrest

Is the White House deluded enough to think that by forcing company to pay for pre-existing conditions, that this will have no cost whatsoever? Covering pre-existing conditions will destroy the insurance industry – it will no longer be insurance, which requires risk. What will still be called “insurance” will actually just be welfare. And the providing of welfare by for-profit companies, which need to at least break even to survive, will lead to their premiums reflecting this. If their premiums don’t, then they fail.

Obama’s heavy-handed police-commissar approach is only going to make things worse. It reveals the fact that Obama thinks he can make the market function by naked power alone.

Sorry America. Enjoy your premiums skyrocketing. And if they aren’t allowed to by the bullying of Obama, then enjoy the shortages and not getting timely access to quality healthcare. Man cannot fight against the laws of nature.

…I now understand that a pastor can say gospel, grace, and Jesus in sermons as much as he wants, but that doesn’t make him gospel centered.  That doesn’t mean he understands grace.  That doesn’t show an awareness of the fullness of whom Jesus is and what He came to live out before us.

The gospel isn’t a word.  It’s a paradigm-shifting lens through which we view everything else.  It isn’t something we do to change ourselves.  It’s something done for us, in which we dwell daily.  The gospel changes everything.  The gospel INFORMS everything.  The gospel is the pair of glasses that sits on our nose as we leave Sunday service changing how we view ourselves, our marriage problems, our marriage successes, our disobedient children, our obedient children, the people we don’t want to be like, and the people we do want to be like.

The gospel enlightens us (I did not save myself).  The gospel teaches us  (Neither can they).  The gospel inspires us (Love them unconditionally the way Christ loved me).  The gospel gives us hope (They aren’t past repair).  The gospel gives us power.  (The same force that raised Christ from the dead is at work in me and them).  The gospel changes everything.

The gospel keeps us from thinking too highly of ourselves.  It keeps us from thinking too highly of others.  It protects us from self-condemnation when we fail.  It equips us to catch others when they do.  It gives us hope that transcends car accidents and relationship failures.  It gives perspective to painful hindsight of mistakes with our husband or children, coworker or roommate.  It just simply changes EVERYTHING.  But it won’t change everything until you learn to look at everything through the lens it provides.  And that means more than throwing the words around, even in proper context.

The whole thing is here.

I can definitely agree with this author. I sometimes think the difference between the Christian I was five years ago and the Christian I am today is reformed theology. But really, its just the gospel informing and changing more of my life. I wrote about this a year and a half ago and I am still amazed at how great and powerful the gospel is.

In the philosophical tradition (the French and UK), the left has been libertarian. In the recent pragmatic (US and German) tradition, it has been on the right. It’s time for both conservatives and liberals to unite on common ground to reduce the police-state, wars, corporatism and government spending.

The answer takes courage. It means that Republicans need to not support statist republicans – either don’t vote, or vote Constitution or Libertarian Party. It means that Democrats need to not support statist Democrats – either don’t vote, or vote Green or Libertarian Party. Either way: STOP VOTING FOR STATISTS.

Republicans and conservatives failed miserably last time. George Bush almost immediately proved that he was an authoritarian to the core – yet he received virtually unwavering support. His philosophy was adopted by many conservatives who blindly supported the measure for which they now criticise Obama. When Ron Paul spoke up on this, they ridiculed him (many now support him, even more support his son Rand).

But if this is a partisan change in the right, then it is doomed to fail. The end of a partisan shift, is merely to elect party members (re: Republicans) into office. But a philosophical shift will see beyond partisan allegiance and will seek philosophical progress in whichever party it may be found. The left now has its opportunity to awaken in the wake of Obama’s complete lies on so many critical issues. Hopefully anti-authoritarians on the right will embrace them and ally with them – not engage in partisan bickering.

That said, our current policy is both abusive to migrants and dangerous to us. We are almost deliberately creating a black market of workers who won’t cooperate with the police, who are re-infecting the US with diseases which were previously eradicated, and who create a pipeline for other illegal trafficking. Employers can abuse their migrant workers who have little recourse, as can other criminal traffickers.

The answer is to grease the legal channels for migrant workers, since we obviously have a demand for them and they increase our own standard of living. Require them to provide a thumb print and basic health inspection at the border, then report to the government when they find a job. Anyone breaking the migrant worker laws gets kicked out and is not allowed back in. Anyone committing a crime on a work visa gets kicked out. If emergency health care is needed, it is covered by a highly focused plan so hospitals aren’t shafted.

This plan would be better for the migrant workers, better for the American people, and better for law enforcement. The one group it would NOT be better for are the corporations that treat migrants little better than slaves because they know the migrant has few legal resources to call upon. We shouldn’t reward illegal behavior (like sneaking into our country), but the laws have been designed to be broken. Unfortunately, the elite have managed to turn this into an irrational brawl where people accuse migrants of stealing jobs. Personally, I like my $1 fast food cheeseburger. If that means allowing migrants to “steal” fast food jobs, so be it!

One thing that’s very interesting about these numbers is that Ron Paul is the most popular out of the whole group with independents. They see him favorably by a 35/25 margin. The only other White House hopeful on positive ground with them is Romney at a +2 spread and they’re very negative on the rest: -5 for Huckabee, -16 for Gingrich and Palin, and -17 for Obama. All five of the possible GOP contenders lead Obama with independents, but Paul does so by the widest margin at 46-28.

It has been easy in the past to write Paul off as irrelevant but this anti-politician climate is giving his movement some steam. Paul’s going to have an interesting choice in the next year or so. If his goal is really to be President rather than to influence the national dialogue then he should probably keep on trying to win the GOP nomination, as improbable as that might be. But if he wants to guarantee himself a major role in the 2012 contest he should run as a third party candidate instead. Polling at 5-10% nationally in the general election would get his views a much wider airing than just trudging along through the Republican nomination process and hoping to get 10-15% in each primary.

Now among all voters, Paul still loses to Obama quite clearly. However the popularity among independents marks an incredible strategic advantage both in early caucuses and primaries, as well as in a general election.