The Case for the Moral Superiority of Freedom Over Dependency

Americans are beginning to wake up to the failure of decades of a morally declining culture--a culture that not only has become enslaved to drugs, alcohol, sex, and violence, but is becoming enslaved to ever-growing government handouts.


In Powerlineblog.com John Hinderaker wrote this, introducing Jeff Sessions' speech from Saturday.
Posted on March 10, 2013 by John Hinderaker in Barack Obama, Education

Making the Case for the Moral Superiority of Freedom

Jeff Sessions, the Senate’s indispensable man, delivered the Republicans’ radio address yesterday. In it, he focused on one of his favorite themes: it is conservative policies, not liberal ones, that are compassionate toward the poor, the disadvantaged, the downtrodden. Sessions argues that conservatives need to push back harder against the smug assurance of liberals that their policies are good for people, even as they keep people dependent, deprive them of opportunities for employment and wage growth, and steal away, on every front, the independence that lends dignity to every human life, no matter how seemingly ordinary. Here is Sessions’ radio address in its entirety:

Read the entire article and Jeff Sessons' speech here:

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/03/making-the-case-for-the-moral-superiority-of-freedom.php

Sessions starts with: "Hello. I’m Jeff Sessions from Alabama, Ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee. It’s my privilege to speak with you today before the Senate considers a budget plan next week. Congress has an obligation to adopt a budget that does the most good for the most people."

After describing the failure of the policies that have brought us to our current dependent state and then listing some steps that can be taken, Sessions says, "These steps will empower Americans—not the government. They will promote family—not bureaucracy. And they will help create a future in which the central bonds in our lives are not government rules but the love and loyalty we have for one another."

Do you agree with Jeff Sessions? Write something here or on your own page. Do you disagree? Still you should write and state your own opinion. This is a debate that we must engage if our country is to endure as we have known it.

A Christian Living Out His Faith

Some people get so wrapped up in the phrase “separation of church and state” that they think it means Christians have to leave their faith at home if they are elected to public office. This is especially true of those who mistakenly think the phrase is in the Constitution instead of in a letter from Thomas Jefferson to Baptists in Danbury, Connecticut.

Others think all politicians get caught up in going along to get along so they can’t ever exhibit moral integrity. It’s instructive then to see that Paul Ryan, the newly introduced running mate for Mitt Romney, spoke at Georgetown University (a Catholic school) about how his Catholic faith informs his policy formation.

It’s worth reading the whole speech at this site. When I read it, I saw a great summary of this very complicated topic. These four subjects in that speech are worth exploring to see how faith can be implemented: (the quotes are from Paul Ryan’s speech)

Social Doctrine—“The work I do as a Catholic holding office conforms to the social doctrine as best I can make of it. What I have to say about the social doctrine of the Church is from the viewpoint of a Catholic in politics applying my understanding to the problems of the day.”

Solidarity—“Serious problems like those we face today require charitable conversation. Civil pubic dialogue goes to the heart of solidarity, the virtue that does not divide society into classes and groups but builds up the common good of all.”

Subsidiarity—This is the concept that those entities closest to the problem know it best and are best able to address it. So, families, friends, neighbors, cities, counties, and states should take care of issues first before relying on the national government to get involved. “Government is one word for things we do together. But it is not the only word. We are a nation that prides itself on looking out for one another—and government has an important role to play in that. But relying on distant government bureaucracies to lead this effort just hasn’t worked.”

Preferential option for the poor—It is a moral choice to prioritize resources so that the poor can have a necessary safety net. However, “…I do not believe that the preferential option for the poor means a preferential option for big government.”

Ryan goes on to talk about poverty, taxes, Medicare, and affordable health care. These are all subjects that demand civil dialogue and respect for differing opinions. That civil dialogue will lead to solidarity in working to effect true social justice.

I’m with Ryan. I believe it is not only possible, but the most moral choice for Christians to put their faith into practice in the public square.

Comments on "Bad Religion", part 2

The prologue of "Bad Religion, How We Became A Nation Of Heretics" introduces the topic of "A nation of heretics". Not only have we seen a growing political and economic mess in America, it has become apparent that our culture has declined. Ross Douthat doesn't take sides politically. He clearly and comprehensively uncovers various religious theories about what has brought on the decline; and why religious institutions have lost so much influence over the culture.

Whether it is a voice from the right that says America started as a Christian nation and, having moved away from its Christian principles, has lost God's favor, or a voice from the left that says America is in decline because it is too religious, both are inadequate explanations. Douthat says "America's problem isn't too much religion, or to little of it. It's bad religion: the slow-motion collapse of traditional Christianity and the rise of a variety of destructive pseudo-Christianities in its place."

These distortions of traditional Christianity don't have the full stream to draw from--only self-indulgent truncated copies that in the end don't have the power of the real thing. Interestingly, Douthat says that the various "experiments" or "heresies" in American Christianity's history have not been all that bad. They have been good for traditional Christianity because the push and pull of innovation versus orthodoxy have served to strengthen the orthodox stream and make the faith broader and able to serve more people.

Freedom of religion in America has in the past made the orthodox stream stronger. "In America, because orthodoxy couldn't be taken for granted, orthodoxy came alive."

The problem today, though, is that the stream itself is weaker. The so-called "mainstream denominations" have declined in membership and influence. Many, having moved themselves out of the stream of orthodoxy, are now simply ignored as irrelevant by the cultural elites who set the memes of the news cycle.

Meanwhile, although the explosion of the tributaries shows that Americans are not less religious, the don't have the unity or collective power to affect the culture in a positive direction. Instead, we're a collection of individuals who each has his or her own "choose your own Jesus" that meets the requirement of providing some personal benefits without a sense of corporate responsibility.

Douthat wrote his book with the hope that things can be turned around. "Both doubters and believers stand to lose if religion in the age of heresy turns out to be complicit in our fragmented communities, our collapsing families, our political polarizations, and our weakened social ties." He will argue for a renewal of faith in and a return to the 2,000 year old stream. And, in spite of the pessimism of much of the book, he has hope that renewal can come.

I will write my comments with that same hope. Perhaps some readers will pick up the book themselves and read along. Perhaps others will simply rethink their own relationship to the religion that forms the roots of our culture and seek some answers in those churches where the gospel message is still being taught and lived.  After all, even heretics are not beyond the reach of God's grace.

Comments On "Bad Religion", part 1

I've started reading "Bad Religion, How We Became A Nation Of Heretics", by Ross Douthat.  It is so intriguing that I've decided to write a post on each chapter to share it with my friends.

Douthat traces the decline in influence of religion on American culture since the optimistic years following WW II. He sees the problem not as too little religion nor too much religion, but as what he calls "bad religion".

From the preface comes this illustration. "A chart of the American religious past would look like  a vast delta with tributaries, streams, and channels winding in and out, diverging and reconverging--but all of them fed, ultimately, by a central stream, an original current, a place where all the waters start. This river is Christian orthodoxy."

There has always been a struggle between the stewards of orthodox Christian belief and practice and those who seek to adapt to new circumstances by experimenting with, adding to, or deleting from that orthodoxy. America, with its lack of central authority, its melting pot of cultures, and its enshrined freedom of religion has been a fertile ground for these experiments.

These "experimenters" typically have taken one aspect of the multi-faceted (and sometimes seemingly contradictory) Christian stream and emphasized it, resulting in a tributary that at first is connected, but eventually departs dramatically from its origin. The result has been a collection of "choose your own Jesus" movements. So, we have become "a nation of heretics"--still religious, but with declining influence in the American culture.

RE: "Decline is A Choice"

I often like the comments I hear from Charles Krauthammer and read his online posts whenever I can. This one in The Weekly Standard entitled "Decline Is A Choice" shows his gift of stepping back and getting a perspective that is generally missed by others. Two quotes give a window into his insights and make me think about what I must do to help America make the right choice:

"For America today, decline is not a condition. Decline is a choice. Two decades into the unipolar world that came about with the fall of the Soviet Union, America is in the position of deciding whether to abdicate or retain its dominance. Decline--or continued ascendancy--is in our hands."

and,

"And there's the rub. For the Europeans there really is a peace dividend, because we provide the peace. They can afford social democracy without the capacity to defend themselves because they can always depend on the United States.
So why not us as well? Because what for Europe is decadence--decline, in both comfort and relative safety--is for us mere denial. Europe can eat, drink, and be merry for America protects her. But for America it's different. If we choose the life of ease, who stands guard for us?"

All of the questions now being debated in Washington (and in real America outside the beltway): Health Care, Afganistan, Iran, Iraq, Stimulus, Energy, The Economy, Jobs, Cap and Trade (or "Cap and Tax"), Education, Immigration, Marriage, Don't Ask Don't Tell, and more--they are just double-sided pieces of a puzzle in which the picture only is revealed toward the end when we see the accumulated pattern of the individual choices made on each separate question.

What can I do? Work to elect those who will stand up and decide not to decline.

What can you do? Read "Decline Is A Choice" and make your own decision.

The Irony of Elastic Theology and Inclusiveness

In "The Upper Crust of Progressive Episcopalians", by George Will is this key insight:

“The Episcopal Church once was America's upper crust at prayer. Today it is "progressive" politics cloaked -- very thinly -- in piety. Episcopalians' discontents tell a cautionary tale for political as well as religious associations. As the church's doctrines have become more elastic, the church has contracted. It celebrates an "inclusiveness" that includes fewer and fewer members.”

It seems people want to belong to a church or organization that actually stands for something rather than for the acceptance of "whatever". When there is no distinction between the church and the culture, what appeal does the church have? Why bother to attend church? Or, as in George Will's column, why bother to stay connected to that church when you can become part of one that helps you become better than the culture?

Comedy meets post-modernism

Comedy meets post-modernism
This is a great answer to the culture’s bias against any statement being Truth.
The Anchoress: This guy is like so right, you know?

The Relationship Between Culture and Government

Read the following and then click on the link to see its author and the entire article from which this is selected.

The Founding Fathers Knew: Good Government Requires Good Culture

One of the amazing things about the generation that founded America was that they knew we as a people would eventually drift into a crisis of bad culture and bad government. And they had no doubt which came first. They knew that bad culture leads to bad government -- and good government requires good culture.
Consider just a few quotes from our Founders:

"...there is no truth more thoroughly established, than that there exists in the economy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness; between duty and advantage; between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy, and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity; since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven, can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained..." -- President George Washington's First Inaugural Address

"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports." -- George Washington's Farewell Address

"Our Constitution was made for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." -- John Adams

"Religion and good morals are the only solid foundation of public liberty and happiness." -- Samuel Adams

"Reading, reflection, and time have convinced me that the interests of society require the observation of those moral precepts ... in which all religions agree." -- Thomas Jefferson

"Religion is the only solid Base of morals and Morals are the only possible support of free governments" -- Gouverneur Morris

"The only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid in religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments." -- Benjamin Rush

Read the rest of this article to see what happens to a society when “bad culture [is] reinforced by bad government”.