When Compassion Is Sin

(Policies based on a therapeutic model have) “give rise to a cult of the victim in which entitlements are based on the display of accumulated injuries inflicted by an uncaring society. The politics of ‘compassion’ degrades both the victims, by reducing them to objects of pity, and their would be benefactors, who find it easier to pity their fellow citizens than to hold them up to impersonal standards, the attainment of which would make them respected. Compassion has become the human face of contempt.”

Christopher Lasch
Article — For Shame

The consequence of this reality that Lasch describes

1.) Is not the relief of the victim but rather the empowerment of those who draw attention to the victim. For example, race pimps could not hold the power that they hold were it not for their ability to be the official spokesmen and representatives for victims.

2.) Is a political culture whereby power is gained by manipulating guilt by promising to relieve the victims of their situation thus relieving the putative oppressors of their guilt. This explains, at least in part, the phenomenon of Barack Obama’s popularity among white guilt ridden voters. Voting for Obama is a twofer. It not only relieves them of their guilt but it also provides direct relief for one of those who have ‘suffered’ at the hands of their putative oppression.

Political campaigns are thus characterized as a prolonged series of stump speeches that identify both victims and victimizers and looks for votes from both groups so that those who are victims are promised relief from their oppression and those who are victimizers are promised that their vote will provide atoning relief from their alleged oppressive behavior.

The really odd thing is that many people who are not guilty of being victimizers own the guilt and grasp the solution to their guilt that the politician promises. This may happen because pagans know they really are guilty and so live with an ongoing sense of guilt but since they won’t turn to Christ, who alone can provide atonement for their objective guilt, they grasp at other means that are offered, by which atonement can be by self-achieved by the atoning action of casting a vote that will temporarily relieve their conscience. R. J. Rushdoony called this ‘The Politics of Guilt and Pity.’

That which I really love about this quote is how it draws a direct line between compassion (so-called) and contempt. The human heart being the source of all that is foul takes one of the noblest virtues that it can find and twists it to such a degree that compassion is really contempt in disguise with the result that we lose the capacity to be able to know and distinguish what both compassion and contempt really look like.

Musings On Harnack & Barth

Adolph Harnack gave the Church a immanent and historical Jesus without a transcendent and ascended Christ. Karl Barth responded by giving the Church a transcendent and supra-historical Christ without a immanent historical Jesus. Harnack was all history and no kerygma. Barth was all kerygma and no history. The result of each was a skewed christology that resulted in each school, though at severe odds with one another, embracing a subjective Jesus.

Inevitability Of The Gods

“Western society, in turning away from Christian faith, has turned to other things. This process is commonly called secularization, but that conveys only the negative aspect. the word connotes the turning away from the worship of God while ignoring the fact that something is being turned to in its place. Even atheisms are usually idolatrous, as Neibuhr said, because they elevate some ‘principle of coherence’ to the central meaning of life and this is what then provides the focus of significance for that life.”

Herbert Schlossberg
Idols For Destruction — pg. 6

This observation by Schlossberg is a the stake through the heart of Westminster West Concordia Seminary (WWCS) radical two kingdom theology (R2kt). WWSC desires a secular, pluralistic, putatively non-religious culture but they advocate for that without realizing that the codification of a secular pluralistic putatively non-religious culture creates a religious culture where the god that has been elevated to provide the ‘principle of coherence’ is a god who will create a civil cult that insists that all the various gods of all those varying competing cults which are part of the pluralistic society must stay within the confines of their religious ghettos. With all the gods (including the God of the Bible) restricted to their religious ghettos what happens is that the putatively common realm will be guided by a god that goes about wearing the garb of non-existence. In other words when we seek to sanitize the public square of God, or when we pretend that the public square can be ruled by ‘no-God’ because it is a common realm, what transpires is that the god who rules the public secular square is a god who escapes notice by his adherents insisting that the god that is ruling doesn’t really exist and will argue that the way things are in the culture is ‘just the way things are supposed to be.’

B-16 & ‘W’ — A Conversation On The Interplay Of Faith & Reason

“The (Pope’s) trip begins in Washington, and the White House has announced that the pope and the president will “continue their dialogue on the interplay of faith and reason.”

Announcement concerning the upcoming Papal visit to America

Pope Benedict XVI — “Tell me Mr. President how do you understand the interplay of faith and reason?”

President Bush — “Well, all I know is that I am the decider. I mean — I know that I decide… er, uh, rather I decide that I know.”

Pope Benedict XVI — “I see. Well, Mr. President do you decide on the basis of faith or reason or some combination thereof.”

President Bush — “I was a ‘C’ student at Yale, and only crawled out of the bottle when I was in my 30’s. In my 40’s I ran a baseball team. Following that I parlayed my name recognition, my father’s connections, and my recently established sobriety into the Texas Gubernatorial Mansion. What do I know of either faith or reason?”

Pope Benedict XVI — “I thought we were going to talk about the interplay of faith and reason.”

President Bush — “That’s boring. Hey, I’ve got an idea, I’ll call up Karl Rove and the three of us can talk about Machiavellian manipulation. Now, there’s a conversation to which I can contribute.”

Pope Benedict XVI — “But Mr. President I thought you said ‘that Jesus was your favorite political philosopher.’ Certainly you must have some thoughts on the interplay of faith and reason.”

President Bush — “Ok, Ok, already…, anybody ever told you that when you latch on to something you’re like a dog with a bone? When I said that ‘Jesus was my favorite political philosopher,’ I had faith that statement would manipulate the reason of the religious right. That is the closest to faith and reason interplay that I get B-16. Hey, want a shot of Wild Turkey?”

Pope Benedict XVI — “No thank you. I’ve already hit the sacramental wine to hard today.”

They Just Don’t Get It

“I think it’s reasonable that we know where and if our children are being educated, whether it’s in a public school, private school, or at home,” said (Rep. Joan) Bauer (Dem. – Lansing), who co-sponsored the bill. Rep. Mark Meadows, D-East Lansing, and Rep. Mike Simpson, D-Liberty Township, are also co-sponsors.”

Quote From The Lansing State Journal

Would someone mind telling Ms. Bauer that the children of clan McAtee are not her children. Please, can someone get through the heads of these people that the children in the state of Michigan to not belong to the state of Michigan and so should not be referenced by state representatives as ‘our children.’

Second, while you are speaking to this woman (Bauer) could you tell her that nobody in government schools are being educated. The purpose of government ‘schooling’ is not to educate but rather to make ‘good’ citizens and to create people with a slave mentality. Since Ms. Bauer desires to know if children are being educated, I can tell her authoritatively, that all children in the government schools, are not being educated.

Third, notice all the co-sponsors are Democrats. Keep in mind that the Democrats are in the pocket of the Michigan Educational Association teachers union.

Fourth, almost everyone across the political spectrum will tell you that government schools are disasters. In light of that reality, what difference does it make if children learn to be ignorant by going to government schools or if they learn to be ignorant by being truant between the ages of 5-18?

These people drive me nuts.