Clarification about the UK - the assisted dying bill is not Labour government policy. It was a private members bill, introduced by a labour MP, who won the private members bill lottery. Starmer was privately in favour, but explicitly refused to whip his MPs, or say which way he would vote. High profile labour ministers like wes Streeting spoke out against it.
I think it's important to note that this bill was not part of the labour government's legislative program, set out in the king's speech.
I'm thinking that the notion that life begins at conception isn't going to be popular, if it ever was, because it bypasses the circuitry of ordinary human moral intuitions. We assume that murder should *feel* like killing a person who *looks* like a person, but most people are unlikely to feel very much at all when looking at the early stages of this chart:
(On the other hand, people who aren't woke-addled monsters feel increasingly uncomfortable with abortion as the pregnancy progresses, which is to say as the creature begins to look more and more undeniably human. That tracks with ordinary moral intuitions.)
The moral claim about conception is more an inference drawn from a premise of faith, for us Christians rooted in the understanding that Jesus was Jesus from the moment of the Annunciation, and maybe also in Jeremiah 1:5. Obviously, that's not gonna be persuasive in a post-Christian culture. So I'm not sure where things go from there.
Also, do people think about how many zygotes are formed through fertilization but never implant or are otherwise sponataneously destroyed? (Apparently not implanting, taken alone, is the fate of about one-third of all blastocysts.) The picture that emerges is one in which God presides over a gargantuan prenatal abattoir.
I feel troubled by that scenario. And it makes me at least somewhat sympathetic to the notion that perhaps something like quickening is real, and that non-Jesus souls perhaps haven't actually entered their respective bodies yet at the precise moment of conception. Because if they have, then that's an enormous number of real humans who die before we ever even became aware of their existence.
It is not a "notion" that a human life begins at conception, but simple scientific fact. This illustrates how much people tend to be driven not by sound moral reasoning, but by emotion--for instance, the emotional response of seeing very early stages of a human being's life--of your life and mine--and concluding that if it doesn't look like anyone I recognize, then it's not really human and can be disposed of. If you could hold that tiny creature in your hand, Sethu, would you crush the life out of it? "Quickening" occurs at about four months gestation; the notion that it is just a featureless, soulless blob prior to that is astonishing.
As for your last sentence, an enormous number of humans has died, both before and after birth, throughout history, around the world, and I was not aware of their existence. So?
No one doubts that a biological life begins at conception; what people disagree about is whether it is a human life in the full moral and spiritual sense, or whether it's more like Adam's clay shell before God breathed into him.
And I don't believe I described my own opinion or what I would do in my comment. I'm merely stating the empirical fact that usual moral intuitions aren't provoked for most people when it comes to this matter.
By "quickening," I don't mean the kick specifically; just the idea that the soul enters the body at some point after conception. Most medieval Christians believed something of that sort (although to be fair, they weren't aware of the biology of conception).
Re: It is not a "notion" that a human life begins at conception, but simple scientific fact.
No it's not. Because human life does not "begin" at all. Sperm and egg are already alive and human too. And so on back to whatever origin our species has: Life gives rise to life; there is never a point in history when something dead becomes something alive (miraculous resurrections aside). The question is not about life, but about when we should acknowledge legal (and moral) personhood. A human being is trinity of Body, Mind and Soul-- and if one or more of those is lacking can we say a human being is present? At the end of life we acknowledge brain death as a valid criterion for death after which we see a corpse not a person-- why not make that comprehensive and acknowledge brain life as the beginning of human personhood? That's very early in the process of gestation, it would still rule out abortion as the term is generally understood. But it would not apply at fertilized egg of blastocyst stage.
"Although life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed…” [O'Rahilly, Ronan and Muller, Fabiola. Human Embryology & Teratology. 2nd edition. New York: Wiley-Liss, 1996, p. 8]
"Almost all higher animals start their lives from a single cell, the fertilized ovum (zygote)... The time of fertilization represents the starting point in the life history, or ontogeny, of the individual." [Carlson, Bruce M. Patten's Foundations of Embryology. 6th edition. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996, p. 3]
Jon. No. OK, say we do not know for sure when a soul is and is not present and yes, we can ask ourselves about it, as Sethu did. We do know the Orthodox and Catholic churches have teachings. We do have compassion for a woman who did not know a soul was present when she had an abortion.
But - If I were to grant we were unsure about that presence of a soul- - and I don't actually grant that, but even if I were - we still do not end the life of a separate human being, with its own unique DNA, because we think we can decide the being has no soul.
C'mon friend, say you were just writing stuff but you knew that.
Not to mention all those verses where God says "I knew you before you were born, I knitted you together in your mother, etc." It is the height of rationalization for a so-called "Christian" to say it is ok to destroy that.
Sorry, Jon. If you are going to use Christian posturing for gotchas, be on the receiving end. I would hate to be in front of the judgement seat and having to explain to the Lord your "reasoning."
Re: Not to mention all those verses where God says "I knew you before you were born, I knitted you together in your mother, etc."
Sure. I am not disputing that. I am emphatically not arguing for abortion all the way up to birth, Please do not attribute things to me I am not advocating.
Linda as I noted above the standard of brain and heart activity I suggest would pretty kibosh abortions since those usually begin before a woman even knows she's pregnant. Also, this is related to the old idea of "the quickening": a fetus begins to move showing that it has both Volition and Sensaation which are signs of mental activity.
I don't understand. You believe in abortions for people already born. Let's say someone has changed for the worse at age 25, should his parents have him aborted?
I appreciate Sethu that your above comment is you feeling your way—and reasoning based on the way most of us tend to think—about what is the beginning of any human being/life/individual. I don’t go along with you final twist toward some kind of quickening view.
But I have to sympathize when you say the life begins at conception view will be unpopular and with your reasons why it strains our imaginations.
Of course the biggest strain on our imaginations today is that we have subordinated our procreation partnership with God to the Machine. We have tried to wrest control from Nature and Nature’s God. And we have called these tiny human beings expendable—by legalizing their surgical removal and disposal, since 1973. That’s a huge imagination shift.
I really like the part of your argument about the Annunciation. I think if you sat with that insight it might enable a reconstruction of our procreative imagination.
The Catholic Church teaches that conception is the beginning of a human being. I don’t know the rational underpinning for what the Catechism says. But Mary, pregnant, is already the Mother of God, in both East and West, Mother of a divine person with a fully human nature. That could stir our imagination. The Western Church prays thrice daily the Angelus. The Annunciation is the turning point of human and salvation history. We should ponder it daily. And it’s the first Joyful Mystery of the Rosary. And in the traditional pre-or 1962 Missal used by many Catholics, every Sacrifice of the Mass concludes with the Little Gospel: John’s prologue is read and the whole congregation and priest “hit the deck” (genuflect) at “et verbum caro factum est”.
All of these liturgical and devotional realities could reform and reconstruct our intuitions in line with the conception view. And you can see then why I was enthusiastic about only some of your points.
I’m speaking theologically, as are you, which is fine as Rod encourages discussion of matters of faith.
I commend Rod for being horrified by the IVF executive order. I add that what a civilization decides to permit or even promote can undermine its very foundations. Christians have to care. Or else who will speak for the least of these?
(Some saw it as a hopeful sign that Trump’s EO on gender used conception as the starting point of a woman. And presumably a man. Who would have guessed Trump might not be consistent!)
I do find the implication of the gargantuan prenatal abattoir problematic, though: what does it mean if countless real humans perish before anyone on earth (the mother included) is even aware that they exist? That's horrifying in a way that could almost make one wonder about the goodness of God. And since that picture follows directly from the premise that a full human is created at the moment of conception, I'm led to wonder whether there's something faulty about the premise.
I also think that avoiding literal *murder* shouldn't strain our imaginations or require extensive religious contemplation. That's more of a very primal moral intiution that in this case doesn't kick, which I find kinda suspicious.
Also, it's worth noting that it was only very recently—around the 1870s—that science finally figured out what conception is. Christians theologically and morally managed for almost 19 centuries without knowing, aware only that there was some mysterious link between sex and babies.
Your first point does also make me scratch my head, and I confess the physical reality really shook me when I heard of this several years ago. I’m not sure what to make of it. For some reason God permits this. I don’t understand that process. But I trust God, I don’t trust our presumption to assume Godlike powers!
Again you had quite the insight when you said that Christians intuited for 19 centuries the link between sex and babies. We began to disrupt that crucial link already around 1930, and society is not the better for it.
The other big problem with IVF is the creeping commodification of children. What isn’t considered problematic? Egg donors? Sperm donors? Surrogates? Three or more persons’ DNA? Designer babies?
On commodification, I once heard of a spousal argument where the gut punch was, “I’m the one who paid for Jimmy Junior!”
I’ve been thoroughly enjoying the Livestream of ARC. Pageau’s Symbolic World Summit last Feb in FL set me up for a year of rich online connection with leaders in art that I respect and today much of the same call to create was delivered by notable artists in the “Bring On the Builders”. Makoto Fujimura’s speech will be shared to all my people, on both sides, and highly recommended for his thoughtful and densely packed commentary on what is presently needed. By the way, Rob, you were in a shot of the live stream video during Konstantin’s talk. I’m pleased for everyone there to be nourished by paying attention to the issues on the agenda in each other’s physical presence and look forward to all the creative solutions participants will bring forth!
"I said in my brief ARC remarks ... that politics are necessary to civilizational renewal, but not sufficient. I said that ultimately, our civilizational crisis is a crisis of meaning, and that means, at bottom, a religious crisis."
Bingo. Paul Kingsnorth's Erasmus lecture was knock-down brilliant, and a sorely needed corrective, but there remains ... something else. I think Rod's remarks above, and especially this bit, underline the stakes. We are not to adopt "cultural Christianity," but also we are not to reject dialogue with those who do (like Peterson, like Hirsi Ali). And though any Christian civilization will be warped by sin, as any Church is, we've inherited the Gospel itself thanks to those sinful civilizations.
Kingsnorth's ire against Jordan Peterson is always palpable. I get it, but don't myself feel it. Perhaps Kingsnorth is closer to sainthood than I am (not a high bar to reach), but I think it's also partly that he is closer to environmental activism. This seems to me the source of the ire.
Re: ARC he writes: "But Jesus didn’t come to Earth to teach us how to be ‘responsible citizens’, of any political stripe. Responsible citizens don’t leave their own fathers unburied. They don’t hate their own mother and father, or give away all of their wealth, or compare the religious authorities to whitewashed tombs full of rotting flesh. And they don’t usually end up being crucified."
I've written sentences almost precisely like this, when I was a Christian more "on the left". So again, I get it. But with more study, I've realized some of this language is misprised. Sometimes literally misunderstood because of the difficulties of translation.
Kenneth Bailey points out, just for instance, how the young man requesting time to "bury his father" is not at all telling Jesus that his father has just died, and he simply needs to arrange a funeral. Rather "to bury my father", in the idiom of the time, meant "to remain in the family home until my father passes away".
So both the young man's request and Our Lord's answer are misunderstood by many in English as a harsh contempt for basic familial norms. Likewise with the "hate" one's own father and mother. Its context in the Gospel text (the parable it falls after) and Jesus' inclusion of others to be "hated" (one is to hate "even one's own life") suggests a different stress than it takes when quoted by itself.
Jesus wasn't the anti-civilizational radical certain of his sayings, in their English translation, suggest. Against these passages, he of course also taught Moses' commandments as necessary. Which include: "Honor thy father and mother."
If Jesus' words to the young man suggest an exception, the reason for it not hard to grasp. Jesus *himself* is present. The Bridegroom is here, and don't mistake the fact. Likewise Peter and the others can leave their nets, because of this.
It is not to say that Jesus sets an "anti-civilizational" standard for all time.
Again, this isn't to say I think Paul Kingsnorth wrong. He's brilliant. I've enormous respect for him, for his unflinching honesty, for his subtle pen. I only suggest that his anti-civilizational argument calls forth counter-arguments that are both reasonable and based in Gospel truth.
It's worth noting, of course, that we all tend to see a Jesus who's a little more like us, colored by our own priorities and temperament. Paul Kingsnorth's Jesus a little more of an environmental activist, and Jordan Peterson's Jesus is a little more of a Jungian psychologist. I'm not saying all such takes are *equal* in validity, just that this kind of bias is unversal.
Also, there's the fact that Jesus often speaks in poetic hyperbole. And we tend to take any given comment of His as either more literal or more exaggerated, depending on our own preferences. Obviously He didn't mean for us to actually pluck our eyes out; less clear is whether He did indeed mean for all of us to give all our property away.
Yes. We’ll all tend to read both Jesus and the Gospels as stressing what we stress. It’s true for all of us to a degree, but in my experience, it seems particularly true of two groups: the recently converted; secular scholars/writers.
The best way to overcome it is to face up to precisely those elements which one wishes *weren’t* in the Gospel texts. And keep returning to the Church’s long history of interpretation.
Hyperbole is another important factor, and the scholars can help with this—with identifying where something likely should be read as such. Kenneth Bailey is very good, a scholar with long and serious study of Levantine village life and Semitic idiom. His readings of the parables uncover plenty that would otherwise cause us to trip up. Another supremely good reader of New Testament texts is NT Wright. These two make serious effort to overcome what they might want the text to say.
In any case, I think many of us spend a long time citing Jesus as if he were a backup or somehow Prime Witness to our own supreme wisdom. Of course this is to get it precisely backwards. Honest Christians will finally recognize what they’re up to and be embarrassed into humility.
Again, there are those who try to separate Jesus from God, when they are the same being, different facets. And God not only awarded many of his faithful with wealth, power and position, but gave rules for using such. Not rules against having it. Christ's problem is not you being wealthy. His position is what does such have in your heart and is it separating you from God? Have you, as so many of the wealthy and powerful do, made that your god? If you have not, Christ has no problem with you having those things, and a set of priorities for the faithful to have in using them.
It is indeed, and every bit of it is true. There is no inherent virtue in poverty, any more than there is vice in wealth. It is what place it has in your life and what you did to get it (both states.) The alcholic who cannot keep a job is no more virtuous than the ruthless corporate climber.
And you cannot separate God (Old Testament) from Christ. They are the same. God does not change.
"5 Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. 2 Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. 3 Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. 4 Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. 5 You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter.[a] 6 You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you."
1. You have HOARDED your wealth.
2. Failed to pay wages to workers.
3. Lived on Earth in luxury and SELF-INDULENCE.
4. And the big one, you have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you.
Again, the presence of wealth is not a problem. Actions (or lack thereof, are), and actions come from the heart, reveal it. The heart is Christ's concern, what's in it, not what's in your purse.
Gotta read it all, Rob.
Never mind ignoring all that stuff about many of the Lord's people becoming wealthy and using their wealth for His kingdom. And that's all wealth is, or should be, for the Christian. It is a tool and gives you options, options you do not have in poverty.
Again, as Christ says, it all comes down to where your heart is. If your heart is not in the right place with either, there is no virtue. If your heart is in the right place, it is. They themselves have no inherent value, one way or another.
"I'm poor! Look at my virtue!" Uh, no, why are you poor? "I'm rich! Am I not great in your sight, Lord?" No. Where's your heart?
I like your point about poetic hyperbole. If you take Jesus' sayings literally, it seems like an almost impossible standard to live up to. Am I ever going to own just one tunic (shirt)? If someone slaps my face, am I going to let them keep doing it? No and no. I wonder if he was just using exaggerated language to get his point across. On those two sayings for example, maybe he is teaching generosity and forbearance/forgiveness.
It’s also important, though, to not dismiss hard sayings by assuming, “That must’ve been hyperbolic—He couldn’t have possibly been serious about that.” So it goes both ways.
I fail to understand how Kingnorth could see environmental activism in the Gospel, while at the same time insisting that Jesus is profoundly against building a civilization, and Rod should stop discussing cultural issues. I’m not real familiar with his writings, so maybe someone can explain if I’m misunderstanding. But it seems to me that to be consistent you have to go all the way. You can’t claim that it’s sinful for Christians to use secular or cultural power to seek a more traditional, family friendly world, but it’s ok to use power to protect the environment.
If we say Christianity is against civilization building, we have to be prepared to shrug off the most gross injustice, defilement of the innocent, violent persecution, and destruction of the natural world, because Christianity does not include any sort of social or political vision.
This is where Kingnorth’s view struggles logically and ethically. I once knew a liberal pastor who bitterly criticized pro-life and pro-family activists as being inconsistent with the pure spiritual message of the Gospel. But he lauded MLK’s civil rights movement. You can’t have it both ways.
Paul Kingsnorth used to be much more into environmental activism in the past, I think, but he's moved away from that over time, due to the sense that activism today is also just one part of the bigger capitalist machine. But he's still very much against how modern society is based on the destruction and pillaging of the earth.
So, the idea isn't to use political power to protect the environment; Paul's view would be that civilization building is the main reason why the environment is in crisis in the first place. He's coming from the perspective of the desert ascetics and such people, who walked away from civilization in order to go find the truth of God in the wilderness.
As for Rod discussing cultural issues, the idea is that being so plugged into the day-to-day political news cycle might not be great for one's spiritual health, and could serve as a distraction from properly contemplating and pursuing God.
Also, I don't think Paul's just saying "Don't do anything" at the cultural and political level, any more than Rod's Benedict option is about heading for the hills. It's more about having our priorities straight and not confusing the Gospel with the things of this world. In particular, the problem is if we accept Christianity because we think it's *useful* (in the culture war, for example) rather than because we believe it is *true*.
I get the sense that this sentiment is an offshoot of his more extreme environmentalist. He has said essentially that all of humanity's problems start from technology and civilization (in other words, as soon as we stopped living in caves and began making tools). And now that he is Orthodox, he sprinkles in this sense that technology has a fundamental demonic origin
Which is completely bonkers imo but you can see where he gets the view
I sometimes wonder if our English language is simply incapable of ever accurately reflecting the mood and tenses of 2000 year-old languages.
Learning Spanish and its various conjugations has taught me that there are subtleties and nuances that just don't concisely translate to English. What then of the Koine Greek of the Apostles time? How many thousands of hours were poured into translating the Bible into Hungarian and other difficult languages? Has English become too large and cumbersome to effectively transmit the message of the Gospels?
I don’t think it’s a problem of tenses or a problem of English being too large. It’s mostly 1) the radical differences between distant eras; 2) the basic problem of translation per se.
Even modern, contemporary languages present serious translation problems whenever it’s a matter of something subtle being communicated. I live and teach in a different culture and deal with this every day. The problem is all the more when compounded by centuries of massive cultural shift, as we face when trying to read biblical texts.
But at least scholars now better understand the problem.
There's also the problem of translating the Word of God, the Word made flesh, into human interpretable language. That translation seems to me the far more difficult one. As Augustine said: "If you understood Him, it would not be God." (I think Kingsnorth is fond of this quote and I probably heard it first from him.)
BTW, I’ve been troubled for years by the problem of English translations of the Gospels. This guy is one who in my estimation really *gets* what the task is:
And even though it's been around for a while, some significant revisions to verses in the ESV translation were announced in February. It's really difficult.
I think English is "capable of accurately reflecting the mood and tenses of 2000 year-old languages" but it can't always do it perfectly. Languages change so much. Try reading Chaucer in Medieval English. Or Elizabethan English. Or Jane Austen. Nobody speaks like Elizabeth Bennet today. Think how words change. Until recently, gay meant happy. However, the word gay was purloined forty years ago to mean male homosexual.
Well, I quite like Jane Austen, and had inadvertently picked up some of the phrasing used in those 18th and 19th century novels. (A former ex teased that I "had the jarring habit of switching between the voice of a 19th century character and the slang of 21st century bro." I took it as a compliment XD)
The message of the Gospels is this: God became Man that Man might be freed from the reign of sin and death and find eternal life in Christ. Yes, translations inevitably lose something along the way and may also introduce nuances that were not present in the original-- that was true when the Gospels were translated into Latin and other ancient languages. We should be wary of reading too much into minor grammatical and syntactical points in any translation. But the central message survives quite intact.
Fully agree with you on the central message here. But Sethu's point stands. The Gospels contain much teaching as well, often in parables, and people of different persuasions will bend the message to fit their priors.
And this is why we have a Church with trained clergy and even scholarly folks educated in the ancient languages and their cultures to provide authoritative teaching. However no one is going to be saved or damned because of some offbeat take or error in their understanding of the lesser points of the Gospel. Faith is not mere belief-- it is an active Trust in the Lord. The Last Judgment will not involve a multiple choice theology test.
Last time I checked, the Holy Spirit came before the Bible, which means that the "understanding and clarity" were initiated through men, not the written Word.
I don't want to put words in Paul's mouth, but he has expanded on his concerns regarding Peterson, and they have paralleled my own for some time. I have been watching and listening to and reading Peterson for quite a while, and I always come away feeling like I'm watching a man on the brink of a sharp cliff up a mountain, pointing out the great and terrible wonder of the mountain, and enthusiastically telling everyone of the wonders that the myth of the mountain conveys, and lauding the ancestors who claimed they scaled the mountain and met Him who dwells upon it, but who himself will not climb the mountain either to see what (or Who) is really up there, or what lies beyond it.
There are two concerns, one primary, and a secondary dependent on the primary. I'll put this in my own words, but I think Paul would in part concur:
Peterson cannot (or will not) get past God-As-An-Ideal, and admit God is a Person. For Peterson, God I think remains abstracted. Peterson get it partly right, for I cannot tell you the countless numbers of men and women who have, at Peterson's own urging, gone past him and gone up the mountain themselves. I know this: they keep coming to my Orthodox parish, and (Lord willing) I'll even be a Godfather to several soon. Through Peterson, God is saving souls - this is undeniable.
But... (and this is a big butt here)
Peterson's inability to go meet God himself puts him in a dangerous place. By seeing the Sacred Myth of God as the Ideal Utility, this is why he can don that ridiculous icon sports coat and not understand why it's discordant (I don't find the jacket offensive - it doesn't affect me, but it does reveal Jordan). The jacket is kitsch that says "I love our heritage so much I'll wear it", but he won't actually venerate Him whom his jacket displays.
This is why he can also join up with the grifters and trolls at The Daily Wire who are quite literally war profiteers in the culture wars. (starting an explicitly "conservative" razor company just to troll Harrys and Gillette, for instance - "I hate that conservatives are too offended to buy Harrys, so I'll make a razor Liberals are too offended to buy!" If Boering really gave a flying fig about the corrosion of the culture wars, he'd start the razor company and keep his name out of it - by slapping his name on it he is *condoning and endorsing other companies also politicizing their own products*). Jordan has made a deal here that I do not think will turn out well in the long run.
Peterson does a lot of good, that is undeniable. But God is not a Platonic ideal, and the story of Abraham through to Jesus is not just a useful epic. And we cannot create Heaven on Earth through our own efforts, no matter how many ARCs we fashion. Someday I hope he realizes this and can go up the mountain like Tammy and Mikhaila already have.
You can hear Paul himself hash a lot of this out with Jonathan Pageau on a recent podcast.
This is very helpful. Years ago I thought Peterson himself was likely soon to recognize that the depths of wisdom he recognized in the Bible implied the depths of a Wisdom inspiring it, a Person. So I agree, his remaining frozen with his abstracted Cognitive or Platonic Ideal is not just unfortunate, but puts him in a dangerous place. Stranded and pointing at the mountain.
Do you think this really explains Paul's ire against Peterson though? I mean, ire against a guy who is stuck--what's the point? Perhaps Paul puts it down to hubris, I don't know. Or some kind of dishonesty. I see something else in Peterson, but just what it is I can't quite make out.
It is however very good that he is leading others to actually recognize the Person. So there too, why feel resentment against the man? Because he sometimes fellow-traffics with people whose politics I don't like?
Me I'm very glad Peterson is around, because he has pointed more people to the Gospel than I ever will, and I pray that God gives him the grace of faith.
There are many people who appear in the press or on podcasts or--Ecch--on TV screens that lead me as a Christian to feel ire and annoyance. Peterson isn't in the top 500.
I don't get a sense of ire from Paul, so much as a sense of discomfort and frustration. And that comes from Peterson using God as a utility for an argument for material things. One way to possibly think about it would be this way (and I'm drawing on an actual person I know):
There is a guy who is an alcoholic. His drinking has cost him 2 marriages, he is estranged from his kids, and the booze isn't just a problem all its own, but is a crutch for deeper struggles he has long had, which the alcoholic stupor only ever served to suppress and hide. There are things of which he should have repented years before, instead numbed his conscience with the bottle.
People tell him for years to "Go to church and dry out." And he finally does. Takes a long time, but he quits the bottle, and has a good support group in church. This is undoubtedly an improvement, full stop. But he's using the church and its community of support only a tool, a prop. He sings the hymns, he even somehow angles for a place of leadership (many churches are suckers for a good old "look what a bad sinner I was!" story).
The lack of booze has left a void in this man's life now, and unmoored what lay beneath the haze. The guy still cannot face that demon, and instead of booze to numb the day away, now he's trying to fill that void with stuff. He thinks another marriage, and the validation that comes from a wife, will fill the void, but that turns into yet another train wreck too because he still will not actually face Christ Himself and repent - his pride and shame still will not let him, and his other sins have only ever gotten worse with sobriety, and the pride from his boasting that he beat the bottle. What really keeps him sober is his pride of place and his new identity as "the saved drunk" - he worries more about losing face if he falls off the wagon. In many ways, the ex-drunk has actually become a worse person in sobriety.
I don't want to put words in Paul's mouth. So I'll just say that I worry Peterson sometimes is like the friends of the drunk, exhorting the drunk (our civilization) to go to church and kick bad habits. But not also exhorting to the true repentance that would remake them, and temper them.
It's an excellent analogy. I think you should pass it by Kingsnorth actually, to see if you're putting words in his mouth. But yes, if this is how he sees Peterson, then it may come close to saying he sees Peterson's main problem as a kind of pride. Maintaining face as a secular public intellectual.
But does that really make sense of Peterson? For me it doesn't quite add up.
Or perhaps the main annoyance is to watch Peterson using God as a crutch. In this case, as a crutch for a social/intellectual stance.
In my view, it's made worse by the fact that Kingsnorth doesn't agree with the social/intellectual stance.
Which makes one wonder: If some writer/public intellectual were using God as a crutch in a like manner to Peterson, but using it to further an openly anti-capitalist, pro-environmental stance, would Kingsnorth be equally "annoyed"?
Say we have a public intellectual who openly admits he can't actually believe in God as a Person. But he expounds the biblical texts as crucial. And instead of railing against "the bloody Gaia worshipers", he rails against the big corporations and the Machine.
Would Kingsnorth be equally annoyed? I don't know. But if not, then I'm partly right in my initial reading.
I think at this point he would be, after all he realized that he was engaging with demonic powers rather directly in that world. Kingsnorth came out of the environmentalist world and has admonished them too for mistakenly trying to will a "heaven on earth" into being through their own efforts, as their efforts would likewise still turn into something quite wrong (just differently wrong than unfettered material capitalism).
Don't know if you've listened in full to Kingsnorth's speech declaring Western Civilization already dead, or his talk with Pageau afterwards (you'd need a good hour apiece for either, which for me means having a good block of windshield time or a free Saturday afternoon), but Paul has said that he has come to believe the big culture wars are a mistake, and the only way a Christian civilization can ever reform is from the ground-up, through Christians living as Christians in the world. Pageau has himself said, with no small amount of wonder, that what really changed the Roman world was "Christians just dying and dying and dying through everything the Roman state could throw at them." The old word for "witness" after all, was "Martyr."
I think Paul (and me!) are irked with Peterson because his intellectualization of our Faith can push people away from the truth of having a personal relationship with Christ. It stands in the way. It's our personal relationships with Christ--one by one, person by person--that will save/change our culture as PK notes. Having some committee of smart people designating Christianity as the way to go is irrelevant or at best a fig leaf.
<Which makes one wonder: If some writer/public intellectual were using God as a crutch in a like manner to Peterson, but using it to further an openly anti-capitalist, pro-environmental stance, would Kingsnorth be equally "annoyed"?>
Maybe not as much but PK would still be frustrated with the name calling and the use of Christianity in a purely intellectual manner. And the hypocrisy of being Christ-adjacent while not being very Christ-like.
I think Peterson is a brilliant man who cannot bring himself to believe with his intellect. No thinking person can. Peterson does not know any other way to believe. He does say some beautiful thing, I believe, but he does not have literal head-belief (nor should he). A person can still believe, because God has revealed Himself through awe and the irrational through noetic knowledge - one of Rod's major teachings, This is even if that same person knows not every part of their belief is rational.
I think Kingsnorth has heard some of the meaner, more human times Peterson has spoken. Everyone can see that Kingsnorth can be the gentlest soul, sometimes a bit like Radagast the Brown, but also a prophet.
A favorite of mine, <<"Romans 12:6-8 We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man’s gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it is serving , let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully" >> I was taught that it is possible that one of these gits is more fundamental to the spiritual nature of a believer. No this is not official teaching but it has helped me ever since I was a young woman. Note how there are three complimentary pairs. serve-lead, tearh-encourage, prophecy-mercy. (giving has no pair, stingy is just not spiritual).
I was also taught that in their mature forms, the pairs of gifts are indistibguishable. Leaders are servants and vice versa. Prophets are merciful and vice versa. I see both Paul and Rod as having prophetic gifts and both well along in mercy. But I am not the judge, God is. - - They speak about how we should live, it is their calling, and they are hard on themselves about how they should live, as we note.. But Paul is going to shapen Jordan and Rod, it is his calling. Just my view, informed by a theory about scripture that is not doctrine.
I think there is a lot to this. And giving does have an antithesis: suffering.
There was a moment, when Jordan was pullling out of the incredible agony he had gone through in both withdrawal from certain medications and bad reactions to them, where I thought he was on the cusp of understanding his own suffering and really see Christ, but he shied off and refused the invitation (the invitation is still open, of course).
Martin Shaw has started a new podcast series where he tells stories. It's called "Jawbone". Listen to his first full episode called "How a Storyteller's Made: Salmon, The Crocodile, and the Selkie." The Crocodile (I won't spoil it) is entirely about suffering, and how suffering can temper brashness, and channel it to wisdom that can then be given.
"But Paul is going to shapen Jordan and Rod" -- I definitely see mercy in Paul and Rod but in his public persona Jordan seems lacking of mercy, at least relative to PK and RD. Still, it's easy for me to imagine Peterson as a psychologist having a well-developed sense of empathy and mercy. Maybe he's afraid to show this publicly in the manner of our host or PK. I don't know. I do pray for Jordan to find Christ as so many of our fellow commenters here have been blessed to do. Imagine what an advocate of Christ he could be!
I would add that Peterson is undoubtedly a good listener in his practice. As Paul says: "Faith comes from what we hear." It's external to one's intellect, which is a dead end for faith as you point out. So there's much hope for Peterson if he just listens.
I wonder if, per your analogy, Peterson isn't the alcoholic.
It's so much easier to be enveloped by pride behind the shield of helping others (and sometimes that shield hides our pride even from ourselves). Is it using God as a tool to advance himself in whatever way has meaning for him personally?
I haven't listened extensively to Peterson. To me, something is just... I don't know... something is off there.
Sorry everyone - I responded, then read down through the rest of the responses.
Very good post and something I think of often. I have a dear friend who loves Peterson. He loves listening to his podcasts about the Old Testament. But like Peterson will not accept the Truth of the Christian Myth. Similar to Hamlet this inability to believe in Christ as a person and God, leads him to much mental anguish. Much dithering. Much unwillingness to commit to living like Christ.
I think one reason Peterson dithers in this way is that he doesn't want to be committed to living like Christ. His arrogant trolling and name calling on the internet are not consistent with living like Christ, so he rejects it giving himself the room to still be mean. Of course, I should put down the psychoanalysis books.
Normally I don't point out typos, but this struck me an unintentionally funny.
But I needed a laugh having learned today of the death of the retired former priest of my church, whom I originally knew when I lived here twenty years ago (and renewed acquaintance with when I moved back). Fr. Michael, Memory eternal!
Yep, and in particular Peterson always wants to have his cake and eat it too. I think he likes sitting on the fence wrt to Christianity, always lauding how wonderful of a metaphor and mythos it is, but never actually committing to the fundamental tenet of the faith--namely that this isn't just an epic myth, but an actual historical set of facts pointing to a living and breathing God.
This is why he gets so uncomfortable when confronted with the question. See his recent interview with Dawkins. Dawkins was very blunt in the interview, saying that religion was fake, the Virgin Birth wasn't real, and the Gospels were not historical events. But Jordan, when asked his opinion, weaseled his way out of the question entirely, and acted like giving a "yes" or "no" response was being simply naive.
In actuality, Dawkins' response was the much more mature (even if wrong) because he could plainly state his opinion on Christianity's truth claims. Peterson dodged entirely because he knows, deep down, that he still considers it a myth, but has become too invested in the story to pull away. That and he will never point blank admit to his Christian fans, or even himself, that he feels this way
Point taken. But I for one would never accuse Dawkins of being mature. He's a smart teenager trapped in an adult body. Peterson is an elder statesman by comparison.
Considering much of the content and discussion on this Substack, Kingsnorth saying that "defending Christian civilization" is a form of idolatry really stood out for me. I agree but then don't. It's easy to cheer JD dressing down the European war-mongering suits and yet...something tells me I should be paying more attention to solitary monks in silent prayer.
I partly agree with Kingsnorth too. He looking in the right direction, IMO, but he sometimes goes entirely too far.
Overall the things of this world provide no salvation and as such we should never allow them to dominate our thought and push out the things of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Are you high? The Germans and French who always kissed up to Putin before the invasion are “warmongers”? If you are looking for warmongers - look in Russia.
Paul pretty much lost me with his Erasmus lecture. I still read him, but I think his militant environmentalist background is too deeply coloring his Biblical interpretation. RR Reno made a fairly good response to Paul, I thought. Peter Kreeft (the philosopher) made a great response as well -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siXMRhRfoyw
Jesus was countercultural because the culture of his day was evil (much as ours is). But that doesn't mean he was counter-civilizational.
I don't think we can really say that either Jesus' culture or ours was totally evil. In fact I don't think that's even possible. But yes, every culture contains its share of evil and sin. And ultimately we never turn to culture for salvation-- that must come from beyond the walls of the world.
I agree. Like people, cultures contain good and evil. And seeking salvation in culture is always self-defeating because culture is created by men who are ultimately all sinful.
However, Paul goes considerably beyond that to claim that the wild, hunter-gatherer lifestyle or that of the desert fathers is the only truly Christian life. His Erasmus lecture is not the first time Paul has hinted that he views civilization as idolatrous, but civilization is simply social relationships in institutional form. Love is impossible without social relationships. God is in a social relationship of the Trinity. God created a social relationship of marriage for man and called it good. "It is not good for man to be alone." Institutional structures that buttress that relationship, promote virtue and foster mutual interdependency are also good. The fact that our present institutions do none of these particularly well (and in some cases actively work against them) invalidates only our civilization, not civilization in general. That's my disagree with with Paul; I come down firmly on Kreeft's side there.
There's is something in Kingsnorth's views that put me in mind of Rousseau. He too believed that civilization was a corrupting influence. And of course, the myth of the Noble Savage.
I think Paul is pointing in the right direction, the same direction the Desert Fathers & Mothers took up when, even after the culture had become Christianized, they sought in the wild places (usually actually not too far from human settlements) the depths of what Christ preached - and it's clear that he did not preach acquiring/building a culture or a civilization. What Christ was about was beyond and deeper than either. Of course, the benefits to following him, in terms of a person's relationships with God, him/herself and other people, would bring about an environment that would enable people to do good, but that environment follows in the wake of doing what Christ preached, in the context of uniting oneself with his Cross & Resurrection in Baptism. His message goes beyond even his own context (which we should very much pay attention to, both for its likeness to and difference from ours). Did everyone go out to the desert? No - but the ones that did were always a reminder, and lots of ordinary people sought them out for their wisdom and prayers.
Paul's environmentalism plays a part, but I think it's a kind of bracing truth about the real difficulties we face and the real damage that has been done, whether the problems are completely caused by human carbon production, or whether the climate is going to "self-correct" some day or not. It's bad *now*, and the real cause of the environmental problems is the enlarging spiritual vacuum/nothingness in people and society that justifies endless exploitation, whether for commercial purposes or for some kind of perceived altruism ("the good of humanity").
I pray a lot for protection for Paul, being such a public figure. Yes, he will get some things wrong, or miss something along the way. The deal is, he seems to strive for humility, which is always a good sign, he is faithful in his Christian practice, and he really listens to people, which will help him correct course.
I agree. As I said, my disagreement with Paul is only a matter of degree.
He and I have talked previously about this on his stack, in the context of industrial capitalism. Paul is not a fan of industrial capitalism (an extension of the Machine).
But absent chemical fertilizers (a product of fossil fuel derived, industrial capitalism) half the population of the Earth dies. So as inimical as modern civilization may be to Christianity, I think going full-Thanos on the human race isn't the answer either.
I think Christians are called to use the tools of their civilization to help more people find and learn to follow Christ, not to cede from it or worse, try to actively damage it. I think Paul mostly would agree with this, but he just gets carried away sometimes. And I thought he got carried away in the Erasmus lecture.
Like you, I have a great deal of respect for Paul as a Christian and as a near-monastic living out his vocation as part of the world instead of secluded from it.
Re: I think Paul is pointing in the right direction, the same direction the Desert Fathers & Mothers took up when, even after the culture had become Christianized, they sought in the wild places (usually actually not too far from human settlements) the depths of what Christ preached - and it's clear that he did not preach acquiring/building a culture or a civilization.
The desert fathers were ascetics. That is a heroic path, a higher path even, but it is not for all people in all situations. Most of us lack that chrism and we must walk the ordinary path, in the world, but of the Church. And really: you can't bring up children living by pure asceticism.
St Paul acknowledged right at the beginning that civil government deserves a certain allegiance, even one that is unChristian, or hostile to Christianity. Paul, and indeed most of the early Christians, were city people-- and Christianity thrived in the cities of the Empire.
A longform Kingsnorth and Peterson conversation is quite an exciting prospect. Yourself or Pageau could be a great third, then, as a bridge between worlds.
It’s also good to see Sadie Robertson-Huff on the Livestream panels today. Can you believe I’d never even heard of Duck Dynasty until JBP interviewed Willie and Korie just before ‘The Blind’ came out? The convergence of such varied backgrounds of people is truly refreshing to observe.
Great insights by Weinstein, as always. He's always super interesting to hear, because his perspectives are not those of the typical talking-head, yet he's super informed about his specific areas of expertise.
Regarding IVF, I appreciate what Rod and others say about the moral question of it all, specifically what happens to all of the unused zygote. In the abstract and on a deep philosophical level, I might agree with him.
On a practical level I will not be joining him or any other pro- life advocate in condemning it. It is a complete and total political loser and there are much, much bigger fish to fry, both in the cultural space at large and on right to life issues specifically.
It goes back to the principle Rod applied earlier in this same piece: We cannot allow the perfect or ideal to become the enemy of the good or good enough for now. We in the West in the Year of Our Lord do not exist in a culture that is at all willing to accept a maximalist pro- life case that IVF should be banned.
Being loudly and publicly against IVF at this moment plays into the worst caricature of the pro- life position that the abortionists want displayed: " So you'd force women, even women who have been raped, to keep their unwanted babies while denying women who desperately want to have babies access to IVF? That just proves it isn't really about protecting life. It's about control!"
Is that fair? Not really. But it sticks anyway. Frankly, the pro- life movement has not done well in advancing the cause since SCOTUS gave them near- total victory over Roe v. Wade. Maximalist "trigger" laws passed by GOP dominated legislatures who almost certainly figured they were getting to do some hard-core virtue signaling to their pro- life constituents with the cynical expectation that SCOTUS would set up a regime that mostly overturned Roe but left the "popular" exceptions for abortion in place have proven to be mostly unpopular with the general population. Loudly championing a fringe issue like banning IVF puts other gains at risk, plain and simple.
Amy Wellborn points out this morning that the EO has no teeth: it's little more than rah-rah. So, what's the purpose? My dark Sicilian brain says it's an anti-J.D. device. So who's behind it?
Oh, and I'm waiting for Soupy Sales, "Joe" (Nighty-night's Twitter handle), and McElroy to weigh in. Any day now. How's the border, fellas?
Down here in Florida Rick Scott (no one's idea of a liberal) ran for reelection with ads deliberately touting his support of IVF. The anti-IVF cause is something of an out-there position even on the Right.
Rod, the last thing you should do is abandon the culture war post. Paul Kingsnorth is wrong. Not only would you lose half of your customers, culture is the most vital battleground in the world, much more important than temporary political victories.
Yet when Rod doesn't post about Trump, etc., it seems like he gets a lot fewer comments. Seems to me that many of the commenters are interested in the culture mainly in its political forms, not in the culture per se. If that's what Kingsnorth is saying, I'm very much with him.
A hard line cannot be drawn between culture and politics. My point is simply that the majority of Rod's commenters seem to be more interested in the latter than the former. The purely cultural posts never get as many comments as those about Trump, politics, etc.
Rod's posts about Trump get the most response at this site because Trump is the center of the world right now. Religious topics will get fewer posts because not all his readers are Christians and not all are really interested in religious topics. His sociological posts get fewer posts as he drifts into using the specialized terminology of academics, a criticism I have of Rod. The UFO topic gets a certain crowd that is smaller than his cultural posts.
Rod Dreher's interests can't always be the same as each of his readers as we are all different. But his variety of posts are large and interesting. He puts out a good product.
Agreed. I'm not Orthodox Christian so I can't really comment on the history of any of the churches or the difference in their beliefs. Culture is something I can relate to more. But what I like about many of Rod's posts is the variety of topics he covers. I may not like each topic and sometimes I'll skip through a few like the UFO ones. But I've been reading him every day for a few years now and always look forward to a new post.
Trump straddles the fence though. He is not socially conservative, not on board with any sort of national abortion ban, and he's the most pro-gay Republican president to date. Where he sides with the Right is on immigration and DEI, which are cultural if not "moral" issues. And just as most Americans find trans maximalism too much so does he.
Lots of cultural Christians rising to power and influence. I was contemplating if that’s me honestly and many that fill the pews in today’s church. Did JD Vance become a Catholic because Catholic’s seemed successful or having their life in order? I don’t know the answer of course, we just have to ask God to search our hearts and continue to be merciful and show us his will. What is God’s will for one’s life? Sanctification is not as quick has we want it to be.
It also may be that most of Rod's non-culture comments are deeply personal and require deeply personal responses/comments. For me it's much harder to respond personally. It requires more work, more thought. And I'm often weary about sharing too much in this public forum. Or just certain that nobody is interested in my personal stuff.
I happen to agree with Paul - and it's not a question of the readership, but of Rod's own spiritual health. It is not good to focus incessantly on the activities of the Enemy, nor is it wise to constantly bang on about all the things we should fear or hate.
Dostoyevsky said "Beauty will save the world," and there is much truth in that. At the very least, we need to be reminded of what we have, and what we need to cherish and save, so that we might be grateful, and in turn share it with others.
If Rod Dreher gives up the culture fight, he would be surrendering in a fight that he is best suited for. If he surrenders, he will lose the majority of his readership and may as well spend the last years of his life in a monastery.
I wouldn't suggest giving it up entirely, but approaching it in a healthier way. I doubt, however, he would lose the majority of his readership even if he did. Rod's a talented and prolific writer, and good at seeing things in ways that seem fresh.
Me and my crack-of-dawn coffee circle often speak about the very philosophers, pontificators and prognosticators that you mention in your article. So many opinions about what should and shouldn't be done. But there is a difference between eloquently philosophizing about the wonders of sausage, and actually making the sausage. What might come as a shock to folks who enjoy breakfast cuisine, you gotta kill the pig to make sausage. You gotta carve up the pig to make sausage. You got to handle the guts to make sausage. Donald Trump, the non-believing clown you refer to, is killing and carving up a great, fat, bloated pig. How many other "Republicans" sat in that chair and fed the pig? I can think of a father and son duo who really fattened the pig. We need folks to do the wet work, so we can all enjoy our nice plate of sausage.
I figure most conservative folks in this country have had enough of the intellectuals and instead want to support those who know their way around a gut bucket.
Exactly. Blah blah blah...but nothing gets done. TRump and folks around him, as well as others on the state level and in other organizations, are doing the work to GET THINGS DONE.
Nothing brought this home more to me than the summer of COVID/George Floyd. My husband the street cop was out there getting spit on, cursed at, threatened, and his colleagues were getting shot at. And all for crappy city pay and crummy benefits. Our income was being threatened if we didn't take the shot. Meantime, my elite-educated, well paid, comfortable white collar doctor and lawyer friends had the gall to call him racist (never to his face, only from behind their screens) and sit there and judge what cops should and shouldn't do. All while he was risking his life daily, while they sat at home on their laptops making $500/hr. I just can't. I still can't. It turned me from a solid progressive into a Trump supporter. Life is not as black and white as we want it to be. All the sausage gets made in the gray area.
In the spirit of being open to dissident fellow travelers, I offer for consideration Substacker El Gato Malo to those who worry that the Elon cure might be worse than the disease (though perhaps "cure" is not quite right, and "battlefield surgery" is more apt).
See the recent post "The Global Crime Scene," in which he suggests that we're only at the beginning of truly beholding just how fetid the swamp is, due not only to failure of the press but also failure of imagination.
This cat will not be to everyone's tastes here, and hyperbole is part of his style, but he has been right on some important things.
Another post and another disclaimer about David Brooks and another snide remark about Trump being "a clown." And today, the claim that natalist Elon Musk is "transhuman" was it? Sigh.
Or - bear with me, because this is pretty radical - he might actually believe it. It's not as if the verbal diarrhea that Trump frequently spews could contribute to the idea of him being a clown. It's certainly not posting Napoleon quotes late at night on social media. Nor might it be elevating 'prosperity gospel' hucksters like Paula White. More dancing too YMCA and less reading what's in the Constitution. More action, less reflection!
In the sense that he believes we need to continue the human population, eschews the culture of death (abortion specifically), poo poos overpopulation propaganda, and centers his mission to Mars activities on the conviction that we'll need an annex to Earth at some point for all the beautiful people to call home.
I thought of Neuralink too. Musk hides behind the altruistic motive here (as in all his companies) when he talks of helping the blind see and the paralegic walk, but I think the real money maker he'll get to soon are elective human enhancements like better memory or an IQ booster.
From a Christian perspective, the danger of settling other planets is that it makes nuclear holocaust on earth possible.
We are told that the gates of hell will never close on the Church, so there must be people alive at the Second Coming. However, we are not told whether they will be on earth or elsewhere.
Musk actually is unapologetically and definitionally a transhumanist. His Neuralink project is 100% aimed at merging man with the cyber world, and "liberating" humanity from mortal flesh. It is no slur to call him what he is.
And why does it bother you that Rod won't insult Brooks, and calls out Trump for his flaws? If you're looking for substack where everyone agrees with you, I'm sure there others out there.
Good thing the B actor somehow managed to beat down the Soviets (with help from the Iron Lady and JP2). Similarly, our Clown helped bring peace to the Middle East once and will do so again. And he'll end the Ukraine War.
Do I agree with all of his rhetoric or policies? Of course not. Particularly IVF. But the Clown ad hominem has not only become tiresome but it's coded language employed by *some* of us who fancy ourselves superior, dare I say, ELITE.
That's all from here. Signing off. I wish everyone a very fine day. ♥️
I love a Trumper who gets fussy about ad hominem attacks [though, the 'Clown' label seems pretty obvious to anyone who listens to Trump talk for 15 minutes]. It's a good thing DJT doesn't resort to such tactics. Oh wait....
I don't think Trump himself would object to being called a clown. He's obviously very funny and likes being the center of attention like any good clown.
He definitely is a clown: a *professional* clown, just about the most talented clown that I've ever seen. He's set a new and inspiring standard, having broken new comedic ground for all clowns to come.
The B Actor, whatever is flaws, was a man of integrity, which is why ugly accusations of wrong-doing and ill-intention never stuck to him. Some of Reagan;s policies turned out to lead to bad ends, but he ten times the man Trump is. I wasn't old enough to vote the last year he ran, but if I had been I would have voted for him.
I don't know why you get bent out of shape about me calling Trump a "clown". I supported him! He is a "clown" in the sense that he is above all an entertainer and a cultural figure, not a standard establishment politician. Yet that is exactly who this moment required. I was savoring the irony. Nobody can possibly read this Substack faithfully and think I'm against this administration. But that doesn't make Trump into Frederick II. We didn't need Frederick II. We needed that guy.
Plus, why am I supposed to hate David Brooks? I think he's wrong about a lot of things, and say so. But I like him as a man. Why is this wrong?
Elon Musk is a transhumanist. Haven't you heard? Read here:
Presumably members of the pro-clown caucus will be gifted tubes bronzer as their complementary clown makeup. Make sure to slather it on! Then go stare into the mirror and repeat to yourself "Zelensky is a dictator, Zelensky is a dictator..."
Trump is like a clown in the Shakespearean sense: genuinely funny, and people think he's crazy, but actually he makes the most sense out of anyone on the stage.
My joy today, and I know Rod won't read the comments - is that Rod explained how he integrated the two calls on his life at this point. I've only read Rod since 2020 and been here since 2023. I used to worry about the wear of constant culture war and hence constantly accessing depressing news on Rod. So I was somewhat with Kingsnorth, though not entirely for Kingsnorth's reasons. With recent healing he has told us of, it seems more clear that thoughts of leaving the culture war entirely have been set aside - by culture war here I mean writing about controversial political topics, - Rod is right that Christians have to speak to the political condition of our world. His voice is very valuable, he has done much.
The watchman is a metaphor for a prophet or seer, tasked with discerning the times and warning of impending danger. I looked up Isaiah 21 and it is very beautiful - I recommend it all. Here is the verse Rod quoted and a couple of others: (6) For thus the Lord said to me: “Go, set a watchman; let him announce what he sees. (11) One is calling to me from Seir, “Watchman, what time of the night? Watchman, what time of the night?” (12) The watchman says:“Morning comes, and also the night. f you will inquire, inquire; come back again.”
Some things I've said aloud to Rod - the first time I met him I heard the words "I think you are called to be a prophet" coming out of my mouth toward the end of the meeting. Then I must have blushed. I never did fully explain (but I expect Rod gets it by now). In my Charismatic Catholic background, the gift of prophecy means speaking strongly as to how we could and should live and may mean foretelling. Each of us has at least one of the gifts of the Spirit in the New Testament, and Rod has that one. Kingsnorth has a different version of the gift, as I see it. I personally think Paul should be open to their different callings in prophecy.
I imagine Paul as father being more stoic and relying primarily on modeling good behavior and the truth. While Rod can model, I bet he was very good at putting lessons into words (as any prophet) for his children.
And I imagine Paul saying "there's no need to be unkind", "that's not so much name calling as description", and "you need to go have a good lie down" (as he recently did) :)
Nah, my fathering has mainly been about telling stories to my children, most of them involving animals with silly names. My best storytelling has happened that way and I am happy to say it will never go outside the confines of my family ...
Rod makes fine points as usual. It is Important to talk about these things but unfortunately I don’t think it makes much difference. I think changes for good will happen more organically & not theoretically. Example: look at end of Cold War. Few got it right, big blind spot. Jaffa got it right - leftist brought fight here after ussr demise. Look at results. Unfortunately most common folks , the real agents of change (not the academics), will not do what it takes to preserve the good b/c the end of their horizon is death. The faithful are different b/c death is just beginning.
& I think Trump’s Ivf decision is still officially pending. I pray he sees the light of goodness, virtue but My instinct is he will go full Monty on death. He is zero sum, utilitarian. Ivf destroys more life than abortion I believe. Like I said before Trump is 2 steps forward & 4 steps back.
I agree with Weinstein's prediction. There'll be a brief period that feels like a return to a healthy society, but the vibes will keep on shifting. We're going straight from a society run on the feminine will-to-power to one run on the masculine.
I don't see manual labor and other masculinist things pf that category making a huge come back any time soon. The sort of work we have today will likely be the reality of work for the future, with allowance for AI and robots taking over more of it. There isn't going to be some surge of He-Man roles. Which shouldn't matter: there are many masculine archtypes not just the Warrior. There's the Prophet, the Scholar, the Healer, the Artist, the Inventor, the Priest, the Good Father...
On immigration any time we've been around 14% anti-immigrant sentament has bubbled to the surface. The low in the US was around 5%. I think the ideal level is between 4% and 8% but it probably depends on context. So when things are relatively peaceful and stable that percentage might be higher and still not cause disorder. During hardship the percentage needs to be lower to maintain a unified culture.
On economics the graft must end. A great deal of corruption exists within the H1B system. Outsourcing, firing citizens and requiring they train foreign replacements, limiting hours to skirt laws around full time employment. All these things are unfair and unrighteous to our neighbors. The same people pretending to care about the foreigner disregards his brother in the gutter and it's disgusting. Maybe we should have a registration system for labor so that if you sign up a minimum UBI, food and housing allowance is provided no matter your hours. Not everyone is smart and we have to provide for the weak as well as the strong. Their should probably be requirements attached, such as meeting together within a local chapter at least once a week. However such a program might work, the people that argue for limiting what can be bought with food stamps have a point but so to do those that point out the corruption in work hours of employers and the fact that people can work multiple jobs because of this and still need food stamps. That is a travesty. A travesty of people who think they are better than the poor and yet have created a system that is dehumanizing. It is extremely wrong and it's sad that so many people don't recognize it's oppressiveness to the person and the soul.
We're moving toward a place where, in the past blue collar jobs were automated and replaced, where now white collar jobs are being replaced. We need to build infrastructure that relieves this burden that is placed on citizens, on our countrymen and on our neighbors. Technology is a tool and like an axe it can kill or be used to build a home.
On technology we have a transhumanist group in society that does not believe in the holiness of man made in the image of God. The most extreme amongst them would butcher the body, alter our dna, implant chips and attempt to read and even control our very thoughts. That is the abyss we're looking into but at the same time, if the worst can be constrained many good things like bringing sight to the blind, limbs to the limbless and speech to the mute are now possible. Technology is a tool. If it's looked at like a hammer and not a bible or a living being then it has a great many problems it can help solve. Already professors and recruiters talk about the impact LLMs have had on young people. The technologies around today are already have negative impacts. We experience it now in my work all the time. Young people are coming in that cannot write code because they use the LLM to provide it to them. They use this machine that hallucinates to think for them, to research and to work. They communicate mostly through online forums and no longer are able to carry a conversation with a stranger. These are problems we'll all have to resolve.
Clarification about the UK - the assisted dying bill is not Labour government policy. It was a private members bill, introduced by a labour MP, who won the private members bill lottery. Starmer was privately in favour, but explicitly refused to whip his MPs, or say which way he would vote. High profile labour ministers like wes Streeting spoke out against it.
I think it's important to note that this bill was not part of the labour government's legislative program, set out in the king's speech.
I'm thinking that the notion that life begins at conception isn't going to be popular, if it ever was, because it bypasses the circuitry of ordinary human moral intuitions. We assume that murder should *feel* like killing a person who *looks* like a person, but most people are unlikely to feel very much at all when looking at the early stages of this chart:
https://shorturl.at/glb8h
(On the other hand, people who aren't woke-addled monsters feel increasingly uncomfortable with abortion as the pregnancy progresses, which is to say as the creature begins to look more and more undeniably human. That tracks with ordinary moral intuitions.)
The moral claim about conception is more an inference drawn from a premise of faith, for us Christians rooted in the understanding that Jesus was Jesus from the moment of the Annunciation, and maybe also in Jeremiah 1:5. Obviously, that's not gonna be persuasive in a post-Christian culture. So I'm not sure where things go from there.
Also, do people think about how many zygotes are formed through fertilization but never implant or are otherwise sponataneously destroyed? (Apparently not implanting, taken alone, is the fate of about one-third of all blastocysts.) The picture that emerges is one in which God presides over a gargantuan prenatal abattoir.
I feel troubled by that scenario. And it makes me at least somewhat sympathetic to the notion that perhaps something like quickening is real, and that non-Jesus souls perhaps haven't actually entered their respective bodies yet at the precise moment of conception. Because if they have, then that's an enormous number of real humans who die before we ever even became aware of their existence.
It is not a "notion" that a human life begins at conception, but simple scientific fact. This illustrates how much people tend to be driven not by sound moral reasoning, but by emotion--for instance, the emotional response of seeing very early stages of a human being's life--of your life and mine--and concluding that if it doesn't look like anyone I recognize, then it's not really human and can be disposed of. If you could hold that tiny creature in your hand, Sethu, would you crush the life out of it? "Quickening" occurs at about four months gestation; the notion that it is just a featureless, soulless blob prior to that is astonishing.
As for your last sentence, an enormous number of humans has died, both before and after birth, throughout history, around the world, and I was not aware of their existence. So?
No one doubts that a biological life begins at conception; what people disagree about is whether it is a human life in the full moral and spiritual sense, or whether it's more like Adam's clay shell before God breathed into him.
And I don't believe I described my own opinion or what I would do in my comment. I'm merely stating the empirical fact that usual moral intuitions aren't provoked for most people when it comes to this matter.
By "quickening," I don't mean the kick specifically; just the idea that the soul enters the body at some point after conception. Most medieval Christians believed something of that sort (although to be fair, they weren't aware of the biology of conception).
Re: It is not a "notion" that a human life begins at conception, but simple scientific fact.
No it's not. Because human life does not "begin" at all. Sperm and egg are already alive and human too. And so on back to whatever origin our species has: Life gives rise to life; there is never a point in history when something dead becomes something alive (miraculous resurrections aside). The question is not about life, but about when we should acknowledge legal (and moral) personhood. A human being is trinity of Body, Mind and Soul-- and if one or more of those is lacking can we say a human being is present? At the end of life we acknowledge brain death as a valid criterion for death after which we see a corpse not a person-- why not make that comprehensive and acknowledge brain life as the beginning of human personhood? That's very early in the process of gestation, it would still rule out abortion as the term is generally understood. But it would not apply at fertilized egg of blastocyst stage.
"Although life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed…” [O'Rahilly, Ronan and Muller, Fabiola. Human Embryology & Teratology. 2nd edition. New York: Wiley-Liss, 1996, p. 8]
"Almost all higher animals start their lives from a single cell, the fertilized ovum (zygote)... The time of fertilization represents the starting point in the life history, or ontogeny, of the individual." [Carlson, Bruce M. Patten's Foundations of Embryology. 6th edition. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996, p. 3]
Jon. No. OK, say we do not know for sure when a soul is and is not present and yes, we can ask ourselves about it, as Sethu did. We do know the Orthodox and Catholic churches have teachings. We do have compassion for a woman who did not know a soul was present when she had an abortion.
But - If I were to grant we were unsure about that presence of a soul- - and I don't actually grant that, but even if I were - we still do not end the life of a separate human being, with its own unique DNA, because we think we can decide the being has no soul.
C'mon friend, say you were just writing stuff but you knew that.
Not to mention all those verses where God says "I knew you before you were born, I knitted you together in your mother, etc." It is the height of rationalization for a so-called "Christian" to say it is ok to destroy that.
Sorry, Jon. If you are going to use Christian posturing for gotchas, be on the receiving end. I would hate to be in front of the judgement seat and having to explain to the Lord your "reasoning."
Re: Not to mention all those verses where God says "I knew you before you were born, I knitted you together in your mother, etc."
Sure. I am not disputing that. I am emphatically not arguing for abortion all the way up to birth, Please do not attribute things to me I am not advocating.
I will when you drop this "serving Mammon" bullshit whenever wealth/the rich come up?
Savvy?
Linda as I noted above the standard of brain and heart activity I suggest would pretty kibosh abortions since those usually begin before a woman even knows she's pregnant. Also, this is related to the old idea of "the quickening": a fetus begins to move showing that it has both Volition and Sensaation which are signs of mental activity.
Genetically, a person is completely him or herself at conception.
This is blatantly not true, in fact a total absurdism. We grow and change all through our lifetime.
This emphasis on genes strikes me as gross and even fanatical materialism, one of the great ideological errors of our age.
I don't understand. You believe in abortions for people already born. Let's say someone has changed for the worse at age 25, should his parents have him aborted?
Huh?
This is a long and late reply.
I appreciate Sethu that your above comment is you feeling your way—and reasoning based on the way most of us tend to think—about what is the beginning of any human being/life/individual. I don’t go along with you final twist toward some kind of quickening view.
But I have to sympathize when you say the life begins at conception view will be unpopular and with your reasons why it strains our imaginations.
Of course the biggest strain on our imaginations today is that we have subordinated our procreation partnership with God to the Machine. We have tried to wrest control from Nature and Nature’s God. And we have called these tiny human beings expendable—by legalizing their surgical removal and disposal, since 1973. That’s a huge imagination shift.
I really like the part of your argument about the Annunciation. I think if you sat with that insight it might enable a reconstruction of our procreative imagination.
The Catholic Church teaches that conception is the beginning of a human being. I don’t know the rational underpinning for what the Catechism says. But Mary, pregnant, is already the Mother of God, in both East and West, Mother of a divine person with a fully human nature. That could stir our imagination. The Western Church prays thrice daily the Angelus. The Annunciation is the turning point of human and salvation history. We should ponder it daily. And it’s the first Joyful Mystery of the Rosary. And in the traditional pre-or 1962 Missal used by many Catholics, every Sacrifice of the Mass concludes with the Little Gospel: John’s prologue is read and the whole congregation and priest “hit the deck” (genuflect) at “et verbum caro factum est”.
All of these liturgical and devotional realities could reform and reconstruct our intuitions in line with the conception view. And you can see then why I was enthusiastic about only some of your points.
I’m speaking theologically, as are you, which is fine as Rod encourages discussion of matters of faith.
I commend Rod for being horrified by the IVF executive order. I add that what a civilization decides to permit or even promote can undermine its very foundations. Christians have to care. Or else who will speak for the least of these?
(Some saw it as a hopeful sign that Trump’s EO on gender used conception as the starting point of a woman. And presumably a man. Who would have guessed Trump might not be consistent!)
I do find the implication of the gargantuan prenatal abattoir problematic, though: what does it mean if countless real humans perish before anyone on earth (the mother included) is even aware that they exist? That's horrifying in a way that could almost make one wonder about the goodness of God. And since that picture follows directly from the premise that a full human is created at the moment of conception, I'm led to wonder whether there's something faulty about the premise.
I also think that avoiding literal *murder* shouldn't strain our imaginations or require extensive religious contemplation. That's more of a very primal moral intiution that in this case doesn't kick, which I find kinda suspicious.
Also, it's worth noting that it was only very recently—around the 1870s—that science finally figured out what conception is. Christians theologically and morally managed for almost 19 centuries without knowing, aware only that there was some mysterious link between sex and babies.
Your first point does also make me scratch my head, and I confess the physical reality really shook me when I heard of this several years ago. I’m not sure what to make of it. For some reason God permits this. I don’t understand that process. But I trust God, I don’t trust our presumption to assume Godlike powers!
Again you had quite the insight when you said that Christians intuited for 19 centuries the link between sex and babies. We began to disrupt that crucial link already around 1930, and society is not the better for it.
The other big problem with IVF is the creeping commodification of children. What isn’t considered problematic? Egg donors? Sperm donors? Surrogates? Three or more persons’ DNA? Designer babies?
On commodification, I once heard of a spousal argument where the gut punch was, “I’m the one who paid for Jimmy Junior!”
Perhaps of interest:
https://bookstore.wordonfire.org/products/redeemer-in-the-womb
Thanks. I bought it, sold it in a purge, and bought it again. This reminds me I really must read it.
I’ve been thoroughly enjoying the Livestream of ARC. Pageau’s Symbolic World Summit last Feb in FL set me up for a year of rich online connection with leaders in art that I respect and today much of the same call to create was delivered by notable artists in the “Bring On the Builders”. Makoto Fujimura’s speech will be shared to all my people, on both sides, and highly recommended for his thoughtful and densely packed commentary on what is presently needed. By the way, Rob, you were in a shot of the live stream video during Konstantin’s talk. I’m pleased for everyone there to be nourished by paying attention to the issues on the agenda in each other’s physical presence and look forward to all the creative solutions participants will bring forth!
"I said in my brief ARC remarks ... that politics are necessary to civilizational renewal, but not sufficient. I said that ultimately, our civilizational crisis is a crisis of meaning, and that means, at bottom, a religious crisis."
Bingo. Paul Kingsnorth's Erasmus lecture was knock-down brilliant, and a sorely needed corrective, but there remains ... something else. I think Rod's remarks above, and especially this bit, underline the stakes. We are not to adopt "cultural Christianity," but also we are not to reject dialogue with those who do (like Peterson, like Hirsi Ali). And though any Christian civilization will be warped by sin, as any Church is, we've inherited the Gospel itself thanks to those sinful civilizations.
Kingsnorth's ire against Jordan Peterson is always palpable. I get it, but don't myself feel it. Perhaps Kingsnorth is closer to sainthood than I am (not a high bar to reach), but I think it's also partly that he is closer to environmental activism. This seems to me the source of the ire.
Re: ARC he writes: "But Jesus didn’t come to Earth to teach us how to be ‘responsible citizens’, of any political stripe. Responsible citizens don’t leave their own fathers unburied. They don’t hate their own mother and father, or give away all of their wealth, or compare the religious authorities to whitewashed tombs full of rotting flesh. And they don’t usually end up being crucified."
I've written sentences almost precisely like this, when I was a Christian more "on the left". So again, I get it. But with more study, I've realized some of this language is misprised. Sometimes literally misunderstood because of the difficulties of translation.
Kenneth Bailey points out, just for instance, how the young man requesting time to "bury his father" is not at all telling Jesus that his father has just died, and he simply needs to arrange a funeral. Rather "to bury my father", in the idiom of the time, meant "to remain in the family home until my father passes away".
So both the young man's request and Our Lord's answer are misunderstood by many in English as a harsh contempt for basic familial norms. Likewise with the "hate" one's own father and mother. Its context in the Gospel text (the parable it falls after) and Jesus' inclusion of others to be "hated" (one is to hate "even one's own life") suggests a different stress than it takes when quoted by itself.
Jesus wasn't the anti-civilizational radical certain of his sayings, in their English translation, suggest. Against these passages, he of course also taught Moses' commandments as necessary. Which include: "Honor thy father and mother."
If Jesus' words to the young man suggest an exception, the reason for it not hard to grasp. Jesus *himself* is present. The Bridegroom is here, and don't mistake the fact. Likewise Peter and the others can leave their nets, because of this.
It is not to say that Jesus sets an "anti-civilizational" standard for all time.
Again, this isn't to say I think Paul Kingsnorth wrong. He's brilliant. I've enormous respect for him, for his unflinching honesty, for his subtle pen. I only suggest that his anti-civilizational argument calls forth counter-arguments that are both reasonable and based in Gospel truth.
It's worth noting, of course, that we all tend to see a Jesus who's a little more like us, colored by our own priorities and temperament. Paul Kingsnorth's Jesus a little more of an environmental activist, and Jordan Peterson's Jesus is a little more of a Jungian psychologist. I'm not saying all such takes are *equal* in validity, just that this kind of bias is unversal.
Also, there's the fact that Jesus often speaks in poetic hyperbole. And we tend to take any given comment of His as either more literal or more exaggerated, depending on our own preferences. Obviously He didn't mean for us to actually pluck our eyes out; less clear is whether He did indeed mean for all of us to give all our property away.
Yes. We’ll all tend to read both Jesus and the Gospels as stressing what we stress. It’s true for all of us to a degree, but in my experience, it seems particularly true of two groups: the recently converted; secular scholars/writers.
The best way to overcome it is to face up to precisely those elements which one wishes *weren’t* in the Gospel texts. And keep returning to the Church’s long history of interpretation.
Hyperbole is another important factor, and the scholars can help with this—with identifying where something likely should be read as such. Kenneth Bailey is very good, a scholar with long and serious study of Levantine village life and Semitic idiom. His readings of the parables uncover plenty that would otherwise cause us to trip up. Another supremely good reader of New Testament texts is NT Wright. These two make serious effort to overcome what they might want the text to say.
In any case, I think many of us spend a long time citing Jesus as if he were a backup or somehow Prime Witness to our own supreme wisdom. Of course this is to get it precisely backwards. Honest Christians will finally recognize what they’re up to and be embarrassed into humility.
Again, there are those who try to separate Jesus from God, when they are the same being, different facets. And God not only awarded many of his faithful with wealth, power and position, but gave rules for using such. Not rules against having it. Christ's problem is not you being wealthy. His position is what does such have in your heart and is it separating you from God? Have you, as so many of the wealthy and powerful do, made that your god? If you have not, Christ has no problem with you having those things, and a set of priorities for the faithful to have in using them.
That's one interpretation.
(Giant can of worms warning duly noted.)
It is indeed, and every bit of it is true. There is no inherent virtue in poverty, any more than there is vice in wealth. It is what place it has in your life and what you did to get it (both states.) The alcholic who cannot keep a job is no more virtuous than the ruthless corporate climber.
And you cannot separate God (Old Testament) from Christ. They are the same. God does not change.
James 5:1-6. The apostle seems to think riches are a problem.
Does it? Let us look at it.
"5 Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. 2 Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. 3 Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. 4 Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. 5 You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter.[a] 6 You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you."
1. You have HOARDED your wealth.
2. Failed to pay wages to workers.
3. Lived on Earth in luxury and SELF-INDULENCE.
4. And the big one, you have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you.
Again, the presence of wealth is not a problem. Actions (or lack thereof, are), and actions come from the heart, reveal it. The heart is Christ's concern, what's in it, not what's in your purse.
Gotta read it all, Rob.
Never mind ignoring all that stuff about many of the Lord's people becoming wealthy and using their wealth for His kingdom. And that's all wealth is, or should be, for the Christian. It is a tool and gives you options, options you do not have in poverty.
But there is virtue in asceticism and self denial-- and there is sin in greed and service to Mammon.
Again, as Christ says, it all comes down to where your heart is. If your heart is not in the right place with either, there is no virtue. If your heart is in the right place, it is. They themselves have no inherent value, one way or another.
"I'm poor! Look at my virtue!" Uh, no, why are you poor? "I'm rich! Am I not great in your sight, Lord?" No. Where's your heart?
I like your point about poetic hyperbole. If you take Jesus' sayings literally, it seems like an almost impossible standard to live up to. Am I ever going to own just one tunic (shirt)? If someone slaps my face, am I going to let them keep doing it? No and no. I wonder if he was just using exaggerated language to get his point across. On those two sayings for example, maybe he is teaching generosity and forbearance/forgiveness.
It’s also important, though, to not dismiss hard sayings by assuming, “That must’ve been hyperbolic—He couldn’t have possibly been serious about that.” So it goes both ways.
I fail to understand how Kingnorth could see environmental activism in the Gospel, while at the same time insisting that Jesus is profoundly against building a civilization, and Rod should stop discussing cultural issues. I’m not real familiar with his writings, so maybe someone can explain if I’m misunderstanding. But it seems to me that to be consistent you have to go all the way. You can’t claim that it’s sinful for Christians to use secular or cultural power to seek a more traditional, family friendly world, but it’s ok to use power to protect the environment.
If we say Christianity is against civilization building, we have to be prepared to shrug off the most gross injustice, defilement of the innocent, violent persecution, and destruction of the natural world, because Christianity does not include any sort of social or political vision.
This is where Kingnorth’s view struggles logically and ethically. I once knew a liberal pastor who bitterly criticized pro-life and pro-family activists as being inconsistent with the pure spiritual message of the Gospel. But he lauded MLK’s civil rights movement. You can’t have it both ways.
Paul Kingsnorth used to be much more into environmental activism in the past, I think, but he's moved away from that over time, due to the sense that activism today is also just one part of the bigger capitalist machine. But he's still very much against how modern society is based on the destruction and pillaging of the earth.
So, the idea isn't to use political power to protect the environment; Paul's view would be that civilization building is the main reason why the environment is in crisis in the first place. He's coming from the perspective of the desert ascetics and such people, who walked away from civilization in order to go find the truth of God in the wilderness.
As for Rod discussing cultural issues, the idea is that being so plugged into the day-to-day political news cycle might not be great for one's spiritual health, and could serve as a distraction from properly contemplating and pursuing God.
Also, I don't think Paul's just saying "Don't do anything" at the cultural and political level, any more than Rod's Benedict option is about heading for the hills. It's more about having our priorities straight and not confusing the Gospel with the things of this world. In particular, the problem is if we accept Christianity because we think it's *useful* (in the culture war, for example) rather than because we believe it is *true*.
I get the sense that this sentiment is an offshoot of his more extreme environmentalist. He has said essentially that all of humanity's problems start from technology and civilization (in other words, as soon as we stopped living in caves and began making tools). And now that he is Orthodox, he sprinkles in this sense that technology has a fundamental demonic origin
Which is completely bonkers imo but you can see where he gets the view
I sometimes wonder if our English language is simply incapable of ever accurately reflecting the mood and tenses of 2000 year-old languages.
Learning Spanish and its various conjugations has taught me that there are subtleties and nuances that just don't concisely translate to English. What then of the Koine Greek of the Apostles time? How many thousands of hours were poured into translating the Bible into Hungarian and other difficult languages? Has English become too large and cumbersome to effectively transmit the message of the Gospels?
I don’t think it’s a problem of tenses or a problem of English being too large. It’s mostly 1) the radical differences between distant eras; 2) the basic problem of translation per se.
Even modern, contemporary languages present serious translation problems whenever it’s a matter of something subtle being communicated. I live and teach in a different culture and deal with this every day. The problem is all the more when compounded by centuries of massive cultural shift, as we face when trying to read biblical texts.
But at least scholars now better understand the problem.
There's also the problem of translating the Word of God, the Word made flesh, into human interpretable language. That translation seems to me the far more difficult one. As Augustine said: "If you understood Him, it would not be God." (I think Kingsnorth is fond of this quote and I probably heard it first from him.)
BTW, I’ve been troubled for years by the problem of English translations of the Gospels. This guy is one who in my estimation really *gets* what the task is:
https://claytestament.blogspot.com/2021/02/the-gospel-truth-michael-pakaluks.html
I'm gonna check that one out.
It sounds like a "dramatised" translation of the Gospels, which piques my interest!
And even though it's been around for a while, some significant revisions to verses in the ESV translation were announced in February. It's really difficult.
https://www.crossway.org/articles/esv-bible-translation-update/
I think English is "capable of accurately reflecting the mood and tenses of 2000 year-old languages" but it can't always do it perfectly. Languages change so much. Try reading Chaucer in Medieval English. Or Elizabethan English. Or Jane Austen. Nobody speaks like Elizabeth Bennet today. Think how words change. Until recently, gay meant happy. However, the word gay was purloined forty years ago to mean male homosexual.
Different languages have different tense systems, sure. So yes, nothing can be done perfectly.
Well, I quite like Jane Austen, and had inadvertently picked up some of the phrasing used in those 18th and 19th century novels. (A former ex teased that I "had the jarring habit of switching between the voice of a 19th century character and the slang of 21st century bro." I took it as a compliment XD)
Hah! That almost sounds worthy of a movie treatment—the bro who switches in and out of Austen phraseology.
I think a lot of readerly women would appreciate it.
The message of the Gospels is this: God became Man that Man might be freed from the reign of sin and death and find eternal life in Christ. Yes, translations inevitably lose something along the way and may also introduce nuances that were not present in the original-- that was true when the Gospels were translated into Latin and other ancient languages. We should be wary of reading too much into minor grammatical and syntactical points in any translation. But the central message survives quite intact.
Fully agree with you on the central message here. But Sethu's point stands. The Gospels contain much teaching as well, often in parables, and people of different persuasions will bend the message to fit their priors.
And this is why we have a Church with trained clergy and even scholarly folks educated in the ancient languages and their cultures to provide authoritative teaching. However no one is going to be saved or damned because of some offbeat take or error in their understanding of the lesser points of the Gospel. Faith is not mere belief-- it is an active Trust in the Lord. The Last Judgment will not involve a multiple choice theology test.
For which we are lucky.
And I agree with you also in the ecumenical implication.
No, it is FIRST why we have the Holy Spirit, which the Bible says will give us understanding and clarity. If it were up to men, it would not happen.
Last time I checked, the Holy Spirit came before the Bible, which means that the "understanding and clarity" were initiated through men, not the written Word.
A ton of this can be cleared up by understanding how Jewish rabbis teach Jesus was one after all. I am only beginning to learn this.
I don't want to put words in Paul's mouth, but he has expanded on his concerns regarding Peterson, and they have paralleled my own for some time. I have been watching and listening to and reading Peterson for quite a while, and I always come away feeling like I'm watching a man on the brink of a sharp cliff up a mountain, pointing out the great and terrible wonder of the mountain, and enthusiastically telling everyone of the wonders that the myth of the mountain conveys, and lauding the ancestors who claimed they scaled the mountain and met Him who dwells upon it, but who himself will not climb the mountain either to see what (or Who) is really up there, or what lies beyond it.
There are two concerns, one primary, and a secondary dependent on the primary. I'll put this in my own words, but I think Paul would in part concur:
Peterson cannot (or will not) get past God-As-An-Ideal, and admit God is a Person. For Peterson, God I think remains abstracted. Peterson get it partly right, for I cannot tell you the countless numbers of men and women who have, at Peterson's own urging, gone past him and gone up the mountain themselves. I know this: they keep coming to my Orthodox parish, and (Lord willing) I'll even be a Godfather to several soon. Through Peterson, God is saving souls - this is undeniable.
But... (and this is a big butt here)
Peterson's inability to go meet God himself puts him in a dangerous place. By seeing the Sacred Myth of God as the Ideal Utility, this is why he can don that ridiculous icon sports coat and not understand why it's discordant (I don't find the jacket offensive - it doesn't affect me, but it does reveal Jordan). The jacket is kitsch that says "I love our heritage so much I'll wear it", but he won't actually venerate Him whom his jacket displays.
This is why he can also join up with the grifters and trolls at The Daily Wire who are quite literally war profiteers in the culture wars. (starting an explicitly "conservative" razor company just to troll Harrys and Gillette, for instance - "I hate that conservatives are too offended to buy Harrys, so I'll make a razor Liberals are too offended to buy!" If Boering really gave a flying fig about the corrosion of the culture wars, he'd start the razor company and keep his name out of it - by slapping his name on it he is *condoning and endorsing other companies also politicizing their own products*). Jordan has made a deal here that I do not think will turn out well in the long run.
Peterson does a lot of good, that is undeniable. But God is not a Platonic ideal, and the story of Abraham through to Jesus is not just a useful epic. And we cannot create Heaven on Earth through our own efforts, no matter how many ARCs we fashion. Someday I hope he realizes this and can go up the mountain like Tammy and Mikhaila already have.
You can hear Paul himself hash a lot of this out with Jonathan Pageau on a recent podcast.
This is very helpful. Years ago I thought Peterson himself was likely soon to recognize that the depths of wisdom he recognized in the Bible implied the depths of a Wisdom inspiring it, a Person. So I agree, his remaining frozen with his abstracted Cognitive or Platonic Ideal is not just unfortunate, but puts him in a dangerous place. Stranded and pointing at the mountain.
Do you think this really explains Paul's ire against Peterson though? I mean, ire against a guy who is stuck--what's the point? Perhaps Paul puts it down to hubris, I don't know. Or some kind of dishonesty. I see something else in Peterson, but just what it is I can't quite make out.
It is however very good that he is leading others to actually recognize the Person. So there too, why feel resentment against the man? Because he sometimes fellow-traffics with people whose politics I don't like?
Me I'm very glad Peterson is around, because he has pointed more people to the Gospel than I ever will, and I pray that God gives him the grace of faith.
There are many people who appear in the press or on podcasts or--Ecch--on TV screens that lead me as a Christian to feel ire and annoyance. Peterson isn't in the top 500.
I don't get a sense of ire from Paul, so much as a sense of discomfort and frustration. And that comes from Peterson using God as a utility for an argument for material things. One way to possibly think about it would be this way (and I'm drawing on an actual person I know):
There is a guy who is an alcoholic. His drinking has cost him 2 marriages, he is estranged from his kids, and the booze isn't just a problem all its own, but is a crutch for deeper struggles he has long had, which the alcoholic stupor only ever served to suppress and hide. There are things of which he should have repented years before, instead numbed his conscience with the bottle.
People tell him for years to "Go to church and dry out." And he finally does. Takes a long time, but he quits the bottle, and has a good support group in church. This is undoubtedly an improvement, full stop. But he's using the church and its community of support only a tool, a prop. He sings the hymns, he even somehow angles for a place of leadership (many churches are suckers for a good old "look what a bad sinner I was!" story).
The lack of booze has left a void in this man's life now, and unmoored what lay beneath the haze. The guy still cannot face that demon, and instead of booze to numb the day away, now he's trying to fill that void with stuff. He thinks another marriage, and the validation that comes from a wife, will fill the void, but that turns into yet another train wreck too because he still will not actually face Christ Himself and repent - his pride and shame still will not let him, and his other sins have only ever gotten worse with sobriety, and the pride from his boasting that he beat the bottle. What really keeps him sober is his pride of place and his new identity as "the saved drunk" - he worries more about losing face if he falls off the wagon. In many ways, the ex-drunk has actually become a worse person in sobriety.
I don't want to put words in Paul's mouth. So I'll just say that I worry Peterson sometimes is like the friends of the drunk, exhorting the drunk (our civilization) to go to church and kick bad habits. But not also exhorting to the true repentance that would remake them, and temper them.
Not a perfect analogy, of course.
Regarding that man, "the Devil will gladly cure your fever if he can give you cancer" is an apt quote from CS Lewis.
It's an excellent analogy. I think you should pass it by Kingsnorth actually, to see if you're putting words in his mouth. But yes, if this is how he sees Peterson, then it may come close to saying he sees Peterson's main problem as a kind of pride. Maintaining face as a secular public intellectual.
But does that really make sense of Peterson? For me it doesn't quite add up.
Or perhaps the main annoyance is to watch Peterson using God as a crutch. In this case, as a crutch for a social/intellectual stance.
In my view, it's made worse by the fact that Kingsnorth doesn't agree with the social/intellectual stance.
Which makes one wonder: If some writer/public intellectual were using God as a crutch in a like manner to Peterson, but using it to further an openly anti-capitalist, pro-environmental stance, would Kingsnorth be equally "annoyed"?
Say we have a public intellectual who openly admits he can't actually believe in God as a Person. But he expounds the biblical texts as crucial. And instead of railing against "the bloody Gaia worshipers", he rails against the big corporations and the Machine.
Would Kingsnorth be equally annoyed? I don't know. But if not, then I'm partly right in my initial reading.
I think at this point he would be, after all he realized that he was engaging with demonic powers rather directly in that world. Kingsnorth came out of the environmentalist world and has admonished them too for mistakenly trying to will a "heaven on earth" into being through their own efforts, as their efforts would likewise still turn into something quite wrong (just differently wrong than unfettered material capitalism).
Don't know if you've listened in full to Kingsnorth's speech declaring Western Civilization already dead, or his talk with Pageau afterwards (you'd need a good hour apiece for either, which for me means having a good block of windshield time or a free Saturday afternoon), but Paul has said that he has come to believe the big culture wars are a mistake, and the only way a Christian civilization can ever reform is from the ground-up, through Christians living as Christians in the world. Pageau has himself said, with no small amount of wonder, that what really changed the Roman world was "Christians just dying and dying and dying through everything the Roman state could throw at them." The old word for "witness" after all, was "Martyr."
I think Paul (and me!) are irked with Peterson because his intellectualization of our Faith can push people away from the truth of having a personal relationship with Christ. It stands in the way. It's our personal relationships with Christ--one by one, person by person--that will save/change our culture as PK notes. Having some committee of smart people designating Christianity as the way to go is irrelevant or at best a fig leaf.
<Which makes one wonder: If some writer/public intellectual were using God as a crutch in a like manner to Peterson, but using it to further an openly anti-capitalist, pro-environmental stance, would Kingsnorth be equally "annoyed"?>
Maybe not as much but PK would still be frustrated with the name calling and the use of Christianity in a purely intellectual manner. And the hypocrisy of being Christ-adjacent while not being very Christ-like.
I think Peterson is a brilliant man who cannot bring himself to believe with his intellect. No thinking person can. Peterson does not know any other way to believe. He does say some beautiful thing, I believe, but he does not have literal head-belief (nor should he). A person can still believe, because God has revealed Himself through awe and the irrational through noetic knowledge - one of Rod's major teachings, This is even if that same person knows not every part of their belief is rational.
I think Kingsnorth has heard some of the meaner, more human times Peterson has spoken. Everyone can see that Kingsnorth can be the gentlest soul, sometimes a bit like Radagast the Brown, but also a prophet.
A favorite of mine, <<"Romans 12:6-8 We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man’s gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it is serving , let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully" >> I was taught that it is possible that one of these gits is more fundamental to the spiritual nature of a believer. No this is not official teaching but it has helped me ever since I was a young woman. Note how there are three complimentary pairs. serve-lead, tearh-encourage, prophecy-mercy. (giving has no pair, stingy is just not spiritual).
I was also taught that in their mature forms, the pairs of gifts are indistibguishable. Leaders are servants and vice versa. Prophets are merciful and vice versa. I see both Paul and Rod as having prophetic gifts and both well along in mercy. But I am not the judge, God is. - - They speak about how we should live, it is their calling, and they are hard on themselves about how they should live, as we note.. But Paul is going to shapen Jordan and Rod, it is his calling. Just my view, informed by a theory about scripture that is not doctrine.
I think there is a lot to this. And giving does have an antithesis: suffering.
There was a moment, when Jordan was pullling out of the incredible agony he had gone through in both withdrawal from certain medications and bad reactions to them, where I thought he was on the cusp of understanding his own suffering and really see Christ, but he shied off and refused the invitation (the invitation is still open, of course).
Martin Shaw has started a new podcast series where he tells stories. It's called "Jawbone". Listen to his first full episode called "How a Storyteller's Made: Salmon, The Crocodile, and the Selkie." The Crocodile (I won't spoil it) is entirely about suffering, and how suffering can temper brashness, and channel it to wisdom that can then be given.
"But Paul is going to shapen Jordan and Rod" -- I definitely see mercy in Paul and Rod but in his public persona Jordan seems lacking of mercy, at least relative to PK and RD. Still, it's easy for me to imagine Peterson as a psychologist having a well-developed sense of empathy and mercy. Maybe he's afraid to show this publicly in the manner of our host or PK. I don't know. I do pray for Jordan to find Christ as so many of our fellow commenters here have been blessed to do. Imagine what an advocate of Christ he could be!
I would add that Peterson is undoubtedly a good listener in his practice. As Paul says: "Faith comes from what we hear." It's external to one's intellect, which is a dead end for faith as you point out. So there's much hope for Peterson if he just listens.
I wonder if, per your analogy, Peterson isn't the alcoholic.
It's so much easier to be enveloped by pride behind the shield of helping others (and sometimes that shield hides our pride even from ourselves). Is it using God as a tool to advance himself in whatever way has meaning for him personally?
I haven't listened extensively to Peterson. To me, something is just... I don't know... something is off there.
Sorry everyone - I responded, then read down through the rest of the responses.
Very good post and something I think of often. I have a dear friend who loves Peterson. He loves listening to his podcasts about the Old Testament. But like Peterson will not accept the Truth of the Christian Myth. Similar to Hamlet this inability to believe in Christ as a person and God, leads him to much mental anguish. Much dithering. Much unwillingness to commit to living like Christ.
I think one reason Peterson dithers in this way is that he doesn't want to be committed to living like Christ. His arrogant trolling and name calling on the internet are not consistent with living like Christ, so he rejects it giving himself the room to still be mean. Of course, I should put down the psychoanalysis books.
Re: and this is a big butt here
Normally I don't point out typos, but this struck me an unintentionally funny.
But I needed a laugh having learned today of the death of the retired former priest of my church, whom I originally knew when I lived here twenty years ago (and renewed acquaintance with when I moved back). Fr. Michael, Memory eternal!
Memory Eternal indeed.
It wasn't a typo. I did that deliberately as a joke. Glad it eased your day too.
Yep, and in particular Peterson always wants to have his cake and eat it too. I think he likes sitting on the fence wrt to Christianity, always lauding how wonderful of a metaphor and mythos it is, but never actually committing to the fundamental tenet of the faith--namely that this isn't just an epic myth, but an actual historical set of facts pointing to a living and breathing God.
This is why he gets so uncomfortable when confronted with the question. See his recent interview with Dawkins. Dawkins was very blunt in the interview, saying that religion was fake, the Virgin Birth wasn't real, and the Gospels were not historical events. But Jordan, when asked his opinion, weaseled his way out of the question entirely, and acted like giving a "yes" or "no" response was being simply naive.
In actuality, Dawkins' response was the much more mature (even if wrong) because he could plainly state his opinion on Christianity's truth claims. Peterson dodged entirely because he knows, deep down, that he still considers it a myth, but has become too invested in the story to pull away. That and he will never point blank admit to his Christian fans, or even himself, that he feels this way
Point taken. But I for one would never accuse Dawkins of being mature. He's a smart teenager trapped in an adult body. Peterson is an elder statesman by comparison.
Considering much of the content and discussion on this Substack, Kingsnorth saying that "defending Christian civilization" is a form of idolatry really stood out for me. I agree but then don't. It's easy to cheer JD dressing down the European war-mongering suits and yet...something tells me I should be paying more attention to solitary monks in silent prayer.
I partly agree with Kingsnorth too. He looking in the right direction, IMO, but he sometimes goes entirely too far.
Overall the things of this world provide no salvation and as such we should never allow them to dominate our thought and push out the things of the Kingdom of Heaven.
“dressing down the European war-mongering suits”
Are you high? The Germans and French who always kissed up to Putin before the invasion are “warmongers”? If you are looking for warmongers - look in Russia.
Paul pretty much lost me with his Erasmus lecture. I still read him, but I think his militant environmentalist background is too deeply coloring his Biblical interpretation. RR Reno made a fairly good response to Paul, I thought. Peter Kreeft (the philosopher) made a great response as well -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siXMRhRfoyw
Jesus was countercultural because the culture of his day was evil (much as ours is). But that doesn't mean he was counter-civilizational.
Re: the culture of his [Jesus's] day was evil
I don't think we can really say that either Jesus' culture or ours was totally evil. In fact I don't think that's even possible. But yes, every culture contains its share of evil and sin. And ultimately we never turn to culture for salvation-- that must come from beyond the walls of the world.
I agree. Like people, cultures contain good and evil. And seeking salvation in culture is always self-defeating because culture is created by men who are ultimately all sinful.
However, Paul goes considerably beyond that to claim that the wild, hunter-gatherer lifestyle or that of the desert fathers is the only truly Christian life. His Erasmus lecture is not the first time Paul has hinted that he views civilization as idolatrous, but civilization is simply social relationships in institutional form. Love is impossible without social relationships. God is in a social relationship of the Trinity. God created a social relationship of marriage for man and called it good. "It is not good for man to be alone." Institutional structures that buttress that relationship, promote virtue and foster mutual interdependency are also good. The fact that our present institutions do none of these particularly well (and in some cases actively work against them) invalidates only our civilization, not civilization in general. That's my disagree with with Paul; I come down firmly on Kreeft's side there.
There's is something in Kingsnorth's views that put me in mind of Rousseau. He too believed that civilization was a corrupting influence. And of course, the myth of the Noble Savage.
Yes! I hadn't seen it until you said it, but I feel the same way.
I think Paul is pointing in the right direction, the same direction the Desert Fathers & Mothers took up when, even after the culture had become Christianized, they sought in the wild places (usually actually not too far from human settlements) the depths of what Christ preached - and it's clear that he did not preach acquiring/building a culture or a civilization. What Christ was about was beyond and deeper than either. Of course, the benefits to following him, in terms of a person's relationships with God, him/herself and other people, would bring about an environment that would enable people to do good, but that environment follows in the wake of doing what Christ preached, in the context of uniting oneself with his Cross & Resurrection in Baptism. His message goes beyond even his own context (which we should very much pay attention to, both for its likeness to and difference from ours). Did everyone go out to the desert? No - but the ones that did were always a reminder, and lots of ordinary people sought them out for their wisdom and prayers.
Paul's environmentalism plays a part, but I think it's a kind of bracing truth about the real difficulties we face and the real damage that has been done, whether the problems are completely caused by human carbon production, or whether the climate is going to "self-correct" some day or not. It's bad *now*, and the real cause of the environmental problems is the enlarging spiritual vacuum/nothingness in people and society that justifies endless exploitation, whether for commercial purposes or for some kind of perceived altruism ("the good of humanity").
I pray a lot for protection for Paul, being such a public figure. Yes, he will get some things wrong, or miss something along the way. The deal is, he seems to strive for humility, which is always a good sign, he is faithful in his Christian practice, and he really listens to people, which will help him correct course.
Dana
I agree. As I said, my disagreement with Paul is only a matter of degree.
He and I have talked previously about this on his stack, in the context of industrial capitalism. Paul is not a fan of industrial capitalism (an extension of the Machine).
But absent chemical fertilizers (a product of fossil fuel derived, industrial capitalism) half the population of the Earth dies. So as inimical as modern civilization may be to Christianity, I think going full-Thanos on the human race isn't the answer either.
I think Christians are called to use the tools of their civilization to help more people find and learn to follow Christ, not to cede from it or worse, try to actively damage it. I think Paul mostly would agree with this, but he just gets carried away sometimes. And I thought he got carried away in the Erasmus lecture.
Like you, I have a great deal of respect for Paul as a Christian and as a near-monastic living out his vocation as part of the world instead of secluded from it.
Re: I think Paul is pointing in the right direction, the same direction the Desert Fathers & Mothers took up when, even after the culture had become Christianized, they sought in the wild places (usually actually not too far from human settlements) the depths of what Christ preached - and it's clear that he did not preach acquiring/building a culture or a civilization.
The desert fathers were ascetics. That is a heroic path, a higher path even, but it is not for all people in all situations. Most of us lack that chrism and we must walk the ordinary path, in the world, but of the Church. And really: you can't bring up children living by pure asceticism.
There is always a messy but necessary compromise between what is good for an orderly civil society and what is good for our own salvation.
St Paul acknowledged right at the beginning that civil government deserves a certain allegiance, even one that is unChristian, or hostile to Christianity. Paul, and indeed most of the early Christians, were city people-- and Christianity thrived in the cities of the Empire.
A longform Kingsnorth and Peterson conversation is quite an exciting prospect. Yourself or Pageau could be a great third, then, as a bridge between worlds.
It’s also good to see Sadie Robertson-Huff on the Livestream panels today. Can you believe I’d never even heard of Duck Dynasty until JBP interviewed Willie and Korie just before ‘The Blind’ came out? The convergence of such varied backgrounds of people is truly refreshing to observe.
Great insights by Weinstein, as always. He's always super interesting to hear, because his perspectives are not those of the typical talking-head, yet he's super informed about his specific areas of expertise.
Regarding IVF, I appreciate what Rod and others say about the moral question of it all, specifically what happens to all of the unused zygote. In the abstract and on a deep philosophical level, I might agree with him.
On a practical level I will not be joining him or any other pro- life advocate in condemning it. It is a complete and total political loser and there are much, much bigger fish to fry, both in the cultural space at large and on right to life issues specifically.
It goes back to the principle Rod applied earlier in this same piece: We cannot allow the perfect or ideal to become the enemy of the good or good enough for now. We in the West in the Year of Our Lord do not exist in a culture that is at all willing to accept a maximalist pro- life case that IVF should be banned.
Being loudly and publicly against IVF at this moment plays into the worst caricature of the pro- life position that the abortionists want displayed: " So you'd force women, even women who have been raped, to keep their unwanted babies while denying women who desperately want to have babies access to IVF? That just proves it isn't really about protecting life. It's about control!"
Is that fair? Not really. But it sticks anyway. Frankly, the pro- life movement has not done well in advancing the cause since SCOTUS gave them near- total victory over Roe v. Wade. Maximalist "trigger" laws passed by GOP dominated legislatures who almost certainly figured they were getting to do some hard-core virtue signaling to their pro- life constituents with the cynical expectation that SCOTUS would set up a regime that mostly overturned Roe but left the "popular" exceptions for abortion in place have proven to be mostly unpopular with the general population. Loudly championing a fringe issue like banning IVF puts other gains at risk, plain and simple.
Amy Wellborn points out this morning that the EO has no teeth: it's little more than rah-rah. So, what's the purpose? My dark Sicilian brain says it's an anti-J.D. device. So who's behind it?
Oh, and I'm waiting for Soupy Sales, "Joe" (Nighty-night's Twitter handle), and McElroy to weigh in. Any day now. How's the border, fellas?
Trump is paying his political debts, or keeping his campaign promises, or keeping peace in his family, or... He is a pragmatist, not a moralist.
Who's behind it? No doubt the usual creeps - Musk, Kushner, Don Jr., and Trumps new tech-bro ring kissers.
Down here in Florida Rick Scott (no one's idea of a liberal) ran for reelection with ads deliberately touting his support of IVF. The anti-IVF cause is something of an out-there position even on the Right.
Couldn't agree more.
Rod, the last thing you should do is abandon the culture war post. Paul Kingsnorth is wrong. Not only would you lose half of your customers, culture is the most vital battleground in the world, much more important than temporary political victories.
Yet when Rod doesn't post about Trump, etc., it seems like he gets a lot fewer comments. Seems to me that many of the commenters are interested in the culture mainly in its political forms, not in the culture per se. If that's what Kingsnorth is saying, I'm very much with him.
Trump is part of the culture war despite being non-Christian and having few of the virtues of a civilized man.
Trump’s not interested in the culture war but the culture war is interested in him.
A hard line cannot be drawn between culture and politics. My point is simply that the majority of Rod's commenters seem to be more interested in the latter than the former. The purely cultural posts never get as many comments as those about Trump, politics, etc.
Rod's posts about Trump get the most response at this site because Trump is the center of the world right now. Religious topics will get fewer posts because not all his readers are Christians and not all are really interested in religious topics. His sociological posts get fewer posts as he drifts into using the specialized terminology of academics, a criticism I have of Rod. The UFO topic gets a certain crowd that is smaller than his cultural posts.
Rod Dreher's interests can't always be the same as each of his readers as we are all different. But his variety of posts are large and interesting. He puts out a good product.
Not arguing, just observing. I'm not a political person and I tend to stay out of those discussions. YMMV.
Agreed. I'm not Orthodox Christian so I can't really comment on the history of any of the churches or the difference in their beliefs. Culture is something I can relate to more. But what I like about many of Rod's posts is the variety of topics he covers. I may not like each topic and sometimes I'll skip through a few like the UFO ones. But I've been reading him every day for a few years now and always look forward to a new post.
Trump straddles the fence though. He is not socially conservative, not on board with any sort of national abortion ban, and he's the most pro-gay Republican president to date. Where he sides with the Right is on immigration and DEI, which are cultural if not "moral" issues. And just as most Americans find trans maximalism too much so does he.
That's about right.
Lots of cultural Christians rising to power and influence. I was contemplating if that’s me honestly and many that fill the pews in today’s church. Did JD Vance become a Catholic because Catholic’s seemed successful or having their life in order? I don’t know the answer of course, we just have to ask God to search our hearts and continue to be merciful and show us his will. What is God’s will for one’s life? Sanctification is not as quick has we want it to be.
You might wish to read this:
https://thelampmagazine.com/blog/how-i-joined-the-resistance
It also may be that most of Rod's non-culture comments are deeply personal and require deeply personal responses/comments. For me it's much harder to respond personally. It requires more work, more thought. And I'm often weary about sharing too much in this public forum. Or just certain that nobody is interested in my personal stuff.
Yes, losing customers shouldn’t be one’s biggest concern.
Exactly. Gospel of St. John 6:60-66.
Maybe not his biggest concern. Heaven for himself and his children should be paramount. But Dreher has to pay bills. More customers, more money.
I happen to agree with Paul - and it's not a question of the readership, but of Rod's own spiritual health. It is not good to focus incessantly on the activities of the Enemy, nor is it wise to constantly bang on about all the things we should fear or hate.
Dostoyevsky said "Beauty will save the world," and there is much truth in that. At the very least, we need to be reminded of what we have, and what we need to cherish and save, so that we might be grateful, and in turn share it with others.
If Rod Dreher gives up the culture fight, he would be surrendering in a fight that he is best suited for. If he surrenders, he will lose the majority of his readership and may as well spend the last years of his life in a monastery.
I wouldn't suggest giving it up entirely, but approaching it in a healthier way. I doubt, however, he would lose the majority of his readership even if he did. Rod's a talented and prolific writer, and good at seeing things in ways that seem fresh.
Me and my crack-of-dawn coffee circle often speak about the very philosophers, pontificators and prognosticators that you mention in your article. So many opinions about what should and shouldn't be done. But there is a difference between eloquently philosophizing about the wonders of sausage, and actually making the sausage. What might come as a shock to folks who enjoy breakfast cuisine, you gotta kill the pig to make sausage. You gotta carve up the pig to make sausage. You got to handle the guts to make sausage. Donald Trump, the non-believing clown you refer to, is killing and carving up a great, fat, bloated pig. How many other "Republicans" sat in that chair and fed the pig? I can think of a father and son duo who really fattened the pig. We need folks to do the wet work, so we can all enjoy our nice plate of sausage.
I figure most conservative folks in this country have had enough of the intellectuals and instead want to support those who know their way around a gut bucket.
Exactly. Blah blah blah...but nothing gets done. TRump and folks around him, as well as others on the state level and in other organizations, are doing the work to GET THINGS DONE.
Life is not ultimately theory. Life is action.
Nothing brought this home more to me than the summer of COVID/George Floyd. My husband the street cop was out there getting spit on, cursed at, threatened, and his colleagues were getting shot at. And all for crappy city pay and crummy benefits. Our income was being threatened if we didn't take the shot. Meantime, my elite-educated, well paid, comfortable white collar doctor and lawyer friends had the gall to call him racist (never to his face, only from behind their screens) and sit there and judge what cops should and shouldn't do. All while he was risking his life daily, while they sat at home on their laptops making $500/hr. I just can't. I still can't. It turned me from a solid progressive into a Trump supporter. Life is not as black and white as we want it to be. All the sausage gets made in the gray area.
As grandpa used to quip, "Philosophy never did sink a fence post"
In the spirit of being open to dissident fellow travelers, I offer for consideration Substacker El Gato Malo to those who worry that the Elon cure might be worse than the disease (though perhaps "cure" is not quite right, and "battlefield surgery" is more apt).
See the recent post "The Global Crime Scene," in which he suggests that we're only at the beginning of truly beholding just how fetid the swamp is, due not only to failure of the press but also failure of imagination.
This cat will not be to everyone's tastes here, and hyperbole is part of his style, but he has been right on some important things.
Another post and another disclaimer about David Brooks and another snide remark about Trump being "a clown." And today, the claim that natalist Elon Musk is "transhuman" was it? Sigh.
Consider the remark just a fig leaf, applied for the sake of decency, when presenting Trump to the readers.
Or - bear with me, because this is pretty radical - he might actually believe it. It's not as if the verbal diarrhea that Trump frequently spews could contribute to the idea of him being a clown. It's certainly not posting Napoleon quotes late at night on social media. Nor might it be elevating 'prosperity gospel' hucksters like Paula White. More dancing too YMCA and less reading what's in the Constitution. More action, less reflection!
Trump and Musk both try to be the class clown making us all laugh. It's endearing!
Right. 🌿
In what sense is Musk a "natalist". The fact that he's had twelve kids by four different women?
In the sense that he believes we need to continue the human population, eschews the culture of death (abortion specifically), poo poos overpopulation propaganda, and centers his mission to Mars activities on the conviction that we'll need an annex to Earth at some point for all the beautiful people to call home.
He is also a transhumanist: https://theconversation.com/transhumanism-billionaires-want-to-use-tech-to-enhance-our-abilities-the-outcomes-could-change-what-it-means-to-be-human-220549
His supposed project to find ways to plug our brains directly into computers, if true, strikes me as creepy in a Frankensteinian way.
I thought of Neuralink too. Musk hides behind the altruistic motive here (as in all his companies) when he talks of helping the blind see and the paralegic walk, but I think the real money maker he'll get to soon are elective human enhancements like better memory or an IQ booster.
And the portable Orgasmatron.
From a Christian perspective, the danger of settling other planets is that it makes nuclear holocaust on earth possible.
We are told that the gates of hell will never close on the Church, so there must be people alive at the Second Coming. However, we are not told whether they will be on earth or elsewhere.
Musk actually is unapologetically and definitionally a transhumanist. His Neuralink project is 100% aimed at merging man with the cyber world, and "liberating" humanity from mortal flesh. It is no slur to call him what he is.
And why does it bother you that Rod won't insult Brooks, and calls out Trump for his flaws? If you're looking for substack where everyone agrees with you, I'm sure there others out there.
Indeed. Makes one recall a previous president who was frequently categorized as “that B actor” or, alternatively, as “an amiable dunce.”
Indeed. ✋🏼
Good thing the B actor somehow managed to beat down the Soviets (with help from the Iron Lady and JP2). Similarly, our Clown helped bring peace to the Middle East once and will do so again. And he'll end the Ukraine War.
Do I agree with all of his rhetoric or policies? Of course not. Particularly IVF. But the Clown ad hominem has not only become tiresome but it's coded language employed by *some* of us who fancy ourselves superior, dare I say, ELITE.
That's all from here. Signing off. I wish everyone a very fine day. ♥️
Oh for pity's sake, this is ridiculous.
I love a Trumper who gets fussy about ad hominem attacks [though, the 'Clown' label seems pretty obvious to anyone who listens to Trump talk for 15 minutes]. It's a good thing DJT doesn't resort to such tactics. Oh wait....
I don't think Trump himself would object to being called a clown. He's obviously very funny and likes being the center of attention like any good clown.
He definitely is a clown: a *professional* clown, just about the most talented clown that I've ever seen. He's set a new and inspiring standard, having broken new comedic ground for all clowns to come.
Trump-clown-possey sounds like good band
I've said before that he missed his calling: he should have been a political comic, barbed words and all.
The B Actor, whatever is flaws, was a man of integrity, which is why ugly accusations of wrong-doing and ill-intention never stuck to him. Some of Reagan;s policies turned out to lead to bad ends, but he ten times the man Trump is. I wasn't old enough to vote the last year he ran, but if I had been I would have voted for him.
I don't know why you get bent out of shape about me calling Trump a "clown". I supported him! He is a "clown" in the sense that he is above all an entertainer and a cultural figure, not a standard establishment politician. Yet that is exactly who this moment required. I was savoring the irony. Nobody can possibly read this Substack faithfully and think I'm against this administration. But that doesn't make Trump into Frederick II. We didn't need Frederick II. We needed that guy.
Plus, why am I supposed to hate David Brooks? I think he's wrong about a lot of things, and say so. But I like him as a man. Why is this wrong?
Elon Musk is a transhumanist. Haven't you heard? Read here:
https://theconversation.com/transhumanism-billionaires-want-to-use-tech-to-enhance-our-abilities-the-outcomes-could-change-what-it-means-to-be-human-220549
It sometimes feels like you don't want anything even remotely critical to be said about Our Side, or anything good to be said about Their Side.
Count me in the pro-clown caucus of which Trump's the ringleader.
Presumably members of the pro-clown caucus will be gifted tubes bronzer as their complementary clown makeup. Make sure to slather it on! Then go stare into the mirror and repeat to yourself "Zelensky is a dictator, Zelensky is a dictator..."
They will be repeating: “The war is Ukraine’s fault. Ukraine invaded Russia, not the other way around. Donald Trump said so.”
Trump is like a clown in the Shakespearean sense: genuinely funny, and people think he's crazy, but actually he makes the most sense out of anyone on the stage.
a jester
It's Musk and Thiel that scare me. There's a lot I like about Trump.
The Techbros are seeking to misdirect Trumpian populism to ends that serve themselves and not we the people.
My joy today, and I know Rod won't read the comments - is that Rod explained how he integrated the two calls on his life at this point. I've only read Rod since 2020 and been here since 2023. I used to worry about the wear of constant culture war and hence constantly accessing depressing news on Rod. So I was somewhat with Kingsnorth, though not entirely for Kingsnorth's reasons. With recent healing he has told us of, it seems more clear that thoughts of leaving the culture war entirely have been set aside - by culture war here I mean writing about controversial political topics, - Rod is right that Christians have to speak to the political condition of our world. His voice is very valuable, he has done much.
The watchman is a metaphor for a prophet or seer, tasked with discerning the times and warning of impending danger. I looked up Isaiah 21 and it is very beautiful - I recommend it all. Here is the verse Rod quoted and a couple of others: (6) For thus the Lord said to me: “Go, set a watchman; let him announce what he sees. (11) One is calling to me from Seir, “Watchman, what time of the night? Watchman, what time of the night?” (12) The watchman says:“Morning comes, and also the night. f you will inquire, inquire; come back again.”
Some things I've said aloud to Rod - the first time I met him I heard the words "I think you are called to be a prophet" coming out of my mouth toward the end of the meeting. Then I must have blushed. I never did fully explain (but I expect Rod gets it by now). In my Charismatic Catholic background, the gift of prophecy means speaking strongly as to how we could and should live and may mean foretelling. Each of us has at least one of the gifts of the Spirit in the New Testament, and Rod has that one. Kingsnorth has a different version of the gift, as I see it. I personally think Paul should be open to their different callings in prophecy.
(very minor edit for clarity )
I imagine Paul as father being more stoic and relying primarily on modeling good behavior and the truth. While Rod can model, I bet he was very good at putting lessons into words (as any prophet) for his children.
And I imagine Paul saying "there's no need to be unkind", "that's not so much name calling as description", and "you need to go have a good lie down" (as he recently did) :)
Nah, my fathering has mainly been about telling stories to my children, most of them involving animals with silly names. My best storytelling has happened that way and I am happy to say it will never go outside the confines of my family ...
This post brightened my day. I'm sure you are great father.
Not sure about that, but we do our best! It's the hardest job ...
Rod makes fine points as usual. It is Important to talk about these things but unfortunately I don’t think it makes much difference. I think changes for good will happen more organically & not theoretically. Example: look at end of Cold War. Few got it right, big blind spot. Jaffa got it right - leftist brought fight here after ussr demise. Look at results. Unfortunately most common folks , the real agents of change (not the academics), will not do what it takes to preserve the good b/c the end of their horizon is death. The faithful are different b/c death is just beginning.
& I think Trump’s Ivf decision is still officially pending. I pray he sees the light of goodness, virtue but My instinct is he will go full Monty on death. He is zero sum, utilitarian. Ivf destroys more life than abortion I believe. Like I said before Trump is 2 steps forward & 4 steps back.
I agree with Weinstein's prediction. There'll be a brief period that feels like a return to a healthy society, but the vibes will keep on shifting. We're going straight from a society run on the feminine will-to-power to one run on the masculine.
I don't see manual labor and other masculinist things pf that category making a huge come back any time soon. The sort of work we have today will likely be the reality of work for the future, with allowance for AI and robots taking over more of it. There isn't going to be some surge of He-Man roles. Which shouldn't matter: there are many masculine archtypes not just the Warrior. There's the Prophet, the Scholar, the Healer, the Artist, the Inventor, the Priest, the Good Father...
“Whole of society approach” is what the Nazis called Gleichschaltung
On immigration any time we've been around 14% anti-immigrant sentament has bubbled to the surface. The low in the US was around 5%. I think the ideal level is between 4% and 8% but it probably depends on context. So when things are relatively peaceful and stable that percentage might be higher and still not cause disorder. During hardship the percentage needs to be lower to maintain a unified culture.
On economics the graft must end. A great deal of corruption exists within the H1B system. Outsourcing, firing citizens and requiring they train foreign replacements, limiting hours to skirt laws around full time employment. All these things are unfair and unrighteous to our neighbors. The same people pretending to care about the foreigner disregards his brother in the gutter and it's disgusting. Maybe we should have a registration system for labor so that if you sign up a minimum UBI, food and housing allowance is provided no matter your hours. Not everyone is smart and we have to provide for the weak as well as the strong. Their should probably be requirements attached, such as meeting together within a local chapter at least once a week. However such a program might work, the people that argue for limiting what can be bought with food stamps have a point but so to do those that point out the corruption in work hours of employers and the fact that people can work multiple jobs because of this and still need food stamps. That is a travesty. A travesty of people who think they are better than the poor and yet have created a system that is dehumanizing. It is extremely wrong and it's sad that so many people don't recognize it's oppressiveness to the person and the soul.
We're moving toward a place where, in the past blue collar jobs were automated and replaced, where now white collar jobs are being replaced. We need to build infrastructure that relieves this burden that is placed on citizens, on our countrymen and on our neighbors. Technology is a tool and like an axe it can kill or be used to build a home.
On technology we have a transhumanist group in society that does not believe in the holiness of man made in the image of God. The most extreme amongst them would butcher the body, alter our dna, implant chips and attempt to read and even control our very thoughts. That is the abyss we're looking into but at the same time, if the worst can be constrained many good things like bringing sight to the blind, limbs to the limbless and speech to the mute are now possible. Technology is a tool. If it's looked at like a hammer and not a bible or a living being then it has a great many problems it can help solve. Already professors and recruiters talk about the impact LLMs have had on young people. The technologies around today are already have negative impacts. We experience it now in my work all the time. Young people are coming in that cannot write code because they use the LLM to provide it to them. They use this machine that hallucinates to think for them, to research and to work. They communicate mostly through online forums and no longer are able to carry a conversation with a stranger. These are problems we'll all have to resolve.