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  • D 9:14 am on February 23, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: government, , small business   

    Deneen on small business 

    Nothing terribly new, but Patrick Deneen has some good stuff on the decline of small businesses: Finger on the Scale. The piece seems to imply (rightfully, I think) that we can’t ever escape the formative effect that the imagination and goals of society have on economic exchange. The real issue is how we can re-center that influence toward its proper aim. Not to turn all Aristotelian or anything…

    This is an open question; no need to agree with Deneen one-hundred percent. But I think we’ve got to wrestle with this.

    …perhaps it would not be too difficult to begin looking at systematic ways in which current policy supports concentrated economic power, and to begin its dismantling. It may also be that Government needs to be more active in enforcing anti-trust measures. The Republican orthodoxy will scream that such activity is an intrusion of “Gummint,” but it’s clear that Gummint has already intruded in this area, and is doing tremendous damage to the fabric of the nation (the Republican orthodoxy’s ecstasy in the wake of the recent Supreme Court decision that ensures unlimited corporate participation in our electoral process does not inspire confidence about their motives). Perhaps some log-rolling is in order: in exchange for a serious consideration about the disproportionate impact of regulation on differently scaled businesses, a sustained look at anti-trust enforcement could be considered…. We will differ even here on how much of a role the Gummint should have in tipping the scales, but it’s quite clear that the scales have already been considerably tipped, and that American towns, citizenship, and virtue have all suffered as a result – and that finally cheap prices are too high a price to pay.

     

    • A 9:01 am on March 2, 2010 Permalink

      Completely agree. The lengthy discussion after the post is also helpful.

  • D 1:13 pm on February 8, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , augustine,   

    Not to condemn the world 

    An Augustinian is going to recognize that living in this world is a dirty business. An Augustinian is also going to invite the world to be better.

    If we agree on that, how should we apply it?

     

  • D 10:13 am on February 3, 2010 Permalink | Reply  

    DocuMonday: A Tribute 

    What fond memories. “Werner Herzog” reads Curious George:

     

  • D 10:23 am on January 27, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags:   

    De-mystifying idols 

    Calvin on the appearance of truth among the profane:

    Therefore, in reading profane authors, the admirable light of truth displayed in them should remind us, that the human mind, however much fallen and perverted from its original integrity, is still adorned and invested with admirable gifts from its Creator. If we reflect that the Spirit of God is the only fountain of truth, we will be careful, as we would avoid offering insult to him, not to reject or condemn truth wherever it appears. In despising the gifts, we insult the Giver (Institutes, 2.2.15).

     

    • F 3:54 pm on January 27, 2010 Permalink

      Love this, particularly the last sentence. Thanks. JE

  • D 5:22 pm on January 21, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , chris aberle   

    Where’s Chris? 

    I feel like only half the discussion is getting voiced.

     

    • A 7:45 pm on January 21, 2010 Permalink

      He says he’s 400 behind in his feed reader. Say something about him now, and he won’t know it until next week. Also, he’s traveling a ton.

    • C 11:00 am on January 22, 2010 Permalink

      Now I’m 300 behind. Until next week, of course, because Tampa will probably set me back another few hundred.

      I just realized this morning the ironies my rabid localism and busy travel schedule are creating for me. I am excited to buy local grass-fed beef; I am equally excited to eat at Chic-fil-A for the first time next week.

  • D 3:08 pm on January 19, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , evangelicalism   

    Goat milk 

    Question for discussion:

    Let’s all close our eyes and imagine a certain post-theonomist, VanTillian definition of the antithesis. Got it? Can you picture the black and white edges, the smooth categorical texture, the easy duality of ascribing a grand unity of instinct and action? (Readers of Dutch Reformed theology may notice that this philosophical concoction is an unfair exaggeration of Dooyeweerd and perhaps Van Til; but can we admit that we ourselves have all at some point used such a caricature of the antithesis?)

    Okay. Now where does love of neighbor fit in? Where is our theology of creation? Where is our (Calvinistic) humanism? How do we not end up with a conversionistic piety which consumes us with doubt about whether our actions are pure enough?

    I’m reading George Marsden’s biography of Jonathan Edwards (a really fun read, btw) and I think there’s a very strange connection between late Puritan piety (of the navel-gazing, half-way-covenant variety) and modern day exaggerations of the antithesis. Both are preoccupied with the possibility that an impure heart (perhaps undetected) might spoil seemingly “good” actions. Edwards’ father styled himself as a expert in discerning true conversion from false conversion. False conversion would result in seeming piety, only to sour and later reveal that nothing of true worth ever came out of the original “awakening.” Of course, for Jonathan and others, this led to a paralyzing doubt: what if their conversion was empty and all the good works were devoid of value?

    All this to say, I’m not convinced that the antithesis, as sometimes used, is a helpful way of living the Christian life. Is there an ultimate dividing of sheep from goats? Of course. But goats make milk, too.

     

    • F 4:00 pm on January 19, 2010 Permalink

      It’s sad that your meditation here depends upon goat milk — does anyone like that stuff? At all?

    • D 4:48 pm on January 19, 2010 Permalink

      I’m sure some of Austin’s granola friends swear by it.

    • A 7:46 pm on January 19, 2010 Permalink

      Gotta agree – the goat’s milk analogy grossed me out. Otherwise I love this.

    • F 7:45 am on January 20, 2010 Permalink

      Agreed. I have no argument with Davey, save for the fact that I believe that the word “antithesis” itself can be saved. That’s all.

    • D 11:03 am on January 20, 2010 Permalink

      Fair enough. But words are tricky things — they have histories. I dare you to walk around Davie Village in downtown Vancouver trying to reclaim the original usage of “gay.”

      Sometimes it’s just more helpful to use a different framework.

    • Doug Jones 9:43 am on January 21, 2010 Permalink

      I’m sure I’m missing something in this discussion, but I’ll confess to still being being an advocate for “antithesis.” I’ve embraced Van Tilian notions of antithesis for decades, but I don’t recognize it in Davey’s descriptions. I’m sure he’s right, but I’m wondering if it might be a Dutch vs. presbyterian divide. In the Recon, Presby circles I’m familiar with, Edwardsian piety never entered into the discussion of it. Equally bad, though, we held it as a purely intellectual or gnostic division of ideas — Christian ideas vs. non-Christian ideas. That kind of antithesis seems misguided and anti-incarnational, but not antithesis itself. It seems we’re on much firmer ground to see the antithesis in Jesus’ explicit terms — Church vs. world and especially God/Christ vs. Mammon, which together seem synonymous in the end. That antithesis seems to answer Davey’s important worry about love directly; it’s right at the center. But I’ve probably misunderstood.

    • D 5:21 pm on January 21, 2010 Permalink

      Thanks very much for the thoughts! And yes, the confusion (which resulted in a freak-agreement between Austin and Frank) is entirely due to my scattershot, overly-theoretical thoughts. I’ll try not to muddle things further with a few more preliminary thoughts:

      1) I think it’s fair to say that many Van Tilians in presbyterianism have avoided the late Puritan over-emphasis on conversion and heart religion; to some extent, that’s precisely what FV is all about. Even as we reject introspective heart-religion, I think we may fall prey to it in other ways. It’s struck me that the formulation of the antithesis (and not just my exaggeration of it above) follows directly from the whole system of early evangelicalism, which itself followed from the 17th century pietists of central Europe, who in turn are rather anabaptist. I don’t think it’s any accident that Van Tilians like Francis Schaeffer find their closest allies in Pentecostals like Pat Robertson and Wesleyans like James Dobson. The turn toward an inner authenticity is of course not unique, but it also strikingly modern. But that’s another post.

      2) I’m somewhat uncomfortable with saying that part of our antithesis is God vs. the World, since so many people have so many different unspoken assumptions about what that means, exactly. I think there’s got to be something left of the Jewish idea that we’re here in part to “repair the world.” Or that Christ did not come to condemn the world, but to save it. Or that creation groans for redemption. I know that certain postmillennial clichés can sometimes swallow those ideas up in easy, abstract fantasies, but I do want to keep those ideas nonetheless. So if we’re going to talk about the antithesis, perhaps we can approach it with a healthy dose of eschatology. The Church’s mission is still to work toward the healing of the world — sometimes despite the world’s best efforts. Things, in se, can’t be absolutely evil. Their perversion from good turns to evil, in the old Augustinian sense. So in many ways, idolatry does violence both to the false worshipper and to the idol.

      3) So, to put it more clearly (I hope): perhaps we should keep the antithesis, but that “antithesis” or distinction should be Creator vs. creature (as Van Til himself suggests). That’s a qualitative antithesis I’m entirely comfortable with. That’s why I’m still content to position myself alongside Barth. In a some sense, Christians have more in common with non-Christians than we do with God precisely because we’re creatures. (Of course there are several exceptions to this.) I think it’s equally true that on the other side of the eschaton and glorification, we will see God face to face. But until then, maybe it’s safer to proceed with a large dose of epistemic humility. None of this is to deny that we are still the unique people of God, a sacrament of His salvation. I’m just wondering out loud whether the “antithesis” as sometimes defined misdirects our mission. I hope I get this straight from Augustine, but I’m sure I’m corrupting it along the way somehow.

      4) Practically, what does this mean? I’d love to get input from those who have more insight than I possibly could. A few questions keep getting raised for me: Why should we be so ambivalent (or protest, even) when non-Christians are providing the needy with aid? Does someone need to be a member of the Christian community in order to imitate virtue? I don’t think we can say that. The splendid vices are often quite splendid. As Christians, we should be very glad they exist. God may be more profligate with His grace than we are comfortable with. Or with food, a popular topic of debate: I know close friends who have told me how much trouble they have taking the advice of fellows like Michael Pollan on eating local food because he believes in evolution. I think this is something that happens, in part, because of the logical implications of the antithesis, as commonly applied.

      I’ve gone on too long. I should say that I’d be all too happy to hear any critique, violent or pacifistic. I’m hoping to post some more on this throughout the term here at ND. Strangely, two of my classes keep directing me back to this question.

    • Donny 1:43 pm on January 23, 2010 Permalink

      First, I have to agree with Austin and Frank about the goat’s milk thing. You lost me there, Davey.

      As for your actual points, Augustine is exactly who I turn to for a good understanding of antithesis. I think you should try to resolve some of your scattershot around that. If the antithesis is between rightly and wrongly ordered love, then it gets you all the idealogical antithesis you find in Van Til, and also all the practicality you can handle.

      In this way, you can learn from pagans. They really do love, in some sense, what they’re pursuing, and so they learn quite a bit about it. Pagans can make a great lasagna.

      But if the food is all we’re discussing, we’re missing the point. Sure, non-Christians can give money to the poor, make great food, build sturdy buildings. But what about the people? If we’re going Augustinian, it isn’t just about the objects, or the actions; it’s about how we approach those objects and actions. Why do we love them? What else do we love?

      So, sure, we can mine things from non-Christians, or we can appreciate that they’re doing some good things, but that’s only surface level. If we’re talking about redeeming the world, we’re talking about redeeming people, and thus re-ordering their loves so they see their food, or their environmentalism, or their giving to the poor in the proper light. Does this make their food, environmentalism, or giving different? In the long run, it better. Otherwise, you’re saying a wrongly ordered love doesn’t work itself out in the world, and if you say that, we get to call you a Gnostic.

      Of course, Augustine’s whole order of love concept can be replaced with Trinitarian self-love vs. self-sacrifice, or other biblical expressions (maybe God vs. Mammon?). The point for me, though, is this: yes, we can learn how to make a sandwich from a pagan, or eat a sandwich made from a pagan, or have smiling, fuzzy feelings about pagans who make good sandwiches, but if we’re redeeming the world, the issue isn’t the sandwich. The issue is the sandwich, the chef, the person eating, the entire community of relationships. And if that’s the case, the chef’s order of love, religion, worldview, whatever you want to call it, is huge. It doesn’t mean I won’t eat as his restaurant if I know he’s a pagan, but if Christianity is anything, I definitely hope eating at his restaurant would be a better experience if he did become a Christian. To say otherwise seems to cheapen Christianity. Or the sandwich.

      Now I wonder if that made any sense, or I even really addressed what you were saying. We’ll see.

    • D 2:10 pm on January 23, 2010 Permalink

      Donny,

      If that’s the antithesis, then I’ve got no problem whatsoever. I like the way you frame it. Heck, I’ll get it tattooed on my forearm. The thing is, I really don’t know if that’s how the antithesis is most often applied. Speaking only for myself, I know I never had such a well-nuanced idea of it. Rather than taking an Augustinian-eudaimonistic approach to the “antithesis” (as you seem to), I think we often tend to apply a sort of Edwardsian dualism, where it’s easy to dismiss the efforts (or “splendid vices”) of non-Christians because they lack true conversion. From an Augustinian perspective, of course, both non-Christians and Christians are not static individuals. We’re growing or regressing all the time. Sometimes, as with Augustine’s growth through neo-Platonism, non-Christians are moving through unbelief toward a (miraculous) revelation of divine truth. As creatures, we can’t see the end of the story, and I think that might give us good reason to be careful with our judgments.

      But all that to say: Yes and amen. You put it extremely well.

    • F 10:20 am on January 24, 2010 Permalink

      And the truth comes out! Davey just doesn’t like the word “antithesis.” I blame ND.

      (And excellent words, Donny — you’ve said everything I wish I could say about antithesis.)

    • Doug Jones 5:50 pm on January 24, 2010 Permalink

      I also give three cheers for Donny. I’d just worry a smidge that even the language of “ordered love” could turn ethereal and intellectual too easily. Donny guards against this with talk of “work itself out in the world.” But modern Christians tend to assume love is an invisible mental state; Jesus emphasized visible actions. I can see a church clothing people.

    • C 2:42 pm on January 25, 2010 Permalink

      Forgive me if I’m retreading ground that has already well been trod, but I think I might have another helpful way of thinking about this.

      Antithesis connotes an “is not” relationship between two things. A line – often a well-defined and encatechismed line – that is black on one side and white on the other. This type of distinction is important, and there is significant Biblical precedent for it. Holy and profane, abiding and burned branches, sheep and goats; our parables and customs burst at the seams with antithetical language.

      But our wise men teach us otherwise. Peter eats meat, Timothy has unspeakable and irreversible operations, Christ dines with prostitutes and tax collectors. This trajectory is found in the poetic aspects of scripture as well. The curtain veiling the Holy of Holies was torn, the Tabernacle laver represents at once gentiles and baptism, and even Christ Himself became not only man but also sin for us. All of these things pet the antithesis cat the wrong way. These all define an “is” relationship. Meat is now clean, Timothy is now a Jew, Christ is man, Chris is sin for us.

      There is a tension here between “is” and “is not,” but most of us are familiar with a classic way of resolving this issue: the Trinity.

      Going all Trinitarian on an issue can tempt us to trade the intellectually tidy and abstract for any sort of practical resolution, but I still find this helpful. For instance, we are Christians, strangers in this world; we also once were sinners, and called in some ways to be like those sinners in order to bring the Gospel to them. We must at once recognize the line that has been drawn and be faithful to step over it.

      Likewise, I find it interesting that antithesis draws a line in the sand, but we learn a much different impulse every Sunday at worship. The gospel does not build walls but instead sets tables. The gospel is indeed vertical with respect to God and his work in us, but his work through us is horizontal, covering the four corners of the earth in something impossible to construe as a wall.

      So we must balance these things. Like many great Christian dogmas, you can only be sure that you’ve found it once you’ve lost it in paradox. Holiness and piety demand that we love the Good, but humility and obedience demand that we seek the lost. It is easy to sacrifice one for the other; I think it’s pretty obvious which way Davey thinks we have wobbled.

    • C 2:43 pm on January 25, 2010 Permalink

      Wow, that picture is huge. JUST LIKE THE TRINITY

    • D 4:32 pm on January 25, 2010 Permalink

      Thanks, Chris. I’m consoled by the fact that my incoherent foray into all this produced such quality stuff in the end. That’s what friends are for.

      My only objection is to that horrendous clip art you imported from someone else’s server.

    • Donny 10:21 am on January 26, 2010 Permalink

      —-
      I also give three cheers for Donny. I’d just worry a smidge that even the language of “ordered love” could turn ethereal and intellectual too easily. Donny guards against this with talk of “work itself out in the world.” But modern Christians tend to assume love is an invisible mental state; Jesus emphasized visible actions. I can see a church clothing people.
      —-

      Yeah, and that’s where actual wisdom and practice comes in to regulate where we draw lines. We can talk about, in some abstract way, how non-Christians don’t really love anything, and that only Christians, with our proper orientation, can love something. But that’s hard to say if we’re not the ones feeding the hungry. If talk about real actions, then we start looking like we’re the ones with disordered love, which just makes this whole antithesis thing far too messy. You can’t put that into giant, horribly colored clipart.

    • A 10:49 am on January 26, 2010 Permalink

      @Donny – Oh snap!

    • C 4:16 pm on January 26, 2010 Permalink

      I think I managed to find clipart that represents disordered love, antithesis, and messiness.

      Also, it’s giant, horribly colored, and has pigs; I see your 10, and raise you 20.

    • Donny 9:25 am on January 27, 2010 Permalink

      Impressive. Throw in a copy of the Institutes and you’ve got me.

    • G 10:41 am on January 27, 2010 Permalink

      Wow. See, this is why I am a stranger to HPN. I leave it alone for 2 days, and have 2 hours of catch-up reading and mental gymnastics to do just to be current. For this reason, I like the graphics. Thank you Chris. Also, Davey, you will need more forearm for that tattoo.

  • D 8:15 am on January 14, 2010 Permalink | Reply  

    For Frank qua hockey player 

    Frank knows that I’m reading Alasdair MacIntyre’s hefty (literally) book on rationality right now. Since I can’t claim him as a classmate anymore, I try to find other ways to involve him in my studies. A particular passage in MacIntyre caught my eye earlier this morning, and I decided to share it. (It really does have something to say about the antithesis, I promise. So it’s relevant to HPN.)

    A hockey player in the closing seconds of a crucial game has an opportunity to pass to another member of his or her team better placed to score a needed goal. Necessarily, we may say, if he or she has perceived and judged the situation accurately, he or she must immediately pass. What is the force of this “necessarily” and this “must”? It exhibits the connection between the good of that person qua hockey player and member of that particular team and the action of passing, a connection such that were such a player not to pass, he or she must either have falsely denied that passing was for their good qua hockey player or have been guilty of inconsistency or have acted as one not caring for his or her good qua hockey player and member of that particular team. That is to say, we recognize the necessity and the immediacy of rational action by someone inhabiting a structured role in a context in which the goods of some systematic form of practice are unambiguously ordered. (Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, pp. 140-141)

    You’re welcome.

     

    • F 4:49 pm on January 14, 2010 Permalink

      What am I supposed to do with this? :-D

    • D 10:49 am on January 15, 2010 Permalink

      Pass the puck, of course.

  • D 12:35 pm on August 28, 2009 Permalink | Reply  

    On the table 

    For discussion:

    The Dutch Reformed idea of “the antithesis” is practically and theologically counter-productive. (Same goes for “worldview” thinking.)

    I speak in the affirmative.

     

    • A 4:21 pm on August 28, 2009 Permalink

      Aw dang it, I thought I could get away with not reading that book.

      And in regards to your question, I’m utterly confounded. What’s this antithesis?

    • C 9:05 pm on September 11, 2009 Permalink

      If I’m not mistaken, D, you’re actually speaking in the indicative. But my grammar is a bit rusty.

      As for an actually meaningful response, what’s wrong with “practically and theologically counter-productive” if it also happens to be true? It seems to me that a sense of the antithesis runs through all of Scripture. It also seems to me that an antithesis is something necessary to any properly functioning community because any positive assertion of identity (we are x) must be paired with a negative (we are not y). The problem comes when one considers what to do with that knowledge. The Old Covenant teaches us about a thrice holy God and the discipline of separation; the New Covenant teaches us that what is outside cannot defile us, and so we may draw near to those on the other side of the antithesis and dwell with them, as Christ dwelt with us.

      Antithesis thinking becomes “counter-productive” only when it draws a line between people that cannot possibly be crossed. But equally counter-productive is the impulse to erase that line altogether. I propose early monastic missional tradition as vibrant, potent, and godly application of antithesis. I likewise propose that the Amish formulation is a cup flowing over back into itself, baptizing only the already-wet.

      Having been raised Baptist, I’m quite sure I’ve missed some nuance that is vital to the conversation. Please sir, can we have some more?

    • F 8:50 am on September 12, 2009 Permalink

      I side with Chris.

      Chris, you said everything I’ve been hoping I could say in my IM discussions with Davey, except way, way better.

      Your second-to-last paragraph is solid gold. Thank you.

    • A 5:37 pm on September 12, 2009 Permalink

      Chris, you should read the article. You say antithesis is ok as long as it doesn’t do exactly what the article accuses it of doing.

  • D 2:51 pm on July 28, 2009 Permalink | Reply  

    She puts the purple in mountain majesty 

    Farewell:

    Getting here can be described as the best road trip in America! Soaring through nature’s finest show you will see Denali – the Great One – soaring under the midnight sun. Alaska has so many extremes. In the wintertime the frozen road competes with the view of the ice-fogged frigid beauty. The cold, though, doesn’t it split the Cheechakos from the Sourdoughs? And in the summertime – when temperatures are 150 degrees hotter than they were just a few months ago and than they will be just a few months from now – you will see the fireweed along the frost heaves. Merciless rivers rush and carve and remind us that Mother Nature wins. The big, wild and good life teeming along that road leads north to the future. That is what we see here. What we, and the rest of America, see in the Last Frontier is hope, opportunity and country pride, and it is our men and women in uniform that secure it.

     

  • D 6:25 am on July 17, 2009 Permalink | Reply  

    White Sox Fans Make Good Speeches 

    Leaving aside all other issues for the moment, Obama’s speech to the NAACP yesterday contained some surprising (Booker Washington-esque?) moments:

    That’s why if we’re serious about reclaiming that dream, we have to do more in our own lives, our own families, and our own communities. That starts with providing the guidance our children need, turning off the TV, and putting away the video games; attending those parent-teacher conferences, helping our children with their homework, and setting a good example. It starts with teaching our daughters to never allow images on television to tell them what they are worth; and teaching our sons to treat women with respect, and to realize that responsibility does not end at conception; that what makes them men is not the ability to have a child but the courage to raise one. It starts by being good neighbors and good citizens who are willing to volunteer in our communities – and to help our synagogues and churches and community centers feed the hungry and care for the elderly. We all have to do our part to lift up this country….

    But all these innovative programs and expanded opportunities will not, in and of themselves, make a difference if each of us, as parents and as community leaders, fail to do our part by encouraging excellence in our children. Government programs alone won’t get our children to the Promised Land. We need a new mindset, a new set of attitudes – because one of the most durable and destructive legacies of discrimination is the way that we have internalized a sense of limitation; how so many in our community have come to expect so little of ourselves…

    We’ve got to say to our children, Yes, if you’re African American, the odds of growing up amid crime and gangs are higher. Yes, if you live in a poor neighborhood, you will face challenges that someone in a wealthy suburb does not have to face. That’s not a reason to get bad grades, that’s not a reason to cut class, that’s not a reason to give up on your education and drop out of school. No one has written your destiny for you. Your destiny is in your hands – and don’t you forget that.

    No excuses. No excuses. You get that education. All those hardships will just make you stronger, better able to compete. Yes, we can.

     

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