Two wild theories. We were the original "latchkey-kids" from two working parents and divorce. We're still looking for Daddy. Also, some have pointed out that we were exposed to more peak-lead from gasoline than other generations. lol
It wasn't actually banned in the USA until 1996, though I remember us using unleaded plus in our last leaded vehicle from the 70s back in the early 90s.
Well, the opera hall was full of paying guests who enjoyed watching and listening to us discuss big issues. Who knows what might come out of that? In any case, isn't conversation itself fun, and therefore worthwhile? I think so. One young Dutch man approached me after it was over to say he doesn't agree with me politically, but he thought it was really interesting, the things I had to say and the way I said them. He asked me for book recommendations. I got his email address, will put in some thought, and send them to him. You never know!
I can see that. I did not realize there were actual paying guests. I just remember presenting at an academic conference and thinking this is pointless as there was basically no one there outside of your select group of people. I assumed it was like that.
Also people get to see that Rod Dreher is articulate, erudite and a writer/thinker worth grappling with, and not the cross bw Ned Flanders and Savanorola on Orban's payroll that they've been warned about. And then word gets around!
God, I just finished that Packer piece, it's like his pen is dipped in sanctimony. You can feel him struggling to fit that novel onto the Procrustean bed of his political agenda, but it doesn't work without massive oversimplification.
And when he tries to draw some vague comparison bw Trump and Stalin's show trials, I'm once again faced with typical left-intellectual amnesia. It was people like him who supported Stalin and did all they could to obscure the reality of the Soviets—a George Packer born 100 years earlier would have been in the vanguard class.
American left-intellectuals are so dull now (they would certainly find reasons to denounce a 2024 "Magic Mountain" for some ideological crime or oversight), their entire program and worldview is either be like them or be a Nazi—and they wonder why their audience is vanishing.
It's too bad about Packer. I read The Unwinding, which came out about a decade ago, and chronicled America's decline since the 1970s and into the Great Recession. He better than anyone should have been able to survey the 2024 political landscape.
The conference looked like a blast! But I'm bummed that you won't put in a good word with VP-elect Vance - I was hoping you could convince him to do something to fix the Dallas Cowboys (like whack Jerry Jones).
I see that demographic decline was mentioned in the same substack that having to contain China was mentioned in. I wonder has anyone really stopped to think about the demographic disaster that China is heading towards? I am not sure outside of a decade how they will be a true threat. Their demographics are a disaster and not looking to get any better. I don't see how they really don't start having true social and economic problems because of it. Same with South Korea. I do think that eventually both places are going to put severe restrictions on women to increase the birth rate. You can't have death feminism and a functioning society
South Korea appears to be heading to non-existence. It is morally wrong to force people to reproduce, not that I could see how that could be done in 2024.
China's financial situation, particularly with seriously declining RE investments (which the party encouraged their people to purchase as a primary savings vehicle), is quite unstable. From what I read the regime's recent squashing of news of major accidents (one incident which killed 35 people, another more recent killed 7-8 people) is also causing restiveness.
Xi and the CCP retain a firm grip and their extensive belt/road investments (some in South America) are worrisome, not to mention their extensive defense build up (particularly in naval vessels).
Still, there are definite fissures in their economy which, if Trump is successful in his economy plans, don't bode well for them.
Meanwhile a number of U.S. businesspeople are quite optimistic about upside in the U.S.--as are foreign investors. The prospect of reducing the regulatory burden (Biden added over $1Trillion in new regulatory burdens in his term) and improving our energy situation has fueled the "animal spirits" driving our stock market. I'm cautiously optimistic as long as the Ukraine/Russia conflict doesn't become worse in the next 2 months.
A disturbing possibility is that post-Christian conservatism is in danger of becoming a strange amalgamation of Nietzcheanism and Ayn Randism--i.e., a type of conservatism that scoffs at sayings of Jesus such as "bless those who curse you" and "he who loses his life will find it" even as aspirational values.
Mike Johnson would affirm those values, but he is ideologically stuck in 1980s zombie Reaganism and tags along with the post-Christian conservatism to stay relevant. The pictures of him desperately trying to get in the frame with Trump, Musk, etc. down in Mar-a-Lago are kind of sad.
I don't detect so much as a whiff of "desperation" about Johnson. He strikes me as someone with a solid sense of himself and of his responsibilities, but who's also having the time of his life suddenly learning to work with the likes of Trump and Musk. He's smart, sober, and sane, and if he can keep Trump from poaching more of his narrow House majority, he'll do just fine.
Johnson voted for Ukraine aid, warrantless surveillance by the NSA and is a huge "free trader". Trump could depose him with one word, though, so I hope that intimidates him out of his zombie Reaganism.
Ah, let's hope so—in my view, this would be the ideal scenario. Let's hope he smashes the establishment at least half as hard as the politicos fear and imagine that he's gonna smash them.
Over the weekend, I ran into a mathematician and a science-minded atheist. Oh wow, I'd forgotten how out there some of your ideas about enchantment are, relative to the cultural status quo. They were trying to "explain" a proof against God's reality, and at some point I offended them by looking too bored. Evidently they thought they were being edgy and brilliant, and I was just going, ". . . Wait, was that it? So you're done?"
More generally, I find that it is becoming more difficult to communicate with the godless liberal heathens as they continue to harden into their ideological madness: their picture of reality is just too narrow and demented. I'm thinking that it might be getting to be about time for me to get outta Austin and go to somewhere less saturated with the crazies.
Also, Rod, I've gotta e-mail you about something; I'll send it to your Substack address soon, surely by tomorrow.
Math whiz and garden-variety atheist fail to see that scientific proof against God's existence is just as untenable as scientific proof for His reality (although some scientists are certainly working in that direction -- Stephen Meyer come to mind).
They appeared to be of the opinion that math and physics can supplant metaphysics, which strikes me as a category error. They didn't understand (for example) that their aversion to concepts such as teleology is in fact a metaphysical prejudice, not something dictated by the empirical data itself. File under "metacognition sorely lacking": technical processing power isn't the same thing as self-awareness or wisdom.
But we're talking about people here who have an axiomatic belief that metaphysics is reducible to the physical universe, or that transcendence is reducible to immanence. And they think the math and science affirm them in that, but in fact math and science logically can't support any such claim.
It seems like these days they need to come to terms somehow with how complexity develops out of simplicity, so they have notions such as "emergent properties", which seems like an attempt to do an end run around transcendence.
True. But its circular reasoning. We can only verify what is physically measurable, therefore only what is physically measurable is true. God forbid that we consider some things may be beyond the capacity of our measuring tools. (Irony of the last sentence is deliberate).
Right: the premise they can't prove is "Only what is physically measurable is true". That is an epistemological and metaphysical axiom that they smuggle into their worldview.
Libertarians often have the same blindness. Only for them everything is reduced to making choices, with differing degrees of freedom or coercion in those choices, with weak moral guidance like the Harm Principle. More sophisticated libertarians at least recognize the harm question as loaded and childish, but still cannot escape the choice / freedom / coercion question, and still arrive at a Rousseauian conclusion with a blind faith that "THE MARKET" will, in some ineffable god-like manner, be able to solve everything, fairly for all. If you really want to hack such types off, start drawing parallels between their theories and Marxism - it's fun to watch the smoke come out of their ears. Nothing that is non-material can actually exist except as abstract rhetorical ways to discuss... choices - it's like Nominalism run amok.
The more sophisticated ones don't ignore that. They praise it. I've even seen dead-serious ones argue for the re-legalization of slavery (including sex slavery), but only if... it's by mutual consent (of course).
I remember a short story about a future when slavery was reinstituted, without any racial basis, just like it was in many ancient cultures. A man who had too many bills and not enough money to pay them might sell a daughter for instance. (Families in Thailand sell a daughter into sex slavery when they need a new refrigerator). There was even a Federal Slave Board to regulate the industry, but its regulations did not preclude whipping as a last resort.
As a biologist originally, I find that biologists and mathematicians tend to insist that science opposes religion, whereas physicists tend to think it points towards religion, although not necessarily Christianity. The chemists tend to be the wisest, or at least humblest, maintaining that science has nothing to say in this respect.
Which is foolish on both ends. Its not hard to find the foundations of evolutionary biology in the first chapter of Genesis. Not the exact details, the theological and causative foundation. Its how God worked.
Chemists get to regularly set things on fire, which tends to connect with the transcendent. Plus, some of the best cooks I've met are chemists, and they see cooking as an ineffable art.
Waco looks nice. But I was thinking 50k or less. The bigger cities of 100k or more have all the same stuff as the super big cities. At less than 50 K they define growth as being big enough for an IHOP. And many of the smaller towns don’t want growth. They don’t fetishize it which is very different from the big cities.
I could see Sethu in Marfa, TX. I passed through during a road trip years ago and it was a mix of hippie & cowboy. Prices are probably going thru the roof like everywhere but who knows, could still be cool.
Mine was forty miles south of Green Bay. It was also the home town of the late Joseph McCarthy, who died shortly before we moved there. My mom said to one of our new neighbors, she was wondering what McCarthy's home town would be like. The neighbor said "Oh, he's not so much. I know the family." Mom repeated this at a dinner party, and the hostess said "That's my husband's uncle you're talking about." In 1968, students from the local university knocking on doors for Gene McCarthy were sometimes told "Whose Gene McCarthy? I'll vote for any relative of Joe."
My home town plus the township around it was c. 60,000. But we were also next door to Ann Arbor, and the Detroit metro sprawl was just a very few miles up I-94. Unfortunately the town took a severe hit when two of three auto factories closed and it's a ghost of its former self.
I've tended to thrive best in cities that are around the 100,000 range: Ann Arbor, Akron, Fort Lauderdale and now St Pete for the second time. Big enough to have plenty of amenities (and importantly for me, an Orthodox church, which are seldom found in rural areas) but not so big as to be overflowing with Big City Problems.
Yeah: when I leave Austin, I'll probably lose access to an Eastern Catholic parish, since there just aren't that many of those around. So that would be the catalyst for me to jump over to Orthodoxy.
Heartily recommend it. I currently live in a town of 25,000, and grew up in a town of 5,000 - both in the Midwest. I’ve traveled all over the world and lived on 3 continents. Small-town rural America is a great place to hole up while the rest of the world destroys itself by acculturated progressive ennui.
In my high school algebra book was a "proof" that 0=1. Trying to develop a PROOF against God's reality must be something like that. (The equation is fairly well known. It involved a fraction formed by variables a and b, such that without clearly seeing it, one is dividing by zero).
I like Gödel's incompleteness theorem, which I gloss to mean that a complete system cannot demonstrate its own axioms to be valid. That lacuna should make people feel much less fanatically certain about systems of all kinds, but of course it doesn't.
Before I moved from IL to NC, in my research I found out that the county I ended up moving to had not voted for a Dem for President since FDR. Works for me. FYI, it’s fun to live with your tribe. Before you move, remember that once you choose a state you’d like to live in, all research then shifts to picking the right county. You can pick a great state, but you also need pick a great county in the great state, because so much local policy begins at a county level.
To be clear, as an inquisitive person, I do not live in a bubble. In general I find that the left only knows its arguments, but the right knows its arguments *and* those of the left. This is born out in the many lefties we’re hearing about post-election who don’t know why Trump won.
If you have a hard time convincing someone with reason nosebleeds can help. You are feeling a sharp pain in your head. Droplets are forming at the end of your nose. People need miracles, they always have and they always will. No miracles, no signs, no believe. Personally I like the check arriving by mail, though Zelle's ok these days.
I’m a Protestant (Presbyterian)who is gifting Living in Wonder to several friends and relatives for Christmas, so maybe I’m the wrong person to ask. But I agree with most if not all the things cited as contributing to the decline of Christian practice in the later years of the 20th century. Bring the woo back and address the purposelessness holes in our psyche. We don’t need religion to be relevant to modern life; we need modern life to be relevant to religion.
I agree with most of it too! I'm Protestant (also Presbyterian). I do feel Calvinists get a bad rap because generally people believe the stereotypes about Calvinists, without ever really delving into Calvin.
I've just finished Living in Wonder, and I have a lot to say about it, most of it positive, but for now I'd like to express a friendly challenge to Rod's characterization of Elon Musk. Is he really just an apostle of the Machine and transhumanism? I think that a lot of his popular appeal, especially to young men, is that he represents something that Rod correctly praises in LiW: acknowledging, and relishing, the fact that we do not, and cannot, have complete control over our personal or collective lives, no matter how advanced our technology. Before the SpaceX booster rocket was caught by the "chopsticks" tower last month, Musk said something like (I'm paraphrasing) "Entertainment is guaranteed. Success is possible." He knows, and the young people who admire him know, that the colonization of Mars will include disasters and tragedies. That's a big part of what makes it an exhilarating adventure. In some ways it's the opposite of what the Machine offers, which it to connect to a screen and "safely" imbibe pornography and other ersatz experiences.
The problem with Musk is that he doesn't see space exploration as part of the ongoing project of learning about God's universe, but sees planetary colonization as the salvation of mankind and the purpose of our existence (i.e. having as many children as possible and populating the universe). That is not our salvation or our purpose.
These are strange times. I don't rule out Musk having a Christ encounter at some time in the future. He seems just weird enough for that to happen to him. :)
I would add another issue with Musk - he often doesn't think things through, and works in an ad hoc manner. Starlink is a prime example - Earth is becoming enwebbed with cheap LEO satellites while an awful lot of debris is chucked into orbit too, all in a quest to connect everyone everywhere to the internet... for a price. There are deep ethical considerations in this operation, from litter in LEO making future launches difficult (not good to run into even small metal chips at orbital escape velocities), to privacy issues. It's getting hard to go anywhere where one cannot be quickly found, which will be abused. He's very much the exemplar of doing something without ever asking whether he should.
One thing that worries me about human colonisation elsewhere is that it means all life on earth could be destroyed without the Petrine promise being broken.
I tell people that, although a theatre nuclear war is not impossible, we know that the Church will survive until the Second Coming, so we have Christ's assurance that there will be no nuclear holocaust.
However, if the Church exists somewhere outside the earth, this does not apply, and we don't have this assurance.
Ever read "A Canticle for Leibnitz"? Spoiler: tje Church does survive nuclear war.
As a practical matter a nuclear war would be mainly fought in the northern hemisphere. The global south would suffer severe climate effects, and complete economic collapse, but there would be survivors, and some of them Catholics, even prelates. Future popes would still be called Bishop of Rome but would reside elsewhere, as our Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch resides in Damascus.
I also liked his speech about abortion and pregnancy where he said the problem is schools etc. teaching teenagers that their life is over if they get pregnant when having a kid is such a great source of joy.
Their life is not over but it would be good if adoption was not stigmatized as the path forward. The 3 mothers of Musk's children have a billionaire providing resources which most will not have (but i doubt he is spending much parenting time with 12 kids when he is running 4 or 5 companies plus trumps commission))
I think adoption should only be a last resort. I think there should be decent welfare for single mothers, and really obvious things like good crèches at colleges. I also don’t think shotgun marriages are necessarily a bad thing; my guess is that in many cases the couple are actually in love, and could make a go of it if supported and encouraged.
Of course, a cultural assumption in favour of chastity would be great too.
‘It takes a village to raise a child’: Try imagine liberals saying that now!
Adoption is a necessity in any society (in the Middle Ages nobles even fostered their younger kids with others) and we should be very wary of stigmatizing it in any way.
I don't want to stigmatise it, and I think it is sometimes the least bad option. However, I think efforts should be made to keep babies with their birth mothers. Obviously if the mother is a totally strung-out junkie and prostitute, that might not be possible, but I don't think just being a girl of 15 who gets pregnant is in the same category.
Well, OK, but minors should not be having children. This isn't the Middle Ages; women handily survive child birth these days and very, very few infants die. Child bearing can wait until full maturity.
I certainly don't think early teenagers should be having children, although of course some will get pregnant, and should therefore have the children. I think the late teens is actually a good age to have children.
Even Plato and Aristotle thought women should wait until 20 (mainly for medical reasons) and medieval doctors also advised waiting. In the present world the lack of social maturity precludes successful patenting by the young.
He did save free speech, though. I think that his purchase of Twitter was the single most decisive factor that drove the results of the recent election, since that broke the mainstream media's monopoly on things.
Privately owned online platforms are not covered by the 1st Amendment. Musk can do what he wants on his shiny toy. Free speech goes best in the public square, or even just a barstool.
First, congratulations on all the good press and major conferences! I feel like our esteemed host is finally catching a break, even if it may be small.
Second, and I'm curious if anyone else can feel it, there does seem to be something "in the air" regarding our seismic political shift. I am cautiously hopeful that there can actually be meaningful change in our bureaucracy. I want to see Elon rip through the government like Javier Milei.
Third, having watched some of the liberal pundits (Jon Stewart, John Oliver, etc.) I'm surprised by some of what they said. They really believed that bringing the Cheneys on board would sway the moderates! John Oliver was surprised that Harris was not considered "moderate" by the voters! I don't know if they are capable of understanding outside the progressive paradigm.
I think Living in Wonder comes at a very fortuitous time. I was talking with a Methodist friend of mine while our kids played this Saturday. He mentioned and brought up spiritual warfare and how to look for it. He said his preacher has seen stuff also. He is listening to podcast by Catholic Exorcists.
I am not sure I would put Anglican's in with other protestants when it come to this stuff. The ACNA has exorcists that have trained other conservative Anglican groups on this. As you said Hans Boursema is an Anglican. Yes we have had our fair of struggles over the past 50 or so years but I think the tide is turning. I see myself as an Anglo Catholic and I am convinced by salvation by faith alone and that is what keeps me from jumping ship
Great interview with one of my faves, Emily Jashinsky, but I gotta say, Rod, the filter you used completely erased all your wrinkles. We want to see the real you!
I'm a Protestant (charismatic) and while I haven't read very far into Living In Wonder, and while I don't really get the significance of a priest blessing water to make "water more fully what it is", I like to think of this realm of enchantment from the perspective of Star Trek.
Imagine if Captain Kirk and Spock came down and visited you and told you that they were looking for recruits for their next voyage into space. You would have a year to get ready when they would return to pick you up. Wouldn't that change how you see everything? Wouldn't your days be filled with the "enchantment" of knowing where your destiny was headed? Wouldn't that bring significance and meaning to your life? Even if you couldn't "prove" to anyone else that you were about to get beamed up the the starship Enterprise.
My point is, that when you run into the real, then you see things differently. If Star Trek were real, then things would change for you.
Well there's something way more real than Star Trek. But just like how science covered up all sorts of things in recent years, it also covers up what we know about God, or more specifically, what we know about how rare the Earth is and what that implies. Scientists assume the correct stance is that there is no God, or at least that God is not involved, and so He is ignored and they are forced to develop materialistic explanations for how we got here. But that is a crazy stance given what science itself tells us about our rareness, and especially given that the bible matches what we have discovered.
The evidence is right there in front of us - just as much as if Captain Kirk and Spock were standing in front of you. In a sense, we don't have to search for a sense of the enchanted, the enchanted in the form of what God has done is yelling at us.
Years ago, when I was in college, I used to sit in church and look at everyone else just sitting there. And I would think, why are they all just sitting there? Don't they understand how real God is? Don't they get what that means?!
And I would want to start singing Bill Gaither's "Get All Excited" song. We serve a God that we should be so thankful for. But even more, we should be downright excited about our God. He's out of this world. Literally.
I pulled up my favorite AI and asked it about that song. I asked it: The song says, "Get all excited and tell everybody that, Jesus Christ is King". Why should knowing Jesus is king make us excited? Here's its reply. It sounds like it "gets" why we should be excited:
------------------
According to Christian theology, Jesus being King has several significant implications that believers consider exciting:
1. Personal significance - It means each person has direct access to the ruler of the universe who cares about their individual life, concerns, and wellbeing. This contrasts with earthly kings who are typically distant from their subjects.
2. Ultimate authority - The belief that Jesus is King means He has authority over all other powers, circumstances, and challenges people face. For believers, this provides comfort and confidence knowing that their King is ultimately in control.
3. Purpose and meaning - If Jesus is King, then His followers are part of His kingdom and have a meaningful role in His plans. For many Christians, this gives their lives a sense of purpose and significance.
4. Promise of justice - The concept of Jesus as King includes the belief that He will ultimately establish perfect justice and make all things right, which gives hope to those facing difficulties or injustice.
5. Future hope - In Christian theology, Jesus being King points to both present comfort and future promises - that He will return to fully establish His kingdom and make everything new.
So when Gaither wrote these lyrics, he was expressing the Christian perspective that recognizing Jesus as King isn't just acknowledging a fact - it's embracing a relationship and reality that transforms how one views life, challenges, purpose, and the future. The excitement comes from both the personal implications and the cosmic significance of His kingship.
Dean, I wish Rod would have written something like: When the priest blesses water, as someone set apart for ministry he is asking God to make the water more fully what it is by the power of the Holy Spirit." That's actually more in keeping with the Orthodox prayers for the blessing of water.
I was part of one of the original Vineyard churches for a few years, and (apart from resonance with Catholic spirituality) such a thing would be not be far from what anyone could pray for with regard to the medical means God might use to heal someone, for example.
I grew up Catholic but left and became a (mostly) Charismatic Evangelical Protestant. However, one thing that sustained me in my Protestant years was the answer to the Catholic Catechism questions I had to learn at age 7: Who made you? God made me. Why did God make you? God made me to know him, love him and serve him in this world, and to be happy with him forever in heaven. Further study altered my view of what "heaven" is all about, but my experience as a Protestant didn't always give me theological solidity under my feet. There were some truly kind and Christ-like people in my life during those years, for which I'm grateful - and I needed a place for the intellect as well.
Pentecostals often pray over handkerchiefs so that people can take them and put them under someone's pillow to be healed. I guess a priest blessing water is similar. Normal water can only quench your physical thirst, but blessed water could perhaps heal you. But I still don't get the idea of making "water more fully what it is". In my mind, it's just water that was prayed for. It's holy in the sense that it has been set apart for use by God. Or a better word might be consecrated. But then I was never Catholic or Orthodox so I must be missing something.
I think that to understand the "make water more fully what it is", you would need to read Fr. Alexander Schmemann's classic "For the Life of the World". It's fairly short and powerful. It's a fully sacramental way of being in the world.
Alas, I have way too many books stacked up right now ready to be read next! I'm having trouble getting through Living In Wonder as it is. But thanks for the suggestion.
One of the understandings of Christ's baptism in the Jordan is that Christ's entry into the waters blessed the waters and cleansed them from spiritual taint. You can see this in Orthodox icons of Theophany - often you will see two water spirits present in the river as Christ's entry is driving them off.
Water can quench your thirst, but it can also kill you by drowning, by carrying diseases and filth, or by freezing or cooking you. It is necessary for life, but it is often put to other uses, not just by humans but by spiritual forces too.
By making it "more fully what it is", you could also say "it is put back to its right purpose."
As a Protestant, I hadn't heard of that. I wouldn't be surprised if it were true that Jesus's baptism drove away two water spirits. Wherever He went, the kingdom of God invaded and overthrew the powers of darkness. You could say that water was never intended by God to be ruled by evil spirits, and that in that case, he put the water back under His rulership, and back to the way God had intended it to be. So maybe I'm just hung up on this word "fully", but I still don't see why that word is used. I mean does it mean the water is "purified", or "consecrated", or "indwelt", or something else? I'm not getting it.
In fact, I'm not getting a lot of Living in Wonder. Rod does seem to have a very Orthodox way of thinking that I never really picked up reading his posts, but it has made it hard for me to figure out what he means in the book.
I think you've mostly got it. "Fully" is an emphatic in this case - it's saying that God has redirected water back towards its proper ends. Another image I could point to is the New Earth of Revelation, which has no seas / oceans. Oceans are realms of chaos and disorder, of concealment and darkness - something we tend to forget now that we can deep dive into them to find their secrets in darkness, and the ships with which we ply them are rarely sunk outside of war. Our forebears had another relationship entirely, and many are the fervent prayers for safe passage.
There are some other books that I could recommend on Orthodox theology and culture, if you were interested. There are several good approachable ones which try to give an idea of the Orthodox mindset.
Okay, thanks for that. Sounds somewhat then like a difference in terminology, but I suppose it maybe also has something similar to do with the issue of transubstantiation, which Protestants don't believe in, or the idea that only a priest can do something like blessing the water, which Protestants don't believe in either.
I've heard Christians complain about the lack of seas/oceans in the New Earth, but then we don't think about how foreboding such things used to be viewed. I hadn't either.
I've seen Theophany icons numerous times, but I never took the "spirits" to be evil or in the midst of flight. In the large icon mural at my church they seem quite attentive to Jesus as if recognizing this is a good thing for them too. I would interpret them as "natural powers", which we are admonished not to traffic with, but which are in no wise wicked. Any notion that ordinary matter is normally possessed by demons strikes me as next door to world-hating Gnosticism.
There are some iconographic tells, including how they're often transparent (demons lack full form). Icons rarely will show emotion in faces, so the spirits in the water are not going to look angry. Remember too that Leviathan (Babylonian Lotan) is a chaos spirit of the waters.
Regarding demonic possession (really, inhabitation) of matter - what do you think idols are? This is by no means gnosticism, it's just a recognition that God's creation can be misused and corrupted (and not just by us). Christ's entry into the water asserts his soverignty over it.
Yes, Matthew B. Crawford's review of 'Living in Wonder' is well-written, insightful and complimentary. But I wish he had not accused you of being an internet polemicist. I think that is over the top.
As happy as I am and as amused as I am, I’m honestly really scared. Not in a meltdown sense….Lord have Mercy, I’m a stronger woman than that… but, everything feels surreal and off, like I’m living in a Goya or a VanGogh, it’s all so…sideways.
The Gospel coalition review was of interest, Rod, because it was both Baptist and Calvinist. The combination exists but I do not believe it is very common. You may have spotted it right away but I had to dig down to see where they were coming from.
"By 2000, Reformed Baptist groups in the United States totaled about 16,000 people in 400 congregations" Johnson, Robert E. (2010). A Global Introduction to Baptist Churches. Cambridge University Press. p. 358. ISBN 978-0-521-70170-9. (quick edit for typo)
This may be a good time to say it - though you did not directly imply such.
I feel it is sometimes assumed here that Reformed theology, i.e .Calvinism, is common for Protestants. They are only about 12 percent of Protestants. Generally in Dutch Reforomed and Presbyterian Churches, as well as some small denominations and smaller off-shoots of denominations. For instance, as stated, about 18,000 Baptists in all whereas thee are 13 million Southern Baptists in the USA.
I think it is very unusual for any Baptist church to teach that baptism saves*. It is an gernally held to be an outward symbol of an inward work in their theology. It is faith - usually expressed by praying to accept Christ as Savior - that saves. Most believe it is not true acceptance unless one repents of sins.
The stats here are interesting but misleading. A large % of the Southern Baptist convention is reformed in its soteriology (i.e. Calvinism) but that would probably not show up on the survey results. So the 16000 number probably represents the much smaller subgroup which self-identify specifically as reformed baptists (and usually have "1689" tattooed on their arms).
If you look at where the energy has been in the last 20 years among young evangelicals, it has largely been with big-tent reformed groups like T4G and TGC, which includes various stripes of Presbyterian, Anglican, and Baptist believers -- though that is changing now.
OK, are you telling me that people who believe God chooses some to be saved, and some to be damned, believe that it is not up to their free-will, are a large percent of Southern Baptists?
But - anyone coming on here saying they are Reformed, such as Presbyterians, I give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they believe in free will anyway. Surely they can't seriously believe God predestines people for hell? I gotta ask. Do they?
(Yes, I get the theory - humans so depraved - totally - they can't even believe without grace. But God extends grace to all, with the right to refuse. Irresistible grace is a problem, in my opinion. )
I've yet to meet a Presbyterian who wouldn't, when pressed, admit that God does predestine some for damnation. They have various wiggles to try and get out of it (God knew they would never choose to be saved when He made them, so damnation was a kind of gift? judgement?).
And functionally, many many Evangelicals are Calvinist-lite. They may eschew predestination, but "Once Saved, Always Saved" is still picking and choosing the easy stuff from TULIP while trying to avoid the implications of the rest of Reformed theology.
I remember well one of the final breaks I had with that world was when one week the pastor at my church went full-on Calvinist (predestination included), and then the next week backtracked and went full on Arminian to try and get out of the worst implications of Calvin.
Reformed theology is difficult to escape in any American Protestantism - it was the faith of the Puritans (and we should not underestimate their influence to this day), it was the faith of the Scotish and Scotch-Irish settlers of the Appalacian interior (if not directly, then through the Baptists), Reformed / Arminian debates were raging hot throughout the early 1600s when other groups came over (that debate being a major factor in the English Civil War). The Restoration settlement within Anglicanism tried to put some of that aside, but much was already baked in.
Functionally today, many Evangelicals are "Reformed-Lite" due to this history.
I'd say it was not the faith of my ancestors, Mom's side, who settled the Appalachains in 1781. I have the doctrinal statement from the Baptist church founded by my gggg-grandfather, in the early 1800s. First meeting in his cabin, he an elder, it later become the First Baptist Church of Sweetwater, Tennessee. It is Arminian. Salvation by faith, with God not choosing who is saverd or damned. And in my travels round the hills, I can see that "Primitive Baptist" (Calvinist) is much more rare than "Missionary Baptist" (Arminian) even with regard to historic church buidings and locations.
We likely came over from Antrim, in what is now Northern Ireland, of Scottish descent, of course. Presbyterian while in Northern Ireland is assumed. Baptist because at first there were no Presbyterian Churches in the Appalachain backwoods due to the high degree of education required to be a minister. Eventually my grandfather and his father went to Eusebia Presyterian for a time since it was across the road from their farm, but they returned to being Baptist. Our family is Arminian Baptist. I never heard talk of God choosing to damn people. - - I'll talk about Calvinism, Baptists, etc, in general, but I will not say that my people were majority Calvinist in the sense that they believed God fated people to be damned. And the Appalachains of East Tennessee are my people.
Corrie Ten Boom is a famous Reformed Christian. I heard her speak when I was a child. I heard her say that it is like a Mom who calls five children in from play for cookies, but lays out 3 cookies. The Mom knew in advance that the other two would not want cookies. That is one of the hedges you speak of. Yes, I know that is actually Arminian but Corrie didn't and I think a lot of Reformed believe that way.
The truth is - look away anyone reading this hwo thinks God damns people on purpose - the truth is is makes me sick to my stomach to think someone who pretends to be a loving Christian could think that and the idea that there are large numbers of young Evangelicals who accept that is probably the worse news I've heard in years. I'm really sickened. I don't want to believe it , but it sounds like it is a known fact.
My family also not believe once saved/always saved. We are of very strong Baptist background. I am a Catholic convert. (PS - Baptist is Mom's side - For Dad's I assume they were Anglican when they came to Virginia, but the first I know of their faith is when they got involved in a Wesleyan revival - Dad's family are Methodist to this day also not Calvinist. Dad and Mom agreed to attend the Baptist church and raise us that way. - - Actually, they let me pick after trying both when I was six and I liked Baptist better, so Baptist it was.)
Finally, I think the influence of Puritans on American, while there, can be over-estimated. I'm a Southerner and I think Anglicans had a lot to do with things. The Germans - so of Lutheran stripe - had a lot to do with them. Quakers were a huge percent of the population before the Revolution. Roger Williams and his people are not to be forgotten. Now was New York ever much influenced by Puritans. (Yes, I know...Colleges...Great Awakening...I still think they Puritans are over-blown.)
There are 2 types of Baptists. Free-will Baptists are basically Arminian. Particular Baptists are (mostly) Calvinists. What unites Baptists is their hatred for church hierarchy (each church is self governing), and their adamant belief that only a "believer's baptism" is valid.
Some Baptists even rebaptize "Restorationists" (or "Campbellites:" Disciples of Christ, Church of Christ, or Churches of Christ) because while the latter only baptize adults, they all believe that it is baptism itself which "saves" or "regenerates," cf. I Peter 3:21, while Baptists believe that it is a symbolic token.) These "Restorationists" have a very "apostolic" view of Baptism, while at the same time holding a Zwinglian view of the Lord's Supper.
Yes, Particular |Baptist are one type of Reformed Baptist There is also Strict \Baptist, Primitive Baptist, Regular Baptist, United Baptist, Soverign Grace Baptist, etc I would agree they dislike hierarchy, and only adut baptism on confession of faith is considreed valid.
A Philosophy professor of mine was close friends with my great uncle who is an Old Regular Baptist minister. He introduced me to an incoming college president "Andrew is Orthodox, his uncle is an Old Regular Baptist, they run the full range in that family".
Two wild theories. We were the original "latchkey-kids" from two working parents and divorce. We're still looking for Daddy. Also, some have pointed out that we were exposed to more peak-lead from gasoline than other generations. lol
Surely the Boomers got more lead than those of us who came later. I barely remember leaded gasoline; it was being phased out in my youth.
I remember a couple of gas stations still having leaded gasoline when I was a kid, which would have been mid-80s or so.
https://www.npr.org/2021/08/30/1031429212/the-world-has-finally-stopped-using-leaded-gasoline-algeria-used-the-last-stockp#:~:text=By%20the%20mid%2D'80s,and%20off%2Droad%20vehicles.)
It wasn't actually banned in the USA until 1996, though I remember us using unleaded plus in our last leaded vehicle from the 70s back in the early 90s.
I'm just old enough to remember when gas was "regular" or unleaded. Now, when people ask "regular", meaning non-premium, it still sounds weird.
I haven't seen any stats pointing to that. The major claim I have seen is that Gen Z young men including non-white ones were the key demographic.
Gen Xers like Justine Bateman were definitely part of Trump's victory.
I have to ask two things. What is the point of these conferences besides stroking one's ego and what do they ever produce meaningful results?
Well, the opera hall was full of paying guests who enjoyed watching and listening to us discuss big issues. Who knows what might come out of that? In any case, isn't conversation itself fun, and therefore worthwhile? I think so. One young Dutch man approached me after it was over to say he doesn't agree with me politically, but he thought it was really interesting, the things I had to say and the way I said them. He asked me for book recommendations. I got his email address, will put in some thought, and send them to him. You never know!
I can see that. I did not realize there were actual paying guests. I just remember presenting at an academic conference and thinking this is pointless as there was basically no one there outside of your select group of people. I assumed it was like that.
Also people get to see that Rod Dreher is articulate, erudite and a writer/thinker worth grappling with, and not the cross bw Ned Flanders and Savanorola on Orban's payroll that they've been warned about. And then word gets around!
Oh, that's funny!
God, I just finished that Packer piece, it's like his pen is dipped in sanctimony. You can feel him struggling to fit that novel onto the Procrustean bed of his political agenda, but it doesn't work without massive oversimplification.
And when he tries to draw some vague comparison bw Trump and Stalin's show trials, I'm once again faced with typical left-intellectual amnesia. It was people like him who supported Stalin and did all they could to obscure the reality of the Soviets—a George Packer born 100 years earlier would have been in the vanguard class.
American left-intellectuals are so dull now (they would certainly find reasons to denounce a 2024 "Magic Mountain" for some ideological crime or oversight), their entire program and worldview is either be like them or be a Nazi—and they wonder why their audience is vanishing.
It's too bad about Packer. I read The Unwinding, which came out about a decade ago, and chronicled America's decline since the 1970s and into the Great Recession. He better than anyone should have been able to survey the 2024 political landscape.
in the Trump era every brain on the left side of the aisle has become the same brain...he is the Satan that sits at the center of their universe
Indeed it is. (I can never get a simple "Like" to respond).
The conference looked like a blast! But I'm bummed that you won't put in a good word with VP-elect Vance - I was hoping you could convince him to do something to fix the Dallas Cowboys (like whack Jerry Jones).
Bravo! The best part: “INTERNALLY SCREAMING!!!!”
I see that demographic decline was mentioned in the same substack that having to contain China was mentioned in. I wonder has anyone really stopped to think about the demographic disaster that China is heading towards? I am not sure outside of a decade how they will be a true threat. Their demographics are a disaster and not looking to get any better. I don't see how they really don't start having true social and economic problems because of it. Same with South Korea. I do think that eventually both places are going to put severe restrictions on women to increase the birth rate. You can't have death feminism and a functioning society
South Korea appears to be heading to non-existence. It is morally wrong to force people to reproduce, not that I could see how that could be done in 2024.
I wonder if North Korea is having a similar situation. Do you know?
Countries with low birth rates may have to pay women to have children.
The scarier prospect is artificial wombs. Not many people seem to be talking about that.
I don't think the technology is anywhere close to that, and it may never be (at least not at any time frame we need to care about).
China's financial situation, particularly with seriously declining RE investments (which the party encouraged their people to purchase as a primary savings vehicle), is quite unstable. From what I read the regime's recent squashing of news of major accidents (one incident which killed 35 people, another more recent killed 7-8 people) is also causing restiveness.
Xi and the CCP retain a firm grip and their extensive belt/road investments (some in South America) are worrisome, not to mention their extensive defense build up (particularly in naval vessels).
Still, there are definite fissures in their economy which, if Trump is successful in his economy plans, don't bode well for them.
Meanwhile a number of U.S. businesspeople are quite optimistic about upside in the U.S.--as are foreign investors. The prospect of reducing the regulatory burden (Biden added over $1Trillion in new regulatory burdens in his term) and improving our energy situation has fueled the "animal spirits" driving our stock market. I'm cautiously optimistic as long as the Ukraine/Russia conflict doesn't become worse in the next 2 months.
A disturbing possibility is that post-Christian conservatism is in danger of becoming a strange amalgamation of Nietzcheanism and Ayn Randism--i.e., a type of conservatism that scoffs at sayings of Jesus such as "bless those who curse you" and "he who loses his life will find it" even as aspirational values.
Mike Johnson would affirm those values, but he is ideologically stuck in 1980s zombie Reaganism and tags along with the post-Christian conservatism to stay relevant. The pictures of him desperately trying to get in the frame with Trump, Musk, etc. down in Mar-a-Lago are kind of sad.
I don't detect so much as a whiff of "desperation" about Johnson. He strikes me as someone with a solid sense of himself and of his responsibilities, but who's also having the time of his life suddenly learning to work with the likes of Trump and Musk. He's smart, sober, and sane, and if he can keep Trump from poaching more of his narrow House majority, he'll do just fine.
Johnson voted for Ukraine aid, warrantless surveillance by the NSA and is a huge "free trader". Trump could depose him with one word, though, so I hope that intimidates him out of his zombie Reaganism.
Re: Trump could depose him with one word
Er, how? The president has no power over the House. And the backbenchers who tried to dump Johnson earlier this year lacked the numbers to do so.
See how the Texas senate moved en masse to aquit the Texas Attorney General after one truth social post from Trump
Johnson is like Pence. Unwilling to move on. But Trump values Johnson.
"Donald Trump as a kind of walking apocalypse"
Ah, let's hope so—in my view, this would be the ideal scenario. Let's hope he smashes the establishment at least half as hard as the politicos fear and imagine that he's gonna smash them.
Over the weekend, I ran into a mathematician and a science-minded atheist. Oh wow, I'd forgotten how out there some of your ideas about enchantment are, relative to the cultural status quo. They were trying to "explain" a proof against God's reality, and at some point I offended them by looking too bored. Evidently they thought they were being edgy and brilliant, and I was just going, ". . . Wait, was that it? So you're done?"
More generally, I find that it is becoming more difficult to communicate with the godless liberal heathens as they continue to harden into their ideological madness: their picture of reality is just too narrow and demented. I'm thinking that it might be getting to be about time for me to get outta Austin and go to somewhere less saturated with the crazies.
Also, Rod, I've gotta e-mail you about something; I'll send it to your Substack address soon, surely by tomorrow.
Math whiz and garden-variety atheist fail to see that scientific proof against God's existence is just as untenable as scientific proof for His reality (although some scientists are certainly working in that direction -- Stephen Meyer come to mind).
They appeared to be of the opinion that math and physics can supplant metaphysics, which strikes me as a category error. They didn't understand (for example) that their aversion to concepts such as teleology is in fact a metaphysical prejudice, not something dictated by the empirical data itself. File under "metacognition sorely lacking": technical processing power isn't the same thing as self-awareness or wisdom.
They'll never make that leap, Sethu.
Sigh, I know. I mean, I guess anything is technically possible with the Holy Ghost, but yes, one shouldn't hold one's breath on it.
If I should happen to meet anyone like these two, I’m going to have to ask them what they think about enchantment and wonder in life.
Its a simple Venn diagram. Physical universe is a rather large oval. Metaphysical universe is a much larger oval, partly or entirely overlapping.
But we're talking about people here who have an axiomatic belief that metaphysics is reducible to the physical universe, or that transcendence is reducible to immanence. And they think the math and science affirm them in that, but in fact math and science logically can't support any such claim.
Many deny transcendence entirely, or if they have to admit it as a possibility then lock it another "dimension".
It seems like these days they need to come to terms somehow with how complexity develops out of simplicity, so they have notions such as "emergent properties", which seems like an attempt to do an end run around transcendence.
True. But its circular reasoning. We can only verify what is physically measurable, therefore only what is physically measurable is true. God forbid that we consider some things may be beyond the capacity of our measuring tools. (Irony of the last sentence is deliberate).
Right: the premise they can't prove is "Only what is physically measurable is true". That is an epistemological and metaphysical axiom that they smuggle into their worldview.
Libertarians often have the same blindness. Only for them everything is reduced to making choices, with differing degrees of freedom or coercion in those choices, with weak moral guidance like the Harm Principle. More sophisticated libertarians at least recognize the harm question as loaded and childish, but still cannot escape the choice / freedom / coercion question, and still arrive at a Rousseauian conclusion with a blind faith that "THE MARKET" will, in some ineffable god-like manner, be able to solve everything, fairly for all. If you really want to hack such types off, start drawing parallels between their theories and Marxism - it's fun to watch the smoke come out of their ears. Nothing that is non-material can actually exist except as abstract rhetorical ways to discuss... choices - it's like Nominalism run amok.
They also ignore entropy, which is operative at the social level too. Economies tend to degenerate over time as wealth becomes more concentrated.
The more sophisticated ones don't ignore that. They praise it. I've even seen dead-serious ones argue for the re-legalization of slavery (including sex slavery), but only if... it's by mutual consent (of course).
I remember a short story about a future when slavery was reinstituted, without any racial basis, just like it was in many ancient cultures. A man who had too many bills and not enough money to pay them might sell a daughter for instance. (Families in Thailand sell a daughter into sex slavery when they need a new refrigerator). There was even a Federal Slave Board to regulate the industry, but its regulations did not preclude whipping as a last resort.
As a biologist originally, I find that biologists and mathematicians tend to insist that science opposes religion, whereas physicists tend to think it points towards religion, although not necessarily Christianity. The chemists tend to be the wisest, or at least humblest, maintaining that science has nothing to say in this respect.
Biologists are still fighting the Genesis-is-literal-truth creationists.
Which is foolish on both ends. Its not hard to find the foundations of evolutionary biology in the first chapter of Genesis. Not the exact details, the theological and causative foundation. Its how God worked.
Chemists get to regularly set things on fire, which tends to connect with the transcendent. Plus, some of the best cooks I've met are chemists, and they see cooking as an ineffable art.
Re: their aversion to concepts such as teleology is in fact a metaphysical prejudice, not something dictated by the empirical data itself.
You don't even have to look far to find natural teleology woven into basic physics, although in a probabilistic not deterministic manner.
Yet mathematics, or arithmetic, is a pretty good doorway to metaphysics.
Sure, it could be, as long as people don't come in with all sorts of false metaphysical priors that they wanna impose on the thing.
The principle of Greek epistemology is The One. That's all I'm saying.
Have you ever lived in small town rural America? I’d highly recommend it. It will change your view of America.
I haven't; that sure would be a big jump. I was thinking maybe a smaller city to start with—such as Waco, population 145K.
Waco looks nice. But I was thinking 50k or less. The bigger cities of 100k or more have all the same stuff as the super big cities. At less than 50 K they define growth as being big enough for an IHOP. And many of the smaller towns don’t want growth. They don’t fetishize it which is very different from the big cities.
I could see Sethu in Marfa, TX. I passed through during a road trip years ago and it was a mix of hippie & cowboy. Prices are probably going thru the roof like everywhere but who knows, could still be cool.
I've definitely thought about checking it out.
I grew up in a city that was just under 50,000 in the midwest.
Well, I guess so did I, technically: it was a suburb in greater Chicagoland.
Mine was forty miles south of Green Bay. It was also the home town of the late Joseph McCarthy, who died shortly before we moved there. My mom said to one of our new neighbors, she was wondering what McCarthy's home town would be like. The neighbor said "Oh, he's not so much. I know the family." Mom repeated this at a dinner party, and the hostess said "That's my husband's uncle you're talking about." In 1968, students from the local university knocking on doors for Gene McCarthy were sometimes told "Whose Gene McCarthy? I'll vote for any relative of Joe."
My home town plus the township around it was c. 60,000. But we were also next door to Ann Arbor, and the Detroit metro sprawl was just a very few miles up I-94. Unfortunately the town took a severe hit when two of three auto factories closed and it's a ghost of its former self.
I've tended to thrive best in cities that are around the 100,000 range: Ann Arbor, Akron, Fort Lauderdale and now St Pete for the second time. Big enough to have plenty of amenities (and importantly for me, an Orthodox church, which are seldom found in rural areas) but not so big as to be overflowing with Big City Problems.
Yeah: when I leave Austin, I'll probably lose access to an Eastern Catholic parish, since there just aren't that many of those around. So that would be the catalyst for me to jump over to Orthodoxy.
Heartily recommend it. I currently live in a town of 25,000, and grew up in a town of 5,000 - both in the Midwest. I’ve traveled all over the world and lived on 3 continents. Small-town rural America is a great place to hole up while the rest of the world destroys itself by acculturated progressive ennui.
In my high school algebra book was a "proof" that 0=1. Trying to develop a PROOF against God's reality must be something like that. (The equation is fairly well known. It involved a fraction formed by variables a and b, such that without clearly seeing it, one is dividing by zero).
I like Gödel's incompleteness theorem, which I gloss to mean that a complete system cannot demonstrate its own axioms to be valid. That lacuna should make people feel much less fanatically certain about systems of all kinds, but of course it doesn't.
Before I moved from IL to NC, in my research I found out that the county I ended up moving to had not voted for a Dem for President since FDR. Works for me. FYI, it’s fun to live with your tribe. Before you move, remember that once you choose a state you’d like to live in, all research then shifts to picking the right county. You can pick a great state, but you also need pick a great county in the great state, because so much local policy begins at a county level.
To be clear, as an inquisitive person, I do not live in a bubble. In general I find that the left only knows its arguments, but the right knows its arguments *and* those of the left. This is born out in the many lefties we’re hearing about post-election who don’t know why Trump won.
Come to Ohio!
Hm, I'm thinking that Texas still speaks to me. There's so much Texas; I figure I could look around and find somewhere that works.
I understand. There’s always a room for you here, should you ever decide to check out Ohio.
And you'd be living in a Bowling for Soup song if you moved from Texas to Ohio
My friend moved from here to Cleveland several years ago, and I just thought to myself, “Well, she always was kinda strange.”
She said she needed a break
A little time to think
But then she went to Cleveland
With some guy named Leland
That she met at the bank
There's nothing wrong with Ohio
Except the snow and the rain
I really like Drew Carey
And I'd love to see
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
So when you're done doing whatever
And when you're through doing whoever
You know Denton County will be right here waiting for you
Come back to Texas
It's just not the same since you went away
Before you lose your accent
And forget all about the Lone Star State
There's a seat for you at the rodeo
And I've got every slow dance saved
Besides the Mexican food sucks north of here anyway
Okay, I actually looked up the song now, and I can’t stop laughing.
If you have a hard time convincing someone with reason nosebleeds can help. You are feeling a sharp pain in your head. Droplets are forming at the end of your nose. People need miracles, they always have and they always will. No miracles, no signs, no believe. Personally I like the check arriving by mail, though Zelle's ok these days.
That epistemology is pretty punk rock.
I’m a Protestant (Presbyterian)who is gifting Living in Wonder to several friends and relatives for Christmas, so maybe I’m the wrong person to ask. But I agree with most if not all the things cited as contributing to the decline of Christian practice in the later years of the 20th century. Bring the woo back and address the purposelessness holes in our psyche. We don’t need religion to be relevant to modern life; we need modern life to be relevant to religion.
I agree with most of it too! I'm Protestant (also Presbyterian). I do feel Calvinists get a bad rap because generally people believe the stereotypes about Calvinists, without ever really delving into Calvin.
Well, some of us actually did delve into Calvin, he just didn't convince.
Well, when you’re sick of Calvin, there’s always a good old Presbyterian potluck. :)
I’m a Protestant, and I absolutely loved the book! I’ve already bought some extra copies to give as Christmas gifts.
I've just finished Living in Wonder, and I have a lot to say about it, most of it positive, but for now I'd like to express a friendly challenge to Rod's characterization of Elon Musk. Is he really just an apostle of the Machine and transhumanism? I think that a lot of his popular appeal, especially to young men, is that he represents something that Rod correctly praises in LiW: acknowledging, and relishing, the fact that we do not, and cannot, have complete control over our personal or collective lives, no matter how advanced our technology. Before the SpaceX booster rocket was caught by the "chopsticks" tower last month, Musk said something like (I'm paraphrasing) "Entertainment is guaranteed. Success is possible." He knows, and the young people who admire him know, that the colonization of Mars will include disasters and tragedies. That's a big part of what makes it an exhilarating adventure. In some ways it's the opposite of what the Machine offers, which it to connect to a screen and "safely" imbibe pornography and other ersatz experiences.
The problem with Musk is that he doesn't see space exploration as part of the ongoing project of learning about God's universe, but sees planetary colonization as the salvation of mankind and the purpose of our existence (i.e. having as many children as possible and populating the universe). That is not our salvation or our purpose.
These are strange times. I don't rule out Musk having a Christ encounter at some time in the future. He seems just weird enough for that to happen to him. :)
I would add another issue with Musk - he often doesn't think things through, and works in an ad hoc manner. Starlink is a prime example - Earth is becoming enwebbed with cheap LEO satellites while an awful lot of debris is chucked into orbit too, all in a quest to connect everyone everywhere to the internet... for a price. There are deep ethical considerations in this operation, from litter in LEO making future launches difficult (not good to run into even small metal chips at orbital escape velocities), to privacy issues. It's getting hard to go anywhere where one cannot be quickly found, which will be abused. He's very much the exemplar of doing something without ever asking whether he should.
One thing that worries me about human colonisation elsewhere is that it means all life on earth could be destroyed without the Petrine promise being broken.
Why would this worry you? If the Church goes on as Jesus promised is that not a good thing?
I tell people that, although a theatre nuclear war is not impossible, we know that the Church will survive until the Second Coming, so we have Christ's assurance that there will be no nuclear holocaust.
However, if the Church exists somewhere outside the earth, this does not apply, and we don't have this assurance.
Ever read "A Canticle for Leibnitz"? Spoiler: tje Church does survive nuclear war.
As a practical matter a nuclear war would be mainly fought in the northern hemisphere. The global south would suffer severe climate effects, and complete economic collapse, but there would be survivors, and some of them Catholics, even prelates. Future popes would still be called Bishop of Rome but would reside elsewhere, as our Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch resides in Damascus.
I’ve often seen that book recommended, but never read it.
Christian sci-fi is pretty uncommon. There’s C.S. Lewis’s trilogy, of course, but I can’t think of much otherwise.
A nuclear holocaust that kills everyone is perfectly possible.
I also liked his speech about abortion and pregnancy where he said the problem is schools etc. teaching teenagers that their life is over if they get pregnant when having a kid is such a great source of joy.
Their life is not over but it would be good if adoption was not stigmatized as the path forward. The 3 mothers of Musk's children have a billionaire providing resources which most will not have (but i doubt he is spending much parenting time with 12 kids when he is running 4 or 5 companies plus trumps commission))
I had no idea Musk had so many baby mamas. He also needs to stop smoking so much reefer.
I think adoption should only be a last resort. I think there should be decent welfare for single mothers, and really obvious things like good crèches at colleges. I also don’t think shotgun marriages are necessarily a bad thing; my guess is that in many cases the couple are actually in love, and could make a go of it if supported and encouraged.
Of course, a cultural assumption in favour of chastity would be great too.
‘It takes a village to raise a child’: Try imagine liberals saying that now!
Adoption is a necessity in any society (in the Middle Ages nobles even fostered their younger kids with others) and we should be very wary of stigmatizing it in any way.
I don't want to stigmatise it, and I think it is sometimes the least bad option. However, I think efforts should be made to keep babies with their birth mothers. Obviously if the mother is a totally strung-out junkie and prostitute, that might not be possible, but I don't think just being a girl of 15 who gets pregnant is in the same category.
15 is too young to raise a child. At best the duty would fall to the grandparents .
Adoption should not only not be stigmaized; it is held up in the New Testament as the very image of our relationship with God
Well, OK, but minors should not be having children. This isn't the Middle Ages; women handily survive child birth these days and very, very few infants die. Child bearing can wait until full maturity.
I certainly don't think early teenagers should be having children, although of course some will get pregnant, and should therefore have the children. I think the late teens is actually a good age to have children.
Even Plato and Aristotle thought women should wait until 20 (mainly for medical reasons) and medieval doctors also advised waiting. In the present world the lack of social maturity precludes successful patenting by the young.
"safe" is a word I am growing to hate.
Re: Is he really just an apostle of the Machine and transhumanism?
Add in "apostle of Big Money interests" and yep, that's what he is. His presence in Trump's circle bodes nothing good for us peons.
My son idolizes him…he scares me. I can’t quite put my finger on it,but, there’s something not right with that man and no, it’s nothing to do with him
“being on the spectrum”.
He did save free speech, though. I think that his purchase of Twitter was the single most decisive factor that drove the results of the recent election, since that broke the mainstream media's monopoly on things.
I agree with that. Happy to give credit where credit is due.
Huh? Hardly. He bought Twitter and now censors it to favor his preferred speech.
Yeahh, I coulda guessed you'd see it that way.
Privately owned online platforms are not covered by the 1st Amendment. Musk can do what he wants on his shiny toy. Free speech goes best in the public square, or even just a barstool.
First, congratulations on all the good press and major conferences! I feel like our esteemed host is finally catching a break, even if it may be small.
Second, and I'm curious if anyone else can feel it, there does seem to be something "in the air" regarding our seismic political shift. I am cautiously hopeful that there can actually be meaningful change in our bureaucracy. I want to see Elon rip through the government like Javier Milei.
Third, having watched some of the liberal pundits (Jon Stewart, John Oliver, etc.) I'm surprised by some of what they said. They really believed that bringing the Cheneys on board would sway the moderates! John Oliver was surprised that Harris was not considered "moderate" by the voters! I don't know if they are capable of understanding outside the progressive paradigm.
I think Living in Wonder comes at a very fortuitous time. I was talking with a Methodist friend of mine while our kids played this Saturday. He mentioned and brought up spiritual warfare and how to look for it. He said his preacher has seen stuff also. He is listening to podcast by Catholic Exorcists.
I am not sure I would put Anglican's in with other protestants when it come to this stuff. The ACNA has exorcists that have trained other conservative Anglican groups on this. As you said Hans Boursema is an Anglican. Yes we have had our fair of struggles over the past 50 or so years but I think the tide is turning. I see myself as an Anglo Catholic and I am convinced by salvation by faith alone and that is what keeps me from jumping ship
Great interview with one of my faves, Emily Jashinsky, but I gotta say, Rod, the filter you used completely erased all your wrinkles. We want to see the real you!
I'm a Protestant (charismatic) and while I haven't read very far into Living In Wonder, and while I don't really get the significance of a priest blessing water to make "water more fully what it is", I like to think of this realm of enchantment from the perspective of Star Trek.
Imagine if Captain Kirk and Spock came down and visited you and told you that they were looking for recruits for their next voyage into space. You would have a year to get ready when they would return to pick you up. Wouldn't that change how you see everything? Wouldn't your days be filled with the "enchantment" of knowing where your destiny was headed? Wouldn't that bring significance and meaning to your life? Even if you couldn't "prove" to anyone else that you were about to get beamed up the the starship Enterprise.
My point is, that when you run into the real, then you see things differently. If Star Trek were real, then things would change for you.
Well there's something way more real than Star Trek. But just like how science covered up all sorts of things in recent years, it also covers up what we know about God, or more specifically, what we know about how rare the Earth is and what that implies. Scientists assume the correct stance is that there is no God, or at least that God is not involved, and so He is ignored and they are forced to develop materialistic explanations for how we got here. But that is a crazy stance given what science itself tells us about our rareness, and especially given that the bible matches what we have discovered.
The evidence is right there in front of us - just as much as if Captain Kirk and Spock were standing in front of you. In a sense, we don't have to search for a sense of the enchanted, the enchanted in the form of what God has done is yelling at us.
Beam me up Scotty.
Years ago, when I was in college, I used to sit in church and look at everyone else just sitting there. And I would think, why are they all just sitting there? Don't they understand how real God is? Don't they get what that means?!
And I would want to start singing Bill Gaither's "Get All Excited" song. We serve a God that we should be so thankful for. But even more, we should be downright excited about our God. He's out of this world. Literally.
I pulled up my favorite AI and asked it about that song. I asked it: The song says, "Get all excited and tell everybody that, Jesus Christ is King". Why should knowing Jesus is king make us excited? Here's its reply. It sounds like it "gets" why we should be excited:
------------------
According to Christian theology, Jesus being King has several significant implications that believers consider exciting:
1. Personal significance - It means each person has direct access to the ruler of the universe who cares about their individual life, concerns, and wellbeing. This contrasts with earthly kings who are typically distant from their subjects.
2. Ultimate authority - The belief that Jesus is King means He has authority over all other powers, circumstances, and challenges people face. For believers, this provides comfort and confidence knowing that their King is ultimately in control.
3. Purpose and meaning - If Jesus is King, then His followers are part of His kingdom and have a meaningful role in His plans. For many Christians, this gives their lives a sense of purpose and significance.
4. Promise of justice - The concept of Jesus as King includes the belief that He will ultimately establish perfect justice and make all things right, which gives hope to those facing difficulties or injustice.
5. Future hope - In Christian theology, Jesus being King points to both present comfort and future promises - that He will return to fully establish His kingdom and make everything new.
So when Gaither wrote these lyrics, he was expressing the Christian perspective that recognizing Jesus as King isn't just acknowledging a fact - it's embracing a relationship and reality that transforms how one views life, challenges, purpose, and the future. The excitement comes from both the personal implications and the cosmic significance of His kingship.
Dean, I wish Rod would have written something like: When the priest blesses water, as someone set apart for ministry he is asking God to make the water more fully what it is by the power of the Holy Spirit." That's actually more in keeping with the Orthodox prayers for the blessing of water.
I was part of one of the original Vineyard churches for a few years, and (apart from resonance with Catholic spirituality) such a thing would be not be far from what anyone could pray for with regard to the medical means God might use to heal someone, for example.
I grew up Catholic but left and became a (mostly) Charismatic Evangelical Protestant. However, one thing that sustained me in my Protestant years was the answer to the Catholic Catechism questions I had to learn at age 7: Who made you? God made me. Why did God make you? God made me to know him, love him and serve him in this world, and to be happy with him forever in heaven. Further study altered my view of what "heaven" is all about, but my experience as a Protestant didn't always give me theological solidity under my feet. There were some truly kind and Christ-like people in my life during those years, for which I'm grateful - and I needed a place for the intellect as well.
Dana
Pentecostals often pray over handkerchiefs so that people can take them and put them under someone's pillow to be healed. I guess a priest blessing water is similar. Normal water can only quench your physical thirst, but blessed water could perhaps heal you. But I still don't get the idea of making "water more fully what it is". In my mind, it's just water that was prayed for. It's holy in the sense that it has been set apart for use by God. Or a better word might be consecrated. But then I was never Catholic or Orthodox so I must be missing something.
I think that to understand the "make water more fully what it is", you would need to read Fr. Alexander Schmemann's classic "For the Life of the World". It's fairly short and powerful. It's a fully sacramental way of being in the world.
Alas, I have way too many books stacked up right now ready to be read next! I'm having trouble getting through Living In Wonder as it is. But thanks for the suggestion.
One of the understandings of Christ's baptism in the Jordan is that Christ's entry into the waters blessed the waters and cleansed them from spiritual taint. You can see this in Orthodox icons of Theophany - often you will see two water spirits present in the river as Christ's entry is driving them off.
Water can quench your thirst, but it can also kill you by drowning, by carrying diseases and filth, or by freezing or cooking you. It is necessary for life, but it is often put to other uses, not just by humans but by spiritual forces too.
By making it "more fully what it is", you could also say "it is put back to its right purpose."
As a Protestant, I hadn't heard of that. I wouldn't be surprised if it were true that Jesus's baptism drove away two water spirits. Wherever He went, the kingdom of God invaded and overthrew the powers of darkness. You could say that water was never intended by God to be ruled by evil spirits, and that in that case, he put the water back under His rulership, and back to the way God had intended it to be. So maybe I'm just hung up on this word "fully", but I still don't see why that word is used. I mean does it mean the water is "purified", or "consecrated", or "indwelt", or something else? I'm not getting it.
In fact, I'm not getting a lot of Living in Wonder. Rod does seem to have a very Orthodox way of thinking that I never really picked up reading his posts, but it has made it hard for me to figure out what he means in the book.
I think you've mostly got it. "Fully" is an emphatic in this case - it's saying that God has redirected water back towards its proper ends. Another image I could point to is the New Earth of Revelation, which has no seas / oceans. Oceans are realms of chaos and disorder, of concealment and darkness - something we tend to forget now that we can deep dive into them to find their secrets in darkness, and the ships with which we ply them are rarely sunk outside of war. Our forebears had another relationship entirely, and many are the fervent prayers for safe passage.
There are some other books that I could recommend on Orthodox theology and culture, if you were interested. There are several good approachable ones which try to give an idea of the Orthodox mindset.
Okay, thanks for that. Sounds somewhat then like a difference in terminology, but I suppose it maybe also has something similar to do with the issue of transubstantiation, which Protestants don't believe in, or the idea that only a priest can do something like blessing the water, which Protestants don't believe in either.
I've heard Christians complain about the lack of seas/oceans in the New Earth, but then we don't think about how foreboding such things used to be viewed. I hadn't either.
I've seen Theophany icons numerous times, but I never took the "spirits" to be evil or in the midst of flight. In the large icon mural at my church they seem quite attentive to Jesus as if recognizing this is a good thing for them too. I would interpret them as "natural powers", which we are admonished not to traffic with, but which are in no wise wicked. Any notion that ordinary matter is normally possessed by demons strikes me as next door to world-hating Gnosticism.
There are some iconographic tells, including how they're often transparent (demons lack full form). Icons rarely will show emotion in faces, so the spirits in the water are not going to look angry. Remember too that Leviathan (Babylonian Lotan) is a chaos spirit of the waters.
https://www.orthodoxroad.com/theophany-icon-explained/
Regarding demonic possession (really, inhabitation) of matter - what do you think idols are? This is by no means gnosticism, it's just a recognition that God's creation can be misused and corrupted (and not just by us). Christ's entry into the water asserts his soverignty over it.
I would only "boldly go" if Nurse Chapel and Lt. Uhura were onboard...
Beam me up!!!!
Yes, Matthew B. Crawford's review of 'Living in Wonder' is well-written, insightful and complimentary. But I wish he had not accused you of being an internet polemicist. I think that is over the top.
Well, Rod does polemicize at times, and he does publish on the internet. Why is that an accusation?
As happy as I am and as amused as I am, I’m honestly really scared. Not in a meltdown sense….Lord have Mercy, I’m a stronger woman than that… but, everything feels surreal and off, like I’m living in a Goya or a VanGogh, it’s all so…sideways.
It’s disorienting. The change is so rapid it’s almost vertigo inducing.
The Gospel coalition review was of interest, Rod, because it was both Baptist and Calvinist. The combination exists but I do not believe it is very common. You may have spotted it right away but I had to dig down to see where they were coming from.
There are a lot of reformed Baptists actually
"By 2000, Reformed Baptist groups in the United States totaled about 16,000 people in 400 congregations" Johnson, Robert E. (2010). A Global Introduction to Baptist Churches. Cambridge University Press. p. 358. ISBN 978-0-521-70170-9. (quick edit for typo)
This may be a good time to say it - though you did not directly imply such.
I feel it is sometimes assumed here that Reformed theology, i.e .Calvinism, is common for Protestants. They are only about 12 percent of Protestants. Generally in Dutch Reforomed and Presbyterian Churches, as well as some small denominations and smaller off-shoots of denominations. For instance, as stated, about 18,000 Baptists in all whereas thee are 13 million Southern Baptists in the USA.
I think it is very unusual for any Baptist church to teach that baptism saves*. It is an gernally held to be an outward symbol of an inward work in their theology. It is faith - usually expressed by praying to accept Christ as Savior - that saves. Most believe it is not true acceptance unless one repents of sins.
The stats here are interesting but misleading. A large % of the Southern Baptist convention is reformed in its soteriology (i.e. Calvinism) but that would probably not show up on the survey results. So the 16000 number probably represents the much smaller subgroup which self-identify specifically as reformed baptists (and usually have "1689" tattooed on their arms).
If you look at where the energy has been in the last 20 years among young evangelicals, it has largely been with big-tent reformed groups like T4G and TGC, which includes various stripes of Presbyterian, Anglican, and Baptist believers -- though that is changing now.
OK, are you telling me that people who believe God chooses some to be saved, and some to be damned, believe that it is not up to their free-will, are a large percent of Southern Baptists?
But - anyone coming on here saying they are Reformed, such as Presbyterians, I give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they believe in free will anyway. Surely they can't seriously believe God predestines people for hell? I gotta ask. Do they?
(Yes, I get the theory - humans so depraved - totally - they can't even believe without grace. But God extends grace to all, with the right to refuse. Irresistible grace is a problem, in my opinion. )
I've yet to meet a Presbyterian who wouldn't, when pressed, admit that God does predestine some for damnation. They have various wiggles to try and get out of it (God knew they would never choose to be saved when He made them, so damnation was a kind of gift? judgement?).
And functionally, many many Evangelicals are Calvinist-lite. They may eschew predestination, but "Once Saved, Always Saved" is still picking and choosing the easy stuff from TULIP while trying to avoid the implications of the rest of Reformed theology.
I remember well one of the final breaks I had with that world was when one week the pastor at my church went full-on Calvinist (predestination included), and then the next week backtracked and went full on Arminian to try and get out of the worst implications of Calvin.
Reformed theology is difficult to escape in any American Protestantism - it was the faith of the Puritans (and we should not underestimate their influence to this day), it was the faith of the Scotish and Scotch-Irish settlers of the Appalacian interior (if not directly, then through the Baptists), Reformed / Arminian debates were raging hot throughout the early 1600s when other groups came over (that debate being a major factor in the English Civil War). The Restoration settlement within Anglicanism tried to put some of that aside, but much was already baked in.
Functionally today, many Evangelicals are "Reformed-Lite" due to this history.
I'd say it was not the faith of my ancestors, Mom's side, who settled the Appalachains in 1781. I have the doctrinal statement from the Baptist church founded by my gggg-grandfather, in the early 1800s. First meeting in his cabin, he an elder, it later become the First Baptist Church of Sweetwater, Tennessee. It is Arminian. Salvation by faith, with God not choosing who is saverd or damned. And in my travels round the hills, I can see that "Primitive Baptist" (Calvinist) is much more rare than "Missionary Baptist" (Arminian) even with regard to historic church buidings and locations.
We likely came over from Antrim, in what is now Northern Ireland, of Scottish descent, of course. Presbyterian while in Northern Ireland is assumed. Baptist because at first there were no Presbyterian Churches in the Appalachain backwoods due to the high degree of education required to be a minister. Eventually my grandfather and his father went to Eusebia Presyterian for a time since it was across the road from their farm, but they returned to being Baptist. Our family is Arminian Baptist. I never heard talk of God choosing to damn people. - - I'll talk about Calvinism, Baptists, etc, in general, but I will not say that my people were majority Calvinist in the sense that they believed God fated people to be damned. And the Appalachains of East Tennessee are my people.
Corrie Ten Boom is a famous Reformed Christian. I heard her speak when I was a child. I heard her say that it is like a Mom who calls five children in from play for cookies, but lays out 3 cookies. The Mom knew in advance that the other two would not want cookies. That is one of the hedges you speak of. Yes, I know that is actually Arminian but Corrie didn't and I think a lot of Reformed believe that way.
The truth is - look away anyone reading this hwo thinks God damns people on purpose - the truth is is makes me sick to my stomach to think someone who pretends to be a loving Christian could think that and the idea that there are large numbers of young Evangelicals who accept that is probably the worse news I've heard in years. I'm really sickened. I don't want to believe it , but it sounds like it is a known fact.
My family also not believe once saved/always saved. We are of very strong Baptist background. I am a Catholic convert. (PS - Baptist is Mom's side - For Dad's I assume they were Anglican when they came to Virginia, but the first I know of their faith is when they got involved in a Wesleyan revival - Dad's family are Methodist to this day also not Calvinist. Dad and Mom agreed to attend the Baptist church and raise us that way. - - Actually, they let me pick after trying both when I was six and I liked Baptist better, so Baptist it was.)
Finally, I think the influence of Puritans on American, while there, can be over-estimated. I'm a Southerner and I think Anglicans had a lot to do with things. The Germans - so of Lutheran stripe - had a lot to do with them. Quakers were a huge percent of the population before the Revolution. Roger Williams and his people are not to be forgotten. Now was New York ever much influenced by Puritans. (Yes, I know...Colleges...Great Awakening...I still think they Puritans are over-blown.)
There are 2 types of Baptists. Free-will Baptists are basically Arminian. Particular Baptists are (mostly) Calvinists. What unites Baptists is their hatred for church hierarchy (each church is self governing), and their adamant belief that only a "believer's baptism" is valid.
"only a "believer's baptism" is valid"
Some Baptists even rebaptize "Restorationists" (or "Campbellites:" Disciples of Christ, Church of Christ, or Churches of Christ) because while the latter only baptize adults, they all believe that it is baptism itself which "saves" or "regenerates," cf. I Peter 3:21, while Baptists believe that it is a symbolic token.) These "Restorationists" have a very "apostolic" view of Baptism, while at the same time holding a Zwinglian view of the Lord's Supper.
Yes, Particular |Baptist are one type of Reformed Baptist There is also Strict \Baptist, Primitive Baptist, Regular Baptist, United Baptist, Soverign Grace Baptist, etc I would agree they dislike hierarchy, and only adut baptism on confession of faith is considreed valid.
I'd forgotten about all the sub-categories.
A Philosophy professor of mine was close friends with my great uncle who is an Old Regular Baptist minister. He introduced me to an incoming college president "Andrew is Orthodox, his uncle is an Old Regular Baptist, they run the full range in that family".