Chaitanya Jyothi Museum Opening, 2000
RAMANAM
In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.
Countrymen,
ORBIS NON SUFFICIT
SOLUS DEUS SUFFICIT
David R. Graham
Roger locates the socialist virus in our educational system, and I think he is right about that, too. I would go farther and finger the teachers’ unions as the number one force for evil in this regard (and others).
Actually, the virus’ origin is in the synagogues and churches. The schools picked it up from those sources. Socialism is Jewish and Christian self-doubt.
lydia to David R. Graham
Churches tend to teach that individualism is selfish. Sacrifice is necessary to salvation. And “self governing” pew sitters are an oxymoron.
DesertFlower to lydia
Maybe for some folks, but that’s not what I was taught while growing up Baptist. There was often reference to “the priesthood of the believer,” meaning that no priest stands between the believer and God – communication is direct. You, as an individual, communicate with God; you petition or praise God through prayer as an individual. And you, as an individual, are answerable for your actions & choices.
There was much emphasis on self governance & self restraint, with the individual making his own choices (I call that individualism). Yes, there was a focus on service, as a way of sharing our blessings and showing gratitude for them. I knew plenty of “self governing pew sitters.” But then, Baptists are an unusually feisty lot!
lydia to DesertFlower
A fellow traveler! I was raised the exact same. Those precious saints drilled priesthood of believer and soul competency into our brains in Training Union. We were taught that we were responsible and accountable for what we believed and did in life. And encouraged to question because there is No king but Jesus. I cannot tell you how grateful I am to those precious souls. I carried on that truth with my kids.
Baptists’ used to be like herding cats —as my mom often said. But they could vehemently disagree and go eat potluck. 🙂
My comment was written in the spirit of how much I have seen most Baptist churches change in the last 30 years. I follow the seminary’s and what they are churning out. Little totalitarian pastors.
DesertFlower to lydia
Peace to you, my friend. I have little time for totalitarian pastors! Bless their hearts, they are not in the Baptist tradition of independent thought that I remember & cherish.
Don Weber to lydia
My catholic education did not teach that. Free will, dignity of the individual, using your talents were all highly emphasized. Yes, sacrifice and serving others was also integral but not at the expense of individual liberty. However, that was 40-50 years ago. I admit that I’m hearing strains of progressivism (socialist) in homilies, usually in an environmental-related thread (thank you, Pope Francis), but individualism has not been abandoned (yet).
David R. Graham to lydia
Concur. Churchmen should teach self-abnegation. By sacrifice, today, they mean parting with your spondulix for the gratification of said churchmen. And the only thing necessary to salvation is the slightest glimmer of light touching one from the eyes of God. And that is already promised forth, unconditionally.
John from America to David R. Graham
I’d say the churches failed to counter the evil doctrine of Marx, Marcusa, Alinsky and Sanders. Of course the churches were forbidden by taxation laws to preach about these things.
David R. Graham to John from America
No and no.
19th Century Liberal Christian theologians and exegetes deliberately sought to make Christianity align with both Marx and Darwin. Their successors tried to make Christianity align with Freud. IOW, they lost self-confidence, wanted to be liked by rampant “science.”
LBJ motioned to strip churchmen of free speech from the pulpit, and they buckled under threat of losing money. In other words, they betrayed their responsibilities as churchmen. Taxation laws did nothing. Churchmen foreswore their responsibilities as churchmen of their own accord. And they whinge about losing members (aka money) anyway.
Ditto Jews. The greatest Ashkenazy Rabbi of the 20th Century, the mystic A. J. Heschel, was condemned by his co-religionists for threatening their tax exemption by condemning the UniParty’s endless, pointless war in Vietnam and also for expressing genuine ecumenical spirit inspired by the Oneness of God.
John from America to David R. Graham
I will not apologize for 19th century denominations. However, the government can destroy churches through the use of tax law. You are too harsh.
David R. Graham to John from America
Au contraire. No one can destroy churches . . . except churchmen who are anything but. Ditto synagogue. And Hindu temple. And Baha’i meeting. But Church? Beyond destruction. Permanent.
People are leaving the churches because churchmen stand not up for them against Socialist aka government/lawyer intimidation. Government is fleeting. Church is eternal. Who has power most? Ergo responsibility most?
In any case of social dysfunction, unhappiness, never blame government aka lawyers, as nasty and wicked as they can be and so often are. Always blame clergy, and after them, professors, who are clergy by another name.
lydia to David R. Graham
Politics is downstream from culture?
David R. Graham to lydia
Something like that. 🙂
Neither Jesus the Christ nor St. Paul condemns Rome or even Herod, i.e., politics. They condemn clergy (priests, scribes) and lawyers/academics (Pharisees), i.e., religion, which produces culture, which produces politics.
“Culture is the form of religion and religion is the substance of culture.” Paul Tillich. Mohammedans have no difficulty accepting that truth. They have made it an article of faith: Islam is the entire and only legitimate civilization. I give them credit for logical consistency and thoroughness at least in that regard. But of course Tillich’s famous dictum is an observation, not a politics. That Mohammedans do not get.
POTUS also switched out said SecDef, NSA, and SecState.
The top-level US IC is at strategic zero with respect US sovereignty. They want to be. (There is no such thing as security.) US sovereignty does not interest them. What interests them is protecting themselves from scrutiny for their having drunk the globalist cool-aid and using their facilities to concoct more cauldrons of it and call those national security assessments. They are assessing for travel away from national sovereignty and towards national dissolution, but not of their agencies. (There is something hilariously stupid in that set of goals.)
Americans control their government and will not tolerate being controlled by their government.
Some years ago, Reynolds observed that, paraphrasing, if Americans lived simply, rationally, the economy would collapse immediately. All the time our kids were growing up, I remarked to them and my wife that if Americans lived as we did — family monastics I called us — our state and national economies would collapse.
I further commented to them that, given that situation, much of our family’s peace and happiness — clean food, loving parents, low living expenses, constant study, self-education, vigorous play, quiet anonymity — depended on most Americans living like idiots, extravagantly.
I had in mind the observation by St. Francis of Assisi that little fish swim through nets that big fish perish in. My wife and I organized our family life with that in mind.
David R. Graham
The first professor fired by the Nazi Party when in power was a Christian: Johannes Paulus (Paul) Tillich. German universities then, and I believe still (though perhaps erroneously) were government institutions, supported by the King/Emperor through general taxation, and had been for centuries. Reinhold Niebuhr, a German-American Communist from the German Reformed (Calvinist) Church, was able to get Paulus (a German Lutheran, there was only one official type), of Pietist (think Bach) descent, and self-described Christian Socialist, and his wife Hannah, out of Germany and into a professorship at The Union Theological Seminary in NYC, where my father was his and Rheiny’s student. Leftist know full well who is their chief, meaning most potent and natively pro-active, enemy. They are stupid but sly.
Listening to Taize chants today, I noticed what I think is the reason that semi-monastic movement has not inspired popular enthusiasm. Historically, deformed times such as ours inspire monastic/unworldly movements which [only] generate cultural reformation. Taize has not done that. Why? I think because their hymnody is (1) not stepwise in tune and orderly in procession of circle of fifths, thus rational, easy to hear/sing, and (2) reaches for harmony rather than counterpoint, thus emotionally flaccid, jejune.
PaulStPaul to David R. Graham
Can you offer a brief comment on Dietrich Bonhoeffer?
He was reported to have said about The Union Theological Seminary in NYC which he attended in 1930 “There is no theology here.”
David R. Graham to PaulStPaul
While my memory is not clear, I recall the Systematic Theologian (and Calvinist) Paul Lehmann saying there were one or two immediate Union community member who supported Bonhoeffer in his decision for a final return to Germany: one was Lehmann himself, the other, if there was another, was Systematic Theologian (and Lutheran) Paul Tillich. Lehmann was Union P of Systematic Theology in the late 60s. The text for his basic course was . . . Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion (also here). . . in toto and in profundum. Talk about being put through the paces.
I have not heard that quote but do not doubt its accuracy. Indeed, I can vouch for it. Ironically, it was the Hassid Heschel who kept me there through graduation, and Lehmann, Landes and Terrien, OT Ps.
Bonhoeffer was a great man, a good man. He grasped the corporeality of the ways of God and did his duty as he saw it. The bulk of the Union community disgraced itself in treatment of Bonhoeffer and their subsequent protestations of his saintliness are cover for their disloyalty. Now they have a shrine room for his memory! That is what he meant by “no theology here.”
The meaning of the quote is that theology is a body of knowledge, not a gaggle of opinions and that if one is unwilling to learn its art and practice it, one has no theology and is not a seminary. Bonhoeffer’s argument for return was that if he was not with Germans he had no authority to participate in their reconstruction. I think a similar sentiment induced DJT to stand for election to POTUS.
Put your life where your mouth is or shut your mouth.
Tillich left Union upon essentially the same reason, but by then, the absence of theology (read: the seductive presence of Reinhold Niebuhr, sorry to say) was producing also administrative/financial irregularity as well as professional vacuity. Into a chair named for Tillich not long after was moved a showman of considerable ability but none theological.
Lehmann urged upon his students what he called “doing theology.”
On the gist of Bonhoeffer’s in the quote I wrote recently under title Theology Is A Body Of Knowledge, Not A Cackle Of Opinions.
Christian Socialism is a term coined by German Christian intellectuals following WW I. Its purpose was a governmentally-doable political expression for consequences of Christian Faith. Socialism had been rising in popularity since the days of Bismarck, who made some socialist ideas government policy, generally intelligent and humane ones.
Communist Socialism appealed strongly to Germans struck to nothing by the war and bank foreclosures on their homes.
Christianity, mostly Lutheran, some Reformed, was established religion in most of Germany and especially Prussia, where royal and ruling families — and Paul Tillich — were born and reared. Socialism was growing strength in those churches well before WW I and continued after. Liberal Christianity/Liberalism was one of its names. It self-identified as scientific and emphasized sensory/mediated experience over direct experience as emphasized by classical Greek and German Idealism and Christian Mysticism.
Transferred to the USA, German Liberal Christianity (aka Social Gospel) fostered a kind of revivalism for the intelligentsia. Revivalism (abandonment of self-scrutiny to a spate of rising emotion) had its own native American roots but not for the intelligentsia. That German-origin revivalist, leftist, posture among USA-based intelligentsia today calls itself Progressivism and Leftism. It is Socialism by any name but with revivalist engineering.
Christian Socialists following WW I, such as Tillich — and they numbered not so many — wanted to steer between Communists on the one hand and Liberal (sense-based) Christians on the other. One can appreciate their intent but not overlook their failure.
By Socialism they did not mean what Communists, Fascists, Progressives, Liberals mean by Socialism. They meant humane government, not total government, Christian freedom, not political brutality.
In Germany to this day they lost the battle and the war. As a polis, Germans following WW I went first for Fascist Socialism (Nazis), then for Communist Socialism (EU), and now of late for Islamic Socialism (Salafist-Shiite Jihad). Christian Socialism was not the answer. The Socialism part disrupts the Christian part. Systemic incompatibility is there.
Fortunately, in Tillich’s three-volume Systematics (still in print) and other major works and collections he recognizes inadequacies of Socialism even while reminding his readers that his history and in-most affections bind to the humane, freedom-aspiring/inspiring consequences of Christian Faith.
merkinmuffy
Take it a step further:
Entertainment…all liberal
Teacher unions…all liberal
Universities…all liberal
Librarian Associations…all liberal
Tech companies…all liberal
Big Search…all liberal
Advertising…all liberal
Notice the similarity here?
All sources of information.
The left has taken over every source of information that Americans see, just as David Horowitz’s Communist parents told him they were going to do in the early 1950’s.
David R. Graham to merkinmuffy
Your analysis is superficial. You omitted churches, synagogues, mosques, temples and big law. Leftism starts in so-called religious organization, actually, moves from there to schools, and from there to big law and thence to businesses.
It all starts in the religious organizations. That is why so many so accurately see leftism as a religion and leftists as weird religionists. Leftism is a heresy of religion, a thing, not a detachment from things, which religion is.
merkinmuffy to David R. Graham
If it starts in religion, then why does so much of the left’s efforts go toward discrediting religion?
David R. Graham to merkinmuffy
Good question. Answer: leftism, being a heresy of religion — specifically Christianity — is obliged to attack religion. The nature of a dependent is to distress its host.
merkinmuffy to David R. Graham
“Thou shalt have no gods above the State.”
David R. Graham to merkinmuffy
And abridging that warning distresses God, who has His ways of responding.
Derek Pandamonium to David R. Graham
You failed to mention the religion of the current Pope, Liberation theology, It’s a materialistic ideology developed by the communists to undermine the Catholic church in South and Central America.
David R. Graham to Derek Pandamonium
I did? I thought I had. On rereading I see I had, more than once.
Men grow with events, opportunities. Ponder what should be, could be, over the horizon, such as in strategic statecraft, rather than current negativities. Reality is always present and a friend. At the worst of times, existentially, the truth is present. Seek and speak that. No more can be asked of one. One who protects the truth is protected by the truth.
When good times emerge, be ready with fresh conceptual insights which cultivate opportunities given to build strength — which is allegiance to truth — among our fellow citizens.
I use the locution The Latin Church in place of western civilization because it includes more specificity and works as surprise and superior armament in both defense and offense, and in both static and maneuver contact.
On the schism of 1653 in the Russian Orthodox Church:
I am no expert on Nikon and the schism. I would caution that modern historians put virtually everything in political, psychological, and social terms, as they understand them, most recently with their liberal international order (globalist) framework, which is purely ideological (socialist), so that: the existential/spiritual drivers in any schism of any kind escape the attention of said historians.
For example, I would speculate that Nikon was trying to centralize acceptable existential experience by way of liturgical formulation whereas inherently Russian and indeed Christian experience in general is vastly rich and therefore multi-faceted; so that: to be what the church has always claimed it is — in Latin complexio oppositorum: nothing in nature, man, or history does not have a place in the church writ universal as Spiritual Community — acceptable existential experience, aka authority, has to be decentralized, though with an abiding center comprising fidelity to the inherent richness of the Faith, i.e., its unity in decentralization (e pluribus unum).
Russian society of the time was almost wildly colorful and efflorescent. See Kandinsky’s colors — 3-400 years hence! — even in his early impressionistic realism paintings. Today the virtuoso Lola Astanova remarks the colors of Russia inspiring her. She has perfect pitch, BTW.
Political and social analyses are useful as far as they go, but they are superficial ultimately. Breitbart drove home the truth, Politics [and society] is downstream from culture. Well, culture is downstream from spiritual yearning. Theology really only articulates the phenomenology of spirit driving for home. The great Russian literateurs illustrate this point. In the Greek Church, existential yearning for mystical union/freedom in/with eternity, a yearning which is pre-Christian in the Greco-Roman world, drove the existential enterprise, all of it. Paul in Athens made the point that Christianity only accurately answers the ancient yearning, requiring no substitute in its place prior to acceptance/conversion.
In the Latin Church the yearning is for release/freedom from sin, a very different matter altogether but also Christian.
Freedom, backed by imputed purity, is the common ground between Greek and Latin existential thought (theology) and practice (piety). Each church formalizes their approach to the existential enterprise into their liturgy.
I suspect (!) Nikon was forcing a bit more existential uniformity (of the Greek Church variety) into the liturgy than was warranted by the richness of theology (thought) and piety (practice) in the Empire historically and at that time. But with Catherine, and Peter behind her, and the nobles and she approving Voltaire — a humanist and proto-Communist, an enemy of Christianity generally but in disguise of sweet words — and the empire expanding and standardizing, Nikon would be disposed to do his bit for centralization through liturgical and polity reform that reduces the ability of existential commotion at the expense of the Caesar function of the Tsar as head of the Church.
Christianity derives from an event in history, not from the experience of a regenerated Christian.
Who has lost the habit of penitence has lost the habiliment of manhood. Self-abnegation is the central Christian virtue.
Βασιλεία του Θεού
Kingdom of God
Update 1: Understanding Modern African Horrors by Way of the Indian Ocean Slave Trade
Update 2: The Illegal CIA Operation That Brought Us 9/11
Update 3: Spygate: The True Story of Collusion
Update 4: Latin Arabia
Update 5: The Importance of Getting History Right
Update 6: This Map Shows Where in the World the U.S. Military Is Combatting Terrorism
Update 7: David Archibald: Advice for Our Vietnamese Friends on China
Update 8: John Dale Dunn: Another scientist challenges Darwin’s theory
AUM NAMAH SHIVAYA
