*
Most Western Churches are highly prone to fall into legalism and precision; but these are signs of a lack of spiritual depth, and are themselves false paths.
The true path is of course a middle way - not laxity, not legalistic precision; but not a compromise.
*
The early Church (according to Charles Williams) began to shape itself by discovering what it believed.
It was rather like Tolkien writing the Lord of the Rings - he gradually discovered what it was about. It was not invention, it was not extrapolation nor interpolation - it was a discovery of what was already there but not clearly seen.
When a council - designed to discover what the Church believed - was later found to be wrong, then it was regarded as not-a-council.
This is how things work when the Church is filled with the Holy Ghost.
*
However, when laxity increases because sanctity declines, there is a strong tendency to respond with legalism and precision - with sharp definitions, with increased discipline, with assertions of authority.
This is an error - when sanctity declines, the answer is an increase in sanctity and nothing else will work.
That was the error of the Reformation - to oppose laxity with Legalism. But, insofar as the Reformation really was an increase in sanctity (and it really was to a significant extent) - then that was to the Good.
And perhaps has often been the case with heresy - the benefits of heresy come from the increase in sanctity - and there often are such benefits even when the heresy is overall harmful or even evil in its ultimate tendency.
*
So the 18th century Evangelical/ Nonconformist 'revival' (Wesley, Methodism etc) did Good insofar as it was linked with devoutness and spirituality.
So did the almost-oppositely-inclined 19th century Anglo-Catholic revival do Good insofar it revived devoutness and zeal in the Established church.
By contrast, 20th century Anglican liberalism is an almost-unmixed evil since it was not only heretical, but associated with reduced sanctity, zeal, and spirituality.
*
From where we are now there is - I would think - zero-probability of making people more spiritual by more and more-precise legalism and more strict enforcement.
It must come (if it can come) from increased sanctity, probably from a revival of ascetic monasticism - that is, from example, from intercession and other spiritual means.
Insofar as this leads to greater sanctity, then those who achieve it will know just exactly what to do, but at present we do not know what to do, therefore we cannot make people do it.
But if we are trying to be more precise and strict about what to do from our current position of low spiritual development, then we will probably do more harm than Good.
*
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query legalism. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query legalism. Sort by date Show all posts
Tuesday, 10 January 2012
Friday, 27 September 2019
Christians (followers of Jesus) cannot work together if they use legalism to enforce orthodoxy
This is restating the argument of my post of a few days ago - from another angle.
There are many Christians of many types - if we take the definition of those eligible for resurrection to life eternal (1) a follower of Jesus who (2) acknowledges his divinity - which is what Jesus says, repeatedly, throughout the Fourth Gospel.
Among those who style themselves Christian in the modern world, there are many who - By My Judgement - are not Christian. This could be termed the 'Fake Christian Crisis' - it is the infiltration of all Western Christian churches by Leftists and Sexual Revolutionaries - aiming incrementally to subvert, destroy, take-over, and invert most of real Christianity. Fake Christianity has replaced all, or nearly all, of the leadership in major Western denominations including Roman Catholics, Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbytarians and most mainstream evangelicals.
And - also By My Judgement, and according to the Fourth Gospel definition - the real Christians are scattered across many churches denominations and no denomination-at-all.
This is 'easy' for me to assert, since I am in the no-denomination category (although associated with, supportive of, a Church of England Conservative Evangelical church); but, since Christians are in a shrinking and persecuted minority in The West, almost every real Christian wants (as I do) to be able to ally-with/ work-with other real Christians.
But... this become de facto impossible when the real Christians respond to the Fake Christian crisis by doubling-down on the legalism. In a nutshell, the strategy is to define the Leftist Sexual revolutionaries as heretics, and to exclude them on that basis.
But the real problem is not heresy but apostasy - the Fake Christians may be orthodox in narrowly defined legalistic terms, they are usually prepared to stand up and make strict oaths and promises in which they do not believe and have zero intention of living-by; but they are Obviously Not Christian in terms of not being followers of Jesus and/ or not believing in the divinity of Jesus.
This is presumably why the legalistic approach to fighting Fake Christianity has been a near-total failure.
What can easily be seen by the truth-seeking and discerning eye (or rather heart) is typically invisible to the words of legalism. The answer is simple, but it depends on honest, informed human judgement - for which there is no substitute - nor will there ever be a substitute... so long as Goodness is required: Goodness is a personal, not abstract, attribute.
Once we have cast aside the false idea that Christianity is, or ought to be, protected by legalism - by definitions and procedures (surely an idea that would have been rejected - sharply - by Jesus?) then matters can be much clearer - clearer although not, of course, necessarily easy or simple in practice.
For this to happen each must take personal responsibility for the judgement that he or she must make about others: we must judge others, and we must also be clear that the judgement of others is, can only be, must be for each of us - a personal judgement.
That is to say, we each must discern (with the discernment of the heart - not by checklist and tickbox) who are the real, and who the fake, Christians - and act accordingly, And 'must' means must.
There are many Christians of many types - if we take the definition of those eligible for resurrection to life eternal (1) a follower of Jesus who (2) acknowledges his divinity - which is what Jesus says, repeatedly, throughout the Fourth Gospel.
Among those who style themselves Christian in the modern world, there are many who - By My Judgement - are not Christian. This could be termed the 'Fake Christian Crisis' - it is the infiltration of all Western Christian churches by Leftists and Sexual Revolutionaries - aiming incrementally to subvert, destroy, take-over, and invert most of real Christianity. Fake Christianity has replaced all, or nearly all, of the leadership in major Western denominations including Roman Catholics, Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbytarians and most mainstream evangelicals.
And - also By My Judgement, and according to the Fourth Gospel definition - the real Christians are scattered across many churches denominations and no denomination-at-all.
This is 'easy' for me to assert, since I am in the no-denomination category (although associated with, supportive of, a Church of England Conservative Evangelical church); but, since Christians are in a shrinking and persecuted minority in The West, almost every real Christian wants (as I do) to be able to ally-with/ work-with other real Christians.
But... this become de facto impossible when the real Christians respond to the Fake Christian crisis by doubling-down on the legalism. In a nutshell, the strategy is to define the Leftist Sexual revolutionaries as heretics, and to exclude them on that basis.
But the real problem is not heresy but apostasy - the Fake Christians may be orthodox in narrowly defined legalistic terms, they are usually prepared to stand up and make strict oaths and promises in which they do not believe and have zero intention of living-by; but they are Obviously Not Christian in terms of not being followers of Jesus and/ or not believing in the divinity of Jesus.
This is presumably why the legalistic approach to fighting Fake Christianity has been a near-total failure.
What can easily be seen by the truth-seeking and discerning eye (or rather heart) is typically invisible to the words of legalism. The answer is simple, but it depends on honest, informed human judgement - for which there is no substitute - nor will there ever be a substitute... so long as Goodness is required: Goodness is a personal, not abstract, attribute.
Once we have cast aside the false idea that Christianity is, or ought to be, protected by legalism - by definitions and procedures (surely an idea that would have been rejected - sharply - by Jesus?) then matters can be much clearer - clearer although not, of course, necessarily easy or simple in practice.
For this to happen each must take personal responsibility for the judgement that he or she must make about others: we must judge others, and we must also be clear that the judgement of others is, can only be, must be for each of us - a personal judgement.
That is to say, we each must discern (with the discernment of the heart - not by checklist and tickbox) who are the real, and who the fake, Christians - and act accordingly, And 'must' means must.
Thursday, 2 July 2026
The intractable problem of moral legalism in Christian discourse
If there is one area of life in which discussion is futile, it is when trying to persuade a Moral Legalist in a situation where somebody has transgressed a law, rule or principle, that he regards as both absolute and primary.
Such people cannot be made to recognize that the crucial move in their argument has been their own personal choice to regard values as existing ultimately in the form of laws.
As well as, secondly, the choice to place This Law, here-and-now, as above all other laws that could (in principle) be applied to the situation under discussion.
In other words; any possible argument has already-been pre-decided by the prior choice of These-Laws as necessarily valid and supreme, and the prior choice to apply This-Law here-and-now.
Moral legalists have taken a vastly complex situation unfolding in real-time; and applied-to-it a grossly simplified model, that begs all the most fundamental questions.
On the one hand we have Life; but on the other hand a set of Laws and relations between Laws. These Laws are then claimed to be descriptive of The Ultimate Truth about Life. The claim is that Life derives from Laws.
In other words, the Man-assumed model of reality which is The Laws; is given primacy over all the multitude of details of that existence in which we find ourselves.
There can be no relevant "evidence" for this assumption of the primacy of Law. It is an act of faith, a personal decision.
Such moral legalists (and they are legion, and occur in all Christian denominations) cannot be persuaded; because they regard every attempt to point-out the fact of their assumptions, and that all such assumptions depend upon a personal choice of what-to-believe; as a challenge to their core moral values - hence as necessarily emanating from an evil tempter.
One who debates a moral legalist, is subjectively assigned a (literally) demonic role.
The reaction to any challenge to the assumption of the validity and applicability of Law is therefore typically extreme, and always negative.
And also projective - in the sense that it attributes motivation in absence of knowledge. Any pointing-out of "my" assumptions as assumptions is experienced as an evil-motivated attack on what I have assumed to be ultimate good.
Naturally enough, albeit mistakenly and sinfully; this may subjectively be regarded as "justifying", or even requiring (moralistic zeal!) - justifying an extreme response against this threat.
Thus moral legalism is, I believe, a major cause of the extraordinary extremity of hostile rhetoric from some Christians online, and sometime IRL; and a cause of the inability of so many Christians to learn from experience, from Life. Because when These-Laws have-been accorded metaphysical primacy, primacy by-assumption; then anything that happens in Life can have nothing to teach us about the validity and applicability of These-Laws.
Note added: If not, then what? If not Moral Legalism, then what instead?
The answer lies in distinguishing the limitations of this actual mortal life from the ideal situation of Heaven - and in remembering the ultimate primacy of Heaven. Here-and-now in this vast and impersonal world as-is; we are stuck with legalism and bureaucracy as inevitable evils. Laws can be improved and reduced, implementation should be supervised and shaped by wise human judgment - but all Laws are ultimately wrong.
And yet we are stuck with them, especially when it comes to public and societal morality (we can, and should, try to exclude laws and law-like rules as much as possible from a loving marriage, family, and strong friendships.
(For the same reason, we should resist the temptation to conceptualize loving marriages and families in terms of societal-derived models - destructive errors such as regarding the family as essentially structured like a "social institution", as analogous to a mini-nation; as properly "ruled" by monarch, or "democracy", or whatever...)
However; Heavenly morality and values are wholly relational, i.e. rooted in love between persons - and there is no place for Laws in Heaven.
This is what we need to hold in mind, in order to avoid the self-blinded and destructive zealotry of the self-defined-Christian - but often net-evil, and in-practice demon-aligned - Moral Legalists.
Tuesday, 15 March 2011
The unsuccessful mystic as ideal
*
In desperate times, where moral inversion dominates discourse; could it be time to try and lead lives in which transcendental priorities are inverted?
Not, of course, to stop fighting the transcendental inversions (evil is good; lies are truth; ugliness is beauty); but to fight them on a different front, where they are less defended.
Not to fight with laws and rules, but with mysticism and authority?
Not to fight claims of status and power with an attempt at the same; but to fight them with failure...
*
A particular horror of modernity is the legalism, its procedural quality - a pseudo-rational process of strict definition and algorithmic calculation...
Or, more precisely, its literalism.
How to combat literalism? Well, not (I would say) by an opposing literalism.
And not either by a 'post-modern' denial of reality - obviously not by that!
*
This could, perhaps, be fought indirectly, by refusing to enter that arena; by a focus on the mystical aspects.
Not to fight democratic politics (politics without authority - with merely the fake-authority of votes and survey) with ideas of divinely-sanctioned politics, nor pseudo-logic with real logic, nor legalism with laws... that doesn't seem to work.
Indeed I wonder if these weapons have not been turned against us?
But to fight the actually corrupt processes with the non-rational (not irrational) certainties of mysticism - and not our own mysticism, but on authority of real mystics, those much further advanced on the path.
It would perhaps be the best possible approach, in such an era - to be an unsuccessful mystic
*
What would it be to give the highest status to mysticism, to try to practice mysticism oneself - but to fail abjectly (of course! how could one succeed under modern conditions?).
(And, anyway, if one did succeed in walking the mystical path - how inevitably it would lead downhill: into the cut-off, self-perpetuating state of spiritual pride)
...to be a fully-acknowledged failed mystic; but not to give-up - to continue being just that!
A failed mystic as a way of life!
*
One great advantage is the humour of the situation!
(Mysticism nowadays maybe needs humour, for most of us at least.)
Another could be its subversive effect - it eludes the worldliness and status seeking of modernity.
(To adapt Peter Sloterdijk's terminology) It is a Kynical stance, but not cynical - it fully honours the transcendent: more than that - it bases action on the transcendent.
Subversive of subversion.
*
And w.r.t. to the transcendental Goods - how if we put virtue, morality, ethics (especially social ethics) as the lowest of them?
Not of course to deny or disregard the necessity of virtue, but simply to place it lower in current priorities than beauty, and lower also than truth.
Because on the one hand, virtue is corrupted by legalism - and seems always to descend to atomistic discussions of what makes people happy or suffer - while on the other hand, beauty is surely the most disregarded of transcendental Goods in modernity.
For modernity, virtue/ morality/ ethics is the bottom-line, be-all and end-all of the human condition (or rather, the project of subversion of traditional concepts of virtue is this, anyway).
Currently and for a couple of hundred years, beauty is the Good which (deep down, or not very deep down) we believe is not really as important as virtue or truth, beuaty is (to moderns) really just a matter of opinion (or fashion, or money) - because it has no acknowledged laws.
The problem is that beauty fails to be literalizable.
Let us acknowledge this failure, with no quibbling, no excuses.
*
(Even when 'modern art' is accorded awards and prizes and government funding, and its practitioners are given status, money and honours - still the public refuse to recognize modern art as... beautiful! So it has given up even pretending to be beautiful. Beauty is apparently not assimilable by bureaucracy.)
*
So not literalism, not a virtue focus - but of course strength is necessary. (Especially if we are operating apparently 'alone' in this world - albeit in a great company at the real transcendendal level).
We must be able to draw lines and to refuse to join and cooperate in the social project of soul-destruction (whether or not this involves actually 'saying no')
We must be able to say a firm yes to the Church - but not the corrupt actual Church (although we should be careful not to oppose or damage it) but yes to the mystically pure Church.
A mystical yes to the mystical Church - and not to defend this with logic or literalism.
*
To refute wickedness and lies of course - but not with literalism and logic, instead with mystical beauty.
*
To refute democracy (managed mob rule by voting); but not with some alternative system but instead with the mystery of authority.
To defend our submission to authority, but not with logic and literalism (not with facts about the deservedness of our authority: that to which we cleave) - but with statements of the mystical authority of authority.
Not to defend authority on the basis of its incorruptibility (especially not to devise systems that are supposed to prevent corruption) but on a mystical basis of providence.
*
Unsuccessful mystics, focused on beauty, authority and transcendental values...
Hmmm...
Would it work?
What do we mean by 'work'?
Do we means would it work at a socio-political level validated by literalism and logic? Of course not.
But would it work at the level of the individual?
Maybe it could.
*
Maybe, at least for a while, it would wrong-foot our enemies, and allow us a breathing space
*
In desperate times, where moral inversion dominates discourse; could it be time to try and lead lives in which transcendental priorities are inverted?
Not, of course, to stop fighting the transcendental inversions (evil is good; lies are truth; ugliness is beauty); but to fight them on a different front, where they are less defended.
Not to fight with laws and rules, but with mysticism and authority?
Not to fight claims of status and power with an attempt at the same; but to fight them with failure...
*
A particular horror of modernity is the legalism, its procedural quality - a pseudo-rational process of strict definition and algorithmic calculation...
Or, more precisely, its literalism.
How to combat literalism? Well, not (I would say) by an opposing literalism.
And not either by a 'post-modern' denial of reality - obviously not by that!
*
This could, perhaps, be fought indirectly, by refusing to enter that arena; by a focus on the mystical aspects.
Not to fight democratic politics (politics without authority - with merely the fake-authority of votes and survey) with ideas of divinely-sanctioned politics, nor pseudo-logic with real logic, nor legalism with laws... that doesn't seem to work.
Indeed I wonder if these weapons have not been turned against us?
But to fight the actually corrupt processes with the non-rational (not irrational) certainties of mysticism - and not our own mysticism, but on authority of real mystics, those much further advanced on the path.
It would perhaps be the best possible approach, in such an era - to be an unsuccessful mystic
*
What would it be to give the highest status to mysticism, to try to practice mysticism oneself - but to fail abjectly (of course! how could one succeed under modern conditions?).
(And, anyway, if one did succeed in walking the mystical path - how inevitably it would lead downhill: into the cut-off, self-perpetuating state of spiritual pride)
...to be a fully-acknowledged failed mystic; but not to give-up - to continue being just that!
A failed mystic as a way of life!
*
One great advantage is the humour of the situation!
(Mysticism nowadays maybe needs humour, for most of us at least.)
Another could be its subversive effect - it eludes the worldliness and status seeking of modernity.
(To adapt Peter Sloterdijk's terminology) It is a Kynical stance, but not cynical - it fully honours the transcendent: more than that - it bases action on the transcendent.
Subversive of subversion.
*
And w.r.t. to the transcendental Goods - how if we put virtue, morality, ethics (especially social ethics) as the lowest of them?
Not of course to deny or disregard the necessity of virtue, but simply to place it lower in current priorities than beauty, and lower also than truth.
Because on the one hand, virtue is corrupted by legalism - and seems always to descend to atomistic discussions of what makes people happy or suffer - while on the other hand, beauty is surely the most disregarded of transcendental Goods in modernity.
For modernity, virtue/ morality/ ethics is the bottom-line, be-all and end-all of the human condition (or rather, the project of subversion of traditional concepts of virtue is this, anyway).
Currently and for a couple of hundred years, beauty is the Good which (deep down, or not very deep down) we believe is not really as important as virtue or truth, beuaty is (to moderns) really just a matter of opinion (or fashion, or money) - because it has no acknowledged laws.
The problem is that beauty fails to be literalizable.
Let us acknowledge this failure, with no quibbling, no excuses.
*
(Even when 'modern art' is accorded awards and prizes and government funding, and its practitioners are given status, money and honours - still the public refuse to recognize modern art as... beautiful! So it has given up even pretending to be beautiful. Beauty is apparently not assimilable by bureaucracy.)
*
So not literalism, not a virtue focus - but of course strength is necessary. (Especially if we are operating apparently 'alone' in this world - albeit in a great company at the real transcendendal level).
We must be able to draw lines and to refuse to join and cooperate in the social project of soul-destruction (whether or not this involves actually 'saying no')
We must be able to say a firm yes to the Church - but not the corrupt actual Church (although we should be careful not to oppose or damage it) but yes to the mystically pure Church.
A mystical yes to the mystical Church - and not to defend this with logic or literalism.
*
To refute wickedness and lies of course - but not with literalism and logic, instead with mystical beauty.
*
To refute democracy (managed mob rule by voting); but not with some alternative system but instead with the mystery of authority.
To defend our submission to authority, but not with logic and literalism (not with facts about the deservedness of our authority: that to which we cleave) - but with statements of the mystical authority of authority.
Not to defend authority on the basis of its incorruptibility (especially not to devise systems that are supposed to prevent corruption) but on a mystical basis of providence.
*
Unsuccessful mystics, focused on beauty, authority and transcendental values...
Hmmm...
Would it work?
What do we mean by 'work'?
Do we means would it work at a socio-political level validated by literalism and logic? Of course not.
But would it work at the level of the individual?
Maybe it could.
*
Maybe, at least for a while, it would wrong-foot our enemies, and allow us a breathing space
*
Sunday, 29 September 2019
How to escape The System (the Matrix)
The System is owned by Satan - I mean that the whole world of System (bureaucracy, legalism, totalitarianism, the Ahrimanic - abstraction and impersonality...) is intrinsically demonic in its ultimate nature and tendency.
Many, many have reached this insight over the past 250 years - but there is a problem...
If Not, Then What? If we recognise The System as evil, from where do we make this recognition? If we recognise The Matrix - then where might we escape to that is Not Matrix?
Is every-thing, actually, really The Matrix?
The answer depends on ultimate assumptions. Is there God? Yes is a first step: is God a God of System?
For many Christians (although not, apparently, for Jesus) Christianity is a System called Church. Yet a deep and honest analysis always leads to the conclusion that Church is also System - and not accidentally, but intrinsically.
Church is Not outside System - it is a part of it. So that really - in actuality and ultimately - Church is Not opposed-to System, is Not distinct-from System - and is Not an alternative nor an escape-from System... except in a sort-of, relative, quantitative (and therefore ultimately un-satisfactory) sense.
(Church which is merely and necessarily Not-so-bad-System is inadequate; Church which is bureaucracy, abstraction, legalism is impersonal - hence System - hence rejected by the heart as ultimately part of the demonic scheme.)
We can imagine an escape from System into childhood, Original Participation, the Luciferic, the Old Magic... but Childhood is innocence and un-conscious, from adolescence we are conscious and sexual beings - so that if, as such, we attempt to return to childhood, we take our sexuality and consciousness with us.
The result is as we saw in the late 1960s - a dishonest, selfish, despairing hedonism. Not the child-like; but a horribly sexualised and manipulative child-ish-ness. We are back to the demonic by another route.
So our escape from System must be into that which is distinct from System*, precedes System; is personal - is a matter of individual and unique Beings and their unique and Loving relationships.
This is not abstract nor wishful - it is there-to-be-recognised as actual personal experience; as the true-and-proper basis underlying marriage and family: deeper and realer than the institutional arrangements by which The System tries to sometimes reinforce and sustain, but nowadays capture and subvert, marriage and family.
There is therefore a real and primary world outside of System, enclosing System (below, all around and above System) - and that is of-God, and of-our-selves.
It can (in principle) be touched and inhabited by any person at any time and is the destination of those who choose to follow Jesus Christ to resurrected life eternal.
Escape from the Matrix is to dwell in this world of objectively-loving-relationships (in Heaven).
Albeit our lives in this mortal situation are about learning - therefore, it is not possible (nor desirable) for us to dwell-in Heaven now, constantly: that comes later.
The fact we may go into, and out-from, Heaven - during mortal life - is a vital exprience for our learning.We look at life 'from both sides' - and that is intentional and necessary.
What we do need to do now (in mortal life) is each to learn from our dwelling in a mortal world that pretends to be all-System, and nothing-but System; in all its mixed, but ultimately Satanic, nature. This is termed (variously) theosis, deification, sanctification and spiritual progression.
Each person's proper path of theosis is unique and bespoke-tailored. It uses The System, to teach us lessons (which we may, or may not, learn) while remaining apart from it.
* All (without exception) mainstream politics, all secular (not-religious) political theory, all actual and possible non-creator-god ideologies are ultimately just-another-Matrix. This is why nobody is sufficiently motivated to do anything substantive - high risk, long-termist, self-sacrificing, requiring-of-courage - towards a more common-sensical, more 'efficient', more peaceful and prosperous world... i.e. Why the secular Right just loses and loses and loses. Who wants to risk, probably sacrifice, themselves for a different version of the same thing? Indeed, en masse, secular populations cannot even be motivated to have enough children to replace themselves, cannot be motivated to prevent them-selves being demonised and replaced (at their own expense!) with millions upon millions - unceasing - of assorted hostile outsiders... Because, who wants to commit his life to just-another-Matrix? Nobody, really - or a mere handful of powerless, low status types. Courage comes from a genuine and better hope - which is why hope (and faith and love) is a virtue.
Many, many have reached this insight over the past 250 years - but there is a problem...
If Not, Then What? If we recognise The System as evil, from where do we make this recognition? If we recognise The Matrix - then where might we escape to that is Not Matrix?
Is every-thing, actually, really The Matrix?
The answer depends on ultimate assumptions. Is there God? Yes is a first step: is God a God of System?
For many Christians (although not, apparently, for Jesus) Christianity is a System called Church. Yet a deep and honest analysis always leads to the conclusion that Church is also System - and not accidentally, but intrinsically.
Church is Not outside System - it is a part of it. So that really - in actuality and ultimately - Church is Not opposed-to System, is Not distinct-from System - and is Not an alternative nor an escape-from System... except in a sort-of, relative, quantitative (and therefore ultimately un-satisfactory) sense.
(Church which is merely and necessarily Not-so-bad-System is inadequate; Church which is bureaucracy, abstraction, legalism is impersonal - hence System - hence rejected by the heart as ultimately part of the demonic scheme.)
We can imagine an escape from System into childhood, Original Participation, the Luciferic, the Old Magic... but Childhood is innocence and un-conscious, from adolescence we are conscious and sexual beings - so that if, as such, we attempt to return to childhood, we take our sexuality and consciousness with us.
The result is as we saw in the late 1960s - a dishonest, selfish, despairing hedonism. Not the child-like; but a horribly sexualised and manipulative child-ish-ness. We are back to the demonic by another route.
So our escape from System must be into that which is distinct from System*, precedes System; is personal - is a matter of individual and unique Beings and their unique and Loving relationships.
This is not abstract nor wishful - it is there-to-be-recognised as actual personal experience; as the true-and-proper basis underlying marriage and family: deeper and realer than the institutional arrangements by which The System tries to sometimes reinforce and sustain, but nowadays capture and subvert, marriage and family.
There is therefore a real and primary world outside of System, enclosing System (below, all around and above System) - and that is of-God, and of-our-selves.
It can (in principle) be touched and inhabited by any person at any time and is the destination of those who choose to follow Jesus Christ to resurrected life eternal.
Escape from the Matrix is to dwell in this world of objectively-loving-relationships (in Heaven).
Albeit our lives in this mortal situation are about learning - therefore, it is not possible (nor desirable) for us to dwell-in Heaven now, constantly: that comes later.
The fact we may go into, and out-from, Heaven - during mortal life - is a vital exprience for our learning.We look at life 'from both sides' - and that is intentional and necessary.
What we do need to do now (in mortal life) is each to learn from our dwelling in a mortal world that pretends to be all-System, and nothing-but System; in all its mixed, but ultimately Satanic, nature. This is termed (variously) theosis, deification, sanctification and spiritual progression.
Each person's proper path of theosis is unique and bespoke-tailored. It uses The System, to teach us lessons (which we may, or may not, learn) while remaining apart from it.
* All (without exception) mainstream politics, all secular (not-religious) political theory, all actual and possible non-creator-god ideologies are ultimately just-another-Matrix. This is why nobody is sufficiently motivated to do anything substantive - high risk, long-termist, self-sacrificing, requiring-of-courage - towards a more common-sensical, more 'efficient', more peaceful and prosperous world... i.e. Why the secular Right just loses and loses and loses. Who wants to risk, probably sacrifice, themselves for a different version of the same thing? Indeed, en masse, secular populations cannot even be motivated to have enough children to replace themselves, cannot be motivated to prevent them-selves being demonised and replaced (at their own expense!) with millions upon millions - unceasing - of assorted hostile outsiders... Because, who wants to commit his life to just-another-Matrix? Nobody, really - or a mere handful of powerless, low status types. Courage comes from a genuine and better hope - which is why hope (and faith and love) is a virtue.
Wednesday, 23 February 2011
Democracy versus populism
*
I don't like to be topical, but let's just say there are a lot of democratic uprisings going on just now, within the USA and abroad, so that even I have noticed.
Let's be clear on this - democracy is leftist, populism is rightist.
Democracy is about process, populism is all about outcomes.
*
The right cannot beat the left at democracy - process (= legalism, = bureaucracy) leads inevitably to the left; the right may win the occasional battle but they will lose the war.
(Process cannot beat process, and process is leftist.)
Only an outcome-oriented populist right can beat the left.
*
As things stand in the US, the left is winning strategically by use of democracy, by legalism, by process.
To be sure, the left is fighting battles tactically - using whatever might work, including law-breaking, ignoring and subverting process, rigging or ignoring democracy...
But the mainstream political right is eschewing populism (or deflecting populism into democratic politics) for fear of what populism might unleash.
The right are sticking to process - to the democratic rules (more than are the left, at any rate), sticking to the law, sticking to official procedure - and justifying all their actions in terms of democratic process.
And the right is trying to make the left stick to process... it is apparently their main strategy!
*
Populism makes (common) sense - whereas procedure is highfalutin nonsense - the left's specialty.
Only if, or when, the right starts circumventing democracy with outcome-oriented strategic populism, the left will start to get very worried indeed, and will in fact be hard-pressed to survive.
But it has not happened yet, and may never happen.
*
I don't like to be topical, but let's just say there are a lot of democratic uprisings going on just now, within the USA and abroad, so that even I have noticed.
Let's be clear on this - democracy is leftist, populism is rightist.
Democracy is about process, populism is all about outcomes.
*
The right cannot beat the left at democracy - process (= legalism, = bureaucracy) leads inevitably to the left; the right may win the occasional battle but they will lose the war.
(Process cannot beat process, and process is leftist.)
Only an outcome-oriented populist right can beat the left.
*
As things stand in the US, the left is winning strategically by use of democracy, by legalism, by process.
To be sure, the left is fighting battles tactically - using whatever might work, including law-breaking, ignoring and subverting process, rigging or ignoring democracy...
But the mainstream political right is eschewing populism (or deflecting populism into democratic politics) for fear of what populism might unleash.
The right are sticking to process - to the democratic rules (more than are the left, at any rate), sticking to the law, sticking to official procedure - and justifying all their actions in terms of democratic process.
And the right is trying to make the left stick to process... it is apparently their main strategy!
*
Populism makes (common) sense - whereas procedure is highfalutin nonsense - the left's specialty.
Only if, or when, the right starts circumventing democracy with outcome-oriented strategic populism, the left will start to get very worried indeed, and will in fact be hard-pressed to survive.
But it has not happened yet, and may never happen.
*
Saturday, 14 April 2018
It was ancient legalism that killed Jesus (as it kills all Goodness, now)
The following is edited from Lecture 5 of The Karma of Materialism (1917) by Rudolf Steiner and translated by Owen Barfield
It was also inevitable that an ahrimanic [i.e. Satanic-materialistic] code of law should be particularly in evidence and concentrated, so to speak, at one particular spot on the earth at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha [i.e. the death and resurrection of Jesus].
Such circumstances did not prevail everywhere, but in this one place the social structure was completely ahrimanic.
Therefore the appearance of its very antithesis - the appearance of a God - was for this society the most hateful thing that could happen, it had to be eliminated...
Two things in particular brought about this social structure. First, the kind of thoughts that had evolved out of Judaic law, were so saturated with ahrimanic forces that by means of them there was no possibility of grasping the fact that a God could come so close to man as was the case of Christ Jesus. This was something Judaic law had of necessity to reject.
Secondly, the Romans were also responsible for the death of Christ Jesus; they were a powerful and efficient force in establishing the external side of the social structure. One cannot imagine a more powerful example than the social structure created by Roman Imperialism, particularly at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha. Yet at the moment the Mystery of Golgotha is enacted, Pilate, the representative of the strongest earthly power, proves a weakling when faced with spiritual power. He is incapable of coming to any insight or to make any decision about what is to happen.
This phenomenon of satanic materialism is therefore connected with the Mystery of Golgotha... it took place at a time when mankind was least able to understand.
In earlier times the advent of Christ would have been understood, but when it actually happened it was not understood.
**
Note: Rudolf Steiner's idea of 'Ahriman' is a demonic being/ set of beings - roughly similar to the concept of Satan is the character of The Devil - a demon whose distinctive tempting of Men is this-worldly materialism, legalism, denial of the reality of the spiritual; who works by-means-of procedures and laws, organisation and systems; and who typically works-via emotions such as fear, resentment and demotivation.
Clearly, the ahrimanic has been The rising ideology in The West since the modern era (post 1600s) and since about 1800 is now globally dominant in the form of the single-interlinked, expanding totalitarian bureaucracy.
Steiner's point is that the timing and placing of Christ's life was such that the reality of the Son of God could not be acknowledged by either of the dominant institutions.
The Jews could see no further than that Jesus transgressed The Law - that was the whole of their perspective (just like any typical modern official with her standard practices, or the PC Thought Police and their many and multiplying taboo words/ facts); the Romans regarded stability of their systematic regime as the priority; and Jesus as having provoked a dangerous, albeit irrational, response from the Jews.
Both Jews and Romans were blinkered to any genuine and significant spiritual realities; such that it was either impossible or irrelevant that Jesus might be exactly who-and-what he said he was. Contrary evidence was by definition false; all eye-witnesses were by definition fools or manipulators.
The 'obvious' and apparently unavoidable, conclusion for Jews and Romans alike was to 'eliminate the problem' - by killing Jesus.
So, despite that all the people involved in the death of Jesus had free will, and any of them could have chosen Not to kill him; in an era of established and accepted Ahrimanic dominance it was almost inevitable that Jesus would be killed by 'the authorities' one way or another, living in that place and at that time.
(And this was why the death by murder of Jesus could be fore-known, prophecied - despite the free will of Men.)
The many lessons for today are obvious enough...
It was also inevitable that an ahrimanic [i.e. Satanic-materialistic] code of law should be particularly in evidence and concentrated, so to speak, at one particular spot on the earth at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha [i.e. the death and resurrection of Jesus].
Such circumstances did not prevail everywhere, but in this one place the social structure was completely ahrimanic.
Therefore the appearance of its very antithesis - the appearance of a God - was for this society the most hateful thing that could happen, it had to be eliminated...
Two things in particular brought about this social structure. First, the kind of thoughts that had evolved out of Judaic law, were so saturated with ahrimanic forces that by means of them there was no possibility of grasping the fact that a God could come so close to man as was the case of Christ Jesus. This was something Judaic law had of necessity to reject.
Secondly, the Romans were also responsible for the death of Christ Jesus; they were a powerful and efficient force in establishing the external side of the social structure. One cannot imagine a more powerful example than the social structure created by Roman Imperialism, particularly at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha. Yet at the moment the Mystery of Golgotha is enacted, Pilate, the representative of the strongest earthly power, proves a weakling when faced with spiritual power. He is incapable of coming to any insight or to make any decision about what is to happen.
This phenomenon of satanic materialism is therefore connected with the Mystery of Golgotha... it took place at a time when mankind was least able to understand.
In earlier times the advent of Christ would have been understood, but when it actually happened it was not understood.
**
Note: Rudolf Steiner's idea of 'Ahriman' is a demonic being/ set of beings - roughly similar to the concept of Satan is the character of The Devil - a demon whose distinctive tempting of Men is this-worldly materialism, legalism, denial of the reality of the spiritual; who works by-means-of procedures and laws, organisation and systems; and who typically works-via emotions such as fear, resentment and demotivation.
Clearly, the ahrimanic has been The rising ideology in The West since the modern era (post 1600s) and since about 1800 is now globally dominant in the form of the single-interlinked, expanding totalitarian bureaucracy.
Steiner's point is that the timing and placing of Christ's life was such that the reality of the Son of God could not be acknowledged by either of the dominant institutions.
The Jews could see no further than that Jesus transgressed The Law - that was the whole of their perspective (just like any typical modern official with her standard practices, or the PC Thought Police and their many and multiplying taboo words/ facts); the Romans regarded stability of their systematic regime as the priority; and Jesus as having provoked a dangerous, albeit irrational, response from the Jews.
Both Jews and Romans were blinkered to any genuine and significant spiritual realities; such that it was either impossible or irrelevant that Jesus might be exactly who-and-what he said he was. Contrary evidence was by definition false; all eye-witnesses were by definition fools or manipulators.
The 'obvious' and apparently unavoidable, conclusion for Jews and Romans alike was to 'eliminate the problem' - by killing Jesus.
So, despite that all the people involved in the death of Jesus had free will, and any of them could have chosen Not to kill him; in an era of established and accepted Ahrimanic dominance it was almost inevitable that Jesus would be killed by 'the authorities' one way or another, living in that place and at that time.
(And this was why the death by murder of Jesus could be fore-known, prophecied - despite the free will of Men.)
The many lessons for today are obvious enough...
Monday, 23 September 2019
In response to secular liberal apostasy; Traditionalists double-down on theological orthodoxy, creating schism and conflict among themselves
I see this A Lot in discussions online, and sometimes in real life. Secular liberal apostasy (i.e. the stepwise process of losing faith and leaving Christianity) presents itself as heresy (i.e. an unorthodox type of Christianity).
Traditionalists fall into the trap because they are unwilling to judge the true motivations of the liberalisers. Instead they try to resist apostasy legalistically - by more tightly defining and enforcing theological doctrines and rules of church order. They do this because it seems more 'objective'.
But the more tightly they define and enforce the 'objective' rules and practises of their denomination or church; the more they separate themselves from other Traditionalist Christians.
So, with legalism traditionalist Roman and Orthodox Catholics are driven apart, Catholics from Protestants, Episcopalians from Congregationalists. All the above are driven apart from Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh day Adventists...
In the end, the Christian Traditional 'voice' becomes a Babel of increasingly mutually hostile factions. Christianity - as such - is weakened.
This is the consequence of Traditionalism resisting liberalism by increasing legalism.
Traditionalists fall into the trap because they are unwilling to judge the true motivations of the liberalisers. Instead they try to resist apostasy legalistically - by more tightly defining and enforcing theological doctrines and rules of church order. They do this because it seems more 'objective'.
But the more tightly they define and enforce the 'objective' rules and practises of their denomination or church; the more they separate themselves from other Traditionalist Christians.
So, with legalism traditionalist Roman and Orthodox Catholics are driven apart, Catholics from Protestants, Episcopalians from Congregationalists. All the above are driven apart from Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh day Adventists...
In the end, the Christian Traditional 'voice' becomes a Babel of increasingly mutually hostile factions. Christianity - as such - is weakened.
This is the consequence of Traditionalism resisting liberalism by increasing legalism.
Tuesday, 7 June 2011
Goodies and baddies
*
Given that neutrality is impossible nonsense, and that we ought to support the better against the worse, how do we discern goodies from baddies?
*
Cast aside the nonesense of legalism, proceduralism - that has landed us where we are now.
Go back to the ancient idea of settling a trial mainly by means of character: the relative character of the two sides, as revealed by their past behavior and known motivations.
Character and motivation: what are the two sides like and what are they trying to do?
What would they do if they won?
*
Often this is clear: if one side won they would (on the basis of their character) do things we regard as wrong: they are the baddies.
In most conflicts this is very, very obvious.
*
The goodies are those who are either trying to do something good, and who have on the basis of their character a reputation for doing good; or else (in a fallen world) simply those who oppose the baddies.
That is enough! - if you have better character and better motivations and/or you are against the baddies - then you are a goody.
*
Most baddies are working to impose the rule of a bad person (a person of bad character and motivations) - some baddies are working to impose the rule of bad gods or god (the divinity being judged by character and motivations).
*
(Of course, here I am talking in a secular kind of way, but the principle works even better from a religious perspective, mutatis mutandis).
*
If only goodies would discern in this fashion (avoiding the snares of legalism, of proceduralism) and if only the goodies would unite in opposing the baddies - well, it would be a better world: the world would get better, more good.
If only...
*
Given that neutrality is impossible nonsense, and that we ought to support the better against the worse, how do we discern goodies from baddies?
*
Cast aside the nonesense of legalism, proceduralism - that has landed us where we are now.
Go back to the ancient idea of settling a trial mainly by means of character: the relative character of the two sides, as revealed by their past behavior and known motivations.
Character and motivation: what are the two sides like and what are they trying to do?
What would they do if they won?
*
Often this is clear: if one side won they would (on the basis of their character) do things we regard as wrong: they are the baddies.
In most conflicts this is very, very obvious.
*
The goodies are those who are either trying to do something good, and who have on the basis of their character a reputation for doing good; or else (in a fallen world) simply those who oppose the baddies.
That is enough! - if you have better character and better motivations and/or you are against the baddies - then you are a goody.
*
Most baddies are working to impose the rule of a bad person (a person of bad character and motivations) - some baddies are working to impose the rule of bad gods or god (the divinity being judged by character and motivations).
*
(Of course, here I am talking in a secular kind of way, but the principle works even better from a religious perspective, mutatis mutandis).
*
If only goodies would discern in this fashion (avoiding the snares of legalism, of proceduralism) and if only the goodies would unite in opposing the baddies - well, it would be a better world: the world would get better, more good.
If only...
*
Saturday, 7 February 2015
The Liberal loophole approach to interpreting the Bible versus common sense (with respect to the Leftist agenda for the sexual revolution)
*
When Liberal 'Christians' interpret the Bible for guidance concerning modern sexual doctrine, and this criticism includes some of the most learned and eminent among modern scholars, they approach it looking for 'legal loopholes' which could be argued to allow what secular Left want to do anyway.
This applies to the two major recent issues that have riven the major denominations of ordination of women as priestesses within Christian Churches, and the extension of the post-sixties sexual revolution within Christianity.
*
The basic method is to assume that behaviour which is not explicitly and comprehensively forbidden - by multiple and wholly- reliable sources - is permitted, perhaps acceptable, potentially admirable. The 'null hypothesis' is that if there is uncertainty about what is forbidden, then it should be permitted.
Such a method is adept at exploiting inevitable imprecision, magnifying disagreements over translation judgements, encouraging disputes historical over historical practices - and so on.
In the end an atmosphere of the desired uncertainty is manufactured, and used to justify new practices.
*
But if we really want to know how the Bible wants people to behave, then the method is entirely different, much simpler, much surer. We would not ask what is forbidden by Scripture; but instead ask how the God wants us to behave as revealed in Scripture.
In relation to sexuality, what is encouraged? The answer is very obvious: celibacy, or sex between man and woman within marriage. That is what God wants us to do. Obviously! If we start asking whether other types of sexual arrangements are absolutely forbidden under all circumstances, then we have already left the path of wisdom.
And with the priesthood - there is nothing whatsoever in the Bible that could be regarded as a positive encouragement to establish priestesses in the Christian church. If we ask whether priestesses are therefore absolutely forbidden under all circumstances and for all time, then we have already left the path of wisdom.
*
When a question is framed wrongly, and when the wrong framing is prescribed and enforced by those in power; then there can never be a true answer. Additionally, Christian theologians and theorists are often addicted to legalism, and modern legalism is negatively framed - this approach cannot yield truth and virtue.
So long as the question is right, Christianity really is very simple; simple enough for a child to understand - but simplicity may not be welcome when it contradicts our desires and practices.
*
When Liberal 'Christians' interpret the Bible for guidance concerning modern sexual doctrine, and this criticism includes some of the most learned and eminent among modern scholars, they approach it looking for 'legal loopholes' which could be argued to allow what secular Left want to do anyway.
This applies to the two major recent issues that have riven the major denominations of ordination of women as priestesses within Christian Churches, and the extension of the post-sixties sexual revolution within Christianity.
*
The basic method is to assume that behaviour which is not explicitly and comprehensively forbidden - by multiple and wholly- reliable sources - is permitted, perhaps acceptable, potentially admirable. The 'null hypothesis' is that if there is uncertainty about what is forbidden, then it should be permitted.
Such a method is adept at exploiting inevitable imprecision, magnifying disagreements over translation judgements, encouraging disputes historical over historical practices - and so on.
In the end an atmosphere of the desired uncertainty is manufactured, and used to justify new practices.
*
But if we really want to know how the Bible wants people to behave, then the method is entirely different, much simpler, much surer. We would not ask what is forbidden by Scripture; but instead ask how the God wants us to behave as revealed in Scripture.
In relation to sexuality, what is encouraged? The answer is very obvious: celibacy, or sex between man and woman within marriage. That is what God wants us to do. Obviously! If we start asking whether other types of sexual arrangements are absolutely forbidden under all circumstances, then we have already left the path of wisdom.
And with the priesthood - there is nothing whatsoever in the Bible that could be regarded as a positive encouragement to establish priestesses in the Christian church. If we ask whether priestesses are therefore absolutely forbidden under all circumstances and for all time, then we have already left the path of wisdom.
*
When a question is framed wrongly, and when the wrong framing is prescribed and enforced by those in power; then there can never be a true answer. Additionally, Christian theologians and theorists are often addicted to legalism, and modern legalism is negatively framed - this approach cannot yield truth and virtue.
So long as the question is right, Christianity really is very simple; simple enough for a child to understand - but simplicity may not be welcome when it contradicts our desires and practices.
*
Thursday, 14 March 2019
Defining Christianity - without materialism
In this world of materialism, opposed to all matter of the spirit and religion; it is significant that so many Christians define their faith materialistically, legalistically, bureaucratically - in terms of checklists, bullet points, terms of service, standard procedures...
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the imagination and individuality gets squeezed-out of Christianity, and some of the most important Christian thinkers are rejected as Christians - both by the anti-Christians (who want to deny Christianity the lustre of their membership) and by Christians themselves (captive to materialism).
Many denominations and churches self-define in legalistic terms; and find themselves permanently at odds withe even very similar denominations and churches - and the whole of Christendom disunited, enfeebled, and pervaded by spite and fear.
Yet these self-styled 'orthodox' Christians, the ones who subscribe to (what they regard as) the objectivity of materialism, those who publicly subscribe to multiple, interlocking and sharply defined creedal statements and elaborate oaths... these have (mostly) become corrupted by leftist politics, and nowadays are By Far the worst of fake Christians - worse than the most notorious unorthodox and heretics of the past.
Why should this be? I think it is a consequence of the corruption of materialism. Materialism was present from the early days after the life of Jesus, as Christianity grew in the context of Judaism and the Roman Empire: both legalistically rooted and permeated. At any rate supposedly-strict legalism and objectivity have failed spectacularly to prevent mass apostasy.
Yet the Fourth Gospel (our most authoritative source) presents the teachings of Jesus in a personal (and very simple) way, as a matter of Jesus's identity and our proper attitude to his person and promise. From this perspective, the public religion of Christianity was misconceived from a very early stage.
If not, then what?
Christianity is, obviously, an internal matter, self-defined. Yet this leaves open the matter of judgement - we must judge others, including whether they are Christian - or in contrast opposed-to and working-against God and creation.
How may this be done without legalism and explicit definition? Well, in exactly the same way that we infer the dispositions, motivations and intentions of other-people about any other important subject. We do it all day and every day. This is the bread and butter of social life, an absolute necessity of social competence.
Of course we do not have any mechanism for imposing our own inferences upon other people. When we judge a person (or institution) to be nasty; this usually cannot be proven to someone who interprets their disposition, motivations and intentions to be nice. Despite this, life goes on.
There is not, and cannot be, a better or more valid definition of Christianity that the serious inference of one individual about another: that is the bottom line. If I am a Christian, then I can and must make a heartfelt judgement about others - insofar as this fact affects me personally.
And I would be a fool to allow this 'intuitive' inference to be overridden by checklists and bureaucratic validations.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the imagination and individuality gets squeezed-out of Christianity, and some of the most important Christian thinkers are rejected as Christians - both by the anti-Christians (who want to deny Christianity the lustre of their membership) and by Christians themselves (captive to materialism).
Many denominations and churches self-define in legalistic terms; and find themselves permanently at odds withe even very similar denominations and churches - and the whole of Christendom disunited, enfeebled, and pervaded by spite and fear.
Yet these self-styled 'orthodox' Christians, the ones who subscribe to (what they regard as) the objectivity of materialism, those who publicly subscribe to multiple, interlocking and sharply defined creedal statements and elaborate oaths... these have (mostly) become corrupted by leftist politics, and nowadays are By Far the worst of fake Christians - worse than the most notorious unorthodox and heretics of the past.
Why should this be? I think it is a consequence of the corruption of materialism. Materialism was present from the early days after the life of Jesus, as Christianity grew in the context of Judaism and the Roman Empire: both legalistically rooted and permeated. At any rate supposedly-strict legalism and objectivity have failed spectacularly to prevent mass apostasy.
Yet the Fourth Gospel (our most authoritative source) presents the teachings of Jesus in a personal (and very simple) way, as a matter of Jesus's identity and our proper attitude to his person and promise. From this perspective, the public religion of Christianity was misconceived from a very early stage.
If not, then what?
Christianity is, obviously, an internal matter, self-defined. Yet this leaves open the matter of judgement - we must judge others, including whether they are Christian - or in contrast opposed-to and working-against God and creation.
How may this be done without legalism and explicit definition? Well, in exactly the same way that we infer the dispositions, motivations and intentions of other-people about any other important subject. We do it all day and every day. This is the bread and butter of social life, an absolute necessity of social competence.
Of course we do not have any mechanism for imposing our own inferences upon other people. When we judge a person (or institution) to be nasty; this usually cannot be proven to someone who interprets their disposition, motivations and intentions to be nice. Despite this, life goes on.
There is not, and cannot be, a better or more valid definition of Christianity that the serious inference of one individual about another: that is the bottom line. If I am a Christian, then I can and must make a heartfelt judgement about others - insofar as this fact affects me personally.
And I would be a fool to allow this 'intuitive' inference to be overridden by checklists and bureaucratic validations.
Friday, 9 February 2024
Sins and repentance - (properly understood) an easy problem, and simply solvable
The main problem of the modern West is the inversion of sin; which is that the traditional sins (especially sexual, but also pride, envy, greed etc.) are not sins, but instead virtues.
And the reciprocal invention of new "deadly sins" that are not sins, such as (the actual current usage of) racism (seemingly now regarded as the sin of sins - unless the recognition of traditional sexual sins as sin, is even worse).
But value-inversion is made worse by a legalistic understanding of sin, in terms of categorical lists with operational definitions. This is literal rending of sins is necessary if any "sin" is to be made the basis of our totalitarian System.
For example; the not-sin of racism is a specific concept referenced in bureaucratic strategies, regulations and laws - operationally defined in measureable terms; such as specific words, or percentages of personnel (pre-divided into good/ disapproved and bad/ being-promoted races); and by mandatory active participation in defined antiracist initiatives and actions (e.g. mass genuflecting, parades and speeches, display of posters and flags etc.).
So, although the not-sin of racism is supposed to be a thought-crime, a wicked motivation; in practice it gets operationalized in quasi-objective terms: you are guilty of racism by saying or writing this taboo, or by failing to join with that ritual, or in terms of percentage "representation".
In strategic spiritual terms; this legalism and literalism represents the reduction of (imperceptible) spiritual conceptualizations of sin, into a controllable material manifestation; in a world where official and public discourse recognizes only "the material" as real and significant.
By the sustained operations of actual social reality; the populace are trained to regard the legal and bureaucratic definitions of detectable and measurable material manifestations of sin, asif they Just Are the sins themselves.
In other words; because society treats sin legalistically and objectively in categories; that is how people habitually, unthinkingly, moralistically regard the reality of sin.
Of course; what I have described as the current materialist-totalitarian reality of values; is a simple inversion of the old religious system of values, which was dominant from the medieval era until recently - which also regards sin in a legalistic and categorical way.
Sins were conceptualized in terms of categorical lists of behaviours that would send someone to hell, unless he specifically repented each of them. Repentance was often understood as going through the entire list of one's sins, and repenting them each and specifically - before being allowed-into Heaven.
(I find it bizarre to suppose that the whole world of creation and our-selves can thus be cut-up into discrete chunks, some of which are sins! My understanding is instead that reality is only validly divided into separable Beings; but sins are part of the continuous field of divine creation - they can be distinguished in terms of emphasis, but cannot ultimately be separated and divided.)
Such a linear and sequential procedure of repentance might need to be done during mortal life (e.g. by confession and absolution) or afterwards (for instance in a Roman Catholic purgatory, or the "toll-booths" of Eastern Orthodoxy).
In practice; such a way of thinking and behaving was so dominant that people also came to believe that only these categories of official sins were real or significant sins.
Consequently; many of the besetting sins of modernity - such as dishonesty, existential fear, and resentment - became invisible, ignored, denied.
So that habitual and expedient exponents of untruthfulness (such as nearly-all modern managers, politicians, bureaucrats; and professionals such as teachers, doctors, lawyers, the police and military, and church leaders); will mislead, be dishonest, and outright lie systematically and for-a-living - on a daily, or even hourly, basis - while having a clear conscience! While regarding themselves as good-people, including Good and exemplary Christians.
One side-effect of this categorical way of thinking about sin has been that people come to regard themselves and others as not-sinners (and other people as sinners) - the world of Mankind being divided into sinners and the Good.
Such people regard themselves as basically good human beings; so long as they refrain from the listed sins (or the worst of them, at least) - or else repent them specifically. This leads to a sense of self-righteousness that is a gross distortion of the realities of our mortal life.
On the other hand; the ubiquity of some of the listed sins can lead to a sense of despair and helplessness; and other people react-against this by asserting that if a sin is universal, or very common - then it can't really be a sin! - and is simply being used by religion to control the population.
This also applies to modern value-inversion - for instance when white people are officially regarded and regard themselves as inescapably racist, and therefore experience inescapable white guilt - rendering them demoralized and obedient to those who offer rituals of expiation.
My point is that - from the Fourth Gospel Christian perspective which I believe is true - legalism and categorical description is a basically mistaken and itself-sinful way of thinking about and conceptualizing sin.
From Jesus's teaching, we are all sinners all of the time; because we are not wholly-and-always motivated by Love. We are thereby misaligned with God's creative will, hence all of us (as we are) are utterly unsuited to dwell in Heaven.
But this is Not a cause for demoralization, demotivation or despair; because Jesus has said that all who follow Him shall be resurrected to eternal life in Heaven.
The best way to think of sin is very generally; as whatever would prevent us (as individuals) from accepting the gift of everlasting life.
We may each have one or more besetting sins that we find difficult (or impossible) to give-up in order to enter Heaven - but this is ultimately a matter of not loving Jesus enough, not wanting Heaven enough.
If we love and desire above all to follow Jesus Christ; if we take the side of God and divine creation in the spiritual war, and wish to participate in creation eternally - then quite naturally we will repent, shed, leave-behind any and all sins (named or unnamed) in order to attain our deepest desire.
If we desire to be re-made (i.e. resurrected) such that we become motivated only and always by love eternally - then sin is just the name for anything and everything which would prevent that process of re-making.
Repentance is the word for our agreement to having stripped-away and left-behind all that would otherwise prevent resurrection into Heaven.
It is really very simple.
Christianity is a positive (not double-negative) religion; it is opt-in (not a matter of passing a test); God is our loving parents (not a judge administering laws), Christianity is a family (not a monarchy).
We are not meant to worry over sin! Jesus came to save sinners - we need to focus primarily on the saving, not the sins: we will know the sins in consequence of our desire for salvation.
If we understand Jesus's teaching in the way it was intended and exemplified (and which can be confirmed here-and-now by the guidance of the Holy Ghost);
and if we therefore base our faith on positive love and the choice of following Jesus Christ to Heaven --
then we know that everything important about "our sins" will be recognizable clearly and simply, and we will know what to do, and we will do it - when the time of choice arrives.
Tuesday, 18 February 2014
Hell - a test case for your idea of Christian evidence
*
That there is a place or state of Hell seems clear enough to most real Christians - but what Hell means, who it is for - what kind of people, what kind of proportion of people - and the matter of whether Hell is a default state or if not whether it is an imposed punishment of a self-chosen destination... these are matters of great disagreement among Christians.
My purpose here is simply to point out that how Christians discuss Hell is specific evidence of how they understand and evaluate Christianity in general - and indeed each Christian can reflect on their own way of discussing the subject of Hell as a way of diagnosing their own evaluation scheme.
*
At one level it is trivially obvious that primary understanding of Hell comes from the authority structure of whatever Christian denomination to which you are affiliated - what I am interested by is what comes next. If further evidence is asked for, or evidence for the view of authority, then differences emerge.
For many people the proper way to understand Hell is to examine the Bible verses which reference Hell - or precursor or related concepts of Hell such as Sheol. These verses are then compared and synthesized to generate a picture of Hell.
I would call this a bottom-up or legalistic approach.
This view seems to suggest that Jesus Christ introduced Hell, and depicted it as a worse place than Sheol: a tormenting place rather than a place of ghostly dementia and witlessness; and that people were to be judged and sent to Hell.
It seems hard to avoid that Hell is a punishment - and Original Sin makes Hell seem like a default for humans primarily because of the transgression of Adam and Eve.
*
At the opposite extreme is the way I personally tend to approach understanding Hell, which is very 'broad brush' - and that is by (for example) looking at the overall implication of Jesus's ministry in the Gospels.
What I see there is that Jesus was clearly preaching Good News. For me this sets the boundaries for whatever concept of Hell is settled upon - that it had to be something which was Good News in the context of the New Testament, against the backdrop of Jewish and Pagan ideas about the afterlife.
Whatever Hell is, therefore, as a package the destiny of the soul after life as described and promised by Christianity must be much better than anything on offer from paganism and Judaism.
*
As further evidence, I take very seriously the broad brush context of the first and second commandments (to Love first God, then secondly they 'neighbour' as thyself) plus the repeated concept of God as Love; and the further consideration that all Men we are (in a profound sense) God's children (Sons of God).
So whatever Hell is, and whoever it is for, must be seen in a context of familial love, a Fathers love of children.
*
A third factor is that in my broad brush way of considering the Bible - the Old Testament is all about the free will, choice and agency of the 'characters' - Adam and his family, Noah, the Kings and Prophets, smaller characters like Ruth, and even baddies like the Pharaoh in Genesis... they are all seen choosing and taking the consequences of their choices - and everything hinges on these being real choices.
So, the fact that Jesus was preaching Good News, that God is love, we are his children, and we have real free choice including the freedom to reject the Good News... all these broad brush considerations set fairly sharp bounds for how a Christian should conceptualize Hell.
So I see what Christ did as wholly Good News, a gift of salvation-by-default; and Hell as an anomalous and self-chosen state (not a punishment, not a place someone is sent against their wishes) - a destination chosen by free will, and against the deepest wishes of God.
*
(This is not universalism nor Namby Pamby, Pollyanna-ish wishful-thinking - because I believe that many people have chosen, more are choosing and probably many more will in future choose, Hell - and that Hell really is Hellish. And also that Satan and his demons are at work increasing the numbers of people who make such choices. But although this situation surely angers God, as it would any loving parent if their children chose to reject family, goodness and love; this situation is primarily a source of deep, eternal sorrow to God - as it would be for any loving parent.)
*
And in all this, there has not been not much place for the close analysis of chapter and verse and unravelling hard or ambiguous passages; there is no role for legalism - leave aside the microscopic examination of individual words and issues of the translation of Hebrew or Greek concepts.
Now, ideally I would want to be able to synthesize the broad brush with the chapter and verse sources of evidence - because ultimately they are not in conflict, and all contradictions must be superficial and not deep, apparent and not real.
But what matters is which level is primary: what needs to be reconciled to what.
Many or most modern Christians are bottom up - and reconcile the broad brush with the chapter and verse - I am pointing-out that the top down and broad brush view is of at least equal validity to legalism (and has the great advantage of being much less dependent on the minutiae of translation and historical context).
*
That there is a place or state of Hell seems clear enough to most real Christians - but what Hell means, who it is for - what kind of people, what kind of proportion of people - and the matter of whether Hell is a default state or if not whether it is an imposed punishment of a self-chosen destination... these are matters of great disagreement among Christians.
My purpose here is simply to point out that how Christians discuss Hell is specific evidence of how they understand and evaluate Christianity in general - and indeed each Christian can reflect on their own way of discussing the subject of Hell as a way of diagnosing their own evaluation scheme.
*
At one level it is trivially obvious that primary understanding of Hell comes from the authority structure of whatever Christian denomination to which you are affiliated - what I am interested by is what comes next. If further evidence is asked for, or evidence for the view of authority, then differences emerge.
For many people the proper way to understand Hell is to examine the Bible verses which reference Hell - or precursor or related concepts of Hell such as Sheol. These verses are then compared and synthesized to generate a picture of Hell.
I would call this a bottom-up or legalistic approach.
This view seems to suggest that Jesus Christ introduced Hell, and depicted it as a worse place than Sheol: a tormenting place rather than a place of ghostly dementia and witlessness; and that people were to be judged and sent to Hell.
It seems hard to avoid that Hell is a punishment - and Original Sin makes Hell seem like a default for humans primarily because of the transgression of Adam and Eve.
*
At the opposite extreme is the way I personally tend to approach understanding Hell, which is very 'broad brush' - and that is by (for example) looking at the overall implication of Jesus's ministry in the Gospels.
What I see there is that Jesus was clearly preaching Good News. For me this sets the boundaries for whatever concept of Hell is settled upon - that it had to be something which was Good News in the context of the New Testament, against the backdrop of Jewish and Pagan ideas about the afterlife.
Whatever Hell is, therefore, as a package the destiny of the soul after life as described and promised by Christianity must be much better than anything on offer from paganism and Judaism.
*
As further evidence, I take very seriously the broad brush context of the first and second commandments (to Love first God, then secondly they 'neighbour' as thyself) plus the repeated concept of God as Love; and the further consideration that all Men we are (in a profound sense) God's children (Sons of God).
So whatever Hell is, and whoever it is for, must be seen in a context of familial love, a Fathers love of children.
*
A third factor is that in my broad brush way of considering the Bible - the Old Testament is all about the free will, choice and agency of the 'characters' - Adam and his family, Noah, the Kings and Prophets, smaller characters like Ruth, and even baddies like the Pharaoh in Genesis... they are all seen choosing and taking the consequences of their choices - and everything hinges on these being real choices.
So, the fact that Jesus was preaching Good News, that God is love, we are his children, and we have real free choice including the freedom to reject the Good News... all these broad brush considerations set fairly sharp bounds for how a Christian should conceptualize Hell.
So I see what Christ did as wholly Good News, a gift of salvation-by-default; and Hell as an anomalous and self-chosen state (not a punishment, not a place someone is sent against their wishes) - a destination chosen by free will, and against the deepest wishes of God.
*
(This is not universalism nor Namby Pamby, Pollyanna-ish wishful-thinking - because I believe that many people have chosen, more are choosing and probably many more will in future choose, Hell - and that Hell really is Hellish. And also that Satan and his demons are at work increasing the numbers of people who make such choices. But although this situation surely angers God, as it would any loving parent if their children chose to reject family, goodness and love; this situation is primarily a source of deep, eternal sorrow to God - as it would be for any loving parent.)
*
And in all this, there has not been not much place for the close analysis of chapter and verse and unravelling hard or ambiguous passages; there is no role for legalism - leave aside the microscopic examination of individual words and issues of the translation of Hebrew or Greek concepts.
Now, ideally I would want to be able to synthesize the broad brush with the chapter and verse sources of evidence - because ultimately they are not in conflict, and all contradictions must be superficial and not deep, apparent and not real.
But what matters is which level is primary: what needs to be reconciled to what.
Many or most modern Christians are bottom up - and reconcile the broad brush with the chapter and verse - I am pointing-out that the top down and broad brush view is of at least equal validity to legalism (and has the great advantage of being much less dependent on the minutiae of translation and historical context).
*
Tuesday, 8 December 2020
Why do They want so many opposite things? Because They are Evil - obviously! (And evil is negative.)
Rational and coherent people often comment on the incoherence of modern mainstream culture - perhaps expecting that this will lead to a recognition of error and reorganisation of priorities.
But it never does. Oppositional-clashing continues and worsens.
And very few recognise the underlying cause of all this incoherence.
Examples?
On the one hand, in this Year of the Birdemic, mainstream modern culture has become mono-maniacally focused on health. Nothing in the world (human society, human culture, human survival) is more important than health; and every-thing must be sacrificed for (a little-bit) longer life for the extremely old and already-sick...
On the other hand; the health services have been all-but destroyed. We have much, MUCH worse health care, and there is much less of it, than a year ago...
On the one hand; politicians are obsessed with increasing bureaucratic surveillance and control - which has reached unprecedented levels with the world living under house arrest, and almost everything banned (except for what is compulsory)...
On the other hand; these same rulers have been encouraging riots, arson, violence; police told not to intervene, defunded, deleted... Gangsters, mobs and thug-rule are funded, defended and supported by the authorities.
On the one hand; the Global Establishment strategy is to make every home a prison; stop mass travel - eliminate airlines, eliminate private cars; confine the masses within bicycle range of their residence - for limited, supervised 'exercise' periods...
On the other hand that same Global Establishment want 'open borders'; fund and organise for vast tides of tens of millions of people ('refugees', 'asylum seekers', 'displaced persons') surging across the planet; mixing and stealing, raping and fighting; flooding already-crowded Western counties with immigrants and migrants; year upon year, with no control and no limit.
On the one hand; They promote economic growth. The world economy is 'stimulated' with trillions of dollars. Vast sums are spent on improving transport 'infrastructure' with new motorways, faster railways, tunnels and bridges, space rockets and multiple-thousands of new satellites...
On the other hand; They have destroyed - what? - a third? A half? of the global economy by their 'lockdowns', massively inefficient birdemic restrictions, massively destructive racial and sex preferences, and endlessly growing bureaucratic red tape. The transport infrastructure is paralysed by pretend 'sustainable' projects. All businesses, corporations, institutions, organisations are in constant and escalating turmoil.
My point is that such gross, persisting, expanding incoherence and self-contradiction is not some kind of aberration or error - but is the very nature of mainstream modern public policy.
Why?
Quite simply because the underlying motivation of The Establishment is evil; and evil is oppositional.
Evil is negative, not positive.
Evil has no goal but the destruction of good, the inversion of values. It is not aiming at any alternative, stable, coherent plan for a 'better' world, or for any kind of 'civilization' or 'society'; it simply opposes God, creation and all-that-is-good - and it does so simultaneously, on many fronts.
The negativity and destructiveness of evil is disguised by lies. Satan is described as 'The Father of Lies' because lying and other forms of dishonesty - such as hype, spin, public relations, advertising, selective and distorted reporting, fake-news and monolithic news suppression, deletion of dissent, legalism, management-speak, empty rhetoric; and the proliferating sequential, rotating leftist ideologies such as socialism, feminism, antiracism, environmentalism, sexual and religious 'phobias'...etc.
All are negative, oppositional, incoherent; all are based upon Untruthfulness: the inverson of Truth.
And these systemic Big Lies are the necessary tools for motivating and excusing and explaining-away the underlying, strategic, progressive demonic agenda.
Incoherence and the clashing pursuit of incompatible goals is just business-as-usual for the architects and agents of evil...
Yet it is all invisible to most people, most of the time.
Why? Simply because nearly the whole world has forgotten, denies or hates God; therefore has zero basis from which to discern incoherence; or recognise the negativity and destructiveness of the simultaneous-opposing trends which characterise 2020.
Unless you yourself love God, creation and the Good - then you will never perceive that behind the oppositions and incoherences lies a single purpose, a single comprehensive plan.
Nothing that ever happens will ever enlighten you to the core, fundamental reality of 2020:
The plan to reduce divine creation to demonic chaos.
Wednesday, 23 April 2025
How should Christians respond to uncertainties over Bible meaning, translation, historical context etc?
Over the past more than two centuries; Christians have been assailed by doubts induced by various forms of scholarship, legalism, logic, etc. applied to the evidences of Christianity, and the guidance of Christian churches.
For instance; there may be real or apparent contradictions in what the Bible teaches on a subject; what it means; or disputes over correct scriptural translation, and about historical context.
These disputes tend to induce doubts and threaten faith. Yet, in a pluralist and net-secular society - such challenges cannot really be ignored: they have their effect willy-nilly; and that effect has been overwhelmingly corrosive.
It is, I think, by-now clear that engaging in disputes over detailed issues concerning texts, goes nowhere good.
Such disputes do not reach stable resolutions; and one question answered leads to several more that need addressing. Bible scholarship becomes a job, not a vocation. Bible translations proliferate without end - meanings multiply. Authorities differ, and keep on differing.
So, I would say that when confronted by a challenge over detail, do not respond by arguing over that detail; but instead rise above the dispute towards first principles.
Do not get drawn into technical disputes over scriptural detail, history, language etc; but rise to the level of what you know - what you are sure about - and argue from this higher level.
For instance, if you know and are sure that God is good and loves us each as his children - then that will tell you much about what He would do - and not do; regardless of wrangles over sources.
If you know and are sure that Jesus brought the chance of choosing eternal resurrected life to those who would "follow" him, then you need not be confused by apparent contradictions between Gospels, or parts of Gospel, or with the Epistles...
We need not be confused because we can rise above such uncertainties and ambiguities to where we are sure and clear about the nature and work of Jesus.
Rather than discussing what Jesus did, or did not, actually say and mean in a particular passage or specific situation... Rather than attending to the reliability of witnesses, translators, corruptions of text, mistakes of interpretation etc...
Instead we may know Jesus, and know what he did for us; so then we can rise above all this detail, and instead discuss what Jesus wants from us.
We can regard scripture as illustrative, or not - because our faith has a higher, simpler, and wholly comprehensible basis.
And we can do the same (mutatis mutandis) for theology, church authority, tradition and any other potential source of Christian knowledge - we can and should rise above disputes, debates, wranglings...
Christians must, somehow, deal with endless and probing challenges from multiple sources.
But we need not fight these battles on ground of the enemies choosing - such as scholarship and technical expertise...
We can instead choose to fight in the lucid upper airs of first principles.
Monday, 20 September 2010
Common sense law versus nonsensical legalism
“Until the thirteenth century most countries continued to use the old legal codes that they had followed for generations.
“In these codes, the legal process was started when a member of the public made a formal ‘accusation’.
“When criminal accusations were made, the defendant had a number of ways in which he could demonstrate his innocence. One was to produce a number of character witnesses who would demand an acquittal. Another was to undergo trial by ordeal.
“In neither case did real evidence have much relevance. Furthermore the accuser was vulnerable to punishment if the defendant was acquitted.
“Someone with a bad reputation could never win a legal battle against someone who was generally thought of as honest.”
God’s philosophers. James Hannam. Icon Books, London, 2010. Pages 84-5.
*
In the above excerpt, Hannam is describing what was probably an improvement in the legal system introduced by the Roman Catholic Inquisition – a new system in which the authorities would appoint a magistrate or inquisitor to investigate the crime, interview witnesses, examine the evidence and reach a verdict.
However, the point I wish to make is that the old, pre-1200, legal system did have *some* merit. Although clearly there will be exeptions and potential abuses, as a general rule of thumb it is rational and fair that “Someone with a bad reputation could never win a legal battle against someone who was generally thought of as honest.”
So the old legal code had the advantage of being underpinned by the common sense knowledge that an habitually honest person is more likely to be telling the truth in any specific instance than one who habitually tells lies; and that an habitual thief/ thug is more likely to have committed a specific robbery/ assault than is someone known to be habitually honest and gentle.
*
But 800 years down the line, this common sense has been almost-completely discarded from formal discourse (and, increasingly, also from even private and informal discourse among the elites).
Now if an habitual liar and an habitual truth-teller disagree, then it is ‘just one person’s word against another's', and the law does nothing.
*
Indeed, political correctness has offered us a moral inversion, whereby we are most concerned to avoid the ‘prejudice’ of assuming that because a person is habitually dishonest, then they are likely to be lying in this specific instance.
Instead we focus on the fact that the habitually dishonest individual *might* uncharacteristically be telling the truth, for once – and this so obsesses us that that we construct systems which actually assume that knowledge about the past is an intrinsically misleading guide to the future.
Modern legal and other codes are indeed always biased against the people with a track record of sociable behaviour whom the early medieval codes would have assumed were ‘always’ in-the-right.
This is utterly typical of modernity. In the wish to set ourselves above and apart from our ancestors, we in the modern world have created social systems that avoid the specific and rare mistakes of the past at the cost of enforcing systematic error.
*
In order to avoid infrequent injustice against people of bad character, which happened in the past; we nowadays enforce routine injustice against people of good character.
Is this progress?
“In these codes, the legal process was started when a member of the public made a formal ‘accusation’.
“When criminal accusations were made, the defendant had a number of ways in which he could demonstrate his innocence. One was to produce a number of character witnesses who would demand an acquittal. Another was to undergo trial by ordeal.
“In neither case did real evidence have much relevance. Furthermore the accuser was vulnerable to punishment if the defendant was acquitted.
“Someone with a bad reputation could never win a legal battle against someone who was generally thought of as honest.”
God’s philosophers. James Hannam. Icon Books, London, 2010. Pages 84-5.
*
In the above excerpt, Hannam is describing what was probably an improvement in the legal system introduced by the Roman Catholic Inquisition – a new system in which the authorities would appoint a magistrate or inquisitor to investigate the crime, interview witnesses, examine the evidence and reach a verdict.
However, the point I wish to make is that the old, pre-1200, legal system did have *some* merit. Although clearly there will be exeptions and potential abuses, as a general rule of thumb it is rational and fair that “Someone with a bad reputation could never win a legal battle against someone who was generally thought of as honest.”
So the old legal code had the advantage of being underpinned by the common sense knowledge that an habitually honest person is more likely to be telling the truth in any specific instance than one who habitually tells lies; and that an habitual thief/ thug is more likely to have committed a specific robbery/ assault than is someone known to be habitually honest and gentle.
*
But 800 years down the line, this common sense has been almost-completely discarded from formal discourse (and, increasingly, also from even private and informal discourse among the elites).
Now if an habitual liar and an habitual truth-teller disagree, then it is ‘just one person’s word against another's', and the law does nothing.
*
Indeed, political correctness has offered us a moral inversion, whereby we are most concerned to avoid the ‘prejudice’ of assuming that because a person is habitually dishonest, then they are likely to be lying in this specific instance.
Instead we focus on the fact that the habitually dishonest individual *might* uncharacteristically be telling the truth, for once – and this so obsesses us that that we construct systems which actually assume that knowledge about the past is an intrinsically misleading guide to the future.
Modern legal and other codes are indeed always biased against the people with a track record of sociable behaviour whom the early medieval codes would have assumed were ‘always’ in-the-right.
This is utterly typical of modernity. In the wish to set ourselves above and apart from our ancestors, we in the modern world have created social systems that avoid the specific and rare mistakes of the past at the cost of enforcing systematic error.
*
In order to avoid infrequent injustice against people of bad character, which happened in the past; we nowadays enforce routine injustice against people of good character.
Is this progress?
Friday, 30 July 2010
Why the Byzantine ideal?
Given that I regard theocracy as the inevitable ultimate state of human civilization - of course chance has a huge role to play, but theocracy is the strongest, most cohesive social form over the long term - then the question arises of which theocracy.
The correct answer is, of course, that theocracy which is true: or at least true-est given human imperfection.
But how do we recognize truth?
***
*One* way that we might expect to recognize truth might be in contemplating our response to that kind of society as actually established, at some point in human history.
It was this consideration which (as I recall) first pointed me towards Eastern Orthodoxy, because of all the theocracies in history of which I knew, the Byzantine was that which exerted by-far the greatest appeal to me, at a gut level.
I will try to describe my thought processes.
***
Obviously, non-Christian theocracies have negative appeal. That leaves a variety of Roman Catholic and Protestant theocracies.
There have been RC theocracies in Europe until quite recently: for example Ireland and Spain approached that ideal - and there was of course the European Middle Ages.
I must admit that (although I have tried) I find it very difficult to be attracted to the recent RC-dominated societies of Ireland or Spain; and about the Middle Ages I have a strong reservation which I find hard to pin-down.
There seems to be a thin-ness or a flat-ness about this kind of theocracy - a kind of literalness. A legalism - which portrays life in abstract, philosophical, logical terms - and somehow leaves out the human spirit.
And, at its height, Western Catholic monasticism does not seem to know exactly what it is trying to achieve (either on earth or in heaven) - so there is a greyness and gruel about it, in my mind, that I cannot rid myself-of (despite effort): epitomized by what I experience as the chill of Gregorian chant.
I assume this is down to the intrinsic division of Church (Pope) and State (Monarch, dictator or secular republic), and the mutilation of the human spirit which this entails.
***
There have been many Protestant theocracies too - the 17th century puritan republic in England, or the New England puritan theocracies.
While hugely admirable in so many ways (and as a young man my spontaneous sympathies were always with the Roundheads against the Cavaliers), the monochrome *dryness* of these societies is what comes through for me.
There is precious little spirituality - in the sense of approaching or communing with God, and a heck of a lot of rule-following, transgression-detecting and -punishing. Life and worship are alike extremely *secular* in nature: no mystery, no magic; only an austere poetry and the release of communal activity and resistance.
Protestant theocracies seem to me dull; I feel sure that life would (after the first overwhelming flush of conversion) seem alienated, meaningless, superficial, routine, mundane: a hope-less drudgery in this world, awaiting rescue in the next.
***
While I would probably, in practice - given my personality and socialization - hate living in Byzantium, or in Holy Russia (its nearest equivalent); there is a gut level appeal to these societies for me - a wholeness, a colour, a richness, an integration of all aspects of life (aimed at as ideal, whether or not being achieved at a particular time) that I find massively attractive.
(Leaving aside uncomfortable aspects such as ancient cruelties, slavery, and the vital presence of a eunuch imperial and ecclesial bureaucracy...)
In Byzantium I have an image of gorgeousness and colour, of daily (more than daily) ritual, of pervasive devotion and awe-inspiring worship, of heavenly music and art, of self-confidence and religious ambition, of community, of decisiveness, of courage beyond our imagination, of extraordinary asceticism in pursuit of sainthood, of great wisdom in spirituality.
***
Having made these harsh criticisms of RC and Protestant theocracies, I hasten to add that there were huge compensations of many and varied kinds, including individuals who reached the highest levels of human achievement (Michaelangelo and Rembrandt; Verdi and Bach; Medieval cathedrals and Milton; Galileo and Newton; Aquinas and Adam Smith - and on and on).
I just wish to emphasize that they do not overcome my sense of repulsion and fear at the thought of such societies.
***
In sum, I believe that Byzantium succeeded - at times and for many of its community - in being a foretaste of heaven on earth and preparation for heaven after death.
And the Eastern Roman civilization was destroyed after a millennium - but not by suicidal self-hatred, nor by hedonistic decadence, nor by lack of will to defend that which it most valued: it was simply overwhelmed, step by step, over several centuries, by ill-chance and superior force.
No civilization is proof against the vicissitudes of the world.
***
If actual theocracies can be taken as at least indicative of the ideal theocracies which they attempt to embody, then it is only the Byzantine Christian variety which has any genuine, spontaneous appeal for me. (I cannot answer for others.)
For what it is worth, I therefore see Byzantium - in its contrasts with Protestant and Roman Catholic theocracies - as a validation, a token validation, of Orthodoxy.
The correct answer is, of course, that theocracy which is true: or at least true-est given human imperfection.
But how do we recognize truth?
***
*One* way that we might expect to recognize truth might be in contemplating our response to that kind of society as actually established, at some point in human history.
It was this consideration which (as I recall) first pointed me towards Eastern Orthodoxy, because of all the theocracies in history of which I knew, the Byzantine was that which exerted by-far the greatest appeal to me, at a gut level.
I will try to describe my thought processes.
***
Obviously, non-Christian theocracies have negative appeal. That leaves a variety of Roman Catholic and Protestant theocracies.
There have been RC theocracies in Europe until quite recently: for example Ireland and Spain approached that ideal - and there was of course the European Middle Ages.
I must admit that (although I have tried) I find it very difficult to be attracted to the recent RC-dominated societies of Ireland or Spain; and about the Middle Ages I have a strong reservation which I find hard to pin-down.
There seems to be a thin-ness or a flat-ness about this kind of theocracy - a kind of literalness. A legalism - which portrays life in abstract, philosophical, logical terms - and somehow leaves out the human spirit.
And, at its height, Western Catholic monasticism does not seem to know exactly what it is trying to achieve (either on earth or in heaven) - so there is a greyness and gruel about it, in my mind, that I cannot rid myself-of (despite effort): epitomized by what I experience as the chill of Gregorian chant.
I assume this is down to the intrinsic division of Church (Pope) and State (Monarch, dictator or secular republic), and the mutilation of the human spirit which this entails.
***
There have been many Protestant theocracies too - the 17th century puritan republic in England, or the New England puritan theocracies.
While hugely admirable in so many ways (and as a young man my spontaneous sympathies were always with the Roundheads against the Cavaliers), the monochrome *dryness* of these societies is what comes through for me.
There is precious little spirituality - in the sense of approaching or communing with God, and a heck of a lot of rule-following, transgression-detecting and -punishing. Life and worship are alike extremely *secular* in nature: no mystery, no magic; only an austere poetry and the release of communal activity and resistance.
Protestant theocracies seem to me dull; I feel sure that life would (after the first overwhelming flush of conversion) seem alienated, meaningless, superficial, routine, mundane: a hope-less drudgery in this world, awaiting rescue in the next.
***
While I would probably, in practice - given my personality and socialization - hate living in Byzantium, or in Holy Russia (its nearest equivalent); there is a gut level appeal to these societies for me - a wholeness, a colour, a richness, an integration of all aspects of life (aimed at as ideal, whether or not being achieved at a particular time) that I find massively attractive.
(Leaving aside uncomfortable aspects such as ancient cruelties, slavery, and the vital presence of a eunuch imperial and ecclesial bureaucracy...)
In Byzantium I have an image of gorgeousness and colour, of daily (more than daily) ritual, of pervasive devotion and awe-inspiring worship, of heavenly music and art, of self-confidence and religious ambition, of community, of decisiveness, of courage beyond our imagination, of extraordinary asceticism in pursuit of sainthood, of great wisdom in spirituality.
***
Having made these harsh criticisms of RC and Protestant theocracies, I hasten to add that there were huge compensations of many and varied kinds, including individuals who reached the highest levels of human achievement (Michaelangelo and Rembrandt; Verdi and Bach; Medieval cathedrals and Milton; Galileo and Newton; Aquinas and Adam Smith - and on and on).
I just wish to emphasize that they do not overcome my sense of repulsion and fear at the thought of such societies.
***
In sum, I believe that Byzantium succeeded - at times and for many of its community - in being a foretaste of heaven on earth and preparation for heaven after death.
And the Eastern Roman civilization was destroyed after a millennium - but not by suicidal self-hatred, nor by hedonistic decadence, nor by lack of will to defend that which it most valued: it was simply overwhelmed, step by step, over several centuries, by ill-chance and superior force.
No civilization is proof against the vicissitudes of the world.
***
If actual theocracies can be taken as at least indicative of the ideal theocracies which they attempt to embody, then it is only the Byzantine Christian variety which has any genuine, spontaneous appeal for me. (I cannot answer for others.)
For what it is worth, I therefore see Byzantium - in its contrasts with Protestant and Roman Catholic theocracies - as a validation, a token validation, of Orthodoxy.
Friday, 29 January 2016
Why do the Left win every public dispute? Because they have an irresistible argument
It does not matter what argument Christians use to defend themselves - none of them work. Rationality is suspended, evidence deemed irrelevant, the outcome pre-determined.
The argument by which the Left win every battle is simple and single:
God is dead and everything is permitted.
*
This fact was first noted by Dostoevsky, a long time ago.
The assumption in all modern public discourse is that God is dead - God is not a reason for anything.
And the, correct, inference is that therefore - in an ultimate and bottom-line sense - everything is permitted.
*
Because God is dead in the West, and in particular in the public domain - the arena of general discourse; therefore everything is permitted, nothing is forbidden.
Because everything is permitted and nothing is forbidden, there is no reason to do or not do, allow or not allow, tolerate or coerce - and this is precisely the backdrop of assumptions which makes a trend to Leftism inevitable.
Even on the few and rare occasions when Christianity beats secular Leftism, it does so using secular Leftist arguments such as free speech, religious freedom, human rights, diminution of suffering, emotional manipulations, legalism and loopholes... and every such victory strengthens the principle that that is how public disputes ought to be settled. The exclusion of Christianity from the public arena is further solidified.
*
This brings clarity.
Tactics are doomed - so, focus on strategy.
Don't waste time finding the perfect argument - it doesn't matter, may do more harm than good.
Strength of personal faith and life, conversion of the nation - Christian priorities are the essentials, and they must also be the priority.
The argument by which the Left win every battle is simple and single:
God is dead and everything is permitted.
*
This fact was first noted by Dostoevsky, a long time ago.
The assumption in all modern public discourse is that God is dead - God is not a reason for anything.
And the, correct, inference is that therefore - in an ultimate and bottom-line sense - everything is permitted.
*
Because God is dead in the West, and in particular in the public domain - the arena of general discourse; therefore everything is permitted, nothing is forbidden.
Because everything is permitted and nothing is forbidden, there is no reason to do or not do, allow or not allow, tolerate or coerce - and this is precisely the backdrop of assumptions which makes a trend to Leftism inevitable.
Even on the few and rare occasions when Christianity beats secular Leftism, it does so using secular Leftist arguments such as free speech, religious freedom, human rights, diminution of suffering, emotional manipulations, legalism and loopholes... and every such victory strengthens the principle that that is how public disputes ought to be settled. The exclusion of Christianity from the public arena is further solidified.
*
This brings clarity.
Tactics are doomed - so, focus on strategy.
Don't waste time finding the perfect argument - it doesn't matter, may do more harm than good.
Strength of personal faith and life, conversion of the nation - Christian priorities are the essentials, and they must also be the priority.
Friday, 18 October 2013
Sweetness and strength - the Christian combination
*
I think Christianity is supposed to display both sweetness and strength, which combination is the consequence of love; as shown in human affairs by a good mother or father with respect to their children - but this is a difficult combination for an institution to sustain.
Few churches have succeeded steadily in achieving this combination; but temptation lies in both directions, and even the best churches oscillate around the optimum.
*
Liberal Christians (as individuals, not the leadership) often display sweetness, warmth of heart, kindness and breadth of welcome - but they are weak, and easily and rapidly conform to secular world, cease being Christian, then switch to being anti-Christians, who feel good about themselves while serving the enemy.
*
But hazards lie in the other directions too - in pursuit of strength Christians may become ultra-correct, hard-line; they fall into extreme narrowness, harshness, legalism, pedantry; they cease to be loving and starting enjoying hatred and punishment. Thereby they cease to be Christian but begin to work against it: they, too, have switched sides.
*
There are those who are repelled by the unloving harshness of the hardliners who soften their Christianity down to nothing or its near-opposite; and there are those who are repelled by the sentimentality of Liberals who harden their Christian practice into something which will reject and/or persecute any real (that is, loving) Christian.
*
In sum, there is no institutional formula for avoiding both weakness and harshness - and any formula designed to avoid the one will tend to encourage the other, and also provoke a backlash; and this is a fact of life because there is no formula for love.
But love is real - or at least potentially so.
*
I don't think this is theoretical - I think it is a real problem.
In the modern West the churches, and the variation within churches, do generally seem to be too-far in one or the other direction: mostly sweet, broad and submissive; but with other parts of Christianity tending too much toward the harsh, narrow and bossy.
We need the discernment of the heart to find churches that are truly both sweet and strong: a combination only possible when motivated by love.
*
I think Christianity is supposed to display both sweetness and strength, which combination is the consequence of love; as shown in human affairs by a good mother or father with respect to their children - but this is a difficult combination for an institution to sustain.
Few churches have succeeded steadily in achieving this combination; but temptation lies in both directions, and even the best churches oscillate around the optimum.
*
Liberal Christians (as individuals, not the leadership) often display sweetness, warmth of heart, kindness and breadth of welcome - but they are weak, and easily and rapidly conform to secular world, cease being Christian, then switch to being anti-Christians, who feel good about themselves while serving the enemy.
*
But hazards lie in the other directions too - in pursuit of strength Christians may become ultra-correct, hard-line; they fall into extreme narrowness, harshness, legalism, pedantry; they cease to be loving and starting enjoying hatred and punishment. Thereby they cease to be Christian but begin to work against it: they, too, have switched sides.
*
There are those who are repelled by the unloving harshness of the hardliners who soften their Christianity down to nothing or its near-opposite; and there are those who are repelled by the sentimentality of Liberals who harden their Christian practice into something which will reject and/or persecute any real (that is, loving) Christian.
*
In sum, there is no institutional formula for avoiding both weakness and harshness - and any formula designed to avoid the one will tend to encourage the other, and also provoke a backlash; and this is a fact of life because there is no formula for love.
But love is real - or at least potentially so.
*
I don't think this is theoretical - I think it is a real problem.
In the modern West the churches, and the variation within churches, do generally seem to be too-far in one or the other direction: mostly sweet, broad and submissive; but with other parts of Christianity tending too much toward the harsh, narrow and bossy.
We need the discernment of the heart to find churches that are truly both sweet and strong: a combination only possible when motivated by love.
*
Wednesday, 29 March 2017
The silence of Jesus on trial - a matter of truth
The Gospels describe that Jesus refuses to say anything at various points in his 'trial' with Pilate, Herod and the Jewish elders; and this puzzles and annoys the authorities.
The silence of Jesus when confronted with his accusers is also something that many later people have found confusing - perhaps especially given that in other parts of the Gospels Jesus is shown to be a brilliant rhetorician and arguer.
Did Jesus, perhaps, 'refuse to defend himself' - was he 'courting martyrdom', or was it something else?
(And when Jesus was not being silent, he often refused to answer his accusers; either by responding to a question with another question - or by saying something 'irrelevant' to the question.)
My feeling is that the silence of Jesus was necessary because of the falsehood of the bureaucratic and legal process to which he was subjected.
The 'trial' made so many false assumptions - was indeed structured on the basis of selective and biased assumptions that were nonetheless being regarded as the only things that matter. Merely to participate in the, by saying anything at all, was therefore implicitly to endorse a lie.
Since Jesus was without sin, he could not lie; therefore he could not answer.
*
We have likely experienced for ourselves an exactly analogous phenomenon in modern societies; because false assumptions are deeply-woven into mainstream public discourse - woven into bureaucratic processes, legalism or media discourse.
We find ourselves - and often - in situations where the assumptions are false and the procedures do not allow for truth. For example when you are required to answer yes or no to a tendentious question, to place a tick or cross in a box, to provide a unit of fact which is intrinsically embedded in a falsifying context or meaning...
The procedure is evil: the procedure is a lie - to participate in the procedure is to endorse the lie.
*
Modern public life is therefore a set of trick questions and traps; and all possible answers lead straight back into the trap.
In such situations, the aim is to force us (each, individually, without exceptions) to become complicit in the process - to force us to participate in The Lie.
No honest answer is possible, because all honest answers must challenge the assumptions behind the question - honest answers are not accepted as data.
In such situations the only honest answer may be silence.
The silence of Jesus when confronted with his accusers is also something that many later people have found confusing - perhaps especially given that in other parts of the Gospels Jesus is shown to be a brilliant rhetorician and arguer.
Did Jesus, perhaps, 'refuse to defend himself' - was he 'courting martyrdom', or was it something else?
(And when Jesus was not being silent, he often refused to answer his accusers; either by responding to a question with another question - or by saying something 'irrelevant' to the question.)
My feeling is that the silence of Jesus was necessary because of the falsehood of the bureaucratic and legal process to which he was subjected.
The 'trial' made so many false assumptions - was indeed structured on the basis of selective and biased assumptions that were nonetheless being regarded as the only things that matter. Merely to participate in the, by saying anything at all, was therefore implicitly to endorse a lie.
Since Jesus was without sin, he could not lie; therefore he could not answer.
*
We have likely experienced for ourselves an exactly analogous phenomenon in modern societies; because false assumptions are deeply-woven into mainstream public discourse - woven into bureaucratic processes, legalism or media discourse.
We find ourselves - and often - in situations where the assumptions are false and the procedures do not allow for truth. For example when you are required to answer yes or no to a tendentious question, to place a tick or cross in a box, to provide a unit of fact which is intrinsically embedded in a falsifying context or meaning...
The procedure is evil: the procedure is a lie - to participate in the procedure is to endorse the lie.
*
Modern public life is therefore a set of trick questions and traps; and all possible answers lead straight back into the trap.
In such situations, the aim is to force us (each, individually, without exceptions) to become complicit in the process - to force us to participate in The Lie.
No honest answer is possible, because all honest answers must challenge the assumptions behind the question - honest answers are not accepted as data.
In such situations the only honest answer may be silence.
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