First Word

Sometime back a non-Christian friend asked me to explain my general political and cultural outlook. Because of the position I was arguing for she mistook me for a libertarian. Below is my reply. It is somewhat simplistic, but since she was unfamiliar with some of the basic teachings of Christianity I wrote it intentionally so.

Please forgive this lapse into autobiography. The aim of First Word is to be issue-oriented not personal. But some feel for the outlook of the writers on this blog may be helpful in orienting those who have no familiarity with us.

One last thing. I write in sweeping terms which often lack nuance and qualification. Understand that I have no particular person in mind nor do I believe there are no exceptions to my generalizations. I am also aware of my own hypocrisies regarding many of the things I write.

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I believe, much like the libertarian, that human freedom should be in many ways maximized. But we must then ask, maximized within what limits? For there must be limits else there is no true liberty. Christianity provides the limits. Or better, Christianity gives us freedom and in so doing sets our limits. When the state or any other institution oversteps its boundaries, it usurps God’s rule.

I am something of a libertarian, but I am against abortion and for capital punishment in certain cases. Man’s freedom may never cross God’s boundaries. Human life is sacred to God (”thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb”). Children are the principal blessing God gives us (”children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward”). Many view being anti-abortion to be incompatible with capital punishment. A moment’s reflection would discover that the denial of these is what is genuinely inconsistent. The problem with capital punishment in contemporary America, though, is that I have little trust in our criminal justice system. Because of this, I am in some ways sympathetic with those who reject it in principle. How can any reasonable person not quiver to think that the lives of many are in the hands of such people as Janet Reno, John Ashcroft (a crazed charismatic who has anointed himself several times with Crisco), Alberto Gonzales, and the nine black-gowned lawyers sitting on the Supreme Court?

I believe the Bible teaches a circumscribed form of laissez-faire economics. I regard this as fundamentally an ethical theory, not an economic one. Man has the right to own land. Not only a collective right, but an individual right as well. And this right is not derived from the state.

But a qualification is necessary. A man’s right to use his land is not absolute.  There are restrictions placed upon him by his community and especially by God. Man is a steward. That fact that God made the first man a gardener is not to be passed over quickly. Man is to cultivate and improve the land. The raw material is already there. Man is to take his small patch of earth and bring forth bread and wine and increase its beauty.

Most libertarians are progressive in the sense that they desire to see more and more machines producing more and more goods so that our lives can be more and more comfortable and easy. I have little sympathy with this view. I am an agrarian. Tilling the earth, engaging in crafts (in the traditional sense of the term), making beautiful things, studying the creation, reflecting upon God’s revelation, living with kin and friends all in the context of serving Christ are the endeavors we are called to.

One of the results of capitalism is technological advancement. Tolkien believed that the internal combustion engine was the greatest plague ever visited upon mankind. This confuses an artifact with the results it has on a society, but, that aside, he is close to the truth. The engine itself is not evil, but the lure of technology is almost irresistible and the results have been disastrous – it has played a large role in breaking up of the family, the uglification of our environment and the isolation we experience from both fellow men and the creation. Take another modern invention, the light bulb. Now we have perpetual daylight and no longer live by the diurnal parade of sun, moon and stars. Did we gain something? Perhaps. But at what price? The stars are seldom seen and when seen, unnoticed. Kant wrote: “Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing wonder and awe – the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.” We have lost our sense of wonder and awe. And having lost this, we have lost a good part of our morality. Indeed, one could argue that losing the one is losing the other. Wittgenstein argued that ethics and aesthetics are one.

Today the stars are merely gaseous spheres that, due to gravitational forces, cause fusion of hydrogen atoms producing helium, heat and light in the process. True as far as it goes, but missing almost everything important. To cite Wittgenstein again: “We feel that even if all possible scientific questions be answered, the problems of life have still not been touched at all.” The church no longer can understand passages from the Bible that speaks of their glory – “Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?” Few can even identify Orion in the winter sky.

Then there is the plague of television. This, more than the engine, is the great malignancy of our era. Puritan preachers used to deliver two hours of tightly reasoned sermons and then the congregation would spend the rest of the day discussing it – point by point. Now preachers are hard-pressed to put thirty minutes of coherent material without puffing it up will all kinds of sentimental illustrations, incongruous jokes, and banal practical applications. But even if they did put together weighty, well-reasoned material, the congregations would not abide it. They are incapable.

The fundamentalist’s jeremiad against sex and profanity on the evening sitcoms touches on only the symptom and not the disease. (The “left” is often correct in pointing out the hypocrisy of the “right” – graphic violence almost always gets a free pass. Was there ever a war or a splatter movie Republicans have not loved?) The problem is the media itself. It is a narcotic. American’s spend six hours a day in front of this electronic, virtual world. This does not include time surfing the net, playing video games and mindlessly chattering on the cell phone. A constant din of images and noise. These have become more real than family, church and the bread that keeps us alive.

Almost everything in our lives is artificial. Even the food we eat is so processed that any sane culture would view it as poison. In a society that eats foods artificially flavored by aspartame, what sense can be made of the metaphors of the Bible? (Thy word is “sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.”)

C.S. Lewis once said he was a converted pagan in the midst of lapsed Puritans. I can understand this. The pagans have always seen the splendor and magic of nature – trees and dryads, water and nymphs, stars and gods. They made the mistake of worshiping the creature rather than the creator, but the modern mind makes no less of a mistake. Trees and water are resources, stars and planets are objects of scientific investigation and exploitation. When astronauts landed on the moon what did they do? Planted a flag! “We own this rock.” Repelling. God gave the earth to man, not the heavens. Now there are plans to colonize Mars. Man’s technology has only heightened the satanic lure of Babel.

The plague of technology is found everywhere, including music. About the only music I can abide are folk tunes, opera (mainly Wagner, Mozart and Strauss) classical music up to Brahms and the Psalter (with a number of hymns included). Folk music is about home, hearth, food, wine, marriage, birth, death and the acceptance of the mysteries of life in a world that is full wonder and awe, joy and sorrow. As far as orchestral music, just about everything after Brahms drones with the engine and moves to the beat of our urban slums.

So I am a libertarian in the sense that men should have maximum freedom within divinely set borders. It is an ethical question for me. The state has no right to transgress its God-given authority – punishment of criminals (murders, rapists, thieves), protection of its borders from foreign invasion, and enforcement of fair weights and balances. Beyond this, the state becomes despotic.

But the church is failing and no longer preaches self-control, admiration of beauty, love of kin and neighbor and, most importantly, jealousy for God. And so the state fills the void. The church is busy selling trinkets and indulgences that are far worse than any abuse of Rome on the eve of the Reformation. The church was then peddling something worthwhile. Its error was that such things are not for sale. Now the church is selling things not worth having.

So I am a libertarian in a sense. But this is incidental. How we are to use our freedom is the more pressing question.