Posted on 11/29/2017 3:15:25 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
The avalanche of sexual harassment claims, with new ones pouring forth daily, leads me to the wisdom of George Washington's observation in his farewell address in 1796:
"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. ... And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be managed without religion."
You may say, "There you go again, Star. Waving your Bible."
But is there a better answer for dealing with this problem?
Society, all human life, is guided by rules. The only question before us is: What are the rules that we choose to live by?
Washington's point is crucial. In a free society, one in which we want to minimize government and political control, we must maximize self-governance. Religion, and the morality that emerges from it, provides the rules by which free men and women govern their own behavior.
I will say further that the rules that we learn from scripture provide the framework for a society based on love, respect and creativity, as opposed to power and control.
And indeed, as we read accounts of the behavior of these men of wealth and influence, who have achieved what many Americans see as the pinnacle of American success, we read descriptions of the behavior of beasts, not men.
Sexuality, outside the framework of mutual love, commitment and respect between husband and wife, is transformed from a physical expression of intimacy and beauty to the gross and crass behavior of brutes.
That this appears to be so widespread in our society should trouble us all.
So what do we do?
I am a Christian, but I do not believe that our government was designed to mend men's souls. It was designed to allow citizens to live free.
We cannot force citizens to do what Washington advises — learn and be guided by scripture.
What's the alternative?
One is to forget it and let people do what they want. Let women fend for themselves when beastly predators with money and power threaten them.
Few will accept this option.
Alternatively, we can have politicians design our rules. But can this work? Without guidelines of scripture, how do we discern right and wrong, acceptable and forbidden?
This is the trend that has been going on for years. The less we self-govern through eternal Biblical truths, learned at home and at school, the more we grow government to control our lives.
In response to sexual harassment violations perpetrated by some members of congress, Congresswoman Barbara Comstock has introduced a congressional resolution requiring "all House Members, Officers, employees, including interns, detailees, and fellows, of the House of Representatives shall complete an anti-harassment and anti-discrimination training program during each session of Congress."
Surely, similar programs will be popping up across industry. So instead of our workforce developing new and better products, more of their time will be spent sitting in anti-harassment training sessions, learning rules designed by bureaucrats.
The Mercatus Center at George Mason University published a report last year on the costs to our economy of the vast growth in the regulatory state from 1977 to 2012. The study concludes that accumulated regulatory growth reduced the size of the American economy in 2012 by 25 percent — $4 trillion of what it might have been.
Aside from economic costs, what are the human costs of our lives increasingly being controlled by bureaucrats?
According to research from Stanford University, 10 percent of married couples meet at work. So much for this, as men will fear giving a woman a second glance at work, let alone saying or doing anything that might hint he's attracted to her.
I see only one viable path to a healthy, free nation. Choose to heed the wisdom of our first president.
It would all make sense if the church and churches which are devoted to religion weren’t also nasty, corrupt and immoral. They have all the things we keep saying will rid our society of societal ills. The ten commandments. Prayer. Meditation. Bible study. All that. And yet the leaders, pastors and members are themselves nasty, corrupt and immoral.
By denying the existence of God makes those who do irresponsible for their own actions with no repercusions
It would all make sense if the church and churches which are devoted to religion weren’t also nasty, corrupt and immoral. They have all the things we keep saying will rid our society of societal ills. The ten commandments. Prayer. Meditation. Bible study. All that. And yet the leaders, pastors and members are themselves nasty, corrupt and immoral.
...
Astute article, however, your response indicates you have experienced hypocrisy in Christian leadership...yes it is there, especially those in limelight. I’d encourage you you to seek those whom are more anonymous. Don’t toss the baby with the bathwater. Our Maker doesn’t give us free passes just because some whom follow Him we don’t like.
not all churches are as you say. not all church leaders are as you say.
leaders and churches are made of people with flaws and weak spots.
God, His word, is not corrupt. read and follow that and allow in your judgment for the fact we (all humans, believers or not) are flawed should you choose to attend a church.
Church attendance is to go and worship God first and foremost according to the bible. Anything else good you get from attending is a bonus. Take the focus off what do you get from church and change to worshipping God and what can you give while there (kind words to others, encourage the pastor on any part of sermon you liked, your tithe/offering, sign up to help out in some way, etc)
>>It would all make sense if the church and churches which are devoted to religion weren’t also nasty, corrupt and immoral. They have all the things we keep saying will rid our society of societal ills. The ten commandments. Prayer. Meditation. Bible study. All that. And yet the leaders, pastors and members are themselves nasty, corrupt and immoral.
If they all can’t be perfect, then none of them have value? America is an experiment in individual self-governance. We have lots of rights, but very few responsibilities. Without God-imposed morality, we are left with human-created morality. Your clergy may be corrupt and the guy next to you in the pew may be a jerk, so it’s your job to be the Spirit-led role model.
Of course, they might think that you are the corrupt jerk. No one ever wakes up and thinks, “I will be evil today.” They always convince themselves that they are doing good works and the other people are wrong.
Religion has the rules that allow for society to function stably, starting with the Golden Rule, and working outward from there.
The problem with religion is that it requires belief, and belief is difficult to fabricate. Philosophers have debated for centuries whether you can have religions’ rules for social order, without actually having the religion itself, and it appears that probably you cannot. The belief in a divine authority is what makes those rules permanent and, I guess, sacrosanct.
But when today’s religious leaders insist on defining that belief in terms that are incompatible with modern scientific knowledge, the belief becomes impossible to maintain for many intelligent people. It’s not necessary for those leaders to do this. St. Augustine long ago realized that when science and the Bible conflict, that science must be given its due. The Bible, in his view, was given by God to a primitive tribe and so was expressed in terms that a primitive tribe could understand. A more sophisticated world needs to re-define those Biblical terms so that they are not out of keeping with a more sophisticated understanding of the natural world. That is the challenge for western religion today. How to define what is meant by the word “God” in terms that someone who has taken college Biology can understand. I believe that is possible, but I believe that few religious people try to do it.
That's known as "the human condition."
So much pain, to the nation and the world, that the sexual revolution gave us and continuwa to givw all of us.
Why dumb it down?
"I believe that is possible, but I believe that few religious people try to do it."
Oh, there's plenty of 'em out there. Check out any of the Mainline Protestant denominations that are indistinguishable from the world.
It's not that “religion” is so very good. It's that the purpose of government is to protect freedom while the purpose of religion is to guide and support our efforts to use that freedom well.
From the beginning of Xtianity there have been remarkably imperfect leaders. But even when Jimmy Swaggart gives in to strange and perverse appetites, Jesus remains Lord and is still the source of abundant graces.
The old Catholic line is that it takes a lot of manure to grow roses ... and we have manure aplenty! Rusty pipes can yet deliver pure water, and a bad salesman can deliver a good product.
I suppose we could consider whether we bring a “welfare mentality” to our religion. We don't have pastors so that they can do the heavy lifting for us. They assist while we conduct our own relariosnhip with God.
That's certainly my experience as a Catholic for 22 years. Only in particular and sacramental ways can pastors be though of as “between” me and God. They're at my side, and many are a little behind many very holy people. Some even hold them back.
But that's almost beside Ms. Parker's point. The government cannot heal our souls and ought not to try. But especially for about 150 years, though reaching back at least into the 18th century, many of the intelligentsia have tried to reduce God to an intellectual concept to be held or not ... it would make little difference.
Morality ceased to be about the best way to be a just human and became increasingly about easing suffering, one’s own and that of others. And if killing people was an easy way to ease their suffering and ours ... have at it! Of course, since “man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward,” this is a futile effort, and people suffer in mansions and in the Holodomor ... But those in soviet mansions lose their souls.
Ms. Parker raises good points
These training programs are designed to make people parrot the "correct" answers to questions--I doubt they actually do any good as far as preventing harassment (since the grownups who are perpetrators are already well aware they are doing something wrong--unless it is a question of innocuous behavior that the feminists have redefined as harassment). And to have to re-take the program every two years? Seems designed to create jobs for the people who run programs like these.
“The ten commandments. Prayer. Meditation. Bible study. All that. And yet the leaders, pastors and members are themselves nasty, corrupt and immoral.”
NONE of that will rid society of its ills. A personal relationship with Jesus Christ and heeding His statement that the two greatest commandments are to love God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength and love my neighbor as myself will.
Only once every two years?
Try requiring Congress to meet the standards for sexual harassment training they force on the military! Once a month? Several times through recruit training, repeatedly in officer training, once every course taken everywhere every time?
However I've been told that since none of us are perfect, we cannot hold ourselves to those two commandments. So it still doesn't work.
So the human condition trumps her theory.
I will never deny being that jerk. But if the human condition trumps the ability to meet Parker’s theme.
I once had a discussion with a pastor. He said that something like more than 90% of the people he went to divinity school with had left being pastors and the vast majority had done so because of sexual sin either in the congregation, externally or both.
I don’t believe I said all. But if I haven’t, then let me say too many. Not just a few, but too many.
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