9/11: A reminder that freedom isn't free

The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime,
and the punishment of his guilt.

—John Philpott Curran

During the decade of the 1990s, our times often seemed peaceful on the surface. Yet beneath the surface were currents of danger. Terrorists were training and planning in distant camps. . . . America's response to terrorism was generally piecemeal and symbolic. The terrorists concluded this was a sign of weakness, and their plans became more ambitious, and their attacks more deadly. Most Americans still felt that terrorism was something distant, and something that would not strike on a large scale in America. That is the time my opponent wants to go back to. A time when danger was real and growing, but we didn't know it. . . . September 11, 2001 changed all that. We realized that the apparent security of the 1990s was an illusion. . . . Will we make decisions in the light of September 11, or continue to live in the mirage of safety that was actually a time of gathering threats?

—George W. Bush, October 18, 2004

History will not end until the Lord returns, and neither will the twist of the human heart toward evil. The idea that we can just ignore or deny this reality and go on about what we'd rather be doing, whether in domestic or in foreign policy, is the political equivalent of cheap grace; and it is no more capable of bringing what blessing our politics can muster than its theological parallel can bring salvation. It may be true, as Theodore Parker said, that the arc of the moral universe "bends toward justice," but if it is, we must remember that it's only true because God is the one bending it—taken all in all, the collective effort of humanity is to bend it the other way.

This world is fallen, and all of us are tainted by the evil that rots its core; and all too many have given in to that evil and placed their lives in its service. Most have not done so knowing it to be evil—there are very few at the level of Milton's Satan or Shakespeare's version of Richard III—but that doesn't make them any better. Indeed, the fact that people like Adolf Hitler and Osama bin Laden do vast evil believing they serve what is right and good only makes them more dangerous, because it makes them far more effective in corrupting others, and far less likely to repent. Evil is a cancer in the human soul, and like any cancer, it will not stop growing until either it or its host is destroyed—which means that those who serve it will not stop unless someone else stops them.

Which is why the 18th-century Irish politician John Philpott Curran was right. There are those in this world who are the servants of evil, those movements which are driven by it, and those nations which are ruled by such—some in the name of religion, some in allegiance to political or economic theory, some in devotion to nation or tribe—and in their service to that spiritual cancer, they operate themselves as cancers within society, the body politic, and the international order; they will not stop until they are stopped. As Edmund Burke did not say (but as remains true nevertheless), the only thing that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing; the logical corollary is that to prevent the triumph of evil, those who would oppose it must be vigilant to watch for its rise, and must stand and fight when it does.

Must that always mean war? Not necessarily; as Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., among others, have shown, there are times when nonviolent moral resistance is the most effective form of opposition (helped in Gandhi's case, I would argue, by the fact that the Raj was not evil). But the fact that that works in some societies doesn't mean that it works in all, because nonviolent resistance depends for its effect on the willingness of others to repent—and not everyone is willing. Some people are hard of heart and stiff of neck, unwilling to humble themselves, liable only to judgment; they will not stop unless they are forced to do so. When such people rule nations and are bent on tyranny and conquest, then sometimes, war becomes necessary. A tragic necessity, yes, but no less necessary for all that.

We have enemies who have decided in their hearts that they must destroy us, and they will not be shaken from that decision, because they have excluded anything that could shake them; they are unflinching in their resolve to building up the power and ability to do what they have committed themselves to do. This is hard for Americans to understand or accept, because—with the characteristic arrogance of our Western culture—we think that everyone, deep down, thinks and feels and understands the world as we do, and thus is "rational" on our terms, by our definition of the word. We fail to understand people and cultures that really don't value their own lives and their own individual wills and desires above all else. But there are those in this world who don't, who simply have different priorities than ours, and who consequently cannot be negotiated with or deterred or talked out of things as if they were (or really wanted to be) just like us—and who in fact have nothing but contempt for the very idea.

There are people, movements, nations, who want to destroy America and our culture (which they believe to be Christian culture, far though it is from being so), and who will not be dissuaded by any of our attempts at persuasion or appeasement. Indeed, go as far back as you want in history, you'll never find a case where appeasement of enemies has worked; rather, time after time, it only encourages them. If someone is determined to defeat you and has the ability to do so, it isn't possible for you to choose for things to be different, because their choice has removed that option; your only choice is either to let them do so, or to try to stop them.

But is it right to try to stop them? What of the morality of force? As individuals, when someone hates us, we are called to turn the other cheek and trust to the justice of God—but that's when we ourselves are the only ones at risk. When it comes to defending others from harm, the calculus is different; this is especially true of government, which bears the responsibility to defend all its citizens from evil, and has been given the power of the sword for that purpose. The decision to use force of any sort—whether it be the national military or the local police—must not be made lightly; it must be done only when there is clear certainty that the deployment of force is necessary in the cause of justice. But when it is truly necessary in order to defend the right, if that defense is properly our responsibility, then we cannot shrink back: we must stand and fight, or else allow evil to triumph.

Freedom and justice and true peace only come at a cost, in this lost and broken world of ours; they must forever be defended against those who do not value them, and would destroy them for their own purposes. This includes defending them against those who would use the fact that we value them against us—who would subvert our freedoms and use our willingness to accept a false peace, the mere absence of overt military conflict, to extort from us our own piecemeal surrender. If "peace" is achieved by craven cowering before the threats of the vicious, it is no real peace, merely a temporary and unstable counterfeit that does nothing but postpone the inevitable conflict; and if that false peace is gained through the sacrifice of freedom and justice, it is worth nothing at all. For any society willing to do so, the only epitaph has already been written by Benjamin Franklin:

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

The tree of liberty is rooted in the soil of the gospel

As Calvin Coolidge put it, in a remarkable speech delivered on the 150th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence,

No one can examine this record and escape the conclusion that in the great outline of its principles the Declaration was the result of the religious teachings of the preceding period. The profound philosophy which Jonathan Edwards applied to theology, the popular preaching of George Whitefield, had aroused the thought and stirred the people of the Colonies in preparation for this great event. No doubt the speculations which had been going on in England, and especially on the Continent, lent their influence to the general sentiment of the times. Of course, the world is always influenced by all the experience and all the thought of the past. But when we come to a contemplation of the immediate conception of the principles of human relationship which went into the Declaration of Independence we are not required to extend our search beyond our own shores. They are found in the texts, the sermons, and the writings of the early colonial clergy who were earnestly undertaking to instruct their congregations in the great mystery of how to live. They preached equality because they believed in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. They justified freedom by the text that we are all created in the divine image, all partakers of the divine spirit. . . .

If this apprehension of the facts be correct, and the documentary evidence would appear to verify it, then certain conclusions are bound to follow. A spring will cease to flow if its source be dried up; a tree will wither if it roots be destroyed. In its main features the Declaration of Independence is a great spiritual document. It is a declaration not of material but of spiritual conceptions. Equality, liberty, popular sovereignty, the rights of man—these are not elements which we can see and touch. They are ideals. They have their source and their roots in the religious convictions. They belong to the unseen world. Unless the faith of the American people in these religious convictions is to endure, the principles of our Declaration will perish. We can not continue to enjoy the result if we neglect and abandon the cause.

Happy Independence Day!

John Adams, to his wife Abigail, in a letter of July 3, 1776:

Time has been given for the whole People, maturely to consider the great Question of Independence and to ripen their judgments, dissipate their Fears, and allure their Hopes, by discussing it in News Papers and Pamphletts, by debating it, in Assemblies, Conventions, Committees of Safety and Inspection, in Town and County Meetings, as well as in private Conversations, so that the whole People in every Colony of the 13, have now adopted it, as their own Act. — This will cement the Union, and avoid those Heats and perhaps Convulsions which might have been occasioned, by such a Declaration Six Months ago.

But the Day is past. The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.

You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. — I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. — Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.

Honoring the valiant

means remembering both the price they paid, and the reason why that price was necessary.

That it may not be in vain

I'm not sure why it had never occurred to me before to post Lincoln's Gettysburg Address for Memorial Day, but I think it's well worth doing—not least because of its insistence that the most important thing we can do to honor those who died fighting for that which is good and true and right is to take up the work and carry it on.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

The witness of David Livingstone

Today is the 197th anniversary of the birth of Dr. David Livingstone, the great medical missionary and missionary explorer to Africa. Though he's far less well remembered in the West than was once the case, he was a man who did great work for God and, I think it's fair to say, brought real blessing to the peoples of southern Africa. His Wikipedia entry sums up his legacy thus:

He had made geographical discoveries for European knowledge. He inspired abolitionists of the slave trade, explorers and missionaries. He opened up Central Africa to missionaries who initiated the education and health care for Africans, and trade by the African Lakes Company. He was held in some esteem by many African chiefs and local people and his name facilitated relations between them and the British.

Partly as a result, within fifty years of his death, colonial rule was established in Africa and white settlement was encouraged to extend further into the interior.

On the other hand, within a further fifty years after that, two other aspects of his legacy paradoxically helped end the colonial era in Africa without excessive bloodshed. Livingstone was part of an evangelical and nonconformist movement in Britain which during the 19th century changed the national mindset from the notion of a divine right to rule 'lesser races', to ethical ideas in foreign policy which, with other factors, contributed to the end of the British Empire. Secondly, Africans educated in mission schools founded by people inspired by Livingstone were at the forefront of national independence movements in central, eastern and southern Africa.

As it goes on to note, his life in Africa took a real toll on his family, which he regretted; he should not be idealized any more than any other human being. And yet, he is remembered and honored across southern Africa because of the work he did and the witness he bore for the gospel. And while he also endured considerable suffering and danger over the course of his life, he kept those things in gospel perspective:

For my own part, I have never ceased to rejoice that God has appointed me to such an office. People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. . . . Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word in such a view, and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger, now and then, with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us pause, and cause the spirit to waver, and the soul to sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice.

While we might do things somewhat differently than he did, we would do well to learn from his example.

HT: John Piper

The heroes of old

One thing you’ll find, if you spend a lot of time reading the literature of the ancient world, is that a lot of that literature focuses on stories of giant heroes, men who were incredible warriors and leaders because they were simply more gifted than the normal run of humanity—especially physically, as they were usually tall, powerful, and athletic. Don’t think Shaq, think a guy who could bench-press Shaq and then dunk him for good measure. The Babylonians had the story of Gilgamesh. The Irish sang of Fionn mac Cumhaill and Cúchulainn. The British gave the world the epic of Beowulf, who killed the monster Grendel in single combat. And of course, the Greeks told tale after tale of demigods and other heroes, from brutal Hercules to crafty Odysseus, as well as the legend of the great city of Atlantis, lost beneath the waves. That’s just a few examples—there are plenty of others.

Now, your professional academic skeptics will tell you that these are all myths, and the first thing they’ll mean by that is “complete inventions”; but I’m not so sure. I won’t say that I believe a one of these stories happened exactly as we have them, but in my experience, stories don’t come from nothing, either; and the fact that we find these sorts of stories in so many different human societies suggests to me that there’s a kernel of memory lurking there in the back of the mind, that then works its way out in stories that are particular to each society and culture.

One of the things that makes me think so is that the Bible, too, knows of the existence of these heroes of old, these men of renown—but as is so often the case, it has a rather more skeptical take on them than the rest of the world. Part of this is that those heroes of old were such violent people as a whole; for all the complaints about all the wars in the Old Testament and all the times God commands the Israelites to utterly defeat another nation in judgment for their idolatry, the Bible nowhere celebrates war the way most ancient texts do. It has no long passages offering lovingly-detailed descriptions of battle, and it never glorifies warriors for their feats of arms. War is certainly presented as a necessity in various places in the Old Testament, but there is no trace of the theme common in the ancient world that the purpose of life was to win glory and the way to do so was through valor in combat. That’s a big, big difference between the Scriptures and, say, the Tain, the account of Cúchulainn and the great Ulster cattle raid.

(Adapted from “The Days of Noah”)

On the real St. Patrick

I posted this last year, but it deserves a repost, too; there's a lot we don't know about St. Patrick, but what we do know is very impressive—he was truly a great and a godly man. The American Spectator website ran two pieces last year that are well worth your time, a shorter one by James M. Thunder and a more detailed piece by G. Tracy Mehan III called "The Solitude of St. Patrick." I commend both to your reading, especially if you aren't familiar with the true life and accomplishments of this towering evangelist-bishop of the early church; if you are, they won't be news to you, but you ought to read them anyway, because St. Patrick is one of those people who's always worth spending time with. And then go and read his Confession, which stands to this day, over 1500 years later, as one of the greatest Christian books ever written. Here is deep wisdom, and a great love for God; here is a true saint, and a model for the church.

A day that shall live in infamy

68 years ago this morning, Japanese forces under the command of Admiral Chuichi Nagumo launched an unprovoked sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, bringing the United States into World War II (though what would have happened in the Atlantic had Hitler not declared war on the US is hard to say). I appreciate Sarah Palin’s comment on this anniversary:

On December 7, 1941, the Empire of Japan launched a surprise attack on the U. S. Naval Station at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in which thousands of Americans lost their lives and our naval fleet was severely damaged. The events of that day, which President Franklin Roosevelt vowed would “live in infamy,” proved for many Americans that aggressors would not simply ignore us if we ignored them. The attack on Pearl Harbor launched America into the Second World War, and our Greatest Generation did not hesitate when asked to sacrifice for their country. American men enlisted in droves, American women went to work in the factories that became our “Arsenal of Democracy,” and many Americans gave what little money they had to buy the war bonds that funded it all. They stormed the beaches at Normandy and fought on little known islands in the Pacific in the name of liberty. They don’t ask for our thanks, but I hope we will continue to give it because the sacrifice that began at Pearl Harbor is one of the many events that have defined the United States of America as “the last best hope of man on earth.”

—Sarah Palin

I agree wholeheartedly with that. The lesson of Pearl Harbor, I think, is that in this fallen, broken world, sometimes war is necessary to prevent the triumph of evil and tyranny; it wasn’t actually Edmund Burke who declared that “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,” but whoever said it first was wise (and in line with Burke’s thought).

Our refusal to fight others will not result in their refusal to fight us; there are nations in this world that are ruled by evil people, and if we are seen to be weak (in their terms), such powers will only be encouraged to aggression. Thus has it ever been, throughout history; thus will it ever be, until Jesus comes again. The curse of Santayana lays on all who do not accept that fact.

Thank God for God (a Thanksgiving meditation)

Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there;
the LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.

—Job 1:21

During the time of Napoleon’s reign in France, there was a political prisoner by the name of Charnet. That is to say, there was a man named Charnet who had unintentionally offended the emperor by some remark or another and been thrown in prison to rot. As time passed, Charnet became bitter and lost faith in God, finally scratching on the wall of his cell, “All things come by chance.”

But there was a little space for sunlight to enter his cell, and for a little while each day a sunbeam cast a small pool of light on the floor; and one morning, to his amazement, in that small patch of ground he saw a tiny green blade poking out of the packed dirt floor, fighting its way into that precious sunlight. Suddenly, he had a companion, even if only a plant, and his heart lifted; he shared his tiny water ration with the little plant and did everything he could to encourage it to grow. Under his devoted care, it did grow, until one day it put out a beautiful little purple-and-white flower. Once again, Charnet found himself thinking about God, but thinking very different thoughts; he scratched out his previous words and wrote instead, “He who made all things is God.”

The guards saw what was happening; they talked about it amongst themselves, they told their wives, and the story spread, until finally somehow it came to the ears of the Empress Josephine. The story moved her, and she became so convinced that no man who loved a flower in this way could be dangerous that she appealed to Napoleon, and persuaded her husband to relent and set Charnet free. When he left his cell, he took the little flower with him in a little flowerpot, and on the pot he wrote Matthew 6:30: “If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith?”

There's a lesson in Charnet's story—the lesson of Job, I think. I struggled for years to make sense of that verse, until I found the key in an observation made by Rev. Wayne Brouwer, a Christian Reformed pastor in Holland, Michigan. Rev. Brouwer, writing on Psalm 22, muses, “Maybe it’s not that believers are grateful to God but that those who are grateful to God are the ones who truly believe him. Only those of us who are truly thankful are able to ride out the storms of life which might otherwise destroy us. Only those who have an attitude of gratitude know what it means to believe.” In other words, the root of our faith is gratitude.

We talk about the patience of Job, but in reality Job showed very little patience; what he did show was great faith, and that faith was firmly rooted in his determination to remain grateful for all the Lord had given him despite his losses. Thus he can say here, “The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord”; thus he can affirm at another point, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth . . . in my flesh I shall see God.” In the same way, once Charnet found something for which to be thankful, that little plant struggling through the hard, dry earth, he found Someone to thank, and his faith grew back along with that little plant. Before that point, faith was impossible for him, because there was no root to sustain it.

If our gratitude depends on the number of our gifts exceeding a certain critical mass, if we miss the Giver for the gifts, then we have a shallow faith indeed. The example of Job calls us to a deeper gratitude, and a deeper faith, a faith that is able to see God and give thanks even when things aren’t going well. This is the faith the poet Joyce Kilmer expressed when he wrote, “Thank God for the bitter and ceaseless strife . . ./Thank God for the stress and the pain of life./And, oh, thank God for God.”

That’s really the bottom line, isn’t it? Thank God for God. Thank God, as Psalm 23 does, that even when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, he is there with us. Thank God, as Psalm 22 does, that he has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted. Thank God, as Job teaches us, that we don’t have to bury our grief and anger, but can bring them to God honestly; for Job challenges God fiercely, but his challenge is rooted in his faith, and so at the end God says of him, “He is my servant, and he has spoken of me what is right.” Thank God for God, because that is the root and beginning of faith; to quote Wayne Brouwer again, “Only the grateful believe, and faith itself which seems to soar in times of prosperity needs the strength of thankfulness to carry it through the dark night of the soul.”

One man who well knew the truth of this was Martin Rinkard, a Lutheran who was the only pastor in Eilenberg, Germany in 1637. This was the time of the Thirty Years’ War, and in that year Eilenberg was attacked three different times. When the armies left, they were replaced by desperate refugees. Disease was common, food wasn’t, and Rinkard’s journal tells us that in 1637, he conducted over 4500 funerals, sometimes as many as 50 in a day. Death and chaos ruled, and each day seemed to bring some fresh disaster. But out of that terrible time, Martin Rinker wrote these words:

Now Thank We All Our God

Now thank we all our God
With heart and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things hath done,
In whom His world rejoices;
Who, from our mother's arms,
Hath blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love,
And still is ours today.

O may this bounteous God
Through all our life be near us,
With ever joyful hearts
And blessed peace to cheer us;
And keep us in his grace,
And guide us when perplexed,
And free us from all ills
In this world and the next.

All praise and thanks to God
The Father now be given,
The Son, and Him who reigns
With them in highest heaven,
The one eternal God,
Whom earth and heaven adore;
For thus it was, is now,
And shall be evermore.

Words: Martin Rinkart; translated by Catherine Winkworth
Music: Johann Crüger
NUN DANKET, 6.7.6.7.6.6.6.6.

This is a repost from November 2007.

In honor of Remembrance Day

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

—Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Royal Canadian Army

Reflections on the revolution in Berlin

I’m still feeling awful, but a distinctly better shade of awful than I’ve been the last two days; my sincere thanks for all the good wishes, and I can at least say that I'm heading in the right direction. I still haven’t been up from the horizontal much today, but I had to stop and take note of the anniversary of the most amazing thing I’ve seen in my lifetime so far. From the celebration around the inaugural this past January, I get the feeling that many in this country would put Barack Obama’s election in that slot, but for me, nothing yet tops the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989. The Wall didn’t all physically come down on that day twenty years ago, of course, but psychologically, that was the day East Germans forced their way through. It was an amazing victory for the forces of democracy over the forces of tyranny, and a vindication of Ronald Reagan’s belief that the Eastern Bloc could in fact be beaten, and was not simply a fact of life which must be accommodated. It may have been the greatest triumph for human rights that the world has seen in the last half century; I can’t say for sure, but I'm not thinking of anything to top it at the moment.

It was of course a victory won by many; in the West, as John O’Sullivan pointed out, President Reagan was in fact the last of the three great leaders in the fight, joining Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II. I think, though, that the psychological moment was President Reagan’s, coming in June of 1987 when he stood at the Brandenburg Gate and threw down a challenge to the leader of the Soviet world: “Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Later on in his speech, he declared, “Across Europe, this wall will fall. For it cannot withstand faith; it cannot withstand truth. The wall cannot withstand freedom.” For his words, he was mocked by many, and ignored by many more; but in the end, the truth of his words was proved when the wall was torn down, not by Mr. Gorbachev, but by the combined weight of the East German people.

The one thing that amazes me is that our president is not going to Berlin to honor the fall of the Wall and those who brought it down. German Chancellor Angela Merkel invited him, and he said no. He didn’t hesitate to go to Berlin to celebrate himself when he was merely running for president; why would he not go when he is the president to celebrate this great victory for the cause of freedom and human rights? I'm not the only one wondering, either; here, for example, is Rich Lowry:

Wouldn’t Obama at least want to take the occasion to celebrate freedom and human rights—those most cherished liberal values? Not necessarily. He has mostly jettisoned them as foreign-policy goals in favor of a misbegotten realism that soft-pedals the crimes of nasty regimes around the world. During the Cold War, we undermined our enemies by shining a bright light on their repression. In Berlin, JFK called out the Communists on their “offense against humanity.” Obama would utter such a phrase only with the greatest trepidation, lest it undermine a future opportunity for dialogue.

Pres. Ronald Reagan realized we could meet with the Soviets without conceding the legitimacy of their system. He always spoke up for the dissidents—even when it irked his negotiating partner, Mikhail Gorbachev. Whatever the hardheaded imperatives of geopolitics, we’d remain a beacon of liberty in the world.

Obama has relegated this aspirational aspect of American power to the back seat. For him, we are less an exceptional power than one among many, seeking deals with our peers in Beijing and Moscow. Why would Obama want to celebrate the refuseniks of the Eastern Bloc, when he won’t even meet with the Dalai Lama in advance of his trip to China?

For what it’s worth, I think his refusal to meet with the Dalai Lama was far more significant, and far more worrisome, since that concerned an ongoing struggle against tyranny in this world; but this still bothers me, not least because it dishonors the many, many Americans whose service in the cause of freedom contributed to the fall of the Iron Curtain twenty years ago. As president, honestly, you just can’t do that to your people. This also concerns me because it suggests a significant historical tone-deafness on the part of President Obama—and ever since Santayana, we all know what happens to those who don't learn the lessons of history.

I do appreciate the fact, however, that Sarah Palin seems to understand the magnitude of this anniversary:

Twenty years ago, the ultimate symbol of the division between freedom and tyranny was torn down. The Berlin Wall was constructed for one purpose: to prevent the escape of East Germans to the freedom of the West. The Wall’s cold, gray façade was a stark reminder of the economic and political way of life across the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence in Eastern Europe.

Ronald Reagan never stopped regarding the Berlin Wall as an affront to human freedom. When so many other American leaders and opinion makers had come to accept its presence as inevitable and permanent, Reagan still hammered away at the Wall’s very premise in human tyranny, until finally the Wall itself was hammered down. Its downfall wasn’t the work of Reagan alone. Our president’s actions were joined with the brave acts of many individuals who stood firm and united in facing the Soviet Union. The Berlin Wall came down because millions of people behind the Iron Curtain refused to accept the fate of enslavement and their supporters in the West refused to accept that the “captive nations” would remain captive forever.

Though that long, tragic episode in human history had come to a close finally with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, it wasn’t the “end of history” or the end of conflict as some had hoped. New conflicts confront us today throughout the world which call for courage and resolve and dedication to freedom. The new democracies and market economies that have emerged in Central and Eastern Europe still require our friendship and alliances as they continue to seek security, prosperity, and self-determination. But as we reflect on present and future challenges, let’s take time to celebrate the anniversary of this awesome victory for freedom. The downfall of that cold, gray concrete Wall should be a lesson to us in hope. Nothing is inevitable. Tyranny is no match for the hope and resolve of those who work and fight for freedom.

—Sarah Palin

Remind me again why it was that he was supposed to be qualified to be president and she was woefully unqualified even to be VP?

Remember, remember the fifth of November

Gunpowder, treason and plot;
We see no reason why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.

So runs an old, old jingle (one variant, anyway) about the Gunpowder Plot, a conspiracy on the part of a number of English Catholics to blow up the King in Parliament on November 5, 1605. When the plot was foiled, Parliament declared the day a national religious (Protestant) holiday.

When Parliament met in January 1606 for the first time after the plot they passed an Act of Parliament called the "Thanksgiving Act" which made services and sermons commemorating the Plot a regular annual feature on 5 November.^[22] The act remained in force until 1859.^[5] On 5 November 1605, it is said that the populace of London celebrated the defeat of the plot with fires and street festivities. The tradition of marking the day with the ringing of church bells and bonfires started soon after the Plot and fireworks were also included in some of the earliest celebrations.^[22] In Britain the fifth of November is variously called Bonfire Night, Fireworks Night or Guy Fawkes Night.^[5]

It remains the custom in Britain, on or around 5 November, to let off fireworks. Traditionally, in the weeks running up to the 5th, children made "guys"—effigies supposedly of Fawkes—usually formed from old clothes stuffed with newspaper, and equipped with a grotesque mask, to be burnt on the 5 November bonfire. These effigies would be exhibited in the street, to collect money for fireworks, although this practice is becoming less common.^[23] The word guy came thus in the 19th century to mean an oddly dressed person, and hence in the 20th and 21st centuries to mean any male person.^[5]

It's interesting that the day came to be associated primarily with Guy Fawkes, since he wasn't the leader of the plot; he was just the "wet work" man, the chap responsible for setting the explosives and carrying out the bombing. Of course, unlike the nobles for whom he was working, Fawkes actually knew what he was doing—had the plot gone off, it would have blown a most remarkable hole in Westminster; insofar as the commemoration is any sort of honor, he probably deserves it more than any of them do.

Sarah Palin, authentic feminist

There’s been a fair bit of commentary since Gov. Palin’s abrupt arrival on the national scene about whether or not she’s a feminist (or even, on the part of certain wack jobs, whether or not she really qualifies as a woman); she’s never been shy about saying she is, while of course folks on the Left have coronaries at the idea and denounce her as a traitor to her gender. Why? Well, abortion of course is the key issue, but more specifically, William Jacobson was right to point out that the nubbin of the Left's hatred of Gov. Palin comes down to four little words: Trig Paxson Van Palin.

If Sarah Palin had aborted Trig, the left would have been okay with it. If she hid Trig offstage and out of sight, all would be good. But treat the child as you would any other child, and that cannot be tolerated.

There is something about a Down syndrome child in plain view which has exposed the moral and emotional bankruptcy of the left-wing of the Democratic party. And they hate Sarah Palin because deep down, they hate themselves for being who they are.

The modern leftist-feminist orthodoxy is completely sold out to the abortion industry, and so cannot tolerate the suggestion that Sarah Palin, pro-life mother of a Down Syndrome baby, could possibly be considered a feminist; and so the discussion of her feminist views has raged on. Notably absent in the conversation has been much of a deep historical perspective on the meaning and essence of feminism.

Fortunately, that has now changed, courtesy of a young woman named Jedediah Bila, who is actually a scholar of feminism. In an essay published in six parts entitled “I’m a Feminist. Now What?” (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6), she writes on “Authentic Feminism: The Founders, The Distortions, and An Exemplary Modern Icon”—that modern icon being, quite rightly, Gov. Palin. Don't let the number of parts fool you, it’s really not all that long a piece; indeed, my only real complaint with it is that it’s broken up so many times without proper internal linkage. If you’re not an historian or a history buff, you’ll learn a lot from it—and even if you are, you’ll still learn a fair bit, because Bila is thoroughly steeped in her subject. I certainly did (though my area of knowledge is much more 17th-c. America than 19th-c.).

Of particular interest and importance is Bila’s point that the founders of feminism were united by, among other things, “their harmonious, fervent opposition to abortion.”

In her publication The Revolution, Susan B. Anthony states: “. . . Yes. No matter what the motive, love of ease, or a desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent, the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed. It will burden her conscience in life, it will burden her soul in death…” In the very same publication, Elizabeth Cady Stanton affirms, “When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit.” In Woodhull’s and Claflin’s Weekly, Victoria Woodhull asserts, “The rights of children as individuals begin while yet they remain the foetus.” Alice Paul’s assertion that “Abortion is the ultimate exploitation of women” has long been echoed by modern pro-life activists, and our “mother of feminism,” Mary Wollstonecraft’s doctrine with respect to abortion is clearly reflected through her Vindication, leaving little open to interpretation: “Women becoming, consequently weaker in mind and body, than they ought to be . . . either destroy the embryo in the womb, or cast it off when born. Nature in everything demands respect, and those who violate her laws seldom violate them with impunity.” . . .

So ultimately, what do we have here? We have a founding movement in which women devoted their days and nights to the acquisition of women’s rights, systematically struggled for the application of Rousseau’s Enlightenment fundamentals to both genders, and maintained that a woman’s choice of abortion reflected a weakness she’d come to inhabit (thanks to exploitation, sexual objectification, and a society that repeatedly indoctrinates women with the notion that abortion is their ticket to liberty). Who, in our current political society—more specifically, what woman—most closely echoes the convictions of these very brave, never forgotten heroes of herstory?

With that question, as you can probably guess, Bila comes to Gov. Palin. She lays out the significance of Gov. Palin’s membership in Feminists for Life, giving a brief history of that organization, which was founded in fairly early resistance to the hijacking of the feminist movement by the population-control/eugenics movement. She then exposes (and nicely fisks) some of the irrational and unhinged vitriol that’s been spewed at Gov. Palin by many on the Left who consider themselves feminists. In so doing, she sets up a telling contrast between the founders of American feminism and those who claim to be carrying their banner now—a contrast that does not flatter Gov. Palin’s hysterical critics. And then, magnificently, Bila closes with this:

So what does all of this mean for women, for feminism, and for the future of our country? Upon revisiting Sarah Palin’s statement that, “I am a feminist, whatever that means,” I can’t help but wonder if I’d have said the same thing. After all, what does it mean these days? Does it mean that one must condone abortion? Has a movement whose birth was so profoundly inspirational, whose leaders possessed uplifting intellectual and moral fortitude, been reduced to a single-issue agenda? Does it mean that a pro-life woman will be labeled an anti-feminist simply by nature of her pro-life ideology, which happens to be directly in line with that of the founding feminists? . . .

I can only hope in the months and years to come that women of all walks of life, of all parties and families, of all economic and social classes, take a moment to revisit what so many courageous women risked their reputations, their comfort, and sometimes their lives, to fight for. I pray that they see to it that the authenticity of their purpose and selfless beauty of their vision remain unscathed by the countless revisionists determined to corrupt that pure, righteous movement to suit their party or personal platforms.

Sarah Palin, I stand by your belief in women. I stand by your faith in the magnanimous potential of all human life. And, most importantly, I stand by your Wollstonecraftian integrity and unapologetic homage to the foundations of one of the greatest movements to grace our country’s history.

Through her essay, Bila offers and substantiates a pointed assertion, one that will no doubt infuriate the Left: the true representatives of authentic feminism are not the likes of Gloria Steinem. Rather, they are Sarah Palin and those who stand with her. She is the true heir of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and the one who carries their mantle. My thanks to Jedediah Bila for making the case, and for substantiating the fact that when Gov. Palin calls herself a feminist, she’s only telling the truth.

(Cross-posted from Conservatives4Palin)

Happy Reformation Day!

Timothy George has an excellent piece on Reformation Day posted as the daily article on First Things—a juxtaposition which, I must confess, delights me no end. I particularly appreciate these paragraphs:

On this Reformation Day, it is good to remember that Martin Luther belongs to the entire Church, not only to Lutherans and Protestants, just as Thomas Aquinas is a treasury of Christian wisdom for faithful believers of all denominations, not simply for Dominicans and Catholics. This point was recognized several weeks ago by Franz-Josef Bode, the Catholic Bishop of Osnabrück in northern Germany, when he preached on Luther at an ecumenical service. “It’s fascinating,” he said, “just how radically Luther puts God at the center.” Luther’s teaching that every human being at every moment of life stands absolutely coram deo—before God, confronted face-to-face by God—led him to confront the major misunderstanding in the church of his day that grace and forgiveness of sins could be bought and sold like wares in the market. “The focus on Christ, the Bible and the authentic Word are things that we as the Catholic church today can only underline,” Bode said. The bishop’s views have been echoed by many other Catholic theologians since the Second Vatican Council as Luther’s teachings, especially his esteem for the Word of God, has come to be appreciated in a way that would have been unthinkable a century ago. . . .

Several years ago I was asked to endorse a book by my friend Mark Noll called Is the Reformation Over? I responded by saying that the Reformation is over only to the extent that it succeeded. In fact, in some measure, the Reformation has succeeded, and more within the Catholic Church than in certain sectors of the Protestant world. The triumph of grace in the theology of Luther was—and still is—in the service of the whole Body of Christ. Luther was not without his warts, and we can hardly imagine him canonized as a saint. (Remember: simul iustus et peccator!) But the question Karl Barth asked about him in 1933 is still worth pondering this Reformation Day: “What else was Luther than a teacher of the Christian church whom one can hardly celebrate in any other way but to listen to him?”

Right on.

A note on fascism

In the latest Atlantic, in his review of Peter Hart’s book on the Battle of the Somme, Christopher Hitchens uncorks a remarkable anecdote about “the almost picturesquely reactionary Conservative politician Alan Clark”:

As I marched across Parliament Square, semiconsciously falling into step with the military pace of the right-wing half of this right-left collaboration, Clark said to me: “I suppose you have heard people say that I am a bit of a fascist?” We had a whole lunch ahead of us and I didn’t want to get off on the wrong foot, but something told me he would despise me if I pretended otherwise, so I agreed that this was indeed a thumbnail summary in common use. “That’s all [expletive deleted],” he replied with complete equanimity. “I’m really much more of a Nazi.” This was what Bertie Wooster would have called “a bit of a facer”; I was groping for an apt response when Clark pressed on. “Your fascist is a little middle-class creep who worries about his dividends and rents. The true National Socialist feels that the ruling class has a debt and a tie to the working class. We sent the British workers off to die en masse in the trenches along the Somme, and then we rewarded them with a slump and mass unemployment, and then that led to another war that gutted them again.” For Clark, the lesson of this bloodletting was that a truly national, racial, and patriotic class collaboration was the main thing.

That’s a most interesting comment. It does, I think, capture the difference between Nazism and Communism, between national socialism and international socialism, as the latter is all about class unity and conflict between classes. I also have a sense it might have a certain contemporary application, but I’m not sure what. We do most definitely have a ruling class in this country, though it’s more fluid than it was/is in Great Britain; given that fluidity, they have to declare that they have “a debt and a tie to the working class,” but how many of them (in either party) really believe it?

"A nation fully settled by government"

Peggy Noonan wrote a column in the Wall Street Journal a couple weeks ago called "There Is No New Frontier" that I've been mulling for a while now; the core of her argument is an analysis of the differing contexts of FDR's expansion of government in the 1930s and Barack Obama's efforts to do the same. It's more of an analogical analysis than a logical one, but I think it holds pretty well:

A big part of opposition to the health-care plan is a sense of historical context. People actually have a sense of the history they're living in and the history their country has recently lived through. They understand the moment we're in.

In the days of the New Deal, in the 1930s, government growth was virgin territory. It was like pushing west through a continent that seemed new and empty. There was plenty of room to move. The federal government was still small and relatively lean, the income tax was still new. America pushed on, creating what it created: federal programs, departments and initiatives, Social Security. In the mid-1960s, with the Great Society, more or less the same thing. Government hadn't claimed new territory in a generation, and it pushed on—creating Medicare, Medicaid, new domestic programs of all kinds, the expansion of welfare and the safety net.

Now the national terrain is thick with federal programs, and with state, county, city and town entities and programs, from coast to coast. It's not virgin territory anymore, it's crowded. We are a nation fully settled by government. We are well into the age of the welfare state, the age of government. We know its weight, heft and demands, know its costs both in terms of money and autonomy, even as we know it has made many of our lives more secure, and helped many to feel encouragement.

But we know the price now. This is the historical context. The White House often seems disappointed that the big center, the voters in the middle of the spectrum, aren't all that excited about following them on their bold new journey. But it's a world America has been to. It isn't new to us. And we don't have too many illusions about it.

Her argument rests less on propositions than on metaphor, on the image she invokes; but it's a powerful image, and if it's a valid one—which I believe it is—then I think her argument holds. The President and his administration think they have an opportunity to bring about another major expansion of government, and are determined not to let the crisis go to waste (to use Rahm Emanuel's language)—but the context isn't what they think it is, and the parallels they think they see with President Roosevelt don't actually apply, because the popular attitude toward government isn't the same now as it was then. They're failing to factor in the reality that those past interventions have had their own effects, and have changed the board in some important ways.

Americans of FDR's time could be persuaded that government could do a better job and fix all their problems, because it hadn't really been tried much before. Americans of our time know better. The New Deal has already been tried, and the Great Frontier, and pushed to the point that another president could stand up and declare, "Government is not the solution to the problem. Government is the problem"; that bell cannot be unrung. While President Obama may well in the end get his government-bloating agenda through, for the powers of the Executive Branch are great, one thing he cannot be is another President Franklin Delano Roosevelt; that opportunity has passed, and ours is a different world.

The imperial history of SW Asia

courtesy of Maps of War:

If you wanted to be persnickety, you could certainly critique their presentation, but it succeeds in its purpose—it gives you a feel for just how many empires have rolled through what is usually (wrongly) called the Middle East (the map's focus is more on the Near East, and includes the whole of the broader region of Southwest Asia), and how it's often served as a crossroads for imperial expansion.

Prayer in the Roman world

[Jesus said,] “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”

—Matthew 6:7-8 (ESV)

This evening, my lovely wife discovered what looks like a fascinating blog, For the Sake of Truth, by a Ph.D. student at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary named Josh Mann. I'll have to explore it a bit to see if I want to add it to the blogroll, but I can already say that the current top post, “How to Pray: Two Ancient Views,” is a keeper.

Commentators generally understand Jesus’ condemnation of “using meaningless repetition” (βατταλογήσητε) and “many words” (τῇ πολυλογίᾳ) as either (1) formulaic and legalistic repetition of intelligible prayers; or (2) pagan magical incantations (probably unintelligible gibberish). I lean heavily toward the first view, not least because of the prevalence of repetitious intelligible prayers carried out in the Roman culture (both private and public).

He then goes on to lay out examples of that (including a remarkable quote from Pliny the Elder), concluding,

It seems that in the Roman view, strict adherence to a formula would obligate the god or goddess to respond in kind.

This, of course, stands in the sharpest of contrast to the view of prayer taught by Jesus:

One should not think to obligate God by some formula. Rather, one ought to pray to God as a dependent child makes request to a Father (Matt 6:9-13). In my view, Jesus gives a model for prayer (rather than a strict formula!), but in any case, he clearly commands that prayer be done with sincerity and humility, recognizing one’s needs and the ability of the Father to provide for such needs. Prayer is no doubt petition at its core, but in Matthew 6, Jesus challenges the crowds regarding the attitudes and motives underlying prayer.

It’s a great post; go read the whole thing.

The first 9/11 of a new administration

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

—Edmund Burke