Echoes in Eternity

From Money, Greed, and God:

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The Piety Myth is focusing on our good intentions rather than on the unintended consequences of our actions.
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"Piety," said the Christian philosopher Etienne Gilson, "is no substitute for technique." What he meant is that having the right intentions, being oriented in the right way, doesn't take the place of doing things right. A pilot's caring deeply for his passengers and wanting to land a plane safely are no substitute for his learn how to actually land planes safely. Jesus suggest the same thing. "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." Don't forget the third item: love the Lord with all your mind. And don't misunderstand heart. Your heart isn't just your feelings. In the Bible, heart refers to the seat of your will and your emotions. I hope you already have a heart for the poor. Lots of Christians do. But do you have a mind for the poor? Unfortunately, that's in rather short supply.

God knows your heart. Spiritually you're better off a little mixed up about economics than indifferent to human suffering. Economically, though, only what you do is important, whatever your reason. Buying a bunch of bananas at Costco will have the same economic effect no matter why you buy them.
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In fact, it's morally self-indulgent to feel good about our motives when it comes to actions that affect the world... when it's time to roll up our sleeves and actually try to help someone, fixating on our motives can become a stumbling block. It can distract us from discovering the right action at the right time.
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Henry Hazlitt, an economic journalist, thought this was so important that he defined economics in terms of consequences. "The art of economics," he said, "consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups."

This is one of those principles that are easy to get and even easier to forget. Unfortunately, Christians have supported all sorts of policies that were well motivated but that made matters worse, not better. Let's look at a few popular policies that are long on compassion but short on prudence.

A "Living Wage"
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Fair Trade
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Foreign Aid
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Government-Run Welfare

(p. 35-49)

The Piety Myth concept is so important in all areas of life, not just economics. While liberals tend to be the worst violators of the idea that as long as you do something, it doesn't matter what you do, everyone (especially Christians) should remember to guard against it daily. Spend your time, money, and effort on useful things. Be discerning!

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UPDATE: In related news, a challenge to Republicans.

[Republicans] have decided, as a matter of firm principle, to have no solid center. Because the breeze is blowing slightly to the right, they have tied the helium balloon of their core principles to whatever the Democrats are currently saying, and waft gently (to the right) as they dream of the next election.

Doug Wilson has an excellent piece today on the motives behind the new Marxist push in America to take from the rich and give to the "poor."

The word envy enters a lot of political and economic discussion, but it is usually referred to the envy of those who stand to gain materially after the smoke of redistribution all clears away. When someone runs on a platform of free choocolate milk for everybody, envy is driving the whole thing, and it is barely disguised. When those without money outnumber those who have it, and the question of equitable distribution comes up for a vote, how does that vote usually go? As the wise man said, it is two coyotes and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch. Like I said, that is how political envy is usually thought of, and it ought to be thought of a lot more. That is a big part of our problem.

But envy also operates at another level, a much higher level. This is what we find on display in the behavior of the pampered and privileged who wrap themselves in the dogmas of the hard left. Why would they do that? Envy doesn't explain it, at least not the kind of envy outlined above. These people already have all the chocolate milk they could want. Correct that -- they actually have all the carob-flavored coconut water that they want, which is another subject, albeit related.
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[M]en envy more than material goods. They also envy power, and the ability to dispose of others with the flourish of a pen. And when the envious are driving a nation down, each new economic crisis is used as an excuse to fix what they believe to be the real problem, which is lack of personal political control. The crisis is used, not to address the economic woes, which are simply the presenting problem, but rather to address what they believe to be the real crisis -- the fact that they cannot control everything. Yet.

From Money, Greed, and God:

The Nirvana Myth is not simply the belief that good will triumph in the end or the belief that the kingdom of God is already present in history. It's the delusion that we can build utopia if we try hard enough, and that every real society is intolerably wicked because it doesn't measure up to utopia.

We learned in the twentieth century that acting on this myth can be disastrous. Never has there been a greater gap between ideals and outcomes than in communism. In fact, so many people would not have been led astray if communism had advertised baser goals. No, communist brutalities needed the cover of some grand moral vision. Communism appealed to, even if it inverted, man's moral impulse. This is the worst outcome of the Nirvana Myth.

But the myth can have subtle effects even if we reject utopian schemes. To avoid its dangers, we have to resist the temptation to compare our live options with an ideal that we can never realize... It doesn't do anyone any good to tear down a society that is "unjust" compared with the kingdom of God if that society is more just than any of the ones that will replace it.

Compared with Nirvana, no real society looks good. Compared with utopia, Stalinist Russia and America at its best will both get bad reviews. The differences between them may seem trivial compared to utopia. That's one of the grave dangers of utopian thinking: it blinds us to the important differences among the various ways of ordering society... The free exchange of wages for work in the market place starts to look like slavery. Tough competition for market share between companies is confused with theft and survival of the fittest. Banking is confused with usury and exploitation. This shouldn't surprise us. Of course a modern capitalist society like the United States looks terrible compared with the kingdom of God. But that's bad moral reasoning. The question isn't whether capitalism measures up to the kingdom of God. The question is whether there's a better alternative in this life. (p. 31-32)

HT: My wonderful wife.

So Obama wouldn't promote the National Day of Prayer, but he will make June the national "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month?" It's particularly interesting how President Barry repeatedly mentions the "HIV/AIDS epidemic" in this country. I thought that lie was put to bed long ago. It's not widespread (not talking globally), nor is it an epidemic like the typical disease where one has little-to-no ability to protect oneself. With AIDS, if you're a heterosexual and monogamous American, you're extremely unlikely to get it. If you're a pervert who enjoys intimate time with your own gender and filling yourself with mind-numbing drugs, you're highly likely to contract it.

Doug Wilson has some humorous reasons to be grateful for this proclamation:

10. That, despite the glowing rhetoric, nobody appears to have noticed that equal rights for bisexuals means that such marriages (when we get there) would have to have a minium of three copulating units. So the good news is that President Obama is still guilty of hate-criming the bisexuals. And imagine my astonishment that he is doing this legally. And nobody pushing this seems to be aware of how filled with hate they all still are.

9. That this happened at a time when we have an example to follow as we craft our responses. All we have to say is that we think a wise heterosexual, having lived that life, should be able to make better judgments than someone who hasn't had the richness of that experience. That's all.
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6. That they are unwittingly paving the way for the legalization of polygamy, which will prove to be the basis for the rebuilding of the Republican Party. Then watch out.

5. That the president issued this proclamation while at the same time holding to the same position on gay marriage as recently articulated by the winsome Miss California, thus showing in yet another way that he is filled to the brim with thought crimes and all manner of evil.
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3. That they had the foresight to press these issues in the midst of an economic downturn. Sexual energies are powerful when harnessed, and suppose, say, the nation's shoe manufacturers are languishing. All you have to do is proclaim National Footwear Fetish Week, and bam! there you are, back in the game.

2. That the president is clearly hearing Dick Cheney's footsteps everywhere. On foreign policy certainly, but now that the former VP has declared himself a tolerance-monger on gay marriage, Obama is getting chased down the road by him on this issue as well. You can cluck at both of them with moral disapproval all you want, but the entertainment value is still high.

1. That they are working us into this slowly. September as it turns out is Screw the Pooch Month, but the American people won't be ready for that for, oh, weeks yet.

"This global-warming frenzy has all the marks of a classic sociological phenomenon known as groupthink. As a rule, when partisans appeal to "consensus" in a scientific dispute, chances are that: (a) there's not a consensus; (b) the partisans are trying to silence dissent and marginalize dissenters; and (c) the evidence for their view isn't that great. No scientist worth her salt would appeal to consensus in making a case for, say, the theory of continental drift." (Jay Richards, Money, Greed, and God, p. 195)

As mentioned before, abortionist Dr. Tiller was killed this weekend in his church. I also happened to watch the film "Valkyrie" this weekend, which got me thinking about the parallels between assassinating Hitler and killing Tiller. Assuming one isn't an absolute pacifist, for Christians, what makes the former morally acceptable but the latter decried as evil? Or are they both wrong or both good? After all, if you saw a small child about to be killed by a man, wouldn't it be a very moral thing to kill him (or at least violently resist him)?

Greg Koukl has an excellent discussion of this very question here. Basically, he argues that killing Hitler would have likely saved many thousands of lives, whereas killing a lone abortionist may save very few (and hurt the overall objective of saving the lives of the unborn).

Imagine for just a minute commandos in the Second World War impersonating Nazi officers, dropped behind Nazi lines to infiltrate concentration camps. Their mission? Destroy the gas chambers. Now mingling incognito with the rest of the camp cadre, they have many opportunities to kill other soldiers, even officers. Even the Commandant. But do you kill the individual executioner or do you go after the gas chamber? In this case, it seems that killing the individual would be wrong even though he was truly murderous, because it would keep the commandos from fulfilling their larger mission. And their failure would mean more lives lost in the long run. The short term gain would be no victory because the machinery of destruction would still be in place. Do you see that?

What this illustration shows is that there is no necessary contradiction in the view that abortion is a holocaust, yet the killing of individual abortionists is properly condemned. In fact, it is precisely because we hold to the innocent humanity of the unborn that we insist on an approach to this solution that is directed at the machinery of the killing--the laws, the economics and the deep human need that makes the alternative appealing. That's our focus.

[UPDATE: Doug Wilson has posted some good thoughts on this matter:

Sure, we condemn the murder of Tiller now, like good citizens, but we will only do so unless and until the targeted murder of such individuals is determined by the Supreme Court to be a consitutional right we didn't know we had. Turns out they found it in a recently discovered penumbra somewhere. Once they say it is okay, we will all immediately shut up about it, right?

Well, no, because the Supreme Court doesn't have the authority to declare murder okay, and only ghastly human beings like Tiller think they do. When such men take the Supremes up on their invitation to any slaughter that has been given the legal okay, they are helping to create a society in which lawlessness reigns. They cooperate with those who frame mischief with a law. But once this lawlessness has taken root, the bright boys running everything start to discover that lawlessness has certain shortcomings as a social theory.

One last comment. The fact that Tiller was a member of Reformation Lutheran pretty much sums up everything that is wrong with our nation. But even this highlights another interesting feature. If the suspect Roeder in fact is the guilty party, and is a member of a conservative church somewhere, the chances are pretty good that he will be excommunicated (as Paul Hill was) for his bloody ways. The chances that someone like Tiller would be excommunicated from a liberal church for his bloodlust are chances approaching zero.

Charles Krauthammer wrote a fantastic column this week regarding the SCOTUS nominee, Sonia Sotomayor. He says that conservative Republicans should ask deep and penetrating questions into substantive issues, then vote to confirm (assuming nothing really awful comes to light).

Sonia Sotomayor has a classic American story. So does Frank Ricci.

Ricci is a New Haven firefighter stationed seven blocks from where Sotomayor went to law school (Yale). Raised in blue-collar Wallingford, Conn., Ricci struggled as a C and D student in public schools ill-prepared to address his serious learning disabilities. Nonetheless he persevered, becoming a junior firefighter and Connecticut's youngest certified EMT.

After studying fire science at a community college, he became a New Haven "truckie," the guy who puts up ladders and breaks holes in burning buildings. When his department announced exams for promotions, he spent $1,000 on books, quit his second job so he could study eight to 13 hours a day, and, because of his dyslexia, hired someone to read him the material.

He placed sixth on the lieutenant's exam, which qualified him for promotion. Except that the exams were thrown out by the city, and all promotions denied, because no blacks had scored high enough to be promoted.

Ricci (with 19 others) sued.

That's where these two American stories intersect. Sotomayor was a member of the three-member circuit court panel that upheld the dismissal of his case, thus denying Ricci his promotion.
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Two things are sure to happen this summer: The Supreme Court will overturn Sotomayor's panel's ruling. And, barring some huge hidden scandal, Sotomayor will be elevated to that same Supreme Court.

What should a principled conservative do? Use the upcoming hearings not to deny her the seat, but to illuminate her views. No magazine gossip from anonymous court clerks. No "temperament" insinuations. Nothing ad hominem. The argument should be elevated, respectful and entirely about judicial philosophy.

On the Ricci case. And on her statements about the inherent differences between groups, and the superior wisdom she believes her Latina physiology, culture and background grant her over a white male judge. They perfectly reflect the Democrats' enthrallment with identity politics, which assigns free citizens to ethnic and racial groups possessing a hierarchy of wisdom and entitled to a hierarchy of claims upon society.

Sotomayor shares President Obama's vision of empathy as lying at the heart of judicial decision-making -- sympathetic concern for litigants' background and current circumstances, and for how any judicial decision would affect their lives.

Since the 2008 election, people have been asking what conservatism stands for. Well, if nothing else, it stands unequivocally against justice as empathy -- and unequivocally for the principle of blind justice.

Empathy is a vital virtue to be exercised in private life -- through charity, respect and lovingkindness -- and in the legislative life of a society where the consequences of any law matter greatly, which is why income taxes are progressive and safety nets built for the poor and disadvantaged.

But all that stops at the courthouse door. Figuratively and literally, justice wears a blindfold. It cannot be a respecter of persons. Everyone must stand equally before the law, black or white, rich or poor, advantaged or not.
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When the hearings begin, Republicans should call Frank Ricci as their first witness. Democrats want justice rooted in empathy? Let Ricci tell his story and let the American people judge whether his promotion should have been denied because of his skin color in a procedure Sotomayor joined in calling "facially race-neutral."

Make the case for individual vs. group rights, for justice vs. empathy. Then vote to confirm Sotomayor solely on the grounds -- consistently violated by the Democrats, including Sen. Obama -- that a president is entitled to deference on his Supreme Court nominees, particularly one who so thoroughly reflects the mainstream views of the winning party. Elections have consequences.

Vote Democratic and you get mainstream liberalism: A judicially mandated racial spoils system and a jurisprudence of empathy that hinges on which litigant is less "advantaged."

A teaching moment, as liberals like to say. Clarifying and politically potent. Seize it.

Dr. George Tiller was gunned down this morning in his church. For those who don't know who he is, he is a late-term abortionist in Wichita who is nationally known for performing abortions that many other abortion doctors will not do. God has brought His judgment on him today, but woe to him by whom it came. Much like King Saul in the Old Testament and Gollum in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, Tiller deserved death for the evil he committed. But just like those two, it wasn't for man to presume the right to avenge. So it is a sad day to see someone put themselves in the place of God, but a glorious day that at least a handful of babies will now not be gruesomely murdered just as they prepare to take their first breath.

Also, some pro-lifers are pointing out that this probably hurts the pro-life side at an inopportune time politically (with the Supreme Court nomination battle coming). That may well be true, but if the anti-abortion lobby truly wants to see babies saved, there should be some rejoicing (albeit muted due to the loss of Tiller's life, ESPECIALLY since it seems that Tiller never repented and faces a horrible eternity) on the part of the lives that will now be saved.

Deserves [death]! I dare say he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death and judgment. For even the very wise cannot see all ends. - Gandalf

This is interesting.

A local pastor and his wife claim they were interrogated by a San Diego County official, who then threatened them with escalating fines if they continued to hold bible studies in their home...

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life" - Sonia Sotomayor, Supreme Court candidate

It's informative that Obama didn't even interview a man, showing that in his view, qualifications begin with gender and ethinicity and not with competency.

For an initial case against Sotomayor, read this.

The City Journal published an excellent piece this week on how Hollywood invented a legend in regards to the gay San Francisco supervisor, Harvey Milk. He was the subject of a recent Oscar-nominated film, and the actor who played him won the Best Actor award. Turns out, it was all a screenwriter's sham. The real Harvey Milk "was a short-tempered demagogue who cynically invented stories of victimhood to advance his political career." He also strongly supported Jim Jones up until Jones poisoned his entire following.

Mark Driscoll wrote a fantastic article on Fox News regarding the recent Newsweek cover piece which discussed the falling rates of professing Christians in America. He nails it.