Tuesday, November 09, 2004
here's another piece of profoundly asinine writing (LvMM!):
wondering whence his inspiration comes?
that's right! he's read garry wills!
yes, it sure would be nice if guys like robert p. george and, oh, say, augustine knew how to exercise a little 'critical intelligence' (click on that button, and then on the 'introduction' button, to find out why mr. wills should have known better). believe it or not, folks, all good things did not originate in the enlightenment, and, again, believe it or not, the overly simple binary opposition of 'reason vs. faith' is outmoded, wrongheaded, and useless as a description of the actual experience of most evangelicals and, indeed, the matrix through which that experience is filtered.
but don't tell that to mr. tristam:
i fear that mr. 'i love the enlightenment and rational argument' tristam may not have gotten the memo: ridicule is not reasoned debate, nor is condemnation. i may not be engaging in reasoned debate here, either--but, hey, i'm not the one patting myself on my enlightened back.
anyway, i warmly invite mr. tristam to treat evangelical Christianity 'on the equal footing it claims to be with all matters public and political'. he may be surprised with what he finds, and with what he doesn't.
but before he begins that dialogue, i would advise that he spend a little more time studying and a lot less time spouting, given the deep ignorance revealed by his last sentence:
generalizations such as this are silly, and it is impossible that he could have reached this absurd conclusion even through the most generous application of inductive reasoning, crown jewel of the enlightenment. perhaps he's unaware of how broad a range of groups the word 'evangelicalism' covers, and how divergent are evangelicals' opinions on the issue of free will--both what it is and how it works. at any rate, a little reading on the subject ought to correct his misconception. he could start here, perhaps go here, and maybe see here. debated it may be, but a 'blind spot' for 'every evangelical' it most certainly is not.
It's time to doff the veil. The United States isn't immune to the fundamentalist El Nino circling the globe. Iran has its mullahs. Afghanistan has its Taliban. Saudi Arabia has its Wahhabites. We have evangelicals, whose world view is different from those doctrinaire brigades in dress only.
wondering whence his inspiration comes?
that's right! he's read garry wills!
What they all have in common is the subordination of private and public conduct to God's law as they understand it and the rejection of the secular values of the Enlightenment on which America's constitutional principles were founded, what historian Garry Wills sums up as "critical intelligence, tolerance, respect for evidence, a regard for the secular sciences."
yes, it sure would be nice if guys like robert p. george and, oh, say, augustine knew how to exercise a little 'critical intelligence' (click on that button, and then on the 'introduction' button, to find out why mr. wills should have known better). believe it or not, folks, all good things did not originate in the enlightenment, and, again, believe it or not, the overly simple binary opposition of 'reason vs. faith' is outmoded, wrongheaded, and useless as a description of the actual experience of most evangelicals and, indeed, the matrix through which that experience is filtered.
but don't tell that to mr. tristam:
Evangelicals have taken advantage of that immunity to invade the public sphere unchecked. Now that their theology has become an engine of public policy and national purpose, it's fair to return to the basics of Enlightenment strategies, to tackle theology head-on, to ridicule its political presumptions and condemn its public grabs, where necessary, and to demolish its doctrinaire assumptions when appropriate. To treat it, in sum, on the equal footing it claims to be with all matters public and political. We could start with a debate about every evangelical's blind spot: free will.
i fear that mr. 'i love the enlightenment and rational argument' tristam may not have gotten the memo: ridicule is not reasoned debate, nor is condemnation. i may not be engaging in reasoned debate here, either--but, hey, i'm not the one patting myself on my enlightened back.
anyway, i warmly invite mr. tristam to treat evangelical Christianity 'on the equal footing it claims to be with all matters public and political'. he may be surprised with what he finds, and with what he doesn't.
but before he begins that dialogue, i would advise that he spend a little more time studying and a lot less time spouting, given the deep ignorance revealed by his last sentence:
We could start with a debate about every evangelical's blind spot: free will.
generalizations such as this are silly, and it is impossible that he could have reached this absurd conclusion even through the most generous application of inductive reasoning, crown jewel of the enlightenment. perhaps he's unaware of how broad a range of groups the word 'evangelicalism' covers, and how divergent are evangelicals' opinions on the issue of free will--both what it is and how it works. at any rate, a little reading on the subject ought to correct his misconception. he could start here, perhaps go here, and maybe see here. debated it may be, but a 'blind spot' for 'every evangelical' it most certainly is not.
