No Love's as Random as God's Love

Lately, Cerberus has primarily been a political blog, which is fine by me, but I want to mix things up a bit with this post. This post is also unusual in that it doesn't draw many conclusions. Instead, I would like to encourage discussion on this topic. I would like Cerberus to be more interactive in general, rather than just three of us posting our thoughts and occasionally commenting on each other's posts. Many thanks to all of our readers who have been commenting already. Keep it up.

To the topic at hand: The first song on Wilco's album Summerteeth, "Can't Stand It," contains the lines "No love's as random / As God's love / I can't stand it / I can't stand it." I do not know exactly what the song is about or what Jeff Tweedy is trying to say here, but I always hear these lines as a criticism of Reformed theology, particularly the idea of election. After all, God's choice of whom He saves does seem random from our perspective. We do not know why He chooses whom He does, other than that it has nothing to do with anything good in the person He chooses. In fact, this is one of the most important features of the gospel, that there is absolutely nothing you are, have done, or will do that can make God love you any more than He decided to before He created the world.

I know the theological answers to this sort of objection: God's choice is based on His sovereign will and is perfect. God is the Potter; we are the clay; we have no right to challenge why He makes some vessels for one purpose and some for another.

These responses probably would not do much to satisfy someone who raised this objection, though. The objection as I hear it is based on an emotional response ("I can't stand it"). The logic of the above answers will not take away this emotional response.

Now for my lack of a conclusion: Is this what Tweedy is talking about? What is the rest of the song about? To what degree is this objection valid? What would you say to someone that raised this objection? Is there a better response that does deal with the emotional response? Is the only solution to let the Holy Spirit work to remove this emotional response? Does this objection bother you at all?

Anarchism or Statism

Tom Morello and his Rage Against the Machine companions (they've reunited recently, don't you know) are bound to be raising arguments about our government. The problem is that they seem to be at once statists and anarchists. The line about knocking at the door, however much you might think of a forlorn Christ at your soul, makes me think statist. Anarachists would set fire to the door.

But it's a catchy hook. The Irish background tones are especially neat. And I support nylon stringed instruments only slightly less than Ron Paul.

Exploitation of the Majority

I saw this article on the Mises Institute's blog:
Why Government Can't Make Decisions Rationally by Ben O'Neill

O'Neill does a great job of explaining why government decisions are always biased in the favor of small groups, particularly when it comes to cutting spending. Since every government action involves using tax revenues for things that benefits the population in non-uniform ways, every government action is really a redistribution of wealth. Since taxes are collected from almost everyone and most government programs primarily affect a much smaller group, the people on whom the program will have the greatest effect is that smaller group. As O'Neill points out, these people will be far more vocal about decisions concerning the program, and the government will give their views disproportionate consideration.

This mechanism explains the myriad of government programs that are of little advantage to most of the population. This is what is really going on with all the "special interests" that politicians always talk about. Since programs that take from the many and give to the few are allowed (even if forbidden by the Constitution), it is only rational for every small group to use their disproportionate influence to profit from the political system.

The proper functions of government such as national defense and police protection primarily benefit the entire populous. Even these cases, however, every change to expenditure or allocation will disproportionately affect some group(s), and they will be disproportionately vocal about these changes. Opening or closing a military base has a greater effect on the area immediately around the base than on the nation at large. When considering a proposal to decrease the size of a police force, the effect on the police officers will be given disproportionate weight over the issues of public safety and cost.

This over-representation of all small groups does have an advantage: it helps prevent the exploitation of minorities. The problem, of course, is that it has pulled us too far in the other direction, to the point that the majority is exploited though a plethora of government programs that redistribute wealth. The Constitution is supposed to protect us from both extremes, but the parts that limit the government are usually ignored. This is the logical outcome of allowing any latitude in the interpretation of the Constitution. The state makes decisions that increase the power and authority of the state. The three-branch system helps restrain this, but the President will nominate and the Senate will confirm judges who will deliver rulings that are advantageous to the Executive and Legislative branches. In-fighting slows the process down, but the direction of the drift remains the same, toward statism. The only way to stop or reverse this trend is for the population to use every election to insist that the Constitution be strictly upheld.

Profit

For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?
- Matthew 16:26, NKJV

I haven't seen Micheal Moore's latest film, SiCKO, but I have paid a great deal of attention to Moore's promotion of his video, whether it's his mini-war with CNN's Wolf Blitzer and Dr. Sanjay Gupta, or his discussion with Keith Olbermann of MSNBC's Countdown program. I have enjoyed how much he's drawn attention to some of the dangers of the health care system in the United States. He's done us all a favor in putting the conversation back in daily rotation, but he hasn't gone so far as to make that discussion an honest one.

Moore's proposal is that, given the corrupt nature of the health insurance system in the United States, we should move to a tax-funded, single-payer health care system provided by the government. A universal health care system is necessary for providing treatment for all Americans, including those who either cannot afford health insurance or those who do not purchase it (I met one of the latter the other day).

Moore continually talks about how health insurance companies are profit-driven organizations who care little for the well-being of the consumer or the solvency of his or her personal finances. Solvency is the ability of an individual or organization to effectively pay for debts. The filmmaker points to the number of people who have gone bankrupt paying for medical care through health insurance companies.

While there are a number of issues to address with the health care system, I want to focus on the increasingly popular idea that profit is bad for the consumer. Profit, when restricted to the financial meaning, simply means the money a corporation or individual has left over after a financial engagement, when everything is taken care of, including debts like salaries and other financial expenses. Health insurance providers, like any other corporation, seek to turn a profit as they try to meet the needs for people. For Moore, this is bad.

But are profits really bad? Any economist will answer in the negative. Business types believe that profit is not only the ultimate reason behind why something is done, but the motivation for doing the best job possible. I suggest that this is precisely the case.

Profits themselves are vulnerable either to taxation or choice. The government of a municipality, state, or nation may tax income and thus, profits are diminished. Profits are also damaged by people seeking business elsewhere. Seems simple enough.

I will get to a point, by the way. Please put up with the economic discussion.

But the idea of profit can also be harmed in the same way. Our governments can provide services, using our taxes, in an apparent non-profit sort of way. But the most evil way of destroying the virtue of profit is to eliminate choice.

This is part of the reason why the health care system is flawed. Because our government says that employers must provide benefits like health care, dental care, maternity leave, etc., employers are forced to use part of a company's income to meet insurance premiums. Employers often make decisions for the whole of the company as well. Because the choice of providing insurance has been written into law, the employer has no choice to make but take sizable portions of income and fund health care. In turn, this negatively affects the employee, who now has no choice in which insurance company to use, or whether health care insurance is desirable in the first place.

By eliminating all of these choices, people lose the money they would otherwise receive in the form of salary or wage income. They could use their money at their discretion to buy alternative policies or not buy a policy at all. It's up to the individual. And these individuals can proceed to make more choices in which competing insurance companies are affected, which in turn try to make better choices in terms of providing insurance. Did I mention that people have more money?

Profits are undercut when choices are made for people by levels of bureaucracy. So the problem, Michael, is not really profit, but those that make decisions for other people. The concept of profit drives innovation.

I mentioned that I was discussing profit in the economic sense, but the verse I quoted helps us understand that profit is much more than some financial black ink. Stephen considers Christianity to be a form of hedonism, not like John Piper's Christian Hedonism particularly, but a hedonism in the sense that the investments and abstinences of Christianity lead to the salvation of the soul. Jesus isn't using "profit" as the "p-word" that Moore discuss, but a way of understanding what salvation is. It does profit the Christian to place faith in Jesus, to search the Scriptures, and live in the community of the Church.

There are other things I'd like to say on economics as I increasingly think about that particular science, although I think I shall leave that for later.

Theyocracy and Secular Protestantism

David Hart:

We call upon the state to shield us from vice or to set our vices free, because we do not have a culture devoted to the good, or dedicated to virtue, or capable of creating a civil society that is hospitable to any freedom more substantial than that of subjective will. This is simply what it is to be modern.

Why do we have wars on drugs, poverty, terrorism, even a "war on want" in the UK? Maybe it's because we haven't the foggiest idea of how to beat those things without a government, and wars, in the end, are the only things governments have ever been able to win. Or maybe it's because we have no devotion to good or virtue in ourselves. Whatever it is, it's all too easy to assume the problem has little to do with us, and demand They do something about it.

This, I think, is where Christians go wrong. Of course there is a problem; conservatives and liberals agree on that. So some fight abortion and some fight poverty; but in the end they agree on where the problem lies, and too often we think it lies with the government. We would do well to adopt the mindset of J. R. R. Tolkien:

If we could get back to personal names, it would do a lot of good. Government is an abstract noun meaning the art and process of governing and it should be an offence to write it with a capital G or so as to refer to people. If people were in the habit of referring to 'King George's council, Winston and his gang', it would go a long way to clearing thought, and reducing the frightful landslide into Theyocracy.

From a letter to Christopher Tolkien, 29 November 1943.

We need not adopt Tolkien's premodern anarchism in order to take his point (but it might not be so bad if we did). But I fear that the Christian response to Tolkien's Theyocracy usually takes no stronger a form than a call to increase the moral character of They, whether by ending abortion or being more tolerant or whatever tomorrow's big push is. But Christians still collapse into writing government with a capital G, to use Tolkien's evocative phrase. Does the church have nothing better to say to the world?

I would suggest, if I were asked, that Christianity has a lot to say about government, but it says it by speaking to the individual. Of course Christianity is able to change cultures and social systems, but we cannot conceive of this without seeing it through the lens of Christianity's changing of individuals. Otherwise we have adopted the mindset that asks the government to answer each new problem that comes along, and too often They will answer it with a war (whether we convince them to end abortion or not). Orthodox thinker Fr. Stephen Freeman contrasts the Christian call to the individual with "the default position of America" which he says is "secular protestantism."

I say this is the default position and mean by it - that without effort and care - we all find ourselves thinking and acting out of a secular protestant mindset. Of course, I need to offer a definition for my terms. By secular protestantism (and I mean no insult to Protestants by the term) I mean a generalized belief in God - but a God who is removed from the world (hence the term secular). Secularism is not the belief that there is no God - but the belief that God belongs to a religious sphere and the rest of the world is neutral in some independent sense. I add the term “protestantism” to it, because, generally, our culture gives lip-service to protestant foundations, and because Protestant Churches generally understand themselves as relatively human organizations, the true Church being something in the mind of God. (I will grant exceptions to my definition and understanding).

With such a mindset, of course, whatever religious sense one has is generally a matter of effort, organization, control, marketing - in short - religious life is no different from every other aspect of life. It is separated and defined only by its purpose. Such religion is, of course, not Christianity at all, even though it may strive to do good secular work for Christ. True Christianity is a life lived in union with Christ and all that we do that has value is what we do in union with Him.

Protestants, Catholics and Orthodox can argue about what it means to be and do "in union with Him", but the point remains that, unless Christians conceive of their political task as one involving, in the words of N. T. Wright, "a God with muddy boots and dirty hands, busy at the center of the mess so that all may be cleaned up and sorted out", they will always be just another political party, albeit one that also does the religious thing. Likewise Christians must conceive of their political task as one involving a changed individual -- not changed in the sense of believing in Intelligent Design and opposing Planned Parenthood (not to pronounce on whether those things are good or bad), but changed by union with Christ -- before, and as the means of enacting, a changed government.

If I may co-opt the above quote from David Hart, the church's call to the individual (Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life) is the only way to a culture devoted to the good, dedicated to virtue, the only One capable of creating a civil society that is hospitable to any freedom more substantial than that of subjective will. An all-too-secular protestantism cannot answer the pull of Theyocracy unless it works out this truth in its individual and collective belief and practice.

Well, I had to get in my political rant for the month.

New Addition

I've taken the liberty of adding the second blog on Cerberus. This the blog of the Mises Institute, an organization run in Auburn, Alabama. Perhaps my chief regret was not visiting the place while I was there, and I'm planning a return trip to correct that flaw.

In the interest of not tossing up more quips and videos, my next post will be an account of a very real encounter I had in which a very real book saved me some very real money. Stay tuned.

Ron Paul Can't Win

Don't Beat Your Sword into a Plowshare Just Yet.

Mark Horne gave me a scare for real this time.

Click.

Religious Totalitarianism, Pluralism, Christianity, and Atheism

This morning I was listening to WNYC, the public radio station in New York City. The last segment on the Brian Lehrer Show was an interview with Eboo Patel, the founder of the Interfaith Youth Core. He has also just written a book, Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation. The following is the audio of the interview:


In the interview Eboo Patel discusses the state of affairs in the world. He believes that the central conflict of the 21st Century is and will be the conflict between religious totalitarianism and pluralism and that young people will be central to the outcome of that conflict. He draws from W. E. B. Du Bois's idea of the color line of the 20th Century and calls this religious conflict of the 21st Century the faith line. His goal is to use the power of young people on the side of religious pluralism and points out how Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, and Nelson Mandela were all young when they began to make great strides for racial pluralism in the 20th Century.

Of course religious totalitarianism and pluralism are not the only options. I immediately thought about my own beliefs. I don't consider myself to be a totalitarian or a pluralist, though I am a fundamentalist by some definitions. The way that Patel describes and defines the two camps he has in mind leaves some question as to where he would put me. The only non-pluralistic religious groups that he mentioned are very radical. It seems that he fails to recognize the middle ground where I stand: I think other religions are wrong, but I am not trying to kill anybody.

The comments on the WNYC website bring up another option for belief as well: atheism. Most of the people that left comments are antitheists, people who believe that all religions are foolish, harmful, and morally wrong. There seems to be a growing movement toward this position. I have to wonder if this idea will eventually replace pluralism as the preferred belief system of liberal thinkers. I suppose it is closer to logical consistency at least. (By the way, Richard Dawkins, one of the leading proponents of this "New Atheism," will be debating John Lennox in Birmingham, Alabama, on October 3.)

This antitheistic New Atheism has more in common with religious fundamentalism than with agnosticism and "weak atheism." It will be interesting to see how the debate among pluralists, antitheists, and the various religious exclusivists develops and how the rise of New Atheism effects how Biblical Christianity does apologetics and evangelism. We may have to take another step back from the questions of the truth of Christianity and the plausibility of Christianity to the question of whether religious belief is even a valid human activity. Antitheism is gaining steam in the face of radical Islam, and it is now as important as ever to show that Christianity has a positive influence on the world by working to build the kingdom.

The weight of Calvinism does not come from TULIP, the Westminster Confession, or even the book of Romans, all due respect to the Apostle. Paul's epistles instead explain what might be the most powerful part of the Christian drama. Christianity is a story of the objective searching out the subjective. God walks with man in the garden, and seeks him out after the Fall. It was not Adam that sought the Lord, but the Lord that sought Adam. God came to Abraham. God sent his prophets to an unrepentant Israel. Jesus came to earth, and sought out his disciples after his resurrection. And in these days the Spirit comes to believers, further equipping them and renewing their hearts and minds towards Christ.

You Want Egypt? I'll Give You Egypt.

Numbers 14:1-4:

Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night. And all the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron; the whole congregation said to them, "Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness! Why is the LORD bringing us into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become booty; would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?" So they said to one another, "Let us choose a captain, and go back to Egypt."

It is treacherously easy to overspiritualize the Old Testament, especially when it comes to the narratives. If centuries of allegorical interpretation weren't enough to drive this point home, it won't take you long to find a dozen contemporary sermons full of "principles" and "timeless truths of Scripture" painstakingly extracted from the stories of the Old Testament. Whether these practices are useful or proper is another question; the point here is that we are dealing with a record of events. Are there principles here? Truths of scripture? Yes. There is much to be learned in today's passages about God, faith, even politics. But that is not what the narratives primarily are.

What's more, we are dealing with a record of human events. There are a lot of things in the OT narratives that are easy to label 'supernatural'; and while this word is sometimes difficult to shake free of its Deistic trappings, it certainly is more fitting than 'natural'. Nevertheless we read about real people, actual humans. Putting aside for the moment questions of historicity, it should not sound too strange to sat that Moses was a human political and religious leader, Korah was a human revolutionary, and so forth.

In the passage at hand, the Israelites are facing another another human issue: military difficulties. The Israelites have just found out from the agents they have sent into Canaan that the land will be nigh impossible to conquer. It is full of well-protected cities and equally well-armed warriors. One can easily imagine running across a similar passage in a history of, say, Alexander the Great's conquests.

The real intrigue here is that the Israelites, or at least some factions within the larger group, also propose a practical human solution to their issues. "Let us choose a captain, and go back to Egypt," say the Israelites to one another. In other words, let's replace Moses with someone more competent, and change our policy. The real problems here are our intentions for conquest. This plan has been wrong from the start!

Numbers 21:5-9:

The people spoke against God and against Moses, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food." Then the Lord sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, "We have sinned by speaking against the LORD and against you; pray to the LORD to take away the serpents from us." So Moses prayed for the people. And the LORD said to Moses, "Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live." So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.

About 40 years later, not much has changed: the Israelites are still worn down and poorly provisioned at the end of four decades of hard survival in the wilderness following their failed attempt to take Canaan's hill country. It is now difficult to find food and water, and the food they do have they find unacceptable. Spiritual allegories and life principles present themselves by the dozen (and this is not necessarily a problem) but we must keep in mind that these are real issues, human events. It is precisely as real issues and human events that these two passages begin to come into a fresh and meaningful light, and take on a meaning that is decidedly more than human.

A recurring theme in the wilderness narratives is the suggestion, when the situation becomes dire, to return to Egypt (cf. Exodus 14:11-12 and
Numbers 11:5, 18-20). The story of the serpents in Numbers 21 can be read as the subversive fruition of that suggested solution. It is not overly imaginative to think of aging Israelites telling their children stories of their old lives in Egypt. Life in Egypt was remembered as difficult but good; a demanding life, but worth it all for the benefits the Israelites enjoyed there. And what splendor was in Egypt! Awesome pyramids, grand cities, majestic rulers -- Egypt truly was a place of glory, power and ideals.

One of the most vivid symbols of Egyptian glory was the serpent, sticking in the Israelites' minds, we may think, much as the hammer and sickle sticks in the minds of former Soviet citizens. But it seems that, at times at least, the serpent did not symbolize oppression for the wandering Hebrews, but salvation. Time after time they urge their leaders to take them back to Egypt, until finally, at a time when most of the group knows only stories of the greatness of Egypt, the Israelites receive salvation from the serpent. The people wake up one morning to find serpents everywhere -- much as their former masters woke up one morning to find frogs everywhere -- and before they know it, the plagues of Egypt have come upon them in new form. Far more than their firstborns die; this serpent kills without judgment. God subverts the symbol of Egypt in order to show his people what Egypt really is. And when the Israelites finally are saved, it is when God co-opts for Himself the symbol of the salvation to which Israel had been looking. Egypt remains symbolized by the serpent, but Egypt no longer symbolizes salvation. God is, as He reminds His people all through the exodus narratives, the one "who brought you out of the land of Egypt." Salvations belongs to YHWH alone.

Things I'm Learning in Austin

1. "Lost in the Supermarket" by The Clash on London Calling is one of the best songs ever. I thought it was merely a great song earlier, but I was mistaken. I listen to it on repeat in my head.

2. Driving in Austin is awesome. Auburn driving sucks, with the only decent thing going on being Glenn Avenue out past the airport. Pensacola driving is cool because you see large bodies of water, but Austin driving is better because you see large bodies of water while driving on curvy roads through rocky hills.

3. I'm working on the rental places. There is a tree in my front yard. Since Austin is either liberal or libertarian, I might put a swing on one of the branches and spray paint "Free Swings for Ron Paul '08!" on the seat.

4.. In plumbing, connecting dissimilar metals produces a dielectric effect which corrodes both metals. This happened on both hot and cold water lines in both the kitchen sinks. Someone apparently thought that because the 90-degree elbow was made of brass, that the effect would be canceled between galvanized iron and copper. This corrodes both materials over time, and flakes of both metals can end up in your cooking or drinking water. My uncle and I replaced two so far, and have two more to go.

5. Shark Bites are a new plumbing technology that almost seems fake. You just clamp both ends on your pipes and it "bites" them. It seems way too easy. But it works.

6. Shiner is a beer manufacturer in Shiner, Texas, about midway between Houston and Austin, or so I'm told. I had tried Shiner Bock while in Auburn but it didn't leave any significant impressions. I tried some again, this time closer to home, and it was pretty phenomenal. Shiner produces six beers and most of them are excellent, and they all have a solid Shiner finish. I'm sold, and pumped that a city populated by Germans and Czechs (so you know the brewing is good) provides the standard drinking beer for most Texans in Austin. So the quality of the average alcoholic beverage in Texas is greater than that of where you live.

7. Austin seems to be more hospitable than anywhere else I've been thus far. So I guess the South doesn't have a monopoly on it. And Texas isn't considered South. It's considered Texas. They don't serve sweet tea here, and you'd have to drive 900 miles to get to El Paso. Forget that.

8. It has rained a lot, but the past couple of days have been sunny. Nevertheless, the dam between Austin and Lakeway has the maximum amount of spillways open to drain the lake without flooding the lower plain. Good call.

9. If you're going to move somewhere, be sure to take your fingernail clippers.

10. Buy vintage furniture. And clothes. Paul McCartney will sing a song about it.

Iraq and Technical Difficulties

What do you get when you cross a longtime legislator, a cheap audio setup, and a questionable war?

You get my new favorite Washington Post article. What could have been just another Republican leaving the pro-war camp was instead the most useful, moving public appearance by an equally public official since Howard Dean let loose.

Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM) preached through his entire collection of talking points without delivering a single clear point or complete sentence, thanks to malevolently malfunctioning audio equipment that winked on and off throughout the entire presentation.

The venerable Senator made such profound statements as "I do believe it's fair to say that (long audio gap, series of thumps) to tell you that there are very few wars that (audio gap, more thumps, whispered expletive, thumps)." Not content with such relatively commonplace comments, Domenici went so far as to claim that the war "was (audio gap)."

The multiple gaps and mysterious thumps obscured and deterred whatever message New Mexico's finest may have been trying to communicate, but we heartily applaud him anyway. If we are to truly move forward on the issue of war in Iraq, we must all look to whispered expletives and awkward silences to take the debate to the place it should have been all along.