Religion

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by Reid Fitzsimons

In 2015, when the Supreme Court issued its Obergefell v. Hodges decision legalizing same-sex marriage, Barack Obama ordered the White House be bathed in rainbow colors. This was an immature and inappropriate thing to do considering 10 of millions of Americans opposed the decision, but it was Obama doing what he did so well: divisive in your face activism.  Perfectly compassionate religious people opposed the decision based upon the concept of sin, and otherwise perfectly typical people might have opposed it simply because they viewed the decision as legitimizing what was unnatural or perhaps opening the door to further erosion of traditional mores.  Nevertheless, no reasonable person, no matter how upset, argued that sex between two men or two women approached the level of evil.

Evil has been with us as long as we’ve been in existence.  Perhaps a few groups or cultures have not been perpetrators of evil, but it’s been pretty universal to be on both the receiving and the committing sides, depending on who was on top or at the bottom at the time.  One aspect of evil that has been relatively uncommon has been the overt celebration of one’s atrocities.  Perhaps there were public relations considerations, perhaps strategic, and even maybe some residual sense of right and wrong, but for the most part evil people and entities haven’t been inclined to trumpet their reprehensible accomplishments.

There are, of course, people and philosophies that discount the existence of evil, claiming some are driven to do bad things based only upon extrinsic factors.  Religious people might argue that evil exists as a consequence of Satan.  Personally, as a God disbeliever, I think some people are innately evil.  Whether this reflects some aberration of genetics, or even some evolutionary imperative I’m not sure, but I’ve been around a bit- worked at a prison, been in the military, lived in other (“third-world”) countries and cultures for a number of years- and I’m fairly certain I’ve met some evil people.  And like that storied serial killer living next door, the neighbors inevitably say, “He seemed normal.”

The New York State government gave us something almost unprecedented the other day- an act of not just unadulterated evil but a perverse celebration of it, ordering the spire of the “Freedom Tower” to be illuminated in pink.  It doesn’t take a great moralist or contemplator of ethics or even run of the mill reprobate to understand that dismembering a child just weeks, or even just hours before his or her birth is blatantly evil.  Nevertheless, majorities in both houses of the NY State legislature voted for this latest “health” bill, and the Governor enthusiastically and pompously signed it into law.  One could imagine a legislator from Queens applauding the law and giddy with pleasure, perhaps not even cognizant of their affirmation, “I am evil, and I’m feeling pretty good about it.”

Sadly and historically evil doesn’t occur in a vacuum, but rather it typically finds adherents or enablers willing to rationalize it.  It also encounters those who recognize evil for what it is and, in theory at least, are charged with opposing it.  Sometimes the people and organizations charged with identifying evil and countering it fail to do so, even willingly, and hence are justly tainted by it.  And speaking of the NY Catholic Church establishment (what Trump supporters might refer to as “the Swamp”), no matter how irresistible the sweet love of their Savior Jesus or their veneration of the Blessed Mother, there is something even greater for which to yearn- being a player, no matter how trivial, in secular politics. 

I am a Bishop and I have a staff and mitre to prove it, and by God I’m allowed to utter platitudes of the sanctity of life.  But the Governor, evil incarnate he may be, is a good Catholic, and I can find all sorts of arcane doctrinal and theological arguments of how he should remain in good standing.  My God, if we really did the right thing and disavowed him as one of us, the Cardinal’s calls might not be forwarded to one of the Governor’s administrative assistants, and we would feel diminished.  Besides, what could be more fun than giggling with the Governor at the annual Al Smith dinner?  Yeah, sure I love the Cross, but I love the idea of being accepted by the woke cultural elite even more.

Not too long ago pink was the color the oppressive patriarchy associated with little girls. In short order, however, pink has become the symbolic color of victory over the helpless and innocent; in New York that is a reason for delirious celebration. 

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by Reid Fitzsimons

Note: The below is an (edited) e-mail I sent to a very accomplished young man (early 30s) who is successful in the higher levels of academia but also in the “real” world, including the military. As I’m writing this the “migrant caravan, largely from Honduras, is a hot topic. I think the e-mail is fairly self-explanatory:

I have a semi-serious question about academics and Dr. XXX, EdD. He and I had a happy and meaningful time together without too much emphasis on politics. While I think it’s bad form to discuss politics in general social settings, I realize leftists especially have a difficult time constraining themselves, and I generally accept this. Hence I’m disinclined to respond to references to “that mad man in the White House” or derogatory references to Trump overall. I see a number of similarities between the most obnoxious of Christians and progressive leftists. Have you ever know someone who constantly says “praise the Lord,” or “thank you Jesus (not including XXX when winning at a casino!)?” If I’m attending the XXX Baptist Church it’s to be expected, but outside such a venue it’s impolite and inappropriate, especially if you don’t know the beliefs of the people you are with or know them to not be Christians.

Anyway, can an uneducated ignoramus such as me have a reasonable expectation that a highly credentialed academic possess the ability to view things dispassionately and objectively? Poor Dr. XXX, EdD, in considering Honduras, seems unable to discuss the topic without mentioning the Standard Fruit Company with great angst. I’m not sure what you know about this but it was an absolutely proto-typical scenario of a capitalist international corporation lining the pockets of willing petty dictators in exchange for favors, sometimes to the detriment of the “masses.” I said to him, “It’s been 120 years, you’ve got to get over it!” So the question is, can a PhD/EdD historian look at the record, however distasteful, and not be overwhelmed with anger and emotion. If not, can the scholarship be trusted?

You probably know some 13 years ago he received a $100,000 grant from the US Dept. of Interior to investigate the feasibility of processing coffee in an environmentally friendly manner in Central America. Ultimately nothing came of it and the money was for naught, but it did finance a two-week trip for him to Honduras and Costa Rica. I think this brief experience profoundly affected him, somehow legitimizing his already established leftist inclinations in his own mind. He said something like, “I did go to a non-tourist village, and they were really welcoming,” as this was of great significance. Despite his being a truly decent and caring person, I see such a strange contrast between him, the academic leftist whose outrage at the injustice of Central America (for example) suffices for action, and the uneducated ignoramus (i.e. conservative) that I am who has spent years, quite a bit of personal effort, and 10s of thousands of dollars down there in hopes of bettering the lives of the impoverished. I fear in the elite worlds of academia and wealth, a sense of righteous indignation offers much greater prestige than actually doing something!

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by Reid Fitzsimons

"We saw one of these while joining  XXX's dad at his church, Spring Mount Mennonite. I'm sorry to learn that support for this sentiment is low among American evangelical Christians. To neighbors from East and Central Africa I would add: Bila kujali ninyi mnatoka wapi, tunafurahi ninyi ni majirani yetu."

Hi XXX:

I’m going to make a long commentary in response to the above brief comment you posted on Facebook regarding a sign you saw at a Mennonite church.

Hebrews 1:5 states: For to which of the angels did God ever say, “You are my Son, today I have begotten you”? Or again, “I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son”? The (unknown) author of Hebrews is referring here to Jesus, and using quotes from the Jewish Bible to establish that the provenance and authenticity of Christ comes from the Jewish fathers and, hence, offers Scriptural reassurance to Jews who had converted to Christianity. Looking at one source of this quote, that being 2 Samuel 7:13-14, we see:  “He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son.” Again, this alone could reasonably be interpreted as referring to Christ. However, if the full passage is read we find: 12 When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 14 I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men, 15 but my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. 16 And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me.[c] Your throne shall be established forever.’”

To me this is clearly a reference to David/Solomon, not Jesus, and even if an argument is made that this passage is foretelling the coming of the Kingdom of Christ, it allows for the imperfection of Christ (“When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men…”). In other words Jesus could, potentially at least, be a sinner, which is doctrinally anathema to most Christians. So is the author of Hebrews attempting to pull a bait and switch, or did he or she truly believe 2 Samuel 7:13-14 pertained to Jesus? I suspect literacy rates at the time were universally very low and access to Scripture extremely limited, so who could disagree with the author of Hebrews 2,000 years ago?

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by Reid Fitzsimons

Robert Casey, Jr is the senior senator from Pennsylvania. He has a name you might know in that his late father was a former governor of PA and one of the last truly Pro-Life Democrats, a belief and position which is now incompatible with being a Democrat. His son the senator, whose qualifications are pretty much limited to the fact he is the son of a revered figure, lamely claims he is Pro-Life but this is fully contradicted by his actions. Why he feels the need for this pretension is not entirely clear. Certainly he’s aware there is an ethnic/Catholic voter demographic that wants to believe his utterances (Casey is one of those Catholics that rejects much of the church doctrine but enjoys the wafer and wine part), but I wonder if some deeper psychology is involved. Perhaps some Daddy issue- “I'd like to be a good boy, but if I do what is right the celebrities and hip media won’t let me be in their cub” kind of thing.

Hypocrisy is an inevitable frustration we encounter in life; it is especially annoying when it originates with our elected elites and when it is effective in terms of re-election, etc. In Sen. Casey’s case, his undying support of Planned Parenthood combined with his faux Pro-Life position makes one almost appreciate Donald Trump’s “drain the swamp” sloganeering. Below is a letter sent to Casey’s senate e-mail address with three possible outcomes: no response (likely), a meaningless form letter response (likely), or a thoughtful reasoned argument (awaiting the cow to jump over the moon).

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by Barry King

(Reviewer’s note: The Calvin and Hobbes Barry mentions refers not to the characters of the well known comic strip but to John Calvin, the somewhat theocratic theologian of Reformed Christianity from 500 years ago, and Thomas Hobbes, the social/political philosopher of 450-some years ago who was known for his book Leviathan and the concept of a “social contract.” Note the characters of the comic strip were named after the real Calvin and Hobbes.)

The modern debate about human nature goes back to Calvin & Hobbes, who asserted that natural (uncivilized) humans were totally depraved (The T in the Calvinist TULIP), and their lives were nasty, brutish, and short (from Leviathan), v. Rousseau, after it popped into his head without evidence, that the lives of savages were peaceful, easy, happy and idyllic, because, he thought, they were naturally and intrinsically good people (until "civilization" comes along and ruins them). Rousseau's view prevailed in France, informed the French Revolution, and that POV difference has been one of the most fundamental disagreements between the left and the right every since.

If there had been a "#metoo" campaign centuries ago, echoed by women all over the world, leading to a widely-held hypothesis that "all men are potential rapists", Calvin & Hobbes would have said, "well, yes, of course they are" while Rousseau would have asserted a more nuanced view, that sexual freedom was natural and therefore really cool (while assigning his own several illegitimate children to be raised by Hillary Clinton's proverbial peaceful, easy, happy and idyllic "village").

So here I sit trying to work out how and why the current iteration of "#metoo", and the associated widespread warlock hunts in Hollywood, academia, and Congress, seem to be coming mostly from the left. Human nature itself is not changing, so other things must be changing. The left now seems to be kind of saying to the right "OK we will join you in such moralistic crusades", while deploying Saul Alinsky's principle of holding the enemy to his own standards ("OK we're crucifying Franken, so you have to crucify Moore", with the tactical twist of saying, after Moore is dead, "oops, maybe we won't crucify Franken after all.")

If we date the current "sexual revolution" to the 1960s: is 50 years really enough time to rediscover the ancient notion that even if sexual freedom is natural, it's not necessarily really cool? I would have thought it would take longer than that, but maybe high tech accelerates social evolutionary processes.

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by Reid Fitzsimons

Several years back there was a mediocre/better than most crime drama called Cold Case, i.e. the crack detectives solved murders committed in the past but shelved away at the time. One episode involved the murder of a young woman/mother who had been the victim of domestic abuse. In one flashback scene the scummy abusive husband, who didn’t prove to be the killer, was sitting at the kitchen table angrily contemplating the bowl of cereal his wife placed in front of him. She was busy trying to get herself off to work and their child off to school when he erupted, “I don’t want my breakfast to come from no g*ddamn box!!” As she meekly tried to apologize and quickly fix him a more substantial meal, he reached his limit of tolerance and began smacking her around. This guy had it all: poor hygiene, no job, wearing one of those sleeveless T-shirts sometimes referred to as a “wife beater,” etc, seamlessly fitting our stereotype of domestic abuser.

As Americans rarely are we more content than when holding on to our narratives. It makes us comfortable in our confusing and meaningless world of excessive wealth and materialism, and substantiates our sense of righteousness. Our stereotypes are frequently confirmed via popular entertainment, the news media, and the like, and the circle is unbroken. Indeed law and policy are often based on popular stereotypes of the moment, and large sums of money and resources expended in our quest for feelings to trump thoughtfulness. Of course there is a downside to embracing stereotypes, as evidenced by Ku Klux Klanners and their cousins the Black Lives Matter activists. This is not to say that stereotypes are innately incorrect- many likely have some basis in reality. Recollecting the movie White Men Can’t Jump and observing that 23% of NBA players are white, the stereotype suggested by the title has a statistical rationale.

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rep-danny-davis

by Reid Fitzsimons

On Nov. 18, 2016 a black youth, 15 year-old Javon Wilson, was shot to death in his home in Chicago. The suspects/culprits were inside the house when apparently an argument over a pair of shoes ensued, and 17 year-old Dijae T. Banks (a female) handed a pistol to 16 year-old Tariq M. Harris (a male) who then shot Wilson. News accounts summed up his short life with a depressing “he liked basketball and rap music.”

His death was not particularly out of the ordinary, sadly. In the progressive world we’ve created, life, per se, is not of inherent or specific value, lest we sound like Pro-Life nut jobs talking about the “sanctity of life.” This especially holds true with black people, where there exists no innate value, but rather the meaning and matter of life is largely determined by the manner of death, with a few exceptions such as black sports and music figures, celebrities in general, and inaptly described civil rights leaders. Had young Javon Wilson been shot by the police his life would had found great significance and been marked by ecstatic outrage, marches, riots, and perhaps other murders.   Typically, however, a black person murdered by another black person rates at best a candle light vigil, a makeshift monument of teddy bears, and a few pro-forma words from a local politician of how we have to stop the violence.

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mainline church abortion

by Reid Fitzsimons (note: other names used in letter replaced with XXX)

Greetings Pastor XXX:

This is Reid Fitzsimons writing. I am the husband of XXX, who was to an extent raised at St. John’s Church in the 1950s and 1960s. We attended your service on July 10, 2016 while visiting the area. You kindly invited me to partake in Communion but I mentioned I am not a Christian and felt it disrespectful of the Communion tradition and intent for a non-Christian to participate.

I am writing to offer some observations and thoughts of your service and sermon, but please bear with me for a moment to describe my relation with Christianity. I was not raised in any religion and was quite atheistic when I was younger. In my early 40’s I quit gainful employment to do volunteer work in Guatemala, Kenya, and later Honduras. In doing so I encountered many Christians and came to believe that the basic tenets of Christianity, especially Do Unto Others and Love Thy Neighbor, are the best prescription for any society regardless of religiosity, but at the time I was quite ignorant of the most elementary theology.

In July 2008 (a month after XXX’s mother died) we moved to Southern Alabama and divided our time between Alabama and running our charity in Honduras. While in Alabama XXX asked if I would help her find then attend church with her. We decided on a Presbyterian church (PCA, not PCUSA) and soon became fairly close to the pastor, a very gracious and learned person who actually went to seminary in France, in French. He invited me to attend a multi-denominational men’s Bible Study despite knowing unequivocally I was not a Christian. This stimulated an interest in theology, which continues to the present. As an aside, this study group, located in what is derisively called the Bible Belt, not only tolerated an agnostic Yankee who was not reluctant to bring controversy into the study, but kindly accepted me into their fellowship. I continue to attend church with regularity, mostly a small Regular Baptist Church since we moved to Pennsylvania, and continue to study theology on my own.

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obama islam

by Reid Fitzsimons (note that this is written the day following the terrorist attack in Nice, France)

Reasonable people, not just provincial redneck hicks, can divine a correlation between Islam and these rather persistent terrorist attacks, the toll of which is not insignificant. The perpetrators are running pretty much at 100% in the yelling Allahu Akbar thing, and they aren’t, to the chagrin of progressives, declaring themselves to be conservative Christians slaughtering in the name of Jesus. The Ivy League educated powers that lead us are quite vehement in instructing the ignorant masses there is no association between terrorism and Islam, with the caveat that there would be no benefit in stating such if it was true, which makes us conclude they suffer from the Islamic Culpability Denial Syndrome, or ICDS.

Characteristics of ICDS include ignoring that the perpetrators of terror unequivocally state they are Muslim and are acting on behalf of Islam, that they have historically received material and philosophical support from “legitimate” Islamic oriented governments (including our new BFF Iran), and the brutal and perpetual Islam on Islam violence. Combined with the paltry denunciations of violence done in the name of Islam by people who might reasonably be considered Islamic leaders both internationally and in the US, in both political and religious realms, ICDS is baffling. ...continue reading →

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transgender

by Reid Fitzsimons

The Target Corporation, which describes itself as “an upscale discount retailer” and operates almost 1,800 stores, has recently emphasized its commitment to transgender activism, specifically where it pertains the to use of its bathrooms. Brian Cornell has been at the helm as the CEO since August 2014 (total compensation since his affiliation $28,164,024) and recently made a statement, largely in Q&A format, to address any concerns his bathroom policy has engendered.

His preamble reiterated Target’s diversity philosophy: "individuality may include a wide spectrum of attributes such as personal style, age, race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, language, physical ability, religion, family, citizenship status, socio-economic circumstances, education, and life experiences." He added the following: “We live in exciting times, from not only a corporate/business perspective but from a cultural one. We at Target believe the greatest human endeavor is to facilitate people in finding personal fulfillment and satisfaction in life. We are proud to be at the forefront in advocating for people too long marginalized by society simply because of the manner in which they gender identify. We believe the greatest gift we can give our valued customers is a shopping experience where all feel welcome, accepted, and embraced regardless of such factors as sexual orientation or gender identity.” He then answered questions asked by customers about Target’s bathroom policy:

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