I would like to respond to this article from Biblical Archaeology Review and the confused culture from which it came.  Like many BAR articles I’m not sure what the point is, but I’m sure it’s not Biblical.  This article borrows from an article by Christopher somebody, the newest version of which is something about the Nineteenth Amendment.

Oh my.

I don’t really care to get into or to read that article, other than to say this;  The Nineteenth Amendment didn’t give women the right to vote it took away the right of the family vote.  The founders and most peoples throughout time, saw the family as the fundamental political unit.  Originally only heads of household voted.  Which required a household, so only landowners could vote.  It is the basic principle that responsibility and authority go hand and hand.  It doesn’t work when the people in authority don’t have to take responsibility for their decisions in the event that things come crashing down.  This is how much of our bloated federal system operates today.  The rancher in Montana is responsible for his cattle.  He can see that introducing wolves to the area will be harmful to those cattle.  But he no longer has the authority to decide what happens on his land, that is left to some bureaucracy in DC.  To them it sounds like a nice romantic idea. Why not?  It doesn’t really affect them.  Meanwhile the rancher is left with the real consequences on the ground, dead animals, and the cost of meat goes up for everyone.  As this applies to men and women and the family, I will discuss later.

The Nineteenth Amendment is very similar to the Seventeenth Amendment which governs the election of U.S. Senators.  Under the auspices of giving the people more rights, it really enslaves them.  Originally U.S. Senators were chosen by the State Legislators, but the seventeenth amendment changed that into a direct, popular election.  Now it’s far easier to buy a Senator, you only have to pick one election and dump a bunch of money into it.  Under the old system, you would have had to mess with every single local, state and house election.  The people didn’t gain the right to vote for Senators, the States lost that power.  Because direct Democracy can be another form of tyranny, mob rule.  It often devours the very freedom it claims to give, by play on reactionary impulses.

I would argue that similar deception has taken place by removing the vote from the family, as executed by it’s head the husband.  Consider the Presidential elections. Since full suffrage became the zeitgeist of the people in 1920, the vote of women didn’t really make that much difference.  Now your wife can invalidate your vote, and call it freedom, big deal.  It is difficult to measure the result of the women’s vote but it looks like the election of Bill Clinton was the first where their influence was really felt.  The men were mostly divided and the women pushed Clinton over the line.  I find this ironic.  Women exercising their ‘freedom’ vote for a man with a history of abusing women.  We now have a system where the same techniques which once got you in women’s pants now gets you in office.  Since then women have favored the Democrat candidates.  Men sick of everything being about manipulation and polls drive politics and went for the decent guy, George W. Bush.  But then came Obama vs. McCain.  The men were again divided and it is clear that women elected Obama.  Which again, is sick.  This is the first president on record advocating infanticide, the killing of children outside the womb.  This can be nothing other than deception.  The emotions of women were twisted t support the biggest genocide the world has ever known, abortion, by calling it ‘choice’.  It reminds me of the wisdom of Paul speaking to Timothy “Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.”  (I Timothy 2:14)

But you aren’t allowed to say that anymore, even in many churches.  Which goes to the source of authority.  Who is your god?  Do you really believe and follow the One True God of Scripture, or do you follow a false god, an idol?  Sadly many today have chose another god, such as feminism or another form of humanism.  Everyone is doing it, so it becomes easy.  But we are slowly undermining everything our civilization is build upon.  Families are falling apart and they are the foundation of society.  And these false gods demand that we go back and tell history their way.  They demand that we look at scripture their way.  And the church has been doing that more and more, including this article.

Noah’s wife and his sisters-in law were not named?  I love this claim.  So we are suddenly demanding more detailed genealogies?  The one part everyone skips when reading the Bible?  And if you had actually read the genealogies or the rest of the text you might learn that the narrative purpose is not to infer that everyone unnamed is evil or worthless.  Noah was named, and it is also detailed how he got drunk and laid around naked.  Later he cursed his grandson for the sake of his son Ham who was also named.  If you want to enter the cage match, you might gain the glory of a victory, but you also might get yourself beat to a bloody pulp.  We pride ourselves on being real and raw these days.  Well we all have sin and those sins are laid bare by the scripture.  But the scriptural tradition of truly caring for women is to exempt them from many of these responsibilities.

The Ten Commandments also supposedly hate women because Exodus 20:17 puts wives next to servants and animals in a list of things you should not covet.  Well verse ten puts men on a list with women, sons and daughters, servants and animals.  So clearly everyone is hated by the Ten Commandments.  If women were just abused and kept in the basement how and why would you covet them?  Oh and also the purpose is to stop covetousness , not to bash women, which actually protects women.  Don’t just pine away for a beautiful wife, get off your butt go and work hard, that you may care for your own wife.  Which is clearly the message of the rest of the Old Testament Law.   Clearly the command applies to everyone, and the fact that you can’t make the jump from “men don’t covet your neighbor’s wife” to “women don’t covet your neighbor’s husband” is just indicative that you are a narrow-minded feminist.

Deuteronomy 22:28-29, supposedly forces women to marry their rapists.   Which clearly ignores Exodus 22:16, which says that it is up to the discretion of the father.  And if you assume the father didn’t consider the wishes of his daughter, again you are assuming the worst.  The point of both of these verses shows a compassion from women.  First of all they are highly valued, unlike later pagan systems which required brides to include a dowry.  In the Old Testament suitors had to pay a bride price.  Second the point of the penalty is to discourage rape in the first place.  Beware of the one night stand, she might be your wife forever and you can never divorce her.  You must pay the bride price and take care of her as she ought to be for the rest of her life(Exodus 21:10).  How is our system of hating the Old Testament working out?  Let’s see, women are passed around as sex toys, their unborn children are slaughtered by the thousands, the emotional damage of constant relationships formed and broken is immeasurable.  And we think we are free.  The bonds of sex are very powerful, which is why virginity is so highly prized by every society but our own.  Women are beautifully designed to come along side and bond to one man.  Research has shown that this happens physiologically from a mere 15 seconds of contact.  The Old Testament wins this one too, and we lose.

It is stunning that you can read the Old Testament and conclude that it speaks highly of polygamy.  So the fact that Cain’s son became a polygamist is supposed to be a glaringly positive review of polygamy?  We all know Cain is the hero of the story.  Wait a minute.  Clearly the Cain thread of the narrative is in stark contradiction to the Created order.  God made them male and female and then things went off the rails.  The narrative traces the world vs. the people of God.  Hint: Cain is the ‘world’ and killing his brother made him the bad guy.  The line of God’s people continues through Seth.  And David’s wives are supposed to be further proof that the Bible glorifies polygamy, despite that the kings of Israel were prohibited from amassing wives(Deuteronomy 17:17).  Also let’s consider the results of those polygamous marriages.  The result of Abraham’s polygamy is two warring nations which fight over Jerusalem to this day.  David destroyed his house, but for the grace of god, by stealing Bathsheba. Solomon was led into idolatry by his many foreign wives. In addition the kingdom was split by these waring heirs.  Polygamy like divorce was made provision for by God’s grace for hard hearts(Matthew 19:7).  And as I mentioned above the rights of the multiplied wives was not to be diminished.  Which is also the point of Deuteronomy 21:15, you can’t give up the first born rights of one wife because you like another wife more.  You must care for them and give all your wives their due.

Numbers 30:3-15 states the rules for how a women’s vow could be vetoed by her father or her husband.  Vows are a much more serious thing than we consider these days.  If you get mad and say “I swear to God, if you do that I’m going to hurt you.” and then you didn’t follow through, that would be breaking your vow which was serious.  Verse 6 says “thoughtless utterance”  which gives us the proper idea here.  But rather than speaking ill of women or repressing them this  frees them from the responsibility of the consequences of such oaths.  They fall on her husband or father, which is why they have the right to veto them.  Consider the story of Jeptha in Judges 11.  He promised God that the first thing that came out to greet him after a mighty victory he would sacrifice to God.  His only daughter came out to meet him.  Which meant she was a perpetual virgin, and his posterity was cut off.  His rash vow was his undoing.  Women are spared from such things, “the Lord will forgive her” as the text says multiple times.

Of course the Levite priesthood was all male, that is the authority structure which God created on this earth(Leviticus).  But we have to get away from the idea that position is all about worth or hate.  Our strict egalitarianism seems to think that equality means equality in absolutely every way about everything.  This is not true, differing roles does not speak to worth.  Women can have kids, men can not, does this make women better?  The general on the battlefield wears distinctive clothing distinguishing himself from the average foot soldier.  He may even ride a horse above all the men, in a superior position. But it doesn’t mean his worth as a human is more than his men, no one thinks that.  Does anyone think this makes him stronger or smarter in every way?  His authority is greater, but so is his responsibility.  He is responsible for all of his men.  But he is not chosen because his superiors hate everyone else.  Someone has to lead, someone had to yell the battle cry to “charge”.  God says those people are to be men, and we have yet to come up with a better system, as we now bring home our mutilated women from the battle field and claim our superior love of women.  Or perhaps they are not maimed but merely shipped home pregnant or exploited on the internet by their male ‘peers’.  The result is the same dishonored women.

Twenty years ago this article would be unthinkable, insofar as it is unthinking.  This paranoid fear of misogyny is everywhere and it is making people crazy.  It substitutes vague feelings for actual arguments, to feed it’s nonsense.  But if sin made sense it wouldn’t everyone be sin.  Hating God is as old as the hills and many people will do whatever they can to pretend their way is better than God’s way.  It’s just unfortunate that so many of those people claim to be Christians and that so many well-meaning Christians fall for it.

As Christians in America we believe all people have a right to their religion.  We acknowledge that all people have the right to life, liberty and property, as recognized by nearly everyone at our founding.  These rights are merely recognized, because they come from God.  But who gives you the right to be a Muslim or any other false religion?  Did God give you the right to spit in his face?

Now it doesn’t necessarily mean we activate a government to punish one religion over another, but as Christians we should recognize that Christ is Lord.  He is king over all the earth, and what he says goes.  Everyone who believes and acts otherwise is in sin, and will be forced to kneel against their will.  We don’t fight with carnal weapons, but we should see things as they are and not pretend, along with the world, that any other way is legitimate.  There is only one way to the Father, through the Son. Governments can only serve one master. Often times we Christians support this multi-religious, multiculturalism as if all peoples have a valid seat at the table.  Or perhaps you like your government run by the opposition, the world, the Devil?  All peoples should be treated with some respect because they hold the office of human.  But as Christians we know that only by following Christ does anyone actually truly become human. A rejection of Christ is to undermine any human respect for life, liberty, or property. As should be evident the world over.  The body of Christ, we Christians have remade the world over the past 2000 years, and it is a glorious place.  Christian heresies such as Islam only seek to undermine it, like all paganism.   As Christians, for their own sake, we can’t let them.

The reason jokes and irony and paradox work is because that is the way God created the world. If you live out of step with the way he created the world, it’s called sin. By doing so you mock yourself and leave yourself open to the mockery of others. That’s just the way it is. Inconsistent lives are the mark of every humanist philosopher, they don’t practice what they preach. But the Christian is free to be consistent, our obedience is in harmony with the world and it’s creator.

It’s sad to watch the freak show develop in our country; political and cultural and moral.  I mean both the macro and micro levels.  On the macro level we have an entire nation which no longer knows what gender is while it demands a female president, not to mention the Trump freak show.  Both supported by millions of clueless (I want to say citizens but I’m not sure we have those anymore.) people.

On the micro level I have watched the Gianforte’s buy Montana since their first arrival in the late 90’s.  He may be the best Montana has to offer but it’s only because our standards are as low as the rest of the country.   He was never held to any account because he had money.  And so everyone from pastors to community leaders gave him the seat of honor.  You know who you are, and you should be ashamed of yourselves.  You sat back or tried to get yours while his march of arrogance went on.  All those little Eichmanns whose self serving action add up to a large disaster, this is why the world is messed up.  I’m not talking about the end of our state or civil war in our streets, but it’s as bad as it can be, and we pushed as far as we could to make it worse.  Jesus the Christ has no place in our culture, in our politics and in our business world.  Just like he has no place in those areas for Gianforte or almost anyone in the churches right here in Bozeman.  Jesus is a little thing we keep under a bushel and let out on Sunday’s for a few hours to bestow legitimacy on the rest of our lives.  He has no place in our public square, and as such we, like all pagans before us, like the snake in the garden, are trying to do it our way.  We know better than God, except that we don’t.  It’s sad to watch the seat of honor being given to a man who worship’s Ayn Rand’s philosophy of extreme, heartless, pragmatic, capitalism.  While Jesus the Christ is kept in a closet. It’s sad to watch him trample over whoever he can to get what he wants all for the almighty dollar and the power it brings, baptized in the language of “Jobs”. Where were you when he was firing the founder of Petra Academy in an illegal board meeting?  I know you were trying to get yours.  Where were you when he was lying to my face and the face of anyone else who get in his way?  I know, putting your hope in men, yourself and Gianforte, maybe even Trump.

“Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!”

Woe to you Grace Bible Church!

Woe to you Bozeman Montana!

Woe to you United States of America!

Hey I know why don’t you go fill out that card to get your share of that frivolous class action lawsuit. Or just go take some government aid, insurance, grants, unemployment, or faux jobs producing nothing but paperwork.  As long as you can feed your family that’s what matters.  And besides, I’m pretty sure we are going to be raptured in a couple of days anyway.  So, who cares?

There is a lot of talk about whether Christians should vote in this election.  Is abstaining from voting for someone immoral, also immoral? Shouldn’t we choose the “lesser of two evils”?  I include the Libertarian candidate in this, his stance is just as confused on moral issues.

But I think all this is part of the problem.  The people don’t elect the President, the States do.  Pure Democracy, is mob rule, it’s evil.  The founding fathers despised it, which is why the avoided it and put safe guards in place.  Many of these have been eroded.  But the fact remains, we have an electoral college, which is elected in many different ways by state.  There are any number of actions we as a people take to select these men.  Just showing up and voting is the bare minimum.  Participating in this process as a Christian, involves a lot more.  From how you educate yourself and your children on God and his Law, to the moral choices you make every day.  Most people have thrown out these votes long ago.  They let their children and themselves be educated by one political party.  They voted with the world rather than the Word of God on nearly all social and cultural issues.

As a result of throwing away all of these votes over many years.  We are left with rampant abortion, gender confusion, the destruction of marriage and finally the election of the two boobs we deserve, Clinton and Trump.

This election is over.  But it’s not too late for next time.  Fall on your knees and repent of your sin, and the dereliction of duty, on the part of the Church. We are the light of the world, and we have been hiding under a bushel. Take your faith seriously, apply it to every area of life.  Take responsibility for your ignorance and that of your children.  This is a bigger picture, generational fight.  We didn’t get here over night, and one election isn’t going to fix everything.  This is just the details.  God is in control.  We need to cry out to him as the Church before we can expect the world to do it.

It is inevitable. The sentiment is exuded by Agent Smith as he seemingly conquers the Matrix. But almost at every stage, shortly after he employes the phrase, he get’s what he wants, but then he doesn’t want what he got. Because inevitability is a cruel master. Just because something is inevitable doesn’t make it right. It doesn’t make you right for participating. You look down and find the sword in your hand, or the woman in your bed, or the silver in your purse, then you realize that you are Judas. Just because you were able to make all that money, or sleep with that woman or be elected to that office, doesn’t mean it was right. You may be the tragic fool in the hand of God. As Jesus said on the night he was betrayed

“For the Son of Man goes as it has been determined, but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed!” (Luke 22:22)

which harkens back to an earlier verse in Luke:

“Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come! It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin.” (Luke 17:1)

Of course it was inevitable, there may be conspiracies, there may even be conspiracies involving Lucifer himself, but they are all part of God’s plan. God’s plans will be accomplished with or without you. But for your sake you do have a choice whether you are that tragic fool or not.

“That is the sound of inevitability.”

You have to wonder about the career of Judas. He finds himself hanging out with the hottest show in town. A guy who is clearly a prophet, in a time when everyone is looking for just such a man to overthrow Rome. Then this guy chooses you to be part of his inner circle. This has to validate everything you believe, he chose you, so it must be because your particular philosophy of anti-Roman zealotry was right. Then you start making money on the side pilfering from the money box. You do it once, and then a few more times and no one seems to notice. So you keep doing it. God is making you rich and powerful. You are propelled by inevitability. This is so easy to fall into. But just because you can doesn’t mean you should. Then Jesus all but tells him to go out and betray him(John 13). I think he is on auto pilot by this point. He is probably getting those warm tingly feelings and perhaps déjà vu. This is where I’m supposed to be. It’s a feeling, we even call it the will of God or use that lamentable phrase “It’s a God thing”. It was inevitable. And so it was. But then Judas found out that he was on the wrong side. He had said his lines and played his part. But it was not the part of the hero, it was the part of the villain. He got to the point where his choices led him, and he didn’t like it. There were two layers of story, God’s purposes, where someone had to betray him, it was Satan’s plan for conquering Yahweh, it was God’s plan for conquering Satan. And the second layer, the man who betrayed the Messiah, and incarnate Lord of the Universe. But it all seemed to be going so well, so many open doors, it had to be the will of God. But it was clearly wrong, and he couldn’t face it so he killed himself.

So much the same situation with Agent Smith. He acts because he is compelled, it is in the cards, or the code as the case may be. What is possible, what is inevitable, seems like it is right. It just has to be, because he can’t understand anything else. He can’t understand a transcendent God communicating moral issues of right and wrong. It’s very similar to the Darwinian view of man and life on this planet. We must evolve and perpetuate the planet and the human race, because we must. Never mind that we have very little control over any of it. In so far as we do, we simply must. Like that idiot at the end of Cast Away. We deliver the package because and we get up every day because, it’s inevitable. What a lame ethos. Even the most strict man of fate has to feel that tinge of a moral tug in the back of his mind. Of course after getting away with whatever a few times, it is dulled and your inevitability complex can reign free. It’s so easy to do. Like Agent Smith the first time he clones someone. Maybe it was the first time you sold someone a piece of garbage and made a bunch of money. Maybe it was the first time you stole something from the company. Maybe the first time you misrepresented yourself, and gained positions or power. This is really the basis of Muhammad’s tribal cult. We can conquer all these other tribes, therefore God wants us to conquer the world. Or even the whole host of 20th century dictators. Science made our machines better, therefore it is only inevitable that we should treat our society like a machine. It has to make things better, regardless of the fact that we are murdering millions. We even see the same thing today with the voting for Trump. He can win votes therefore he should win votes and I want to be part of the inevitable so I vote for him. Which gets us to the other tribal cult which we are perhaps more prone to than victory by the sword. Victory by the competitive business model, unfettered Capitalism. Trump has learned about inevitability here too (so too has our local Gianforte, as he pursues the power of the governorship). He can throw his weight around and make money, so he does. He never has to repent because he has been a success, he’s a ‘winner’, which is the test of his morality. This gets back to the genius of Hilaire Belloc’s book The Mercy of Allah. Where he parodies the capitalist and the Muhammadan. As they go about the world defrauding everyone they can and then marveling that Allah has been so merciful. Or as we say in ‘merica, god has been good. That’s little ‘g’ generic god, who doesn’t mind all the corners I cut to get here. Because all that matters is the outcome, I’m a good person, I gave a bunch of it to charity, which I created, which gave me more power. Of course there are people who get wealthy by completely legitimate means, like Job, but many more who do not. But the fact that you do have wealth or power doesn’t mean that it’s a gift from God and that you are completely virtuous. It could mean that it was a curse from God and you are Agent Smith or Judas Iscariot. God’s plan marches on and the only thing we have orchestrated is our own demise. The blood is on our hands. And we feel betrayed, “but I was just following orders”. Unfortunately it doesn’t work that way, we made the choice. We reap what we sow. We broke the law, we are the betrayer, because the character of God says so.

I wonder about the contrast between Peter and Judas. Jesus tells us that Satan asked for Peter that he might sift him as wheat. But Jesus prayed for him. And we know the result, after the resurrection Peter became and integral building block in the Church. But we never hear the story about Judas. We can assume that Satan also asked for Judas as well. And it’s pretty clear that Jesus allowed Satan to use him(John 13:26,27). But it was just the way Judas wanted. It was inevitable.

I am also reminded of this passage:

And Micaiah said, “Therefore hear the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing beside him on his right hand and on his left; and the Lord said, ‘Who will entice Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth- gilead? ’ And one said one thing, and another said another. Then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord, saying, ‘I will entice him. ’ And the Lord said to him, ‘By what means? ’ And he said, ‘I will go out, and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. ’ And he said, ‘You are to entice him, and you shall succeed; go out and do so. ’ Now therefore behold, the Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets; the Lord has declared disaster for you.”

God sent a spirit to deceive Ahab. It might not seem fair. But the truth is that if Ahab hadn’t given in to vice, it wouldn’t have been possible. When God allowed Job to be tested by Satan, Job passed the test. But we can’t overlook the fact that we have to use a lot of wisdom, and hold fast to the Word of God, or we might be swept up in something, which feel right, or looks good, but is really a subtle temptation to sin. Giving in to one sin makes us more vulnerable, it makes our sense dull to future temptation. It makes it easier to give into the feeling of inevitability. Don’t give in! Don’t be swept up! Hold fast to the commands of God, and do them! Every time!

“No, no, no, no, it’s not fair.”

Inevitability makes for a thin and shabby god. He has no “why”, he has no reason or character to back up his commands. Right is what is possible, wrong is what is not possible. “When God closes a door he opens a window” as they say. The door is open, it must be right. Except when it is wrong. And we find a window dropping us onto the potter’s field, or the dust bin of the Matrix source code. The story was told and you are the fool, you would be better off drowned at the bottom of the sea.

It has come to my attention that I have been far to humorous both in print, and in person, and whatever this is.  I realize that the single class of the fairer sex does not really like this.  Oh sure the first thing on their long list of magical abilities they must have in their perspective male accessory is that they be humorous.  By this, they only humor themselves.  We all know that life is really all about being serious, they are quite serious themselves, which is why they would never dare to get so much as an A- all the way through grad school.  And there are so many things to be seriously worried about.  There is of course the ever looming WWIII, War in the Middle East, The Yellowstone Super Volcano, and now, a new threat as never before, of breaking your smartphone.  Not to mention the millions of food combinations that can result in sudden death at the slightest miscalculation.  As any serious woman knows the only solution is to constantly read every blog post from every blog on the subject of Organic Food and of course the ever formidable GMO’s.  I will pause while you shudder.  And who can ever know if their food has enough adjectives describing the entire life story of this food’s extended family and that of the extended family of the people who killed it and sold it to you?  All in all avoiding all the known and unknown dietary pitfalls requires the enlistment of none other than Batman.  No not that one, I’m talking about Michael Keaton in his stylishly modified Corvette.  Speaking of fast cars, I suppose I will have to sell that as well.  Serious women and I suppose God, knows that cars are the surest way to meet your own demise these days.  And who knows if I am using the correct child seat?  Which brings us to the subject of kids,  Women know that kids are really just a list of things to worry about.(Is that why they love them so much?)  Which is why they view men as kids, because what is more worrisome than a creature that doesn’t worry constantly?  Now that I think about it I’m not sure I exercised enough today, much less worried about exercise.  In fact I probably spent more time making sarcastic jokes and wisecracks, by far, than I did exercising.  Oh dear.  Is there any hope for me?  All in all I am probably exactly like that guy you dated in whenever from wherever, who dared to threaten the perfect plan you had for you life.  We really are all alike and how dare we. You should probably just stick to your Nazi war, I mean career path.  As it turns out, I will probably never be less funny or less dangerous.  But I will have more money, which would allow me to get a silly girl.  Hmm.

What is objectivity?  We talk about it a lot in reference to understanding events of recent or distant history, be it in the newspaper or books. My dictionary says “(of a person or their judgment) not influenced by personal feelings oropinions in considering and representing facts”. And even quoting that dictionary is an appeal to the objective.  Now we could deconstruct this and every word as the philosophers do, but they  end up knowing nothing in the end.  I think a better approach is to connect the word with other ideas we already have and construct something.

I think this is a fairly decent definition.  But even definitions are out of style these days.  People lack the clarity of though to define what they are saying and their hearers don’t want to question or clarify because that might betray ignorance or create a division.  And we all know that getting along is the ultimate virtue these days.  Now word definitions come about in many ways, we get them from the past, from our friends, from various forms of media and we take them and change them.  No one is really certain how it works, but it does.  As Christians we should understand that things works as they do because they reflect the character of God.  Words have objective meaning outside ourselves because God is a standard outside of ourselves and this is his world, he gave us language.

These post-modern times are about the furthest thing you can get from the objective.  I hear people often discount history because ‘we can’t know what really happened because everyone is biased.”  But the fact remains that there are facts, something did happen and it was one thing and not another.  This type of futilism is nothing more than an excuse to avoid the hard work of sorting out the truth.  Of course people are biased they come from different perspectives and have different experiences.  But there is another source of information.  The world is more than just many selves asserting.  There is reality, there is truth.  What do you call someone who only knows their view of things and can’t understand someone else’s perspective.  I believe it’s ‘selfish’.  And so we can see that not making an attempt to understand the objective is sin.

The word of the year last year was ‘selfie’ because we all know that if there is anything the world needs, it’s more pictures of me, me me!  I think instead of ‘social media’ they should call it ‘self media’.  It is all about self and affirming self.  Your ‘friends’ are allowed to affirm you, but that’s it.  Any questioning or dispariging comments put you in the category of a troll or hater, so better stick to telling your friends that everything they do is awesome. . . *like*.

The opposite of asserting yourself onto something is to let something else change you.  One of my favorite books is C. S. Lewis’, An Experiment in Criticism.  Lewis was man of letters, his work in the area of medieval and renaissance literature is still valued by academics today.  But he was also a thinking Christian.  He understood the problems of higher criticism which had begun in his day and he fought it as a Christian.  These critics thought that the art of literature was subjective, the words mean whatever each individual fancies they mean.  Hmm, sound familiar?  This is exactly what they do with the Bible, and so we can see that their attempts to undermine God’s word force them to maintain this consistency in all the arts.  No problem for them, or so they think.  Look around this isn’t working out too well, everyone does what is right in his own eyes and you have anarchy.  Now there is no such thing as gender or marriage and suggesting a gender of bathroom out of sync with a person’s mental disorder is now a crime.  Lewis goes another way, back to allowing literature to change you.  It involves surrender and humility only then, in being changed, can you evaluate if the change was good.  You don’t just evaluate a book by putting yourself onto it “i liked it” “I thought it was about this”.  But you let it speak to you and then evaluate if it made you a better person.  This applies to literature and to the study of God’s word and all of the arts and even all of life.

Interesting that the classical writers even understood that as they created literature it was not just themselves acting.  They often appealed to the muses, because as every good writer knows, the creative process often seems to come from somewhere else, outside the mere self.  They didn’t create to express themselves but to express  or reveal objective truth.  They developed their skill and measure it by how well that was done.

This is also the importance of developing your imagination.  Imagination is the minds’ ability to theorize something outside of itself.  It allows you to empathize with other people and their situation.  It allows you to imagine how you were wrong in any given way, and to open the possibility of change.  But even fantasy requires rules.  It requires that you know where you are a what the rules of the story are.  Don’t eat that, don’t go through there, don’t touch that.  It can aid our imagination and allow us to see that our story is not what we thought it was.  Fantasy can shift our perception to be more in line with the real objective standard.

But even many Christians today think that everything is subjective.  It’s really sad.  The Christian religion is based on objective facts stated in a book about objective events that really happened.  As Paul says, if they didn’t really happen we above all people are to pitied, for we are living a lie( I Corinthians 15:19).  But Christians today live another lie.  Pretending they are Christians without actually believing anything that Christ did or said, well except some of the Social Gospel stuff.  Giving people free stuff and helping prostitutes is cool, because, well because it feels cool, and also it’s the current fad.  As with so many things we all really, deep down believe in objective standards.  But we have changed the source from the Word of God to the whims of Pop Culture.  Because it’s convenient.  Because we are cowards.  Coward: a person who lacks courage to meet danger; a poltroon; a timid or pusillanimous man. Well, objectively speaking.

You know Trump isn’t the first rich man to take the little people’s land to expand his kingdom. It’s a technique as old as time. I was recently reminded of a story from the Old Testament about a man who owned a vineyard. His name was Naboth and he lived in the fertile Jezreel valley. You probably know it better by the ancient fortress city on it’s edge “Har Megeddon” or “Mount of Megiddo”, from which we get “Armageddon” and all kinds of crazy theories. Naboth had a neighbor, who happened to be King Ahab of Samaria. He wanted Naboth’s vineyard, so that he could annex it to his estate and make a vegetable garden. Naboth wouldn’t sell, and rightly pointed out that it wasn’t God’s will. But he didn’t just have a vision or a feeling, God actually did forbid land being sold out of the family(Leviticus 25:23, Numbers 36:7). In addition there was a special command to princes that they were not allowed to take land from his people (Ezekiel 46:17) Because land is life, land is freedom. These things are always connected. Tyrants have historically destroyed property rights. And so they do today.

Elijah Prophesies to Ahab and Jezebel Their End. Thomas Matthews Rooke. c.1879

After this great disappointment, Ahab went into his room to pout. So his loving wife Jezebel, (no it’s not a joke, this is the real Jezebel, from which we get the derogatory term) decides to get it for him, and she tells him as much. She formed a conspiracy to have two men accuse him of slandering God and the King at a banquet. The law required the testimony of two(Deuteronomy 17:6) for putting a man to death. And the penalty for slander was stoning. So she put her plan into action and has Naboth killed. And then Ahab takes the vineyard. It’s almost like God is waiting for Ahab to go through with it, “really you are going to take the land?”. When he does God sends Elijah to curse Ahab. The spot where Naboth died, is where you will die, and your entire house will be cut off. You wanted to wipe out Naboth’s line, well God is going to wipe out Ahab’s posterity.

The same thing happens today, but instead of killing people with land, the rich just got together and invented ‘eminent domain’ so they could do it legally. Similar to how Jezebel had Naboth killed legally. The end of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says “nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” This might sound familiar. Though we are more familiar with the introduction to the Declaration of Independence “We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” These three things were the common mantra of the day. The founders changed “property” to “pursuit of Happiness” because at the time slaves were legally considered property and they didn’t want to ensconce that institution any further as they separated from England. But property rights have been under assault ever since and we continue to give away our freedom. Most of us pay property taxes. Just say it “property tax”. That means they just take part of what you have, for nothing. Even God never does that, he says if you plant a field and make a profit, he wants the first 10%. That’s the first fruits—fruit, bounty, produce. He doesn’t just walk up to you and take what you have, that’s theft, he takes the beginning of your increase. But we put up with the government charging us rent.

A further step beyond property tax is eminent domain, addressed in the last clause of the Fifth Amendment. Taken in the context of the whole document, which was addressed to the federal government, and geared towards restricting it’s abilities, it hardly bears any resemblance to current case law. The intent was that were it absolutely necessary, in the worst case, for the public good, that you had to take some land, that it must go through a legal process and that the person must be paid fairly. Currently as of the Kelo v. City of New London case the government decided that “public good” means that if someone wants to kick you off your land and build something bigger, which will generate more tax revenue, then that benefits the public and is A-OK. And before this case Trump tried to force a lady out of her home to build limo parking. Because, you know, he’s a builder. She refused, it had been her home for 35 years. So he got the city to condemn her property. But a non-profit legal firm stepped in and helped her keep her home. She won the case, but it doesn’t change the fact that Trump was trying to abuse her property rights, and still believes in eminent domain.

It’s interesting that God eventually used Ahab’s own vanity and then Jehu to wipe out the line of Ahab(Two Kings 9:25-27, Two Kings 11). In addition Jehu wipes out the prophets of Baal(2 kings 10:18-27). And initially God commends him for following God’s will(Two Kings 10:30. But he fell away and worshiped idols, and so his earlier actions were seen for what they actually were, political posturing and not serving God. And God punished him for the blood he had shed(Hosea 1:4,5). It reminded me of Supreme Court Justice John Roberts. Who seemed like the perfect candidate, in 2005. But who eventually sold out so he could get into the right clique in DC. He all but rewrote Obamacare so that it could pass Supreme Court scrutiny. And he isn’t the first conservative to turn liberal under DC peer pressure, he’s the fourth after Harry Blackmun, John Paul Stevens, and David Souter. It’s interesting, because Cruz initially supported Roberts, as many did, it seemed like a good idea at the time, he later condemned his liberal actions. But the depravity of man knows no end. Men of character often fall. Let us hope that Cruz is not one of them. But we can be certain that Trump has already fallen. He plays down in the mud and he loves it unapologetically. Woe to us if we make him our representative.

Civilization is based on a lot of assumptions. If you are willing to break those assumptions, you can Trump civilization. But is this good? I don’t think so. You can’t undermine the ground you stand on, and stand for very long.

This is why Chicago is so uncivilized. As Obama said while campaigning, “if they bring a knife you bring a gun”. He was talking about the political race and defeating Republicans but the same is exacted daily in Chicago. It’s easy to break into a room full of civilized people having a political debate and start shooting. But that’s the old way, civilization has moved past that. If you want to win in our arena, you have to bring the best idea.

This is how terrorism works, the West operates by democracy and debate. The terrorist is trying to bring back cave man rules, because he has no ideas. The ideas of Muhammed were dead 600 years before he ‘thought’ them up, when Jesus the Christ died on the cross and gave us another path. Killing your enemies doesn’t work anymore, because Jesus was killed and he came back. And since that day Christianity has marched across the globe making everything better. Muhammed lost, but he can’t admit it so he throws a fit, to this day. His only power is when we play by the old rules, or allow him to do so. Interesting that I bring up terrorism, since Obama actually launched his political career in the home of a convicted terrorist Bill Ayres.

But there is another candidate playing by the same rules. And his rules work, because the rest of us are playing by another set of rules. We are civilized, compassionate, thoughtful even. It’s easy to walk into a room full of business men who are operating by numbers and force your will on them by charm or any number of other devices. Maybe you could threaten them? Maybe you could threaten to walk out? Maybe you could call them names? But this is not debate, this is not how you get the best ideas to market, this is how you get your ideas to the market. This is how the mafia operates. Or else. Now we understand that we must meet our enemies with force, but is this how we want to determine our internal politics? Do we want to go from the English law tradition of Parliamentary debates to a freak show or a gun show?

The sad part is that society seems to be moving towards his rules, backwards towards the cave man. The media likes Trump because he draws ratings, he draws a crowd. Because apparently many of the American people would rather be entertained than choose the best statesman. Which sounds eerily familiar to the Gibbon critique of the fall of Rome. We need to demand better, if we accept the new rules of Trump which are really the old rules of violence we will soon be governed by them. Do you really want to determine your leaders by putting them on the field to have a sword fight? Humanity has figured out a better system, we have lived in the world of violence, now we have established rules for debate. We have identified fallacies, and structures and systems, because they work better. Of course there are problems with our system, but Trump has never proven he understands them or will make them better.   Don’t throw the whole system away in exchange for some temporary entertainment.