I do not watch the news much: I read psychiatric journals and skim the headlines of the morning fishwrap online. On the radio, the news consists of interviewers talking to each other, promoting the next reality TV show, and hating the latest twitter cycle. It leads to anger and anger to despair: perhaps it is designed to.
The current fashion among the neoconservatives is to argue that we should withdraw from any fight in public because the other side are evil, stupid and exhausting. As if we would be left alone: we would not. This is the counsel of Wormtounge, designed to remove good people from the public arena.
Bad filibusters are now good ones. Vowing to kill, hurt, or remove the president and first family is hip, when it used to be felonious. States’ rights and nullification are now Confederate-cool. Free speech is hate speech. Censorship is a mere trigger warning. Assimilation is cultural appropriation. The nasal voiced thirtysomethings on the news, in their retro outfits of high-water pants and horn-rimmed glasses, impart worldly wisdom as our new Eric Sevareids. –– ADVERTISEMENT –– When we all wish to be victims, there are too few oppressors to go around. Or perhaps the Boomer generation is going out in a fit of frenzied self-recognition: It enjoyed all that was given to it, did not accomplish much itself, and left a mess to its successors. Its metaphor is California’s Oroville dam: Aging greens believe that it never should have been built; but since it was, it came in handy for the good life; but no one should spend any money on its repair; but when it nearly fails, we were all warned that it was never a good idea. And so no more dams will be built for our children. An increasing number of American don’t take all this seriously. And that’s not new. In reaction to the growing globalization of the Roman Empire, elite corruption, the banality of bread-and-circuses, and the end of the agrarian Italian Republic, the Stoics opted out, choosing instead a reasoned detachment from contemporary life. Some, like the worldly court philosopher Seneca, seemed hypocritical; others, such as the later emperor Marcus Aurelius, lived a double life of imperial engagement and mental detachment. Classical impassiveness established the foundations for the later monastic Christians, who in more dangerous times increasingly saw the world around them as incompatible with the world to come — and therefore they saw engagement as an impediment to their own Christian belief. More and more Americans today are becoming Stoic dropouts. They are not illiberal, and certainly not reactionaries, racists, xenophobes, or homophobes. They’re simply exhausted by our frenzied culture.
The narrative of the left is breaking down. The inherent instability of intersectionality is now obvious. The idea that any fatis, any knowlege, has to be interpreted through this cultural marxist crazy house is ludicrous. So expect the noise to get louder Instead, the truth seek. You may find it.
And when you find it, do not he a sophist, a Pharisee, or a Social Justice Petunia. Do not argue that the truth is not qualified because ideology.
John 8:12-20
12Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” 13Then the Pharisees said to him, “You are testifying on your own behalf; your testimony is not valid.” 14Jesus answered, “Even if I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is valid because I know where I have come from and where I am going, but you do not know where I come from or where I am going. 15You judge by human standards; I judge no one. 16Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is valid; for it is not I alone who judge, but I and the Father who sent me. 17In your law it is written that the testimony of two witnesses is valid. 18I testify on my own behalf, and the Father who sent me testifies on my behalf.” 19Then they said to him, “Where is your Father?” Jesus answered, “You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also.” 20He spoke these words while he was teaching in the treasury of the temple, but no one arrested him, because his hour had not yet come.
Why were the Jews so angry? Christ was claiming something divine: in his argument back to them — you have no witnesses — you get the best argument for the Trinity: that if you know Christ you know the Father.
IF you think you understand the Trinity you have not considered it fully enough. It is a mystery, beyond us. Christ was fully divine and as such fully reliable, yet he was fully human, subject to our frailties, and subject to death.
In faith we accept this. We do not accept the progressive lie, ancient though it is, of the Unitarian. We do not aceept that all will see the light. As Christ said, some will not know him. It may not be the timely season to teach this, but we teach, blog and preach regardless of the storms the media whip up. And regardless of if it is called hate speech.
But to those who read these words I have one thing to say: know Christ. For he speaks truth, and no narrative.