If there was ever any doubt about one of the Obama Administration’s key philosophical commitments, it was dispelled on Jan. 20 when the Department of Health and Human Services informed the Catholic Church that most of its agencies will be required to provide employees with insurance-coverage for contraceptives, sterilization, and abortifacient drugs: i.e., products, procedures, and chemicals used to facilitate acts which the Church and plenty of others consider intrinsically evil. Alas, it’s not a question of the administration being tragically ” tone deaf ,” as one American Jesuit claimed, to specifically Catholic concerns. Nor is the bedrock of President Obama’s position, in the end, a commitment to “women’s health.” Outside the ghoulish world of Planned Parenthood, pregnancy does not qualify as a disease. A fertile womb is no threat to human life. No, this is all about the absolutization of choice for the sake of choice. It’s also about creating a society in which any discussion of the actual ends we choose is considered unacceptable in public debates about law and morality. Modern liberalism has a long history of trying to exclude consideration of the proper ends of human action from public discourse in the name of tolerance. But neither liberalism nor secularism are as neutral about such matters as they pretend. Self-identified modern liberals (and secularists more generally) typically insist that justice and tolerance demand that governments shouldn’t privilege any conception of morality, religious or secular, in framing its laws. Unfortunately for liberals, this position — outlined in excruciating detail by the seer of modern secular liberalism, the late John Rawls — is self-refuting. Why? Because it, ahem, privileges a legal and political commitment to relativity about moral questions. It’s the same absurdity underlying the philosophical skeptic’s claim that there’s no truth — except for the truth that there is no truth. These little internal inconsistencies, however, don’t stop the use of such conceptions of tolerance and justice as weapons for terminating any contribution to public debate that’s informed by the propositions that moral truth exists, that we can know it through revelation and/or reason, and that it is unjust to cordon off these truths from the public square. And here we come face-to-face with the essence of what a certain Joseph Ratzinger famously described in an April 2005 homily as ” the dictatorship of relativism .” Most people think of tyrannies as involving the imposition of a defined set of ideas upon free citizens. Benedict XVI’s point was that the coercion at the heart of the dictatorship of relativism derives precisely from the fact that it “does not recognize anything as definitive.” In this world, tolerance no longer creates the safety for us to express our views about the nature of good and evil and its implications for law and public morality. Instead, it serves to banish the truth as the reference point against which all of us must test our ideas and beliefs. The objective is to reduce everyone to modern Pontius Pilates who, whatever their private beliefs, wash their hands in the face of obvious injustices, such as what the Obama administration has just inflicted upon not only Catholics, but anyone whose convictions about the truth requires them to abstain from cooperating in acts they regard as evil per se. Of course, modern liberals do have their preferred ends, which (despite all their endless chatter about reason) reflect their profoundly cramped vision of man’s intellect. Here they follow the eighteenth-century Scottish philosopher David Hume. He argued that “reason ought to be the slave of the passions.” Reason’s role, in other words, is not to identify what is rational for people to choose. Instead, reason is reduced to merely devising the means for realizing whatever goals that people, following the profound moral reasoning of a five year-old, “just feel like” choosing. On this basis, utilitarians such as Jeremy Bentham concluded that life was really about nothing more than the experience of sensations. Hence, the goal was to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. But having repeatedly failed to construct a coherent hedonistic calculus of utility (even Rawls concluded it was a doomed endeavor), the “ultimate goal” of modern liberalism and secularism now “consists,” as Benedict noted in 2005, “solely of one’s own ego and desires.” That in turn reduces life and my choices to ensuring that I am among those who are (1) powerful enough to get to indulge my ego and my desires, (2) sophistical enough to produce rationalizations (otherwise known as consequentialist ethics) for doing so, and (3) strong enough to trample over anyone whose existence or beliefs might limit my ability to do whatever I just happen to “feel like” doing. Here modern liberalism’s essentially illiberal nature reveals its true face. Because if your theological or philosophical convictions get in the way of your employee’s desire to neuter his spouse at your expense in order to avoid the “disease” of pregnancy, then tough luck. Desire plus autonomy — the calling-cards of secularist fundamentalism — trump all (except, apparently, when it comes to the distribution of wealth, climate change, and smoking). The Catholic Church — and its teachings about good and evil — goes back 2,000 years. Since that time, it’s weathered the savage persecutions of the Roman Empire, the terrorism of the French Revolution, the systematic harassment of National Socialism, and the all-out assault of Marxism-Leninism. And, perhaps most telling of all, it’s managed to survive the many, often terrible sins and faithlessness of its own members. The Church will be around long after the not-so-New Atheists have gone to their eternal reward. The Church’s struggle with the dictatorship of relativism may, however, prove one of its most difficult challenges. That’s partly because it’s a subtle form of oppression that trades off words like “choice” that strongly resonate in Western societies — the same societies in which many secularists all-too-quickly equate any religion’s claim to teach the truth with murderers who fly planes into buildings. In the span of human history, the Obama Administration is just a blip, however much it considers itself, like all progressivists, to be on history’s cutting edge. But be warned: the Catholic Church’s fight — in fact, the fight of anyone, believer or non-believer, who recognizes secularist fundamentalism as a danger to freedom — against the despotism of “there-is-no-moral-truth-and-Rawls-is-his-prophet” is only just beginning.
Excerpt from:
Obama and the Dictatorship of Relativism
Ramesh Ponnuru: ” Obama Health Rule an Affront to Religious Groups ” Sean Trende: ” A Demographic Divide: Could Evangelicals Block Romney? ”
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The Daily Grind: Demographic Divide
Ramesh Ponnuru: ” Obama Health Rule an Affront to Religious Groups ” Sean Trende: ” A Demographic Divide: Could Evangelicals Block Romney? ”
Visit link:
The Daily Grind: Demographic Divide
Ramesh Ponnuru: ” Obama Health Rule an Affront to Religious Groups ” Sean Trende: ” A Demographic Divide: Could Evangelicals Block Romney? ”
See more here:
The Daily Grind: Demographic Divide
I’m afraid we need a little Sunday morning theology. Hopefully someone at the White House will read this and realize just how ill advised the President was to do what he did this week and we should be praying hard for him to see the error of his ways on this. In the Bible we read these things: “And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’” Gen 1:28 (ESV) “Did not he who made me in the womb make him? And did not one fashion us in the womb?” Job 31:15 (ESV) “Your hands have made and fashioned me; give me understanding that I may learn your commandments.” Psalm 119:73 (ESV) “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.” Psalm 139:13 (ESV) These are clear references to God intending people to procreate and recognize that, even in the womb, God played a vital role in the formation of children and we should not casually destroy life God himself created. These passages of scripture are what inspire so many pro-life advocates to defend the unborn. Had the President of the United States stood at the National Prayer Breakfast and uttered any of those passages and then announced his intent to protect the unborn, abortion rights advocates would have stormed the White House and the Courts all in the name of separation of church and state. The media would have had on Barry Lynn to proclaim his outrage that the President was mixing religion and politics. Jim Wallis would have gone on the news to dance around life issues and try his best to neuter God out of them and the media would have treated him as an objective source. But that’s not what happened. Instead, the President went to the National Prayer Breakfast and quoted Jesus Christ himself to defend a tax increase. The President paraphrased Luke 12:48, “Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more.” (ESV) He said it was because he was a Christian that he thought the rich should pay more in taxes. It’s a good thing President Obama did not draw from Matthew 13:12 instead or the poor would really be screwed. “For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.” (ESV) It is worth pointing out that the very same people who would have been outraged had the President quoted clear scripture on life to defend the unborn were willing to be silent or even applaud the President perverting the words of Christ to pursue his tax plan. It is also worth pointing out that President Obama sat at the feet of Jeremiah Wright for 20 years, so this might be the best he can do. But we must also point out that Christians have an obligation to pray for their leaders and, given how the President of the United State just twisted the words of our Lord and Savior, we should pray all the more fervently for him because in reading Luke 12:48, he clearly ignored or has no understand of Luke 12:47, the prior sentence, which reads “And that servant who knew his master’s will but did not get ready or act according to his will, will receive a severe beating.” (ESV) One must wonder about the Christian grounding of the people in the White House who encouraged the President of the United States to pervert the words of the Living God. What the President seems not to know is encapsulated well by Breeanne Howe here. Christ was not talking about money. The President, in making the case for his tax plan using that passage of scripture, perverts Christ’s meaning. Christ was talking explicitly about the blessings flowing from God to the apostles and us through the Word and the need to proclaim Christ as the Living God. To better understand what Christ was actually talking about, first understand that he was talking about an individual’s relationship with God. In fact, throughout President Obama’s speech he perverted a number of passages from Holy Scripture having to do with an individual’s obligations toward the poor and toward God, co-opting those passages as claims that the state can then tax and spend in the name of Jesus. I dare say I’d take peddlers of the “social gospel” much more seriously if they concerned themselves first with the actual Gospel as it pertains to men’s salvation and eternity. Not to delve deep into the theology, but Luke 12:47-48 is reflected in Hebrews 2:1-4, in which the writer preaches, “Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.” The Greek used for “pay much closer attention” ( prosecho ) and “lest we drift away” ( pararheo ) derive from Greek nautical terminology the original audience would have understood. Prosecho means to tie up or moor a ship in harbor (a metaphor for Christ) and pararheo means to negligently and knowingly let a ship drift past the harbor, or Christ. In other words, what Christ is telling us in Luke and what the author of Hebrews explains in greater detail is that these passages apply to people who, like the President, claim to be Christians and claim to have experienced blessings in life and then turn their back on or drift away from Christ without securing themselves to him. 1 What both Hebrews 2 and Luke 12:47 say that the President conveniently ignored is that anyone who claims to be a Christian or who has experienced the blessings that flow from being surrounded by believers and then does not accept Christ will be judged more harshly on the last day than those who never knew or experienced Christ’s love. Yeah, those levels of hell aren’t just for Catholics. See e.g. Matthew 11:21-22 in which Christ says, “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you. ” [Emphasis added] Unfortunately for the nation, we have a President who claims to be a Christian who is willing to take God’s Holy Word repeatedly out of context, subsume God’s commands for individuals in their conduct with each other and with Him, and try to make the case for the government’s fiscal policy with that perversion. Contrast that with his other actions this week. The President, through the Department of Health and Human Services, has ordered religious organizations — targeting more specifically the Catholic Church — to offer health plans that cover the costs of contraceptives and abortifacient drugs. I started this post with, unlike the President’s use of Luke and Proverbs, un-perverted scripture Christians use to show their objections to abortion. But moreso, these are non exhaustive passages of scripture Catholics rely on as foundations both to their opposition to abortion and to contraception. God himself said, “Be fruitful and multiply.” The President this week chose to pervert God’s Word to make the case for a tax increase, but he also chose to ignore God’s word on life and is ordering Christians, while he claims to be one, to violate their Christian conscience on abortion — requiring Christian organizations to provide health insurance that will cover the cost of drugs that induce abortions. He is trying to have it both ways. He is trying to use God’s Word to defend a tax policy that dissuades individuals from giving gladly and charitably to the poor as God instructs and is ignoring God’s Word in order to force fellow Christians into violating their Christian conscience — something about which God cares a great deal. This cannot end well for him, particularly doing this claiming to be a Christian. And it might not end well for the rest of us either. Barack Obama has gone to war with Christians’ consciences and he is perverting God’s word in the process to get his way on public policy. “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.” 1 Timothy 2:1-2 (ESV) Pray hard. The President needs it. Some very silly secularists proving they have no clue what they are talking about have taken issue with my use of the word “claim” in this paragraph. It’s not that I am expressing or casting doubt on the President’s faith or my own. I’d use the word about myself too. The point is that this scripture applies to (1) people who claim, or hold themselves out to be, Christians and (2) those who have experienced the blessings derived from God unto Christians. The President explicitly said he was Christian in his speech. When a person says they are a Christian, the presumption for other Christians is that they must be Christian. The silly leftwing secularists attacking me here are proving their very deep and real ignorance about orthodox Christianity and their hostility to it as well. ↩
Continued here:
The Perversion of the Words of Our Lord Jesus Christ by the Sinner Barack H. Obama
