Don’t Question the Priests
There is a stereotypical view, particularly among atheists, that in religion one must just mindlessly accept whatever the religious authorities say. As with most stereotypes, this is false if applied universally and falls under the fallacy of Hasty Generalization. (see Acts 17:11 for a NT example).
Recently I have been noticing a similar phenomenon from my liberal friends. For example, I was discussing a recent court decision, and pointing out some problems with the Judges reasoning, when my friend asked, “Are you a judge?” They knew I was not and so what they were really saying was who was I to question a Judge’s decision? A similar challenge can be seen in the following exchange between Rep Mo Brooks (R-AL) and Contessa Brewer. When Rep. Brooks makes a claim that Brewer disagrees with, she attempts to shut him down by asking if he has a degree in economics:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mtQyEd-zS4
Behind these and a growing number of other examples is an implied assumption that if you do not have the correct letters after your name, then you do not have the right to voice an opinion. In short, you cannot question the priests.
There are, of course, many problems with such a view. For example, while Brewer did not think that Rep. Brooks had a right to make judgments about the economy when she did not know he had a degree, the fact that he actually did have one is very unlikely to have changed her mind. What really matters is not just that you have the right degree, or that you are a Judge, etc., but that you are the right kind of economist or the right kind of Judge. In short, the right kinds are the ones you agree with, the rest are not real economist, or judges, even if they have the title. Experts that disagree with your experts, are somehow flawed, and thus, in the end, don’t really count.
This is how President Obama can make claims that are so clearly false; claims like, “economists on the left and right agree that the last thing the government should do during a recession is cut back on spending” and “There is no disagreement that we need action by our government, a recovery plan that will help to jumpstart the economy.” Now admittedly, it is very possible that the President is just a habitual liar. In fact these and many other clearly false statements could be seen as strong evidence of his lack of truthfulness, such as his recent claim that 80% of the people back his approach to the debt ceiling.
But whatever the underlying motives, there is a deeper problem in these attempts to silence opposition with the appeal to experts. We live in a democratic republic, where people are supposed to have a say through their representatives on how government is to be run. Appeals to experts for the evidence they cite, is perfectly acceptable, as the final judgment rests with the citizen. Thus the experts can all make their cases and present their arguments and the people decide. Appeals to experts to shut down discussion are not only invalid, they are undemocratic. Such appeals transfer the final decision from the citizen to the expert. Rather than a democratic republic, this argues for an oligarchy of experts.
When this growing trend to stifle debate by through the unquestioning appeal to experts is combined with the recent attempts to shut down the democratic process when it does not go their way as recent seen most clearly in Wisconsin, it would appear that the Democratic party is becoming very undemocratic.
The Gang of Six Has Convinced Me
To the Gang of Six,
After all of the past promises of “Future cuts” that have never come to pass, how can you expect people, who have for decades received nothing but broken promises and accounting gimmicks, to fall for the same thing yet again? Please explain how this last minute deal will succeed where all of the other deals, last minute and otherwise, have failed? This is especially true given that the details are, yet again, to be worked out in the future, If you claim that this one will have the requirements actually put into law, will that be like the law that the Democratic Senate has already been ignoring for a couple of years requiring them to produce a budget? If they will just ignore the law that requires them to produce a budget, what is to keep them from just ignoring this deal even if it is actually worked out?
Do you really think we are that stupid? Even if you could get the compromise through the House which, given the tax increases, is extremely unlikely, this would simply go the way of all previous promises to cut the budget. If past history is any indication, this means that we will get the tax increases, maybe a little slowing in the rate of increase in the size of government, but not any real cuts. Thus, in a short time we will be in an even deeper hole with even fewer options. Just a lot more debt.
As I see it, the only thing you have accomplished with your last minute compromise is to doom any real chance of an actual solution, which admittedly was small to begin with. As such, you have convinced me. I have held out for a compromise against some of my friends, but no more. I can see now that while there are, no doubt, some good people up there, as a whole Congress is simply incapable of handling even the most basic of its obligations. You guys are too busy looking out for the best interests of the American government, and have forgotten about the American people who for decades have seen their real wages drop, and thus had to get by with less and less, year after year, so that Government could continue to live high on the hog and grow ever larger.
Thus I now oppose any increase in the debt ceiling and will advocate that any member of Congress that votes for an increase be voted out at the next election. Simply cutting off the money appears to be the ONLY way to keep Congress from spending the country into oblivion.
Not How Much, But How Soon
As the debt ceiling talks continue one thing is becoming clear: conservatives hold all the cards. When you sort through all the rhetoric and posturing, the core of each side comes down to this. Liberals want more spending, a larger government, and the higher taxes to pay for it, as this allows them to help more people. In short, they see government as the solution. Conservatives want less spending, a smaller government, and lower taxes, with ideally a balanced budget, because this would result in more freedom, and greater prosperity for everyone. In short, they see government as the problem.
While I come down solidly on the greater freedom and more prosperity side, that is not my point here. As for those who high mindedly criticize both sides for not just “putting politics aside and doing what is in the best interests of the country,” I would ask just what would be these hypothetical “best interests”? Just where is the middle ground between those who believe that our problems are because government is too small and is not doing enough, on the one hand, and those who believe that our government is so large that it is stifling economic growth and limiting freedom? Where is the middle ground between government is the solution, and government is the problem? Should we just leave everything where it is? If so how does that apply to the debt ceiling?
While politics certainly is playing a huge role, how could it be any different? Yet politics it is not at the core of the problem. At the core are fundamentally different views of our current problems and thus fundamentally different beliefs as to how best solve them. Thus even if asking politicians to put politics aside was not akin to asking for unicorns to pull your carriage, if they did, it still would not get you very far. The same fundamental divisions would still be there.
So the current situation is that Congresses and Presidents have for decades made far more commitments than the government has revenues. This has been easy for politicians. They get the political benefit of “bringing home the bacon,” while the costs are often pushed off into the future. This is not a new problem, but has in fact been the norm since at least WWII. Before now it was much easier to ignore and get around. The Federal government could raise taxes or close loopholes; inflation and prosperity moved people into higher tax brackets; the cost of promises could be pushed off onto the states; and the government could just borrow money. But the resistance to higher taxes and the size of the debt have both grown, and the states are themselves in trouble. With the current economic problems, and the heretofore unprecedented deficits, things have come to a head over the debt ceiling.
This is why conservatives hold all the cards. Ideally conservatives want a smaller government that lives within it means. If no agreement is reached to raise the debt ceiling these goals will be reached as soon as the debt ceiling is reached. The Federal government will not have the money to spend and so would become smaller overnight, and the budget would by default be balanced.
There are in fact many who argue this is the approach that we should take and polls show that a large majority of people oppose raising the debt ceiling. Still even though this would get them where they want to go very quickly, many conservatives believe that this would be needlessly painful. Therefore they would support raising the debt ceiling as long as it clearly and decisively moved the government towards getting spending under control.
Liberals, on the other hand, since they want a larger government that can do even more, seek an increase in the debt ceiling that will allow them to continue to expand government. Their only bargaining chip is that to fail to do raise the debt ceiling would cause the government to default, which would bring economic disaster. While it is true that if the government defaulted it would have severe economic consequences, it is false that failing to raise the debt ceiling would cause the government to default. It wouldn’t.
Federal revenues are more than sufficient to service our debt. The Government would not be able to meet all of its current obligations, but that is different than not servicing the debt. It just means that the government would have to do what an awful lot of Americans have had to do in recent years: prioritize, and get by with a lot less.
This is perhaps why there is such strong opposition to raising the debt ceiling among the public. Since the economic downturn, the Federal government has been living high on the hog. Washington has been awash in money, which is why the deficit is now ten times larger than just a few years ago. So ultimately the liberal position is a very weak one, and in fact untenable.
Conservatives can simply refuse to raise the debt ceiling, and they get what they want. Or they can negotiate real and significant cuts to reduce the size of government in a more controlled fashion. But either way they win. In fact there is only one way that they can lose.
So far I have referred to conservatives and liberals, not Republicans and Democrats. There is a reason for this. While conservatives want a smaller government, not all Republicans do. Some Republicans are just as happy to make unfunded promises and spend tax dollars as any liberal, though they may hide behind the fig leaf that they create slower growth. This is why often in the past the “cuts” in government were at best only reductions in the rate of increase.
This is also the reason for the anger at the Tea Party, for they are a disruptive force. They will not settle for the traditional phony compromises of the past, compromises that looked good on paper by using accounting gimmicks and by promising huge cuts in future years, cuts that never actually materialized and thus were ultimately meaningless.
As things look now, the Republican leadership is acting like conservatives. Unless they blink, they will either achieve their goals in August, or they will negotiate a more orderly transition to their goals at a later date. So really, they are, or at least should be, negotiating how soon they reach their goal of a smaller government that lives within it means; that is really what is under discussion.
Aliens for President!
Senator Durbin’s statement saying that an illegal alien could be our president is more than just a slip of the tongue, particularly given that he appeared to be reading from prepared remarks. One would think that a senator would at least be familiar with the constitutional requirement that the President be “a natural born Citizen,” especially given all the needless controversy that surrounded the President’s place of birth’s until he finally released his birth certificate.
Durbin’s statement is really just another indication that for him, like so many on the left, the Constitution is just not all that important. Oh, they will pay lip-service to it when the occasion requires it, but it is really not all that important. They are akin to the Sunday Christian, the one who normally shows up on Sunday, but never actually reads the Bible, and thus it has very little impact on what they think, say and do.
In fact for many on the left, the Constitution is more of a bother than anything else, something that just gets in the way of the important work they are doing. Case in point: The Obamacare requirement to purchase health insurance. Now under the commerce clause the federal government can regulate interstate commerce. But how can not buying health insurance be considered an act of interstate commerce? This is especially true when you consider that one cannot purchase health insurance from other states to begin with. Thus it really was no surprise when a court ruled this law unconstitutional. It was also not a big surprise when the administration basically ignored their ruling and waited until they could get some judges with a more flexible view of the constitution.
In fact the Constitution has been one of the biggest barriers to the left, going back to FDR, who tried to pack the court to avoid its limitations. He failed in packing the court, but eventually got the court, and thus the ruling, he wanted. The left has followed his blueprint ever since. When faced with a clause that they don’t like, they just reinterpret it to conform to their desires.
Take the Bill of Rights, for example. The left’s effort to change the meanings of these amendments has been so successful that many now think that the first amendment actually says separation of church and state. Free speech, put in place to protect political speech has been so turned on its head that political speech is now the most regulated. The second amendment which specifically mentions “the right of the people” is seen as referring to the right of state governments. The fourth and fifth and sixth amendments has been extended to enemy combatants, while the fifth amendment protection of private property have been weakened such that the government does not really need to take your property, they can just control what you do as if it were theirs. As for the tenth amendment, that, of course, is meaningless. Then of course there are the new “rights” that have been found lurking around in the emanation of various penumbras.
In short, the Bill of Rights does not mean what it says, it only means what the liberals tell us it means, and any attempt to restore it back to its original meaning is loudly decried as “Trying to change the Bill of Rights for the first time in our history.”
Thus Durbin’s statement is really not all that surprising. After all, why should he see the Constitution as a hindrance? This also goes a long way towards explaining why so many on the left fear the Tea-Party movement. These people not only read the constitution, they actually want to follow it! Can you get more unreasonable than that?
The 72%-90%
I have been reading a new book that I find both challenging and exciting. No, it is not the latest spy thriller, and in fact is not even a novel. It is non-fiction and on a subject matter that has been dealt with many times in the past. Yet it does so by challenging cultural norms that most have simply taken for granted, and probably have not even thought much about. What is exciting is the potential it has to impact the church and thereby the world at large, which is huge.
The book is Rite of Passage for the Home and Church: Raising Christ-Centered Young Adults, by D. Kevin Brown (Energion Publications, 2011), and from its title one might question my claims of a huge impact. A huge impact can only come in the face of a huge problem. A book on study habits for those who are B+ or A- students only has a limited room for improvement. A book aimed at failing students that can transform them into A students would be huge, not only for their grades, but on what that would mean for their lives as well.
The problem addressed in Rite of Passage is larger than just grades. To put it bluntly, the church in America, as a whole, is failing its young people. This is a tough message and one that meets with tremendous resistance. I know because I have been talking in my speaking and teaching for nearly twenty years and have met with everything from skepticism and denial to, in few cases, hostility. People point to their youth programs and how many children are being reached, and how many accepted the Lord at their last vacation Bible school as evidence that I am wrong.
Yet the statistics I have been following for quite some time, and which Brown points to in his book tell a different story. As Brown points out, while attendance at youth programs may be strong, numerous studies reveal a problem. “These studies … show that between 70%-92% of ‘Christian’ teens were dropping out of church and abandoning their faith, most by their 20th birthday.” (pg. 12)
What is really exciting is that Brown solution is both revolutionary, and yet not. It is revolutionary because it runs so counter to our cultural norms. In fact, many will find it just too radical and different. On the other hand, it is not revolutionary in that Brown is really doing nothing more than returning to scripture, and asking the question “What do the scriptures say about adolescents?” (pg. 21)
Considering all the books that discuss the scriptural approach to raising teens, the surprising answer is that the Bible is completely silent on the topic. The Biblical perspective is that you have two groups, children and adults, “with no stopovers at a place called ‘adolescence.’” (pg. 22)
Thus Brown argues for a revolutionary course of action, but one that should be music to every believer’s ears: That we treat our teenagers following the biblical pattern. Most of the book is aimed at defending this view and then laying out its implications which are many. This is revolutionary when compared to the culture at large, a culture that allows young adults to drift through their teen years with few expectations and no clear line of adulthood. The current view is neither biblical, nor even very old, only a 100 years or so. As you read through Brown’s book, the individual parts are not really very new or very revolutionary, except that they are rarely pulled together and applied to, or expected of, teens.
Another thing that is clear is that Brown is not proposing yet another youth program. In fact if applied in that fashion, it would probably fail. What Brown is proposing is a vast and long term change in perspective. Given the reluctance to even face the problem, Brown will certainly face opposition from some. That is just not the way we do it. That just will not work with today’s teens. The reasons will be many, but the conclusion will be the same. It just will not work.
To those who are concerned with the current 70%-92% loss among 18-20 year olds, Brown’s book will at a minimum be a welcome point of view and a must read. To those who are skeptical I would make the same challenge that I do in all my teaching on the Bible. You don’t have to believe me, or in this case Brown. Look at that biblical evidence he puts forth. Pray about the examples he cites. Look at how teens are treated in the Bible and what is expected of them. And reach your own conclusions as to what does the Bible say. Ask yourself, if your church’s youth program is patterned after the culture, or if it is patterned after the Bible?
In the end, agree or not with Brown, this is a book that should be read by anyone concerned with the church, and in particular with those in the teen years.
Note: Energion Publications is also the publisher of my books.
