Post same sex marriage Supreme Court decision David Brooks suggests Christians....
Consider putting aside, in the current climate, the culture war oriented around the sexual revolution.
Put aside a culture war that has alienated large parts of three generations from any consideration of religion or belief. Put aside an effort that has been a communications disaster, reducing a rich, complex and beautiful faith into a public obsession with sex...
Consider a different culture war, one just as central to your faith and far more powerful in its persuasive witness.
We live in a society plagued by formlessness and radical flux, in which bonds, social structures and commitments are strained and frayed. Millions of kids live in stressed and fluid living arrangements. Many communities have suffered a loss of social capital. Many young people grow up in a sexual and social environment rendered barbaric because there are no common norms. Many adults hunger for meaning and goodness, but lack a spiritual vocabulary to think things through.
Social conservatives could be the people who help reweave the sinews of society. They already subscribe to a faith built on selfless love. They can serve as examples of commitment. They are equipped with a vocabulary to distinguish right from wrong, what dignifies and what demeans. They already, but in private, tithe to the poor and nurture the lonely.
The defining face of social conservatism could be this: Those are the people who go into underprivileged areas and form organizations to help nurture stable families. Those are the people who build community institutions in places where they are sparse...
I don’t expect social conservatives to change their positions on sex, and of course fights about the definition of marriage are meant as efforts to reweave society. But the sexual revolution will not be undone anytime soon. The more practical struggle is to repair a society rendered atomized, unforgiving and inhospitable. Social conservatives are well equipped to repair this fabric, and to serve as messengers of love, dignity, commitment, communion and grace.
Top voted up comment there...
While I agree with everything you say here, David, the truth is that, if your Social Conservatives were to do what you suggest, they would be Social Liberals, the reincarnation of Dr. King. Young people have no interest in Right Wing Christian values not merely because those values are anchored in sexual repression, but because they also contain strong elements of racism, denial of climate change, materialism, and hypocrisy. Apparently Jesus was an arch capitalist, a proponent of greed and guns, and an opponent of health care. These RW Christians have mingled radical-Republican ideology with Christian values for so long that it has become impossible to disentangle them. So youngsters are throwing it all out and starting over. I can only say, amen to them.
72 comments:
Amen.
Christians should practice their faith. The Catholic view is that we are not of this world.
The reigning orthodoxy of every age is always false, and we are always compelled to kneel before that orthodoxy or suffer a loss of status and employment, and possibly face criminal sanctions.
The Emperor Has No Clothes. Nothing has changed. We're already in the early stages of an era of brutal suppression of dissent and stale conformity masquerading as rebellion.
The "homophobes" gays fear are their parents who want blood grandchildren. The gay activists are at war with one of the most elemental of human desires... continuing one's bloodline.
Christianity is not the cause of the failure of one's sex life, gay or straight. So, Christians must stay the course during the period of persecution and ridicule that is forthcoming. The effort to blame others for the sexual failures of gays is doomed.
Meade is a good example. He's a very weak man who needs the approval of others to deal with his own sexual misgivings, sense of guilt and weaknesses. He's spent a lifetime blaming others for his own failures.
There's nothing we Christians can do about that.
Amen.
they would be Social Liberals,...
and then he goes on to bash bash bash and bathe in the cliche.
Tell me when a social liberal, who must mention climate change at every turn, has ever attempted to accomplish David Brook's moral ideals?
"Tell me when a social liberal, who must mention climate change at every turn, has ever attempted to accomplish David Brook's moral ideals?"
*love, dignity, commitment, communion, grace*
We can talk about climate change at the next turn, if you like.
Hollywood is filled with social liberals.
These are the people writing and creating movies, cable, and TV filled with the cultural road map: sexual obsession, sexual deviancy, guns, violence, cruelty, glamorous drug use, and general selfishness and meanness.
Yeah -save us oh holy social liberal.
Is that before or after you insult and lie about a priest without apology? Go play with a dog, Meade. Your holier than thou act is stale.
It's not conservatives who are attacking students, professors, parents, work associates, and children over sex, even when it's normal, traditional, or even entirely imaginary. Leftists are the ones trying to get people fired, expelled, arrested, and ruined over sex, or even the innocent suggestion of it. I can always count on the over-educated Brooks to miss the forest for the trees.
He objects to Conservatives having a different opinion - not that they act on it to anyone's detriment, but that they even express it at all. With people like Brooks, it's like a high school clique. Ideas are not weighed on the merits of arguments, but rather everything is judged by whether or not you are with the in-crowd as it jumps from fad to fad.
Just look at gayness relative its numbers. The culture and our politics is dominated by an a group and its issues that affects a couple percent of the population, and that obsession pushes out all the other much more significant groups and issues. Gays are not doing bad at all as a group. They are mostly affluent, successful, and accepted. A lot of other Americans could use a little of that. For example, the half of the country that can't or won't support itself. Or the people being forced by law to abandon their religious principles, their traditions, and their symbols, so we can all agree to another dose of soma, and ignore the real violence being done around us. The delicate snowflakes are smothering the landscape, and the debate.
Remember, AprilApple: Jesus came to save not saints but sinners.
Althouse, likewise, has spent a lifetime under the delusion that the guilt she feels about sexuality is somebody else's fault.
And, now she's in the midst of a euphoria over a victory over that sense of guilt and shame about sexuality.
It's still there, lurking inside her. Christianity didn't place it there.
Once the euphoria fades over the intellectual victory, the shame will still be there.
I'll ask again...
Give me an example of a social liberal, a specific person, who has ever attempted to accomplish David Brook's moral ideals?
Meade and Althouse have an ideological relationship, a common thing in the places I've lived.
Fighting these battles against an phantom external enemy is what holds an ideological relationship together. The drama of these faux battles creates a sense of romance and commitment that does not actually exist.
They'll have to don the blackface, find a new way to define themselves as champions of the niggers... or...
The hollywood caricature endures. Perfect Bagoh. Smother is a key.
The truth is that nobody is really scared of conservatives. They may not like them, but they don't fear them. That is a testament to the respect and tolerance of conservatives. It's not conservatives or the religious that are barging into your classrooms, dorms, and workplaces to tell you how to speak, what words you can use, who you can ask out on a date, and how you can look at them. It's not conservatives who are screaming about microaggressions,and trigger warnings. The prudes, the puritans, and the witch hunters are all on the left. They don't just suggest sex should have standards, they want it inspected, regulated, and licensed by force.
“we respect what you’ve done in the public square before, but we don’t want you in the public square, no more.”
Link
If I understand Dave, he's saying that the lions are hungry and the Christians should play their proper role.
Lem - from your link
But the truth is, churches are tax exempt because they are good for the community. They serve the people, and the revenue they take in shouldn’t be taxed by the government because it’s used to do the work that government isn’t able to do on its own. Even if you think there is no God, you have to admit that churches do good for the community even while teaching and believing things that the community isn’t always happy to hear. This has always been the case.
The leftwingers and social liberals are pushing hard to remove tax exemption from Churches. Hard. Leftists hate the idea that there are people who do good works thru a church and not by the almighty hand of the left's god - big government.
Meanwhile, these same leftists have no problem with The Clinton Global Slush Fund and Tax Avoidance Scheme.
Eat cake, peasants.
@April,
And the lefties are operating from a base of tax-exempt non-profits.
How about coming together in celebration... I propose a Gays and Christians Beer Summit.
Don't knock it until you try. Look what it did for Blacks and Cops relations.
Ok... maybe that's a terrible idea ;)
Lem is putting out Meade bait for hits. Fuck both of these codependents!
It was the Russians' definition of peace.
Give up, and act like you like it.
But then, the Gray Lady did win a Pulitzer for Walter Duranty.
Shouting T..
An example of the abuse.
Taxpayer-funded Obamacare health insurance co-op’s may be running afoul of the law by giving extravagant paychecks to their top executives, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation.
More than a million Americans have enrolled in the 23 non-profit Obamacare co-ops since they began in 2011. The co-ops were intended to be consumer-operated non-profits focused on delivering healthcare to the working poor and others needing health insurance.
Eighteen of the 23 co-ops paid their top executives prodigious salaries ranging from $263,000 to $587,000, according to 2013 IRS tax filings.
The high take-home pay for the “nonprofit” executives appears to violate both federal law and Obamacare rules prohibiting “excessive executive compensation.”
What we really need to worry about are those gun totting right wing Christians.
I don't know. I'm joking because I don't really know what the answer is. Other than perhaps reaching out and coming to some understanding both sides could live with.
Don't ask the church for certain things in exchange allow the church in to maybe do good works in the gay community, or more than what they are already doing.
Same with the protestants.
Oddly, the Catholic Church has a long tradition of gays in the priesthood and nunneries.
We're, oh, so intolerant!
Lem is putting out Meade bait for hits. Fuck both of these codependents!
I'm not purposely not intentionally doing that. Although it may appear to you that way.
You are changing the subject by the way... it's an unenforced unwritten rule.
I've met an awful lot of gay priests and nuns during my lifetime. Many have been friends.
For an institution that supposedly hates gays, we Catholics have an awful lot of gays in our leadership positions.
We do ask that gay priests and nuns remain celibate. We also ask that of the straight ones.
We are making too much of the church issues, relatively speaking.
I see that the college accreditation committees - composed of AAUP professors - are taking a hard look at universities and colleges that are not toeing the line.
I think we will see enterprising lawyers trolling for clients with all kinds of ingenious lures to sue just about anybody for infingement of this new "fundamental right."
The churches may be the first to be hit, but I do not think anybody is safe a the lawyers think of more variations and reasons to sue.
I'll share a not so secret, problem is too strong a word, I have.
I'm not hovering over the blog as much as I should. I realize this may hurt the blog but...
I just want to be completely honest.
And that's all I'll say about that.
There are downsides to both the Dunham and Duggar families. If I were betting the probabilities, I would say the Duggar kids have a better chance at a happy life.......Philip Roth said somewhere that treating women in an honorable, considerate fashion is in many ways antithetical to having great sex. Living in an egalitarian, caring society isn't much fun either.
Lem said...
And that's all I'll say about that.
Spoken like a true politician.
Shouting Thomas said...
Oddly, the Catholic Church has a long tradition of gays in the priesthood and nunneries.
But did the Church seek them out? Don't think so.
Also, if you remember your High Renaissance, most priests and nuns got it on with other nuns and priests, not with priests and nuns IYKWIM.
I'd say the experiment in homosexual priests has been pretty much of a disaster.
In any case, being a Wicca won't cut much ice, either.
The point here is that only people on the right are evil and in need of salvation.
Isn't what this is about?
Well, of course.
You were sleeping in church when Rev Wright gave that sermon, right?
So the moral relativism of the Left creates a humongous mess and Christians should come in and cleanup the mess but shut-up about the moral absolutes that are the ONLY way back from chaos and ruin? Senseless.
Shouting Thomas is exactly right. Christianity has almost always been out of step with the ruling orthodoxy. It has been used and abused by rulers to hold down the masses with a twisted interpretation that aids in their control and not in the goal of living a Christian life.
Brooks and other tame "conservative" commenters have always counseled surrender. They don't believe and don't understand people who do. He is a cultural Christian. He is a Christian in the same way that Bill Clinton or Barack Obama are in reality.
No retreat. No surrender.
Asking to put things aside is code for ignore the distractions and allow for more contraction of your faith in a vortex of moral equivalency and relativism. so that leftism and leftists and flourish and bloom until you have nowhere else to go. Nonsense.
Meade said...
Remember, AprilApple: Jesus came to save not saints but sinners.
And he did it at the cost of his own life at the request of his Father's will. Saints at the time never existed, so there is that.
David Brooks is jewish-fyi
Here is something that the liberals never thing about when the threaten to remove the tax exempt (501-c-3) status of churches.
The 501-c-3 status is granted on the condition that the religious churches do not "preach politics from the pulpit." They are not allowed to endorse or disparage candidates for office. They can't endorse one political party over the other. They can, very carefully, show support or non support for some ballot measures and ideas. But they have to do it in a way that is non-political and isn't perceived as supporting or anti candidates.
You remove that tax exempt status and the gloves are off. The Catholic Church, the Evangelical denominations, Protestants, Baptists, all religious groups are now free to stump for candidates. They can hire lobbyists!! to persuade politicians to vote anti abortion (or whatever). They can buy billboards. Hand out flyers. You don't think that the churches can't raise more money than the cost of losing the tax exempt status confers? There are also political tax exempt statuses that are not religious 501-c 4...5 and 6. They can tell their parishioners and congregants who they should vote for and why those other candidates are going to go to Hell.
The churches can go full bore political activism.
Just wait until the full weight of the religious institutions are finally freed up to defend themselves.
Liberals....you should really be careful what you wish for, because you are going to get it...good and hard.
No he is an Episcopalian. You know a Cultural Christian who doesn't really follow the traditional Orthodox path.
But thanks for the Anti-semitism. Limbs never disappoint.
This: "The truth is that nobody is really scared of conservatives. They may not like them, but they don't fear them. That is a testament to the respect and tolerance of conservatives."
I wasn't saying it to be antiseptic troop-he's jewish, not chiristian.
What happened to happy Troop?
Sorry Titus. I know that there is nothing about you that is antiseptic.
Titus said...
David Brooks is jewish-fyi
So was Hitler.
Lol. Conservatives committing themselves to selflessness and love. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Rhythm and Balls said...
Lol. Conservatives committing themselves to selflessness and love. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
This coming from you seems dirty. You are neither selfless nor loving and never have been. Is there a word for someone if your ilk? I don't think sad or pathetic are appropriate. Unlovable perhaps?
Come love me and give a chance, you beautiful, be-birded boy-man! Jettison that fear and anger at the world and give into the love! It takes two to tango, and right now I need my dance partner to be a little less too good for me.
Some people just love hating others too much to love them.
Bag loves me. But sometimes it's in the dirty way.
I forgive him. He can't help it.
And he's much better behaved than the dog that humps your guests' legs.
He also drank my milkshake.
Just sayin'.
OK, that made me laugh Troop-so you do still have a sense of humor-excellent and thanks.
A friend of mine tells me he needs a shot of penicillin after hearing my stories.
Seems like social conservatives are trying to get themselves Ready For Hillary. Because that is who we will have if they don't figure out that the politically correct position, if they in fact don't want Bill and Hillary back in the White House, is:
I am not troubled by the reality of gay marriage but I am greatly troubled by the way we got here.
This "no retreat, no surrender" tune is pure music to Hillary's ears (à la Todd Akin's "legitimate rape")
You need a vacation.
I think it's another when, not if, the Hildabeast goes down.
The weird part is people are acting as if she may not even make it to the primaries.
So, no, social Conservatives are not traumatized by the inevitability of the Hildabeast. She is proving herself more and more evitable every day.
PS Don't you have to watch the blog while the wife is moonlighting?
I wonder why so many Republicans are running against Hillary? Maybe her inevitability makes them feel safe that they can play without having to carry home that dammed heavy trophy. Frankly, Hillary can have it. Nobody is as deserving of inheriting the clusterfuck left behind by the previous identity-based sympathy fuck. Maybe some more feminists can imagine it's their first time and have another vote-gasm.
Then again, maybe everybody knows she's the worst candidate since Jessie Jackson, and will go down in flames no matter who runs. I'm thinking of talking my gay trans-species Pit Bull into running.
edutcher said...
1 thing
then another thing
a 3rd thing
and, finally, a 4th thing
Confirming for me the wisdom of my perception.
Frankly, Hillary can have it. Nobody is as deserving of inheriting the clusterfuck left behind by the previous identity-based sympathy fuck.
The voice of political responsibility speaks! Translation: Only Democrats have what it takes to clean up the messes left behind by Republicans, but Republicans are too good to follow Democratic administrations.
She's not inevitable on the left. I live in lefty-town central and nobody likes her here.
Saw my first Bernie bumper sticker yesterday.
oh please. She'll take the small time mess Obama made and turn our entire nation into a crime syndicate. All for her bank account.
The favors she owes mega-corporations...and *wink* foreign governments, it boggles the mind.
Clinton Foundation Donors Got Weapons Deals From Hillary Clinton's State Department
As Colombian Oil Money Flowed To Clintons, State Department Took No Action To Prevent Labor Violations
Rhythm and Balls said...
Frankly, Hillary can have it. Nobody is as deserving of inheriting the clusterfuck left behind by the previous identity-based sympathy fuck.
The voice of political responsibility speaks! Translation: Only Democrats have what it takes to clean up the messes left behind by Republicans, but Republicans are too good to follow Democratic administrations.
Hey, you wanted it.
You got it.
Only Democrats have what it takes to clean up the messes left behind by Republicans
Sure. Subprime was a Republican thing.
/sarc
If Dubya hadn't challenged the Living Redwood in Palm Beach, it would have been the Third Chakra's mess.
Selfie's doing to his successor, whomever it is, what Willie did.
And Ritmo knows it and the thought of the Hildabeast, rather than a Republican is starting to worry him.
Don't worry, she's evitable. Bernie or Joe will do a swell job.
Meade said..
Whatever.
Gawd that was dumb. Truly impossible.
Christians are supposed to show examples of commitment and stability in an unstable world and they are supposed to do this WITHOUT talking about sinful sex?
Hey, I gotta idea? Why don't we just say, wow, you get horny, do it! With whoever! Your WIFE will understand you wanted to have sex. It's just SEX. Stupid bigotted Christian jerks wanting to ruin our SEX FUN. So the wife gets horny. She should just do it! With whoever! Because sexual repression is BAAAAAAD. Go hump some 15 year old boy. He'll thank you for it. Her HUSBAND won't care because sexual repression is BAAAAAAAD.
This sort of behavior is going to lead to STABILITY in families, with children growing up in INTACT homes. It will! David Brooks farking said so. No more preaching against sex. Just preach about keeping your family together.
Sounds absolutely fabulous!
"Only Democrats have what it takes to clean up the messes left behind by Republicans, but Republicans are too good to follow Democratic administrations."
You have a true gift for understanding things backwards. I bet you're legal to use handicap parking with that mind.
The point was that probably nobody is good enough to follow the accumulated stupidity of the domestic socialist tendencies of the last 70 years, and the foreign policy incompetence of the last 6. If I thought Hillary could, I'd be out knocking on doors for her. Being a lifelong Democrat myself, I'd have no problem voting for one if they could just for once nominate one with any qualifications, history of success, or an intelligent set of principles. Hope and change, my brother, hope and change.
If Hillary wins, I fear she may find a way to actually suck all the cash ofthe entire nation - as well as that of a number of foreign arms dealers - into her private account. Sure that would be illegal, but with the Roberts SCOTUS anything , the woman will outsuck Lewinsky and make Bill shudder with desire. Do you trust that she will not suck your cash? Do your really? She's counting on that.
oh please. She'll take the small time mess Obama made and turn our entire nation into a crime syndicate. All for her bank account.
When people as corrupt as Republicans say things like this, it makes me actually like and want to support her even more. ;-) It shows that she knows you. She really understands the Republican game.
Keep in mind the woman isn't really that good.
A lot of it is Willie's doing and Willie's going downhill.
Fast.
If she's in the Oval Office when the music stops, the Lefties will bail on her in a heartbeat.
Won't do any good, but they'll do it.
The point was that probably nobody is good enough to follow the accumulated stupidity of the domestic socialist tendencies of the last 70 years, and the foreign policy incompetence of the last 6. If I thought Hillary could, I'd be out knocking on doors for her. Being a lifelong Democrat myself…
I call bullshit. No "lifelong Democrat" would rail against the "socialist tendencies of the last 70 years." Next thing that "lifelong Democrat" will be telling me is how much he hated FDR. Total nonsense.
Though I am impressed at your deep understanding of foreign policy. Just one question: Where did you get it? When have you ever done anything having to do with foreign policy… by which I'm assuming you mean the affecting of regimes, etc., abroad?
Some successful guys actually get appointed to diplomatic posts. They become ambassadors.
Bag would ask if he could be appointed to represent us on behalf of a country that "speaks American."
;-)
Rhythm and Balls said...
When people as corrupt as Republicans say things like this, it makes me actually like and want to support her even more. ;-)
Took you all this time to get back from Troll Central?
And it's called whistling past the graveyard.
PS Ritmo calling Republicans corrupt is like Stalin complaining what a murder Hitler was.
Ritmo really has no beliefs, no principles.
Like all Lefties, he'll do whatever he thinks is necessary to keep the agenda going.
Too bad he's not very good at it.
edoucher - I don't read what you write any longer. You're wasting your time.
In fact, I have a strong suspicion that no one reads what you write.
Go on and tell the world of internet more about Hitler's Jewish identity.
Obviously, Ritmo is or he wouldn't have said anything.
For those beside Ritmo who are interested, Hitler's father, Alois Schicklgruber, was the product of a liaison his paternal grandmother had while working as a servant had in a Jewish home.
The father's identity was uncertain, but Der Fuhrer was concerned he was a quarter Jewish and had the matter investigated.
He also turned the ground of the church where his father's birth records were kept into an artillery range to destroy any possibility of detection (see Schikl, um, Rodham, Hillary).
There has been some DNA testing on family members in recent years that has been inconclusive.
The point was that probably nobody is good enough to follow the accumulated stupidity of the domestic socialist tendencies of the last 70 years
Want to see this country fall apart nearly overnight? Watch Obama step up and say the same thing as Puerto Rico, that the US could never payback the 18 Trillion dollar debt, and by Executive Authority, he will default. He can do like Greece, and shutdown the banks for a few days. And which of us would say, "oh no, $18T, we got this."
David Brooks Son is in the IDF. Per Jewish Journal:
"Brook's connection to Israel was always strong," the article reports. "He has visited Israel almost every year since 1991, and over the past months the connection has grown even stronger, after his oldest son, aged 23, decided to join the Israel Defense Forces as a "lone soldier" [Ed. Note: a soldier with no immediate family in Israel].
Another quote on Brooks' commitment to Judaism:
If his public writings and speeches provide clues, he still finds appeal in Judaism. Brooks and his wife had kept a kosher home and sent their three children, all of who have Biblical names, to Jewish school.
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