I Am Not Mario Cuomo … Neither Am I Darryl Hart … I Am A Christian

Darryl at it again over at

http://oldlife.org/2015/01/i-am-mario-cuomo/

This time Darryl is singing the praises of Mario Cuomo’s ability to live the contradictory hyphenated life. Set aside that Darryl is so enamored with a man who was the darling of the Cultural Marxist left that he proclaims his bromance for Cuomo. Ignore for a moment that Darryl is self identifying with a man who kept abortion chic via his repudiation of his church’s explicit teaching. Instead, focus just a second on what Darryl says here,

Darryl,

But it (private morality vs. public action as a Magistrate) is not a problem that only bedevils Roman Catholics. Protestant politicians may be personally opposed to desecrating the Lord’s Day, and if such a public figure is an officer in a Presbyterian church has even vowed to uphold Sabbatarianism, but in their public duties or owing to political calculation fail to work for Blue Laws. In fact, all believers who hold public office in a religiously diverse and tolerant society need to separate the teachings and practices of their religious communities from the norms that guide civil life. At the very least, they need to juggle the public and private unless they are willing to seek the implementation of their own faith for all of civil society

The irony is that religious right championed a view of the relationship between personal and public responsibilities that derided folks like Cuomo as either hypocritical or cynical. The irony becomes even more ironic when the religious right complains that radical Islam is incapable of making the very distinction that Cuomo defended.

Bret responds,

1.) Consider the call to separate “the teachings and practices of their religious communities from the norms that guide civil life.” This “reasoning” has always flummoxed me. According to Darryl there is a necessity to separate private morality from public morality so that a Christian magistrate’s private morality is not pursued as he serves as a public person and yet it is perfectly acceptable for this Christian magistrate to pursue the private morality of other people (even other Magistrates of other faiths) in their public capacity. For example, Mario might have had personal reservations about abortion and yet he did not force his private reservations upon the public he served. Instead Mario forced the private reservations of countless numbers of other people  about being “pro-life.” So, Mario and Darryl believed and believe it is not acceptable to push their own private morality while a public person but it is perfectly acceptable to push other people’s private morality in the capacity of a public person.  The public positions that Mario held certainly was the private morality of untold numbers of people. Why else hold to those positions? So, why was it acceptable for Mario to push their private morality on the citizenry and not his own?

2.) The policies themselves that Mario pushed were not religiously divers nor did they reflect tolerance. Think about it Darryl. The policies that were finally implemented were policies that some of the citizenry liked and some of the citizenry did not like. Those policies once implemented were in no way diverse nor did they reflect tolerance. They reflected, instead, both a lack of diversity and a severe intolerance. Policy implemented is by its very definition is non diverse and intolerant because it ends up not reflecting what large sections of the citizenry desire.  The whole plea for “diversity and tolerance” is a smoke screen to excuse the moral cowardice of Politicians and to justify the rebellion of high profile ministers.

3.) We do not live in a religiously diverse and tolerant society. This is proven by Darryl’s intolerance for my religion which sees his religion of “diversity and tolerance,” to be intolerant. We live in a society where the varying faiths of the varying religions have been tamed so that they all understand that none of their God or gods are to be taken so seriously as to overthrow the God State who keeps all the other gods in their place. We have the diversity and tolerance of old Rome. Everyone is free to serve their God or gods as long as, like Darryl, they keep pinching incense to the genius of the Emperor.

4.) I do not criticize Islam for its lack of ability to make the distinction about private morality vs public morality that Darryl holds. I criticize it because it hates Christ. I see the totalism of Islam as being perfectly consistent with its opposition to all alien Worldviews including the Christian worldview and the Liberal Darryl worldview.  I criticize Darryl because he deigns to criticize other worldviews (Christianity, Islam, etc.) all the while his pagan worldview is in the ascendancy. I criticize Darryl because of the totalism of his bifurcated worldview that demands everything be divided into private morality vs. public morality. In Darryl’s worldview everyone must operate like this or they are shunned and denounced, just as everyone who does not operate in the context of Sharia in a Islam world and life view must be shunned and denounced. Darryl’s worldview has the same totalism in it that he decries in both Islam and in Biblical Christianity. It’s easy for Darryl to criticize competing worldviews for their desire to have totalistic hegemony while the pagan worldview he holds to, is, in point of fact, exercising totalsitc hegemony.

Author: jetbrane

I am a Pastor of a small Church in Mid-Michigan who delights in my family, my congregation and my calling. I am postmillennial in my eschatology. Paedo-Calvinist Covenantal in my Christianity Reformed in my Soteriology Presuppositional in my apologetics Familialist in my family theology Agrarian in my regional community social order belief Christianity creates culture and so Christendom in my national social order belief Mythic-Poetic / Grammatical Historical in my Hermeneutic Pre-modern, Medieval, & Feudal before Enlightenment, modernity, & postmodern Reconstructionist / Theonomic in my Worldview One part paleo-conservative / one part micro Libertarian in my politics Systematic and Biblical theology need one another but Systematics has pride of place Some of my favorite authors, Augustine, Turretin, Calvin, Tolkien, Chesterton, Nock, Tozer, Dabney, Bavinck, Wodehouse, Rushdoony, Bahnsen, Schaeffer, C. Van Til, H. Van Til, G. H. Clark, C. Dawson, H. Berman, R. Nash, C. G. Singer, R. Kipling, G. North, J. Edwards, S. Foote, F. Hayek, O. Guiness, J. Witte, M. Rothbard, Clyde Wilson, Mencken, Lasch, Postman, Gatto, T. Boston, Thomas Brooks, Terry Brooks, C. Hodge, J. Calhoun, Llyod-Jones, T. Sowell, A. McClaren, M. Muggeridge, C. F. H. Henry, F. Swarz, M. Henry, G. Marten, P. Schaff, T. S. Elliott, K. Van Hoozer, K. Gentry, etc. My passion is to write in such a way that the Lord Christ might be pleased. It is my hope that people will be challenged to reconsider what are considered the givens of the current culture. Your biggest help to me dear reader will be to often remind me that God is Sovereign and that all that is, is because it pleases him.

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