A Living Text

What is a conservative? The word is tossed around like most words are, without much critical reflection on what the term actually means. Is it conservative to support the United States no matter what? To support any war started by a Republican? Just what is it to be ‘conservative’?

I like to start with the dictionary, and mine defines conservative as:

“holding to traditional attitudes and values and cautious about change or innovation, typically in relation to politics or religion.”

That seems to be a good definition - but is that what the GOP and modern conservatives mean when they say they are conservative? Is it really about conserving the past and the permanent things? In a happier age, Edmund Burke wrote:

“…in this enlightened age I am bold enough to confess that we are generally men of untaught feelings: that, instead of casting away all our old prejudices, we cherish them to a very considerable degree; and, to take more shame to ourselves, we cherish them because they are prejudices; and the longer they have lasted, and the more generally they have prevailed, the more we cherish them. We are afraid to put men to live and trade each on his own private stock of reason; because we suspect that the stock in each man is small, and that the individuals would do better to avail themselves of the general bank and capital of nations and of ages. Many of our men of speculation, instead of exploding general prejudices, employ their sagacity to discover the latent wisdom which prevails in them.”

So the first principles of true conservative thought are a love for, and healthy embrace of, the past.

It occurs to me that the spirit of the final anti-Christ will not be an atheistic denial of God, but rather an acknowledgment of all that the God of the Bible is and has said, but with the caveat that he can be overthrown. In other words, a charge that he is not Almighty and not sovereign, but is able to be defeated. Thus Pullman and His Dark Materials.

This probably puts me firmly into the fundamentalist camp, but I don’t mind. An article says that yoga can lead to demonic possession, and I tend to agree. All kinds of non-Christian practices that were anathema when I was a kid (not that long ago) are now widely embraced, including horoscope reading, acupuncture, and yoga. Many of these eastern practices have their roots in the idol worship of false religions, and open the mind by making it blank.

Rachel has a site up now to podcast her songs. It’s not having a contract and touring, but it’s a baby step. Go and check it out, especially the song called “A Sign.”

LDS scholar Truman Madsen responded to the theology of liberal Protestant Paul Tillich by setting forth some propositions. These propositions shed light on unique and non-Christian LDS doctrines. They include:

There is more than one self-existent being, self-existent and co-existent with God.

God is conditioned by uncreated human freedom.

God is finite in some respects and infinite in others

LDS Professor James McLachlan describes some Mormon doctrines that emphatically differ from orthodox Christianity:

Latter-day Saints…accept that God is not the metaphysical ultimate and sole ground of being. Joseph Smith indicated that both God and “man” are “self-existing” beings.

On the difference between immortality and eternal life

With respect to life after death, the LDS church is a universalist religion. All beings have immortality through the atonement of Christ. Joseph Smith claimed that not only humans but animals and planets have eternal spirits. Every creature is immortal, having everlasting life, but “eternal life” is interpreted as deification…all will attain immortality, but only those who learn to love perfectly will attain godhood, eternal life.

On God ‘developing compassion’

In LDS doctrine…God cares, in part, because God, as a once finite and human person, developed compassion through the experience of temptation and suffering in human existence…Christ could not fully understand the suffering of this world until his immortal spirit-body became mortally embodied and fully human.

It was getting to the point where I wouldn’t use Google Docs anymore for much of anything. This was due to the advent of Buzzword and my love for it. But Google has taken a small step forward with the advent of a fixed-width page view inside Google Docs. It makes for a bit better interface, and restores some usefulness to G Docs.

We had the privilege of having Bishop Alexis worship with us on Sunday, as he passed through the area. He is preparing for GAFCON, I meeting that I have doubt about. My doubts are in the vein of why have another meeting that does nothing to sever the ties to heretics? But Bishop Alexis said GAFCON will not be about the debates and arguments, he said “Either you believe the Bible, or you don’t. Either you accept the Apostles Creed, or you don’.”

In effect, no more arguments, it’s settled. He says GAFCON will be about future direction, mission, and planting churches. Praise God for that!

Last weekend we watched The Island. I’d like to say it was unbelievable, but unfortunately, it was quite believable. It’s about human beings being raised to be slaughtered for their organs, paid for by the mega-rich of the world. The story is in a similar vein to another recent movie that I liked, Children of Men. Both movies outline grim futures of a different nature, where life is completely devalued. 

I’d like to think that these movies reflect some sort of popular consensus on abortion and eugenics, but I don’t know that they are more than entertainment for a depraved world. After all, Scarlett Johansson, the star of The Island said:

“We’re supposed to be liberated in America but if our President had his way, we wouldn’t be educated about sex at all. Every woman would have six children and we wouldn’t be able to have abortions.”

What a horrible world, where babies couldn’t be slaughtered when we don’t want them! And yet she can act in this movie that decries cloning for organs (or at least I hope it does). So it is odd to me that Hollywood is putting out these culture of life films, all the while embracing the culture of death. I guess it’s just marketing to a certain segment. We are so far gone in the world, that we don’t think twice about the horrors occurring around us on a daily basis.

If you think we aren’t that far gone, consider that 40% of women of child-bearing age in America have had an abortion. Professor Peter Singer thinks that it should be just fine to kill young children for their organs. We are now going to be creating human-animal embryos for research. Thousands of British women have had four or more abortions. Down syndrome children are disappearing because they are being aborted out of existence, “About 90 percent of pregnant women who are given a Down syndrome diagnosis have chosen to have an abortion.” We have a candidate in Barrack Obama who is fine with about any kind of abortion, and is supported by a large number of younger Christians. 

Tell me how we are different from Nazi Germany and its’ eugenics laws? Because to us it is a “choice?” This is evil, murderous and bloody evil that is out of sight, out of mind. We don’t hear the screams of babies being chopped up in the womb or salinated out of existence - so who cares? May God have mercy on this depraved culture of death and change the hearts of those who think life is a commodity.

LDS professor Richard Sherlock offers a provocative thesis regarding the nature of the LDS Church. He writes:

These remarks are a prelude to a far-reaching claim I wish to make about Mormonism. Mormonism represents a hierarchical ecclesiastical order that holds special powers of priesthood and leadership combined with an emphasis on personal obedience and righteous works as having merit before God, which is at least Annabaptist in its flavor and background. In more traditional terms theological terms, Mormonism combines an authoritative magisterium with an emphasis on righteous works characteristic in Christian theology and history with its exact opposite.

In other words, the LDS Church has a Catholic hierarchy, with an Annabaptist, radically Pelagian theology and practice. In fact, Sherlock offers great honesty when he says:

These [Book of Mormon] passages and others do not articulate a strong theology of grace as clearly as Luther or Calvin may have wished. There is a Pelagian (or semi-Pelagian) ring to a number of the passages, and individuals who have claimed that Mormonism is essentially a modern Pelagianism are not entirely mistaken in such an assessment.